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Something is wrong.
Or, something is going to be wrong. Time is tricky—being the goddess of death, Kristin doesn't exactly have a great grasp on the when or the where. The little pieces of times she gathers are mostly from watching Phil, who has mostly just been going through the motions as of late. He doesn't seem to have a good grasp on time, either, which makes it even harder for Kristin to figure out when and where this is going to happen.
But something is happening. There is something gripping the fabric of this world like two great hands, pushing it in on all sides and threatening irreversible collapse. She can see it driving closer like the brightest sunrise there's ever been, a catastrophe that would eradicate the one mortal she loves more than anything.
Kristin needs to save her husband before it's too late.
The only way she knows to save him, though, would be by his death, which is a possibility Kristin dashes as soon as it crosses her mind. Not only would she never do that, but also Phil would never agree to it. She knows his stubbornness well, and knows that he would rather stick it out to the bitter end and try to stop it before giving up on his life.
With that out of the question, though, what is there left to do?
As she ponders this, she feels something unfamiliar on the precipice of her consciousness. It isn't anyone she knows, but she knows their feelings, feels their panic intertwine with her own as all beings beyond the force of mortal comprehension feel this oncoming tragedy. Kristin knows what it is like to be a grieving mother. She knows what it is like to be willing to do anything to save the ones you love.
The entities plead without voice, and Kristin answers back without a sound. Their son has been trapped in limbo for so long he's nearly forgotten entirely how much he is loved. And with this world crumbling in on itself, he will never get the chance to remember unless Kristin intervenes. So, with love stretching between them, threads spun from starlight, an exchange is promised. Kristin will do everything in her power to save one of their own, and in return, those Kristin protects will be given safe passage into the End and beyond, if she can get them there.
Kristin sees the path that lies before her now, as she watches Phil sit up in his bed for the final time and stretch his arms. Saving him will take more of her power than she's ever expended in her life. It will take more than the creation of the forest, it will take more from her than the spell that allowed her to inhabit Phil's body for that brief spell of time.
Phil squints at the sunlight as if confused by its persistence, and yawns as he stumbles from another sleepless night over to the ladder hanging on his wall. As he starts to go through his morning routine, Kristin watches over him with the same fondness that has endured for centuries. Even with all that is about to come, there is still nothing that could possibly stand in the way of the love they share. Kristin will make sure of it.
So, with time slipping through her fingers like grains of sand, Kristin plunges into the murky expanse that is limbo. Nebulous, cruel, out of Kristin's sphere of influence, for the most part. She cannot save everything here. Some people here don't even want to be saved.
This one, though, Kristin has no problem making an exception for.
"Ranboo!"
He's so tiny, even as lanky as he is compared to the others. Ranboo jumps so high in the air he nearly falls into the surrounding water, stammering incomprehensibly for several seconds while Kristin blinks grimy gray water from her eyes. She's standing at what she feels to be her full height, and yet, in the depths of limbo, her head is only just fully above the surface. "What— what— what— hello?" he asks, squinting like he can't believe what he's seeing.
"Hi! It's so good to finally meet you, Ranboo! We don't have much time, but I'm going to get you out of here, okay?" Water laps up at the side of his small platform as Kristin speaks, trying her hardest to convey her urgency without scaring Ranboo so much he won't talk to her
"Who- who are you? What's going on, you're— you're gigantic!" Ranboo gapes at her, stepping back the tiniest bit he can. "What's going on?"
"I just said I don't— okay. Hi, I'm the goddess of death, I'm trying to get you out of limbo. You have people who love you, Ranboo, and those who created you want you back, safe with them."
Ranboo's tail lashes, almost dipping into the water before yanking right back up. "They... they want me back? Why now? Why are you here now, I— I've been here for so long. Did something change?"
Kristin nods, solemn. "Something's about to. I don't know what it is, exactly, but it's going to be bad. The home you know isn't going to be safe to return to, not for a long, long time. That's why I'm taking you back to your first home." Pulling her hand up and out of the water, she reaches it out to Ranboo, a second platform for him to step upon.
"But what about Michael?"
"Michael," Kristin repeats, turning the word over in her mouth as her memory tips back to her observations of Phil. She watches him, some weeks ago, as he sits inside a well-loved boat, reading aloud from a storybook before complaining of an aching back to a little zombified piglin who snorts from where he sits in Phil's lap. "He's your son, right?"
A softer expression enters Ranboo's distressed face, a small smile that already practically glows with love and adoration Kristin knows from the love she has for her own little boy, far as he may be from her now. "Will he be okay?" Ranboo asks, tear-scarred face crumpling as anxiety washes over him again. "I don't— I'm not going to go with you unless I know he'll be alright."
And at this, Kristin hesitates. The End is no place for a zombified piglin, even under Phil's watchful eye. And yet, he can't go with Ranboo to the place beyond, either. Michael simply isn't made for that.
"No," Ranboo whispers upon the silence that follows her hesitation. He shakes his head, his arms wrapping around his chest as he hunches in on himself. "I don't want to go with you if you can't save Michael, too. I'm sorry, I just— I won't. He's important to me, he's the most important thing in the- in the world, to me."
The sincerity in his voice tugs at Kristin's chest in a familiar, aching way, and she knows that she cannot ignore this plea. Kristin drums two of her fingers on the edge of the grass block Ranboo is standing on, humming aloud as she thinks. Time is running short, but surely— surely this could still work.
Distantly, she reaches back, and gets a response that makes her face split into a relieved smile.
"It's not where you go that matters," she relays back. She means it sincerely, but her mind is racing to try and pull all of these pieces in order to get to Phil as quick as she can. "They just want you to be safe, Ranboo, and if that isn't with them, then that's alright. I have somewhere else in mind that you can go. It won't be quite home, but it will be suitable enough for you two."
Ranboo unfolds, his spine straightening as he looks up at Kristin with a hope that's fraught with wariness. "You can? They're- they're really okay with that?"
Kristin nods. "They will always love you, Ranboo. That won't change just because you're not ready to see them yet."
"Okay," Ranboo laughs, breathy with relief. He steps onto Kristin's hand, nearly toppling over before Kristin's other hand rises to steady him. "Okay, I'll— yeah! Please, I- I need to see Michael again. I need to know that he's okay."
"Alright," Kristin says, sighing in relief.. She cups Ranboo completely in her hands, ensuring that no water will get in, that nothing will hurt him anymore. "Here we go."
The ache she had felt from Ranboo's words presses further against her being as she sinks down again, fuel burning in a furnace that only appears to have unlimited fire. Bringing mortals across these planes of reality is a tricky thing, but if Kristin leaves this unfinished, then she will never be able to gather the strength to get Phil to safety.
Her form passes through the worlds like a hundred ghosts, like a chilly arctic wind that beats against two cabins standing in the snow, rattling the walls and making Phil shiver. Kristin's arm stretches over the commune, from the top of the pines all the way to the stone house backed into the mountain. They work quick, Ranboo gathering Michael up in his arms and kissing his forehead just before Kristin takes them away again.
They don't see her again. When her hand opens again, it's on a netherrack plateau, far away from anything familiar. As soon as they're on solid ground, Kristin's vision tips and falls back into the void. She can't see them any longer, her vision has been eclipsed by premonitions of the sky burning far too bright, but she knows in her hearts and in those connecting threads that both of them will be safe.
With her end of the bargain fulfilled, passage into the End is guaranteed. There is only one more hurdle, whisper twin voices in the back of Kristin's awareness. The portals themselves are barred by another god. The very same deity with his puppet strings stretched across the souls living in limbo has found a way to hide the End away—not just access to the portals, but knowledge of its existence, too.
But Kristin has already surpassed this god's will once. And armed with the urgency of the catastrophe she feels growing nearer with every second that will pass or has already passed, Kristin locates the god swiftly. She plucks him from the gilded, barren desert, and takes only the slightest bit of pleasure in how he squirms like a fish while he adjusts to this void that's so much darker than anything he's been able to conjure. Power flows easily from Kristin's form as it wraps around the god, and she feels some small relief that she was able to retain this confrontation within her own domain.
"What is happening?" XD snarls, the crossed halos around his head flaring bright as he tries to chase off the void that surrounds him. Kristin can feel the god's panic, burning just as loudly as the fire he's struggling to maintain. He had always been the only one in control of not just the Overworld, but of limbo, and the blurred lines of life and death he so loved to toy with. But Death has always been more, and any obfuscation of that fact has been either by error or allowance on Kristin's end. So when Kristin finally forms a presence out of the surrounding void, and XD looks upon something more than him for the first time in the short spark that his existence has been, Kristin does nothing to hide herself like she had for Ranboo. She allows the little god to see all of what she has always been, and does not hesitate to move forward with her requests.
"I need you to fix the End portals for me."
XD's long green cloak ripples despite the lack of wind, the void beginning to creep up the edges of it. "Who do you think you are, asking this from me?" he growls, misplaced bravery almost covering how his voice starts to shake "The End is what keeps my playthings here. If I fix them, then they'll all leave!"
"Oh, I'm not asking you," Kristin says. She doesn't quite mean to, but she also doesn't do anything to fix the way the void squeezes in a little tighter around XD, making her intensity be felt more than heard. "You're going to fix the End portals, okay? And I am going to take some mortals with me through the portal, and I am taking them away from you and everything that's coming to this cursed world."
"Everything that's coming?" XD repeats, his deep voice slightly squeezed by the inky darkness pressing up at his sides. "What are you talking about?"
Kristin pauses for a second that feels like it stretches to infinity. "You can't see it coming either," she realizes. "Well— it doesn't matter. I'm telling you to fix those portals, and you're going to do it, now. Or else, I'll— I'll seize limbo myself, and release all those souls to me."
XD growls, thrashing as hard as he can in a space where there is nowhere to move. "You can't do that."
"Can't I?" Kristin hums, honestly wondering aloud. "I've already saved one soul, and you haven't even noticed."
Under his breath, she hears XD grumble. "...Two."
"Two?" Kristin frowns. "Well, that doesn't sound right. Do you mean Michael?"
"What? No, I— let me out of here!" XD snarls again. His halos have dimmed, his robes are pulled taut as the void creeps further into what's left of his presence. "You've proven your point."
Kristin doesn't let up, even in her confusion. "I mean, are you fixing the portals?"
"They won't be lit, none of them are," XD says sullenly. Kristin stays silent, waiting for him to confirm their repairs. She knows how to light one, and she remembers seeing the right materials when she was making drinks inside Techno's cabin. It's all still there. "Yes. There. It's all fixed."
"Okay! But if you're lying to me, I will tear you apart and take everything from you," Kristin says with great cheer, but finally, she begins to release XD from her grasp. As the void recedes, XD looks up at her with an expression of contempt so sour that it makes Kristin laugh aloud.
And then, she's alone again.
Or—not quite.
"Hello? Am I still dead? What's happening?"
The mortal's blue onesie is almost blindingly bright against the darkness of the void. His very appearance as he crawls from Kristin's sleeve is so baffling that it takes Kristin a long second to place him. She flicks through Phil's memories, and finds a flickering image of this mortal standing in the cold. Then one of him building a house up on a hill. The name doesn't come to her very easily, but the care Phil has for him does.
"Connor?"
The mortal stares into the void so that the spike on his onesie are what faces Kristin, instead of him. "God?" he asks. "Am I a ghost? What's— What's happening?"
As confused as she is, urgency seizes Kristin again, making a decision for her. Taking Connor all the way back to limbo would be too taxing with what she needs to do next, and yet, she can't place him back in the Overworld herself. She needs to get him somewhere safe—near the quiet, thrumming energy of an End portal will do, if she's lucky on this. And then he needs a tether, any living thing to tie this mortal's presence to the Overworld.
It's a hasty thing, with Kristin's frantic scrambling to set everything in motion before actually making the journey to the Overworld herself. She finds she doesn't even have time to give Connor an explanation, and he never turns around to ask for one before she's sending him off through the void and further down through the dirt and stone in order to reach the soul of a waiting creature, whose soul easily links to the strange mortal's.
The incident, whatever it is, is arriving at an alarming speed, and Kristin knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she's running out of time to stop it. The only thing she has left to do is the very thing she's been preparing for all along. Something that will take more of her power than she's ever had to use before.
Kristin dips through the void, and finds a body frozen underneath familiar snow-covered plains. Her presence doesn't settle easily, though, there is just too much of her for one mortal form to hold. What she can't contain into one body spreads out over the commune she's been protecting for so long, spurred on by her anxiety of the approaching disaster. Kristin's vision splits in two: half of it the frozen dirt she's buried under, and half of it a crows-eye view of the cabins. Her husband is still wandering around the place, flour dusting his cheeks and fresh-baked cookies in his hands, no idea of the urgency of the situation.
All of a sudden, Kristin is struck with fear like she's never known before. She may not be able to reach him in time, not if the incident is as soon as it feels like it's going to be. Yes, time is always warped in her fuzzy comprehension of it, but there is always that horrible possibility that Kristin knows she cannot ignore.
Containing her power is taking far longer than she would like it to—without Phil's help, it's taking all of Kristin's strength to limit herself to a single, unknown body, and it's barely working as is right now. So she allows that which is unable to be contained to flutter to her husband's ears like distant wingbeats. "Get out of the house, get out, get out," she whispers from between the pine needles. She thinks only one or two words really reach him, but Phil reacts nonetheless, stumbling outside and staring at the forest like it has the answers he's looking for.
Kristin can't hear him with how her senses are being split, but despair threatens to engulf her as she watches him turn to head inside just a few minutes later, with a new batch of ingredients. She knows he couldn't be willfully ignoring her, but she also doesn't know what else to do except to keep trying, on both fronts.
Underground, Kristin starts to twitch frozen fingers, only to feel like the body is burning up from the inside with how much of her presence she's filling the small space with. She releases more of herself as those same harried whispers, bouncing from the forest to Phil's ears back to the mouths of the chattering crows that line the fences and rooftops. "You need to go, Phil, it's not safe," she pleads to him as he holds a freshly-made cake dusted in sugar. "Sorry, but this is important!" she whispers, mortal face twitching in a wince as he nearly drops the cake on the ground.
Stiff joints creak as she begins to move them on her own, shoulders slowly rotating to press her hands up against the frozen dirt that begins to crumble away and onto her face. But it's slow, it's all so painfully slow that Kristin still doesn't know for certain if she'll be able to break through the ground to get to him in time. She doesn't even know if she'll be able to maintain this mortal form for the time she needs it, fearing she might just burn up before she gets the chance to feel the sun on her face or Phil's hand in hers again.
"Run, Phil, please, you need to get out of here, I'm trying— I'm trying to get to you—" Kristin's words come more from her own throat than they do the trees this time, trapped underneath the ground the same as she is. Now, she can't see Phil at all, she can only see the loose roots in the dirt and the dislodged pebbles before they drop down onto her dusty veil. Her aching fingers claw at the ground above her as a very mortal kind of desperation overtaking her. Finally, she finds herself completely compressed inside this body, lungs expanding with an instinct she does not possess, limbs twitching in fervent panic as she and the body fight to be free for two different reasons that are about to become one and the same.
Something cold drifts onto Kristin's face and brushes at her memories of her time in Phil's body, stumbling through the arctic after the warmth of her drinks had left her and she was faced with the bitter cold of the biome. She knows this feeling, unpleasant as it is, and relishes in it because she knows it means she's that much closer to getting Phil to safety.
Snowflakes begin to press softly on Kristin's fingers as she finally breaks through the earth. As her legs press unsteadily underneath her, as she stands to face the sky in a body she hasn't controlled in millennia, all that she is comes rushing back at her from within the forest. It catches her in the chest, and fills the sky with a terrible crackling noise as she struggles to compose herself within her mortal, breathing, living form.
It takes her a moment to orientate herself upon looking down. She's overshot the forest entirely, it seems, and arrived just outside of Ranboo's home. It's inconsequential to Kristin either way, because she made it. She's here, and across the commune's fields, she can see two mortals she knows dearly looking out at her.
Kristin waves as soon as Niki's eyes fall on her, picking up the long fabric of her black dress with her other hand as she starts to hurry across the snow to the two of them. The snow nips at her legs where her steps kick the freezing powder up against her skin, already causing her fragile body to begin shivering. It's a refreshing feeling, although not one she can linger on when her eyes are firmly on Phil.
She hadn't seen it before, but he looks a wreck. Deep bags under his eyes, greasy, unkempt hair that's falling out of his hat. There's still flour and some egg remnants splattered on his face and clothes that he's hastily trying to wipe off, but Kristin couldn't care less about any of that. All she cares about is the way his eyes sparkle like sapphires when he looks at her, and that sudden energy courses through his body as he runs down the steps toward her.
"It's Kristin!" he blurts, looking back at Niki, and then again to Kristin, blinking again and again like her very presence is incomprehensible. His voice is shaking too much to say anything more, his whole body trembling from far more than the cold as he draws nearer to her.
For the first time in so many years, Kristin doesn't know what to do with herself. The mortal world is bright and overwhelming, and Phil is but one beautiful piece in all of it. She keeps an arm on a snow-covered spruce chair to steady herself, allowing him to take that final step towards her only because she doesn't trust herself not to get horribly distracted if she reaches him first. "Hi," Kristin says finally, feeling nearly as breathless as he looks.
She watches his fingers tremble as he rakes them through his tangled hair, almost tripping over his own feet as his other hand rises up to nearly cup her cheek. His eyes look like a wild thing, fearful and yet so clearly desperate to believe the sight in front of him to be true. "Are you- are you real? Are you real?" he pleads, his face more pale than the cloudy sky above them.
Kristin opens her mouth, only to find her throat closing up, overcome with emotion. "Hi," she says again, slightly surprised to hear her own voice trembling in her ears. Truthfully, she feels so tired. All of the things she has put her power into today has left her drained beyond measure, but it hardly matters now. She's here. She's going to get them to safety.
"Can you- you can see her, right?" Phil reaches out again, fingers fluttering as he pushes some of her hair back behind her ear, running his hands down her long, straight hair as if he expects it to crumble in his gentle grasp. He's clearly speaking to Niki behind him, but his gaze is only for Kristin, blue eyes wide and teary. "You can see her?"
It's those words that open up the floodgates in Kristin, and she almost laughs with relief as she steps forward, causing Phil to take a few steps back and steady himself with a hand around her waist. "Oh my gosh, you guys," she says, the corners of her eyes prickling as she watches tears start to spill over Phil's cheeks. "It took everything, it took everything I had, but I made it."
She leans in and kisses him then, holding his face in both her hands for the brief second their lips touch. He pulls away from her soon after, not out of any unkindness, but with a sheer overwhelming feeling that causes him to stagger away, looking up to the sky with tears still streaming from red-rimmed eyes. "I wasn't crazy, I wasn't, I wasn't crazy," she hears him whisper, and feels her heart break even further.
"It's so good to see you guys," she gushes as he leans back toward her, pouring love into every syllable as she holds her husband in a way she hasn't been able to for centuries. "Phil, it's so good to see you."
"You're real," he gasps, still with such dizzying disbelief that Kristin knows she has to kiss him again. "You're here," he murmurs, and this time, he kisses her.
There is so much left to do still to save him, but now she knows there's time. Time enough for one more kiss, one more moment for their love to break the laws of reality once again. Introductions, explanations, it will all follow shortly.
Kristin kisses Phil, and despite all the energy that's draining from her, for this singular second, she feels more than infinite.