DEEP_STONE_CRYPT.EXE

independent multi muse written by james.

[oberynmartell]

here is a google doc of resources to support george floyd, ahmaud arbery, roy stoddart, and the many, many, many other wrongfully murdered black people in the united states — as well as the black lives matter movement in general

please share this link or post to anyone and everyone

[cybled-a]

i’ve moved to @cybled! it’s not a side blog so i can finally follow back!

[ninthriven]

Solar Embrace Vol. 2 ft. Sjur Eido

[ninthriven]

some ref practice that turned into Sjur vs Uldren 

[cybled-a]

𝙷𝙾𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚄.

The rough surface of Lucky Raspberry is strangely grounding — even if it’s not the most comfortable thing in the world.  Even if she can’t see what’s happening, she feels the pull of transmat molecules — up, up, up until the smell of death & Ether is replaced by something more comforting. It serves to stem the ache in her heart — from a geyser of grief to a slow trickle. Lumax is all too happy to leave them be — gently nudging Hotaru on her way out & receiving a small pat in response. “ ‘ s okay, Lumax – go catch up with Suzume. I…. I’m okay.” The glance Lumax gives Shiro isn’t entirely convinced – her Guardian does have a terrible track record with saying she’s fine . < Alright then – take care of her for me, big guy. SUUU!! WAIT UP! > In a flash, she’s zipping off to find Suzume — & Hotaru’s left behind with the raging guilt, sorrow, fear, failure that lead her to… this in the first place.

The whisper is quieted by Shiro’s hand on the back of her skull — Hotaru can’t put a finger on why it’s so comforting, but does it matter if she’s melting all the same? Does it matter when the mere thought of not being alone anymore brings more tears to her eyes?

“ Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me. “  Eventually, she pulls away — gently rubbing the noticeable Lucky Raspberry imprint on her cheek with a giant yawn that exposes her sharp teeth. “Whose bright idea was it to turn a cheese grater into a chestplate, anyways?”

Ah, sue her – Lumax laughs at all her jokes. “I know we gotta finish the job, but —  I haven’t had a good meal, a good sleep, or a hot shower in, uh… well, however long I was down there, and I definitely wanna start with food after I get all this blood off. Curse my still-human stomach for wanting something that isn’t sawdust-y ration bars and all that. You, uh… you got a shower on deck, or….?”  If anything, pretending to be fine is to the benefit of everyone around her, right?

She’s deflecting. And in all his awkward inability to comfort he lets her. For now. He’ll find the right words later. Suzume will help him; she’s always been better at that, helping him patch and mend every tear. 

The best he can do right now is rub his thumb against one of the imprints on her cheek and smile at her joke. It’s funny. It’s the kind of joke Cayde would have made. 

“Yeah, I got a shower. Small one.” It’s little more than a human sized stall with an overhead spout and no temperature control whatsoever; the water either comes out icy cold or scalding hot. Not too much of a problem for exos. He drops his hands away (slowly, awkwardly, surprised at how much he doesn’t want to) and leads her through the small cargo are to the forward area of the ship. It’s a small space, fitted with a narrow bunk surrounded by storage space, a bench with a narrow fold down table, and a tiny kitchenette. To the side is a ladder that leads up into the cockpit above, visible through the reinforced glass floor. He bangs his fist against a wall panel and it slides back to reveal the shower. 

“There’s a panel in there, just hit it. Can’t really control the temp unless you use your Light; don’t really use it that often but we’re a two day jump from the City,” he says, turning to look at her. She’s still covered in gore, her armor drenched with it. “Just uh, leave your armor on the floor ‘n I’ll take care of it. Bring you somethin’ clean to wear. You can sleep in the bunk, I’ll sleep up top in the pilot’s chair.”

He turns then, takes a step back towards the cargo area, pauses. Turns back to her and before he can chicken out he leans in, raises a hand to her shoulder, presses his forehead to hers. A brief affection. I won’t be far. 

“I’ll scrounge together some food while you’re in there,” he says after a short moment, lets her go again, turns away. 

[cybled-a]

𝙷𝙾𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚄.

It’s kinda funny, how her Light works — how she’s strong in power & sheer force alone, yet can only heal with direct contact. The cuts are strange — yet she’s got this sinking feeling that these claw marks belong to her. It’s like how she knows that she hasn’t been an upstanding hero on the Shore, or that something is incredibly, deeply, fundamentally wrong here. 

It’s gotta be bad if Shiro’s here. And yet, she can’t bring herself to let go — even as the information slowly sinks into her fried nerves. It doesn’t click until she looks at the mangled mess that’s Pirrha’s corpse — & then it comes back – in glitching, nauseating fragments as the Void horns try to burn their way out of her forehead & the deep dark tries to drag her back — . 

Beating Yaviks with her own bike, brandishing it as a club until it was snapped in two. Shoving Hiraks’ Hive boomer down his throat and firing. Axe kicking one of Araskes’ bombs back at her, exploding in her face. Taking Reksis Vahn’s censer chain and using it to behead him with the swing alone. 

Kaniks taunting her about Cayde’s death. The slow, dark whisper. The rage. The Void, burning her body. Rending of limbs. Corrupted Ether painting the walls, the floors, the ceiling, her , until her void claws had left the bomber in bloodied ribbons and a roar that wasn’t human echoed across the Shore.

She nearly throws up. It’s like she’s drowning in the Ether around their ankles, on her hands, her robes, splattered across her face like a gory painting. Traveler help her, if her tongue accidentally grazes one of her fangs, it’s in her mouth.

( She clings a little tighter to Shiro, hiding her face in his chest again as the knight’s body shudders with every sob. She’s always had a thing against crying in front of people — but her pride be damned, the one thing that’s keeping her from entirely falling apart right now is him. Hotaru doesn’t know how he’s still here, but selfishly, stubbornly, it makes her cling all the tighter to familiar yellow - and - amber light. )

“ It’s everywhere , “ she gasps through her sobs, “ Traveler help me, it’s everywhere— “

Gloved hand moves up to cup the back of her head, to keep her pressed against his chest. Can’t be too comfortable; Lucky Rasberry is far from the smoothest or softest surface. But she doesn’t seem to care, or maybe she’s beyond noticing.

“Suzume, Lumax,” he whispers roughly, the edge of his voice rippling. “Get us the hell outta here.”

Where his stomach would be if he had one comes a strange tug as his body is transferred from one space to another. Transmat molecules trickle from his shoulders and hers as they’re moved through space into the small cargo bay of Shiro’s ship. His arms are still wrapped around Hotaru, his hand still cupping the back of her skull. He thinks he can practically feel the way her mind is churning beneath his fingertips, full of fear and loathing and fury. 

“Let’s uhm—go look through some of my old ghost shells,” Suzume offers Lumax, the sharp petals of her shell fluttering around her optic as she leads the other ghost through the ship. Shiro knows without a shadow of a doubt they’d spend the next few hours talking about their charges.

It’s better here, where the stench of ether and corpseblood and sulfur can’t reach them. Here, the scent of oil, gunpowder, a soldering tool left on too long. After a moment that stretches for what feels like hours Shiro pulls back, just enough to look Hotaru in the face. 

“You’re not alone anymore. ‘m gonna help you with this. Should’a been with y’ from the start.”

[cybled-a]

𝙷𝙾𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚄.

Normally, she wouldn’t allow just anyone to touch her — and if anything else, it spoke to just how much other people repeatedly hurt her. There as a very short list of people that could touch her and still keep her hands – ( & even then, it took her a while to get used to people like Cayde touching her – straight up throwing him at one point because she didn’t realize who was touching her shoulder. )

( Says a lot about her, she guesses, that she held his hand right until the warmth left it. After the lights in his eyes went out and he breathed his last. ) 

 Something died in her then —- Hotaru was infamous for giving pieces of her heart to everyone she met, & the chasm that opened after his passing… The last person that was allowed to touch her was Ikora — carefully wrapping her arms around the fragile Warlock as they grieved & buried their friend.

Now? Now she can’t let go of Shiro — it hurts too much to think about, even if they’ve been friends for as long as they both knew their common, rowdy motor-mouth of a friend. ( She’s never touched him before, either — he didn’t want her to, and she didn’t press. It’s that restraint that’s lended to why they’re friends in the first place. )

She holds onto him like the sunlight-yellow Exo was the only thing keeping her from falling into the long dark whisper again. ( Hotaru’s not sure if she could let go if she wanted to, even as healing light sparks weakly at her fingertips and sinks into cuts she can’t remember making. )

“I — I was ? I mean — yeah, I was, wasn’t I ?” Her hair refuses to revert back to black — lavender - tinged brows knitting together as the warlock tries to piece everything together. “ I remember the funeral , then… then tracking the Barons here…. I was hunting Kaniks, the Mad Bomber , I think — but I don’t… I don’t remember fighting him. “ The gap between then and now , however, seems too severe to reconcile — & slowly, it seems to dawn on her as the horror slowly sinks its fangs into her eyes, her heart, everything as her fingers slowly curl into the ether-drenched fabric once more.

“ Wait – Shiro, you were cleaning up the SIVA mess when I left. Where are we ? And — and why do I feel like I’ve … oh Light,  what did I do? “

The sharp pain she’d left in his back fades away at the gentle behest of her Light. Full of surprises aren’t y’ Hotaru. But that sweet relief is short lived, the expression twisting her features one full of agony, of utter horror. 

The Mad Bomber. That’d been the first report he’d heard. Other names had trickled in slowly, names Shiro knew all too well, even before all of this. Name’s he’d had pinned to his list till Cayde had swooped in while he’d had his hands full with SIVA, rounded them all up. Should’ve killed ‘em all instead. 

“Hotaru we’re—” his vocalizer catches, hesitation filling him. An analog noise takes the form of him clearing his throat as he looks between Hotaru’s eyes. Until he can’t look into them anymore. He doesn’t let her go yet. He’ll let her be the one to decide when she doesn’t want to be held anymore. Right now, he thinks she needs this. Needs his like any live wire needs to be grounded. “We’re in Pirrha’s territory... that’s him. Behind you.”

The Baron’s body is almost unrecognizable, broken apart, the smoking ruin of his infamous rifle buried in the husk of his chest. Dark ether drips and smokes around him, around their ankles. Shiro doesn’t fear it. 

“You’ve killed almost every Scorn Baron that was there. ‘Cept for Elykris and Fikrul. And—” his voice tightens, static ridging the name like barbed wire. “Uldren.”

[cybled-a]

𝙷𝙾𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚄.

This form is absolute agony — untrained Void meeting the chaotic wrath & grief that she swallowed whole. She wasn’t the same after the Prison of Elders — god, she still remember’s Cayde’s voice if she tries hard enough, telling her not to blame herself as she tried & tried & tried to use her Light to heal — 

What good was power if she couldn’t save the people she cared about?

Still, she’s blinded by rage & grief — unable to tell the gentle touch from genuine harm as void - claws sink into the hunter’s back. She’s not sure what brings her back – is it that gruff, static-filled voice that warms tired bones? The familiar grooves pressing into her hair? Or is it the yellow that follows Shiro-4 wherever he goes? 

Either way, the horns fizzle out of existence — then the claws, then the everything else as the void tears on her face seep into his cloak. Slowly, she stops struggling , until it’s just her fingertips weakly grasping at his back.

Traveler help her, she’s tired. Why is she so tired? Why is she crying again? Hasn’t she cried enough?

…and why does she have this sinking feeling that she’s done something completely unforgivable?

“ …Shiro?” Her voice is somehow hoarse from misuse — the static slowly clearing as she sways in his grip. “ Wh— what happened ? Where am I? How did — I thought…. I thought you wanted t’be left alone?” 

Blue eyes peer curiously up at the exo — even if they hold the weeks of tireless nights that the deep long slow whisper has taken from her. 

“ …. what have I done ? ”

The claws sting where they sink through metal plates, through carbon flesh, severing minor circuits and small veins full of black ichor. Shiro doesn’t shut off the pain relay, lets himself feel it. Knows in his gut it’s what she’s feeling all over, inside of herself. 

The relief is almost palpable when she retracts, fingertips pressing to the puncture wounds instead. 

He doesn’t let her go yet. This is the most he’s touched anybody since—since before. Saladin had tried to put his hand on Shiro’s shoulder when he’d heard the news; Shiro had flinched out from beneath that overbearingly sympathetic hand as if it had been made of poison. Tyra Karn had reached for his face, like she had a couple spare times in the past, just to press a warm palm to his cheek he’s sure. He’d stepped back so quickly he may as well have blinked through space. 

The last time anyone had touched him had been Cayde. One of a handful of people he’d let close the gap without Shiro having to give him some sign of approval first. Because despite all of Cayde’s rowdy playfulness he always respected Shiro’s personal space. 

The last human contact he’d had had been with Cayde. A warm hug, welcoming him back to the tower after Ghaul. Shiro can’t remember a word they’d shared, but he can remember the other hunter’s arms around him. 

Now it’s her arms around him, clinging to him like he’s the only solid rock in a storm driven sea. He holds her back just as tight. Pulls his head back just a little when she looks up at him, so he can look her in the eye. Hers are full of exhaustion, shot through with grief. He sighs, measures his words through carefully. 

“You’re on the Tangled Shore. You’ve been chasin’ down the Barons... Y’ don’t— y’ don’t remember?” Genuine concern colors his voice, vocalizer lighting her face up with amber tones. “Hotaru what’s... the last thing you remember?”

[cybled-a]

𝙷𝙾𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚄.

THE BEAST OF THE SHORES HAS CLAWS DRENCHED IN ETHER:  hands reek of rot & teeth are stained with the same corrupted ichor. the eyes glow sickly - purple like the tear - tracks permanently frozen on its face. an avatar of grief & wrath that’s carved her way through the tangled shore, baron by baron.  she’s just finished beating the tar out of the rifleman with the baron’s titular weapon: backing them into a corner, bloodied and battered and staring death in the eyes.

for cayde, it growls, before using the weapon as a spear —- thrusting it through the sharpshooter’s chest with such force that it easily pierces their ribcage & coats the barrel with its owner’s ether, spraying like a fountain from its impact.

more ether splatters across the wraith’s face , yet her expression remains unchanged. there is nothing of the symbol of hope in this being:  ONLY VOID. ONLY RAGE.  ONLY GRIEF.

lumax has tried snapping her guardian out of it — to no avail:  so she takes fate into her own hands. against her better judgement ,  she made a call: a favor from a friend. & judging by the familiar yellow cloak approaching them in the lion’s den, this nightmare might finally be over.

the wrath-girl looks up — long hair out of it’s signature braid ; an eerie void-flame white as it dances in the breeze. slowly, void-light claws are brandished in warning: in threat.

the void dragon digs her heels in, ready for another light - bearer’s attempt to slay her.  ( deep down, she just wish someone would save her instead. ) /   @cybled hey remember that forsaken angst we talked about? 

“Shiro?”

“Yeah, Suzume?” 

“I have a message for you.”

“I told you I don’t want—”

“It’s from Lumax.”

He stills the way only exos can, so completely he may have been turned to stone. He’d heard whispers from the Shore. Knew enough to piece together who it might be. And there’s a knot in his stomach, an impossible knot. He already knows. 

It still cuts at him when Suzume relays the message. Nothing else needs to be said; nothing much has been said since the funeral. He’d stopped taking calls. Disappeared into the wilds to finish his work on the Splicers with his own two hands, much to Saladin’s displeasure. But this? He can’t stand by when this is happening. She deserves better than that. 

The sight of her tears at him, steeled as he is against it. It tears at him. Bestial, almost, standing over a corpse all but torn apart by her rage. He wonders, distantly, if this is the true shape they might all take one day. If they gave in to the long slow whisper. No. She deserves better. 

Cyan optics flicker from void claws to those sickly violet eyes; he closes the distance slowly, doggedly. Steps forward determinedly when she shrinks away, when she hisses her displeasure, her pain. The gap turns from a meter to a hands breadth, and then closes completely. Ether leeches up the hem of his canary cloak, staining it the darkest shade of blue. His arms wrap around her, solid, unyielding, pulling her against his chest. 

When the claws sink into him static spills from his throat, but he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t let go. “Hotaru,” he murmurs thickly, his cheek pressing against the top of her head. There is nothing but grief in that static-filled voice. “Hotaru I”m—I’m so sorry.”

[sylenth-l]

“What? You said it must look joyful”

[eidowept]

i found you here when i was broken  ,  all alone and i thought of you when i was under all that     dirt i was a crow flying out in a golden dome , 

        i thought i told you i would never be       AT PEACE        ——  

[daxtri]

feelin mushy 💘

[pukicho]

Don’t mind me just shooting green aura into your eyes as you read this auaaauhuaaaaaaaaaaauauauuauaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauaaaauaauuuuuuuuuuuuuauuuuuuuauauauaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[thefakedirtt]

don’t fucking heal me

[pukicho]

Oh god you wish this green shit healed

[daxtri]

the dream is already fading

[caernua]

”I’ll fight you!” “If you insist.”

[robotpencil-blog]

Metal Head Again

[cybled-a]

@solhaunt​.

𝙸𝚃 𝚃𝙰𝙺𝙴𝚂 𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝙰 𝙼𝙾𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝚃𝙾 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙲𝙴𝚂𝚂 𝙲𝚈𝙱𝙴𝙻’𝚂 𝙲𝙷𝙾𝚂𝙴𝙽 𝙻𝙰𝙽𝙶𝚄𝙰𝙶𝙴 ,  &  𝙰𝙽𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝙼𝙾𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝚃𝙾 𝚁𝙴𝙶𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚂𝚄𝙳𝙳𝙴𝙽𝙽𝙴𝚂𝚂 𝙾𝙵 𝙷𝙸𝚂 𝙳𝙴𝙿𝙰𝚁𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙴  &  𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚆𝙰𝚈 𝚂𝙷𝙴’𝚂 𝙻𝙴𝙵𝚃 𝙵𝙴𝙴𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙻𝙸𝙺𝙴 𝙰 𝙿𝚄𝙿 𝙿𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙷𝙴𝙴𝙻 𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝙱𝙴𝚃𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚂 .  she frowns at his back ,  instinct to follow an elder battling with stubborn pride battling with her own damned curiosity ,  the way his light responds to hers  &  how old it feels .  how familiar .  ( sometimes aches in her chest .  a hole shaped like warmth that left  /  was lost ,  like old loves  &  old friends turned to ashes  &  dust  &  empty spaces that she speaks to in the silence . )  sol’s frown deepens into a scowl .

curiosity wins out as it always does .  her hunter heart could no more deny the promise of adventure as the wolf in her could turn away from the wisdom of an elder .  the strength of the pack is the wolf  &  the strength of the wolf is the pack ,  &  wolves like cybel - 8 haven’t lived this long without more than a few tricks up their sleeves .  besides ,  sol’s hatred of the fallen doesn’t blind her to the suffering her kind have endured .  cybel is old        older than shiro ,  so her boss has said ,  &  there are many hardships he’s survived .  wisdom comes from pain ,  &  sol can’t help but wonder how wise the dark ages  &  wars that came with it ,  have made her mentor .  

she catches up ,  quick job slowly to a brisk walk to keep up with cybel’s stride .  gaze is trained on the forest ,  her mentor filling her peripherals as she eyes him with certain suspicion  &  grudging curiosity .  

  “ where we goin’ ? ”  reluctant curiosity bleeds from the words ,  as does wariness ,  paranoia whispering at the edges of her mind .  it’s helpful to a point ,  has kept her standing where others have fallen ,  but among allies        which cybel ,  bug hugger though he is ,  counts as        its usefulness fall short .  sol tries to keep the suspicion from her voice .  she tries to banish the whispers from her mind .  

  “ what’s with the      ”  she taps at her throat ,  nods at cybel’s .  in the back of her mind ,  ghosty sighs long  &  laboured .  it’s a tactless question ,  she knows ,  but her curiosity is genuine  &  her paranoia recedes so slightly .  small victory ,  but a victory nonetheless .

He keeps his strides in check, a nice halfway point between his usual rhythm and what the woman nearly two feet shorter than him could reasonably keep pace with without breaking into a trot. Brisk, but comfortable. His lower arms hold his rifle ready, top arms keep him balanced, carefully brushing branches and vines out of their way where the deer path grows too close, so as to leave fewer signs of their passage. That’s something she can be better at than me, he notes to himself. His metal frame, while relatively light for all that it can endure, is still hundreds of pounds heavy, sinks into dirt and mud with ease. He doesn’t have to glance back to know that her trail is lighter than his, and with a little bit of guidance he’s sure he can get her to make it damn near invisible. 

Before he can answer her first question, she asks a second one. His face creases into a thin exo smile, one that strangers unaccustomed to exo facial expression find menacing. His Light susurrates warm and gentle from him, to make up for that. No matter her impetuousness, it still feels good to have a new mentee. It feels good to have a pack again. 

P̶̧̢̛̙̥̹̀̓̆̎̌͗̽A̵͇̽S̴͓͉͉̾̄̀̉́͝A̵̱̘̣̖̺̍K̷̨̯̮̪̮̅̍̌̈́Y̴̘̖̍̔̃̿̚͘͠Ķ̶̛̙̦̖̒̋͛͘ ̶̡̢̛͔̇̂̌̄̇̅̚͝J̴̡̹̄̐͛́͒̀͠A̸̩̗͌̍̀̓̐̔̉͂͋͒I̶̲̩̲̲͎̿ ̶̛͇͈̣͎̽Ữ̶̢̭̹͔̗̊̒̾͠͠Ž̵̺̺̒̆̈̇̾̌ ̷͔̜̤͓͓̈́̈́̽͂M̵̖̯̏̈́̎ͅA̴̯̓̐̇̆̎̆̽̚N̵̛̬͚̪̍̂͋̍̂̕Ę̸̱̙̳͆̓̈́̽̈́́̍̈́̿

The words come out as harsh as they ever do, exospeak equal parts the clangor of metal against metal and the hiss of static, of radiowaves bouncing eerily off of inorganic materials. Cetus unfolds in the air in front of Sol, swims through it backwards so that he can face her while he speaks. 

“I found him not long after he died. His throat was still glowing around the edges of the cut. Someone must have killed him with a Dawn Blade. Back then, that wasn’t so uncommon. I couldn’t fix the damage. Exos are...” His cogs swivel, expand and shrink as he searches for the right word. Cybel makes a noise like the punch of steel through steel and Cetus nods. “Yeah. Complicated.”

He swoops in closer, into the little cavity Sol’s hood makes just beneath her ear, and whispers: “There’s a scar, if you get a chance to look closer. He won’t mind, not really.”

Cybel pauses then, turns to face the little hunter. Vermillion optics shine strangely in the dimness of the thick forest. His top arms and hands move to sign. To answer your first question, we’re checking on an old friend’s cache. If we can find it. A wink then, before he drops to one knee and gestures towards the ground.

Tell me what the tracks are telling you.