Summary: They say that when the reapers come, you gamble with your soul. (OR: Celadon West’s destiny contingency plan.)
Notes: Rly short 700-word scrap. I blame @gunfawkes
He considers merely running away-- a piece of advice given to him, once, on a rooftop not terribly long ago. It is destiny, yes, but merely fate-- and it is his signature which binds Garnet to her eastern domain now, and not his death. He could run, he thinks, with the intent of coming back to fulfill that promise much, much further down the line, for as long as it is promised at all the spell shall certainly hold.
He could run away-- but he won’t.
(West does not trust himself enough to believe he’ll return.)
His spell-circles there within the dungeons and catacombs of Castle Vinkus are prepared in advance, scribed carefully on the floor in a place where neither foot nor dirt nor water shall touch them, no, leastways not until West’s own liquefied flesh spills onto them from the grating above.
The intricate scrapings of chalk and sulfur and desperate hope take him weeks to weave; a delicate network of what-ifs and interplanar dependencies, and a single mote of a trigger that hinges on the brazen guess that his soul will linger, if but a millisecond, after he is dead.
(He will be dead when storytime comes, if only for a moment-- this, his mother has told him since he was a child.)
(It does not make the fear within him lessen.)
To the passerby’s eye, West’s saving grace looks like the scribbles of a madman; a treatsie in the tongue of insanity itself. It’s not a false assumption, not when the eldritch beasts who take on no form speak in West’s abyssal runes, when he evokes the expanse of the universe itself with his cry for help.
He evokes Newton, Aristotle, L.Frank Baum himself as he fills the water-bucket-- like loading a bullet he knows shall find his heart. He prays for clearer skies.
He reads the textbooks and he knows: Celestinium is the element of the stars’ own light, pure and carefully filtered through time itself and, yes, Deep Space. Sulfur begs for it, here on Earth, as West himself so dearly begs for life, and it is the quickest way he can call himself back to his own skin. A cloudy day could be the end of him.
It’s predicted, over-prepared, everything from the pull of gravity on his liquefied mass to his own splash radius, the time it takes for him to hit his spell-circle a puddle. Not a drop of him falls outside the carefully-drawn circumference; not a moment too late does his lingering soul begin to pull the dimensions towards him, recombining his very molecular structure until he is solid once more. By all means, the spell should be a success.
But as he unites body and soul once more, there is a chilling hand hovering over his shoulder; the presence of a creature which is surely more reaper than man.
(And West is not a fool, he thinks, he should have forseen this, too.)
“Leave,” says that agent of death, his voice gruff and low. “You were not meant to take this form again-- you were not meant to live on.”
It’s remarkably irritating to West, the idea that his work could be for naught. Something like ire rises within him, then, something that reminds him of a Legacy Day when the hope to rebel still had not gone.
“I do a lot of things I’m not exactly meant to,” West remarks dryly. “I’ve no fear of these rules.”
“Rules are rules,” the reaper scowls. “But orders are orders. My job is to bring you in.”
“So you say,” West scowls, an idea churning within his mind. “But even the agents of death are bound by fairytale as deeply as I.”
“And what legacy do you think mine?” The reaper scoffs.
“Anything I guess specifically would be a baseless hypothesis, now,” West shakes his head. “I’m referring to the tales-- how one may always challenge death to a game over their soul.”
“Ah,” the reaper snorts derisively. “You’re one of those people.”
“If the stories are true-- if fairytale binds you as deeply as it bound me,” West clarifies. “I would like to partake in this challenge.”
“Fine,” replies the reaper, seeming to sigh and settle in. “Choose your game. You want chess? Checkers? Tiddlywinks? I’ve got all of them.”
“No, it’s all right,” he replies modestly, “I brought my own game set.”
And West pulls from his cloak the very last game anyone wants to play with a physicist:
Notes: Hey, @bugsofjade... thank you for your TA OC, Ghani Khamis. Sorry again for the impromptu fic ^^;;
It's early Tuesday afternoon when TA Khamis has complete control of the General Villainy room: with Badwolf away on his extended lunch, none of the other teachers particularly care that the classroom is devoid of authority save a TA only a handful of years older than the students he instructs.
(The villain kids are used to it, not being cared about.)
He teaches them the history that's on the itinerary-- perhaps losing himself a bit as he discusses, for a moment, fairytale deviations and circumstances where the truth was exaggerated. There was no Raven Queen back when he was in high school; nobody to tell him that scripts were not the immovable, immaculate marble Headmaster Grimm would have you believe they were. No, fairytales come far more stained than stone-- they are only ink on paper, and hardcover, yes, but foldable and bendable and changeable.
TA Khamis stops and reminds his students not to deface the books in the library. You know. Just in case someone takes his metaphor a little too literally.
At the end of class, he collects the papers that were due, the homework that had been assigned the Thursday prior, each student passing in their essays. It's Badwolf's assignment, three-to-five pages on the student's fairytale legacy-- how previous villains fulfilled it, all the to-dos and not-to-dos of following your destiny, what mistakes your forbearers made that should never again be repeated.
(Khamis disagrees with the assignment-- reading sixteen essays about sticking more closely to the script has never seemed less appealing.)
"Feel free to leave after your papers are turned in," he says, for even villains deserve the afternoon sun-- "And see you next Tuesday."
The papers pile up quickly, few students willing to linger when there are better places to go. He sorts the essays carefully into his "To-Grade" folder, students dismissing themselves one by one until he reaches the end of the line.
It's West, as usual, West-comma-Celadon at the end of the line-- and just like every week, he slides two papers over Khamis' desk.
"I, uh," he mumbles. "Cupid's out today. He asked me to turn this in for him."
(It's a lie, of course it is. West tells it every week.)
"I see," Khamis' lips press together, thinning.
He knows Badwolf'll give Cupid-comma-Romeo-V extra credit for this flagrant disrespect of should-be authority, double extra credit for cheating. Perhaps a bit vindictively, Khamis marks him as having been in class today. It's all he can do to lessen Badwolf's glee.
"This one is his," replies West, sliding over a carefully printed paper. It's four and a half pages of well-sourced fairytale history, detailed descriptions of previous hitches and successes for that fairytale. Exactly what Badwolf wants.
(There's no chance the real Cupid wrote it.)
"And yours?" Khamis asks, and he cannot help the concern that ebbs into his voice.
West is silent for a moment. He hands over a much slimmer packet-- two pages only, by far less than the required minimum three.
Khamis' brow furrows in a frown. "Are you sure you wish to turn this in? I can give you another three hours, you know... office hours close at five-thirty today."
"No," West shakes his head. "I'm certain."
Khamis takes a deep breath in. "You know, you can tell me if there's something that's been getting in the way of completing your own homework. A... heavy workload from other sources, perhaps?"
"... it's fine," West mutters, "I wrote down everything I needed to write."
Khamis has his reservations about it, but in that moment, his student flees and he can question him no further. Hesitantly, more hesitantly yet, he peeks inside that page although it is his practice to grade alphabetically. He needs to know.
Besides the cover page, there is only one sentence in his essay: I will not make my forbearers' mistake of repeating our legacy at all.
A record of the total BS that goes down with these guys because honestly
Turnus: [describing elf npc in detail]
Bryant: “You don’t need to go into that much description about his floating ethereal hair, you know. You could’ve just showed us a picture of Orlando Bloom.”
West: “Ok but does he join our party”
Turnus: “Okay so the bartender delivers your grog as you await your client–”
West: “I roll for initiative”
Bryant: “What”
Turnus: “What”
West: “I said, I roll for initiative. The client being late is never a good sign.”
Turnus: “West that is metagaming”
West: “No, I’m pretty sure that’s my monk’s WIS score.”
Turnus: “Okay, so after you beat the dire wolves off your client, he introduces himself as Lasgalen, an elven druid of–”
Bryant: “As much as I’m enjoying this campaign, are all of our clients going to be hot elves?”
Turnus: “…”
Turnus: “I plead the fifth”
West: “… my player character is a half-orc. If I’d known there were going to be this many elves in the campaign I would have at least put some points into the language.”
Turnus: “You also take a penalty to diplomacy with them thanks to historical tensions between the two clans”
West: “… gee. Thanks.”
(He’s privately a little amused by Turnus’ dedication to the elf/orc conflict in lore… But he does, begrudgingly, put some effort into obtaining the ability to speak Elvish)
West: “Okay, I drop Celestial in favor of Elvish. I just have to adjust my character’s backstory a little, and…”
Turnus: “Wait, there’s an elf in your backstory now!?”
West: [sigh] “Yeah, sure, the backstory character can be an elf I guess.”
Bryant: “So… are we talking Legolas or Elrond or”
West: “Uh. Kind of more like… Thranduil, actually. But less blond, maybe??”
Bryant: “So. Can West’s hot backstory elf–”
West: “I never said he was attractive”
Bryant: “As long as Turnus is DM, I’m pretty sure all the elves in this campaign are hot.”
Turnus: “Ok that’s fair”
Bryant: “Anyways, do we get some sweet loot if we meet up with him or what”
Turnus: “Ok so at the paladin’s insistence, you ask after West’s hot backstory elf at their emcampment in the Feywilds”
Bryant: “Since we’ve established that we’re acquainted with an elf from their locale, they should be pretty willing to help us, yeah?”
West: “…”
West: “…”
West: [sigh] “I roll for initiative.”
Bryant: “So you’re not arguing over the hot part anymore?”
West: “Really? That’s the part you pick up on!?”
> Backstory originally contained a “fallen aasimaar” character shunned by his community for going full Chaotic Evil
> Reworked story makes him a CE pariah of the elf community and namedropping him is a Bad Idea
> West’s monk knows the guy because he has a lifelong grudge against Hot Backstory Elf for slaying his parents
Bryant: “Ok but if we beat him, you get bonus roleplaying XP right”
West: “…”
(Turnus lowkey rly excited about hot and evil backstory elf. What a plot twist!)
(Likely manages to tie it in so hot evil backstory elf is working for the canpaign’s Big Bad, and when they hit the showdown where they meet the guy)
West: “I roll initiative.”
Turnus: “You’re not going to go off on an RP speech about finally defeating the guy who killed your monk’s parents? You can, you know.”
West: “… I think my monk would prefer to let his fists speak on his behalf. Any extra dialogue would be unnecessary for him at this point.”
Bryant: “Ok so using my paladin’s Detect Evil ability, how strong of a hot evil background elf are we facing here?”
Turnus: “He’s a warlock, but he’s channeling a significant portion of his patron’s power right now. You believe that this degree of pure evil might be the most powerful you’ve ever seen… second only to the Drow High Priestess of Lolth herself.”
Bryant: “… okay. I am going to use my Heroic Advantage for this next roll.”
West: “Shouldn’t you save that for something better than initiative?”
Bryant: “I’m not rolling initiative. I’m rolling Persuasion.”
:00 !!!!
West: “… how do the chances of success look?”
Turnus: “Uh. He seems pretty mad. You kind of barged in on evil army plans, and stuff. It’s going to be a tough roll.”
Bryant: “That’s all right. If I roleplay well, I can get additional advantage, correct?”
Turnus: “Ah, yeah, that’s how house rules work with roleplaying scenes, right. You can.”
West: “What, exactly, are you trying to persuade the guy to do?”
Bryant: “I roll to persuade the hot evil background elf that he’d really rather date my monk friend than kill us.”
Bryant: [cracks knuckles] “I consider myself… an excellent wingman.”
(He nat 20s it– a critical success)
By this point in time Turnus has just made up his mind to roll with it, all blabbing in Sindarin-with-English-subtitles, “Oh, you know, you really think I’m his type?”
And Bryant, wheezing with laughter, all, “I think you guys met in passing once, several years ago, and it really was a missed connection!”
And then– in this perfect LOTR actor Sindarin: “Yeah, I’d hit that”
And West pauses for a moment, stone cold silent. For a bit, Turnus and Bryant are concerned they’ve actually upset him
And then he says: “Yeah, ok, my monk is down with that. Nothing spices up a relationship like an undying thirst for revenge.”
So that’s how they ended up subverting like half of the hot evil background elf’s army of destruction because Bryant nat 20’d a roll to wingman
