Chapter Text
The In-Between, for all that it was the space between all worlds, the connective tissue that held everything together, was a gloomy place.
Both the ground and the sky were covered by an endless, unmoving, shallow pool, like the realm’s blood covering exposed areas not meant to be seen or comprehended. Despite that, just the faintest desire to move on would see you sinking down far further than the shallowness would indicate, the Beyond lurking just underneath, a destination that awaited every soul in every realm.
The cliffs on either side, connecting the two halves, were an unnaturally smooth yet jagged stone, a muted, sickly green that reflected little light and rose up high, an occasional root-like swirl etched into its surface.
Not that it mattered much. Light was a scarce resource in this part of the realm, only coming from the ethereal, shimmering cubes occupying the empty space between.
In truth, this small, thin crevice through endless bedrock was one of countless cracks in the connective tissue between realms, where it was possible, even if extremely improbable, to cross over, and even less likely to do so on purpose. And then, for this crevice in particular it was only possible to traverse between two realms specifically, it always was. One on either side.
There were countless more pathways like this, sprawling outwards through infinity, forming a densely complex, impossible to comprehend network that intersected with itself. In this way, the multiverse had more than plenty of connections, many worlds connected to many other worlds.
Though finding an intersection to traverse to a world other than the one bordering the other end of the rift would take much exploring, and mourn for your future if you encountered the center of it all, where many crevices became one to form a giant space with no edge in sight, nor gravity or other native physics to cling to, where the conflicting energies and logics of completely incompatible universes flowed and clashed together in a void to form a true, chaotic nightmare of a realm, occupied by only the most dangerous of beings.
Whether these, in comparison, insignificant cracks came about from an already infinite space stretching out beyond capacity, or perhaps brought into being by design, to allow people to pass on, or for an entity to watch over the multiverse, as indicated by the viewing cubes, or simply the scars of some ancient destructive event, was unknown, even to him.
In this particular rift, between universe 46’\, colloquially known as the Human Realm, though very much presumptuous as there were many more, and universe 64<*, a Titan who’d disembodied himself to protect his young strode through the space with purpose, light tremors reverberating through the cliffsides every time his gigantic feet hit the water, though not as gigantic as his proper bones, separated by the pool below him. Being shrunk in size was an uncomfortable sensation, though necessary to fit within the smaller of these crevices.
His time trapped in this realm had seen him journey far and wide, peeking in on many universes, unable to traverse to any of them without his body, but this stretch of space was one he returned to the most, especially now, with what he was feeling approach, like indistinguishable ripples in the pool.
There were plenty of these sensations to be felt all the time, despite how rarely it occurred, in infinity it happened constantly nonetheless.
But no, this one had become important upon noticing just where the upcoming event was taking place. A place he didn’t like visiting, but felt necessary to do so.
“Hey, who’s there?” a voice echoed through the crevice, child-like and muted.
The Titan, named by his parent as <body b-bb-bo /a><stro- str- str- s- /> /> /body>, also called Monarch in the rare few occasions he met a traveler trapped between realms on his journey, took the last few steps to where the spherical shape floated, a prison.
“Oh,” the shadow projected on the sphere shifted to look at him. “It’s you.”
It turned away, arms crossed. “I don’t want to talk to you, you bully,” it pouted.
“Collector,” Monarch greeted, voice booming. “You know my rash decision haunts me as much as it pains you.”
“Blah, blah, fancy words,” they blabbed. “You get to go off exploring and playing fun games and I’m stuck in this no-good ball! Do you know how much I have to push this thing to go anywhere else?”
“I can carry you somewhere else if that is what you wish,” he returned earnestly.
“Hm,” the Collector posed pensively. “Better idea, how about…release me!”
He sighed, a low rumble that made ripples in the pool. “You know I can’t. Only I or my kin can pull you out, and only within the Demon Realm. If I set foot into my body it will upset the thin balance and end me before I could even think of freeing you.”
“All I hear are excuses,” they whined. “And you’d just go underwater, just like everyone else who goes away, so whatever.”
“And then, even if I desired to fix this wrong, I still would be hesitant to release you,” he continued. “Even if you were not at fault, I fear what you may do when unsupervised. You do not understand mortality, you do not realize the consequences of your games, and you have wronged me when I tried to assist you before.”
They paused. “Like what? Can’t remember.”
And there exactly was the main reason, their indifference towards his accusations.
“I created the access disks and sent them back into the realm,” he explained. “To give you a chance at being released, or at least communicate with others, and you used it to start a cult that’s dedicated to tracking down and killing the last remaining newborns of my race, including my as of yet unhatched child!”
The In-Between shook violently with his shout, another set of crevices no doubt forming elsewhere from the force.
And, of course, the Collector was not phased.
“Hey, I didn’t tell ‘em to do that!” they yelled indignantly. “I just said ‘hey, go and get a Titan for me so they can free me’, and then all of a sudden they go all weird and call me ‘the Grand Huntsman’” —They put on a pompous voice— “and they think they need your blood of all things to get me out! That’s just silly!”
He simply stared at them, rage still coursing through him, before realizing there was no time to argue with them.
“I am sorry, but you weren’t the reason I came here,” he apologized as he waved his claw, the sphere shooting off and out of sight, much to the Collector’s indignant, childish insults.
Moments after, the pool above him began to bubble, waves of magic gushing out as something rose from the murky depths.
He stared up at the twenty foot tall, upside down stone archway, a dark veil covering it.
Shrinking down to a more appropriate twelve feet, he flapped his wings and traversed to the other end, gravity reversing and making him land on the opposite side with a splash, where he furled them around his body like a cloak, awaiting whoever had managed to purposefully punch a hole into the In-Between. Seeing a completely exposed skeletal body did usually not send the right first impression.
The dark veil fluttered in some unseen breeze, and then it pulled aside as one- no, three humans came through.
They looked rather peculiar. They all wore cloaks, and had intriguing sticks in their hands, pointing around them as they observed their surroundings with cautious eyes. He’d only glanced in the Human Realm on occasion, and had seen these sticks only a rare few times.
And then his presence was noticed, and the sticks were pointed at him, small lights humming on their ends.
“Do not bother,” he let his voice boom as he towered over them. “Your efforts cannot harm me. I am not amongst the living.” Only harm done to his physical body could affect him as he was.
The three humans paused, staring at him with wide eyes. In one he could see them filled with determination, despite this statement, in the second he could see fear, as was expected, yet in the last he saw realization, a quiet musing.
“Why did you come here?” he asked, glaring down at them. It was best they leave quickly.
“We are the Peverell brothers,” the eldest, a man with a balding head and a goatee stepped forwards. “Descendants of William Peverel, favored commander of William the Conqueror.”
The second, a man with a distinguished moustache stepped forward, sending his older brother a disappointed look. “A great conflict has broken out in the shadows of our world, one we cannot win with our resources. We have set out to find a different world, in the hopes of finding great magic and artefacts to turn the tide of battle.”
The last, youngest brother, too young to have grown in any proper facial hair, remained quiet, though not cowed.
“I see…”
Though he did not like the thought of helping out beings whose motivations and character he did not know, sending them off without anything would simply mean another attempt at entering the In-Between, one he may miss. Yet he did not want to reveal the existence of his realm to them. If more than just these three brothers were capable of crafting a portal into the In-Between, he did not want true exposure between the realms. Little good came from realms coming into close contact.
“Your efforts are commendable and have not been in vain. I congratulate you,” he began, putting on a grander, more intimidating display than he was normally comfortable with. “Come forth, and claim what you seek.”
The eldest brother stepped forth without hesitation, holding his wand up to his chest with pride, a darkish brown wood. “I am called Antioch Peverell, and I seek the power to perform miracles, to overwhelm my opponents in battle and empower my allies.”
That, it could do. Even if battle and bloodshed, literally in this case, was not what he approved of, not after his own life.
Nevertheless, he held out his hand. “Give me your wand.”
With only the slightest of hesitation it was given to him, and he held the stick between his hands for a moment, inspecting the strange, berry shaped knobs decorating it.
He held it with one hand and pricked one of his claws with the tip of it, only his strength able to pierce the bone.
From the small crack, a few drops of blue blood flowed out, rich with his magic, trickling down the wand in tracks that maneuvered around the uneven surface, before sinking through, the wand’s color becoming darker as it absorbed the blood.
Much to his surprise, the wood was able to contain his blood well, not one bit of his magic seeping back out.
After one more inspection he handed the wand back, watching Antioch tremble in euphoria as he grasped it, no doubt feeling the overwhelming magic within.
“With this, you can do magic in ways unknown to your world, though do not expect mastery over it so soon,” he boomed, moving his eyes to the next brother. The youngest still seemed pensive.
The second brother stepped forward.
“My name is Cadmus Peverell, and I come searching for a way to contact those who have perished, to gain knowledge and expertise lost to death.”
An admirable goal, though it was dangerous to meddle with what lied Beyond.
And he could tell, beyond the stated reason, there was a further, more selfish motivation lying underneath.
Yet it was a desire he could once more fulfill, one that could do no harm to anyone else.
Reaching down, he willed for a viewing cube to float up into his claws. When it did, he clenched his fingers and tore off a corner, the bit of crystal dark as the void now that it was separated from the whole.
He straightened up and handed over the stone. “Upon returning, call the name of who you wish to speak to, and they shall appear before you.”
Though he’d been unable to use it himself, as the In-Between was too closely connected to the Beyond, and the viewing cubes were only windows into other realms, not itself, it would work for the brother upon his return, even to the Beyond.
The brother grasped the small stone with undisguised awe, quietly moving back to allow for the third and final brother to step forwards.
“I am Ignotus,” the third said, no bravado or deceiving in his voice. “And I come seeking a way to hide from danger.” Monarch frowned, but Ignotus continued. “So once I am in battle I will not have to worry about my friends, family, and loved ones being faced with harm, knowing they are safe, hidden from death.”
The thought of his child, unhatched after all these millennia under the symbol that the Archivists could not perceive, flashed through him. If the bottom of his skull had still been adorned by flesh and fur it’d have been pulled into a smile.
He eyed the two older brothers and waved his hand, their bodies graying out and stiffening.
The youngest brother turned around in an instant, eyes wide.
“What did you-”
“Be at ease,” he interrupted with a hand held out. “They are merely frozen in time for the moment. None will have passed once we are done.”
Ignotus turned back to him with a suspicious look.
“I am afraid I cannot grant your desire,” he answered the unasked question, seeing the younger brother’s expression turn frustrated. “But I can show you how to attain it yourself.”
He stepped back and placed his hand against the cliffside, slicing one of his claws open against the rough surface, blood once more welling up and dropping down into the pool below, a blue shimmer spreading and staining it.
It wasn’t something he often did, only when he encountered a lost traveler, as his spiritual and physical bodies were still linked. If he bled his blood into this realm, the equivalent of it in his corpse would disappear. He did not want to leave those who’d spawned from his flesh and last, unintentional act of magic without magic, not yet.
But to fulfill this man’s honest desire he was willing to show him his world, however briefly.
He gestured with his hand at the softly glowing pool. “Step through, and find what you seek. You will receive assistance and guidance from me.”
The brother cast one more glance at his frozen siblings, before nodding and stepping forwards, sinking down into the glowing pool.
A day or two later, or maybe a dozen, it was hard to tell with the spans of time he was used to, the youngest brother emerged from the pool, gently holding a silvery cloak of witch’s wool in his hand, a powerful invisibility spell weaved within by a master weaver.
The two shared a nod, and he waved his hand as the brother stepped away, his brothers unfreezing, unaware of anything having occurred.
“I have given you what you seek, now leave,” he boomed, and the three brothers had no need to say anything else.
Though he was pleased to see the older two brothers step back through the veil with fear in their eyes.
Once the youngest brother stepped through, Monarch let out a rumbling sigh, wondering if he’d done the right thing.
“Aw, why’d you send me away?” the child-like voice of the Collector returned as he moved the sphere back into view. “I heard those voices, and what’s that?”
He sighed, before waving his hand, the stone arch sinking below the pool. Such a gateway could not be left out in the open. The next time someone would seek it out, they would simply step straight into the Beyond, a fate that would dissuade any potential travelers.
“None of your concern, Collector, simply humans wandering where they shouldn’t.”
They gasped. “But humans are so fun to play with! Why did you have to greet them?”
“Because the last time you somehow made contact with humans without me around, you made them sink Atlantis!”
The Collector pouted. “Not my fault that even bigger bully interfered right before they finished.”
He groaned, his patience already wearing thin, and simply walked away. He did not know when, or if the Collector could ever begin to mature, but until that day there was little chance they’d ever get to leave their prison.
Unlike usual, however, he remained within this particular crevice, looking in on the three brothers and the artefacts he’d provided them with.
The three brothers succeeded in their battle, defeating their enemy, no doubt soon to be lost to the shadows of the past, and yet he kept watch over the years and centuries that followed.
It was with great remorse as he watched yet another evil be unleashed on the world, as the older was slain after bragging about his accomplishments and meeting ‘Death’, his wand carving a trail of blood and destruction through the world with his own.
It was with grim acceptance as he watched the second brother fall to temptation, the mere projection of his loved one not enough to satisfy him for long, and the stone remained unused for most of its existence thereafter, before being repurposed for something far more heinous than he’d ever witnessed in his long-lived existence.
And it was with great joy as he watched the younger brother use the cloak to hide his wife and son from his enemies, only taking it for himself in rare few moments.
Eventually, the youngest brother, the only surviving one in the end, gave the cloak to his son for the last time, and lived out the last of his life.
It was with little hesitation that Monarch reached out for the soul that appeared in the In-Between, reaching out to grasp it before it could sink into the murky depths of the pool below.
The youngest, now quite old, stared at him with wide eyes, before his face crinkled up with aged lines.
“Old friend,” he greeted. “Your gift was much appreciated.”
“It is in good hands,” he returned. “I hope you did not reveal the world you saw to others?”
Ignotus shook his head. “No, though I did once let slip about you and your gifts at an inn.” He frowned. “The bard must’ve taken my description of you the wrong way, however, unless your appearance so shortly after my demise is no coincidence?”
Monarch chuckled, echoing through the realm. “No, I am no Death.” He waved his hand, two chairs floating up from the depths. “But perhaps we can exchange stories before I let it take you away?”
The man sat down without complaint, and they spoke for days, like old friends catching up after a long time apart.
Over the centuries the Titan would occasionally keep watch over the cloak, and over the line of succession, passed down from father to son, each seeking the safety and protection of those they loved most.
Eventually he would witness the last descendant of the youngest brother take the cloak, though he mourned how its magic had been so diminished and faded outside of his influence, and watched the trials and tribulations he was put through, eventually seeing a glimpse of him as he passed through the In-Between, a young girl following shortly thereafter, but that was not for several more centuries to come.