Archive of Our Own

Rasplin wants to serve his nation, he really does. His election speech is more than alright, and he's... content with being around the second or third person in the nation. Leading the military is rather fitting, even if he eyes the position Woogie got, just at first, and daydreams up a few impossible plans of overthrowing him. Simple training for the brain, who hasn't done that by now?

Woogie never seems to notice, patting him on the shoulder and calling him his right hand. Right. Hah.

Then he moves on right to the side to call Wireless just the same way. And another. And another.

Rasplin is talented, even special for his nation, in a way. He's just missing something.

He remembers other worlds in a haze, same as most of the others. Their own bets, deals with gods leading them here. They don't talk about it much, but if he knows one thing from the pictures flickering in and out in his mind, this isn't his first world per se where he's trapped in a story of old times, of nations and wars. Civilisations. That word rings especially right.

This is a life. It's something he goes through with, and the itch in the back of his head might remain, and he may not be that content with it, but it's something he's grown used to. He likes the respect. He's okay with the power.

Right up until the moment he catches a white on black blur in the crowd which always stands out, making it easy, and in a few seconds he's shaking the hand of Clownpierce, the leader and unopposed dictator of the Desert.

There's a second where he's staring, dumbfounded, at the face painted with stage makeup, and then there's another where Rasplin's thoughts are both fuzzy and with the edges so perfectly sharp it almost hurts, and it's not that he remembers, but old impressions and feelings of his, the mess of flashes he could never really put between daydreams and dreams, they're flooding his brain and they feel undeniably real.

The Desert King takes his hand away and gives him a neutral smile instead, and Rasplin can't really mourn himself the moment he was before with the air stuck in his throat and confusion filling his brain to static.

He notices he doesn't call Clownpierce an enemy.

That's strange, he has time to think, slowly.

Then the silence snaps, and he's more himself again, while he still feels like a numb doll on a podium, congratulated by their superiors on the great work.

"Ah, Rasplin, is it?" The smile still plays on Clown's lips, just the shadow of it. There's no way for Rasplin to really know, but he wants to say it's genuine, too, as part of the inking.

He must've known Clown before this.

He definitely has.

There's still an irk to Clown's eyes, a spark that Rasplin calls knowing in his head even when it'd be too easy for a stranger to say it's borderline mocking.

"We've gotten to a one-time deal with your leader, King Woogie." Clown explains half-heartedly, eyes still on Rasplin. "Your side is a few sets of your remarkable god armor. King Woogie kindly directed me to you for the items, so shall we?"

He's relaxed enough Rasplin doesn't need to guess if he's lying, but it's obvious he has to ask. It's almost awkward in a game of he knows that he knows. "Do you have written confirmation?" He tilts his head. "I won't mind coming to King Woogie for a check, but, you understand."

"Oh, of course." Clown nods smoothly. "Hey, Woogie!" He turns on his heels sharply. "Woogiex, can you tell your subordinate we reached that agreement?" He shouts.

Everyone around him, who's just been avoiding stepping near before, instantly recoils away.

Rasplin huffs under his breath, and it's quiet but he catches himself on the intent that is a slight laugh when Woogie has to come right up with a stare almost scornful and explain. It's not like Rasplin could try anything else, but it should still feel awkward. It's funny to him, instead.

That's strange again, and everything concerning the Desert leader is.

Around him, Rasplin feels too comfortable. Too at peace, like he's not had with anybody here.

He doesn't know most of his soldiers close at all. On Woogie's orders, he's been sticking with villagers so there's now at least a few dozens of diamond armor sets he's got saved, so much for his supposed military leader position. He's growing more and more like Squid, who at least has a reason for being stuck in the same walls, Head of Defence and Safety and all of that. If Woogie wants Rasplin doing the same so much, should've at least called him the right title.

It's not that he hates it, not really. He just doesn't understand what Woogie's deal is.

If Snow elected him King, they'd already be on top of the world.

"Who's going to wear these sets now, the villagers?" He quips, hand on a double chest that could shape an army to destroy a nation.

"The Desert, at this point." Squid laughs back.

He should feel proud of all they've accomplished. And he does, of its potential.

As he lists off to Clownpierce every enchantment and sees his eyes glint with excitement where Woogie's only ever had awareness and hidden paranoia, he wishes for another leader.

No, no. He wishes Woogie could be the same. That's all.

Clown grins at the swift, unassuming questions like he knows, and answers in details that would never help Woogie if he tried.

Clown comes back a few times. The stories grow longer and turn to lighthearted banters.

Then he stops showing up without the invisibility effect, not even hiding that, complaining with a cackle in his voice about the rarity of potion brewing items in the Desert.

He shares with Clown the blazerods he has on him, alright. That comes simply, and he doesn't even question it, just thinks distantly later he wouldn't call it very smart of both of them.

He doesn't have it in him to ask if Clown even has permission to be here anymore. He has a suspicion he already knows it.

He asks questions that bug him more, from Woogie, who is his King so he must bear more of a weight for his nation. Rasplin can't just put trust into anyone, can he? And he does, some, into Woogie, that's no question, he must for the sake of who he belongs with.

"Woogie, when are we moving out of the country?" He drawls lazily at the meeting of Heads and pretends it's nothing of a bother. "More of the Snow died to mobs than they've killed on opposing nations."

"There's zero need to be this bloodthirsty." Woogie laughs. "You'll have your time to shine, Rasplin, we're not enemies with anyone yet."

He looks at Rasplin like at a useful weapon that's so sharp he's scared of it.

Rasplin thinks if he's been part of any other nation it'd all turn out different, but he wouldn't know, would he, when Woogie refuses to try contacting anyone himself, and no one ever does themselves for long enough. Maybe they see it too, how Snow is a land that's destined to never grow because of its leader, a bog where they're all simply rotting away.

There's nothing to push him from the path of thought, when all he does is rhythmical motions day to day. Check the borders of his nation, and that is Woogie's, to stare off at the cold ocean and then retreat into the stone walls to the villagers. He has the power. There's no point to it.

He thinks if he talked about it to anyone who isn't Squid he'd be killed on the spot. Or given a slight laugh with a genuine smile to it, slightly hidden, and a deal with the devil the idea of which nags at him, if the person was that one who can't leave his brain for good, just as well as the stone box of a room that Rasplin is stuck in.

His hands grow calloused slowly from grinding blazerods and netherwarts to dust.

Clown can't help but boast his dreams to unite the world, it seems, and they all click seamlessly in Rasplin's image of him.

Every time they talk, it's a bit like coming home. Even when every word is of blood.

Rasplin doesn't try and point out how the conversations become dangerous for both of them.

Clown laughs and does it for him, lightly.

"I don't think Glacial's going on for much longer, that disease's pretty bad. jjkay fixed it up already, but he doesn't look like he's gonna help the people who've already gotten sick." He drums on the pages of the book he's enchanting, thinking.

"Is that too bad?" Rasplin tilts his head. "Do you think your alliance might break?"

Clown turns his head back to him in a snap.

"Oh, is that too..." Rasplin holds his hands up, suddenly remembering, like a bucket of cold water to the face.

"Shouldn't." Clown answers curtly. "Angry isn't as easy, but I talked to him. He's not gonna try to go against our nations merging. Not when he agreed to it in the first place as much as Glacial."

"Right." Rasplin laughs. "Angry, is that... The other two leaders of Plains are Bryx and Axgry..."

"Yeah, that's him." Clown nods. "It's how his name is said."

"Oh."

"Don't worry." Clown chuckles. "It's not that well known, you aren't that out of the loop."

"I'm afraid I am." Rasplin snorts back. He'd say it doesn't come out bitter, but he can never hold back his emotions properly when he's locked up in here with someone who can truly listen. "Woogie's..." He grits his teeth and doesn't force his expression to relax behind the mask. There's no point.

"Woogie, huh." Clown mutters.

That is where he brings it up in his casual half-cackle. "Our talks are really going dangerous directions these days."

Rasplin laughs. "They really are." Then adds, staring at the simmering potion to the side. "I... I think we can trust each other as much by now, that's all." He just knows there's no other way for him now. "We're... We've known each other before this, haven't we?"

Clown stares past his shoulder. "Maybe we have." He answers, and his voice is laced with the same careful, but still strangely lighthearted notes. "Maybe we have." Clown repeats in a whisper, and meets his eyes as much as he can with Rasplin's mask dropping a shadow on his.

His fingers don't stop moving breaking bits of lapis in half but the sharp cracks only bring out the stress in his movements.

"Listen, you should just drop it and bring the trident in." Rasplin cackles finally, breaking the silence crippling his skin. "I have some Mending, it's fine if we have to disenchant it. Better than trying to pick out the enchantment on a book, the chances."

Clown blinks silently, then shuffles slightly on the seat and nods. "Yeah, that's probably... That's an alright idea."

He leans over the table, then, and stares at Rasplin. A thin corner of a page twitches and rustles quietly between his fingers, the book he was trying to enchant mostly useless.

Rasplin doesn't ask him if he has anything else here to do.

He's next, right next. Rasplin drops a hand palm down to the side of his, and the most Clown does is have his fingers twitch uncontrollably and instantly relax.

Rasplin feels content like that, if not complete. Not complete.

The door creaks.

He only notices at the smooth turn of Clown's head away from him. It's part him knowing that no one who shouldn't has access to it and part not caring in the slightest. He'd put a sword though their neck if he had to.

He wonders if Clown would smile more at that. If the squint of his eyes would turn to that happy glint because of him and not 'cause of talking of the way he wants the world to end. He'd love that. Or a bloody grin, or anything, really anything.

Squid's diamond boots clatter on the floors and he swipes cleanly the pinkish potion right from Rasplin's nose, and, huh, he didn't even notice when it finished brewing.

"Brewing love potions again, huh?" He laughs and picks up the two other bottles with another click.

"Hey, I need those myself." Rasplin snaps back huskily. There's something stuck in his throat at the words, still, but Squid doesn't seem to care for it, for the way Rasplin's voice falls.

"Well, make new ones." Squid shrugs. "What'd you need them for, anyway? Alright, not asking. Forget I did."

He's gone just as quick.

"Sorry for him." Rasplin turns. "You don't need them immediately, do you..." He chews on his lip.

"Oh, of course I do. He needs to die now." Clown nods casually. "Don't worry, he's gonna anyway. Unless he joins the Western Empire?" He holds for a second, then laughs, long and drawn out but so light. Then his eyes lock on Rasplin again, and Rasplin can't really guess if he's looking through him right now, reminded of something distant, or if he's truly here. If he's thinking of him.

"Do you trust him enough for this? You don't think he could rat you out?" Clown drawls, finally.

Rasplin blinks slowly.

"I do." He mutters. "I truly do, trust him."

Clown's silent then. He adds after a second, with a slight smile that's grotesque this time, showing his teeth. "Do you trust Woogie the same?"

Rasplin laughs back just to push away the thoughts.

"He's my King, Clown."

He doesn't answer.

Rasplin doesn't know what Clown sees him as. It might be a traitor. What he truly is, is just a soldier too loyal to a place chilling to the bone that he wishes he could change. He doesn't want to be it.

Clown is more and more cautious about showing up until he doesn't for days, and Woogie's frown during meetings grows heavier. He says nothing to questions, like he expects no one to notice or to believe all's well, still.

Snow is covered in a border of ice cold walls none dare venture out of, and the silence is hurting his ears. Rasplin knows something's up, on the other side. Woogie disappears sometimes with Wireless, and they still never talk.

He tries to meet his leader in the middle, he really does.

Break the monotony.

"I'd like to talk. King Woogie."

He'd like to confirm the suspicions that he's already gotten from Clown. The Desert King gave him more than the one of his own nation could ever bring himself to. Stories of Erkku getting the throne through blood of his people, of GlacialParrot's reign coming to an end with his nation handed off to another leader and successor, but truly to Clown himself. Of Glacial's abrupt disease. Of Merffinn the Exiled. Of too many things Rasplin could never otherwise know.

Woogie gives him a tired smile with his teeth bared, at the end of another fucking meeting. "Well, I don't want to talk, Rasplin. I'm sorry."

He sags against the table when all six others leave, under Rasplin's sharp look. "There's quite literally nothing to talk about. It'll pass, I know it will." His teeth click. "If it doesn't, then everyone'll know. When it's time."

Squid is waiting for him on the other side of the door.

"He didn't talk enough." Rasplin shakes his head.

"You don't think it's time already?" Squid jerks an eyebrow behind the visor.

"What?"

"You've been putting steps towards the goal for a while now, I've noticed." There's a smile in his voice.

"I... What are you talking about, even?" He laughs with a stutter and speeds up. Squid doesn't try to walk closer or say, shout, scream it into his back. He doesn't need to.

His nation is weak, and his King untrustworthy and not trusting back most of his soldiers.

Rasplin has ways to justify his actions, so many of those. He could make lists.

There's a little itch at the back of his head telling him if any other leaders, of Plains, of Jungle, came to him and asked for his help, he'd decline in a heartbeat. He also knows he's about to do such a similar thing.

"How's your own army coming along?" He asks Clownpierce, handing him another few Mending books that will save the lives of Desert players. Soldiers. Ones that may very well end up fighting Snow until bloody gruesome deaths that might just be of their opponents, because of Rasplin.

He only cares that he's back.

This really is a link, thin as a thread, out. He justifies it as this now and doesn't have it in him to feel disgusted.

"I think they wouldn't mind another soldier, you know." He adds before Clown can answer with nothing that could change his mind.

"They... Yeah, I think they wouldn't." Clown does laugh, slightly.

This is the thing he must've actually expected of him, Rasplin has a cold realization.

"Woogie..." He tries to explain. "It's him, he's just not enough, not for this country. I... I wish for more than being a hand of a coward."

"I see that." Clown answers carefully.

"I'm not just... a traitor by nature." The words are heavy on his tongue. "I just want something better than this." He wants... He wants what he always did, growth, change, he wants to be able to change.

Woogie can't give him that, but he knows of a person who can, a safe space just to push him further to evolve the way he needs, an image of strength and confidence provided easily at first request, too easy, like by some deal with the devil he's made without even knowing.

He... He wants to be seen.

He wants some blood spilt on his sword.

Rasplin might want a lot of things, if he thinks of it. He just never let himself before.

"Thanks for trusting in me, Rasplin."

There's a smile playing on Clown's lips, and Rasplin can't read what it holds, but it is for him.

This is a gamble. This is an opportunity. This is a slow walk to his death if he's not careful.

The nations who live through the war he's expecting might tell stories about him.

The winners do that, and if he slips they're gonna be of a naive boy who followed... he doesn't know what's better, if they call up a dishonorable side of leaving his nation, for what, power, distrusting a leader, wishing for violence, whatever they make up. Or if they make the image of him weak and broken, of someone who couldn't refuse a memory of a... past that he can't even truly call his.

He feels like both these things aren't too far from the truth.

If West wins, though, they'll call him one hell of a general and a tactical genius, instead, and all'll be forgotten.

How interesting.

The next few days, he expects all hell to break loose. The air rings with the usual heaviness but he feels it under his skin directed at him.

Clown doesn't come back.

He feels sick.

At the meetings, every word sounds like white noise except for the times they turn at him, and then he expects them to scream something like traitor. He puts together explanations in his head, not for him but for any other player that just looks at him too sharply. They're all nonsense.

It takes Woogie a week more to crack up.

Rasplin has a bitter thought in his head, and it's all about Woogie and his fucking incompetency and nothing on turning back. It's more that he can't.

Woogie clasps his hands together behind the table meant for more than a King and his seven officials.

Squid's glare is heavy on Rasplin, he feels it and isn't sure what it really holds behind the yellow visor.

"The... The Plains have agreed to the leadership of Clownpierce. King of the Desert." Woogie explains, raspy. "Those two are a whole empire of their own now, the Western Empire."

Like Rasplin hasn't known that for weeks now.

"Clownpierce..." Woogie drags out. "He wants to take over the nations, all of us, and from what I know he has the ability. It's why... We're gonna try and settle on an alliance with the others, with Erkku. I... I only... I know I haven't been too open with most of you guys, I know. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this."

"Of course you did." Squid snickers, quiet. His stare is burning into Rasplin's skin.

"But it did." Wireless waves a hand, and it flickers in the half-dark, yellow to purple to red. "It did."

Wireless doesn't seem that off, and maybe he's eager for what's about to unfold just as much.

Woogie asks him to come with.

Of course he does.

The walk's all he's seen through the lands of the Snow. He knows 'cause he's been out and about too many times here, and it's snow, just snow. Walk for a day, and it's all the view you will get.

They set up camp for the night that's too clear and peaceful for what the next days are gonna turn out to be, Rasplin knows.

Then, a figure breaks the sky with the usual lightning strikes as his companions, and it's instantly just enough of a hell, even if in seconds the sounds die out, and it's as if nothing truly changed.

"jjkay." Woogie drawls slowly. "Look who the fox dragged in."

"Himself, I believe." Ray smiles back. "That's a sweet comparison, thank you. I'll remember that."

"Guys, get your swords ready..."

Ray stops him with a lazy gesture. "No need. Probably. I'm just here to chat with a couple people. Don't you worry, nothing major should hopefully happen. Not just yet." His whole body turns then, as it hangs in the air, like a doll on a string led by a talented puppeteer, but Rasplin knows just how far from the truth that comparison would be.

"Rasplin of the Snow, shall we?" His smile is too perfect, white teeth glinting.

He waits for Rasplin to take a few careful steps to the side before he slides next, further away. "It's a bit of a private thing. You might not want others to... you know."

Ray's eyes glisten.

"Alright, we're far enough now." Rasplin concludes when the mutters of the team and the campfire crackling can be barely heard.

He's not scared, not of him, really. People of nations are the real, physical danger. He is just playing. If you play by the rules with him, you're fine.

Ray tsks.

"So what's it?" Rasplin throws his head up to meet his eyes.

"There's a little thing going on with you, Rasplin. An important thing." Ray drawls back. "Everyone's scared of you, and that you're going to throw something. Are you not, by any chance, up to something... weird?"

"No, no, definitely not." Rasplin answers too quickly. "I'm just trying to help the team out."

"Are you sure?" Ray is circling around him in the air.

Rasplin exhales, loud. The breath is foggy, clouding his vision, and cold on his skin.

"I would never turn on them."

"Are you sure?" Ray tilts his head to the side so much it almost looks broken, with his eyes two icy pits. It's not threatening. He looks amused more than anything.

"I'm a team fighter." Rasplin's laugh shuffles. "I would never just leave for naught. What's the point of that?"

"Hm." His smirk is knowing as always, almost proud, and his voice is so low of a whisper even Rasplin has to strain his hearing to catch the words. "One could think you're hiding something from me."

"Of course not." He answers in tone, quietly. Stern.

Fake.

"What did he say?" Woogie is paranoid, and he starts inching over the second the admin is out of sight, disappearing into purple particles. Rasplin still stares at the space he just was in, and Woogie has to take every step towards him, to cover the distance completely so he even notices.

"I... I think, King Woogie." He turns his head slowly, finally. "Change's coming, real fast. And your nation might not be ready for it."

"Come on, nothing specific?" Woogie laughs, sharp. "Don't go in his footsteps on me."

"Nothing." He cackles back. "Just the usual, being... weird. Heh. Pointed me out, said people are afraid of me. He wants to see what I'm going to do in the coming times." He hugs himself and taps himself on the elbows, not looking anywhere in particular. The fingers twitch uncomfortably, jerky movements. "That's it."

"Huh." Woogie nods. "That's more like him, that'd be right, yeah. And what are you going to do in these dire days, Royal General Rasplin, leader of the army and military? That's a hell of a title, huh. Guess he's right."

Another laugh of his twists like fog in the air.

"Oh, I'm not going through that again." Rasplin rolls his eyes slightly, even if it'd be hard to see from behind the mask. Playing it up helps. A lot. "I'm fine."

"Alright, alright, I'm not gonna torture you with the same thing." Woogie holds his hands up. "Should we get back to camp? The boys are cooking up... something already." He sniffs the air, demonstratively more than anything, joking. "You probably want to be there before it's all swiped up."

"We just have to hope the something's edible." Rasplin sighs back.

Woogie gives him a long look. "I trust you, you know."

Rasplin can't bring himself to reply, and when the silence stretches for too long, Woogie has to finish it himself. There's a hidden edge to his voice, still. "I sincerely suggest you don't betray that trust."

Rasplin nods once, brokenly. "You know it."

"I hope I do. I hope I do."

The food's the worst he's tried in a while, and it's served with the cooks' wide open, hopeful eyes, bordering on naive. Both make him just a little too sick as he chews on the meat, holding his mask slid up just enough. They avoid looking when they can, trying to be respectful. Or they're just scared.

jjkay was right. On everything.

When he knows something, he always is. Or he gets to the bottom of it with no care for the others. His world, his game.

He's not a panicked force of chaos like the troops of nations, he's just... Rasplin tries to be cautious around him, that's it. Ray jjkay03 has too many opportunities to make any player's life on Nations a living hell.

Rasplin wouldn't put it past him to code it right into the matter of the world, if you don't play by his rules.

Rasplin isn't any ordinary player, though. He knows, being scared, just of a potential play Ray might pull? Meaningless.

The man is oh so curious to see it unfold in front of his eyes on its own. What gods tend to be like.

He humors himself by the thoughts because the other idea in his brain doesn't seem quite real yet, when he looks at Woogie, and then Wireless, and knows the leader of Snow is soon going to be one henchman short, and the clock is ticking closer and closer.

Rasplin curls up by the campfires and waits for something.

Every bit of the ground is ice around their sleeping bags, so when he wakes up in the morning to the sun beaming into his face, the fire doesn't burn anything at all to the ground.

Erkku's land is a hell of its own, in a way just right for its ruthless leader. He doesn't... Rasplin can't put it quite one way or the other, it's not the heaven he's heard of Plains being and neither is it hot, blazing hell of Clown's Desert that Clown, of course, talked of fondly, but Rasplin knows, of course he does.

They don't quite get into the Jungle, but he can never say he likes it. It's just the cold under his skin turns to buzzing sort of... corruption, heavy air.

Erkku himself is ruthless. Yet, he doesn't look like a person Rasplin would follow.

Woogie is careful around him, picking his words, and maybe Erkku notices that too early and his eyes are too snappy and tired at Woogie's grand speech, but none of them have a choice.

They shake hands. It's an inevitable thing, and both the grips seem heavy and uncomfortable.

The loot exchange is short and somewhat scuffed, just clicks of pots and binds of blazerods given over, while Erkku in turn holds out three small gold statues that aren't exactly totems the way Rasplin remembers those.

"They can be used to revive you as you die, or another player." Erkku says. "Ask jjkay more for that."

"Second Chance Totem..." Woogie reads out the little markings. Then turns to his soldiers with a toothy grin. "Now this is what I'm talking about. Guys, Ryah, Subnoa..." His eyes stray away, uneasy.

"Rasplin should take one." Subnoa shakes his head. "He and Ryah are at more risk than me, by position."

Woogie's eyes jump to him. "I was gonna..." He starts, twisting the totem in his hands.

"Well, you're not going to leave yourself without one." Wireless rolls his eyes.

"Y... Yeah." Woogie nods in a jerk. "Sorry, Noa." He pushes one into Wireless' hands, then offers one of the other two to Rasplin, staring past him.

"Thanks." Rasplin manages. The statue is cold in his hands, dead cold. He wonders if it's gonna get worse once they're back to Snow.

It doesn't.

It seems to stick to his skin the same, like it was never bound by the laws of this world. He has it on, hanging from his neck under the armor like some sort of noose.

If he dies without using it, having it hidden, no one can get it anyway.

The stone box room with villagers tucked away in every possible corner still feels too empty.

He scales it, every footstep echoing.

"What are you waiting for?"

He turns.

The purple particles play in her hair like some sort of halo, but he knows she's just as much of a self-centric liar as jjkay as she smiles sweetly, too much so, a perfect reflection of the other admin. Where Ray's all projected confidence, Netti's fake kindness.

"Me?" He mutters.

"He's waiting for you." Netti smiles, and as she floats closer the urge to stay back grows stronger. "He wanted you to know. It's just..." She gestures vaguely. "It'd take too much time. This is easier."

"How can I even trust you telling the truth?" Rasplin laughs.

She tilts her head. "Do you think he doesn't?"

Rasplin staggers, trying to form an answer.

"Do you think he doesn't really need you?" He doesn't notice when her smile grows into a toothy and cruel grin. "Come on, Rasplin. Don't you think that."

She has her hand up, and as it moves to press against the smooth surface of the mask, she drops a set of two numbers, quietly, too quietly. As if someone else could hear and catch when there's not.

"Coordinates?" He mutters, and what else can it be.

Netti doesn't answer.

The purple particles left over from her really can't.

He leans with his ribs sharp against the wall, and there's mindless hum of villager to the left and to the right, almost mechanical and too loud, and he's alone, completely.

He feels nothing. Except the even beats in his temples, that may or may not be part dread slowly seeping in.

Rasplin slides down the wall, second by second. Feeling the floor under his palms brings no sense of stability. None. He's fucking falling, has been for a long while. For a moment he doesn't remember why, he just knows he's going to have to leave, everything he ever was.

A weapon, a toy, what.

He clutches at his mask and shivers from the uncomfortable feeling because he hates it when he cries, he hates being weak and numb behind the ever present facade of not-quite-porcelain.

His fingers find a horn on the mask and grip so hard it would no doubt break off if it could.

He sits in the dark, and his hands fall down to his knees at some point, hugging. He's cold. He's always so cold.

He has a slip of a thought to imagine someone else's touch in place of his and mulls it over numbly.

He doesn't know what Clown would do if he were here, and it's a chilling thought, that he doesn't truly know him, or maybe he just thinks so?

He thinks he'd hover over him but not make it menacing as they all want to see him, and maybe offer a hand Rasplin could take, to get up. Rasplin would take it, just for him.

It happens like this, he walks up to Squid and asks him, no, he doesn't ask him.

"Squid." He just rasps. "So are you coming with?"

He doesn't add, please, please, please. Squid knows it anyway, and there's a spark in his eyes that's not quite mocking but laughing and strangely kind.

"This is a proposition, not any... So you don't get any ideas. I'm only giving you a chance." Rasplin tells him, heavy.

"I'll go." Squid chuckles. "You know me."

He takes Rasplin by the arm and walks him casually along the edge of ice and into the ocean, and no one misses them, and it's strange.

There are things Rasplin questions, and none of them are the feeling of leaving hanging in the air too close and similar to the feeling of coming home so they mix, one and the same. They are.

He lets himself smile at the campfire in the middle of nowhere he knows in particularly, and then grin and laugh with his full chest. Squid echoes with a cackle.

"This is..." He's choking on air. "This is insane, Squid, this..! We're..." His voice dies out, and he puts a hand to his face that's just the smooth surface he wants to rip off, to hold himself but not really cover up. "I'm gone, I'm finally gone."

It's two days worth of a walk, and Squid humors him with conversations more than they really talk. Rasplin's thoughts still jump from the sweet painful relief and wait to the sharp paranoid feeling and wall he put up to things he's never going to have to think of, again, because he has a chance to be what he wants to, now.

Clown offered him not his hand and not his heart on a platter. All he did was promise him war, indirectly, and Rasplin took it with his own heart beating too quickly, and said yes what feels like too fast. It wasn't.

The ice is cold under his palms for what he tells himself and so he knows must be the last time.

The numbers wired into his brain are far enough away he knows they must be safe because they're neither the Snow he knows nor close to the Jungle, and hell, of course it doesn't take long until sand scrunches under their feet right from the ice they never have to leave for water.

Squid stops the second they drop down to the island, as if mesmerised.

"Have you been here before? Oh, of course you haven't." Rasplin laughs slightly.

"This is the first time I'm outside Snow, what'd you think." Squid huffs and buries his gloved hands in the sand, down on his knees.

"It's not far now." Rasplin cackles. "We should go."

He can't stop the smile that's pushing at his lips. It may be slightly twitchy to the point it's hysteric, like he's high on the idea itself and still doesn't truly believe it, in some way, the consequences of it, that he's left.

The coordinates are to a simple shack that's not quite empty at the edge of the desert.

Rasplin steps over the doorstep carefully from the crunch of sand to the even floors.

Nothing moves.

He knows the feeling, of the air that's so thick if a wrong speck of dust moves the world will blow up to nothing at all, but he is welcome.

He raises his palm slightly, gesturing Squid to stop. He does, casually careful. He feels it too, and he's not scared but Rasplin can hear him hold his breath.

There's a laugh inside, and a voice he's not heard before says something that starts with Clown, and then the silence breaks. A door to the side is slammed open, and he's fixed in place more than has to make himself do so with a few soldiers of an opposing... not anymore, nation, scrambling out, eyeing him, walking past easily with a cackle, faces he can't remember, blur of pink and black and all diamond armor.

He gives them a long look and stands in the doorway, not quite stepping over.

The last one slips right by him then, pushing him slightly in the shoulder, and throws a sorry to the back with a hitched cackle. Rasplin isn't even sure he can call him a soldier.

He's not sure what it takes him not to turn on his heels and put a sword through the man's neck, slicing off a few silky-smooth appendages in the way, but it's a lot. It pays off, he thinks, in the next seconds.

"I was..." Clown takes a couple steps too quick. "It's so good to have you here." There's a grin playing on his face, and he doesn't let it fall even as all sounds of others' steps quiet down in the distance.

Rasplin notes distantly there's no commotion at them finding another Snow soldier at the entrance.

"I..." He cackles. "I brought a friend over, if you don't mind."

Clown lets out a quiet huh. "No, sure, that's alright, that'll be just fine. It's..." He throws his head up. "It's that one, OnlyASquid, isn't it?"

Rasplin laughs. Clown follows suit, a smooth, slightly rustling sound.

"It is, it is."

The silence holds then, and it's only not comfortable because Rasplin's heart is still beating too loudly in his chest, choking.

"We need to..." Clown clasps his hands. "Hell, we need to get you... both acquainted with the crew first, get you settled, then we talk plans, alright?"

Rasplin doesn't care much about each one of them in particular, but they're part of Clown's army and goal, so he guesses he's got to work with them for a while now.

He notes their coordination by the way they move, the three of the four at least, and they might be rash, he's not gonna name any names, but he can work with this. It helps, putting together a picture in his head, to not pay attention to anything other than the routine.

Droonie, Suut, Fantst. Chief, the last one. Rasplin doesn't know why Chief's there, truly. He's much more of a talker than soldier. But again, they're up for negotiations...

He doesn't quite want to ask what those are but Clown doesn't hide it either, right with Woogie. With the alliance, really, Woogie and Erkku and their nations that have nothing to do with Rasplin anymore except that Woogie won't think so, and there's high chance he'll spit him in the face the first time they meet again.

He'd say he's not gonna care for that, but maybe that's wishful thinking.

It's all the same, sitting by a table while others chat, chat, useless words thrown at each other, jokes and insults. At least there's a date set.

Fantst stares at him through crossed hands the way Woogie used to, and he must see him as a bomb ready to go off.

Rasplin laughs and bites back and asks if he doesn't trust his superior.

Clown settles it with a firm hand, and it doesn't matter what he says because every second Rasplin stares at him from behind the mask, unblinking, and there's something stuck in his throat. He knows what it is.

Rasplin's just here to lead them to Woogie's. And then to fight.

He wants to talk to Clown more, to have him one on one at all, in some way, but he slips right through his fingers and is just as his as anyone else's, putting his trust in the picked out soldiers and at the same time sleeping in shifts with what feels like one eye always open. That's just Clown. That's familiar.

The feeling of being close and yet not able to quite touch, that's familiar too.

He needs to stop thinking about it.

Rasplin is used to being wielded as a weapon in talented hands.

It's why he's here.

He wants to be on top of the world, and he wants him next to himself but thinks that might just be half a pipe dream, so it's fine, he'll be the one that's next, one step lower, and hell does he need to stop thinking about it now, really, because he's making no sense to himself, logically.

Did he want to be his own person? He didn't want to be a toy of Woogie's that's simply discarded.

He doesn't want to be that again, doesn't want to be lost. He's not gonna.

He'll paint his mask red until everyone knows it's a war mask.

He has convictions, and they all shatter every time he sees Clown. And that's fine too. He can have that.

He still finds himself away and off, not trying to run but to get away again. Like he's been for so long he can't stop now, and it's not helping.

Maybe his imagination has failed him, putting together some sort of image of escape in his thoughts that was just a mirage. He needs something to ground him, and he can't think... He can't ask Clown to be that, can he?

He's just gotta take second best.

"I need some time." He says to Clown, tapping on the table way too sharply with two fingers. Clown doesn't twitch, just raises his head.

"I want to..." He gulps, and there's a drive to explain himself that has him stutter and continue too hastily under Clown's unblinking look. "It's just a couple of hours, maybe four... five. I want off."

Clown sighs lightly and pushes himself up, leaning on an open palm.

"Rasplin." He bites his lip, just slightly. "You know this isn't set in stone, right? People come and they leave."

"What?" Rasplin doesn't quite have time to react, just to step back slightly and raise his shoulders, spine going too straight and numb. "What did you say?"

"I'm only saying this because it's you." Clown drawls. "But you can leave. You can take your friend and go back, or... stay lone Exiled if you wish. I trust you can come up with a lie for Woogie, anyway."

Rasplin chuckles at it. The sound's too high.

If anything, he expected the opposite.

"Do you think I could? D'you seriously think there's a universe out there where I would choose Snow over yours?" He asks, and it's bitter at nothing.

Clown frowns. "Not that I particularly believe... What do you want me to do with it, Rasplin? It's not like you want me to force you to leave, what? That's absurd."

Rasplin can't help it but drop one more hysteric cackle, then another, lisping, so he chokes on the sound. "Don't you... It's not a problem, don't you worry, Clown, I'm not gonna be a weak link there." He throws his head up, and he knows his eyes glisten and Clown can catch that through the mask. "I'm leading, alright."

Clown's expression stills, and even though out of the two of them only Rasplin wears a physical, concrete mask, he feels like he's the one open for strike, like the thin white paint protects Clown better, or more so the iron look and the masks he puts up for show, for everyone.

"We're leaving tomorrow at dawn, you know." Clown's voice shuffles.

"Right. We are."

Clown chews on his lip and looks him over attentively, one last time. "Thanks, Rasplin." He breathes, finally.

"Anything. You don't even have to ask."

This calls for some grand gesture, a bow. Kneeling, to be knighted by his king.

He just wants to lean in, forward, into the comfort that shouldn't feel this familiar, and have his hands slip until they slot against the armor just the right way. He thinks they could. Even if not, with the netherite scrapping against the plates on his gloves, he'd just want the one thing.

He takes a step away, too jerky for himself on the smooth floors.

Somewhere, in his thoughts, he overstepped.

The phantom feeling of a cackle, a breath right against his lips he imagined, still clings to him, the light touch of fingertips on his cheek pushing up his mask, and he can't look right at Clown again. So he nods, staring past his shoulder, and asks too evenly if he can only leave for a bit.

Clown's concerned look is right on him still, heavy and real. "What is it, with the Snow Nation?" His voice is strained, and he doesn't answer the question at all and doesn't look like he wants to, yet. "Do they matter this much to you, why?"

Rasplin hangs his head even lower. The weight of the eyes doesn't go away.

"It's not them. Not at all." He settles finally. "I've never made decisions this final... ever, in the world. Clown, I've never been to Plains, I've not been to yours or Jungle even once before the war got brewing, I..." He wheezes again. His throat is starting to hurt. "This is freedom to me. I wanted to become King, and all I've gotten is a place to sit by the throne, as a pet of Woogie's." He spits, and it feels almost true. He's still half lying, pushing himself onward, but he was always a liar, wasn't he? Little masked soldier toy. Playing both sides.

"You can always rely on me for this, you know." Clown offers him his hand, open palm, relaxed. "I understand that must be hard."

Rasplin stares at the black glove.

"I... can?" He mutters.

"We're friends, Rasplin, come on. Maybe this isn't the past worlds that... I don't remember much, but we've still gotten to the point where we can put trust in each other. We settled that. Us, both of us, because it's just the same. Anything for you."

He makes it sound simple.

He says just that.

"But it is." Clown smiles. "It can be, if you want it to. We can make it be."

"That's... also a thing that... scares me." He admits. "That I'm so attached to someone I can leave my own nation, no, that's even more than it. This world kills, Clownpierce, and I'm scared this bond is gonna be the thing that gets me." He breathes out, then in. Slowly. "I don't think I would break it anyway, if I was offered. And that all messes with my head."

Clown nods.

He takes a step forward then, and Rasplin freezes in his tracks. He's not scared, but just lost and can't really move an inch when armor scraps against armor and he has a press up close he can lean onto.

He puts his head carefully on Clown's shoulder and hugs him back, and the senses play tricks on him again with the proximity.

Clown lets go.

Rasplin clutches onto his mask with his hand as a shield that never works around Clown.

"Does that make it better?" Clown's smile is weak now.

"It doesn't." Rasplin shakes his head.

His fingers itch to still push the cover up, or snap the straps open so he can see clearly, so he can drop the mask and never have to lie again. So he can leave a mark on Clown's perfect face paint, smudge the black lines that paint his expression into a forced grin, if only he let him. If only he wanted to, as much as Rasplin wants to kiss him.

This is not the universe. This is not the world. Rasplin is sure there is not one.

"How do you afford it?" He mutters. "How do you live with that, Clown?"

"Like I meant." Clown shrugs back. "Together. We're together now, and hell if I could say that to... almost anyone else, but that's the gist. You're my friend, you're a part of me, and I'd sacrifice... so much for you, I believe. So I want you here, by my side. We're a force, one to be reckoned with."

"Do you think together we can afford it?" Rasplin chuckles.

"More than anyone, I think."

That's foolish, Rasplin wants to say. But he's not the one to talk, jumping right off the simple, beaten, boring him to death track that was right under his feet.

"I need some fresh air." He rasps. "I just need to kill someone."

"Right." Clown's voice is so, oh so sweet at the word.

"It's what I need... needed at Woogie's, it's all I... I want them to know. That I'm me now."

He needs to get away, and he needs something simple.

Rasplin needs a lot of things, some he can't ask for.

"You can step aside at any point, any time." Clown's voice is even and soft. Rasplin is sharply sure they both know it, the last words he says. "Even if you won't."

Rasplin laughs in a cough. "Right, that's... Clown, that's not what I want. So I won't. I want..."

He steps up close.

"You want the Jungle dead, I want you to tell me that." He says. "Please tell me that."

Clown's silent. Then he blinks, slowly. "Good luck, Rasplin." He tells him. That's all he does.

The next hours are a frenzy in Rasplin's memory of sand, and more sand getting on his nerves pressing against the soles of his feet, and avoiding the ice rim for the long row to the jungle by sea. Splashes of water. Strain in his hands. Paddles.

Handle of a sword easy in his hold, and it feels every bit like every time he looks at Clown, too familiar and he loves it too much so he wants his heart to burst or it won't be fair.

An expectation of a sword as sharp behind his back, protection. It's not there and he feels too bare so he swings twice as hard until the rare flares of totems and so much blood are all burned into his vision, and there's a salty taste in his mouth, and he stumbles back for an hour with the water up to his thighs.

He stops thinking.

He storms in like he's drunk and stands right before Clown, again, not quite touching so he doesn't know if it's too far or it only is by the invisible borders in his head.

He tilts his head back.

"I'm ready now."

"You're gonna have to..." Clown breathes in, then out quietly. "You have three hours to catch some sleep. Then we're getting ready."

He gives him a curt nod and doesn't think of the picture he must make.

That helps pass out with half his gear on, stinking of broken, dead things.

He feels close to content for the first time in a long while. Almost the same as all those times he and Clown talked, a seamless click, before the visits became abrupt with stress slight but always present in Clown's eyes.

He think he might actually quite like it here, if he doesn't count every little moment he doesn't. Isn't that the way?

Three hours, and then a minute to splash water into his face. Fantst says off-handedly he's lucky he might be able to rub off the red crust on the armor with the snow 'cause no one's wasting water on that. Adds no offence hastily. Rasplin just cackles.

They walk out, and Rasplin stalls back on the doorstep but steps over jumpily under Clown's calm look.

The run is just about uneventful, and Rasplin has something heavy and sharp stuck in his lungs, but all the others are so excited he has to pick up some of the atmosphere and grin back at them.

Clown's voice is just as hitched with laughs.

"Damn, Clown, you sound like we're out for your birthday." Chief laughs. "Suits you."

Rasplin can only agree, silently, and can't help admiring Clown's soft grin back.

It's right somewhere there, when the tick turns genuine and complete. He doesn't feel much except it, at the end, and almost wants to laugh in the face of the first soldier of the Snow he sees just behind the border. He can tell it easily, so much unlike Droonie joking sharply it must start wherever the ice goes.

There's a few of the Snow flashing white hair in the same blue-and-white of the landscape. Then, a slight screech of a noise right from the mouth of a person he used to lead the same nation with. "Lead". Hah.

"Hey, Noa." He grins. "Can you do one last one for me? Tell Woogie the West want a negotiation."

Subnoa takes a step back, cautious with his eyes fixed on the crown on Clown's head that shines too sharp in the sun.

He doesn't fight. None of them end up more than trying. Rasplin would call them cowards, but that's just easier.

It drags out for too long for his liking, but in the end all that matters is Clown meets the Snow-Jungle Alliance, finally, and there are two lines formed on the opposite sides of nothing but a patch of snow.

There's Woogie, right in the center of the other line. Rasplin never thinks he could've been there, next to him.

"Rasplin, you asshole." Woogie's grin is too wide, strained, canines on display. "I want to kill you."

Rasplin laughs back, raspy. "I know."

That's it.

Ray jjkay hangs a silent figure right next to Netti, but neither does a single thing other than observe. Although Rasplin might catch a proud glint when his eyes meet Ray's, just for a second.

Clown's speech is the main event, and it's long and, really, meaningless, so Rasplin listens into his voice instead, how it rings and echoes in the snowy plains.

Woogie bites back.

Clown's voice turns amused on display where it was hidden before.

Woogie disagrees.

Erkku is a silent threat at his side, and he only doesn't look like he's helping decide anything 'cause there's nothing to.

Clown declares war. No one's surprised.

They all look like they're going through the motions at this point, as Clown throws the place and time in the faces of the Alliance.

Woogie talks about belief. Nobody listens.

The real game will only start on the battlefield.

"You alright, Rasplin?" Fantst pushes him in the shoulder as they're heading back. Most are bragging quietly about nothing they've done yet, and so nobody notices. "You have, like... almost like your eyes were clawed out. You look horrid."

"I... I do?" He turns slowly and gets a shaken up stare when Fantst has a closer look.

Rasplin never met any Exiled in person, before. The only one he knows of, really, was Merffinn, and the fate of that one was decided the second Plains even thought about having Clownpierce get rid of him. Rasplin had never even caught sight of him from a distance.

The first time he sees what the effects of exile do, it's twisted reflections in the ice of his former lands, of his own face.

Apparently, right after the destined to fail meeting the first thing Woogie had to do, petty, really, it happened this quick, was to throw the traitorous soldiers out of his nation for good. Rasplin forgot about the mechanic completely, to be honest, caught up in the mental strain.

His second thought is about Squid, and he shouts out his name, voice raised just a bit.

His first, though, was how the reflection looks dead to the world, absolutely unnatural, something that cannot be. The irises are two dark pits where they used to be icy blue even through the shadows of the mask. He doesn't want to think about how it looks if he pulls the mask up. So he doesn't.

He rushes to Squid, and gets just the image he expected. There's no screams. No thunder and lightning, all hell breaking loose.

"I think my eyes hurt." Squid says matter-of-factly. "Kinda think I know why."

His pupils are too wide but the thin rings of irises somehow seem two even darker circles.

"Do you... Are you..." Rasplin stutters.

"You have the same thing, Ras." Squid shrugs. "Don't pull the pity card on me. Look at yourself first."

Rasplin laughs slightly, wheezing. "Oh, I did, I did. Squid, there's..."

He turns his head sharply to check if someone's listening in. No one particularly cares.

"Did it just kick in?" Squid asks.

"We're gonna be fine." He snaps back more than reassures, even if he tries, somewhat. There's something stuck in his chest. "We'll get back to Desert, and we'll be the best soldiers we can be under Clown's rule, you hear me, Squid?"

Squid snorts. "That's kind of what I expected, yeah."

He pats Squid on the shoulder harshly, and it's still not much of a comfort with the itch of guilt settling in overweighing. "I'm... Squid, I didn't... I wasn't thinking straight, not when..."

"Hey." Squid cuts him off. "Don't you be sorry for helping me get out."

"I shouldn't have chosen this..."

"That's the point, Rasplin, come on!" Squid's voice peaks, slightly shuffling through the helmet.

Rasplin gets a tap on the shoulder of his own, from the side as Suut catches up to them and walks straight ahead. He sighs then and nods, calm as he can, with Squid falling just as silent.

"Just tell me if anything comes up, alright?" He asks quietly.

"You'll know it first." Squid gives him a toothy grin. "You know you will."

He doesn't think Squid is actually ever going to share.

He's just gonna say, that's the worst it gets. That first day, of course.

They all grow silent after a while, and maybe someone is reminiscing quietly about their life, thinking the battle they were expecting so much might be their last, but Rasplin can only afford to live one day at a time so he enjoys the quiet. The stars are nice. They remind him too much of the night before the Snow-Jungle Alliance was formed.

The totem is a heavy reminder against his chest, but in this second he's too distant to think to ever need it.

He doesn't think of anything he needs to, really, and he doesn't care that much to.

Coming back that's not quite coming home should be sold off as a bigger deal than it ends up happening. They pick up no things from the little hand-made shack, none of them, strangely, but Rasplin appreciates the thought where if they can't carry something on them at all times, it's useless to bring. Shows the mindset.

He guesses he is slightly stressed about the Desert as a whole's reaction to him, and consequently Squid, but he's seen not the worst or the best but certainly a representation of Clown's soldiers and he knows they're just the same as Snow, blood and bones and slightly scared stares into his back but confidence to his face.

He walks into the Mid in a crowd more than a unit of soldiers, with Suut's hand over his shoulder, and stares at the figure just off to the side for him that's in the middle of the group and slightly in front. He knows if he held his hand out, he couldn't catch him.

Everyone's eyes are on Clown, and he doesn't feel too special for it, and it's just a bit too heartbreaking, isn't it? There's air stuck in his throat choking him that's too close to the newfound symptoms of Exile, but he knows they're not.

The sun reflects on Clown's crown and it's the only thing he can see of him for a second at all, and it hurts, irrationally.

The only fear that rings in his head is rooted deep in his attachments, and he knows they're all coming from this world, now.

Well, at least they'll be able to say he betrayed his nation not for memories of something he was never sure was.

He gets his blood, that's that. So very soon.

Power... De facto he is once again, one of the leader's closest subordinates, and the only difference is that the King isn't Woogie, which grows into many differences. One of them is that the person who isn't Woogie is also someone else, someone specific. Really.

Rasplin teaches himself slowly to not straighten his posture, ready to put a hand on the hilt of his sword every time he sees a flash of a Plains soldier. It's a little strange.

Everyone slightly rings of danger, Plains, Desert. There are no Snow soldiers left here.

They sleep in the barracks.

Clown doesn't, almost. He just ends up sitting with his back to the wall staring at nothing with the moon sometimes catching his face into view. Rasplin, in turn, stares at him.

His eyes hurt.

He starts to roam out in the middle of the night, excusing himself, always to Clown but never to the sentries, to cough up too loudly droplets of black ooze and bury it in the sand with his feet, a pointedly careless gesture, every time, but he makes sure it works.

It's kinda strange how people never really talk about him.

He guesses he never got to ask how Clown explained it, and he'd put it as slightly awkward but he does anyway, in the split minutes when they're not only talking battle plans. Those blur in Rasplin's head and bring a welcome sharp taste to his life, but hell.

Clown smiles back at it, slightly off-balance. He says he did mention having an on-and-off alliance with him, so no one would target him if worse came to worst.

Rasplin chuckles back. Then turns it over in his head, for too long.

The too long is just over a couple hours, but it is.

If he were just a bit more naive he'd feel hopeful, but like this there's just the feeling stuffing his chest that grows stronger, uncomfortable, and sweet, and cutting back at him every time he looks just the right way.

He wonders if Clown realizes.

It doesn't make a difference.

It's what he tells himself.

He loves it too much when Clown has a crossbow put up to the head of some Snow guy he doesn't quite remember by name, or when a West traitor Clown says has been a pain in their necks for a long while now gets killed and the blood gets on Clown's face and he grins for a second, manic, red on white and in his teeth.

He loves Clown's curt monologues, and he loves his quick thinking, and he loves every movement of his that screams about the skill.

He loves every bit of Clown, those that he shares too much and that he doesn't, and he'd lie if he said he didn't just love Clown.

It's not a problem in itself, just with that little stutter of an obstacle where they aren't exactly on the same level about the...

Honestly, he's gonna say he's not sure at first that one thing isn't a vision of a delirious man who's sleepwalking more than really is alive and well.

It's that the air outside is charged and everything's too silent, the day before the battle, that you'd really have to call early morning at best, and all those who roam the streets never look anyone in the eye. There's still too many of them to the point when he returns to catch maybe an hour of sleep in the emptiness of the barracks there's just the two people left that he sees. The room he often crashes in when he does manage to break himself enough to pass out, it looks even too empty it's hollow.

On step one that he only hears in his brain, he notes the first person is Clown.

On step two, the other he scrambles for the name of and gets it in a second, and it doesn't matter, but the incompetency baffles him, really.

If it was him, if Clown just slightly tapped on the open skin of his face, he'd wake up instantly and just know in the back of his head through any layer of sleep, the smooth glove and press of fingers that would mean nothing. Everything to him.

It's too gentle here, even if he can't see Clown's eyes.

He takes a step away from the two, and he knows, thinks hysterically Chief is dead asleep instead, and maybe Clown won't catch sight of him either, so Rasplin can... He always ends up wanting to run.

He turns on his heels and leaves, as quiet as he can. He'd not be surprised if Clown does notice, but he never has time to bring it up. So it's fine.

The air keeps its atmosphere into the morning, but Rasplin doesn't care much to notice then. It's just the others, their nervous movements turning even sharper, people walking faster, running as if they know they're about to be out of time.

He looks past them all because nothing can change anything.

The Plains leader bothers him just that once. Rasplin knows he's been looking out for this week and some, though.

"Rasplin." Axgry goes at it, serious but casual. In his eyes, there's fear all the same. "Could you think about a proposition I have? I've... seen you in action, and. Just to consider it for later." He bites his lip, but doesn't stop for Rasplin to answer like he thinks he would. "We're allied with Clownpierce and are part of the same empire, so there's a chance... maybe you'd want to change your positions slightly? I'm not telling you to betray somebody, no, we're one and the same anyway. You, just you see. Clownpierce is an unpredictable King. And if you need a leader that one could call... more stable?"

Rasplin laughs. "Is this what you see me as?" He asks slowly. Axgry jerks his head up, but Rasplin's the one who doesn't let him interrupt, this time. "Right, alright. The answer's no."

"You don't understand what I'm trying..." The Plains King finally reacts, but the last words of Rasplin leave him silent and slightly shook when he catches up to them.

He gives Rasplin a long look, then. "I see, okay. Your choice's yours."

Rasplin's pretty sure he still expects him to at least consider. What a fool.

He may or may not snap at Chief he'd better look who he's friends with, reminded of that. Chief staggers back and stares at him as he walks by.

He should probably turn and say sorry, but it's Chief and he really can't, even if his annoyance is brought on by the coward that Axgry is. Chief's just that easy to get riled up at, it's just him.

Or maybe it's just himself and his head breaking in half. And the stubborn memories and not-memories.

He needs to talk to Clown about something that's not the war, so he talks about his death instead.

"Hey, Clown?" He drops. "Have you ever had to exile a member?"

"A few times, of course. Sacrifices had to be made." Clown shrugs back, and Rasplin knows that he knows what he's leading towards.

"Have you... seen one? What it does to them?"

Clown holds a hand up, out to drop his fingers on Rasplin's mask. Slides an identical line down the right side as there is on the left.

Rasplin knows this movement. He can imagine how it feels. There's no intent behind it that he needs, and it's too much and not enough when Clown must think it is, neither of them are enough.

Clown smiles, just slightly, a quirk of his lips, and there's something bitter in his eyes, hiding. "I am, right now."

Rasplin gives him a startled laugh as an afterthought.

"Does it hurt?" Clown's voice is calm, and it betrays nothing. As always.

Rasplin used to be this, too. He's losing the ability.

"It's... manageable." He cringes behind the mask. Clown notices the tilt of it, of course he does. "I can work with it."

Clown stares at him for too long and never says a word, and Rasplin gives him a choked smile from behind the mask and knows he notices. He just grins wider.

They leave the island for another one with an eerie name, finally, and he walks next to Clown but never close.

He gets what he asked for, he does, he does.

There's so much blood.

His hands itch, and the toothy shaking smile never leaves his face. One, two, three. A shield broken, a right blow, a stagger back. Another hit.

Golden apples never tasted sweeter to him than in the fight on Exile Island, where too many wish to target him and he takes them on, not reckless but confident, he's not gonna say overly or just right.

There's something missing that's rough material against his fingers and buzz and sparks that are natural to him, he knows, but it's not the first or the last thing not there for him, so he manages.

Him and West focus on the leaders of the Alliance the same way they're focused back on him and Clown, and he never quite catches sight of Woogie, and maybe that's for the best. Erkku's not showing off in the slightest, every blow trying his best to be on point, and it's not that he doesn't enjoy this but that he treats the battle as a problem to be solved.

Rasplin just sees Erkku from the corner of his eye and makes sort of a beeline for him while he's not looking. He's concentrated on his target, just for a second, and looks right through them as the blade hits the crossbow, splintering the wood.

Minor variable.

Swing to the neck, and it parts with the body with close to no resistance, always so easy.

That variable, miscalculated.

The next second Clown flashes into existence as if from out of nowhere, and Erkku doesn't entirely block the hit, stuttering on the spot.

Rasplin's right next, and Erkku parries his cleanly as he can for a clearly wounded man.

His face is too close, and Rasplin can't read much from the dark patterns of the skin, he just fights and there's not someone fighting for their life specifically between the two until Erkku throws a hand out and is gone in a snap.

Rasplin throws him a swear under his nose and turns his head back in search for the shine of netherite.

Every movement is fluid and right and seeing it right now is like crashing into a wall of an obsidian box which shouldn't be because he knows Clown on the battlefield so well, even if he's not seen him there much, he knows like the back of his hand, Clown's grip on the sword.

It's unmoving now, tip of the weapon down.

The vague familiarity of the dead player gets to him and finds its way right into his thoughts until it clicks.

Why the fuck did it have to be him, he thinks, and there's a breath catching in his throat.

Clown stands like a statue, staring at the mush of limbs with one hands spread out, as if trying to touch and not realizing he can't. Uncaring about anything else.

Rasplin screams.

Then, there's a clash of metal right behind Clown's back, Rasplin's sword against one of another face that means nothing, but that deserves to bleed more than others in this singular moment.

"You don't." He rasps. "You don't."

They hold out for that second, and then, when he's just slightly back to his senses, they run.

Clown has sagged onto one knee, so Rasplin towers above him and the other slack figure, and the sky is too dark to see much anymore, but he still watches slowly as the body, Chief's, of fucking course it's Chief's, blurs into nothing, and the only thing left is the dark stains on Clown's clothes that are black too, so it's just sticky, and disgusting, and all over him.

Clown turns at him, and he has has a lost look on his face.

"I need a... I need some people dead, Rasplin." He says quietly.

They chase the Jungle King into the water. He dies with his back turned.

Woogie's nowhere to be seen after, and he roams the battlefield like a drunkard, searching for nothing. He can't look Clown in the eye.

Clown speaks to his troops at the end of the day, pointing the tip of his sword at them. They're there to lick their wounds, to count the survivors, so his speech is harsh and quiet at the same time, because he understands.

"This is not the end of the war." He says. "But it is what decides that West is the winner. And there was no other way. So celebrate! Celebrate."

His look is dead, and he's just dead on his feet but dragging on because he can't not. People don't seem to notice that, when it's in plain sight.

Rasplin wants to offer him something that he could want, but he doesn't even think he could, anything that'd help. He never learned that.

The mask of his expression is almost broken, corners of his lips twitching, every time Rasplin stares into his eyes.

"You really did care." He just mutters under his nose. "That's..."

"Rasplin, Rasplin." Clown laughs back, too light. "You were right, you know. I shouldn't have."

Rasplin jerks his head up.

"You said, I've been thinking about that." Clown continues hastily.

He's pacing around the room like it's caged him. He must've had time to think, too much, the way back, the empty few hours of reminiscence where most tried to keep silent, waiting for Clown to call for some new battle. He hasn't, not yet.

They don't know what he's waiting for. Woogie is right out there, either preparing for a rematch or one foot in the grave already, more likely.

"You were right." Clown repeats. "This world, as they all, isn't a place where you can risk it, I can't just. I have my empire." He breathes in with forced slowness, and it doesn't help calming one bit.

"Clown." His voice sounds too loud for how broken it is, and he has nothing to say, he always does.

He can only give away, unwanted but needed things.

"Do you not... have a way to revive him?" He asks hoarsely.

Clown turns sharply on his heel. "I'm not begging jjkay for anything."

"No, nah." He shakes his head, drowsy motion. "I've seen a second chance totem on you, you popped one."

Clown snorts. "There's no need to care for them, if you die and they save your life, better for you. I'm out, yes... I'm." He chokes slightly. "It's a rare one, Rasplin. You'll search for days and not find one in a dozen loot chests, not now."

The corners of Rasplin's lips jerk up, and he stares at Clown, unblinking. "Clown, I have one."

"Good? You..." Clown stops. "No." He breathes. "No, no."

"If you want to res someone." Rasplin takes a step to him. "This has the cost of a life. Isn't it..." The totem still has the dull shine to it even in the half-dark, and it bites at his fingers with the cold. "Isn't it..." It's complex, the ingrained letters in Common twisting into the patterns. He can't call it beautiful even though his breath catches every time he looks.

It's a life if he doesn't waste it.

Clown takes it from him, clutching it in his hands, leaning over it just so slightly it's obvious to Rasplin, and stares, at it, not at him.

Clown seems to question it more, and that's wrong, so wrong.

His eyes are glassy when he looks up.

"I can't." He says, helpless.

Rasplin drops a laugh. Then again, a wheeze. "You can, you can." He breathes. "You can bring back... whoever you want to. You're Clownpierce."

"Clownpierce, King of the Desert." Clown mutters. "The West King."

"Everything is yours, isn't that what you were aiming for?" Rasplin chuckles. It leaves a metallic taste in his mouth.

"Rasplin, I..." Clown focuses in on him, suddenly, and he looks like he's on the brink of saying something. Rasplin wants to tell him it's fine. It's not, it's not, it's not, it's...

"Rasplin, I love you, you know that?" The glint is back in Clown's eyes. It's sickly.

"Y... Yeah." He breathes. "Thanks, Clown. I know." He purses his lips. "I do too." It's simple, the admission.

He's half sure Clown understands just as well they don't mean the same thing.

"jj." Clown drops. Then continues louder. "jj! Get in here, there's something to share." His voice rings too strained, close to a shout, and it's confident but a forced way of confident.

A sigh echoes through the room, just light.

Rasplin slips out before Ray turns to greet him, purple lights circling next to him as Netti flashes into existence just as well. They both know he's there, and that he doesn't want to them to acknowledge him. He doesn't want to be anywhere near the revival.

Clown walks off into the distance with them, and Rasplin stares but never comes into view, ever, until he just can't see the figures.

He just sits in the sand then and chokes on laughs, leaning back until he falls and the sand shuffles in his hair.

Clown and Chief come back alone, staggering, and when Rasplin looks too closely Chief hides his hands behind his back, but he seems aware, too aware.

Chief doesn't run to thank him, and Rasplin is... glad Clown doesn't mention much of it, who the totem belonged to. Ever.

He wants to shake himself, shout at himself, why, why did he do it.

He just wants to be able to fall asleep.

He walks out a few hundreds of blocks out that night, and no one stops him, and the only thing he sees is sand, smooth surface crunching under his feet that he wants to drown in.

The sun goes up.

It lights up the small platform to the side somewhere and also makes life entirely unbearable.

He staggers over to the arc structure that looks as if it spawned in out of nowhere, and it takes too long. Maybe it just looks close. He just notes the flowers from a distance, flashy and hurting his vision.

He leans on it and he's glad, distantly, there are no thorns on the roses.

If he looks in he can find a platform further past, even forms of plates. Every one has a face engraved, miniature, more a caricature. It's a second chance totem, too many of them, looking back at him with their red flashy eyes, following. Or it's just the flash of the sun reflecting in the rubies. Doesn't matter.

He falls on his knees close to the edge and throws up something too dark, for too long. Throughout, he's just scared he'll choke.

There's a buzz to the side of his ear, and he turns slowly to the sound he could identify but not in this world, he can't quite put it anywhere but belonging to a specific admin.

"Netti1010."

She turns her head at him in a motion too soft and smooth, just a second after he raises his own.

"What..." He bites his lip. "What exactly happened that day, at the revival?"

His voice creaks, like a sick, sick patient's, fatally ill, and she's just a nurse here to keep him company, or she's death. People say if that glorified figure with a scythe stands by the deathbed, it means he's racing against a clock.

Superstitions or not, he knows he's not lasting long, and she looks at him with pity.

He can also almost imagine her red hair is burning like a halo in the disturbingly pinkish sun.

He thinks he's delirious.

"Ah, dear." Netti smiles, and she's not telling him anything. That speaks for itself more than she otherwise could.

She flicks her wrists sharply, and the thing he's leaning against is the wall of a house, small bits biting in and crumbling against the touch.

He falls asleep and wakes up an hour later but never better, and the days seem to be the only thing splitting his life in half.

He's tired.

He doesn't think getting blood up his arms that isn't his would help at all.

He hosts small scouting parties, clearing out rebels left and right, groups even smaller, two or three people, and he doesn't know what they were hoping for, really. There's just no hope, for anything, for them.

There is only Clown's goal that's relevant, and he's oh so close to catching it in his hands. It's one of the simple things that still brings Rasplin happiness when he thinks it through and makes himself concentrate, that there is Clown and the goal.

That's been the one thing he's been putting his drive into, that's real and obtainable.

It's a bit of Clown that he might share with him.

Maybe not.

Maybe in its process.

Please.

The sweat down his forehead gets in his eyes and that is the only reason his vision blurs and he blinks too much, but it's not like anyone's gonna look too close.

He's hidden safely from others' eyes.

He snaps once and cuts off with a precise swing of his sword a strand of too-long pointlessly white hair from the front and stares at the lock as it floats down, giving it a quiet huh.

Might as well.

It's where Squid finds him, and Rasplin realizes through a fog of thoughts he's not seen him in a while.

He's... glad he's alive.

"What the... What's that you're doing?" Squid chokes slightly and then just blinks at him, not making another sound.

"Huh?" He makes a jerky gesture with the shears he's gripping. "Just... getting rid of the dead weight, nothing major."

"Ah, I got it." Squid grins. "'s this a way to turn over a new leaf? Do you..."

"Hell no." Rasplin laughs back, and it doesn't sound happy one bit. "It's just..." He turns most of his attention back to the task, and the clipping sounds mix in with his voice every few seconds. He doesn't mind it. "I've tried that too many times already, and as much as it happened..."

An especially violent sound of a snip breaks up the silence when he stops talking for a second.

"I don't think I'm going much further there, Squid. Have you ever had the feeling..." Snip. "That you're never really gonna escape? Don't, don't answer. That's just... That's what I feel." Snip. "Like this isn't gonna change anything."

Snip.

Snip.

The shears ring down on the floor, and the sounds stop.

Squid sits down next to him. Sighs. "What do you want me to tell you, Rasplin?"

"Nothing." He shrugs. "I'm perfect there."

Squid wheezes. His eyes are two dark pits, too. Rasplin doesn't look.

His hair is left strangely long, coal-black now, for the size of the white pile under his feet. It starts to curl in a couple days.

There's close to no water over the Desert, and every time he gets his hands on some he treasures it like a true Desert player. The reflections in the vial are miniscule, and they're all about a hunched over figure in full dark except the demon mask, that really doesn't look like Rasplin of the Snow, leader of the Snow military.

He is forever tied to that image. Even if he was never going to win, if he was a dead man to begin with. But did that change?

So many other things did, though.

He rows Suut out of the jaws of death from a failed fight, and doesn't feel anything when there's shouts to his back from someone whose voice he knows too well. He knows that's a fight he can't win so he forces himself not to rush it, not yet. It takes a lot, but it's what he's been doing for a long while now, so he manages.

A couple minutes and Suut runs his sword through though the leader of the Plains instead, not enough, not who Clown needs, and the only thing Rasplin can do is laugh and tell the body it's what they do here with traitors of Clown's.

He doesn't even know how that happened, but it's slightly awkward to ask now, isn't it?

It's a routine.

Chief sets up a table in one of the rebuilt shacks of the Mid and rewrites the number of enemies every single time. Rasplin's more than half sure he messed it up too much by now. He says nothing, just drops him every name he remembers, calm and even.

Chief grins and drops a dumber and dumber sentence back at him, every time.

Rasplin ignores it.

He doesn't think he's staying for long in here.

"Do you regret it?" He asks Squid and gets a sharp shrug back.

"In a way, yeah, very much."

He can't see Squid's eyes well, but the yellow visors show the darkened irises as he blinks, slowly.

"Do you want to go back?" Rasplin asks, raspy.

"What?" He tilts his head.

"I have unfinished business with Snow, I realised." Rasplin tells him. "I need Woogie dead."

Squid laughs too loudly and doesn't get even one turn of a head from people walking past. There's not enough left, really. "Who fucking doesn't, Rasplin. You're in the middle of the Western Empire."

"That's right." Rasplin half nods. "You're right."

Rasplin only has one limit there, if he doesn't remember his body. He doesn't care much for that, anyway.

He taps on the wall next to the open door, and Clown snorts slightly and gestures for him to walk in. Rasplin doesn't care to close it behind him. It slides softly in place on its own, and he half shrugs half twitches from the noise of wood slightly clicking.

There are sparks in Clown's eyes, the usual deadly curiosity, but it's dull now, half tired and half content.

"Clown, I..." He gulps.

Clown gives him a shadow of a smile.

"You've been on trips for a while." He mutters.

"Nah, I've just..." He stutters there.

Saying he's been avoiding him could be called right there, and it is, and he can't speak that Clown in the face. He can't look away at all.

"I've been clearing... out some rebels." He answers weakly. "You know. Doing the job."

"You were, you were." Clown's expression shifts between a smile and a wince, and he can't quite put which it is more. "Rasplin, I..."

"I know I've said it a fair few times." Rasplin cackles, curt. "I'm going on a mission next, a longer mission. I know... that's why I wanted to settle it with you. I know I can just leave." He stills. "It's... a different kind of leave." He adds, words jumpy off his tongue. "I... don't think I can just be at peace, not until... Woogie's dead."

"Woogie, huh." Clown mutters. "That bastard has deserved that place in his grave a long while ago. I just thought..." His look's slightly lost.

"That'll be better for everyone." Rasplin tilts his head.

"It will be." Clown nods. "Will it..." It's just a mutter.

"Clown, he's the last person you actually need to look out for." Rasplin gives him a startled laugh. "Don't you..."

"It's not Woogie, is it, Rasplin? Is it really." Clown chuckles, empty. "Erkku, Angry, that... Bryx, they'll all be gone eventually."

"That's why I need to find him, so he is really gone."

"Don't go alone." Clown drops. Then adds quietly. "That's not smart."

Rasplin stares back at him. "I'm, yeah, I'm taking Squid." He snorts. "Kinda like I came."

Clown smiles. "Well, it's not that bad, is it? We'll take down Woogie, we'll..." His smile falls. It's like he wakes up from the dream, that's what it is.

"I just need. To go." Rasplin offers, and he sounds questioning. He knows if Clown asked, he would stay. He wants to stay, if he does.

Clown nods, broken movement. "You do."

He takes a step closer, too small. Rasplin knows what's gonna happen now, and it won't change anything.

"Thanks." Clown drops, almost simply a high noise from his throat. "For all you do. Rasplin. You're really... Fucking god, Rasplin."

His hand is light on Rasplin's mask, three fingertips right in the middle resting between the horns.

Rasplin blinks.

Clown pushes the mask up, slightly, getting his hair ruffled with the leather band at the back.

"This is what you want, right?" He says, and his voice is impossibly soft in that way it cannot be directed at Rasplin, it just can't.

"What?" Rasplin breathes.

His eyes unfocus for a second with too much of the feeling of air on his open skin, as Clown tugs just further, and he feels how hot and heavy his own breathing is, not catching on the mask anymore.

Clown kisses him, and the first second it's just a marble statue pressing against him before he registers the faint breath.

His hand ends up shaky on Clown's chest, holding on with no tug.

When Clown leans back, he does forward, just slightly, with a choked sound.

There's a pattern left over in spots on Clown's jaw, black. He thinks there's a line trickling down from the corner of his mouth, too, not quite blood.

Clown's eyes look soft but strangely, and it really isn't, empty.

"Thank you, Rasplin." He says again. Then pulls on the mask by the tip until it's settled back, hold of it casual on his face.

"You're..." Clown drops. "This is..." He taps against Rasplin's chestplate, twice, curt. "This is just for you."

Rasplin laughs. It sounds like a sob.

"For my favorite sword." Clown adds softly.

"Of... course." He chokes. He tries to hug himself, but just feels cold, it's unhelping. "Can I... I'll go now." He can't even out his voice.

This can't really be possible.

He assumes everything because there's nothing to really guess that he sees. And he doesn't ask. This isn't a world where he asks, but rather a world where he serves as a weapon.

He steps out the room with his back never quite turned.

He lets himself think about it too much because it's only just walking in every step of a thought he already had.

Leaving Desert is not freeing.

It's more him hanging in the air when he can't quite find a grip. He never can.

There's not a way out of this. Maybe it's that he can't make it out.

"So what are we up for, just killin' Woogie?" Squid tilts his head at him, at the edge of the ice, back.

Rasplin rolls his eyes. "Whatever we can, Squid. One at a time, just question some first."

"Because of course they're gonna crack."

"Oh." He grins. "With the right methods, they sure are."

There's just him, and the campfire, and his good friend that understands him too well in the middle of the ice, and he thinks this repeats too funnily, or more so ironically.

Squid never asks exactly on point. Rasplin never answers.

He never has pity in his eyes, at least.

Rasplin never wipes the black stains down from the corner of his lip. He knows Clown would, just doesn't think about how he did.

They move, bit of ice to another one. This feels like going in a loop more than running, really.

The first batch of rebels they find, finally, are fresh from Exile Island, and by batch he means two, and he knows them. Or of them. They're of Snow the way he used to be. That sounds empty now.

He's too much like the old him, but he never can be quite the same again.

He threatens Ivorycello to kill her friend with Squid's sword right up to their neck, and she complies, and it's too easy.

She looks at him with disdain, up close. That's almost new.

She asks him if it was worth it, then, and he wants to laugh.

That's really why he fails to react to the movement the first second, wondering distantly if Ivory is the type to play her mind games. As much as he remembers of her, he'd call her that.

When the danger comes, it's not her.

There is an arrow in his shoulder, and the blood is really his this time, dark on dark cloth, poking out the netherite. He chokes slightly and turns, sharply aware of Ivory's empty stare through his back, and he knows she's not gonna hit now, she doesn't need to. She must be happy.

A Jungle soldier slips into existence right in front of his face and the next hit is right on his mask, head on, shielded.

He thinks his mask got scraped.

He swings, and they take a clumsy step back on the ice, and that's good, too good that half of these people that he doesn't know sticks out on the slippery surface backed up by the fields and fields of snow like a sore thumb.

He knows the other half but their faces are a blur, all except Woogie.

He has half a mind to make a mad dash for him.

He can only block one hit that comes for him, and the axe bites splinters off his mask and brings a flash of pain, again, Ivory's grin too excited on him. Another concentrated look from the back, and he remembers that one, ZombieDwarf, and there's the one he doesn't, and doesn't, and then there's that one that's Woogie with the violent spark in his eyes.

He turns his head sharply, and it seems that Squid has no problem with running.

It takes him a second to think, good.

He never quite gets to Woogie, does he.

It's... self-preservation isn't the right word here. He's just not that kind of stupid. Okay, maybe it is. Maybe some of it is fear.

One of the rebels is an Exiled, he notices. He wonders what's going on through their head.

He hits back, and his sword rattles against their armor. Their own mask covers the expression.

He pays no attention.

He makes a dash for the border of the ice.

Right now, to him, that is where Snow ends. It's somewhat a disappointment when the icy water makes something turn over uncomfortably in his stomach and they're still right behind. Zombie is running above easily with Frost Walker, and he can't stop moving because it'll drag him under the ice and he'll choke.

There are dark circles in the water, and they look like ink. Chief's blood on Clown, pointless. Too much. Some sort of aimless divine punishment for Rasplin.

He cringes, and the motion guarantees him some more water slipping past his teeth, awfully cold, waiting for him to cough it up so it can claim him completely.

He grips the border of the ice and drags himself up before he dies there. It's just prolonging the inevitable. Every second he's alive is that one thing.

Woogie is spitting sharp, loud words behind him that echo, and the water isn't covering his ears in a biting blanket, but he still can't hear.

There's five, six, however many of them and just one of him, he can't see the splash of black-and-white Squid was anymore at all, and he can't run. But he does. Right until his shoulders are riddled with arrows and the gashes have red beating in them too much, down leaving prints as if they're footsteps behind him, and he can't run the fastest, so it's not even the fact clear as the ice he's not going to escape but just him feeling if he takes another step, he'll die.

If he doesn't, he'll die.

How lovely.

He doesn't even expect any snap of a second chance totem once his heart will stop beating, no revival. He's not that valued.

He gulps and staggers half a step forward on the ice, never slipping.

They scream, and shout, and don't look at him so he can't even answer an insult. They don't even see him as a traitor, just a target.

His name means nothing.

He parries a blow and coughs in the face of that Jungle soldier he doesn't know by name. He hopes the blood from that lands, at least.

He finally notes in the back of his head his mask cracked, a while ago.

"Come here, I'll teach you the art of dying!" The person laughs loudly. They still look through him, landing the next hit.

He does just the same and feels empty and missing something.

Disappointment, this is. Not the... He's angry, too angry at himself that he still does nothing. He guesses... he couldn't do anything now. He's just a man who runs, and runs, and runs, in circles, and now with another hit to the side from someone he doesn't see, all he does is cough up something between black and red, on the ice and down his neck.

This, everything he feels, is pointless.

He jerks past the Jungle soldier, back, and tries to swing at Woogie, right at his face. Woogie parries effortlessly, with a chuckle that's just... confused, slightly.

He's... he can't ever get to Woogie.

He stops running.

He... He thinks he's homesick. That's what it is. The point's just that he's back on the ice of his past lands that were a home, but they were a small cage.

Then, home became a person. Too hight above, too far away, someone he can never allow himself to touch, but who he can give himself away to, for.

He feels just so slightly selfish that he can throw his body in front of Clown's goal. If that's the only thing he can ask of Clown, to have his blood on him just as well.

He doesn't miss Clown's lips on his. He can't ask of him that.

Then it ends.

The picture is never really beautiful, but who the hell ever wants to remember the wrenched out guts and hits too over the top.

It just ends, and he's not homesick anymore. He just was, homesick.