#rmiti

[erebugs]

A comic based on the series Remember me in the Intervals by @inkedinserendipity

The jester chapter was adorable and i had the most vivid image while reading it i had to draw something :D

[serinkdipity]

oh fuck me, i forgot about frumpkin.

also, take this beginning of the second epilogue:

--

Their group returns to Xhorhas. They use moorbounders, and Nott rides behind Jester, in front of Beau, sandwiched between two women who don’t let go of her once as they travel, still protective, still frightened –

(And how strange is it, that they haven’t died once, yet? How strange is it that Beau would be so hard to hit from the falcon-wraps on her forearms, that Caduceus would be so versed in the dangers they were to face, that Fjord would be so strong in healing, that Jester would smile so bright already, that Molly’s charm glowed with warmth whenever he took too much damage? How strange, how peculiar; and yet not, when Nott thinks about it, strange at all.)

-- and between all that she thinks, too, about moorbounders, and how long it should have been since their group has travelled by foot, unused to the strange spinning world of a teleportation spell, unused to the odd convenience of going anywhere in the world in an instant.

Three days of this type of travel find them back in Rosohna, reporting to the Queen. Nott already knows what Beau will say: that they’ve found one of the God-killing artifacts, that Yasha wears the bracer around her forearm, but her gaze catches and lingers on one member of the Court in particular, one who has never stuck out to her before in this timeline but whom she knows, now, as invaluable.

--

She still doesn’t really understand how he walks. Once, a long time ago, she and Jester and Beau had spilled marbles across their foyer in a clumsy attempt to find out for themselves. She almost smiles at the recollection.

Sneaking up on him is easy enough. He is a prodigy, yes, but she is the best rogue to have ever lived, comfortable in her body and her own ability. And besides. She knows him far, far better than he knows her.

“Shadowhand,” she says, as he ducks out of a shop stocked with fine papers and inks (one that she and Caleb used to frequent, one of many stops on their meandering walks around Rosohna, before the Crawling King and Ikithon and the beacons and before they started dying, one-by-one). She pushes down nostalgia as he startles and hides it, just as quickly.

She pushes back her hood. “Veth,” she says.

“Veth Brenatto,” he says, smoothly. “I know who you are.”

“I know,” she says. “I have a favor to ask.”

He deals in favors. Toward the beginning of a relationship, at least. “What is it?”

“For the peace we have wrought between our countries,” she says, because she knows that was his objective, too, the first thing that aligned him and the Nein, back in a timeline that is no longer. “I’d like to borrow one of your beacons.”

They’re called many things, here, these objects of nigh-unstateable importance; Light-Bringers, the Eyes of the Luxon, the Mirrors of Possibility. They can, Nott knows, from a lifetime long-gone – because here, they had not looked into the beacon before they turned it over, not a single one, so of course they did not know what it would show – these Mirrors can show what might have been.

They can show what once was, and what will never be.

[serinkdipity]

It is not even the fact that Master Ikithon is holding a body that stops Eodwulf in his tracks. That is normal.

(He thinks - he thinks - has he even been thinking before this? Has he even really seen, until this moment? Oh gods, Astrid, Astrid, did he do the same to her?

How much of their lives are truly their own?)

It is normal, right up until Eodwulf’s eyes - which lag slightly, hopping from space to space within his own personal quarters (that Master Ikithon has entered, without permission, when did that become normal, why is that not strange, it was strange when they were children, the only ones who could enter his bedroom as a child were Astrid and Bren and now - )

Now his gaze catches on a stretch of hair like flame, and he thinks, no.

No, hazily, a rather useless sentiment. Still his fingers hover over a pearl encrusted with green powder that he first thought, blindly, to be sugar, until he recognized the color and placed it as residuum. No, to the fact that twenty years of his life are gone, wasted under the tutelage of a man who cared not one whit for his wellbeing, nor Astrid’s, nor any of theirs; no, because his mission, the one he just executed (and the traitor, too, likely not a traitor at all) was done for the poorest of reasons; no, to the crumpled form of his childhood friend dumped unceremoniously in the threshold of his doorway without so much as a word.

He looks up, looks away, from unseeing blue eyes and the mottled web of sickly gray-and-purple spilling up Bren’s throat, the wrong way, unnaturally still, away, and Master Ikithon is strangely still on half of his body. When he steps forward he moves his leg as though it were no more useful than a senseless lump of flesh, and his right arm does not move at all.

“Cremate it,” Ikithon growls. Acid scars trace the curves of his face, but no flame. That is strange. Bren always fought with flame when they were younger. He jerks his head toward Bren’s body. “We cannot afford to let this body continue.”

“What - this - “

Ikithon turns and glares, fully, spitefully, and despite himself, Eodwulf shrinks away. He has seen his teacher angry, seen him furious, but not like this. “I lost all my work today,” he seethes. “All of it. All of it. Everything I have done, everything that I have worked toward, destroyed in an instant by this.” He kicks Bren’s body, hard. Eodwulf looks quickly away, nausea bubbling in his stomach. “You do not doubt, Eodwulf.”

And the answer comes easily: “No.”

“Good,” Ikithon says, snaps, snarls, and then turns, and walks away.

No.

Eodwulf, shaking, sits back against the wall. He leans over just enough to close the door, because no one else should see this, should see Bren beaten and sprawled out on the floor, not like this, not when Eodwulf thinks - 

He touches Bren’s coat. It is of a fine material: a deep purple that suits him well. He checks one pocket, then another. And another. And he finds a pocket that feels stiff, crusted around the edges, and when he pulls his hand from the fabric he finds a faint coating of residuum dust on his fingers.

He sits back against the wall, hard. He does not look around. His room is dark; he has not been home in some time. The candles extinguished long ago, and the door is closed.

It has been so long since he has cried that for a moment he does not recognize the sensation. It burns, strangely, behind his eyes, and too late he thinks to hold his breath, bury his forehead against his knees. 

Bren. 

Bren.

What have they done? Gods, what did they do? To each other, to their country, to their parents?

Why is Bren here? How did he die, like this, unaided and alone?

Well, that is a foolish question. He knows how Bren died: his teacher dragged his body into Eodwulf’s room. That is obvious enough. Stupid. Foolish.

With shaking hands and blurring vision, Eodwulf reaches out, and takes one of Bren’s shoulders, like he did when they were very, very young. It hurts, achingly, in the pit of his stomach, to find that Bren is light. Too light. Unhealthy and small. His shoulders are stick-thin, just as they were when all three of them were still just children. 

His breath hitches. He drags his friend up by the lapels of his coat and, without looking at the face, tucks Bren’s head against his shoulder. 

He holds Bren tightly, eyes squeezed shut, thinking of everything and nothing all at once, and remembers slowly, intimately, what it is to break. 

-

He does not burn the body.

[serinkdipity]

Does it make logical sense for Kravitz to get a mention in RMITI? Absolutely not. Am I gonna do it anyway? Hell yeah I am.

[serinkdipity]

WAIT IS THARIZDUN ACTUALLY GONNA BE THE C2 BIG BAD BECAUSE I

I’M-

A GENIUS

[serinkdipity]

one more chapter. that’s all i needed. one scene! originally this was one scene!! now it’s five!!! where the fuck did beauregard come from? stop inserting yourself into FINISHED CHAPTERS beauregard we’ve TALKED ABOUT THIS

[serinkdipity]

@gndy-dancer​ and i were talking about how veth asked caleb not to leave in her chapter of rmiti and that got me thinking about this almost-role-reversal during the epilogue, so, presented without context

(minor spoilers but you’d have to be wild to guess what’s happening from just this)

“I just think,” she says, “it’s been so long — ” 

“Nott.”

“Don’t Nott me like that,” Nott snaps. “I know it’s stupid, trust me, Caleb, I know. I know that they’ve only got one rogue, I know that Yeza only has one wife and that Luc only has one mother and that they all only have one me and they’ll miss me. I know that, Caleb. I know! But you — ” 

“Do not stay here on my behalf.” There’s a genuine worry in Caleb’s voice, a warning that tries to sound like a threat but ends up sounding more like fear. “I am fine, Nott. I have been alone for some time, and can weather some time more.” He takes her hands. “Besides, you will all be here soon enough! I can wait.”

“That’s not very convincing, Caleb. How long were you alone?”

Caleb’s lips snap shut. He looks away.

Nott pokes him, hard, right where she knows his faithful book sits against his ribs. He jumps. “Caleb.”

“Five years,” he mutters. “Sixteen-hundred and...and forty-one days. Three hours. I counted.”

[serinkdipity]

hi can i ask a quick question? why is thrazidun the chained oblivion going in the rmiti tag????? seren???????????? are my kids okay??????????????????