#jacksy writes things

[jacksycrim]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Top of the World - A short and sweet, fluffy Jacksiai fic.

Finally posting on AO3 again, and finally writing this Jacksiai stuff I said I'd write forever ago. I need to write stuff of them more often. Anyways go read it I love my funky little gay people

[jacksycrim]

WOAH AU STUFF

so hollow knight music inspired an au out of me the other day. so I decided to write the exposition. here it is, because tumblr actually lets me post the whole thing!

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The cold air swept across their face as they opened their mouth to speak. The wind swept the voice away from their lips and left them unable to speak their thoughts. It didn’t matter, though, since they didn’t need to speak. Nobody needed them to.

How long has it been now? And how long would it still be? They did not know, and perhaps, they wouldn’t ever know.

Plague. 

That’s what they feared.

A writhing, blackening plague that tore through fields and rotted life it touched. Spreading, growing, contaminating, razing villages and crushing kingdoms, killing without mercy or emotion. It was The Blackness, and it would not stop until the world was its own.

They had to keep running. They couldn’t settle more than a month or two before it had caught up to them. They were the harbingers of destruction, heralds of death, captains of fate. Yet, everyone they met would still welcome them with open arms. It was hard to not take a Sankta in, much less a pair, as they were such tender, holy entities.

Yet here one sat, sharpening a sword in the flickering light of a fire, scarred and worn by the months of running. Her wings sagged from exhaustion, her bones ached from battle, and the sword she carried stained with blood. Across from her, another Sankta, quivering in the cold, meek, thin and frail, yet just as battle-worn as their guardian before them.

Jacksy was special, so their guardian said. They were a ‘catalyst’, or a ‘vessel’, said the wise folk of the last three towns, now razed and rotten by The Blackness. Jacksy did not know what this meant, but their dearest Exusiai, the one who had sworn her life to keep them safe, understood.

It was a quiet evening. Fires flickered and rose above the snow as people shuffled between homes for their good-nights and evening news. A messenger was just now mounting horseback and riding off down the eastern road to hear of reports of the speaking plague. Exhausted militiamen and hunters doused their lanterns as they retreated into the mild warmth of their homes for the night. And there sat Jacksy and Exusiai, two battleworn Sanktas, barely managing to keep their thoughts steadily afloat.

They had lost too much. Seen too much. Ran too much. Fought too much. And yet, they would never find rest. Not now, not in this world, that hated them, hunted them, sought them so much.

“El…” Jacksy finally muttered. “How long do we have…?”

The Sankta turned her attention from the blade of her sword to Jacksy, and sighed beneath a sorrowful glare into the decaying embers of the dying blaze before her.

“I don’t know,” she said, carrying the weight of a thousand men’s sadness in her tone. “The messenger is on watch tonight. I’ll stay up, wait for his return, and make the call,”

“No. I’ll stay up,” Jacksy offered, trying to sound tough.

“We’ve discussed this, Jacksy!” Exusiai groaned aloud. “I know you want to stand up for yourself and try to do things yourself, but… Please. Just let me handle things, okay…?”

Jacksy fell quiet.

“You’re too dear to me, Jacksy. You’re too dear to this world,” Exusiai continued. “Think of what Thalasso would say if she knew that you got hurt?”

“Thalasso is dead,” Jacksy reminded.

“But what if she wasn’t? She’d never let you out of her sight if you got hurt,”

“But she can’t keep me in her sight. She died to save us,”

“And I’ll be damned if her sacrifice was for nothing!”

Jacksy sheepishly reclined into the support of their wings. Exusiai relaxed from her stiffened stance and sighed, throwing a rock to the side and stomping her blade into the snow.

“I’m sorry, Jacksy, but I’m too on edge,” Exusiai apologized. “Please don’t wander off again. I’m only going to the cliffsides for a moment,”

Jacksy let out a sigh into the frigid air, then turned away as Exusiai stretched her wings and launched her weight into the sky. Jacksy was left alone, in the dying light of a dying fire, in the dying town, of a dying world.

~ . . . ~

By lantern light he traveled, pushing through the dusty passages of the underground to reach his destination. The passages of the fortress stretched across the plains and dug into mountains, and connected every fortress in mild warmth to assist those who needed to carry messages. 

The air was unusually cold, the silence giving way to the heightened clacking of hoof-on-stone emanating from beneath him. Soothing his horse, he sniffled through the cold breeze with a lantern held high.

Eventually reaching the gate, the messenger dismounted and tied the reins of his steed to a nearby post. Providing comfort with another swipe of the hand, he pushed open the frigid gate to the fortress. This time, however, he was not greeted by the engineer who sat by the stables. Nor did he hear the music of the bards on the battlements, or the bustling of a trade in the far corners.

Instead, he heard nothing.

Thinking that, perhaps he was simply too early to be greeted, he carried on with eyes affixed forward.

Yet, in the deepest corners of his heart, he could feel the sneaking suspicion that something was wrong. He had left at the same time as before, taking the same route, and the same number of stops for the same length. His horse had not reacted strangely, and he had not found it difficult to traverse the path across.

Curiously, and yet, also rather nervously, the messenger carried up the old steps and set his lantern down by the door. Using his strength, and a firm kick to the lower hinge, he stumbled forward past the softening, sagging door, and looked across the outpost that he had meant to visit.

And in that instant, his suspicions had turned to terror.

There was nothing left, except for rotting flesh, decaying walls, and an impenetrable consuming blackness.

[jacksycrim]

WOAH PROMO

happy trans awareness week!! I'm jacksy, a trans-nonbinary artist + writer!! I draw and write about OCs and a bunch of original worlds/concepts of mine!! come say hi!! I probably won't bite I'm also way too obsessed with the ocean and marine biology and will talk your ears off about cool fish all day come look at some of my stuff!!