[Serrate]

She woke that morning to cool winter light and a room full to the brim of small, delicate, blue butterflies. Upon the walls, within the crevices and other places in between, on her fur. There was a chill in the air and the bite of snow to come. Still the butterflies spread their wings and crowded around her for warmth.

To the body next to her she whispers, softly, but not so softly that she avoided disturbing the scene before her—small bodies spun of glass and snow sent spiraling into flight, settling again like a great crystalline cloud—“Look.” So hushed is she in silence of a waking world that she worries he has not heard. She knew better, and those cracks of sky looked on as her awe rises in a tremulous whisper—“What do you think it means?”

The butterflies settle, and in the stillness of the solstice, they looked almost like little blue flowers.

“…Let’s sleep in a little longer.”

There’s still time.

------------------ ☾❆ ------------------

“I’m glad you were able to join us,” says one queen to another in the fading afternoon daylight. The party had been a grand idea. She’d watched her daughter wrestle valiantly and she was glad the king was having a good time. When asked to partake, she politely declined. Wouldn’t want to hurt the babies, after all! When are they due? “Any day now,” she laughs and shakes her head. “Hawthorne’s so glad he’ll be here this time. He was visiting your pack with the children last time.” That much was true, as was much more.

But this was a celebration of life. The butterflies still followed her, settling in her fur and trailing her like a swatch cut straight from the sky. Where had they come from? Why were they following her? To this she shook her head and laughed again, this time tinged with a deep and unknowing awe. “I don’t know. What do you think it means?”

A great many things and none of them true—but neither are they false. Isn’t that funny? How, then, did the butterflies rise in the dead of winter? It’s cold, says one queen to the other. Yes it is, the other replies. Isn’t it funny that they’ve all come out now?

Shake up the hourglass. Turn it over. We’re going back to the time before now.

“Oh! Uhm. I’m very sorry Xenia. Could you excuse me?”

There’s still time.

------------------ ☾❆ ------------------

One in rain. Another in blood. The last in snow.

She finds him in a sheltered alcove just around the bend from couples talking. There’s a weary smile on his face as their chatter carries even here. The butterflies flirt with lovers seeking their fortunes, settling on noses and ears but trail the queen still. She walks to him and tucks her forehead against his cheek. She whispers a love letter only for him.

His weariness is gone. His smile isn’t.

There’s still time.

------------------ ☾❆ ------------------

They gathered again in the castle. The little bits of sky that followed her. The storm above breaks and she pulls the ones she loves most close to her. “Don’t be afraid,” she tells a dotting son, a fretting daughter. “I’m happy you’re here.”

Fog rolls in off the sea. Snow falls gently, and the butterflies tug gently at her eyelashes until she settles down within the embrace of sturdy walls. It’s cold, the moon tells the queen. “Yes it is,” she replies softly, laying her head upon her paws.

It wouldn’t be long now.

There’s still time.

------------------ ☾❆ ------------------

Eight. There were eight of them. Eight beautiful, wonderful—

Not quite, the sky tells her, and she sighs. Hang in there, honey! You’re not quite done.

“Oh,” she sighs in reply. That’s right. This time it wasn’t eight. Sometimes circles were broken. Very well, then.

It would be a little while longer.

It was good, after all, that there was more than enough time.

------------------ ☾❆ ------------------

A prince keeps his eye out for enemies as worried friends and family skulk in the dark. They forge paths through the piling snow and ask, how much longer? How much longer can it possibly take? Is she alright? Is she okay?

Butterflies spill from the den but there are enough left behind to light the way, beautiful blue folded paper for each beating heart, and they affix like corsages to kiss the dew from her weary eyes and open the new ones to deep, soft, quiet Winter.

“Fourteen?” she laughs, voice cracking. “Oh, stars. We’ll name them later.”

Yes—because there would be a later. Rest, now—you’ve earned it.

There’s time enough for everything.

---

Like Lunar, this thread is open for people to continue to story. You don’t have to interact with Serrate. However, this thread is only open to her family and friends—if there’s a question about whether or not you’re okay to post, feel free to ask!

Like with Lunar, your posts can be things happening concurrent to this post or direct continuations! This thread happens during the Inaria visit on the WINTER SOLSTICE.

Also… welcome to the world, HATE 3.0!!!

[Witch.]

calling all hate 3s! @Huckle @Sunblink @Kookamunga @Spear @.Eve. @Emily. @Kiri @Blondie @Gyr @River @TranquilTempest @ypput

@akante you can have alec be found at the same time if you want...

(oh yeah we don't expect you to write birthing posts... lol... just TELLING YOU YOU'RE HERE!!! you are free to make threads with your kids set after the inaria party, since they are just tiny poop monsters that can't even see anything right now how boring.)

[Kookamunga]

[Ahsoka]

Stardust...the essence of all things and beings alike, crumbling and reforming, ebbing and flowing, reshaping what once was and what will be. It swirls and spirals into various entities, whether those entities are without blood or possess a pulse. A pulse here, a pulse there...

A pulse everywhere.

Stardust reforms, reshapes, recreates. Fallen stars now cast their dust into one nebula, encasing and nurturing tiny little lights. It's alright, little stars, you are safe here.

A pulse everywhere.

Warmth shrouds the darkness, the nebula shielding the innocents from the frigid outsides of Space. Not quite ready yet. Patience. They are given time, just enough time to grow stronger, to shine brighter. Yes, there is still time.

A pulse everywhere.

Closer, and closer, nearing the inevitable. As one is born into existence, they too must grow. A nebula cannot withstand such great stars. Sooner or later, they must set them free, like a caged bird. Burning lights do not do well behind iron bars.

A pulse everywhere.

It is almost time, little stars. 

She could feel it, a change in warmth, a change in time. The darkness, it was no longer so formidable. They had become too strong, these little stars. They had become too strong for the nebula that acted as their protector, their provider. She could feel a sensation, they were nearing the end, and yet also the beginning. They must say farewell to their guardian, for they are bright enough to begin forging their way through the darkness of space. Uncertainty.

Come now. You must leave your pillar of creation.

Warm turns to cool, dark turns to light. She can feel it.

Shhh, do not weep, little one, for you were born among softly falling stars.

A pulse....





~ e v e r y w h e r e ~

[entity]

#5e5e5e

[hyperion.]

The sky wrought children coalesced from their tiny stars into complex galaxies of veins and tissue and skin. A boy who's eyes would open weeks from now sniffs his mothers chest for the warm scent of milk. A numbness at his ears except for his own tiny heartbeat throbbing within the lattice of his ribcage. He didn't know it yet, but he felt. The cold earth beneath him, the light beyond the darkness of his eyes, the warm giant assiduously tending to himself and the beings beside him, the scent of strangers bound by blood. 

He breathed in this new world with what some would call a smile. 

---

 

A disgraced knight lay silently beside four boys. Four boys who weren't so much boys anymore, but instead growing into strong, awkward adolescents. They were healthy, mind and body, and they were happy. But... were they? What was the purpose living as they were? Continuing their wild mother's lifestyle? Uncertainty always stretched its dirty fingers into his mind. 

His nightmares had grown increasingly unsettling and there would be no relief tonight. 

He lay amongst his children, breathing monotonous and steady like the drone of a plane in the distance. In their slumber, rats emerged from the snow with beady red eyes, fourteen of them, pouring into their cramped den and encumbering them with their needle like claws and cold bellies and began gnawing on his sons as they slept. The father tried to move, but some enormous weight kept him from ravaging each and every one of them into messy halves. They already devoured the eyes from the sleeping boys and were making routes into their head. One hisses from Thomas' bloody socket, "HE'S MINE NOW"

No, no, no no no no, THIS WAS HIS SON--  

"STILL THE SELFISH LITTLE GOAT BOY. I'LL EAT EVERYTHING YOU LOVE" 

a string behind his eyes snapped and he felt fire pour through his body. It was decadent, intoxicating, even, as he felt unfettered rage soar through his limbs. His pent up anger manifested through his body and carried him mechanically to the rat festering in his gold-spun boy. He felt red pool over into his eyes and drench everything in it's disgusting saturation. His jaws parted to reach for the rodent, until the fat thing flashed a shit eating grin and he felt his jaws stop. 

He blinked -- and in an instant, the rats were gone. But he was awake. And his vision was still cloaked in red. His children slept soundlessly as their father stood, mouth agape at one of their eyes, ready to gouge out their sight. He took a step back, mouth quivering in horror. 

There's still time,

something whispered in the wind. 

The boy whispered back,

"I want to go home."

[Deimos]

The thing about time is that it doesn't need anyone to keep going. There's always time. Whether or not the time is yours, that's up to genetics and fate. That's up to the miles of blood in the miles of veins in a body.

Deimos liked her siblings. She liked her mother and father. She liked Gemini, for the most part. The party had been interesting enough, but she was more than willing to leave the revelry when she heard the news. She traveled to the castle. Superstitions didn't bother her. She did not feel frightened by ghosts. She did not feel blessed by butterflies. She walked up stone steps, her front paws slightly pigeon-toed, but otherwise symmetrical save for a small red scar. Click click click across an empty throneroom. Click click click down a hall to a cozy place where her mother was curled around so many little babies. 

Deimos looked at her mother with a glance that was perhaps too knowing. Deimos did not believe in ghosts but she believed in brains and brains had funny little quirks that sometimes kept the memory of dead red boys alive in places when they should be absent. But there were no new dead siblings. Just - she counted - fourteen new living ones. Fourteen was a lot. Deimos assured herself quietly that she'd have nothing to do with the messy business of bearing offspring. Her mother's legacy was love and children and a beautiful fey kingdom. Deimos found no flaw in it except the one, but she was certain there were other ways to leave legacies written in black black blood. 

She walked to her mother and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She observed the children. They were a mismatched brood, with patterns stolen from each other and sewn into patchworks. Deimos did not know what to do with them, so she counted them again. Numbers were cleaner things than words, but words could work too. 

"Congratulations, mother." The princess said, giving her mother a gentle, practiced smile. "Father." She did not greet her siblings. What could possibly be the point of that, there was a limit to her willingness to play these games. To arrange mirrors facing in the right ways to reflect light. These many mewling infants were small and would not remember, and Deimos had no intention of feigning baby talk for the benefit of people who would barely notice. A quiet moment passed.

"They're lucky to have such good parents." Deimos said. And she did mean it, in her own way. She had never blamed Serrate or Hawthorne for what had happened to Tauro and Kariya. Even had she known the truth, she wouldn't have blamed them. In other wolves she would have privately thought of such parents as lacking in control. It had always been about control, really, and her parents had never mastered it. She didn't think they were capable of it. 

Deimos recognized her biases, folded them neatly and tucked them into a drawer by a nautilus shell. Her parents had always done the best they could, despite their hearts bleeding from their shoulders, their cracked bones and soft eyes. The fury had never been their flaw, it was their lack of control. But people do what they do. Deimos regarded her own sentimentality like a moving reflection in a fast flowing stream. Unreliable and tenuous. Not something to base decisions on. 

"I am here to help if you should need me." She said, walking beside her mother to see. Fourteen. Genetics are powerful. Something in Deimos wanted to break them apart to see. Do you have it? Do you have a hunter? A whirring biting queen? Do you have something deep and dark inside you, something red and black?

Had Deimos been a superstitious girl, she might have caught the scent of salt spray. But Deimos was not a superstitious girl. Butterflies followed her mother because her mother smelled of flowers. Genji spoke of voices no one else could hear because Genji's brain did not function correctly. And if a room smelled like salt spray it was because a breeze found its way here, and nothing more. 

There were only ones and zeros. Siblings were either alive or they weren't. The ones in front of her hadn't been, but now they were. Destiny carefully flipped each of their little hourglasses over, and Gemini's black sand danced towards gravity, down.