After All

The Mood is Write

The Mood is Write

Mom-de-Plume
Original poster
DONATING MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
  1. Looking for partners
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per day
  2. Multiple posts per week
Online Availability
It varies wildly.
Writing Levels
  1. Advanced
  2. Prestige
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Nonbinary
  3. Primarily Prefer Female
Genres
I'm open to a wide range of genres. Obscenely wide. It's harder for me to list all I do like than all I don't like.

My favorite settings are fantasy combined with something else, multiverse, post-apoc, historical (mixed with something else), and futuristic. I'm not limited to those, but it's a good start.

My favorite genres include mystery, adventure, action, drama, tragedy (must be mixed with something else and kept balanced), romance (again must be mixed, and more.

I'm happy to include elements of slice-of-life and romance, but doing them on their own doesn't hold my interest indefinitely.
Long ago the Unifiers as a true danger to the Multiverse were eradicated when Beryl discovered their stronghold, but now... now all it took was a thought.

One thought, and the universe was shielded. None could enter, none could leave.

And that was good.

The perpetrator sighed and sagged, and quiet snores emerged from the blackness that blanketed them.

All around them, time-worn ruins surrounded them, and they sat upon a grand throne in the center of this empty temple, in the center of this empty city. No grass, no living trees, no sand or rain or soil. Only the tattered remnants of greco-roman civilization gave any sign that peoples had once lived there.

Not even bones remained in this sprawling and vast wasted city.
 
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The long, forgotten, dead city had a new visitor. And it was curious.

It showed in the circular beams of light spread across the dead city, coming from doglike quadropeds. Their massive eyes shining with their own biological spotlight, scowring the dead city for any remnant they could study. They made no noise as they dug through whatever soft earth they could find, knocking against the stone to see if it was hollow at any point. There were at least a dozen of them scowering, playing the vanguard for a massive amorphous mass slowly oozing its way across the dead city, its form glowing ultraviolet as its minions finally reached the slumbering being.
 
Before the minions and the mass, the figure rested on a high throne. The glow of their eyes disturbed the sleeper, and they lifted their head sluggishly.

"Nn... Go away," the voice from the featureless and dark being urged, more creak than words as the sleep-heavy tongue refused to work fully.

The person on the throne seemed not to care about the hound-like vanguard, nor the strange oozing mass.

Instead, they sighed and let their head sag forward once again.
 
One by one, all the creatures converged on the shadowying figure, bathing it in their lights. Silently, they arranged themself so they were lit from all angles as the central protean mass rippled, its inky, thick black sludge opening up to show a young human. He was tall, firmly built and his piercing eyes managed to make brown seem imposing

"Who are you."
 
The shadowed figure shifted their gaze to look again at the human-sounding individual, but beneath their hood, their eyes remained closed. They didn't react outwardly aside from a sigh, long and quiet and defeated.

The question sounded more statement than question, but the person seemed not to care about the man's imposing aura, or at least did not react with fear or submission.

"Someone tired," they finally answered in that same rasp, unaccustomed to speaking after so long alone.

"Do you need something?"

Finally, they opened their eyes and looked at the unwelcome guest.
 
The man seemed unamused by the response, and less so by the question. He tiltes his head to the side before he spoke "Well? For start? Why is this multiverse shielded? Clearly this world is dead, but what I don't get is where the shielding is from."
 
"I am doing it," they said, "And I am only shielding this universe. There is... only one Multiverse. As for why..."

A heavy sigh.

"Because... I did not wish to meet anyone else."

Clearly, the shielding wasn't working, though, so they released it. "If you need to return somewhere, I have taken down the shield."
 
He tilted his head to the other side. His "hounds" dimmed their lights, before resting their weary legs. He looked around, and by an invisible command the hounds and the protean mass moved away, leaving only the human left. He walked up to the being, then sat down, looking up to the stars in thought.

"Misery tends to love company, you know. Even the tired kind."
 
The stars, blocked by a roof, but visible through a small crack, looked back down at him.

"I'm too old for this," the being complained, but didn't otherwise object.

Silence passed, and then, "You smell... interesting."

Unlike the being, who lacked a scent.
 
"I smell like a thousand different galaxies on a thousand different universes, that's why." He stated, a slight smile spread across his lips "I was here since the Unifiers. Used to be one of their captured subjects. Subject 52."

He shook his head, laughing "God, that was so long ago..." He remained silent after, simply looking at the crack in the wall to the alien stars, mapping every possible image he could in that small window "So, I get your feeling of "I'm too old for this". I actually slept, like you're doing, for a long time. Know what that gave me?"

He didn't wait for an answer "It didn't give me shit. I just kept on existing. And existing. Until I got bored and moved on."
 
He was older than he seemed. Interesting, but what he said about being a subject, and his number...

It niggled at the figure's mind, and they watched him as he described how trying to sleep away the years did nothing for him.

"There is little else for me to do," the figure whispered, "But wait for my end. I lost interest in living long ago.."

A heavy sigh.

"I don't suppose you would help me along," they asked quietly. "I... would like to rejoin with my allies..."
 
"Nope." He stated, heaving a heavy sigh of his own as he looked at the being "There are things that live as long as we do, out there. Wonderful things. Things I can't stop you from seeing until you've actually seen it."

He gave a small smile "This Multiverse? Everything gets renewed. Always. I''ve seen so many things that I forget the things I've already seen and get wowed by them a second time. You just need to keep travelling."

He laughed "Hell. Me, Gizmo, Rocky and Ben have been doing it for so long that our own homes had crumbled to dust six times over"
 
They didn't answer for a long time before they finally sighed.

"That sounds like a roundabout way to tell someone you want to show them the multiverse," they muttered. "Take me along if you wish, but I warn you, I am... quite heavy."

Their voice caught slightly on the last word.
 
He laughed, shaking his head "Really, huh? And how come you can't move yourself? I'm a mass of protean cells, I'm pretty sure I could fix whatever your problem is right up."

"So says Balthazaaaaar the greeeeeaaaat!" He moaned loudly, doing the Spooky Finger Waggling
 
The figure's voice went utterly silent. They'd been about to answer, but his last statement stole their words away, and only the smallest whisper of "Martin?" emerged from a cracking voice.

"Martin... Chasty?"

A few jerks of the figure's head, and the hood finally fell back to reveal in the faint light a woman from his far past, staring at him with feline eyes filled with pain and confusion.

Deep lines of age and suffering marred her classical face, and her hair was long, tangled, and coarse with time's ravages.

The rich color of her skin and her plentiful freckles had become dulled, and she looked so old...

But her arms didn't move, nor her legs.

All she could do was stare at him, lips parted in shock to reveal her pointed eyeteeth.
 
"Elizabeth." He breathed out, and then his form was still. Perfectly still. Like a solid statue of flesh

Far away, there was chaos. Loud screeching could be heard in the distance as the "Body" of what used to be that dramatic Hunter completely lost its mind, slamming to and fro in the ancient architecture as it tried to understand what was happening, vanishing just as quickly as it happened.

Martin took the body back in front of her, staring at her with a completely different face. Serious. Humourless. His lips turned downwards naturally on his expressionless face, making him seem colder than he usually was.

"We thought you were dead." He spoke, accusing eyes glaring at her. "We all thought you were dead."
 
One brow raised as her gaze drifted past Martin, to the sound in the distance. When he returned to life, her eyes moved back toward him, and at his accusation, she snorted quietly.

"I haven't been hiding," she muttered, "So stop glaring."

Her eyes closed again. "Thinking I was dead was a reasonable assumption, given the obliteration of the entire Hunter order... or perhaps not entire."

She stared at him, her gaze unfeeling, but piercing as she unmistakably, but without outright stating it, called him the last Hunter.
 
"If there's any left, We haven't found them." He muttered, shaking his head with a heavy sigh. His body seemed to ripple as he fought his emotions, a tremor rolling through the dead earth

"HQ's a fucking wasteland. No Councilmen. No Hunters. Just a thing that was never meant to be, looking for something that it was."

He sighed, shaking his head, his boddy starting to vibrate "We've actually given up, you know. Figured the hunters fell away because there wasn't a Unifiers to fight. We caused that, in part. We destroyed them from the inside out wherever we could."
 
"I know. I saw your knife." She closed her eyes. "But it wasn't their absence that killed the Hunters... It was another war, and those that survived... I tried in vain to save. The Unifiers won against us, but in doing so, they revealed their positions to Beryl... Especially when they killed everyone and captured me."

She sighed. "But... here you are. The last Hunter... And don't worry about your desertion, I will pardon it." She opened her eyes again, so tired after speaking so much.

"Your new assignment..."

A deep breath.

"Either kill me and I accept your resignation... or take me with you when you leave this place."

That was 'Elizabeth' for 'End my loneliness, one way or another; I trust you.'
 
"Fuck." He muttered, shaking his head in dismay. He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly "I would've saved you. If I knew, I would've saved you. I would've destroyed those fucks from the inside out."

He made an unseemly scoff when she told him that she was going to pardon him. As if he actually cared about that anymore. As if it even had any weight if it did. Then she spoke more, and his expression changed to irritation and disgust "I'd rather throw myself in a sun and fly back out than kill you, Elizabeth, but I already quit. I sent you the video and everything."

He laughed "We're both retired, though. No way in hell I'm leaving you alone now, so tough nuts."

He stopped for a moment, then looked at her form instead of her face "Did you just sit here until your body turned to stone?
 
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