Chapter Text
I will take the guise of a prophet. And my prophecies will come to pass; I will make them true with my own two hands.
No matter what I have to sacrifice, this tyranny will end
No matter who has to die, I will see her one last time.
-???
Surge cleared the stairs to the rooftop in the span of a blink, opting out of using the doorknob and just shoulder-bashing it off the frame so hard it spiraled off into the night somewhere. Not exactly the most polite way to knock, but it wasn't her fault the hinges were so easy to pop off! When she realized that she appeared to be alone, she skidded to a stop, sparks flying off as she burnt speed-divots into the stone.
She found herself surrounded by raised, triangular sections of stone laid out in rows. Perfect hiding places for cowardly aristocrats. One hand on the pommel of her sword, she slowly began to walk between them: “All right, you gussied-up buzzard, nowhere to run. Might as well come out to face the music!”
“When the True Queen mentioned a tenrec would be around to cause trouble, I must admit I expected something more impressive.” The answer seemed to be coming from all around her, Surge’s head turning to try to follow it and failing. Magic? Nah. Weird acoustics up here if she had to guess. “Then again, resisting the Lifeweaver’s Eye… I suppose you’re more than you seem.”
“Sounds like you did too. You’re not acting like the zombies downstairs. Which means you aren’t hypnotized. You’re just an asshole.” One who apparently knew a lot about what was going on, to be fair. She had to keep him yapping to find him. “Lifeweaver’s Eye?” Was that the green thing Starline had been using to try to make that hypno beacon thing for her in his lab? It did look like she’d just jammed it in her head.
“Ah, there was no need. I’ve been a faithful servant of the Lifeweaver for years. Ever since that day. That dream….” Wherever Dewleaf was, he sounded lost in joy. “Imagine what you are standing against. The founder of our kingdom, trying to bring about the advent of our creator. Of a world where we are all free to claim what we want.”
“What you want?! You’re filthy stinking rich, have a whole town and live in a gigantic freaking mansion! Are you pretending you’re deprived?!” The absurdity was enough to make her skip right over his insane alternative interpretation of the world eating monster he was talking about.
“You have nothing. You could never understand not having enough when nothing is all you’ve ever known. But don’t worry, you won’t have to think about anything soon enough.”
From behind, the sound of a boot shifting on stone, a quiet scuffing. In an instant she had whirled around, sword out of her sheath just in the nick of time to block the downward swing of a long sword with her saber. Metal clapped on metal once, twice, Surge taking a step back before parrying the third swing aside.
“Big damn mistake, pal.” She was an inch away from riposting before she was again alerted from behind. This time by a bloodthirsty scream! Surge saw the flash of motion, one of the hypnotized marshals that had been attending the party, out of the corner of her eye. She put the whole of her body into spinning around and kicking him in the stomach. In the same moment, her sword went behind her back, deflecting a sneak attack from Dewleaf.
Another pair swept out for the shadows. Surge's super speed carried her around the downward chop of a raised war axe, the tuxedo-clad shrew wielding it stumbling forward as its weight found thin air. She swept her legs beneath the attacker in the same motion that she grabbed their partner, a strapping young feline with a broad-bladed saber, by the neck. He dropped it as he was hefted off his feet and slammed facedown onto the ground.
Dewleaf was on her again in an instant, the peacock again using an ambush to his advantage to press in some offensive cheap shots. She parried aside a blow but he wouldn't be dissuaded, his heavier sword again coming down upon her. All she could do was block, both hands holding her saber against the downward press of the double-edged blade: "Your form isn't terrible, I suppose, for a lowborn. At least the sword isn't all for show."
“Yeah, had a pretty good teacher, you prick!” She snarled, pushing back against him. He was actually fairly strong. Despite being tall and scrawny, she was having to really put her back into it to get him walking backwards. Shame he seemed addicted to cheap shots. Not that she could criticize much there herself! “Lucky for you he’s not here right now, he woulda turned you into more of those little food cubes you were serving downstairs.”
“If he’s in this city, he’s probably either on our side or dead already,” Dewleaf said dryly. Surge blinked, looking to the side; she could hear distant shouts from the streets beyond. Rising plumes of smoke too. Wait, was the whole city…?!
Dewleaf shoved her hard while she was distracted, sending Surge stumbling back. She stood up straight after a moment or two of wobbling, and then froze.
“Did your teacher tell you how to get out of this one?” Dewleaf’s sword had been lowered in favor of a flintlock that was currently aimed directly at her head. Surge frowned. “Put your hands up, urchin. It’ll go quicker for you if you… I assume that the thing you’re doing with your fingers is meant to be some foreign insult.”
“Drop it, dumbass.” Surge said with a labored sigh. “If you don’t wanna get wiped out. I mean I will either way, but the less you annoy me with that thing the fewer teeth you’ll be paying to fix while you’re… Wherever the Sol Empire puts rich dudes dumb enough to join death cults.”
“Oh, quelle horreur.” Dewleaf rolled his eyes, the flintlock in his hand seemingly the only part of his body not heaving with sarcastic ire. “What are you going to do, you filthy little thing? More rude gestures? More meaningless barks? Bleed on me as you fall?”
“Buddy…” Electricity danced in arcs around Surge’s knuckles, her tongue tracing her lips and giving the aristocrat a look at those dagger-like teeth of hers. That smile couldn’t be repressed. “That’s the easiest question anybody’s thrown at me all night. I’m gonna cave your goddamn head in! And you’ve got two things that you can do about that: Nothing, or like it. Better pick one fast.”
“Third-“ The second word, to Surge’s ears, sounded like a very low pitched groan. “Ooooooooption.” Kicking into superspeed did that for you. The gun, too, was like a slow-unfolding thundercrack as it went off. His aim was true…. To where she had been standing. The deadly little lead ball swam through the air inch by inch, Surge casually slicing it in two with her saber before flinging the blade straight up into the air in a dramatic twirl.
“Gardon didn’t teach me this one. This is all me, birdbrain!”
The halved bullet shot off uselessly in two different directions in the same moment that her fist caught the peacock right in the beak, electricity exploding off of the blow. It folded inwards and blood flew from his nostrils and mouth, the mayor making something between a scream and a sound like he'd just tried to gulp down a bowling ball. Dewleaf’s arms pinwheeled and the rest of his body went backwards, smacking hard against one of the stone structures lining the rooftop before rebounding right back to her again Huh! Maybe the one time in his life he’d ever been generous, if she had to guess.
“How goddamn stupid ARE YOU?!” Rapid punches peppered his chest and ribs with brutal impacts, causing it to jerk and flail as it was simultaneously pummeled and shocked. “Selling out a whole city and everybody in it for MONEY?! Worshipping some freaky god-thing because you think it’s gonna make you RICHER?!”
She despised this guy; he already had all the money in the world, and his only takeaway from some kind of freaked-up cosmic nightmare dream with the Lifeweaver had given him nothing except excitement for a world where he could have everything he wanted instead of just most of it.
Her ear picked up the rapid swirling sound of steel flying through the air; she reached straight up, nimbly snagging the sword she'd tossed into the sky as it finally came back down. It spun one last time in her fingers before she brought the edge snugly against his him. Dewleaf, bloodied and breathing like he'd just run a marathon, looked wildly at the sword weighing against his jugular:“Now gimme one good reason why I shouldn’t make it so you can’t be anybody else’s problem ever again.”
“You’ll regret it.”
It wasn’t the mayor who answered. Not nearly swollen-mouthed and tinged with the blood he was drooling out as he watched her with wide eyes. No, it was… It couldn’t have been right. It was impossible. Surge swiveled her body, shoving the peacock hard to the floor before turning to face it in disbelief. Dewleaf was instantly forgotten.
A tall figure in a long coat; Surge usually saw carriage drivers in them all around the city, same with the big crooked hat on his head. Against his muscular chest was the limp and dangling form of Marine, held in one broad arm with the other holding the barrel of a pistol under her chin as she slept. She had clearly been hit a few times, blood matting one side of the little raccoon’s face. Her own immediately twisted into an expression of abject fury. The only thing that could eclipse the shock.
“Hello, Hope,” Keen’s voice was low and dangerous. It almost managed to banish his tone of slimy, perspiration-laden nervousness. Not quite.
“I don’t do third chances, you stupid bastard.” She was filling herself with so much electricity almost on pure instinct at the moment that it felt like her teeth were rattling in her skull as she spoke. “This time’ I’m gonna-”
“You’re fast, but I don’t think you’re fast enough to stop a point blank shot like this. Don’t. Move. Drop the sword.” She’d taken a step forward and he instinctively took a step back, coward that he was. Hatred overflowed from her just the same as the lightning arced off of her in swaying, snapping strands. But all the same… He was right. Anything she could have done before the flintlock went off would have been a coinflip at best. She cursed and glowered at him, dropping the sword.
“W…Where were you?! Leaving.. Guh… L-Leaving me like that?!” Behind her, Dewleaf was beginning to struggle to his feet. His formerly pristine outfit that probably cost him more than most people in this city made in a year was torn to shreds and soaked with his own blood. “She almost killed me!”
“Don’t overestimate your importance to the Queen.” Keen snapped. “Your job was to gather the marshals here and be a distraction. That’s all.” His eyes didn’t leave Surge as he spoke, and now that she was getting a good look at them, something was beginning to dawn on her: he hated her almost as much as she hated him right now. Almost.
“Gonna let him talk to you like that, Squawky? Go over there and take a swing at him. Don’t worry, Keen doesn’t hurt anyone ‘cept for women and children.” She spat on the ground, still standing, still burning. Keen growled audibly. “Go ahead, asshole, spit it out: how did you end up working for Agni? A great big simpering trashbag like you, trying to end the world?!”
Behind her, men were beginning to emerge from the shadows. Had they always been here? Clearly. She had seen them earlier downstairs, figures in dark robes. The more long-term victims of Agni’s evil hypnotic crap. Faces obscured, glinting steel rising from the swathed black fabric that billowed around them. Long curved knives, slowly. She began to turn to face them but again Keen bellowed: “You’ll STAND STILL!”
Her fists clenched and she turned back to face him, forced to do exactly as she was asked. The mayor, too, was beginning to collect his fallen sword off of the ground: “You bastard… When I get my hands on you, you’re gonna wish you stayed in that prison cell ‘till you started to rot!”
“I don’t care about what she wants to do with the world. The world can go plough itself.” Keen ignored the threats, sweaty, pallid. Lost in how much he despised her. Finally they were even. He pushed the barrel of his weapon so hard beneath Marine’s chin that her unconscious head shifted upwards, slowly lilting back. Surge reached out, but again he took another step back. “My world is already over because of you. You took everything from me. Every damned thing I’ve ever fought to have. And now? Now I know what I want. Now I know why I’m still alive after all of it. I’m just here because I can’t die without watching you die first.”
—
Blaze did not see the sword’s downward arc- she shut her eyes. She didn’t lunge out of harm's way. She didn’t even raise her arms above herself; something within her body simply betrayed her, and everything shut down. What would happen, would happen.
In the end, no blow came. No pain, no blood, only the sound of a metal’s resounding clanging as it came down on the paving stones below. By the time her eyes unscrewed themselves, what she saw was Gardon’s back to her as he slowly staggered in the direction of a waiting Hollowflame Queen.
“Gardon!” Blaze cried. Onwards he walked. “GARDON! You don’t have to! You can’t! Gardon, I ORDER YOU YOU-!” The words died in her throat. Nothing was changing. He wasn’t listening. He was beyond her, now.
“Those with doubt in their hearts,” she had said. Those were her victims. Those were the ones that came to her. Even him… She has failed even him. Even Gardon could not believe in her.
She stood there; the thing that had commandeered her ancestor’s body. Had become one with her soul, become this deadly monster. Standing there surrounded by a mass of swaying, hypnotized adulants that had stopped their mad dash in her direction to stare in reverent awe just as Gardon had. In one of his hands, he held the Sword of the Stars, which he had cut from Blaze’s belt moments ago. In the other, gleamed the final Sol Emerald. She reached down to him.
“Do not touch him! Let him go! I… I am the only one…!” Her legs were not cooperating with her anymore, quivering and shaking uselessly as she tried to rise. The Hollowflame Queen’s hand paused moments before it reached the koala, and baleful eyes went down to Blaze once more.
“Again and again you have cried out that you are alone, and that all you need is to be alone. Now you cry out for this one as if not having him by your side is tearing you apart.” She shook her head. “I suppose you are a liar as well as a fool. Or perhaps both of those things are one in the same.”
A single clawed finger drew itself beneath the koala’s chin as he knelt, arms shaking as both treasures remained offered. The Hollowflame Queen took each into her hands, gazing down at the gem with those burning green eyes. “You have done well. Now only the Staff remains.”
Blaze’s stomach churned, violent nausea and despair consuming her. Every time she tried to focus on the image of Gardon on one knee her eyes began to blur with tears. Every ounce of hate and fury that had been fueling her had been stolen. She could no longer fight. She could no longer stand. In the end, she did the sole thing that was left to her: “Why?”
“Once I ruled as king of Sol. My queen at my side. Together we lived and together we died. When our souls left us, we were born anew. New bodies, new shapes, genders, all of it. But the same souls. Always the same souls. In the north, The Lifeweaver ruled. In the south, The Worldpainter. In the heart of all, between those two worlds, the Kingdom of Sol. Everything was perfect. Balanced.”
That was the tale. The very tale that Blaze had told Surge some of on Cape Paradiso to try and cheer her up. Now it was being presented to her, impossibly, by one of its ancient participants. And with a twist, she found, as The Hollowflame Queen continued: “Then The Lifeweaver lost his mind.”
She finally looked up once more, shocked that an answer was coming. The Hollowflame Queen was looking into the gem she held in her hand. Or, perhaps the reflection of her face in the facets of its surface as she continued: “The god of life. The one who gave all things shape at the beginning of time, suddenly wanted to do nothing but consume all life. So many were taken. Then, one day, the Worldpainter came to my love and I. She told us that we were the only hope of salvation this world had. Do you know what happened then?”
“Sh-“
“She betrayed me.” The voice has something in it that Blaze had never heard from the armored woman: anger. Pure, seething rage. The fist clenching the sol emerald trembled as black Hollowflame began to bloom around it. “She betrayed all of us. The lands that the Lifeweaver devastated were buried beneath the waves in the form of the Four Great Seas. The Lifeweaver himself was pushed from our world into the space between. But that wasn’t enough, no. She needed a lock to hold him there. A seal. An eternal seal. And do you know what she chose? Do you know what she took from me?”
The voice echoed through the snowy street, the eerie silence of the surrounding adulants a harrowing backdrop. That hand holding the gem suddenly went up in a fiery black flash, and then the emerald was gone, leaving nothing but an empty palm.
“Two souls eternally reborn together. She took that power, and split those souls worlds apart.” The anger was gone, that cold and stoic hatred firmly back where it normally reigned. She turned her back on Blaze, looking up at the moon overhead as she spoke. “As long as we never meet again, as long as two never again become one, we never cross between worlds, the lock will stay in place.”
“And so I served my purpose. We all have, since that time. My descendants, my own bloodline, have come to be its safeguards as they worship her. Do you truly not understand what this world has become since The Lifeweaver was sealed away? There is no rest. Only an endless cycle of death and rebirth which she will stop at nothing to safehold. The freedom of your people is sacrificed for that. Even this body which I have assumed control of was meant to be nothing more than fuel for her eternal pyre, to hold me until the end of time.”
Every word brought a further dawning horror to the princess. Her fingers knitted at the snowy stone beneath herself, desperately trying to find a will to stand: “You’re… You want to see her again. Even if you have to destroy… Everything.”
The realization shot her to her feet finally, skidding to an instant stop as two pairs of hands grabbed her arms. She gasped and writhed. That final burst of energy finally powering her to stand once more, to put a stop to this selfish insanity. She looked furiously to her side, and it all crumpled again when she saw that Gardon was one of the ones holding her in place.
“I do not ‘want.’” The Hollowflame Queen’s head turned, eyes flashing wickedly as she gazed down upon Blaze once more. “I will. I will tear down these walls between worlds. I will destroy The Lifeweaver, and The Worldpainter too if she stands in my way. And then, our shackles broken, the eternal cycle gone, we will live one final life. One final, glorious life. And we will do it in freedom.”
“You’re… You’ve gone mad,” Blaze coughed raggedly. The Hollowflame Queen had turned to face her fully now, a single palm turned to her as an arm extended. In its center, a mote of Hollowflame had already begun to form. Whirling embers slowly glowing brighter, forming themselves into a jagged spike of fire.
“And you,” Agni’s stolen lips spoke with a placid and ghastly calm, “are about to die.”
—-
The pretender was about to die. Gardon knew this, and he was happy. Praise be to this victory, and praise be to the Hollowflame Queen for bringing it about.
He held her tightly as he stared upon her face. She was weak. She has brought ruin to this kingdom. She was full of fear. She was. Was.
She was so afraid.
She was trembling.
She was…
She was alone again.
Whenever he found her, she always seemed to be. He had searched the palace grounds all morning, to no avail. That was not particularly a surprise to the young guardsman, as it seemed like Blaze had a penchant for not being found if she didn’t want to be. But of all places…
“Your-” He began timidly, remembered he was now the personal guard of the most important person in the empire and straightened his back, trying again. A little louder: “Your grace?”
“Gardon.” The answer, two monotone syllables, might have to the unobservant seem to be given by a large palmwood table in a dark corner of the royal archives. The truth was a little less fantastical: Princess Blaze was sitting beneath it. The young monarch’s back rested against one table leg, her knees drawn to her chest. On the floor, a book lay open before her. Illustrations of dragons mid-flight flanked by lines and lines of text filled the pages.
He crouched to look at her as he spoke. She did not return the gaze: “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I was fortunate that one of the archivists noticed you while making his rounds. I-”
“We’ve finished fencing lessons for the day, have we not?” She did not look up from her book, the round eyeglasses on her face glinting from nearby flames that were just barely gracing the hidey-hole she’d stuffed herself beneath with its illumination.
“Reading in the dark is bad for your eyes, Princess. It-” Blaze didn’t interrupt with an answer, only a snap of the fingers. A tiny mote of flame appeared on her fingertips, the flickering equivalent of a candle. He sighed.
“I, um… If I may, princess, I’m not just your fencing instructor anymore. I’m your bodyguard. I’m supposed to stick close to you.”
Finally, she looked up at him. Hollow, empty, tired eyes: “I don’t need a bodyguard. I don’t need anyone.”
Those were the eyes of someone who was already doing so much against her will day in and day out. Even when she was younger, Princess Blaze had been temperamental and bookish. When the former king and queen had vanished at sea, after the frantic searching had ended, there had been a period of mourning. But once that ended, the merciless cogs of politics had resumed grinding with this girl newly caught between them.
Gardon’s role before the loss of the king and queen, may they rise as does the Sun, had been a simple swordsmanship tutor. But even then he had seen that the girl had struggled to relate to the world beyond stories of maidens and minstrel knights. Now, every chancellor and councilman sought to manipulate her before she came of age to know better. Now, every paltry aristocrat came to the castle seeking her time and favor. Both the maidens and the minstrel knights must have seemed further away than ever before. And yet…
“Mother and father didn’t need anyone.” Her voice was morose and distant. “No bodyguards. They were strong. I don’t need anyone either.”
This would not do.
The little princess, who had returned to her book, looked up in confusion as she watched the koala clamber beneath the big table with her. He took a seat at the table leg opposite to her, legs raised to his chest with his arms resting atop them politely.
“Gardon, I just said, I don’t need a-”
“A bodyguard. Yes, your grace. I heard you. But, begging your pardon… You said nothing about a friend.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. He did his best to smile in the face of this, though he knew he looked absurd. Whether he tried to look stern or kindly, he just had one of those faces that made it near impossible to take him seriously. The way she was struggling to look with disdain at his presence, the way the corners of her mouth didn’t seem to know whether to curl down or up, was proof enough that it was something which still held true. He got that from his father. Oh, how he missed his father.
But he had worn that burden on his shoulders long enough that it had become a familiar thing. Even, in a curious way, something of a comfort. And now, it was time for him to do his best to help someone else feel that same relief.
“So, um… What’s the book about?” He asked.
“It’s…” She was just about to give him an explanation. But then, at the last second, something pulled inwards. That sulking, quiet demeanor returned. She adjusted her skirt, fidgeting with the long folds that she always seemed too uncomfortable in before she finally continued in a different direction: “Why? Why are you trying so hard? I told you, I don’t need anyone.”
Gardon paused. Then, he responded:
—
She turned her head to the side, anticipating the impact that was to come. The final blow. The death. The crowd that surrounded them, thirsting for her blood, watched on.
“Gardon… Everyone. I’m sorry. I-“
“Princess!"
A panicked cry let with great strain from beside her,; Gardon’s voice, sounding almost as though it had been struggling to leave his throat all at once. And then she was falling to the side, shoved powerfully and collapsing atop the other dazed adulant. In the same moment she heard a terrible snapping sound, and a blast of energy.
She rolled to her feet, disorganized thoughts coalescing into the fact that she had just had her life saved by Gardon. She rose to move towards him and-
Black fire, formed and focused in the shape of a spear, jutted out from Agni’s palm. It cast a terrible purple light off of itself, making the air writhe as it stretched out several feet in length.
Passing straight through Gardon’s chest.
She screamed as it vanished and the koala fell first to his knees and then face down on the stone. The Hollowflame Queen, the onlooking townspeople, the world itself had been wholly discarded from her mind. There was only the man who she had spent the better part of her life treating like the closest thing she would ever again have to a father, lying crumpled in the snow.
“No.” She was at his side, pulling him to her, turning him to face her. Snow, pure white, caked his face and uniform. Its contrast a hole, pure black, bloodless, near the size of a fist. “No. No no no no. Gardon!”
He reached for her. His hand reached up, shot up, grabbing the lapels of her uniform. It clutched at them tightly. He pulled her weakly downward, his face closed to hers. His eyes were clear. They were so clear, free of the dominating haze that had ruled them. Tears ran from her own.
“Blaze," he seemed to correct himself, blurry eyes coming to focus on her with as much clarity as they could. His voice was so soft and tender as he said her name. It had a whistle to it that shouldn’t have been there that was filling her with dread.
“Don’t talk. I…” She looked around frantically. As though some magic healing would be waiting just out of the corner of her eye, something to fix this. Gardon shook his head.
"It's okay," he said, almost a cough of a sound. His hands shook as he said it, but they refused to let her go. The faintest, pained smile on his face. "You're… T-Thank goodness, you're… okay."
"I'm… I-I'm… You saved me." She didn't know why she said that, particularly; it was self evident. And yet somehow it seemed to ease the hurt that kept gnawing at his features the moment that she said it. "G-Gardon, please. You-"
"You don’t…” His breath hitched and then he shook his head. Eternally strong, eternally stalwart before her no matter how hard it was to be as such. A hole, that horrible hole in his chest, and yet even now he was trying to comfort her. “… Have to be alone.”
Through the suffocating horror, a spark of remembrance. He had said that to her once before. When had he said it? When? It must have been so long ago. How long ago had she forgotten…?
Gardon’s body trembled as he let out a low wheeze. Her hands gripped him tighter, terror filling her and then unfolding from her as it became more and more real. She was a shaking shadow of the warrior she had tried to will herself into being through purestrain loneliness. “Don’t talk, please. It’s going to… I-It’s going to be okay. It’s going to… going to… I can-“
“We’ll always… B-Be here. I… I… Lo…”
The hand on the lapels fell to the side. Her blood went cold.
“Gardon.”
The eyes lost their focus as his head did the same.
“Gardon! Answer me! I… You… I beg of you… GARDON! YOU CANNOT-!“
No heartbeat.
“Please.”
No breathing.
“Please please please please-”
Empty. Glassy. The rise and fall of the chest, the eternal comfort. Gone. Everything went into utter stillness on her lap. She sobbed and howled as she held him to her chest, the world less and incoherent sounds of a life crashing down around your ears.
“An honest man.”
Blaze froze. And then slowly, her face that had been buried against Gardon looked up to the one who had killed them. It twisted with a grotesque hatred. Her veins began to burn.
“One who chose the wrong guiding light, but an honest and faithful man nonetheless.” The Hollowflame queen spoke slowly and evenly. “I will remember this. I will remember his face, and his final words. Like everything else that has been sacrificed in the name of a better world, I will etch them on my soul. And I will carry them to the end.”
Her body was no longer hers: the fire took it to its feet, all final vestiges of weakness cast off of it. The fire closed the distance between her and the Hollowflame queen like a comet of vengeance and death. She was going to tear this woman, no matter who or what she was, limb from limb.
Through the roaring amber-red mass of the Royal Flame, the last thing she saw as she came upon the black-armored woman were the Sol Emeralds appearing in a multicolor halo above the Hollowflame Queen, tongues of oily black energy pouring from them into her.
Then there was a great heat. And following it, a great cold.
And then, only darkness.