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Life stands in a tower ready to die.
Metallica sits on his throne with a wide grin, white hair cascading down his back like a cape and twisted horns pointing at the sky like a crown. She can see the copper moon behind him, a promise of death taking up half the sky. The sound of a clock ticking echoes in her ears. It’s a countdown to the end of the world.
“This is for Nine,” Dove says. “And Sergei, and everyone we left behind, and everyone suffering.”
Cookie nods, and Daishin shifts, Florann clinging to his sleeve. “…this is it,” he says, staring at the throne like he can’t quite believe they’re here. Neither can Life. Six months. Six. Months. She reaches out, and her staff drops into her hand. The familiar weight steadies her breathing, and she points it at Metallica, watching her allies do the same out of the corner of her eye. This is it.
A pause. A moment of silence.
”…this is the part where the health bar appears,” Cookie whispers, wings spread out behind her.
“Normally,” Metallica says, “yes.” He holds a totem in his hands, crackling with power. She can sense it, even from across the room, and that terrifies her. Life watches Daishin and Astrumare brace themselves, and hears a faint whoosh as Nirvan morphs into her suit.
“Look at you,” the god of hate and malice says, a laugh bubbling up in his throat. “Scared.” He takes a step forwards, but he’s abruptly cut off by the spear pointed at his face. A woman stands, weapon in hand, eyes furious and breath coming fast. She charges.
Life blinks at the stranger. She doesn’t recognise her face, nor her black robes, but she does recognise the weapon she’s holding.
”…wait.” She says. “Hold on a second, is that my spear? That I stole?” The spear she stole from the Olympus Forge, the spear Khaandi had been staring at. The spear that had been rotting under her bed for the past couple months. That spear.
And it was. Metallica rips the spear from the stranger’s grasp as her body falls to the ground, a sickening crack echoing throughout the penthouse. Life watches her fall, crumbling like a forgotten toy. That’s fitting, in a vaguely horrifying way. This is a game to him. All the people that suffered. All the people who died. All the people left behind. In Metallica’s eyes, they’re nothing more than pawns on a chessboard, background characters in his grand story.
The stranger— Rita, she heard him say— was someone. She could have had a family, a life, a job. How much did she lose, deciding to go up against the god of her world, only to be cast aside like she was nothing? On Metallica’s end, it took the flick of his wrist, like he was swatting a fly. On her end? She didn’t know. She would never know, because Rita was dead.
Metallica and Dove and Cookie were saying something, but it was all buzzing in her ears, because a stranger was dead. Four hours until the end of the world, and all Life can think about is the body beside the throne. How many people like Rita died? How many people did they fail to save, stuck in a tower, waiting?
If Nine was here, he’d laugh. He’d join Luchine in screaming obscenities, and Dove in laughing in the face of death, and Astrumare in grumbling and complaining about can we just fight already? But Nine isn’t here, because he’s dead, because Lightning killed him, because Metallica guided his hand.
A fireball forms at the end of the totem, and Metallica points it at Luchine without hesitation.
“…well,” Luchine says faintly, “long live stupidity.”
Long live stupidity indeed. Life crouches down slightly, reaching for her pocket in preparation. Long live stupidity will, probably, be their motto. If the basement had a motto, that would be it. It’s probably going to be the epithet on their graves when Metallica inevitably kills them all.
Long live stupidity. She reaches down and grabs the edge of something. You see, there’s something Metallica doesn’t know, because she’s been careful to keep it hidden. Unless he does know, of course, but that’s beside the point. Life has a hidden card up her sleeve. Literally.
Over a year ago, Slash handed her something. It was a trick, or a game, or… something. He handed Paige and Cookie cards too, promises of success and disaster in equal measure. It was hope— if they promised to try and stop DC, if they successfully stopped Metallica, then he would give them hope.
Slash handed the gods the Tower and the Empress respectively, and he handed Life the Fool.
It was… mildly insulting, but fitting in a way that she absolutely hated. She was a fool to trust Kassandra, and she was a fool to trust June, and she was a fool to try and carve out her own piece of heaven in the pits of hell. Innocence. Holding back. She’s always been a fool, and she used to be innocent, but she’s done holding back.
(I am the King, the Fool, the Queen, the guard sings, and something begins to boil in the back of her mind.)
Long live stupidity. Life holds a potential answer in her claws, and watches Metallica smile. “Prepare to witness,” he tells them, “the fall of the parkato.”
No, she thinks, and as all hell breaks loose, she takes the card out and pulls.
She doesn’t know what the card will do. It could summon flowers, for all she knows, but she hopes that it’ll do something. Slash’s words have slipped her mind— in her defense, it has been over a year— but she hopes, with everything she has, that it’ll work.
Life grabs onto the fabric of the Universe and pulls. Metallica calls it a Loom. Dove calls it a valley. Life calls it prison, because that’s what it was, and she tugs on those memories and threads until they snap, and her vision floods with colour.
A current rushes at her, and she’s shoved backwards, caught in the fray. Power rushes past her, tugging her away, pulling her into the depths. Claws scrabble at her back and wings and arms, pulling, desperate like a drowning man. This time, though, she knows how to swim. This is the sea she died in. That’s not a habit she’d like to continue.
She grabs onto her memories and claws her way to the shore, claws her way back into the tower, and takes flight.
Power swirls under her skin, and something unholy tears out of her chest in the form of a scream. Attention caught, Metallica turns and aims the totem at her, spiraling lightning rocketing through the sky. Instinctively, she throws her hands out, but the shield she forms in front of herself shatters, bolts striking her skin. Life hisses, beating her wings, tugging on her own magic to heal her wounds. Not entirely, but enough to keep her in the fight.
Cookie’s lightning races up Metallica’s limbs as vines burst from the ground, twisting around his legs. She snaps her fingers, and fire swallows them whole. He shrugs it off, like water on a duck’s back, and aims the spear at her, a gale billowing from the tip and pushing her backwards.
Life grits her teeth, beating her wings in an attempt to stay in the sky, pushing back the wind. Below, Astrumare and Dove dive at him, and Nirvan phantasms out of his shadow, dagger ready to strike. Vines wrap around the god’s limbs, and she takes a page out of Cookie’s book, grabbing her power and weaving it around her plants.
“Did— did you just steal my groove?” Cookie calls, incredulous.
She blinks at her, an apology rising to the tip of her tongue. “Sorry!”
Cookie laughs as Nirvan sinks back into the shadows, Astrumare ferried away by the other half of Life’s soul. “You’re fine!” She throws her hand towards Metallica, green electricity joining her white. “That’s— a cool ability!”
“HIS BONES ARE BASICALLY MADE OF TITANIUM!” Daishin yells from halfway across the battlefield, and oh, Life doesn’t like that. Of course his bones are indestructible. That’s exactly the sort of thing Metallica would do.
“What about his eyes?” Astrumare calls, clinging to Dove’s claws.
“…not titanium,” Daishin answers, and as she swoops past, Life catches a glimpse of something swirling in his eyes.
She banks just in time to catch sight of Metallica holding his hand up, something shiny in his grasp, before darkness envelops the room whole.
Don’t you dare, she thinks, fire forming in her hands. She sends a blast rocketing towards where she thinks the god was standing, setting him alight. He only smiles, phantasming into the ground, and Life curses. She searches the dark room, the flashing lights on Nirvan’s suit and the gleam of Astrumare’s dagger the only visible light.
“You little shit,” Nirvan growls, from somewhere in the shadows. “That’s my ability.”
Cookie grunts, and she swings around to look at where she thinks Cookie is. “Fuck off. Is he just stealing everyone’s abilities?”
“I think—” Life cuts herself off, and power sings under her skin. A grin splits her face, and she doesn’t think about how her teeth are sharper, and says: “well, too bad, bitch. I copied yours.”
She spreads her wings and thinks of a silent apology to Nirvan as she pulls on her ability, primary feathers shifting to shadow as she prepares to hit the ground. Abruptly, pink strings wrap around her limbs, and she hisses as Metallica pins her down, slamming her against the cold floor. Life looks up, watching as Astrumare dives at him once more, dagger aimed for his eyes.
An idea strikes her like the totem’s lightning, and she searches the receding darkness, spotting a flash of pink. “FLORANN!”
Florann throws his hands up. “IT’S NOT ME!”
“I know- can you undo his command?”
Understanding dawns on him, and he nods, charging towards her as magenta runes light up around his mouth. “RELEASE!” Florann shouts, and she feels the strings drop, shooting towards the ceiling.
“IGNIS!” Life yells, calling on Luchine’s gift and sending another flare shooting towards Metallica. He sidesteps the fire, flipping a coin and smiling as music rings out around the room, going faster and faster.
She glances over at Paige, hiding behind a shield, and turns back to Metallica. “STAY STILL!” She commands, watching pink sparks dance around the god’s head. They dissipate with the wind, and Life growls, shaking her head. Words drift through the air, and she beats her wings, beginning to circle around the room.
Her head throbs, and pain lingers in her arms. Gold flashes behind her eyes, and she clings onto the threads. If she doesn’t, she’ll fall back into the current. If she doesn’t, she’ll drown. And she can’t— she won’t— let that happen again.
“How is he duplicating our abilities?” Luchine asks Daishin, wings twitching.
“He’s not the god of hate,” Daishin says almost immediately, like he’s been thinking about it for a long time. “Or malice.”
Luchine stares. “…what?”
“He’s the god of deceit and ambition.” He eyes Metallica, watching as the ground around his feet ripples. “He can copy our abilities.”
Life shoots past, teeth grit and pupils narrowed. The Loom is tearing itself apart. She stole Cookie’s abilities— all of them. In the back of her mind, she can see the valley collapsing. In the back of her mind, the Universe is destroying itself.
“Well,” she snarls. “So can I.”
Pink strings shoot out of the ground, wrapping around Metallica’s wrists, but he only grins, crumbling into dust. A memory strikes her— she’s seen this happen before. Back in the early days, Aothnanogoag would make duplicates, sometimes just to scare her. She knows this game.
Life grins and dives into the ground, calling on Nirvan’s ability and phantasming into the shadow.
The pain vanishes almost immediately, a tingling numbing sensation spreading across her entire body. She shivers, buried in the shadows, and pushes onwards, catching sight of Metallica attacking Cookie. A faint humming sound echoes throughout the shadows, muffled, but still there. Life spares Daishin a glance, watching as his hands light up black and green, and files that away for later.
Daishin sends the magic flying towards Metallica, but the god parries it, slamming it into Tex. Life growls, grabbing Cythila’s ability and sending it back at him as the light shifts, crashing into Cookie.
She curses, stumbling away from Metallica and Life, trying to get back into the air. Black-green light flickers over her skin, and Life shoves upwards, shooting fire at his face before diving back down. The shadows are useful when it comes to hiding, she’s discovered. She tugs on Aothnanogoag’s ability and watches herself burst out of the ground, shooting upwards and diving at Metallica.
Life unphantasms, beating her wings to hover at the other side of the penthouse. Metallica gets shoved back to stand in the corner, but his eyes only gleam as he vanishes into the ground. He shoots a smug look in Daishin’s direction, reappearing near Luchine and kicking her to the ground. The other Life continues to divebomb him, streaking through the air like an arrow. It’s almost… feral. Desperate. She meets her own eyes, and sees only swirling white-gold, bloodied teeth bared.
Power crackles around her hands, wreathing around pointed horns. She’s victorious— she’s winning, but looking at herself, she doesn’t think she is.
The Loom is destroying itself, except it isn’t. She is. She dug her claws into the fabric of the universe and pulled. She’s tearing the Universe apart. Metallica already weakened it, with his spell circle and darkened sky, and she’s finishing the job. Normally, it would be able to withstand it. Normally, it would be fine. But at the top of this tower, the Universe is dying.
(“…I killed him.” Cookie says. “I… killed June. After what he did to everyone, after what he did to you, I had to.”
“…oh. He was kind, once.” Life says, staring at the grass. Cookie inhales, shifting where she stood. Gold was splattered across her hoodie, her face, her hands, electric green eyes glowing in the dim light.
“I found this creature I’d heard about in legend ever since I was a kid,” Cookie explains quickly, like she’s already leaping to defend herself. “The Ophiotaurus. I burnt it and got the power to slay gods and made June pay for his actions.” She pauses, looking Life up and down, searching for something. “And,” she continues, almost hesitant, “all the Fates ask in return for your freedom is for me to give up such power. It’s a win-win. I never wanted to be a godkiller, and you get to live!”
A smile spreads across Cookie’s face, and she resists the urge to flinch back.)
The Universe is dying, and it’s her fault.
(June taps the bench expectantly, and Life sits down, tucking her wings behind her. June’s smile is sharper than usual, like the point of a knife. He tilts his head. “I could tell when you pretended to be Death,” he says, “that you weren’t at your full potential.”
Life blinks. “My full… huh?”
“Potential,” June repeats. “You could’ve done better.”
“…ouch. Rude, but true.”
He shrugs. “It’s the truth, darling.”
“Well… what if I don’t want to reach my ‘full potential’? What if I just want to be me?”
“That’s not really your choice.”
“What do you mean? Of course it’s my choice.” She folds her arms.
“That’s not how gods work, dear,” June tells her, resting one arm on the back of the bench. “Fate is fate.”
“That’s not fair.” She snaps back, immediately. “I don’t want this. I’m not doing… whatever it is you want.”
June rolls his eyes, and Life swears they flash red. “I’m sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “If you want to become stronger—”
“I don’t want to!” Life feels her wings bristle. “I just want to be me. I just want to help people. I just want to help Death, and be his equal, and help Cookie, and help Goat, and help Weeb, and help you.”
“Well,” June says, “too bad.”)
Her reflection beats her wings, once, twice. Copying her, frozen as a battle rages on down below. Hesitating, always hesitating, always the fool. Go down there. Help them.
(Thorns dig into her side, and she winces, watching Sergei tear across the cage. He dives into the Princess’s arms, and she curls around him, hiding him from view. Tattered wings envelop him, flickering with bits of code, and Life smiles. Princess smiles, too, before looking up at Life, flickering purple eyes uncertain.
Life lowers herself to the ground, wings brushing against the dirt.
“I barely know you, and I barely trust you,” Princess says, words garbled and glitching. They thrum with power, but Life doesn’t flinch, or hide. She only nods. “But… thank you.”
“Of course,” she whispers, listening as Astrumare and Mary scream, Celidus diving at somebody. “He’s my nephew. He’s family.”
Princess stiffens. The long hair hanging over her face flickers in and out of existence, twisted horns brushing the edge of the thorns. “He’s… what?”
“You probably don’t remember. It’s okay, I-I don’t mind. But… yeah. I’m his aunt.”
Green overpowers the purple for a brief moment, and Princess flinches, reaching up to wipe her eyes with her sleeve. Her pupils narrow, and she bares her teeth, code shaky. “I need to stop him,” she says. “I need to kill him. I need to kill him.”
Life frowns. “Who do you need to kill?”
“Let me out,” Princess demands, face warped into a snarl. “He’s going to hurt him, I need to get out NOW!”
“Who’s ‘he’?”
She catches a glimpse of blue and magenta on the other side of the thorn wall as Astrumare passes, listening. “Apollo?” He guesses. “The… other god?”
Princess looks ready to begin slamming herself against the cage, stopped only by the child in her arms. “I’M NOT STOPPING UNTIL HE IS GONE,” she howls. “LET ME OUT, I WILL MURDER EVERY LAST GOD WHO STANDS IN MY WAY!”
Life hesitates. “…do you remember my name?”
“You are the Thief who fought me in my palace,” Princess hisses. She’s flickering more now, code unstable, binary leaking out of her wings and dripping onto the floor faster and faster.
She nods. “My name’s Life,” she tries. Cookie’s in there, somewhere. She has to be.
“Then, LIFE, allow me to LEAVE!” Princess screeches. “LET ME KILL HIM!”
“Why do you want to do it?” Life asks, something clicking in the back of her mind. “Why you specifically?”
“I need to protect him.” The god growls. Her hold on Sergei tightens. “I need to.”)
Go down there. Help them. You’ve done this before. June and Eve and Maristela and Princess and Atropos, what did you do?
The air shakes with sheer power. She looks herself in the eyes, golden pools of promises, and inhales.
Life dismisses the duplicate with a wave of her hand, watching as she vanishes into smoke, and dives down towards the shadows. She reappears behind Daishin, watching as he jumps backwards, spinning around to face her with wide eyes.
He glances at Metallica. “You— you don’t—” he starts, before cutting himself off, turning to face her. “We’re doing this, right?”
(On the tenth floor, as they geared up, Life walked up to Daishin and told him about a plan.)
She nods. “We’re doing this.”
She grabs Daishin’s hand—
(—she takes Cookie’s hand—
—she shys away from June’s hand—
—she offers Princess her hand—)
—and, together, they charge at Metallica, knocking him out of the building.
The Universe shifts for a second, and Life throws out her hands, and catches them.
Halfway between the sea and the sky, they hover, caught in a bubble. It shines, iridescent and transparent. Daishin mutters something, and the bubble shines a glowing purple, words she didn’t know running across it like drifting code.
“Stop,” Life hisses, watching as pink strings wrap around Metallica’s wrists. Thank you, Florann, she thinks, glancing up at the tower. She can see everybody there, peering out of the hole they made. Cookie, Lightning, Astrumare, Luchine, Dove— everyone. Up in the heavens, the copper moon hovers, dwarfing the darkened sky.
“Can we have some last words?” She asks. “Before you, y’know, kill us.”
“We just wanted to talk,” Daishin says. Metallica blinks at them in utter confusion, before leaning backwards.
“I believe in you, Daishin,” he mocks. “You can convince the god of hate and malice that you deserve to live.”
“The god of deceit and ambition,” Daishin corrects, and Metallica’s smile drops. “Yes, I know that. I know more than you think I do.”
“You what now?”
Purple lines creep up Daishin’s neck. “I— I know a lot. You don’t… have to do this.”
Metallica stares at him. “Daishin, relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
”No, you’re not.”
“Oh, you’re worried about me now.”
“…angels have wings,” Metallica says, finally. “Devils have horns, and eldritch have cores. Please, remove the fortifications.”
Life casts a worried look in Daishin’s direction, watching the purple lines creep higher and higher. She doesn’t know what Metallica’s talking about, and she doesn’t know what the lines mean, but they’re clearly bad news. “I have him here,” she says. “I can hold the shield. It’s okay.”
Daishin shakes his head. “I’ll be okay. We’re doing this.”
She glances over at Metallica, who’s staring at Daishin, face absent of any smile. He’s dead serious, for once, and that terrifies her.
“You’re worried,” Life says. “Why?”
Metallica hesitates. “The dead don’t get brought along in the reset,” he says. “I-I want to keep all my toys.”
“That’s not it.” She argues.
“Shut it,” he growls. “What do you know about me, Life?”
Daishin says something, but she doesn’t hear it. Because— here’s the thing. Metallica’s scared. She’s been scared enough in her life to be able to recognise it on another person, and he’s scared. He’s a god at the top of the world, three hours until he wins, and he’s scared. Why?
He’s powerful. Life knows that— she has his powers, after all. But he’s scared.
She looks at him, and she doesn’t see Metallica, the all-powerful president, the king of the tower. She sees a kid. Because that’s what he is, really, if you take away all the bluster and bravado. A kid on a mountainside. And, sure, he hasn’t been a kid in a very long time. But Hènra is still there.
And, she supposes, they’re similar in that respect. Life doesn’t think she ever stopped being the kid on a cliff. She wants to— she chose to— but somewhere, deep inside of her, there’s a ten year old, and she’s lonely.
“But doing so,” Metallica was saying, “will grant me a fresh start.”
“You don’t need to reset the universe to have a fresh start,” Life says, suddenly. “The world is— the world is complicated. And it’s big, and it’s messy, and it’s horrible, but it can also be kind.”
He looks at her, uncertain. “But it’s broken,” he says. “And you replace the broken with the new.”
“It’s messy and it’s imperfect but so is everything. Resetting isn’t going to fix anything. You can’t abandon it. You need to give it a chance.” She crouches down, getting on his eye level. He only has three, now— Astrumare dug out the lower right one.
“The world is ugly. I mean, the UK exists. Or existed.” Faintly, she can hear Lightning yelling insults at her. “But there are people. There are people fighting in wars, dying, starving. But there is kindness there.”
“Then let the new world be full of good,” Metallica says, shoulders slumping. “I’m tired of this one.”
“But it isn’t going to be,” she presses. “You know that. It can’t be perfect. You can keep trying and resetting but it’s never going to be perfect. You have to look for the good in people. In the world.”
Maristela didn’t. Eve didn’t. June certainly didn’t— and that was the difference. June was powerful, yes, but he didn’t believe in people. He shoved everyone away, and in the end, that got him killed.
“Do you want to know something, Metallica?” Life asks.
“What.”
“I don’t think you’re a bad guy. You’ve set yourself up as the villain, sure, with a big old tower and a grand monologue, but I don’t think you are.”
He eyes her. Purple lines creep further up Daishin’s neck.
“That’s who you think you are, but it’s not you. You’re not the villain. Do you know what you are?”
Metallica tilts his head, horns a broken crown.
”You’re a person. Like me, and Daishin, and everyone up there, and everyone down here. And you deserve a chance to change.”
He feigns a fragile grin. “I’m an innocent man, I swear.” Riddles to the very end, a villain down to the book.
“You are,” Daishin says, genuinely, and Life shakes her head.
“You aren’t,” she argues, admits. “I’m not saying you’re innocent, because you’re not. And I’m not saying the people you’ve hurt should forgive you, because that’s their choice. But you’re responsible for your actions, and it’s up to you to choose to rise above them. And you can still change. I mean, look around you. Is anyone here innocent?”
“The Urge?” Metallica offers.
He got Nine killed, she thinks, but brushes the thought away. “…true.” She lies, instead. “But, still. You care. You say you don’t, but you do.” She watches him glance at the purple lines. “And that makes you a person.”
“If it helps,” Daishin adds, “you are one of the most human people I know. You didn’t deserve anything that made you into who you are. It was… horrible.” There’s weight to those words that Life doesn’t quite grasp, and Metallica staggers back like he just got shot.
“Human? I… no. I’m not human. I haven’t been for almost nine thousand years.”
“You are.”
“I have no heart, I haven’t got a family, I don’t even have a name anymore. I’m not human.”
Life snorts, gesturing at herself. “None of us are.” She says.
“I used to be Hènra,” Metallica says, suddenly. “But that name doesn’t apply to me anymore. For a while, I bounced around names… but I haven’t had a good name in a while.”
“Then find a new one,” she says. Life stole her name from a dead man. She stole her name from a story. “Find something new.”
“But that’s… I can’t just find something… it has to be right. It has to be exactly what I want.”
”You don’t have to find it now,” Life allows. “But you have to be willing to work towards being a better person. Finding something new. Finding a new name.”
“And preferably not resetting the world,” Daishin adds. “Think of it like that practice of repairing things with gold. The imperfections are beautiful, no?”
The god nods. “Kintsugi… yeah, I’m familiar. If that’s who I am, then what’s next?”
Life’s wings droop, and she sighs, shutting her eyes for a moment. Daishin and the god talk, but her head’s pounding and arms are throbbing and her feathers are burning, and the bubble is still holding. Slowly, she cracks open her eyes.
She offers the god her hand.
He takes it.
The bubble drops.
Together, the three of them land on wet grass, and Life watches the darkness dissipate. The sun shines on Ironstrand, and from the top of the tower, her friends leap down, catching each other and themselves. Cookie touches down gently, Luchine and Dove dive to carry anyone who can’t carry themselves, and Daishin collapses onto the lawn.
Cookie shoots her a questioning look, and she shrugs, eyelids heavy. Life lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and feels power swirling under her skin. She doesn’t know what colour her eyes are. She doesn’t want to know.
“…what now?” She asks the sky.
“Home?” Astrumare suggests.
”Home,” she agrees.
“Home!” He cheers, and out of the corner of her eye, she watches him throw his hands in the air.
“It’s such a foreign word, when you say it…” Cookie says, exhaustion winding it’s way around every syllable. Home. And it is, isn’t it? Six months. Sergei and Hollyhock and everyone they left behind, what are they doing? Nine and Rita, dead, what are they doing?
Life looks at Metallica, newly missing an eye and holding Daishin in his arms, and knows: this is not justice.
She can’t count how many people he killed. That’s a number only him and Daishin know, and selfishly, Life hopes she never finds out. He hurt so many people, destroyed so many lives.
But.
But.
Where does it stop? June was hurt, and hurt people. Death was hurt, and hurt people. Metallica was hurt, and hurt people. It’s a cycle. Dove knows more than her, probably, but she can recognise a cycle when she sees one. At what point does it stop?
Change starts with you, Life thinks wearily, the image of a cheesy therapist’s poster swimming into her mind. Break the cycle, or whatever.
She rises to her feet, scars stinging and wings heavy, and walks into the portal home.