Chapter Text
Epsilon was dreaming again. Dreaming of Alphecca.
It was the largest star in the Northern Crown, the blazing sun that was at its apex the day of his fifteenth birthday. (Four hundredth, in Standard Years.)
Prince Epsilon’s fingers found the last handhold, wedged itself on it carefully as he lifted his legs and pulled himself up another foot. Then it was over, solid dusty ground offering up its stability as he dragged himself atop the narrow cliffs. He was lucky he ran cold, like the endless emptiness between planets in space. Not even Alphecca burned him.
Time to move on, anyway. His siblings were already far ahead. As he'd manually scaled the rocks, Delta had flown by on a sunbeam with his usual mocking golden smile. “Not strong enough to void up, little brother?”
Epsilon had ignored him, trying to conserve his energy. That was the point- if you took the easy way up, you wouldn't have enough energy left for the rest of the Trial. Who knew which creatures they had stocked up there?
“If you weren't so weak, you wouldn't need to conserve energy,” Delta smirked, then soared upward.
Now Epsilon was running across the open sands, senses working overdrive on scanning his surroundings. Straight ahead was the onyx tower one had to reach first to win.
Victory. Strength. Those were the virtues of the Coronae that made one worthy to earn the amplifier with all the power of seven massive stars.
Distracted, Epsilon barely avoided the lunar wolves, throwing himself into a tight roll as three of them, star-studded and growling, lunged for him.
He rose with black fire ignited in his hands and swiped the air, leaving inverse afterimages. “Stay back!” he cried. (“Command is a virtue, Epsilon. If they do not respect, they do not obey,” Gamma always told him. Easy for her to say, with that commanding roar that rallied a thousand planets.)
The wolves did not stay back, one choosing to jump directly through the void-magic toward him. Epsilon swung down, a sword of pure darkness manifesting in time to slice off the wolf’s head. He held it before him, threatening the other two.
They growled, but he shifted restlessly, without time to waste. If he ran, they would give chase… he had to, anyway.
So Epsilon turned and ran toward the tower once more, faintly relieved as sounds of combat began to grow. The creatures increased in size and danger as he got closer to the finish line, but he didn't engage them. (“A victor stands and fights, Epsilon.” That was Iota’s sweet voice, his youngest sister capable of obliterating three dozen firebirds with a single quasar.)
He was so close to the tower now, pulling in shadows to avoid hunting eyes. Ducking under a gaping mouth of teeth taller than he, Epsilon was approaching Delta’s fight with a massive world-devouring whale. It had to be at least two hundred feet, maybe more, skin all glossy galaxy.
Delta was radiant with halos of fire, throwing ring after ring at the creature. The whale pulsed a low, vibrating noise that summoned spheres of swirling blue-purple-pink destruction, each diving at Delta.
But he rose like the god he would become if he won, golden hair held by perfect wind. (There wasn't even a breeze, Epsilon thought exasperatedly. How much energy, however slight, did Delta waste in vanities like this?)
Whatever. He was going to slip unnoticed into the tower, Epsilon thought as he summoned yet another shadow, becoming little more than a mirage. He was going to prove he wasn't weak.
And now he was before the onyx door, using the void to slip through it completely. Inside was a single spiral staircase all the way to the top. Epsilon glanced up. He began to climb.
Epsilon opened his eyes to the faint, barely-warm touch of Parkour Civilization’s Sol, just a whisper of a sun half as strong as his. Beside him lay a satisfied deity, and Epsilon relaxed. The Trials were hundreds of years behind him. He didn’t want to waste time on a past that he could never change, and he had found someone who loved him irregardless of his weaknesses.
“I love you, Evbo,” he said, the most wonderful words in the world. They were going to grow old together, and then some. They were happy. They were safe.
“M’love you too,” Evbo mumbled, snuggling closer into him and yawning.
Epsilon allowed himself a sigh and wrapped his arms around his love, his god. The past could stay dead. He was truly alive now.
—
“Do… you want to talk about it?” Clownpierce asked, floating around Seawatt as he leapt from block to block, farther and farther from Parkour Civilization.
The answer was a resolute “No.”
He was leaving. He had put as much stuff as he could fit into his inventory, and now he was going to the outskirts of Parkour Civilization. Not any layer in particular, just the wilderness.
“Where are you going to get your food?”
“I brought a lot.” Eight stacks, neatly organized in a two-by-four row. Seawatt would go back briefly to retrieve more if needed, later.
At a wider patch of grass, Seawatt finally settled, satisfied. He’d brought some wool (stolen from a layer, he couldn’t remember where) and now he used it to pitch a tent, setting up a bed and lighting a stack of logs to form a campfire.
“...right. You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
“There’s not much to say. We all get what we deserve in the end, don’t we?” Seawatt glanced at the setting moon, then looked away. Enough looking at the sky.
Clown shrugged. “Sure. You wanna take your mind off it, then? Don’t look at me like that. I just meant I have a few hypotheses, if you’d like to help.”
Seawatt sat against the edge of the bed, interested. “Like what?”
Clownpierce settled next to him, sending the edges of the horizon flickering as he became more corporeal. “Hold this.” A small figurine of a jester with a scythe.
Seawatt gave a halfhearted swipe. As expected, his hand went straight through.
“Use your powers.”
Seawatt scoffed, lighting his hand with violet fire. “That’s not going to do anything…” He trailed off as his fingers touched cool metal and picked up the figurine.
“As I expected.”
“Wait-” Seawatt doused the fire. The figurine dropped from his hand. He reignited it. He could pick it up once more. “That doesn’t even make sense. My powers have nothing to do with-” he gestured. “-other realms. Whatever this is.” He rolled it between his fingers. Despite the fire’s heat, it remained icy.
“It doesn’t have to. You’re a one-of-a-kind that used to be here , too. A part of you has never been able to be brought back, a part that can hold these objects. And magic of any kind is a catalyst for transferring items. Do you understand?”
“...not really.” But it did distract him from the stars. “Go on.”
Clown plucked the figurine back, and Seawatt almost felt his ghostly fingers brush through his own. Almost. Then Clown lifted his hand, and a gleaming scythe materialized, lined in scarlet. He offered it.
Seawatt glanced at the figurine with its miniature scythe, then Clown. “Oh, I see.” But his alight hand still went through the scythe. “Uh, it’s not working.”
Clown tilted his head. He was sitting on the shadow provided by the tent, and when his features touched sunlight, they disappeared temporarily. “Try harder.”
“Great advice.” Seawatt’s hand would not interact with the weapon no matter what he tried.
“I mean… channel more energy,” Clown clarified. “Like you’re trying to telepathically pick up a bigger object.”
Seawatt obliged despite the additional hunger cost. His arm clenched in effort, fingers almost clawed. The fire turned almost white, and he was suddenly holding the scythe. He exhaled, suddenly tired, and the scythe fell again. Clownpierce caught it.
A few tests passed, with Clown trying various other small trinkets from buttons to his gloves. He had also spent a significant chunk of energy summoning the obsidian throne into the shadows, but it flickered weakly, and Seawatt couldn’t feel it at his strongest. At that point, nearly completely on fire, he could even touch Clown, but not the throne. Clown added unhelpful tips like burn hotter and just try to touch it.
“You could touch me, and the throne is basically… the same amount of mass as me.”
The throne was probably a few thousand pounds. Seawatt raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe not. But I don’t think it’s mass-correlated. It’s more about the metals and/or conductivity of magic. Like the scythe can conduct, random buttons can’t.”
Seawatt’s tired brain connected two dots then. “Wait, do you still have the Corona Borealis?”
Clownpierce blinked. “Oh. Seawatt, no. ”
“Why not? It’s pretty small, but extremely conductive, right?”
“The Corona is very specifically made for a very specific group of people. Like Prince Epsilon. Anyone else trying to use it… let’s just say it’s not pretty.”
“I’m always pretty,” Seawatt tried with a small grin. Clownpierce remained unimpressed. “But you do have it?”
“Possibly.”
“Clownnn. Come on. How bad could it be?”
“Very bad. It’s the power of seven massive stars consolidated into one artifact, your genetics are not hardwired to handle that much. Even with centuries of training, most people who are equipped for it still can’t.”
“Oh. But…can I try?”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Not really. It’s literally in your plane of existence anyway. It’s not like it’s at full power. Like, I couldn’t kill people with the scythe-”
“Civilizations have been purged from existence due to misuse.” Clownpierce said very sternly.
Seawatt gave him the puppy eyes.
—
“Wait, where’s Seawatt?”
Epsilon heard Evbo’s distressed tone even before his voice. He rushed over before the words fully comprehended. “In his room?”
Evbo gestured into the stripped room. “This room?”
The clothes, makeup, everything. They were gone. It was like no one had ever lived in the room.
“Maybe he went on an early morning walk?” Epsilon offered, reeling. Then where would his stuff be, though?
“No signs of a break-in, and I would know…” Evbo murmured, almost to himself. He turned pained eyes to Epsilon. “Did he leave on purpose? Why would he do that?”
Epsilon understood more than Evbo, but kept those thoughts to himself. “Let’s… go search outside.”
Three layers later and he was still nowhere to be found. They reconvened at the entrance of Evbo’s house. He was talking about searching the fighter layer when Epsilon finally sighed. “Why don’t you just use a teleport command?”
They knew what it entailed. Evbo could’ve done it, but it was a social thing. You could walk in on someone doing the necessary, in the middle of a secret, or worse. It was a high-emergency only type of thing.
“But he did leave voluntarily…” Evbo wrung his hands.
“Look, you seem like you really want to find him, that’s all,” Epsilon took his hands. “If it’ll assuage your concerns, my love. He’d forgive you.”
Evbo nodded hesitantly. “You’re right.”
His eyes unfocused, staring at seemingly nothing, but Epsilon knew there was text somewhere in the center of his vision to mentally type a command into. /tp Evbo Seawatt…
“I’ll wait for you here,” Epsilon said.
Evbo nodded, and presently pressed execute . Nothing happened. He blinked. “Sorry, let me just-” execute.
Nothing.
“You good?”
“Yeah, the commands just aren’t-” execute. execute. execute. “...working.”
As Evbo fiddled with his suddenly-useless commands, Epsilon was hit with a terrible burst of deja vu. He hadn’t thought about Delta in… years. But now all he could hear was the mocking laughter. When you activate a beacon, Epsilon, we come calling. Even if it’s only lit for a single second.
The weird sense of dizziness accompanying a sudden deja vu trip didn’t clear, only increasing in interference. Epsilon wasn’t aware Evbo was shouting or running over as he fell to the ground, electromagnetic waves fizzing too loud in his ears and sending him to his knees.
“-silon? Epsilon! I’m getting two frames a second. Please answer me.”
Stars crashed across Epsilon’s vision, supernovas leaving calling cards, quasars shaking universes apart. He inhaled sharply. “I think… we activated a beacon.”
“What are you talking about?” Evbo was shaking him. The world was shaking.
He couldn’t think. It was too much. “The-the Corona. When I used it. People can see- ”
What happened next could be said as easily as: the sun fell from the sky. A sun fell from the sky. But what really happened is not something that can be described as easily as that, or described at all. It was one of those things you cannot hope to understand unless you were there.
One of the constellations twinkled, then became a shooting star, then shot down in a beam so bright it scarred the non-celestial eye, coalescing into a humanoid figure on a charred grass block across from Epsilon and Evbo.
Evbo pulled Epsilon behind him, readying his blocks. Epsilon wanted to lament. Parkour battles don’t work on stars. “Who are you?”
The figure tossed their cape behind them, smile blinding. “Epsilon knows.” Gold armor fell in sunbeams, clasping their arms, legs, chest, forming a brilliant gold crown. He turned. “Don’t you, little brother?”