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 Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:09 pm
13 Days Past Midsummer, Year of the Shrike’s Tongue.
Rylafein and Bernard are idiots. Going to get themselves killed. Have to wonder: did we learn nothing from that last misadventure? Or does it simply not matter because it happened to me? ******** thing to write. Nobody said that. Nobody has even hinted at thinking it. Yuanhan is a ******** idiot for suggesting anything of the sort. For insulting me by thinking that my friends would ever be anything like that.
But the question remains: why have Ryla and Bernard decided that Chaos is more easily controlled than alcohol? They know better than this. We all know better than this. Arrogant morons. One or both of them is going to die because of that stupid crown, exactly like I told them, and then what are we going to do?
What are we even supposed to do when that happens?
Still have Imnolu here, and at least he hasn’t gone completely stupid on me. Taking him out later to find a wolf-bear cub for Seiche. We’ll go back to Pyrrhus after the idiots get their quarry. Try to talk them out of actually playing with it. “Harnessing its power,” don’t spit in my face and tell me the leviathans are jumping. They don’t know enough for any of their experiments to amount to more than playing with the stupid thing and “DO NOT PLAY AROUND WITH ******** CHAOS” should not be a controversial opinion.
Only one thing to be done with Chaos: destroy it before it ruins everything that you hold dear.
The ******** am I supposed to do for friends when the crown kills them both?wc: 276.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:10 pm
“Why do you even bother with them, little brother.”
Heibing turned away from readying his things to leave. As expected, he found Yuanhan watching him with the expression that said Yuanhan had already made up his mind what the correct way to handle the situation was and did not want to suffer any argument. Impassively, without committing to any particular expression, Heibing tilted his head.
“You bother with your friends and don’t care what I think about them,” he pointed out. “If I can do anything to somehow make their garbage with that accursed crown less dangerous—”
“But you can’t!” Yuanhan’s snapped words echoed off the vaulted ceiling of Heibing’s quarters. His round cheeks flushed, the sudden rush of blood making his bone-pale skin look like some of the berries that grew on Troilus. “What sort of idiot consorts with forces like these and thinks it will ever turn out well? And for both of them to be their worlds’ senshi? The sheer irresponsibility alone—”
“Go play with your guandao blade if you get lonely without me.” Heibing shrugged. With everything he needed put away, he shouldered his bag and made for the door. “You should barely even notice I’m gone.”wc: 201.
total wc: 477.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:10 pm
27 Days Past Midsummer, Year of the Shrike’s ******** ******** this.
Both of them just
And Bernard
What did I ******** tell them.wc: 25.
total wc: 502.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:10 pm
Sometimes, when the dead silence that eventually fell over Thalassa got to be too much, Heibing closed his eyes and tried to remember being anywhere else but here. Something positive perhaps, like Taran having slogged through the mountains to retrieve that flower and prove, by the old Troilan standards, that he’d deserved to wed Imnolu, their senshi. Not that Heibing had said anything kind about it to Taran’s face because winding up Imnolu’s husband always proved incredibly funny, but he had admired Taran’s dedication.
In the sweltering heat that Chaos spread across his moon, Heibing imagined the cool recesses of the caverns on Pyrrhus. Not all of them had been made for Thalassans to access easily. Too much body, too much bulk. Sucking in one’s stomach meant very little when the path could get even narrower from there. But Thalassans had had long, harsh winters to survive and required padding, while Pyrrhans’ own harsh environment had allowed them to be slight of build, more agile. The differences had made sense, and in fairness, Rylafein hadn’t done well with the near nightless days around midsummer at the ancestral seat of House Morningstar.
Maybe Bernard had been the only one of them who could actually handle everyone’s planets. Well, him and Seiche, Imnolu’s son who’d earned a spot at the Knight Academy. (And maybe Taran too, but he didn’t count unless Heibing felt like it.)
Countless times, whether Heibing wanted to or not, he remembered waiting for Rylafein to regain consciousness after whatever had happened with the crown. He remembered his veins feeling colder than his world’s poles as he’d glared down at his best friend—the one out of them who had only just lost his husband in a pointless mess that could’ve been avoided—and Heibing remembered intoning at Rylafein, “I. told. you. that this would happen.”
After so many times playing that memory over and over in his head, it remained clear for Heibing. Fresh, as if it had happened only moments ago. He’d screamed himself raw at the silence over having said something like that to Ryla. He’d gotten glass and stones and several other things lodged in his fingers, had had to endure Yuanhan delicately picking them out then treating and dressing the wounds, all because nobody could contact Pyrrhus. That ******** Polaris Knight had come around and Heibing had strongly considered shoving him off a glacier and into the freezing waters.
Considering some of Thalassa’s other rituals, he probably could have gotten away with calling it an ancient tradition, steeped in history and worthy of respect. None of it would have helped Heibing—not in any way that mattered—but it might have made him feel a little less hopeless.
But none of it mattered, all the screaming and the objects that became intimately acquainted with Heibing’s fists. None of it mattered because Thalassa couldn’t contact Pyrrhus. As far as Heibing could tell, no other worlds had gotten through to Pyrrhus lately, either.
Had it been the crown’s doing? That seemed only logical. If that accursed thing had had the gall to first separate Ryla from Bernard with death and then separate Heibing and Imnolu from Ryla by interrupting communications between their worlds? Then Heibing wanted to stop at nothing, he wanted that thing destroyed. Wanted to tear it apart, the way that it had torn them all apart.
“What would you even do if you could get to it,” Yuanhan had pointed out to him once, fresh off showing his precious ancient guandao blade to still more important guests. “You said to me yourself that you have no idea what that thing is capable of, no idea how it could ruin a person. If you could even get to Pyrrhus now, could you find it? If you could find it, would you have the first idea how to destroy it? Or would you get yourself killed, the same way that your little friend did?”
Even in his journal later, Heibing hadn’t had a good response to that.wc: 668.
total wc: 1,170.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:10 pm
First Day of Winter, Year of the Shrike’s Tongue.
Unseasonably warm for this time of year. Pushing that idiot of Polaris into the water might not even be that cold.
Still no luck contacting Pyrrhus.wc: 35.
total wc: 1,205.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:11 pm
First Day of Spring, Year of the Black Tides.
Winter never truly froze over, not the way that it’s supposed to. Whatever chills we got were mild, lower death rates everywhere than we’ve seen in all our history. Now, the reports from all over Thalassa say that the temperatures are rising. Record highs. No possible explanation yet in sight.
First Day of Autumn, Year of the Black Tides.
Still no explanation for the heat, but it isn’t stopping. Every day, it’s warmer.
Every day, I wonder why so many refuse to shut up about my brother’s guandao blade when he’s trying to help them and their people. Shouldn’t the more important matter be obvious? What sorts of leaders do we have among our generational peers, if they cannot even pretend to prioritize matters of their tribes’ very survival?
Reports from tribes among the Green Snow Trails say that their coastal ice shelves have shrunk. Uncertain how they’re measuring this. Hate the weather down south, more so now than ever. But the senshi must endure such things to help his people.
No luck contacting Pyrrhus, either. If that idiot’s gotten himself in further trouble without me, I’m going to wring his ******** neck.wc: 202.
total wc: 1,407.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:11 pm
13 Days Until Midsummer, Year of the Mallard’s Offspring.
Four years at this. Progress still minimal at best. People are dying. Looking to their senshi to save them, and what can I do?
We’ve tried the herbs. The old potions. Prayer, for those who believe and often enough for those who don’t. Tried bedrest (paradoxical suggestion for people who are already exhausted, but when every other option has failed us and all that). Tribal leaders have had their best healers at work on the problem, but they haven’t saved anybody. I haven’t saved anybody. What are the healers supposed to do when the leaders who ordered them to do their best have become the patients and now lay before them on the tables that said leaders once loomed over?
Yuanhan wants my last nerve for his second wife, I swear. Death of sister-in-law last year means he’s available again and the socially appropriate mourning period has passed. Stop worrying about me and try worrying about our people, you ******** idiot. Thinking only about ourselves, what we can do, what we need or don’t, and so on was part of what put Ryla and Bernard where they wound up. No questions about what that ******** crown’s power was good for. No stopping to ask how it could actually help their people or do anything expected of them as their worlds’ senshi.
Dream about them sometimes. Wishing is pointless. Still, though: wish I could apologize.wc: 243.
total wc: 1,650.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:11 pm
Nothing about the little girl in the coastal village was different.
In the years since the mysterious plague and heatwaves had trapped Thalassa in their grip, Heibing had visited practically every coastal village on his moon. He’d met countless little girls, little boys, little they’s. Some had lost their parents or grandparents. Some had lost their siblings or their cousins. Some had lost everyone they’d ever called family and gotten taken in by friends while people around them whispered about the cursed lot of the orphan, as though everyone who still drew breath on Thalassa wasn’t also ******** cursed. In the haze of trying and failing to save everyone, Heibing found all these small children’s faces smudging together in his mind, becoming some cobbled together ideal image of a tragic small child, alone in the universe and staring down insurmountable odds.
But something stuck with him about the little girl with the fire-red hair and the bluish tinge to her ear-fins and the webbing between her fingers. Pouting up at him, tears already spilling past the edges of her bulging, slightly green eyes, she asked, “Why is this happening to us?”
“I……” Heibing had expected any number of possible questions. That hadn’t been one of them. All the other small children tended to ask about if their parents were in a better place now, or if Heibing really could save them, or why Thalassa’s dwindling stores of food meant they had to feel so hungry. Unsure what else to say, he admitted, “……I don’t know why it’s happening.”
Her lower lip had quivered. “But then, how can you stop it?”
Heibing had swallowed thickly. “……I don’t know.”wc: 277.
total wc: 1,927.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:12 pm
8 Days Until Winter Solstice, Year of the Mallard’s Offspring.
Sometimes, I want to run away from all this. But at this point, where would I go? Where is even left to run? Everywhere on this planet is equally devastated. Our ranks dwindle, but we struggle to feed everyone. Too many of us lack the energy to leave our beds, even those who should be young and healthy.
Among the Tundra-Stalking Wolf-Bears near our northern pole, some of the tribes ask that their elderly go out into the winds and the shifting snows when the winters grow too harsh. They think to preserve as many supplies as they can for the people who will be of greater use to their families—to their greater tribes—come the spring, rather than asking the young to starve so the elderly can thrive. Have always understood why the Hearthstone Guardians called them cruel and heathens for such practices, given how the Hearthstone Guardians would instead ask the children to be buried alive for their parents’ and elders’ sakes. Neither group has a perfectly correct answer, of course, but the Hearthstone Guardians’ perspective on the Tundra-Stalkers and their practices makes sense.
Neither group has successfully asked such of their people since the Year of the Shrike’s Tongue. If anyone dies out in the wilderness during the winter, it is by accident or by their own hand. Ostensibly, anyway. Not convinced that Chaos may not yet be responsible for some of these deaths. Can’t know without inspecting the bodies, but both tribes keep burying their dead before I can examine them and exhuming the dead would violate taboos that both of them hold sacred. Because of course it would. Can’t do that if I mean to keep everyone more or less united in the face of this horror.
Need Yuanhan to stop worrying about me and go request, as an ambassador from the senshi, that these morons stop complicating things for everyone. If they have any information that might be of help, I need to learn it and I can’t do that if they keep acting too quickly. Yet, Yuanhan stays by my side instead of doing anything remotely ******** useful. Idiot. Rylafein, Bernard, and Imnolu wouldn’t make such trouble for me like this yet our shared blood is supposed to make Yuanhan better for me than they ever were. What am I supposed to say to such nonsense?
No luck contacting Pyrrhus. None of our messages anywhere seem to be getting out. ******** Chaos.wc: 418.
total wc: 2,345.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:12 pm
It was almost spring before Heibing got to inspect one of the people who’d died in the wilderness, separated from their tribe in the name of preserving supplies for someone else. One of the grizzled greybeards from among the Tundra-Stalking Wolf-Bears, the deceased had clearly been strong and capable. A warrior in his prime and a respected teacher in his old age, it strained credulity that he would have died by his own hand in the face of the elements failing to kill him, the way they should have.
“Speaks to his strength, I think,” Heibing said to the old man’s tribal leader, crouched over the body in the clearing where the graybeard had been found. “This heat is killing other people all over our world. No doubt some of your own have succumbed to it?”
The tribe’s leader nodded. “Not many, Your Grace. But not zero, either.”
“My condolences.” Huffing softly, Heibing lifted up one of the old man’s wrists. The open wounds he’d left there were what had made people deem his death a suicide, but something about the entire scene felt wrong. “We’ve seen people curled up like this before. How absorbent is your earth around here, generally speaking?”
“Of blood?” The leader shook his head. “Not very. Especially not in winter. Even without things freezing over like they used to, our ground rejects blood.”
“So, if your revered master at arms here had died by exsanguination, we would expect to see more blood.”
“Aye.” A grim look settled on the leader’s face, clouding over eyes that had been bright and alert just moments prior. “It’s why I told my scouts who found him to leave his remains as they were, and why we summoned you. We would have done so sooner, though, had we known that Your Grace wished to investigate these deaths.”
“That isn’t your fault,” Heibing said, glancing back over his shoulder. “If my brother would have heeded my authority as the senshi rather than asserting his as the elder of us, you would’ve known about my investigation before the year turned. Refusing to leave my side the way he has, it’s not a sustainable practice right now. Too many of us are at risk and we must all stand together.”
“Agreed, Your Grace.” With a sigh, the leader stared down at his tribe’s graybeard. “But what does Your Grace think? About his death?”
“The scene is just like all the others. From what I can tell, the wounds on his wrists were meant to cover up what he considered a more shameful death.” Gently, Heibing set the man’s wrist back on the ground, near the small puddle of his dried-up blood. “Your graybeard didn’t die by suicide, Chief Clearwater. Chaos infected him. Wracked his body and soul, draining him of his vitality until all that he could do was lay down and die.”
For a long moment, Chief Clearwater considered Heibing’s words—then, he nodded. “If I may be so bold—?”
“You may.”
“Your Grace has impressed me.” The chief looked Heibing square in the eye, something that many of their people feared to do, no matter how many times Heibing told them to stop being silly. “I had always heard from my late mother, our former chief, that Your Grace was dissolute and reckless. That you cared more for frivolity than for your duties or your people. That you approached everything, whether that meant combat or the supply of liquor, as though nothing and less mattered to you in this universe. As though you longed to throw your life away for nothing. But finally meeting you for myself, I’ve found quite the opposite to be true.”
“Your mother told you true.” A chill twisted around the pit of Heibing’s stomach. How long had it been since someone had confronted him with his youthful indiscretions? “But that Sailor Thalassa—that Heibing of House Morningstar—died long before this Chaos infested our world. The one before you now will stop at nothing to save our people.”wc: 669.
total wc: 3,014.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:13 pm
8 Days Until Spring Equinox, Year of the Chosen Witness.
Sometimes, I wish this had been a plague of blood, instead. At least I’d know how to fight it if my people all started going feral.
Summer Solstice, Year of the Chosen Witness.
Sometimes, I think Yuanhan would get himself killed without me. That temperament, really.
11 Days After Autumn Equinox, Year of the Chosen Witness.
What even would have happened if a Mauvian had never found me? Surely, that doesn’t happen to anybody, right? Someone would have to be the most heinously unlucky soul in the universe for a Mauvian to miss their Awakening in childhood.
14 Days After Autumn Equinox, Year of the Chosen Witness.
I know you’ve been reading my journals, Yuanhan. If I had any more answers or ideas than I’ve already shared, I would’ve told you. Our people’s dwindling ranks don’t give you an excuse to invade my privacy and read things that I wrote down with the expectation of said privacy. If you wish to remain intact when this is all over, stop touching my ******** things and try actually HELPING ME to save our people. Just because I’m the senshi doesn’t mean that they aren’t also looking to YOU right now. Or have you forgotten everything you ever told me about the importance of our respective offices?
First Day of Winter, Year of the Chosen Witness.
If you have any suggestions about the origin for these horrors, Yuanhan, I have yet to hear them pass your lips! Please, enlighten me! If you can’t, then put that ******** guandao blade to use and cut through whatever sludge has infested the space where you used to have a BRAIN. Our people need a cure YEARS AGO, but the second-best time to get them one would be <******** NOW. If you don’t care about them, then try caring about the fact that I’m your brother and I need your help.
Either way, STOP TOUCHING MY THINGS. What are you even looking for in here? It probably isn’t here, so how about you STOP.wc: 347.
total wc: 3,361.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:13 pm
Gentle as a lover’s caress, the wind whistled through the trees around Heibing and Yuanhan.
Everyone else was gone. Reports had come in for ages now, people in one village looking for supplies and finding another village empty. After a while, official search parties from the senshi had been tasked with going out to look for any lone survivors, any new places to add to the list of those who’d been emptied of their people.
The mud squelched beneath Heibing’s boots, soft from all the melted snow that had seeped into it. Off to the west, the castle where he and Yuanhan had grown up stood as though nothing had happened. But the fact that they still had a cliff to stand on made the last surviving Thalassans almost impossibly lucky. So many other cliffs had turned out to be glacial shelves. They’d stood so long, people had taken that notion of them for granted, taken on faith that they would always loom over the dark, Thalassan seas. But subjected to rising heat, they melted down, gave way, crumbled into the ocean.
What a pitiful excuse for luck, to simply have solid ground where they could stand.
What a hollow comfort, to stand on solid ground while listening to Yuanhan confess how he’d never meant for all of this to happen. How ideas had filled his head in the presence of that damn ancient guandao blade. How all he’d wanted—all he’d thought of during the slow collapse of their world and the deaths of countless innocents—was to protect his little brother better than all of Heibing’s so-called friends, the ones who’d seen him nearly die and hadn’t learned a damn thing. The “friends” who had, in their arrogance, damned Pyrrhus to its own destruction—
Crack.
The back of Heibing’s hand swooped at Yuanhan’s face. Sharper of late, his knucklebones had no trouble digging into the most tender spots. At least Yuanhan had the dignity not to whimper about the pain. As Heibing wiped the sweat off his hand, Yuanhan leaned his cheek—it would end up bruising, later—into one palm.
“Brother,” he said breathlessly. “Little brother, please.…… I’m sorry.”
“You’re fighting this with me, is what you are.” Heibing snarled like one of the frost-tigers that had once roamed their territory freely. “You destroyed our world, Yuanhan. Snuffed out our people’s lives and ruined our home, all because you didn’t like my friends. Because you were petty and jealous. Henceforth, you shut up and help me fix this before it get any ******** worse. Maybe then you can apologize.”wc: 428.
total wc: 3,789.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:13 pm
Winter Solstice, Year of the Drunken Dragon.
He’s gone. Buried him back at the castle, with our parents.
Guess there’s really no getting out of this one. Not for me, anyway. Nor for anybody else. How long has it even been since this devastation started?
Ten years. How can Chaos seem to move so quickly and yet take so long to do its work?
Still haven’t figured out how to get at the core of all this Chaos. Suspect I may never learn. At least, not in time for it to make any difference. I’m going to die alone on an empty moon and the Chaos will stay here forever.
So much for this incarnation of our senshi.wc: 118.
total wc: 3,907.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:14 pm
Winter Solstice, Year of the Golden Millet.
Two years since I buried Yuanhan. Twelve years since all this started. Still can’t pretend to forgive him, even talking to his grave.
Found the corpse of an infant tundra leviathan washed up today. Beach near territory that once belonged to the Ghostsong Alabaster tribes. No idea how it survived this long in all the heat, but grateful that it did. Had need of the meat. Only hope that I can finish it before it goes inedible.wc: 84.
total wc: 3,991.
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Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:14 pm
Midsummer, Year of the Unyielding Bones.
Hungry. Flame-Mothers used to have such plentiful harvests, but gods, there’s almost nothing left.
2 Days Past Midsummer, Year of the Unyielding Bones.
Found an old store of Flame-Mother food. Grateful for their preservation techniques. Have to ration whatever I can.
14 Days Past Midsummer, Year of the Unyielding Bones.
Sometimes, it’s hard to recognize myself, to recognize my body. Haven’t even changed that much, I don’t think. Every time I find a mirror, I’m certain I haven’t aged at all since this started. Going on twenty years. At least, it’s going on twenty years since anybody noticed the Chaos infestation in any meaningful ways, who’s to say if it wasn’t hard at work before that. Knowing Chaos, it probably was. Insidious filth. Deserves nothing less than complete extermination.
Maybe some of this is comeuppance for picking on Imnolu’s husband, accusing him of not feeding Imnolu well enough to put more meat on his bones.wc: 161.
total wc: 4,152.
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