Do You Want Me To Write You Something? Commissions open
I used to have a form to fill for these but it clearly didn't work so here's the basic rules:
How does it work?
Contact me via ask or DM and check if I am familiar with what you would like me to write. If I am, or if I feel confident enough in my knowledge of the source to write about it, proceed with your request.
Requests must include plot, characters involved, tone*, what not to include**, and approximate length. I might ask for more specific scenes or plot points to be added if I find myself unable to come up with enough stuff to reach the word count.
If asked, I can show the work in progress; I will otherwise only share it once it's done. It can still be altered afterwards.
*silly, fluff, hurt/comfort, horror, surreal, Just Hanging Out...
**ranges from content (i.e. alcohol, smoking) to themes/tropes (i.e. reincarnation)
Do you do original works?
Sure. Requests of this kind will need to be extremely specific and to include as much information about the setting and characters as possible, since I will have no source other than you and if somebody messed up portraying my own original characters I know for a fact I would cry. Describe everything in enough detail so I cannot fuck up.
This also applies to AUs.
Do you do NSFW / suggestive?
If you're upfront about it, yes. Do not let me in on it only after I already agreed and only because I asked for clarification, especially if it's fetish content. It's happened before. I despised it.
Unless requested otherwise, sex will not be detailed and genitals will be unspecified. Kinks can be requested but I won't write something that makes me uncomfortable (i.e. anything with piss). Non-con is only allowed as a kink scene; p*do and b*stial are flat out rejected.
Can I post my commission?
If it's NSFW, I'd rather it remains unpublished. For others, if you properly credit me, sure.
How/When do I pay?
Paypal or ko-fi. I will share the necessary information once the commission is finished to proceed with the payment.
How much does it cost?
Up to 100 words - 2 euro
100 to 500 words - 5 euro
500 to 1k words - 7 euro
1k to 2.5k words - 10 euro
2.5k to 5k words - 15 euro
5k to 7k words - 20 euro
7k to 10k words - 25 euro
Above 10k words: 30 euro*
*+5 euro for each additional 5k words
What sources do you usually write about / have written about / are knowledgeable of?
Bendy and The Ink Machine, The Legend of Zelda (varied games), Pokémon (varied games), Dark Deception, Darkest Dungeon, Ace Attorney, Dark Souls (trilogy), Bionicle.
Where can I find your works to check out your writing style?
In #random writing and on my Ao3 account.
How long will it take?
Unfortunately it depends entirely on how my brain feels like making it take, but I will do my best to be quick. Longer works will of course require longer times.
Can anyone help a black transfem with tech and stability for my teaching job? I only owe 250 in rent and need help with procuring a good computer. If I had to set a goal myself it would 750 for other bills and tech by August, when my class starts.
Please please consider helping me out financially to get my best foot forward as a small time educator. Thank you.
Current Goal: 0/750
Link to a post with all my pay apps and gfm info below:
Tumblr is a place to express yourself, discover yourself, and bond over the stuff you love. It's where your interests connect you with your
Until my internship is over (which has my trust and momentum but still has had many hurdles and has no weekend work) I am still fundamentally unemployed or self employed with little book sales. Please help me keep building out my career so I can stay housed.
Hey I'm gonna tag people under the cut for a bit more momentum. I still have to pocket 250 for rent by the end of the month. And I really need a computer. Apologies for the consistent tagging
Growing in, like roots of a weed, sinking deeper each change, seeping chilling rivulets into him until his shivers became near constant as the ache grew, grew, grew - coiling around him tighter, stinging and stifling his thoughts, the impulses reaching into his muscles. He had begun struggling to walk, his speech had started to slur and stutter; his Toa, ever able to understand him, had taken to being his canes.
They found the source examining his migraines, comparing them with messages from Metru Nui: roots, just as he had felt them to be, growing, growing, growing, digging into the foundations of the robot's brain. Still small for now (if small a beast of its kind could be called), but always growing, growing, growing.
And each day its vines choked a bit of his breath, of his words.
Tahu, of course, decided to be the one to handle the malady. What better way to be rid of bark than through flame? It would take nothing, tender heat assured as it warmed his cooling hands; it would take nothing more than one change. Fade without worry, and when you're back so will I. He had clung gently to a limb not made for kindness, basking into its softened fire.
Kopaka was gone next, of course. Could not leave that fool of his brother to handle a threat alone, as proved by the missing of such a simple deadline. Pohatu told him, because they would leave together (of course); and orange eyes smiled so gently and laughed so soothingly, joked of how fast swift feet of stone would return his Toa after such a little detour. Fade without worry: we'll be right back. He had held the fingers steadying his tremors and smiled back.
Lewa left without telling after two changes. Of course. Too worried, too impulsive, unable to stand by, sit still as half their numbers refused to once again grace the shores, the rooms, the halls. He had felt the indent of a mask still ghosting above his shoulder, waiting in dreadful thought, for hours after awakening.
Onua would have wanted to abandon post last. Within black claws, of course, laid the greatest strength between them all, and if something, if anything had dared take advantage of the horrid situation, no other tool could have offered a more impenetrable defense. Yet sharp and powerful as they could be, they could not soften the unbearable migraines like the tender waters Gali could conjure to spare him a descent into fever and delirium. They hated that; they hated that the sister aching to retrieve their siblings had to be confined here, and that the brother who could not bear to be distanced from his duty had to go. But there was no other way. He had leaned into the cradling embrace, pressed tight to be relieved from his shivers, and struggled a blessing out of his mouth.
He is afraid.
He is afraid that if he tears himself away from this body, from this pain, he will change to awake alone.
He cannot bear it. He cannot bear to not know where they are. He cannot bear to not know what has happened to them. Where are they? The roots reach into his throat. He can barely speak. He has given up on walking - too weak, too shaky. He cannot bear it. Where are they? His Toa, his poor Toa, his dear Toa. They're so close. A few thousands of hundreds of miles, and they will be done. He cannot bear it. His Toa. Where are they? His dear Toa. He just wants them here.
He just wants them safe.
Gali is near him when he wakes, drizzle rolling against his temples to dull the horrid throng that plagues him, that digs into him, that freezes him. He reaches for a hook; the tool catches his weak fingers with the sort of care it was never meant to provide.
He looks into topaz eyes swaying before his sight. Please, please, do not say that. Do not say that. Please, do not say that.
Water runs down his cheek: "You know I can't stand it, either."
He begs. Not even with words. He is so in pain.
Gali understands. He understands, too. That is the worst part. It has to be this way, it has to: but goodness, they do not want it to. If only it did not. If only.
The Toa of Water shifts carefully at his side, gaze now squinted.
"I will try to show you something," are the careful words that reach him. They sound familiar. "It might be disorienting at first, but do not fear: you will not move."
He waits. He watches Gali focus, focus so tightly that her body wavers like a waterfall, like it is trying to pull every piece of blue protodermis into an infinitely tall shape, and his vision seems to indeed narrow to follow such a strange attempt until he... Until he... Sees... Himself.
Is that him? Is that the body? That arm looks like his. Those fingers clench around the hook the way he knows his own do. If he raises his hand, that one raises with it. That body indeed lays on his bed.
Beyond the pain, beyond the water, he feels a slight electric charge.
When his Toa returns him to his own eyes, despite everything, small smiles mirror one another.
"I will be with you," Gali whispers, and if she had been given fingers she would reply to his heightened grip with an even stronger one. "I will be with you, every second. All you need is a moment to reach out to me."
He heaves. His muscles strain to hold the last of his guard.
"We will find my siblings," Gali promises. "We will come back to you."
A whine leaves him: be careful. Please, be careful.
"Fade without worry. We will come back to you."
He forces a ragged breath.
He trusts her.
He fades.
-
He wakes all at once, throat howling in a strangled cry.
The pain would smother him again into the robot if he had not forced his consciousness into the body so violently, so desperately, clawing at the weakened sinews with a strength he could not and should not have as he heaves too fast.
His limbs tremble too hard to walk, so he crawls. He crawls, like a maggot, an ant, a beetle - who is here to see him anyways, who is here to dare cast judgement upon him? Who is here to belittle the anguish that with such immense effort crushes all other impulses into a pulp and wades through an ache harrowing enough to leave him convulsing on the ground? Like a fury he crawls through the fortress that molds to aid him, crawls to the room that connects him to the world; blunt fingers spear the machinery and his vision sways upon the letters, struggling to recognize them - all these lines and dots, all so similar, so blurry, combinations melting together in the freezing wildfire that steals his brain, all he really is, from himself--
He forces his hands upon the buttons as if to meld within them. A sensation like the moon-smell of a too long shut off room envelopes him: the artisan's mind.
His voice rolls out of him without matching a single phoneme.
My Toa, he cries like a child alone in the dark, My Toa, my Toa are gone, my Toa are gone - they were taken from me, my Toa, my Toa, taken away, taken away, something is wrong and someone has taken them away, away from me, my Toa, my Toa!
Expert hands work fast, work quick, the Mask of Creation eases the process: new ones will be
You cannot make them! (He feels the other flinch. Distantly, between the roots strangling his mind and the howling grief, he feels himself pound fists against metal.) You cannot make them, my Toa - my Toa, they were taken from me, they were taken, they must be back! They must be back! They must be - my Toa, my Toa, someone has taken them, someone has hurt them - they must be weak, and scared, my Toa, my Toa, weak and scared and alone, my Toa, my Toa...
How does one offer comfort when it has never been necessary before? There is an attempt, stunted and tepid. He is so distraught.
In Metru Nui, he whimpers, In Metru Nui - they were taken from me, my Toa, in Metru Nui, in Metru Nui... Metru Nui - the temple, the Temple! The Temple! My Toa - the Temple, the Suva, their power - their power, to Metru Nui, to the Temple, please - please, my Toa, my Toa, they must be weak and scared, my Toa - the Temple, the Temple can hold their power, can bring it to them, the Suva can - please, please, enough to help them, enough to help them, please, please, my Toa, my Toa, enough to help them, enough to wake them!...
It shall be done.
He slips from the stale-odored mind as if down a gravel cliff, scratching his aching brain the whole way back into the body twitching half curled on the ground.
He pulls at the invisible connections, at the knot so tight he cannot fathom anything breaking it: he pulls, hopefully, darkness coating the room and the machines, the fortress, swaddling him in the faint static of untuned frequencies responding to his prayers.
It will pass.
It has to pass.
It has to.
He waits.
Power surges.
Power swells.
Power...
Static.
He screams.
Crumbled in a heap, desperate to cry in a body that can't, he screams.
Why didn't it work? Why won't it work? What happened to them? What happened to his Toa, his poor Toa, his dear Toa? Why can't he wake them, why can't he reach them? Why can't he help them? Why can't he help them? Why can't he help them?
Everything hurts and hurts and hurts and hurts.
He needs help.
He needs help.
The roots choke him. His limbs barely respond when his desperation wills them to grasp the machine, howling reduced to caws carving through his neck like plows. He needs help, is the thought he fights against the vines to preserve and guide him: he needs help to help them. He needs help to save them.
His head sinks into the letters, into the sparks, and the city swarms him - every single brain, the countless minds of a metropolis crawling into his own with a horrifying cacophony he could barely make sense of if he were healthy, let alone like this; like a cruel whirlpool the immense multitude drags him under, throws him, pulls him, drowns him in itself, yet he tries, he tries, he tries to find someone, anyone, who can help him, who can save them, and he tries to cling to them, tries to parse the glimmer of a strength he cannot imagine, a strength so great that it can bend failure to its will, so great that even in the face of an unknown future it can persevere, fight, mold impossibility into home and lightning into hope.
Does he understand what he is doing? Does he understand why this was his choice? Does he understand that these are Matoran, as weak as him, as desperate as him, as defenseless as him? Does he understand that they cannot - that he cannot reach - if only - if he just -
His hands stab into the machine, and his vision bursts.
He can barely tell them apart in the awful dream.
Help me, he begs them. Help me.
They watch him, petrified.
He clings to them.
Help me.
The roots. The Toa. Help me. Help me. The roots. The roots. My Toa. The Temple. The Suva. Reach within. Reach. My Toa. The Matoran. Awake. Awake. My Toa. The roots. Be careful. Be careful. The roots. Help me. It hurts. The roots. My Toa. Find them. Find them. The power. The Suva. The Temple. Metru Nui. The roots. It hurts. It hurts. Please. Please. Find them. Save them. My Toa. My Toa. My Toa.
His thoughts spiral and devolve as the roots sink deeper, deeper, faster, coiling into the folds of his muscles and tearing them apart from within until he cannot bear it any longer; still he claws at them, begs them over and over before the dream is forced to end, begs them in a frenzy sinking so deep into the frame of metal and lightning that some of his desperate appeals and instructions become stuck in it, resigned to be delivered in sputtered bursts with a terrifying delay, praying they have, in some way, in any way, understood.
The machine sizzles, creaks, fumes. His body slumps against it, wrecked with shivers, breath rasping.
"Oh, poor thing."
The room converges upon him like light into a black hole.
"Abandoned by your nurses in your hour of need."
When Miserix had ceased to visit, they had been told the meticulous zeal of his work had swallowed him whole and transformed him into a hermit, driven him away to a dangerous island where none would disturb his most extravagant research to perfect the already arduous craft of giving life to draconic beasts.
They should have stopped trusting the smile leering down upon him in that very second.
"Come," says the voice so soft, so false: "Let us get you to bed."
Makuta Teridax advances.
The room stretches. The pavement lengthens under methodical clawed steps, sinks, shrinks around him - the fortress is his, like this body, like his Toa, and if he calls it molds around him to protect him in the clumsy stunted way that walls and floors and ceilings can as despite the pain, despite the weakness, depite the mud suffocating his thoughts, he crawls as best as he can towards the other end of the room. If he can reach it - if he can touch it, can will it to let him slip through its crevices and hide him in the thin space between -
Roots stab deeper into him with purposeful cruelty. His muscles seize, give up; he is left winded on the ground, gasping for the slightest sliver of air. A velvet laugh smothers him in the embrace of its shadow.
Don't touch me, he say - tries to, words only able to drool out of him, unintelligible: Don't touch me.
Red eyes smile mockingly.
Deaf to his demands, enormous claws descend upon him.
Blunt fingers slam into protodermis and he pushes and scratches, screams, screams as loud as he can, forces his body to react and fight, forces it to rebel with kicks and blows and jolts - even when one of his wrists is shattered in a fulminous grip, when a femur is crushed under a weight it was never meant to bear, when his throat is constricted to choke cries that no one can hear, even overwhelmed by agony from all sides, he keeps fighting and writhing and howling, raging, raging with every inch of his being, every spark of his soul.
His arm is pulled harshly until its muscles lacerate; his head hits the floor, hits it again.
"Always making things so difficult," Makuta Teridax hisses. With no grace nor caution the body is yanked into a hold that closes around it too tight, too heavy, less to carry safely and more to trap without hope of escape. "You truly are a spoiled, ungrateful thing."
The fortress converges upon him as he screams for help.
The walls bend, the stairs crook, the halls shift, the island itself shakes and collapses and rises like a body breaking out in hives as it attempts to reject an allergen, but the grasp on him remains tight and the deliberate steps march forth, slowly, for every second that passes is a second of agony to impose upon him.
Between the roots crushing his skull and the bone-breaking hold he hears him, hears him - "A thousand centuries doing your work for you," - between the joints flaring as gas scorches them - "While you wallowed here, revered and served," - between the tendons stressed beyond what they can take - "Soaking in the praise I should be owed," - between the restraints that stifle his lungs - "When even just a wave their way" - between the pain of being bent like this against his will - "Would break you in two," - between his wordless howls for someone, anyone - "Shielding yourself" - he hears him - "With this weakness" - he hears him - "That proves" - he hears him - "You" - he hears him - "Do" - he hears him - "Not" - he hears him - "Deserve" - he hears him - "Your" - he hears him - "Name."
He is delirious, feverish with anguish when the bed meets his back harshly enough to force the breath out of his lungs. His throat is ablaze, ichor dripping from its metal support. His body hurts too much to think. The roots obscure his vision. He feels cold. He feels so cold.
Claws run sharp tips against his cheeks in a mocking facsimile of care. He catches their terrible grin above him as he shivers madly - his last desperate attempt to fight back.
"Poor thing," Makuta Teridax croons - gone is the hiss, the vitriol that drowned him during their unequal struggle to the room. Now the soft false voice is sweet as fruit ripened into fermentation, swollen and grottesque, bleeding juices, a waterlogged carcass hanged to dry until the branch snaps and coats the grounds with its remains. "It must be so unbearable, to be forced to live a life in constant sickness."
A greenish glint in rotten silver.
"But fear not. While you drooled and played with your pets, your brother has found a cure."
The hand takes dozens of agonizingly stretched seconds to wrap around his neck, sink into his face, hold it lightly aloft and reclined, force the mouth open: it relishes in dragging out the motions, savors each moment with obscene delight, devouring and devoured by the inhebriating power of inspiring a horror that cannot be stopped.
"Asleep," he whispers, "You shall suffer no more."
The vial tilts.
The bed shakes, quakes, rattles furiously; his body, the epicenter, jolts as if electrocuted and the room jolts with it, the fortress, the island, everything bursts and rages and follows his piercing raucous scream into an apocalypse confined to a grain of sand.
He feels the larger being dig into his stomach, the unbearable mass pin and crush him, the grip tighten almost enough to shatter him, but he keeps screaming. He feels the glass hit his mouth, feels it trying to lodge in it by force, feels it crack and break against it, but he keeps screaming. He feels the liquid touch him, slip within; he feels the claws dig deeper and try to grow steady as the shattered edges of the vial find their way inside his skull; he feels himself choke, voice now burnt and degraded into a crackling yell, a sound compressed ungracefully too many times now swarmed with artifacts, still pushing against the poison trying to climb its way into his system, sputtering it into the sheets, the open wounds, the Kraakhan bearing down upon him with red eyes taking over every inch of his sight with a crazed willpower that matches his own.
But his lungs have no air anymore.
He coughs. He coughs terribly, eyes rolling back from the strain of attempting to breathe. The roots are turning fuzzy around him; he clings to their pain, forces it into him, forces it into his mind.
But he is so weak.
So cold.
The room sways in his vision as the shivers freeze.
The fortress stills into a petrified fossil; the island abandons itself, ceases its struggle, lays upon it own beaches with only too small waves to nudge at it hopelessly.
His body feels heavy.
Distant.
He hears, far away, in the darkness paralyzing him, Teridax heave.
Several wildfires are forcing members of a number of First Nations to flee their homes in northern Ontario.
“I had time to run home and pack a bag and get to the beach where the boats were waiting,” said a member of Namaygoosisagagun First Nation (Collins). “We literally had minutes to get on the boats and flee before it took our town.
“Once we left my house finally after packing what I could in a pack sack, the fire was right behind our place. We had to run to the beach and once we got there, it was only moments before the fire had jumped over the (train) track and was coming for us.”
it has since been confirmed that namaygoosisagagun first nation has completely burnt to the ground. if you would like to help the community navigate an ongoing crisis, i urge you to donate to the anishinabek nation 7th generation, a registered charity seeking to improve the lives of first nations people. donations are going directly to members of namaygoosisagagun first nation.
if you're canadian, you can e-transfer [email protected]. if you're outside canada, they accept paypal as well. see more information HERE
Something wrapped around him, lifted him, pushed him against itself. The weightlessness wore off abruptly as the pendulum swing he'd been caught into stopped with a heavy crunch, like something splitting a sturdy mineral in half: his whole body recoiled with a groan, but did not fall as he abandoned it to its own weight.
"Don't give up on me now, firespitter," a voice rumbled at the side of his head and under his armpit, right against his chest, sounding as if it was being ground out of two slabs of granite.
The hold on him squeezed his eyes open with a great effort. First thing he saw were purple splatters, still dripping out of him.
He felt lightheaded.
Another jostle pulled him back from the precipice: "I mean it," the other insisted, "By the Great Spirit, pull yourself together."
His vision fluttered upwards, to meet the frown of a sun-bleached brown Komau.
"Onewa," he called weakly.
"We need to get you out of here." the Po-Toa punted his other foot into the rocky wall, angling his leg so it could lift the bleeding body over his knees. "Hold on tight."
"Onewa," he repeated, "My head's spinning."
"Yeah, I imagine it would be. Get your arm here."
"My head's..."
"I heard you, now try to-"
The rest of the sentence swam away from him, slipping out of his skull's crevices like a fish in clumsy hands. His heck lowered heavily and his eyelids with it: a cover of ink eclipsed the smudged landscape.
A harsh shake, the creak of straining metal; a hand pushed against the sputtering wound and pressed hard, as hard as it could, to force the hemorrhage slower and him conscious.
He coughed a groan into a brown shoulder.
"Don't you dare sleep." Onewa's growl rattled his chest. It was a curious feeling, like... Like.... The words weren't coming to him. His thoughts thinned and melted, snow under harsh sunlight. He faintly felt his spine hitting a wall. "Hey! Focus on me!"
His vision doubled, tripled, struggled to reconcile the faded shapes into a single sharp view: he failed just as a blurry glow enveloped the mask before him.
"Stay awake!"
He pushed back with renewed vigor, scraping his brain hard against the rock as if that could further shove the foreign order worming into his synapses to bend him to its will, fright and defiance desperately gnashing their teeth at the invader until it was driven away entirely - until another pang of anguish ripped the air out of his lungs, and his sight sharpened at a dizzying speed.
The shadows of the mask's creases overwhelmed him, swaddled him in their rough hold: all sound and color dampened, muffled in-between the weight of boulders, aside from something bright and far.
His chest shuddered as low words pressed into it: "This isn't the time to prove you can resist outside influence! I'm trying-!"
They stopped suddenly. He didn't know why.
For a time that seemed infinite, as he struggled and whined and heaved without knowing or feeling it, the world was reduced to heaviness against him holding him aloft and breath caressing his Huna.
"Vakama," Onewa whispered.
He tried to raise his head. A shaky hand forced him up gently: the far lights were closer, duller.
A soft glow warmed sun-bleached brown: "Stay awake."
The invader gathered his swimming thoughts, gathered him, scooped him into its arms solid as pillars weathered and broken yet steady, climbed out of the ocean invading his skull, pouring from his eyes, to deliver him upon dry land; together they pushed the waves eroding the shores back to the best of their abilities, for as long as they could, and at last Vakama raised his hand and grabbed a steady arm and looked straight into him, trembling and weak but warming again.
"Awake," he slurred.
"Awake," Onewa nodded. He jostled him, hurried yet careful, to get a better grip on him. "Awake. Att'a Toa."
"Awake."
"Stay awake, come on."
"Were..."
"Come on."
"Were your eyes always blue?"
Despite his urgency, the Po-Toa flashed him a disbelieving glare.
He clung to him harder, and as both muscles and proto piston strained with a shriek he dug his other foot deeper into the rock: "Alright," he grumbled - or was it a weak, scattered laugh? "Alright, I'll take delirious over gone. Now keep your crossed wires sparking and hold on tight."
Vakama grasped him with every bit of strength he had.
-
In his dream, he'd heard a panicked voice, and felt jittery hands grabbing him, and met a green so dark it could have lulled him to sleep - but he could not: he had to stay awake. The invader had still held tight onto him, and chased the waves off with his foot, and he had joined him as spiritedly as his weakened legs allowed.
And in his dream the green so dark had spoken with Matau's voice and fussed over him, tightening and wrapping and cleaning and crooning and holding and doing all sorts of other smothering caring things, until finally the worst had passed and the gentle words had assured him he was allowed to rest, and he had let himself blink for barely a moment.
And when he'd opened his eyes...
Vakama nudged a finger: "Onewa."
The other jumped: "Damn quiet lava eel," he cursed him. The Ta-Toa would have chuckled if he'd had strength. "Give my heartlight another shortcircuit, won't you? Like I haven't had enough of those for today."
His hand was rough and lined and smooth all at the same time. It was familiar, comfortable to be in its hold.
Being forced down by it was a little less pleasant.
"Don't even try that," Onewa warned. "You're easily the worst of the lot, so you have nobody to worry about. Your Toa can stay nice and quiet a little longer before they go back to wailing at your wounds and making everything about you for the six hundredth time."
"Please," Vakama whispered: "Please, don't make me laugh. My stomach hurts."
A gentle squeeze around his palm; his fingers coiled around it.
His gaze wandered upon the Komau sat by his side; after a brief moment, he found himself smiling slyly: "You're my Toa, too, you know."
"Oh, shut it."
"And you're very concerned with me."
"Watch it. I'll force you to do a handstand if you keep this up."
"Would that be a good time to show you how I can fight back mind control?"
"You sure like to crack jokes for someone who just told me he'd literally die if he laughed, huh?"
He allowed himself a wheeze.
Bad choice.
A hand pressed against his side to distend the muscles as he coughed and whined, rubbing its heel lightly onto the exposed organic matter. The motion soothed him little by little, relieving his body, his mind...
Vakama sighed without meaning to. He felt so heavy. So tired. Hadn't he just slept? Yet it had seemed like half a moment.
His eyelids lifted again with a terrible tardiness, as if made of lead.
Onewa observed him in silence now, blue eyes fixed on the purplish stains that hadn't yet been scrubbed from his legs with a slight furrowing of his brow. His thumb moved aimlessly against red protodermis, back and forth, back and forth with a slow rhythm; he met his gaze, a familiar exhaustion mirrored in the Ta-Toa's.
He leaned down to press their masks together.
The Komau welcomed the creases of the Huna in its own vacuous spaces, ill-fitting shapes making the most of what little they could slot together: they nuzzled like animals seeking comfort from a great fright, temples pressed together, chin rubbing chin, foreheads dipping into necks to feel the pulse of an artery - to ensure it was still steady, still loud, still warm. Fingers crawled in tandem across their arms in search of a grip, a weak hold on each other, ready to grasp with all their might in a moment's notice just so that neither would risk slipping away into yet another unknowable darkness.
They continued their tender touch quietly, warmly, tucked into a corner at the edge of the world that nobody else could know.
His body seemed even more cumbersome when that contact broke.
Onewa looked at him in a strange way - like he was looking at something small, distant, that he couldn't touch. Maybe that was why he held his cheek like it weighed as much as the world.
"You look terrible," he murmured. His mask glowed so softly. "Get some shuteye, firespitter."
The invader sat by him, near him. His hold was steady on him, warm, sustaining him as he reclined into the tepid heat; Vakama leaned without a fight into the suggestion he would not have needed as it softened the edges of his vision, playing idly with Onewa's fingers, and drifted into sleep watching blue eyes dim slowly.
"-Shush, I've been thinking - we need to talk about our funerals."
"And why is that?"
"I want to stick with you after all this is done."
"So do I."
"But I can't bury you with me. Because if the roots eat you, you said your next life will be an endless abyss of sensory deprivation."
"I mean, it's not like the whole thing has to go. You can feed a piece to a fish before burying me and that does the trick."
"But I don't want to be a fish in a next life."
"It's not like you'll remember this one by then."
"It's the principle of the thing."
"It's not even your belief!"
"Neither is being buried under a tree yours."
"Touché. You'd rather be a viper, I'll guess?"
"You wouldn't."
"No, I would not. Hm... How about eels? Or lampreys. Those should be a middle ground."
"I suppose..."
"Oh - oh wait, water snakes! Can't believe I forgot about water snakes. Those would be perfect, wouldn't they?"
"They'd be perfect. Good thinking."
"And if you want we can tie our pieces together so they get eaten at the same time. Bam. Simultaneous reincarnation."
"How romantic."
"I mean it!"
"I mean it too. Though we'd have to die at the same time for that, wouldn't we?"
"Ah, yeah... Pretty unlikely."
"Well, the one still living could just get a piece cut and fed with the dead one's in advance. You know, get on with preparations."
"Cheating the system, I like that. Not sure if it would work but, eh-"
"We can always cut more later."
"We can always cut more later."
Satisfaction echoed in their quiet laughs.
A sudden thought struck; Vastus hushed all at once and stared with dawning horror, an appalled hand flying to his mouth as he realized a grievous omission in their plans.
"We forgot Ackar," he whispered.
Confusion at his wife's behavior dissipated from Tarix in an instant: "Oh cycles," he muttered in a similarly distraught state, fingers tangling themselves in the lichens sprouting from his chin. "We forgot Ackar."
-
"In the likely case you will one day leave this mortal coil, would you be willing to donate some of your bone and flesh so we can bury a piece of you under a tree with our bodies and feed the three of us together to the same water snake in order to reincarnate all at the same time?"
Ackar blinked.
He carefully put down the beams meant for the new arena's extendable roof against the stone wall, leaned on said wall with them, and only then turned back to his friends: "I'm sorry, did you join a cult while I wasn't looking?"
Unperturbed, Vastus began to explain: "We were planning our funeral for fun-"
"Renowned hilarious activity, please continue."
"-Because we'd like to stay together in death or life after death as it may be, but Tarix doesn't want to get eaten by a tree or he'll become one, and I don't like the idea of turning into a fish."
"We found a solution for that," the Gaquri assured the Tapyri before he could ask what any of that had to do with him specifically: "But then we realized we forgot you."
"Forgot me for what?"
"For this."
A moment of pause.
"... For your double funeral?"
Tarix shrugged: "Could be a triple one."
"But you cremate your dead," his wife continued, "And we'd need some part of you to not be ash, you know, to bury and feed to something."
Ackar continued to watch them like they'd lost their minds.
"Why?" he asked.
"So we can stick together, all three of us."
"You want - sorry, you want some other guy to also be involved in your marital last rites? That you're approaching with the intent to not let death do you part?"
Vastus furrowed his brow: "You're our friend."
"And?"
Now his husband looked at him weird: "And we want to stick with you."
"Like you'd stick to each other?"
"Yes?"
"Why are you surprised? We've done that for the past hundred thousand years."
"We've done that longer than we've been married."
"Or courting for that matter."
"About twice as long as that, really."
"I know that, thank you-"
"If you don't want to, now that's a different deal."
"Yes, of course, it's not like we can force you if you have other funeral plans."
"I don't-" Ackar stopped himself abruptly with a surprised air about him.
His brow furrowed deeply as his head recoiled back: with a hard almost frustrated squint his hand went to pick at his mouth, twisting his lower lip left and right while he reflected in utter puzzlement on something he evidently hadn't considered until that very moment.
Finally, as his face distended, he opened his arms in a defeated manner: "Frankly, I didn't even think of doing anything."
Vastus tilted his head: "What, you're just going to leave yourself out to the vultures?"
"It's just - we're cremated so we can make glass for lanterns out of the ashes, you know, as keepsakes for family to have."
"And you don't want that?"
Ackar shrugged: "I don't have a family," he replied somewhat dejectedly.
"You say that like our daughter didn't learn your name before figuring out how to ask for blood," Tarix commented.
The Lebori nodded: "Gresh and Pulu would definitely like to have something to remember you by."
"And so would Kiina, and Berix."
"She'd probably be furious if all your dust went only to us."
"She'd claw her way into our next life before her own time's up just to strangle us about the iniquity of it all."
"You're friends," Ackar cut them off gently. "It doesn't count."
"And why's that?"
"Only relatives of the deceased are allowed to claim one's ashes. It's sort of a legal matter."
"And if they go unclaimed?"
"Usually they're thrown in the fields."
"Fuck that," Vastus sentenced instantly: "You're getting passed down as an heirloom in ours and Kiina's families."
"A last will has legal power over your remains, too," his husband mused before Ackar could repeat himself: "If you detail what you want done with them or straight up leave them as inheritance, nobody should have grounds to argue against it."
The Tapyri mulled over it: "Didn't consider that..."
"Sounds better than feeding wheat?"
His gurgling snort passed on to Vastus and Tarix.
"I'd like that a lot more, that's true," the Fire Glatorian admitted. "The kids could get some nice decor out of me."
The Gaquri grinned: "See? A good funeral talk fixes everything."
"Aside from the original question," his wife noted. "So, now that we've got all that out of the way, do you wanna contribute to our funeral and make it a threeway?"
"Do I have an option?"
"A whole two of 'em: yes or no."
"Or, we can figure out how to sweeten the deal."
"Yes, that might be necessary for another eternity stuck to us."
"Didn't you have a whole program that doesn't involve getting turned into ash?"
Vastus smirked: "We can spare a piece or two."
"My first thought was a leg, but - I'd like to keep the one I have."
"I was thinking of an arm, actually."
"Oh-"
"I do the upper half, you do the lower one?"
"-Oh, that's perfect, isn't it!"
A wet snicker: "A bit late for a replacement, but I'll take that."
"Though we might have to split the ashes - you know, for Kiina," the Lebori mused. "Gresh and Pulu might appreciate us being in the mix, but I can't see why she would."
"Would there be enough for the glass, though?" his husband wondered.
"They'd end up a bit thin if they make 'em large, but half a body should get enough panes for a small lantern without any trouble," Ackar reassured them. He scratched at his chin with a lopsided smile: "A knee and a couple vertebrae missing shouldn't count for much, either."
His bent teeth poke through his lips as he caught the other two's brightened faces as their hands moved towards their prosthetics.
"And that's two down, then," Vastus grinned.
"What, are you worried I won't agree on the flesh? I already said I'll give you my bones to bury, the meat comes free with those!"
Tarix piped up: "Actually, there could be a problem - would you say cremation is like feeding yourself to the Spirits of Fire or is it some other thing?"
"Hm... I mean, it is a sort of concession that ends up with being undone, but I wouldn't call it the same as being eaten."
"Good! Good good good, another question: any complaints about reincarnating as a water snake?"
"I don't really believe that's a thing that happens, so fine by me."
"And that's three!" Vastus cheered in a mellow tone, a hand giving a triumphant flair to the side: "All solved nice and tidy!"
His husband hoo'd and woo'd, and went to grab Ackar's arm to drag him into an improvised victory dance. His friend amused him, prancing in place with him as they both chanted 'three-way fu-ne-ral! three-way fu-ne-ral!' to the rhythm of the Lebori's clapping like the limited orchestra and cast of their own insane little opera.
Onepu squinted at the puzzling scene several meters below him, mumbling as he shook his head in disapproval: "What in Karzhani are those three lazybones even going on about..."
"Probably some kind of death pact," Kotu commented casually instead of picking up the right hand's supervising slack: "To haunt the colosseum together so they can take down any future Glatorian who dares fight better than them."
He swatted at her, making her cackle; in a second they were wrassling on the unfinished seats, and they would have wrassled right off them if several hands (mechanical and not) hadn't caught them just in time before their little spat had rolled them down, down, down into the arena and right at the feet of the three Glatorian.
He does not understand the need for them, in the way he does not understand a need for the rest.
But they are his now, as they are presently being given to him to serve at his side for the rest of his fleeting eternity: following etiquette they avoid his direct gaze and bow in as perfect a synchrony as they can showcase. Behind them their maker watches on with an expression that no doubt is a mirror of his own - distant, scrutinizing. He can only assume the great artisan is analyzing every movement to privately critique or preen his creations according to how well they perform. There are no such thoughts in his own mind.
He wants to ask, to inquire the great why of it all, the calculations made to decide that this and that are necessary additions to his purpose while he stays uncomfortable in these limbs. But the Great Beings are not here to answer, and nobody dares assume that the why's of a god made by gods can be answered by any except for those same gods.
So he remains quiet where he sits, asking no questions; he blinks in a way that could be a nod and courteously offers his thanks.
Artakha, in his silence, seems pleased.
The Toa continue their stillness.
-
The changing always requires a pause.
The smaller body needs air to help kickstart its voluntary mechanisms, and while its vital functions are kept active without him their output is too weak to sustain higher consciousness immediately: as such he is forced to breathe deeply with it a number of times, so that oxygen can flow within the measly frame in proper quantities until he is able to will the minuscule eyes into functioning.
One of the Toa is always by his bedside when he wakes. There is a throne for him to sit upon and for them to look much more dignified standing by, but he never uses it, because it is much easier to awaken and fade on the mattress he has confined this body to. If he looks at them a moment too long he notices the imperceptible twitches caused by his non-judging gaze.
He does not understand the reason for any of this - the throne, the fortress, the body, the Toa. It is so superfluous, so pointless in the scheme of it all. The inner world, much like this body that he is so seldom in, will keep functioning autonomously without his supervision; the outer world, which he wades through in the body made for his purpose, is what he needs to explore and document and understand; the overlap between them is faint if none. There is no need for all of this. He does not even think he likes it.
Then again, what he might or might not like is also superfluous.
The Toa are so stiff, so tense. Looking at them gives him a sense of unease. They try to be quiet and distant, colored statues keeping watch over a mausoleum; he can feel their eyes pierce him when he breathes, can catch the second they turn away when he finally takes in the room. They were made to protect him, but there is nothing to protect him from here: so they stand, and wait, and take turns standing and waiting as he wakes and fades soon after.
He wonders if they have explored the fortress. He has a perfect awareness of it, its blueprint and plant inserted carefully into this brain so he knows exactly where every part of it sits; do they? Have they scoured its rooms and halls and corridors while they were free from standing and waiting? It is their home more than it is his, effectively. He does not live in it. He has no use for it. He has no use for this body and he has no use for Toa.
Perhaps these three elements, he muses, are connected. Perhaps they are a self-sustaining cycle: there is the fortress because the Toa need to live in it, there are the Toa because the body needs to be looked after, there is the body because the fortress needs to house it; there is the body because it needs to be looked after by the Toa, there are the Toa because they need to live in the fortress, there is the fortress because it needs to house the body.
After all, all he uses this body locked in this fortress for is to check on these Toa.
He wonders if they feel lonely.
They are six. They should not, in theory, be lonely.
But there is always only one looking after the body, and he has no way to know if they ever join together for discussions, or games, or pleasant silences, or restful sleep. He has no way to know if they are not, in practice, lonely.
How he dislikes this body. How he dislikes this fortress.
He fades again.
-
The Toa is sitting on the floor.
"Toa Lewa," he calls.
He watches as the poor thing jumps for the surprise of hearing his voice speak aloud, and speak aloud that name as well. The green mask returns to a disgruntled frown after it shifts to face him, spook worn off to leave a simmering anger or annoyance that vocalizes itself as a mildly inquisitive grunt, uncaring of whether such an expression is polite or proper.
"Why are you sitting?"
"Because it's less tiring than standing," Toa Lewa answers in a standoffish tone.
"You never did so before."
The Toa grunts again, defiant, the sound wordlessly conveying 'so what?'; but nonetheless the langly body begrudgingly pulls itself up, slow and unhappy.
"You may sit, if you wish."
The Toa immediately drops back to the ground.
He observes him. The Miru's grin is wide and dark, the light eyes frightfully bright from inside its shadows; one of the green legs flaps angrily, the other's foot thumps with muted repeated thuds, the hand with fingers picks at the axe.
"Have you visited the fortress?" he asks.
"No," Toa Lewa answers.
"What parts of it have you seen?"
"This room. This floor. Floor under. Our room." then, lower, bitter, flashing an acid glare: "Still more than you have, for sure."
The Toa is right on a technicality.
Still, he can see beyond: he can see the endless expanse before him, the distant lights coming closer, the bodies moving forth until impact stops, shatters, diverts them. All they have, now and forever, is the fortress, and they have shut themselves from its majority out of duty to a body that does not even move.
"There is a greenhouse," he muses. The cradle of Spherus Magna's flora - what could be saved, what is expected to return. He sees Toa Lewa perk up, doubtful or disbelieving. "A repository of plantlife found and made. Specimens of all sorts are housed there for safekeeping."
"How many plants can there be?" the Toa asks, scoffing a bit.
"Quite a few. Many are to be made still."
Toa Lewa darkens again, deepens the hunch of his back.
What an injustice, to be made to stand pointlessly beside an unmoving body when there are others, somewhere far away from these walls and floors and roofs and rooms, whose only purpose is to create strange things to their heartlight's content.
He imagines these are the thoughts behind the green mask. They would be his, if he too was confined to such still duties.
"Waste of time," the Toa mutters in the end, picking at the axe with a renewed vigor that however falters back into lazy habit. "You don't need that many. Seen one, seen them all."
"Which plants have you seen?"
A shrug: "Algae, dried and wet. Grass. Trees."
"What trees?"
"A tree is a tree. They all look alike."
"Some have needles."
Again, Toa Lewa stops fidgeting, bewildered.
"What do you mean, needles?"
"Their branches are covered in needles."
"Why would they need that? There wouldn't be place for the leaves. Is it to scare birds away?"
"Their purpose is to resist the snow of their cold native lands, which would suffocate wide brimmed leaves beneath its weight but only bends needles until the excess falls from them."
The other remains unconvinced: "There still aren't any leaves."
"The needles replace them."
"How big do they have to be to make up for them, then? As big as the branches? As the tree itself?"
It makes him smile, conjuring that awful image in his mind: "They are very small," he explains, "Small but many, in hundreds of small clusters upon dozens of branches, so that any sunlight the harsh climate allows to shine upon them is caught without fail."
Green eyes squint doubtfully: "And you've seen this?"
"In depictions, more or less accurate, yes."
"But never in person," the Toa rebukes: "So you cannot know for certain if they are real."
He can. Very easily, in fact: he can search within his database and find everything he may need on the matter in seconds, he can provide plenty of visual and written proof so solid it has no use for empiricism; he can ascertain without the shadow of a doubt that coniferous trees do, in fact, exist, beyond the stalwart scepticism of any being who may have never witnessed one in the bark and sap before.
But Toa Lewa is also right. He, himself, has never seen one before.
He meets the Miru's challenging glare: "Perhaps you could."
The Toa blinks: "... Me?"
"If you would like to, you may search the greenhouse. If you find even one tree which bears needles - not briars or thorns - we will know it exists; if you do not, you will be right, and I will be wrong."
He can see how this offer (is it a deal? A challenge? A game?) intrigues his guard - the thumping and flapping has acquired a more thoughtful rhythm, for one, and his eyes gleam differently, the shoulders seem more relaxed. The axe is no longer picked at: a rough finger draws unclear shapes on it as a smirk takes form.
"Alright," comes at last the agreement: "Alright, I'll look for a tree with needle-leaves, and we'll see if there really is something like that."
"Would you like me to direct you to the greenhouse?"
Toa Lewa thinks: "No, I'll find it myself," he decides. "Exploring a little in the downtime can't hurt me."
Good.
"Wander as you wish," he tells the Toa. "This is your home."
Toa Lewa does not reply; his head turns lightly, watching only from the corner of green eyes as he fades.
-
There is a long pause.
"What do you dream?" asks Toa Gali , and immediately he can see her regret it. Strangled breath hits the wall of her Kaukau in the attempt to add something more proper, but the voice drowns before it can even spit out a phoneme and clamps itself shut.
"I do not dream," he answers.
The poor thing is mortified. A transparent mask must truly be a bane for one so frightened by their own self.
"You could not have known it," he tries to reassure the Toa. A meek whisper is the only reply. He tries to twist his words into gentle shapes when his curiosity demands that he continues: "Why did you ask me such a question?"
Toa Gali hesitates, stalls, tries to pretend she had spoken, gives in to what she assumes is an order: "I imagined there must have been a reason," she breathes, "Behind such long bouts of sleep."
Ah... A fair point, isn't it?
"You could not have known it," he repeats in the hopes that it will be enough for the blue shoulders not to stiffen further: "I do not sleep."
It works halfway: "Please, forgive my assumption," the Toa mutters.
What is there to forgive? Nothing. Her thoughts were coherent, there was no offense to his self; it must look like sleep, the way he fades into change, the way the body remains inert until again he slips into its head to open its eyes and se the room, see the Toa, and fade again towards what he really was made for.
"It was not entirely incorrect," he tries again.
A topaz glimmer glances back: "...Then, you still dream?"
"I see," he corrects.
"See... What, if I may?"
"The world outside the world."
Yellow eyes gleam captivated. The sharp edges of a skull only barely softened behind blue protodermis turn a little more to face him, hooks linking themselves into stillness before they can begin to fidget.
It is a rather mysterious way to describe the universe that stretches infinitely beyond the protodermis skies. Perhaps he should have worded himself more practically - but he reasons this, despite its mystique, really is the most practical way to refer to such a thing; and besides it would be a lie to say the curiosity those words have sparked in the Toa's stance is anything other than a more than welcome alternative to the usually rigid posture that afflicts his guards.
There is still a tension about the powerful figure that keeps more questions at bay, keeps her from prying, keeps the biomechanical weight shifting in place from foot to foot in an attempt to stifle any almost child-like instinct that might not be proper.
But that soft jittering gives him pause enough to realize it.
He would like for someone to pry.
"Approach, please."
Toa Gali freezes. Before he can offer reassurance again, however, her courage manages to squeeze through the paralysis: footsteps as light as they can be carry the Toa at his side.
A bright gaze fixes on him, halfway awaiting instructions, halfway almost excited.
He feels the same.
"I will try to show you something," he tells the Toa carefully. He has never done this before: even now, as he speaks, he is making attempts to fine tune the process, light enough not to startle his guest. "It might be very dark at first, but you need not fear: you will not move."
Toa Gali's expression furrows: "I... Don't think I understand."
"It is not easy to explain, I fear. May I make my attempt?"
"Of course."
"Allow me just a moment. Sit, if you would."
There is no seat next to the bed, or in the room at all really - he would have no use for it either way. Toa Gali takes a pause, turns quickly in search of something she notices only now is not here, eyes the mattress, eyes him; when he meets her gaze and blinks in a deliberate way that almost resembles a nod, she gingerly places herself at the edge of the bed.
He focuses back on the invisible connections crackling through the air. A line of numbered sparks reaches out to the Toa, carefully hooks around the ones sizzling and zipping in the topaz brain, ties the both of them with a faint knot.
Now, let's see - if he leans just far enough away, without fading...
Faintly, distractedly, he can hear a sharp breath, a movement at his side like a sudden jolt to find one's bearings: "The light!" Toa Gali cries. "The light has-!"
"Be not afraid," he soothes her: "All is well. The light is not gone, and we have not moved. You are seeing through the other body's eyes."
"The other-? What other body?"
"The one traveling through the outer world."
"So... So, your true body?"
He would not call it that. "If you wish, you may call it that."
"And this... This..."
"This is the world outside the world."
For a short moment, they observe it together.
The Toa calms slowly. Her hook no longer threatens to tear into the mattress for the scare: it seems she is adapting to the darkness.
At last, Toa Gali speaks again: "Those dots look like stars."
"They are. Some could be planets, or other bodies caught in enthropic motion which reflect light in place of producing it; but there are certainly stars."
"And the blackness? What is it? Is it a liquid?"
"That is the absence between them."
"So there is nothing?"
"Nothing at all."
The robot continues to move: the stars pass by it, grow larger before it, disappear behind it. It will be a while before he can observe anything up close, but for now he simply travels forward, into the endless black, like a fish dropped in an unfathomably large ocean, seeking an answer he cannot know for certain he will really find even if he traveled all the way to the limits of the universe.
But even so, isn't it all so marvelous? The silence, the vastness, the emptiness - isn't it incredible, how far it can stretch, how many millions of wondrous worlds it can contain, so distant, so strange?
Isn't it wonderful?
He feels through the smaller body the shift of a nearby weight.
Toa Gali thinks for a long time.
"It seems so very little," she murmurs.
Oh.
Well, he supposes... He supposes...
"It is my duty," he replies quietly.
"Of course," the Toa says. He feels her stand with a cautious haste (she probably cannot see beyond what he is showing still, so she must take care not to fall as he had feared she might) as if to relieve him of the reminder of her presence, as if she was trying to mend an offense. Were those words an offense? He has a hard time telling. "Forgive me. I did not mean - forgive me."
The knot loosens until the yellow mind is no longer tied to his, leaving topaz eyes free to see without obstruction.
He supposes that...
He doesn't know what he supposes.
How he dislikes this room.
"Please," he whispers, faint, so faint, "Do not be sorry."
He feels the uncertain weight of Toa Gali's gaze turn away from the body he dislikes as he fades.
-
Toa Onua keeps reading.
His awakening has not gone unnoticed: he saw the green eye move slightly, the Pakari tilt and settle back in its previous position. But this one is a quiet one, and knows there is no need to greet him when he awakes. And besides, the Toa is reading.
He observes the black claws follow what must be letters, light and careful as they seem to trace the shapes within circles. There is a small stack of tablets next to the Toa, any maybe another half obscured by grey legs, which comforts him; the library on the higher floor must have been thoroughly dug through and pilfered. At least the time will pass more pleasantly.
There is also a stool.
He imagines it feels like dirt.
It is not quite silence between them, on account of the faint scratching, but he does not mind it. He listens to enough true silence already.
Maybe he will fall asleep.
How silly. He cannot fall asleep. He can fade into change, but he cannot fall asleep. That could shut down the entire robot. Nobody wants that.
And either way he has no need for it.
He has no need for anything.
This body feels as though it was swarmed with ants. With rust.
How he dislikes it.
The light tap of a tablet being placed on the ground and the scrape of another being lifted from a pile drag him into the careful black claws, removing him from his thoughts, the sensations around these limbs: without meaning to, he moves the head.
Toa Onua looks back at him.
At last, after an age of holding back breath, a grey arm rises just enough to shift his attention: "I hope it is alright."
"That you read?" he asks. He feels so weak.
"That I took these."
"This is your home. Help yourselves to all that you wish."
Toa Onua hums softly.
He feels so tired.
How he dislikes this body. How he dislikes his room. How he dislikes this fortress. If only they had not made any of this.
"Have you read this before?" Toa Onua asks.
He has not read the tablet held aloft in the claw's grasp. He has not read any of these tablets. He has not been in the library, just like he has not been to any room that is not this one, just like he has not used anything that is not this bed. He has no need for it. He has no need for any of it. How he dislikes it. How he dislikes it all.
"I fear I have not."
"It's about astrology."
"How interesting."
"Would you like me to read it to you?"
"You do not have to."
"Would you like me to?"
Would he?
"Yes," he answers feebly: "Please."
The Toa's voice is low, a little droning. Every now and then he stumbles on the words, skips or jumbles them, breaks some into syllables under his breath before repeating them faster; one must assume the poor thing has trouble reading, or at least reading out loud, if the apologetic, awkward glances of green eyes that flash the body's way at every mistake are anything to go by. It doesn't matter: it's pleasant.
At times Toa Onua hushes, and it's his clue to help. Together they unfurl the meaning of unusual terms, break down a complex concept, better follow the steps of a process. The mathematical equations lengthen as the tablet goes on, and though he can understand them fine enough he assures the Toa there is no need to dwell on them if the characters overlap and muddle before his vision, and they move on - it's not like they have to put them to use. They certainly won't be trying to predict the future any time soon.
They read all the way to the end.
Toa Onua places the tablet away from the others.
Both rest a little before picking the next. Except, that does not happen: what happens is that the door opens, and a white shape stills into a frozen statue just outside, blue eye staring at the laying body.
He blinks deliberately, in a way that could be a beckoning nod. The Toa stiltedly walks in.
His brother stands from his stool that might feel like dirt, ready for the changing of the guard. A black claw picks a tablet that had been set aside differently from the others and offers it to the shield, barely grazing it to invite it to turn around, so that the item can be cast in its concave side as if it were a basket.
"This one is about Rahi," Toa Onua murmurs.
Toa Kopaka remains still. Very slowly, very stiffly, the shield is turned over. The tablet is placed in it.
The other leans in ever so slightly: "I think-" (and this whisper is even softer, quieter, maybe in the hopes that he will not hear it, and if he could he would like to more convincingly pretend he does not) "-That he likes being read to."
No response.
The two Toa pass each other by: one leaves and closes the door; one takes his seat on the stool and freezes in place.
Tense to the point of cracking.
Not even reading.
Poor thing.
Reassurance would not do - what worse way to reveal he knows of the words the Toa of Earth tried to conceal, to point the spotlight on his current guard's unease? No, better not insist.
He has no need to be coddled, anyhow.
He is just being...
"I hope the tablet is to your liking," he murmurs. The Toa remains unmoved. He feels so tired. "I shall leave you to it."
Toa Kopaka shows no reaction at all. The armed limbs remain perfectly posed, and the white scopes mask any glance that might be spared towards the laying body as he fades.
-
When he awakes, he is alone.
The eyes travel across the room, moving from one corner to the other: there is the bed (of course), and a stool that is more like a chair now and still might feel like dirt, and an increased number of tablets stacked in different piles; but no living being standing or sitting.
How unusual.
An unpleasant feeling constricts the body's chest.
All the times he has changed, the Toa have been waiting near him. It must not have been pleasant, but it is their duty, and they have found ways to mitigate the tedium. Why are they not here? If they are not here, where are they? Are they in the fortress? Are they outside of it? Could there be something keeping them away from the fortress? From the room? Could something have happened to them? Where are they? He knows the blueprints, the floor plan, but he cannot view the halls and chambers in real time. Where are they? He can locate every room but not the things or beings in them. Where are they? There is nobody here. Where are they? Where are they? Where are they? Wh
Force restart.
Buffer...
Buffer...
He repeats it to himself until he can feel the lungs swell against the ribcage, the mechanisms roll at a slower tempo, the limbs return into the body's possession after being swallowed by rust.
It's good to know it still works. Even if not literally.
Crackling connections soak in the message: it bolts through them, searching for the nearest repository.
Seconds after, someone is inside the room.
"Is something wrong?"
He exhales slowly: "Why were you behind the door?"
Toa Pohatu hushes.
"What makes you think I was?" is the eventual rebuke.
"That is how far the message traveled."
"Ah." sheepishly, the poor thing crosses tan arms behind a brown back. "Didn't count on you knowing that."
"I am not angry," he whispers, and it's true. He is relieved. Things are normal. He knows where they are. They are here. In the fortress. With him. Just, outside the door. "It only puzzles me."
The Toa shifts his weight from one foot to the other, looking at them: "I wanted to see if you moved," he mumbles, "While we aren't looking."
What a strange thought.
"Why would I do that?"
A shrug: "It seemed like something someone might do. And after that whole thing with the sores, I imagined that-"
"Sores?"
"Yes, the..." the Toa's orange gaze lays on him again, disbelieving: "Did... Did you not feel them?"
"I fear not."
"Are you sure? Because when Lewa saw there was ichor dripping from under the bed and called the rest of us so we could move you a little," (Toa Pohatu repeats the motions with which the six of them must have shifted the body out of their way - a very gentle shift, careful) "The back muscles looked torn right open. They were pouring into the mattress for... Probably some time, I think. The stain looked fairly deep. We've medicated them, of course, but did you really not - didn't you feel that? Any of that?"
Ah, yes: prolonged stillness can cause that sort of injury. He remembers now. But the time he spends in the body is so little, and any connection to its senses is severed as soon as he fades into the robot.
"No," he answers as such: "I did not."
"... Good thing we noticed, then."
Good thing indeed.
He wishes they had not bothered with it. It's not like anybody will come into this room but them. It's not like this body has enough purpose to require maintenance. It's not like he will ever need it for anything that would be greatly hindered by a loss of ichor or open sores.
He wishes he had not distracted them with something like this.
Toa Pohatu observes him quietly. The orange eyes are sharp as they take him in, scraping gently the shell that encases him as if to carve the real shape of him from it.
"Maybe it's a chance to change your routine," the Toa eventually offers.
He doesn't understand: "I do not believe I have one."
"Then it's a chance to make one."
"What would comprise it?"
"I don't know. Anything. Walking! That would be a good start, no? It would let you go around a bit, breathe some fresh air - and it can help prevent sores, too."
"It is a good suggestion," he agrees after a moment of thought: "But I fear it would be quite difficult. I have never moved this body."
"Didn't you?" Toa Pohatu argues. "To come in here. From the throne."
Did he? The memory is faded, smudged. Yes, he must have walked to this room, just as his guard claims: he would remember the constricting feeling of machinery around him if the body had been moved. The image is still worn and blurred in his brain, as if waterlogged.
"Do you remember when that happened?" he asks.
"About... Thirty years ago, I think."
Ah... That explains much. The eyes wander down to the thin, limp arm: "I fear the muscles have since atrophied," he notes: "The body's weight might be too great to lift in any manner."
The Kakama tilts, a heavy foot taps once, twice: "Well," Toa Pohatu tries, "What about sliding?"
"Sliding?"
"Yes, just to the side. Horizontal movement could be a little easier."
It could.
Intrigued, he seeps into one of the hands and tries to will it to slide: it feels cumbersome, unpleasant, but it moves. Slow, but it moves. He notices that the Toa lights up.
He tries again, now focusing his efforts on the broader area of the entire arm. It's a lot harder, and he can feel the organic material strain and stretch until it's overflown with dully stinging needles, but it too moves. Only by an inch, but it moves. The other seems hopeful; it rubs off on him too, surprisingly.
The leg is too heavy, too weak when he shifts onto it: the knee warms uncomfortably as soon as he makes his attempt, not helped by a numbness that worsens his exhaustion at the merest hint of a motion, tearing a quiet, guttural sound from the throat. Broad hands lay on the limb immediately, settling back in its previous position and gently kneading the soft tissue to soothe it.
"That's not too bad," Toa Pohatu notes with a smile. "You can move."
He offers back a tired, small one of his own: "That I can. It is not quite walking, though."
"But it is moving."
"That it is."
"Maybe we can figure how to make it easier. Maybe... I could create some kind of contraption? To help with exercise? Or I can just move your limbs for you until you can on your own..."
I have no need for that. Please, do not bother yourself with this.
"Water," he says instead, "Might be a simpler solution."
A grimace flashes over the Kakama for a moment.
"It would sustain the body and lessen its weight," he explains. Toa Pohatu listens intently, but he can see discomfort course across tan protodermis. Stone sinks, after all: it is natural this would cause apprehension. But the body should float. "I would require assistance, still - but results could be reaped quicker."
He watches the Toa think it over, dark hands fidgeting. The proposal is not dismissed: "Gali could help with that. Maybe."
"I shall ask her at a later moment, then."
"Why not now?"
"There is no need for haste."
"She is usually down by the shore either way. I can carry you. I'll stick to walking so I don't jostle you too much. If she's there, we can try right now, and if she's not, you'll have a nice view of the beach."
He hesitates.
There is no need for this. For any of this. This body... This body has no use, no purpose. There is no need to take time out of their days to care for it beyond their guardianship.
There is no need to see the beach.
He breathes deeply, and blinks in a deliberate way that could be a nod.
Such graceless hands can be so gentle: they lift the body as if it were spun glass, curling heavy fingers around the side of a knee, of a shoulder, with a light grip that could put ivy to shame, and raise it to rest against a narrow chest with every care in the world. He can hear calm mechanisms chatter right against him, pulling him into their repetitive, melodious conversation as the arms are adjusted to cross over the lap so that they may not fall.
They walk all the way to the beach, as Toa Pohatu had promised, though the Mask of Speed of course shortens their journey even when they stop after every staircase to assess his comfort (which at times falters, but only briefly).
It is all protodermis, of course. A silvery sheen coats the shore, a deeper grey divides solid land from the sea - all metal, in grains or liquid as it may be, brightened by an artificial light pouring from an artificial sky. And yet it really does look like a beach, and it is a pleasant sight; he loses himself for a long moment into the ondulating movement of the waves, the dark halo left in their wave as they recede, the washed up color of a thousand bubbles as they foam forward at each crash. Weaving in and out of the silver mass, Toa Gali sticks out amongst the monochrome landscape like lightning in a pitch-black night.
It doesn't take long before they are noticed. The Toa of Water stops abruptly, eyes them, and replies to her brother's small wave, in a tone that is not at all professional: "What are you doing!!"
"Beach time," Toa Pohatu answers, also unprofessionally.
Her hook points to the fortress: "Put him back!!"
"It's ok, he's awake! You think I'd just throw him into the biggest body of water available for fun? Especially if he was unconscious?"
Toa Gali reacts in seven different ways across the span of two seconds: she stiffens, notices the glow of open eyes, grimaces first sheepish then peeved, raises both tools to the Kaukau as if to pierce through the visor and into her skull, groans in frustration, and begins to apologize: "Please - forgive us, my brother-"
"All is well," he reassures her. "Do not apologize. We wished to ask for your aid, if it was possible."
"Oh. ...With what?"
"It's for his muscles," the Toa of Stone explains: "They're weak right now, but being in the water should help strengthen them, so then he can move around on his own and won't get sores again."
It must have been a very frightening happenstance for them. Toa Gali's hooks link together apprehensively at its mention, and a million small movements confirm the deep unease creeping into every sinew with the memory of it.
Still, the plan must not seem sound enough if the Kaukau is so creased.
He tries to smile soothingly: "Water can sustain this body in place of its muscles. That way, movement will come easier."
Toa Gali hums. In the end, after thinking much in a very short time, the blue tools unclench with a few nods and blue armor begins to fade as it moves back towards a steeper slope upon submerged sands.
Her brother watches her dumbfounded, making a small gesture that seems to ask 'why didn't you take him from me?'; his sister swings an arm into the waves, clearly conveying 'because you're coming in too'. Based on the stern squint of yellow eyes and a more annoyed repeat of the forceful invitation, he assumes the Toa holding him must have made a rather harrowed face.
Nonetheless, heavy feet dare dip into the waves. They much move more clumsily, more uneasily than their lighter counterparts, always afraid to be pulled under. Yet his very brave Toa Pohatu soldiers through discomfort enough to reach his very proud sister, and gets commended with a partly mocking coo that elicits back a grumble.
They lay him in the water carefully - hands holding the head aloft, hooks catching the ankles. The body floats, as he had imagined; despite the manner in which the waves rock it, it feels remarkably similar to the robot's moments of idleness, when he allows inertia to drag it forth on the path decided by a brief boost. It feels familiar. It feels light. Hands and arms hurt less as they slide across the liquid mass.
They coax him into certain movements, like mellow kicks, the preludes to a swing. They rotate him upright, though he feels the sea mold around him so heavily that he could swear he could try sitting in it and it would be as solid as stone. He thanks Toa Gali under his breath, two words that pretend to go unheard to focus back on helping him maintain a mostly standing position before he is allowed to relax and float a little longer until he assures them he is ready to try again. He holds onto them as they keep him steady.
It's nice.
He has no need for this.
But it's nice.
The Kaukau points to shore: the hooks grow still. Orange eyes lift off him follows the line of sight reaching towards their back. He can't turn yet - his neck hurts.
"Oh," he hears Toa Pohatu say. "Trouble."
"I've got this," he hears Toa Gali say.
Curved tools lose their hold on him, and with a furrowed expression she dips away. Steady hands scoop him into their hold.
Toa Tahu stands.
Pink eyes burn holes into the air.
His sister reaches the Toa of Fire first, agile as she is in her own element while their brother of Stone slowly struggles through it: the two begin a an argumentative dance, pacing themselves on hisses and sharp affirmations, circling one another without coming to blows but with a tension aching to crackle out of them that instead remains caged, only lashing out in flickers. Every time Toa Tahu begins to face the sea again, Toa Gali pivots their confrontation away from it, digs more steps deeper into dry land, maintains the attention away from the being slowly clambering to shore.
As soon as the water no longer suffocates brown feet in its swarming hold, the Kakama glows.
"Wait," he says weakly.
Toa Pohatu stops right before the fortress entrance.
"Please," he asks. "Let me stay here a little longer."
The other hesitates, fingers drumming: "My brother won't like that."
"I will speak to him. You and your sister have done only good to me. He will understand. Please, I would like to stay just a little longer."
Would it be allowed?
Swift steps carry him on the other side of the island. He is sat on the sand, close enough that the waves can creep upon distended legs without reaching his guard; he watches their motion, feels their gentle touch upon the body, the air that brushes it when they leave.
They sit for a long time before Toa Tahu finds them. No words leave the Hau when he turns to meet its fuchsia gaze: in fact it stills in place like cooling magma.
Without a word, he blinks in a way that could be a beckon.
The Toa approaches.
-
"Toa Kopaka."
His guard does not flinch. Freeze, maybe; but not flinch.
The Akaku turns towards him.
"What vexes you?"
Toa Kopaka allows a glare to furrow white features for a second. Poor thing, so secretive, and here he is reading through walls of snow like that; really, he needs to learn to feign ignorance.
The Toa takes a moment of silence before responding: "A message."
"What might it be about?"
"Pridak."
Barraki, then. "What of him?"
A soft creak betrays ice hardening upon the sword: "... He is getting comfortable claiming things he has no business claiming."
"I see. Would you have a copy of this message?"
It's very awkward to hold thing when one has no hands, let alone tools that do not lend themselves to actions of the sort. Nevertheless, being as resourceful as his sister, Toa Kopaka has learned to work around this unpleasant limitation.
The piece of scroll is passed into the body's hand for him to read. Raising the arm takes so much less effort than it did changes ago, he notes before focusing on the message.
"Hm."
"Exactly." Toa Kopaka hisses.
He thinks, and thinks, and thinks.
"I believe it would be good to summon him," he muses.
The Toa stares in disbelief: "Why would you? Let him dig his own pit."
"I am curious to ask about his words, and even more so to see if he would stand by them in the presence of an authority perceived as higher than his own. Besides, it would at last put the throne to use. The six of you would make quite the impression at its side."
"He would only disrespect you. He judges worthiness by appearance, and you seem weak: that will be enough for him to treat you with nothing but contempt."
"Then," he replies, holding his hand aloft so that his guard knows to approach and lend him support as he stands, "If he indeed matches your judgement, I shall find myself forced to ask that you treat him to an exit as dignified as he is courteous."
It happens only for the briefest of moments, so quick and lightning-fast that none could ever swear with utmost certainty that that which broke upon the stalwart mask of Toa Kopaka was a mischievous grin.
But he sees; and he smiles back.
-
A horrible sound leaves the mouth before he is even conscious enough to move it.
Pressure flies to the arm, on the sides, on the head, cool and warm against protodermis; words try to coax him into an explanation but he can't hope to choose a single syllable in his overwhelmed state, and so all he can do is pull everything into a swirl, a tight coil, anything that can compress the feeling enough to suffocate it.
A part of the body aches.
How it aches.
If he were lucid he would be puzzled. There is nothing to ache like that in this body: it is mostly empty, filled only with the bare necessities, no superfluous organs or glands or muscles - it would be utterly pointless to provide it with any more than what it already has, considering how little he uses any of it.
But this feeling - this pain, pain he's only felt anything close to one terrifying time before, worse than the strain of moving, worse than the struggle to make a massive body function, worse than any emotion he has ever experienced - it is so great, so immensely great, and he cannot bear it, he cannot stand it, cannot stand to be so small and powerless and endangered, trapped in a faulty machine that tears his mind apart.
He doesn't answer the calls, the worries, the bodies ghosting over his phantom ache as they search for its source with harrowed concern.
He fades all at once back into the cold vacuum, into the relief of a body untouchable.
-
He holds his breath.
He should not hold his breath when awakening.
But even after what feels like two eternities he still cannot forget the pain, all-consuming, sharp toothed and cruel; and when the lungs insist they need to fill he allows it only through shallow breaths, short, frail, hoping to delay his own consciousness until his mind simply gives up and fades back into the frigid emptiness, into the body unburdened and infallible, too great to suffer such horrible things.
He has tried before. He has made attempts to awaken, and found the pain flaring like wildfire, and faded as quickly as he could before it could seep too deep into his fearful mind.
So he keeps his consciousness faint, ready to jolt away, ready to escape the anguish.
He keeps it faint, keeps it faint... Faint...
He feels the lids above the eyes.
He feels the sternum rise, and lower; the fingers, down to their tips; the skittering sensation of legs left too long soft and unused.
He feels weak.
The ceiling looks foggy before his sight properly finds its focus.
Where are his Toa?
He forces the limbs to sustain him enough to sit.
His vision blurs into static as he pushes the body up: it stumbles immediately, knees too weak after who knows how long since they last moved threatening to buckle, but he grasps the bed and pushes, meets the wall and pushes, careens forward but finds the chair and holds onto it as he heaves. It feels like he's carved through a mountain. Even just staying still, doing nothing, makes every muscle in this frame tremble and the spine snap under its own weight.
The grey noise melts bit by bit. He leans on the wall, reaches the door. Somehow he manages to not fall when he opens it.
The corridor. He just has to walk down it. He just needs to walk.
It hurts.
It hurts.
He's so tired.
He just needs to walk.
He just needs to walk down the corridor.
As light as if he were in the water.
He just needs to walk.
He's so tired.
He just needs to walk.
To walk.
To walk.
To walk.
To
The weight shifts and he stops and he breathes, and something holds him aloft and holds his sides and holds him with what feel like claws gentler than anything in the world, and he turns and a Pakari speaks to him but he can hardly hear it.
Onua sits him on the floor before he can take another step; he grips the grey arm tight like the fate of Spherus Magna depends on it.
His Toa is here.
Oh, goodness, his Toa is here.
He leans weakly against a black shoulder, feeling the thrum of worried cogs. Onua keeps a steady hold on him.
His Toa answers him though he can barely realize he has asked a question: they didn't know what to do, didn't know how to fix it - they were made to protect, but how can they protect against something they cannot see, cannot understand? There is a talk of maps, of comparing them to the body, of comparing them to messages - the messages, the messages, of course... And to think, it had seemed of such little use to him for so long! A room dedicated to keeping watch on the inner world's history and calamities! What good would that have been, when his purpose was beyond it and their purpose was him? What good, when the knowledge could not...
Like them, he understands only now the purpose of the body.
How cruel. How efficient.
But the ache has passed.
The ache has passed, and his Toa are here.
Where are they?
Onua helps him to his feet, sustains him as he tries to walk faster than he can, as fast as he almost could before he left this body to atrophy again. They pass through the halls and corridors in the haze of a nightmare that curves into the jagged bends of the number five, path threaded crumbling behind them to worsen into four, three, two, one - rebuilt slowly by voices faint and distant that he struggles to tell apart, that blend into silent colors when his hand grasps the frame of a door.
Their eyes are marvelous, stars against a white universe, blinking within nebulae his dizziness can't help but blur. They stare at him, at their brother who holds him. Fuchsia spotlights waver.
"Was it you?" he asks hoarsely.
Tahu does not breathe.
He goes to grab the red shape, lurches forward stuntedly to force it into the clear image of a Hau he can see: "Was it you?"
Voices overlap halfway between reaching him and avoiding him, explaining or trying to as best they can; he can barely understand them, the world is fading, if he could just... Just... If he could - and the warmth stilled by horror is under his palms and he can feel, he can feel through this body like it's his, like it's his, and he can look into the glowing eyes, he can see his Toa, he can feel the warmth under his meager grip.
"I'm sorry," Tahu whispers.
He sounds so small.
"I'm sorry," Tahu whispers, "I'm sorry, I couldn't - if we left you - if we left you like that - I couldn't just-"
"The ache has passed."
His hands shake on red shoulders.
"The ache has passed," he repeats, and holds the Hau in his trembling grip. "It has passed. Was it you?"
Pink stars stare. He can hear both their lungs strain as they breathe.
A nod.
He collapses.
"My Toa," he caws, delirious with relief as arms wrap around him, as he tries to reply to their embrace, "My Toa, my Toa, my Toa..."
They hold him, all six of them, they steady him with their injured brother who so stubbornly insisted no aid was needed, they try to lay him down on his side and ask him to breathe, cool him, soothe him, attempt to carefully dislodge him from the breathless spiral he revolves within: at last their grasp strengthens enough, and with a pull so firm and gentle he find himself sitting, heaving ragged deep breaths, surrounded by bodies grounding him as best as they can.
He blinks.
He blinks.
His shaking hand is held. His back is sustained.
Goodness how it all strains.
Goodness.
His eyes meet the masks.
"My Toa," he breathes, filling every world that may exist with the words. They curl around him. "My Toa."
-
"If there's a Makuta in the foyer again I'm burning down an island."
"Perhaps," he mumbles, voice still pasty from the recent change, raising his hand to be held in a chivalrous grip, "You would like to experience the humble beetle's pious life firsthand."
Tahu grasps it: "Jokes on you, I love the terrarium."
"I know."
His Toa pulls. His vision flutters away, and he almost stumbles: arms reach to hold him upright quickly, fingers tightening slightly around his. His elbow rests against warm protodermis as he reaches for his head.
"All is well," he soothes. A blink: there he goes. "Just stood too quickly."
"Are you sure?"
He treats his guard to a warm smile: "Yes. Thank you."
Despite the threat made, the Toa of Fire walks with him all the way from the greenhouse to the foyer and does not immediately combust the fortress into a melting heap the second the massive creature comes into view.
Pohatu notices them, interrupting a question with a shout their way: "Did you know the big lizards and the antidote apes became friends?"
"How nice," he replies.
The Makuta, though displeased by a lack of specific terminology, bows towards him.
Red eyes follow his Toa as they are dismissed, waiting until they are again out of sight before daring to voice the thoughts rumbling beneath the Mask of Mutation: "You are quite lenient with them, Great Spirit."
"I am."
"I fear for the impact of such behavior on their discipline. The Po-Toa, for example: he came to me as soon as I landed, on his own, as though he had nothing else to do. He remained by my side as I waited, asking about my duty, utterly distracted from his own."
"He was not."
"How so?"
"I have asked Pohatu to welcome esteemed guests, if it would please him. He is very personable, is he not?"
"I assume he is, yes."
"And was your wait dull?"
"No, it wasn't."
"Then please, thank him for a duty well carried."
The Makuta hushes.
After a flustered moment, a rebuke: "I cannot believe your Le-Toa is following any duty that would involve being flown from a spire attached to a wire."
"You would be right not to. He is at ease."
"When shall this 'ease' end, if I may?"
"We will see."
"And should you be in danger?"
"You will find that Lewa often does what he wishes; and if I were to call for his help, in danger or not, unless he was indisposed, he would wish to come to me."
"How can you be sure?"
A breeze sweeps the hall, carrying along with all sorts of things - leaves, dew, sand, a green body floating up the ceiling and down again, mask glowing to slow its descent.
"Yes?" grins the Miru.
"Thank you," he nods back. He raises a palm for Lewa's foot to bounce off of. "At ease."
"Alright!" and off the Toa goes, out a window again with a laugh.
His guest watches.
A resigned sigh leaves the gargantuan frame.
He offers the frightening being a hand; with no other retorts on the trustworthiness of his Toa to be had, sharp claws welcome his fingers carefully, and Makuta Miserix walks slowly beside him as they move towards the throne room.
KOSA UPDATE 7/10/26: THE SENATE RETURNS FROM BREAK SOON
I got this email from Fight For the Future and it is really helpful in communicating where we currently are in the fight against the KIDS Act and KOSA.
We should be using this time during the Senate's break to be calling, spreading the word, and doing everything we can to push back against these harmful bills. The return from break around July 15th, which is when Cruz said he wanted to consider the bills. So please, call while you can.
A tentative date came out this evening from Ben Brody with Punchbowl News. The Senate is eyeing July 29th as a possible markup date, but nothing is confirmed yet. Please! Call your Senators and Committee members.
Hello, I am a trans woman who got laid off, has run out of unemployment assistance, and hasn't been able to find a new job yet despite hundreds of applications. If you can afford to help me stay housed and make ends meet for another month, please send something my way.
This is the story of Mira, a dying kitten I rescued. I have started a GoFundMe to help pay for her medical bills as I am in a rough place financially. Her full story is posted on the GoFundMe.
Any support is appreciated, either through donations or shares 💖
Thank you for taking the time to read my little comic~ have a lovely day! ✨
Mira is a 14-week-old kitten who was rescued from a life of starvation and ce… Elizabeth DeLong needs your support for Help Mira the Kitten
Today in australia they started senate hearings on the bill the government hopes will make enough disabled people die or disappear to make us all less irritatingly expensive for them. We had two weeks to submit feedback on over 400 pages of complicated legal terms. They don't care what we have to say and they don’t care that this will kill people and disenfranchise disabled people across the country.
There are 760,000 Australians on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the system that - if they feel like it and your personalised plan says you get to have it - provides funding for everything from personal hygiene care to support workers to therapies to assistive technology. It's already very hard for disabled people to get on the NDIS, regardless of your disability. It's near impossible to access most support and equipment without being on the NDIS. And the government has announced that they want that number to drop to 600,000 in four years. 160,000 of us cut off the Scheme - and countless more denied access. This will cause deaths. People will die and people will suffer because there is no safety net. The NDIS is the only option for most of us. Even private health insurance doesn't cover most of these things. Nobody will swoop in to save us.
The bill wants to give the (non disabled!) NDIS minister basically unlimited power to cut our funding. They're already planning what they'd do with that power. What rights they'll strip from us. What dignity and freedom they'll remove to make their budget look better.
The bill wants to force people to try every treatment out there before they're allowed to be on the NDIS. Including if the treatment is literally impossible to access. There’s a lot of us living in regional areas or out bush who can't just pop to the capital cities for specialists. This will especially hurt disabled First Nations people in regional and remote communities, who already experience limited access to healthcare. Oh, and it includes chemical restraint, too. The government has directly refused to exclude chemical restraint from the required process, calling it "trialling medication".
If you're australian and worried, the ABC did a good breakdown of the proposed changes.
I know australia stuff doesn't really pop up on the radar on this site, but I want everyone to know what's going on. What we're fighting for here. Your australian disabled friends might be NDIS participants fearing for their life, rights, and freedom. They might not be a participant and afraid these changes mean they never will have access. We deserve better. The government built a system with no backup plan, and now they want hundreds of thousands of disabled people to pay the price for their bad planning.
Sorry we're too expensive to have rights, I guess.
oh hey these again. cant shut up abt them so check down there for all the stuff the tags couldnt fit
1: Atakus and Perditus whom I could not figure out how to dress so screw it, tapyri pussy attack. i had to draw an entirely new base bc when i tried coloring over the human versions Perditus's head was too tall and looked weird. figuring out how to do Atakus's wool was a special hell, but i think the end result is pretty good
2 & 3: both came to me as vivid visions after reading @whiteheartlight 's posts here and here. the first made me realize a funny thing abt the ships ive seen more commonly w kongu (and also the one that crawled directly out of my forehead like athena) and the second was just so powerfully evocative. his ragebaiting hounds. also its the first time i tried to give shape to what i like to call Miserable Wet Goth Hewkii Hair
4: this was spawned by @leiposting and Shadow Stealer's VA Waddlez3121 discovering that Shadow Stealer is short as hell and acting out a lil thing abt that. i love that lil smug treyla, i think thats the best lil face ive ever drawn :3
5: meant to be done for june but i only completed it now. THIS is a more definitive version of the Miserable Wet Goth Hewkii Hair that better complies with the hair texture i actually gave him; the yuri is helryx and johmak bc i like the sort of professional almost distant thing i gave them in a fic for bioshippingweek once; hakann n thok based on @lee-the-yeen 's designs and post; and last but not least romance-repulsed Gresh my beloved. he poofy :)
6 & 7: Mabara Bitri (full-body and headshot) and Usine, my frightening mysterious women!!!! i tried to sketch em out as soon as i finished that story i think, but im allergic to posting things on their own so they had to wait until i had more stuff. that lil doodle of Birì's features was also an attempt to show what jumps directly to the eyes of ppl who see her for the first time. the full-body was supposed to be similar to a carving but i think that got lost - i tried to do her burnt arm too, tho in the end decided to go for the sleeve and glove instead
8: another one i had in mind since forever - specifically since hearing the line "as important and loved as any of the sons of Makuta... or - well, maybe I'd tell myself that" in Akhmou's Lament and going Wow Just Like In My Pohatu's Psychological Torture AU! they would be great friends i think. just two horrendously poor self-esteemed stone lads who long to be evil worms cradled in their definitely certainly very trustworthy employer's claws
