Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The laurel pin glinted in the lamp light back at him, almost in a taunting manner. And Aventurine could not help but huff out a small, bitter laugh at it. How cruel, yet so precious this small gold hairpin was to him now.

It had been three weeks since that day- the day his so deeply loved flame flickered and died out in front of his very eyes. Three weeks since Dr. Veritas Ratio’s passing.

Aventurine had never attended a real funeral, which was surprising considering the amount of losses in his life. He’d held his own private memorials for his family, of course, but this was different. It was hard to describe or even simply think about the doctor without getting carried away. From his silk soft purple hair, to his smooth yet sharp voice, it was almost no secret that the Stoneheart loved him.

 The same, however, was unclear for Ratio himself. The man had kept damn near every aspect of his life private.

But no longer would he hear the man’s tired and harsh tone lecture him, with that angelic voice of his; he would never be able to look into those alluring sunset eyes that left Aventurine questioning if he was somehow descended from sirens.

It should have been him. Now, Veritas was dead. And it was tearing his poor heart to pieces.

The forest leaves around him were an unnatural colour. Then again, this whole place was unnatural- unfamiliar. And with the time he’d spent trying to navigate it, Ratio worried that he may be truly going mad.

 This place- some kind of strange afterlife- it was incomprehensible:

 The very fabric of the world would shift in front of one’s eyes. Not as a whole, but in small sections. Tiny clusters of the environment would shift items; time periods and materials in all sorts of ways. As he moved now, the very leaves before him turned from splotchy hues of navy and indigo, to fragments of crystals and geodes in front of him. Unbound by the laws of rationality.

 There were no main living locations- as he learned the hard way. Only structures akin to cities to simulate the world of the living; there was no need to eat, yet food and beverages still existed purely for their taste. This whole plane of existence felt… thick; hazy.

Heavy.

Being thrown into this strange land was jarring enough for the usually reasonable doctor, but there was something else, something off.

This peculiar nagging sensation in the back of his head. Almost like someone had tethered a string to his mind and was trying to tug him along. That pull, he had been following it out of curiosity, or maybe some blind, desperate hope that it would somehow lead him to answers.

 Or perhaps, a way out of this world, and back to the universe he once knew. With the guild, with his mission of spreading knowledge. Back to living… Back to Aventurine.

Instead, he had gotten lost. Then he had gotten himself hunted.

As he had trekked through this untamed forest, he had foolishly made himself a target of none other than the remnants of the infernal swarm. And they had given chase the moment he ran.

 He was without his tome nor his chalk. And he could certainly not take on the oversized insects bare-handed, and so he ran. His heart thrumming wildly and threatening to break through his ribcage; to tear through the flesh of his chest in sheer terror. He had learned that death was still a concern in this dimension- even if it were a small one. Only nobody knows what waits beyond it. And that worried him.

Ratio bursted through a maze of leaves and into a new, unfamiliar clearing. Panting and desperate to catch his breath he could not help but collapse onto the grass as it flickered between being a bright, healthy green to a miserable, dead and decayed brown. He wished he could keep running, as he could hear his hunters’ malicious hissing and horrible, buzzing wings encroaching on his location- then, emerging from the foliage surrounding him with hungry pincers and murderous delight. Fear seized at his heart in ways that made him want to puke. Was this his true end? Torn to shreds by overgrown insects he once would scoff at in his life?

The doctor braced himself to be torn apart as one sting lunged at him with the intent to bite. But- it instead was… leapt upon and stabbed straight through the skull? Confused, Ratio glanced up, to see a puddle of purple, blue and black substance seep into the ground; only to appear at the face of another creature of the swarm and slay it. A knife remained lodged in the head of the sting at his feet, and Ratio took that as an invitation to pry the blade free and defend himself from the continuous onslaught of winged beasts. All while keeping an eye on this new and unknown being:

 Between the flitting between the swarm bugs, the odd ink-like material would take the form of a roughly human figure- a short, lightly tanned woman with dark purple hair was all he could make out. Who was this? A new threat? A guardian of this location of the afterlife? He would have his answers soon.

One by one, each insect of the swarm met its end. Dr. Ratio looked around for his assistant, worried that he had lost her. Then a monotone, tired voice drew his eyes to the branches above him: “You… You’re new here. Aren’t you?”

With a proper chance to gaze upon her. Ratio was able to take each of her features in as she stood on a thick branch, staring down at him: Her hair was at a medium length and a small portion of it was tied into a short loose ponytail that draped over her shoulder and across her defined collarbone; her shoulders adorning a skull tattoo each, and the front of her neck- a tattoo of an eye that seemed to bore a hole into his very soul. And her final tattoo almost resembled that of an autopsy incision, starting just below the aforementioned eye and ending just above her pierced belly button. Her small jacket, a lighter shade of dark purple on her hair and full of decorative bright purple and blue feathers at the neck area; it hung partially off of her elbows, exposing the sleeveless dark blue crop top and shorts she also wore. Throughout her clothing, she was adorned in purple gems, black pearls and those same purple and blue feathers on her coat.

 But her eyes were what struck him the most. Almost like a paler version of his dear gambler’s, they were a swirling mix of pastel pinks and blues; lined with a pale lilac around the bottom edges and stark white pupils, that too seemed to pierce into his very core.

Too stunned to utter a word, she tilted her head down at the taller man. Realising he probably looked like nothing but a shaken, gawking fool, Ratio cleared his throat and answered her with “Y-yes. If by here, you mean both this afterlife and this forsaken forest.” The woman nodded faintly, still choosing to remain on the shifting tree branch. At this point, Ratio noted that there was, by now, no sight of the strange puddles she had once sunken into and risen up from.

The woman spared a glance down at the knife- presumably hers- still clutched in his hands. “Keep it.” she said as he lifted it up to her in an offer to return it, his wrist and up coated in the viscous blood of the swarm. “You need it more than I do.”

“I am looking for a place of respite.” Ratio stammered out, in worry that she would disappear before he could ask for help, “Somewhere I could just rest for a while, or perhaps where I could…” he grimaced at the feeling of the feeling of the blood turning cold and sticky against his skin, “Somewhere I could clean myself as thoroughly as possible.”

His mystery assistant stared at him silently once again, then pointing just behind him she spoke in that same unbothered voice, “There is a bathhouse on the outskirts of a small town not far from this clearing.” She glanced up at a gap in the trees where the sky was most visible. “Keep the sun on your left shoulder; you’ll reach it soon enough.”

 She stared right back down into his eyes, “I’ll meet you there.”

Ratio looked back to where she had pointed, watching as something resembling a path forward faded in and out of the ground beyond. “Very well, thank you.” He turned his still somewhat reeling head back to the branch she stood on, “My name is-”

 His words were cut short however, at the sight of the branch once again empty. With the memory of her instructions still echoing within his mind, the doctor began walking along the flickering path. And, like the woman had said, keeping the sun, to his left shoulder.

As the marble structure came into view, Ratio let out an exhausted yet relieved sigh. In the small time it had taken to walk towards the bathhouse, the sting blood coating his arm had begun to dry, and Ratio detested the feeling of it upon his skin. So much that he wanted nothing more than to scrub it off. Stepping free from the multicoloured foliage behind him, he approached the front doors of the bathhouse; opening the clean glass doors to be greeted by the front desk, the doctor was quick to notice how the employees were afflicted with the same flickering and shifting motions. They were as real as the monster under his bed as a child. Still, they acknowledged him with a curt nod, “Good day.” Ratio spoke to one woman, her eyes hazy and unfocused just as much as the rest of her, “I am looking for a young woman- short; dark hair and pale eyes.” He was answered with a gesture towards the main lobby through a doorway to his left.

“We have just seen a young lady come through here. She said she’d be meeting a man in the lobby- just outside the locker rooms.”

Dr. Ratio offered a murmured thanks and followed her painstakingly vague directions. In the lobby, there were other separate hallways branching off, almost like a maze; each one adorned with a sign signalling where they led.

 It didn’t take long for the doctor to spot the same startlingly pale eyes of hers again. Watching his every motion with an intense curiosity.

As he crossed the lobby to stand in front of her, he began to speak, “Thank you once again, for your help. My name is Doctor Veritas Ratio.” He briefly nodded his head as he introduced himself.

“Crow.”

“P-pardon me?” Ratio stammered.

“My name is Crow.”

In an attempt to shake off any obvious confusion emanating from him, Ratio cleared his throat, “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Crow. You may call me Dr. Ratio.” As he went to move his still blood-caked arm, he couldn’t help but hold back a grimace and a groan, “I don’t suppose you know of a sink I could wash my hands in, do you?”

This strange woman- Crow, stared down at his forearm. “There is a bathroom connected to the locker room through here. There are also shower stalls there.” To this answer, Ratio hummed a nod of pleased approval.

“You have my gratitude Miss Crow.” He began to step through the doorway, “I shall return shortly.” Ratio had swiftly located the row of sinks as he entered the bathroom. It wasn’t just his forearm that felt horribly unclean, the entirety of his body, as well as his clothing, felt filthy; it left an uncomfortable itching sensation beneath his skin, the kind he best knew could be sated with a bath and thorough scrubbing. But this would have to suffice for now, as Crow intrigued him for reasons he could not explain, besides that it seemed she was also fascinated by him.

 And so, he washed what sting blood off of his arm he could, and returned to the mysterious dark haired woman. Seeing she had taken a seat on a small table in the far left corner. He approached her once more and took a seat opposite of her.

“So,” Crow began the moment he got as comfortable as he could be, “What were you doing in that forest?”

He huffed out a sigh, “Fleeing overgrown bugs, as it would seem…” reaching up, Ratio rubbed his right temple with his fingertips, “Before that? I cannot say for certain. I have been in this- strange world for approximately three weeks now, and I have for the most part been wandering without much of a precise goal in mind. However, there is… something . A pull on my mind, it had begun not long before I awoke here. I do not know what it is, or why, but I feel as though it is for a reason I must discover. So I have been attempting to follow it. And that is how I ended up in that cursed forest.” Ratio tilted his head and blinked at her curiously, “And what about you, Miss Crow? What were you doing in the forest?”

She looked from his dusk coloured eyes down to her darkly painted nails, half-heartedly picking at the skin around them, “I don’t remember how I got here.” she started, “I don’t remember my life before; all I can recollect are vague hints of emotions at specific things, even if I cannot remember what those things are.” she glanced back up at him, “So, like you, I tend to simply wander around… it gets rather lonely, doesn’t it? Nobody else to make sense of it all, or ground you.”

“I am no stranger to loneliness.” the doctor replied dully.

Crow shifted in her seat and straightened her once slouching posture, her eyes refusing to break contact with his own, “This pull you described, what do you suppose it is?”

Ratio inhaled in a brief moment of thought, something that seemed to come to him a lot less easily without his alabaster head. “A part of me foolishly hopes that it will lead me to a way back to the living world. My life, it was cut far too short for my liking. There are things back there that I have yet to accomplish; people to… Care for.” He anxiously wrung his hands together, feeling uneasy with showing such a vulnerable display of emotions in front of a woman that he had just met, “If I could have one final chance on the mortal plane…”

“I will help you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’ll help you.” Crow said, “I want to see for myself. Perhaps I will know what to do with myself too.” she glanced off to the side once again, “I’ve spent a long time here just wandering. So much that I don’t know what a mortal, living life feels like. I think I would like to though.”

Ratio nodded, offering a clean hand for her to shake, “We have a deal then. We set out tomorrow, however, I feel far too unclean and tired to travel at this moment.”

Crow reached out and shook his hand, her palms cold and icy like death.

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

The funeral had been organized by the Intelligentsia Guild, as Aventurine would later discover. The synthetic skies above the crowd cast them in a dull, sad grey.

 Aventurine couldn’t help but see it to be fitting, as he stood beside the open casket. There lay his unspoken person of love and affection; his precious dusk-eyed doctor. Though he had no real right to call the man his.

Veritas had been put into a dark blue suit- one bearing much resemblance to the one he wore upon their first meeting, where he had that cold end of the gun pressing into his front, held by the grip of a man grappling with his desire to pull the weapon out of Aventurine’s grip, but also the curiosity to learn more about the gambler’s ease and risk-taking nature.

If only Aventurine wasn’t seeing the doctor again like this: sickly pale despite the efforts of embalmers and morticians to bring just an ounce of life back into his… unsettlingly calm face. It seemed so wrong, his wishes to see Ratio at ease were never in this context.

 He was without his hairpin, for whatever strange reason. Flowers poured from the crevices of the casket there were appearing to be in attempt to replicate the harmonious pallet of his irises and hair- purple lisianthuses, yellow carnations, and a strange blue flower he had not recognised before; knowing only the former two due to Ratio’s casual identification of specific flora. Around them, the variation of carnations in white filled marble vases and pots. It was at the one moment that Aventurine shifted his eyes from the still body of the deceased, that he realised something… off.

None of these other attendees looked like Ratio.

There were no guests that shared his silky purple hair; nobody who shared his sharp facial features or perfectly arched nose. There was no other figure here, who bore the same beautiful sunset eyes of his darling.

Where was Ratio’s family?

 As he continued to stare in utter confusion, Aventurine realised that all these fellow attendees were just members of the Guild; members of the Council of Mundanites. Merely people that just worked with the doctor- nothing more. Surely though- Veritas knew more people than just co-workers, right? Friends of family had to have come for his funeral… Right? The gambler’s thoughts were soon interrupted by a smooth yet cutting voice calling to him.

“Mister Aventurine, of the Ten Stonehearts I presume?”

Aventurine turned to meet the dark hazel eyes of a short, older woman. Her clothing appropriately being a simple black dress, decorated with a matching set of pearl earrings, a bracelet and a necklace; all of which screamed wealth and status. Her grey hair was tied into a tight, well put together bun. As Aventurine took her appearance in, she held one gloved hand out. “A pleasure to meet you- though if only it were in… different circumstances. You may call me Irene.”

 Aventurine weakly cleared his throat and shook her hand hesitantly, the sorrow and grief cashing over him in waves so strong that something as simple as basic politeness felt like a herculean effort. “It’s… nice to meet you, Miss Irene.” sparing just one more glance back to the casket, he attempted to hold a conversation with the woman. “Did you know Ver- Ratio- personally?” Mother Goddess, that sounded painfully cliche.

Irene shook her head, “not personally. I’m just a member of the council and a co-worker of his. Much like everyone else here.”

But- Aventurine was so much more than just a co-worker to Ratio, wasn’t he? Sure he may have acted like they were nothing more than business partners, but they did share a rare moment of mutuality, right?

 Or, was it all just his own blind and wishful thinking.

“I see.” Aventurine muttered, letting his eyes wander along their fellow guests; some of which were already beginning to take their leave. “If I may ask,” he turned back to Miss Irene, “where are Ratio’s relatives? Surely, they would be here.”

The older woman seemed to contemplate her next words briefly, “I don’t believe he has any, Mister Aventurine.”

The blonde’s heart dropped into his stomach.

“At least-” she continued, “he has none that are close enough to him to warrant any communication, he spoke so little of his own thoughts or personal life. The most I’d ever heard from him was that he no longer spoke with his parents, and this was so many years before he had received news of their passing.”

“What about uncles, aunts, friends outside of work?” Aventurine tried, somehow unable to accept what this woman was getting at; oblivious to the rapidly dissipating guests as the time for burial was nearing closer and closer. Irene shook her head.

“If he had anyone close to him besides simple colleagues, would they not be here?”

She reached for his left hand, uncurling the arm tucked behind her and placed something cold into his palm; pushing it back to him, Aventurine looked down, and his heart damn-near shattered: Veritas’ laurel hairpin.

“Dr. Ratio was a lonely man, Mister Aventurine.” Irene spoke softly, she turned with him as the morticians sealed that dark, polished wooden casket. “The Guild were the ones to arrange all of this. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe, he had you.”

As the soft padding of her heels on the grass indicated her leaving presence, the Stoneheart began to drown in his whirlpool of thoughts.

 Dr. Veritas Ratio, a man he had never seen as anything short as incredible; the very man that brought a modicum of life back into his broken, beaten soul; the man he loved so dearly and deserved as equal strength of love in turn… Was so very lonely.

He had no friends; no family; no lovers, not even any close colleagues.

Aventurine could not stop his grip on the hairpin. Nor could he stop the silent tears, as he was the only one to watch the casket be lowered into the ground.

-

Aventurine woke from his poor excuse for slumber with a shaky gasp and a sting in his eyes. Another painful memory for the gambler to keep… fuck , sleep was not going to come to him again, so it seems.

 Sighing with his full chest, he dragged himself out of his lavish bed; past his beloved sleeping cake critters (once a gift from Ratio for Aventurine to combat his isolation in his home- how ironic it seems now), and towards his walk-in wardrobe.

He needed an excuse to distract his own mind; a strong drink, a pile of poker chips in front of him, and a perfectly crafted smile will do just that.

The nagging sensation in Ratio’s mind drew him and Crow to a library in the end. It was large- very large; the inside seemed to stretch on an unending, but the pull at his mind grew stronger with every step.

Working with Crow as of now has been… Interesting. The woman hardly spoke, and when she did, it was in that same low, monotone voice as when they had first met. But she listened; she gave advice, and she knew information about the places they were going. And perhaps, she was accustomed to the thick choking air of this world.

Weaving through the rows and rows of books that seemed to reach the ceiling, Dr. Ratio looked around and took in the environment: much like the rest of this plane of existence, small parts of the library would warp and shift before their eyes- only as opposed to shifting materials and objects, it would shift to various stages of time-worn states; ranging from a sleek and polished patch, to being old, yellowed and threatening to disintegrate the moment one touched it. As he and his travel companion stepped further and further down the history section, the aged patches turned into entire rows that stayed stagnant and fixed in these forms the further down they went.

“What are we looking for?” Crow asked, “if anything at all.”

“I am not sure myself, I will be honest.” the taller man responded. His eyes scanned the shelves, the luring sensation growing with each movement; thrumming harder and intense in his mind.

 Stopping at an old, brown book with dulled, gold lining on the spine. This book- this was the thing that had been leading him; calling him in his subconscious, the subject for his restlessness for the past three weeks was here. His fingertips brushed the spine of the book, curling them at the top, the object tilted; giving Ratio enough of a corner to pry it free from the shelf.

It looked so… unassuming. It was just a plain, thick dark mahogany brown book; the corners and spine adorned with painted details of gold swirls of delicate hand. The front cover bore no text, only a symbol of a bay laurel painted in the same gold, laid beneath a thin and surprisingly clean mathematics symbol- specifically one much skin to an acute angle. From his peripheral, Crow had an eyebrow raised at the object in his hands.

 But the front was not at all what intrigued him so much. More than anything, there was yet another urging sensation, one to look into the back contents of whatever text it held. Following these impulses, Ratio opened the book to the back pages.

And the very second his fingers brushed the yellowed pages, a flash of white blinded his eyes; his head thrown back with a strained, pained yelp.

A city of marble; of sturdy, refined stone. Draped in lavish silk, and a fair, warm sun.

Scholars stood on the steps of doorways and podiums alike, giving out their knowledge and teachings long though the day into the sundown.

Guards patrolled the streets out of mere necessity and comfort, less so than any true, warranted threat. This was THEIR city; THEIR people, followers. Beings who were once kin, all those bloody, brutal amber eras ago.

This was THEIR utopia.

The higher being was adorned with praise each time THEY wandered through the bright and merry passageways of the city. Bows aimed towards THEM were dissipated by THEIR cool, grey-ish ivory hand. Fingers painted gold and bejewelled with rings. A musician strummed their lyre off a few paces away, garnering the attention of any individual passing their way, regardless of age, gender or status.

 As THEY walked, the priests followed THEIR sculpted form in suit- trailing behind their flowing white and gold robes.

In the greater pursuit of knowledge and truth, THEM and THEIR people, have blossomed into a civilization of humanity, and thriving light.

How sorrowful it would be, if it were all to come crashing down.

A muffled voice brought Veritas back down to his reality, though, he feels as if he had left a part of his mind back in that- dream? Vision?

“Doctor…?” the voice of Crow grew clearer and more piercing. Ratio, head still tilted back towards the ceiling, turned to face her; a faint pounding resonating in his skull. “Are you… alright?” she asked with a clear air of awkwardness.

It took a few moments for the scholar to completely recollect his thoughts. “I believe so.” he answered in due time, eyes drifting back to the book in his hands, the pages in the back felt as though they carried a great weight to them- not in the literal sense- but in meaning; in emotion.

 “What- what happened to me, Miss Crow?”

The shorter woman let out a hum of thought, “You touched the book, and then you just- completely shut everything around you out; went silent, and threw your head back. You almost looked like you were in pain but-” she seemed to search for her words for a moment, “you just seemed more- sad, than anything. Like you were on the verge of crying.”

Ratio processed this strange information. Crying? That was rarely him- almost never, in fact. Shaking his head as if in some form of attempt to expel the confusion and inner turmoil he had unfortunately begun to feel, he redirected his attention to the pages before him once again. The contents of the text were- oddly frantic, hysteric even. As if the words on the page had been hastily written in the author’s last moments. And it certainly seemed that way, as the old ink told tales of fallen soldiers, city-wide grief, and the prayers for salvation and return of an empire, filled with countless innocent lives to be spared. All of the pleas, however, fell on deaf ears. Seeing Crow attempt to lean over as well, he brought the text lower down for her to read as well. Flicking through the pages marked by a distraught hand, towards the front, they realised the pages gradually grew neater- less sporadic with the text, it lessened, but never fully faded.

 Then, they found it. The very part where it began, where pain and sorrow had been turned from words in the air to words on the paper before them.

It was a simple piece of text, formatted in the style of a quote. Cryptic yet oh-so telling words that pierced Ratio’s senses and into the very core of his being:

“THEIR ivory radiance has fallen. Fallen down, in THEIR love for us mortals, our sacred Aeon has been struck; body broken and shattered like delicate glass, not an ounce of mercy granted to THEM,

 Doomed, they are. Doomed we ourselves are. I mourn for us. I mourn and weep for the loss of THEM and THEIR once strong stone body; one we shall never see again. THEY are dead.

I only hope that we- the people- will carry out THEIR legacy for the amber eras to come.”

~ Lethe - High Priest and Devotee of The Truth.

“An… entire civilization…” Crow could only murmur.

“A completely new and unknown Aeon.” Ratio breathed out, the history of the galaxy was vast- almost too much so. But between such close tabs being kept on the Aeons throughout history, and his affiliation with the IPC- an organization known for its collection of planets in its systems- this civilization was nothing like he had heard of.

Turning the pages to the beginning of the book finally led him and Crow to the title: “The Era and Tomes of the Axioms” ; it had been written by multiple different individuals and compiled together in this single book, by one group, the “Priests of Candour”.

Further investigation showed that these people- the Axioms- worshipped an Aeon they referred to as The Truth. What started out as a violent army obsessive over conquest eventually reformed into a paradise for knowledge; all pioneered by a scholar of that era, one who had ascended beyond the mortals and became an avatar- the Aeon of Truth.

 After an amount of pages back to the tragic telling of THEIR end, the name Lethe reappeared much more than once- by description, this individual led the Priests of Candour and, quite possibly, even the Axiom City itself.

Ratio drew in a sharp breath, taking in each stroke of writing word for word; bearing witness to a tale and world he suspects that well- no one has touched before. “I don’t understand. There are no records of any “Axioms” in the living galaxy.”

 Crow seemed to dwell on her next words yet again, before suddenly blinking rapidly, in some form of realisation.

“There’s a place here.” she began, “it sounds familiar to this city.”

Ratio turned his full attention to her, almost wondering if he had heard her correctly. “You are saying that this- city of Axiom people is in this world?” Crow responded with a nod.

“As I have said, I have travelled to many places and seen even more in passing.” her eyes drifted to the currently displayed pages in the doctor’s hands; a meticulously sketched and steadily inked drawing, a far off landscape piece of the Axiom City, being gently caressed by the warm glow of the sun above. “I haven’t been here. I only passed by it and heard stories from other travellers who did make the journey into it.”

“Do you remember the way there?”

Crow raised an eyebrow ever so slightly at him, “I thought you were looking for a way back to the living?”

Ratio let out an agreeing hum, “yes, I am.” he started, “but I- I need to know more about this place; these people. There is no record of a “Truth Aeon” in the databases of the Intelligentsia Guild or the IPC. I just-” he sighed, almost defeated, there was no hiding his curiosity as the sole drive for this new change of course, “I need to know.”

 He turned back to the woman, unable to hide the pleading in his eyes, "please, Miss Crow.” he murmured, “will you continue to join me?”

Her nod was almost delayed long enough to be suspicious, but she nodded nonetheless, and much to the scholar’s surprise, “As I’ve said to you in passing, I don’t have anything else going for me, I’m alone here.”

The violet haired man let out something resembling an amused huff, “I remember, and as I myself have stated, I am no stranger to the concept of isolation.”

The woman nodded, tilting her head in a kind of “follow me” gesture, “to get to this city the quickest, we’ll need to pass through a few different locations. We should go so we can get the next aircraft as soon as possible.”

“Aircraft?” he echoed. “Forgive my bluntness, but what about your powers, from my observations, they consist of teleportation of some degree.” he closed the book, and he intended to take it with him.

 Crow slipped her hands into her coat pockets, “I can only do that to myself, and whatever object is on my person.” she explained, “I have tried, but it stands as I cannot take other people with me.”

“I see.” Ratio said, resisting the instinct to sound like a disappointed child; this desperation to arrive in the city embedding itself deeper into his psyche with each passing moment. Even as they stepped out of the library and into the streets; even as they made it to the station- a place trapped in a form steampunk era in terms of appearance; even as they boarded, headed to a place known as “Vibrancy.”

 It was when Crow pulled out a lighter, and a box of cigarettes that he refocused back to reality. When she offered one to him, Ratio raised his hand and uttered a polite refusal. The two stared over the open balcony of the aircraft- the two of them alone, looking out at the darkened sky and flitting lights of homes and towns below on the ground.

Ratio cleared his throat, it would not hurt to try and initiate conversation with his travel companion, he supposed. It would at the least distract myself from these thoughts of the city. The man thought to himself.

 “So, Miss Crow.” he started, “have you been to Vibrancy?”

She blew out a cloud of smoke and nodded, “many times. It’s a night life city.” Ratio listened to her briefing, “lots of places to socialise; lots of neon and vapourwave themed clubs- do you attend parties and clubs, doctor?”

Ratio damn-near grimaced and shook his head. The mere thought of the loud, crowded and bright environment of a club almost made him shudder. A sensory overload that not even his alabaster head would be able to guard him from; not to mention the abundance of alcohol, therefore, the abundance of drunken fools making passes and accosting him. “Formal business parties, yes.” he responded after a moment, “however the rare occasions of when I have found myself in a nightclub have left me never wanting to step foot in them again.”

Crow let out an amused huff, blowing more smoke out into the night sky. “Didn’t think you’d be the type. I'm surprised you have been in them before though.”

A pang of offence flickered through the scholar for a moment, followed by… a painfully familiar happiness, one that quickly turned bittersweet. This woman’s mannerisms and jabs at him- they were so much like that blonde’s.

There was no ignoring it. He missed Aventurine.

The mission had gone wrong- what had turned into an undercover task had quickly turned into an all out brawl at the hands of the target’s own wrath with Aventurine’s skill and luck at the roulette table. A crime gang on a planet contractually under the IPC was nothing to the gambler. That was, until they were discovered to be involved in the black market dealings involving ancient scrolls and records of planets long past.

The Intelligentsia Guild was inquired. And they sent out Dr. Ratio.

Blood roared in Aventurine’s ears, adrenaline pumping through his system as he and his partner dodged and weaved and struck at weak points. They were under no means, meant to kill the targets, and so, rendering them unconscious was their only option here.

 Aventurine kept his fortified shields up on himself, and Ratio. Dropping imaginary dice onto his swarms of opponents and knocking them out. He could hear the doctor behind him, the thwacks of his tome and the cracking force of the impacting chalks loud enough to question if he was breaking bones.

The shields went down for good as the dust settled. He and his doctor are completely unscathed with the help of the Preservation yet again. Turning to the taller man, he panted slightly, putting on one of his signature grins.

“Holding up, doc?”

Ratio huffed in an attempt to recompose himself, giving him a nod. “You have contacted your department for reinforcements, correct gambler?”

An amused chuckle escaped his lips at the scholar’s insistence. Pulling up a hologram screen, he typed in his urgent request for the soldiers.

 “All taken care of doc. Just for you.” he teased.

Ratio rolled his eyes “Oh Qlipoth, spare me.”

His face would redirect to something distant, over the blonde’s shoulder. Horror painted over it almost immediately, “Aventurine behind you!”

As quick as lightning, Aventurine whipped off to the side and around, dropping a dice at the measly fool that attempted to raise his gun at his back, the fool’s finger slipped and the bullet fired; missing Aventurine by just a few hairs.

 His relief however, would drain the moment he turned and saw just where that bullet had landed.

Dr. Ratio stood stunned in place, shocked etched into his tired face as crimson blood seeped out of the clean wound in his chest. He took a staggering step towards the Stoneheart before beginning to collapse.

“Ratio!” the gambler caught him just before he toppled onto the ground, red staining the front of his own shirt as their bodies made impact. Setting the heavy man down onto the ground; kneeling with him, and his head cradled in his left arm. “No, no, no…” he muttered, haphazardly gripping the ends of one of Ratio’s draping robes and pressing it to the wounds. “Stay with me doc, please. The IPC will be here soon. They can help just stay with me, please.”

It was too late; the end too fast to prevent. The light left those tear-filled, dusk eyes; the last of his resolve put into lightly squeezing the gambler’s wrist.

Tears flooded into Aventurine’s eyes. And he allowed himself a single, agonized cry.

Chapter Text

As it had turned out, Miss Crow was not exaggerating when she had referred to Vibrancy as a “night life” city. The moment they had set foot into the station of Vibrancy, the lights shifted and began to glow in fluorescent shades of light blue, magenta and lilac; the smooth metal of the doors, turnstiles and walls warped from a dull, mediocre grey to a sort of deep, dark purple.

 But the streets of this city displayed the aesthetic in its most full form- nightclubs and bars and extravagant apartment complexes hosting their own events on rooftops stretched for who truly knows how long. Granted- there were still parts of buildings and pavements that shifted with the world. Perhaps it was a sign of desensitization, but the doctor was slowly becoming less and less drawn to the strange properties and motions.

They were not originally here to bask in the streets and parties of the city though- they were looking for a way to- what Ratio hoped would be- the home and city of the Axiom race.

That was however, as they walked through the streets beneath the purple lights, that he felt that… Strange nagging pull in his mind. Like the melodious calling of a singing mermaid to a sailor’s ears.

 No. I can't be thrown off course from my plan again. Ratio thought to himself.

“Another vision coming on, doctor?” the smooth voice of his companion cut through the hypnotising sensation fogging his mind once again. Ratio blinked a bit before nodding faintly, redirecting his focus to Crow.

 It hasn’t been the easiest to determine her thoughts, both of him or their current mission. Her face was always so… aloof. Almost as if she was nothing more than an illusion of the afterlife. “My apologies, Miss Crow.” Ratio said, “I cannot help but feel that- with our constant back and forth and changing of goals- that I am just dragging you along with me on some… wild goose chase.”

“Don’t be, Ratio.” she spoke, a faint hint of understanding and softness to her tone and eyes. “I may not remember what happened when I first arrived here- nor the events leading up to it. But something tells me that I did not adjust to it quite so easily myself.”

Ratio pondered on her words for a moment, “I- thank you, Miss Crow.” he eventually murmured.

Her dark blue painted lips pulled into the faintest of smiles. “Then how about we follow this new calling of yours?”

 He let out a small huff of an amused breath; turning his attention back to the building persistent in his attempts to lure him in, and releasing an uneasy exhale. Of course, it was a nightclub. With a lighter colour scheme to the other surrounding buildings; mostly dominated by a glowing, bubblegum pink and with a darker, grid-like pattern to its surface, as opposed to the sleek, dark purple.

 A pattern of palm trees in shifting, neon blue decorated the entrance doors. And a purposefully tilted sign rested above the door in a sunset orange, reading the words “Sunset’s Respite.”

Ratio’s mind was, by now, swimming- no- roaring with regret. Just as he had worried, the club on the inside was an overwhelming, bright and loud mess; with screaming, inebriated patrons crowding both the dance floor, and the bar. What was worse however, was that the moment they had stepped over the threshold, the calling had dissipated, and he had been unable to regain it since entering.

He and Crow stood in the main foyer, evaluating their situation. And Ratio, doing anything he can to not allow the booming music reverberating down the neon halls get to his better senses.

 “I think we should stay for a bit longer.” Crow suggested, leaning against a pale, marble pillar nearby, arms crossed in a relaxed manner. “The thing about this club is that it was built in a spot where there is a lot of world warping going on.” she continued to explain, “it got to the point where there’s extra rooms and hallways here just to mitigate it, otherwise it would be affecting things like the dance floor.”

“Ah… So the warping does have negative impacts on the world?”

“In some small way, yes.”

“Hmm.” Ratio murmured, his head begging to throb despite his resolve to stay. “I- I agree, we should linger for a few more moments.”

Ratio took a deep breath and folded his arms across his chest. He could feel the tenseness in his muscles all around, like a constricting serpent’s helpless prey. He needed to control the thrumming in his pulse; calm his mind back to its full cognizance before his overwhelmed state reached intensities that he would be unable to claw his own way out of. Crow was already being haplessly dragged with him on these unexplained mental urges, she did not have to bear the responsibility of being an unwilling anchor for him too.

 He was a scholar; a member of the Council of Mundanites and a frequent consultant of the Interastral Peace Cooperation- Nous above he was a grown man, capable of regulating himself and his needs all on his own. He had before, many times in fact.

 Feeling this level of helplessness stressed him to no end. But it, at the same time, made no sense. Was the very air of the afterlife tearing away at his strengths? Ruining any senses of clarity he may have a grasp on, even for just a moment? Ratio’s left set of fingers found their way to the thumb ring of his right hand, twisting the slightly darkened gold around as a way to keep his hand busy. In the three weeks and two days since he had landed here, the haziness lingering in his mind has begun to fog up his memories. What were his ways to cope with an overwhelming environment again? How was he able to handle distractions without the use of his alabaster head?

Why were the faces of the few individuals he was, to a capacity, somewhat close with, seeming so blurred in his mind?

Was that just something this world did? Was Crow’s loss of memory tied to the length of time she had been existing in here for?

His pondering was broken by the excitable yelling of a trio of club patrons stepping out of the room of the dance floor and into the foyer, his eyes snapped open in shock and his shoulders jolted slightly.

“Crow, is that you?” a woman asked his companion.

“Coming back in with us, girl?”

“Who’s this tall guy with you?”

“Come back with us to the dance floor, Crow!”

Before the poor woman could even get an ounce of a response, the inebriated group scooped her up in their circle and back to that booming, overwhelming room.

 “Miss Crow-!” Ratio tried to call out, though his efforts were fruitless before he could truly process it.

Damn it. The doctor thought to himself. Now what?

Well, the answer was simply in front of him: enter the main rooms and look for her. But that fear- that knowing terror of the effect it will most certainly have on him sent out its warning signals in the back of his mind. Screaming out from his amygdala and seizing the control of his rationality.

But he could not risk losing Crow in an unfamiliar environment now.

And so, Ratio squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and took the steps through the doors to the heart of the club.

The flashing neon lights struck his senses the moment he stepped over the threshold. The incessant pounding of whatever style of song playing shatters any sense of internal stability he tries to hold onto. But it’s not at its worst, not yet.

 Just find Crow, and get back out to the hallway before his condition gets worse. Simple as that. Such a simple feat.

Or, it should be. It would be, if he had his headpiece.

“Crow?” he tried to call out, weaving through the sweating, dancing and overheated bodies. The thought of making direct skin contact with any of these strangers makes his skin crawl. “Miss Crow?!”

 There was no sign of her; Ratio kept looking as his stress levels rose with each passing minutes, and the strangers in small pockets around him passed him by with confused, and slightly judgemental looks.

The thundering of the music and beating of the lights shook the functionality of his front lobe deeper.

He began to find his way to the bar. The vague knowledge of sitting on a far corner stool creeping in for just a moment.

Hands that he could only hope were his covered his ears.

His eyelids shut.

His throat constricted.

This was too much, this was too much, this was too much-

Crow tried to keep her gaze on the doctor as she was pulled from him, she really tried.

Her acquaintances were much taller than her, though.

She should have probably let the doctor know that she was considered a regular at Sunset’s Respite; that people knew the area knew her, and the people of Vibrancy tend to be overly excited individuals. Quite literally living for the party.

She needed to find him, and soon.

Crow may be no expert on the minds of others- she was hardly an expert on her own- but she was far from imperceptive. He wasn’t comfortable here, no matter what he said, the tensity in the doctor’s muscles and fixed furrowing of his brow since stepping foot in Sunset’s gave away every aspect of his feelings.

 “I need to go.” she tried to tell one of the figures who had pulled her away from the doctor. “I need to find that man again.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re travelling together to the Axiom City.” she tried further.

They shot her a confused look, “the what now?”

Crow huffed out a breath, “nevermind. I need to go.” leaving no room to negotiate or argue, she turned from the group and worked her way back to the main lobby, fully expecting Dr. Ratio to be standing just as he was before, or trying to scan the crowd from beyond the safety of the dance floor entrance.

 Neither would prove to be a correct assumption, as it would turn out. He was gone, the lobby empty and as quiet as it could be in a space like this.

Shit… Crow thought to herself, taking just a moment to poke her head outside the club, in case he’d decided to give up on following his new calling, and wait outside at the front.

 Nothing.

He was not outside; not in the lobby, and he likely did not know where the bathroom was. That only left one more option:

The main room- the dance floor and bar that he claimed to detest so much.

She slipped her way back into the main room, the dancing guests completely obscuring any signs of a tall, well-dressed and purple haired man from her view, and, if he was here looking for her just the same, likely obscuring his own view too.

 It seemed almost hopeless after what felt like countless precious minutes of searching, until her eyes caught a glance of a similar looking security guard, more than familiar in fact.

Running low on options, Crow approached the friendly, dark haired bouncer, who she had once fondly nicknamed simply “A”, a nickname stuck nevertheless.

“Ah, Crow. good to see you again.” A greeted her, having to raise his voice over the volume of the music playing.

 “And to you just the same, A.” re responded in the same manner, “I’m not saying though- I stopped by with someone and lost him. I need to find him again.”

A raised an eyebrow, listening as intently and as best as he could over the volume.

“He’s a tall man; purple haired and dressed in blue and white robes. He’d look out of place here, really.”

A nodded and stretched his neck as he scoured the crowd, being much taller than herself he was able to point her in a direction rather easily. “End of the bar near the left wall.”

She nodded in thanks, and started her way over to the pointed location, before she could get a second step in though, A asked a question:

 “Where are you planning to go with this man?”

Of course. A always wanted to hear about her journeys. “The Axiom City.”

There was a flash of surprise in A’s eyes that he was quick to blink off, “you think he’s there for the rumours about the Aeon?”

Crow nodded, “that part is for certain. But, I do think there is more to it.” she continued her walk towards the doctor.

It wouldn’t be the first time I made a trip like this.

The moment she laid eyes on Ratio, it was evident something was- wrong. His hands were cupped tightly over his ears, his lips and eyelids sealed shut, as if it would negate the clutter around them. “Doctor?” she tried.

 No answer. She tried again, “Ratio?”

A pair of painted eyelids peeled open, ever so slightly. Helplessness and desperation injected into those dusk eyes she was slowly becoming familiar with. And she was almost certain, that concern filled her own.

“Let’s get you out of here.” she offered her gloved hands to him to take as a guide back to the lobby. She didn’t want to touch him, not in this state. Thankfully, he shakily removed his hands from the sides of his head, and lightly gripped hers.

 It was a careful, slow and gradual process in luring them both out of the echoing, thrumming room and back into the most secluded, quietest part of the lobby they could find. “Lean against the wall. Yeah, just like that. Sit on the floor if you need to.”

The poor doctor let his body slowly slip to a sitting position against the wall, knees crunched into himself; fingers gripping the looser parts of his robes for purpose. Crow simply sat beside him, legs spread out on the chequered carpet. As his breathing slowed to a calmer pace, Crow faintly heard the tune of the booming music shift, into the much slower paced, gentler rhythm of a once famous siren singer from years past.

 A prominent inhale, and exhale left the man’s mouth. Silence hung between them for a while, neither person speaking or moving for a rather noticeable length of time. Until- Ratio spoke up, a wavy voice carried just bare along a non-existent breeze:

“How many times must I thank you on this journey, Miss Crow?”

A small smile pulled her lips, and a playful mood peeked through her typical nothingness, “a lot, as it would seem. And we’ve barely begun our journey, doc.”

Crow could’ve sworn she’d heard a miniscule gasp of familiarity leave the man at that nickname, but it was quickly banished from too deep of a thought as he seemed in… somewhat lighter spirits for a moment.

 “Aeons above,” he murmured to himself, throat still sounding so raw, “you are so much like him at times.”

“Like him”? Crow pondered, who’s “him”?

“Care to elaborate, doctor?”

He paused for a moment. Seeming to be dwelling on his next words, “just…” he began, “a man I knew in my lifetime. He had these eyes, similar to yours but certainly not the same by any means. They were something so distinctly… him.

 He’d make these quips and jabs at me on occasion- all light hearted in nature, of course. Never anything too far. And while he would, often, act like a clamorous, risk taking, high seeking fool. He always came out on top, seemingly unscathed.” he let out another, amused, yet sweetly fond huff, “his name is Aventurine.”

“Sounds like you love him quite a lot.”

“Ah, I- I do.” he stammered as his cheeks took on a rosy colour just about visible in the light.

“It’s sweet to have something like that.” she said, fiddling with the pearl and feathers in her hair tie absentmindedly, “Someone, or something to love. To hold close to you.”

Ratio nodded, “I would ask if you have or once had something like that. But I think I already know the answer.”

She couldn’t help but let a prominent laugh escape her throat, as she folded her knees up, she gave him an answer anyway. “You’d be… somewhat right I suppose. I… feel like I don’t even have an identity of my own at times. But, I have myself.” she looked into his eyes, ones that listened with a deep intensity, “and that’s all I could need right now.”

The beat of his own heart had slowed to a much better pace by now. His breathing is steady and once again quiet compared to their surroundings.

Ratio’s emotions however, were still frayed and disorganized- there was the clarity of calmness returning to him, yes, but there was also a sense of embarrassment bubbling under the surface. Embarrassment over how he so openly fawned about Aventurine in front of Crow.

 There was also this- strange sensation of guilt. Guilt over acting like a floundering halfwit with no sense of direction; guilt for having no resolve in this time, guilt for having this woman be the one to ground him with no other option. And when he had always believed to be his own self unapologetically, it was all taken over by a shame that came in droves.

Ratio felt like he was losing himself.

But before he could offer Crow his apologies further- wait!

The calling had returned.

His head shot up, honing his sight at a door that was not there before- it stood there, so painfully out of place compared to the rest of the building. Ratio stood up swiftly, eyes fully taking it in as he approached the golden lined wood; details of the tree it was likely once a part of prominent with the rings engraved into the dark, undecorated surface. “It’s behind here.” he spoke with a reserve of strength he didn’t know he still had. “Whatever brought us here. It’s just beyond this door.”

“You’re sure of this?”

“With certainty.” he affirmed, hand gripping the cold, decorated glass doorknob. Anticipation seizing the both of them as he turned it, the door creaking open to reveal a small, pale marble decorated room, similar in a way to the diagrams in the Tomes of the Axioms. Without a doubt, these locations are linked.

A pillar stood in the centre of the small room, and on it, a sculpture of an unfamiliar visage. Ratio and Crow approached the head with a cautioned curiosity, the figure depicted was someone completely unrecognised to the scholar’s memory (though, could he really trust his memory as of late?): the jawline of the figure was strong, though not so prominent as to look uncanny; eyes narrow, lips full and nose arched high- not unlike his own- a limestone crown of laurels looped around the back of the head to rest where the figure’s ears would be. And the hair was sculpted to be long, stylized to show off where the most prominent curl in the hair would be, and one resting above the left of the eyes, almost seemed to resemble the golden ratio.

“This is connected to the Axioms and their Aeon,” Ratio claimed, “I am sure of it.”

Crow nodded her head in agreement, “I think so too. Do you think another vision will come to you?”

“Perhaps.” he muttered, eyeing the bust with calculation. “Maybe if I…”

Hesitantly, Ratio outstretched his fingers, brushing along the left of this mystery figure’s face.

Once again his head was thrown back from the force of the past filling his eyes, only this time, he had anticipated it. And braced for the visions to come.

“In the name of our divine authoritarian, our guide on the pursuit of knowledge, the ever charitable ########. We welcome the new High Priest of the Candour Institution, Lethe.”

The young, pale blue haired man took upon his instructions to kneel as the pendant was fixed into his robes. As he rose, the symbol for the Priests of Candour was taken into his open hands, the chain for attachment pooling between his fingers.

The way he would lead them with benevolence was so much like their god. That, he would assure.

-

Two months.

 Two months since the Truth had descended to roam the streets of their city.

“This is wrong.” Helios spoke with a waver in his voice. “There has been no information from the Candour Institution. ######## has not been here for far too long- surely they would say something about it?”

“Helios, I implore you to calm down.”

“It’s easy for you to say, Erebus. You’ve done nothing in your life but claim to have no faith in the Truth.”

“I don’t.” Erebus said smoothly, “but we don’t want to cause a panic. Do we?”

Helios faintly nodded from across the table to the soldier.

“As much as I mourn the glory days of our people, I have my suspicions of their silence too.” A wisp of a malicious smile fell on Erebus’ face, “lend me your ear, friend.”

As soon as he was sure the younger scholar before him had directed all senses to him. He began his words of theory: “Lethe, I’m sure you know that old High Priest. Well- that man’s been acting rather unusual since THEIR last visit. Don’t you think so?”

“I…” Helios started, “I suppose so?”

“Hes been shutting himself in more than usual, speaking less as a guest lecturer; preaching to us has reached a halt.” the darker haired man continued, “he’s become a shut-in. Out of… guilt perhaps?”

“You suspect that Lethe did something unsavoury to ########?”

“Why else would he behave in such a manner?”

The marble and golden painted ceiling came back into view. Blurry at first- but cleared as Ratio regained his bearings. That was when he felt a faint tapping on his bare shoulder, he turned to the face of Crow. a much friendlier one than the unsettling one of that dark haired man mere moments before him.

“Welcome back.” she said, smiling.

“Indeed.” Ratio responded.

“What happened this time?”

The doctor dwelled on his words, trying to put together a cohesive explanation. “It was a shorter one.” he tried, “But much more informal. It centered around that High Priest- Lethe. He had supposedly become a recluse after the disappearance of their Aeon. Who’s name- I couldn’t make it out.”

His face gained a small amount of hardening to it, brows furrowed with that distasteful flavour of bitter suspicion in his mouth. “There was a man, he was named Erebus. He suspected Lethe had some hand in the lack of THEIR presence.”

“We could assume that this disappearance is actually an outside perspective of THEIR death.” Crow added, “Lethe could be involved to an extent.”

The scholar nodded, his head feeling the most clarity since arriving in this dimension. “Still. That- Erebus man. Something was off about him… wrong. Like he was almost relishing in the loss of the Truth Aeon just below the surface of his facade.”

Crow stood silent for a moment, “well.” she shrugged, “we know where we’re headed. It’s all linked, let’s get going.”

Ratio nodded once again, confusion giving way to determination. “Yes, let's go.”

Aventurine woke up with a pounding in his head and the demanding mews of his critters, their little paws padding into his face, arm and side. Groaning from the afteraffects of his particularly stinging hangover, he sat himself upright and staggered to his bathroom. Taking the largest gulp of tap water as soon as he was capable, as if he had been stranded on a sweltering desert planet for weeks.

What the fuck happened last night?

Chapter Text

The pounding in Aventurine’s head later abated with the help of medications, but his ability to recollect what had transpired the night before was still fragmented. Dehydrated as he was, he tended to the needs of his critters and collapsed back onto his opulent, plush sofa- racking his brain to find some sense of a memory.

 He remembered going to the bar of your everyday casino just a few star systems away from his penthouse- nothing all too extravagant about it, just your average building fuelled by the vices of any miserable souls. If the gambler were to consider himself among them, well he’d truly look pathetic.

There was a brief buzz of his phone from the coffee table calling him to pull his face up from his pillow; lazily reaching over to his device he looked at the notification on the screen:

 “For the record, you wouldn’t have gotten back home if I didn’t find you in that place. You’re welcome.”

Aventurine glanced over to one of the catcakes that had hopped its way over to him, “remind me to thank Topaz later, huh.” he chuckled, the creature merely responding with a mew and pawing at his trouser leg. “What an excellent point you make, little one. I should get myself something to eat.” scratching the top of the critter’s sweetened shell as he hauled himself from his sofa and into his kitchen; continuing to try and recount the events of the previous night, slowly but surely, the pieces started to come together again:

He went into the casino; beelined for the bar; went to the poker table- and won, of course- then went back to the bar; then went to the roulette table, and won again. Back to the bar, and… then what?

Presumably, Topaz found him around that time and brought him home. So did anything else important happen in between?

The padding of another catcake drew his attention back down to the kitchen floor, the troublemaker of the trio holding his phone in its mouth, “wh- hey! I’ve told you that my phone is not a toy!” reaching down, he struggled to gently pry his expensive device from the creature’s mouth- and while he was soon able to succeed, he still resolved to inspect the screen for damages. Sighing with relief, Aventurine turned his focus to the little menace, “at this rate with you, I’m going to have to invest in a spray bottle.”

 The critter responded with a meow of volume above their typical nature, likely out of some desperate protest; pawing and tugging once again at both his trouser leg and his ankles, and eyeing his phone as the noise persisted. “What’s going on with you today, huh?” he muttered, crouching down to his pet’s level and pressing the backs of his fingers to its forehead area. “Hmm, no fever so you’re not sick…” the critter proceeded to once again make a pass at grabbing his phone.

Or… was it trying to tell him something? With the device in his hand now, his beloved pet was no longer trying to turn it into a chew toy, but was instead now padding its tiny paw on the screen, where Topaz's unanswered text message stood beneath the clock of the lock screen. Wait- of course, why didn’t he think of just asking Topaz what happened any sooner? “I take back what I said about the spray bottle little one. For now, at least.”

Hauling himself from the floor he went to his contacts; pressed those little call and speaker buttons, and made himself a coffee as the phone dial rang; soon cutting to a very familiar voice:

“Topaz and Numby of the IPC speaking?”

Aventurine smirked to himself slightly, “already in work mode, are we?”

A sigh carried through the speakers, just barely reaching his ears, “yes. And you owe me for last night, by the way.”

“Of course, of course. Actually, I’m calling to ask you about last night- about what happened, because I have no idea, I must admit.”

“Aside from you nearly blowing my cover on a debt collecting mission?” Topaz said, a playful, unserious agitation lining the edges of her words, “I was trying to ignore you, ‘till you started waving me down from the end of the bar and yelling for me to join you.” another sigh- this time one of relief, “luckily, your sheer dumbassery didn’t cost me all too much.”

“Ah, Topaz you wound me.” Aventurine responded with his classical embellishment as he poured his strong, not-yet-sweetened coffee into a mug just as garish as every other aspect of his character. “But I do appreciate the help, I can’t imagine what I must have been saying to you- or any other poor bystander that happened across me.”

There was a small waver, and hesitation in her next words, almost as if she were too fearful to even mention the man around the gambler: “actually, you mostly talked about… well, Dr. Ratio.”

 Aventurine paused as he was about to take a sip of his drink, “I did?” he traced the edge of the mug with his pointer finger half-mindedly. His distracted time period was over, as it seems. “Tell me, what was I saying about our dearly departed doctor?”

There was yet another minor hesitation in Topaz’s response, “if I remember correctly, you first started with lamenting about how he should have been here with us- as if we were a trio of best pals catching up over drinks after a day at the office; then went into intense detail about how you ended up touching hair hair while helping him back to his hotel room because of how much of a lightweight he is.”

Yikes. He couldn’t help thinking to himself.

“Then you got really odd.” Topaz continued, “started talking about ‘ways to bring back the dead’ and saying things along the lines of wanting to see if you could revive him. It was at that point I realised some random girl seemed to have been paying attention the moment you opened your mouth and really staring you down. That’s when I decided we should leave.”

“A girl?” Aventurine echoed, “was she a client? Or a patron for the IPC?” he halfmindedly took a swig from his coffee as he listened, confused and intrigued.

“I’d never seen her before in our records if she were. Definitely didn’t look like a wealthy patron for the department- and her eyes. They were a little creepy. Almost ghostly white from what small distance she was from us.”

“Hehe, perhaps she was a ghost.” he lightly joked.

“How funny.” the woman on the other line deadpanned. “Look, I need to go, as long as you’re off on your sabbatical, I’m the one Jade is sending out on retrieval missions.”

Aventurine nodded, solely out of instinct of understanding despite Topaz not being able to see it. “Understood,” he said, a small amount of softness creeping its way through his facade of a careless gambler, “good day.”

 With that, the call ended. And he was once again left alone with his thoughts-

Who was the woman? Why was he rambling about resurrecting the doctor?

And why did he feel a burning passion to see that batshit idea through?

The hyperjumps over to Pier Point were far from a troublesome feat, not to the Stoneheart’s surprise. Technically speaking- he could have just accessed the data files of the IPC in the comfort of his own home, but the hubs of Pier Point were just that bit better in the forms of physical documentation.

 Plus, workers were constantly accessing files from the servers here. So it would look less suspicious, and hopefully couldn’t be traced back to him if he were to invoke the ire of his higher-ups.

Something tells him that Madame Jade would not take too kindly to rifling through important and private documents for his own- truthfully- selfish wants.

Aventurine’s lavish shoes clicked against the cool, clean floors of the Pier Point halls as he passed the rows of lower working guards and department floors that didn’t even bat an eye at his appearances in the building; past the rows upon rows of conference rooms he and the doctor once shared so many conversations of all kinds in- I suppose missing someone can truly make you focus on anything they had involvement in… he thought to himself. And finally, to the door of a special, sealed off room of Pier Point, only accessible by IPC staff: the data storage room.

 Punching in the code for the room given to the Stonehearts exclusively, Aventurine slipped through the doors, locking them once again behind him. Being uninterrupted was key here, both for the sake of his secrecy, and his focus. Physical documents of everything the IPC has claimed from planets up until a certain amount of amber eras past lined the shelves of the room built into the walls; all organized both by alphabetical order, and by timeframes. The room was surprisingly bare by all other accounts- with colour safe beige wallpaper; the same kind of carpeting as outside, and a simple hologram screen desk against the far wall; facing opposite the door. Thankfully, Aventurine would not need to rifle through every physical copy, as there was an additional filtration system in the hologram screens of the data hubs. Each one tailored to their specific locations. The blonde sat down at the desk and signed himself in with predictable ease, the soft orange-yellow glow of the screen illuminating his face like the embers of a fire. Typing simply "Resurrection" into the filter search bar.

Strange. He thought to himself, No results? None at all?

There had to be something- damnit, he came all this way, and it was not about to be for nothing.

 Not wanting to give up, he tried to search for similar sounding terms, just in case it was an issue with the wording of the files.

And yet, still nothing in the Pier Point archives.

So, he thought to himself, glancing at the array of folders boxing him in, all of these files will serve no use to me, it seems.

Well… it would suck, but looking into the database in its entirety it is.

“No. No, nope. Fuck, none of this what I’m really looking for.”

Frustration was beginning to eat away at his patience. As it turns out, there’s not much in terms of reviving the dead in a non-zombified way. Any mentions of resurrection? All explained as forms of necromancy- the kind where the once deceased would return… wrong, and obedient to its reviver.

 And that’s not how he wants Ratio back. No, he just wants his smart, cute and empathetic doctor back just the way he is.

Not for ulterior, mind-controlling zombie reasons; not so he could command the man.

Just to be with him again. And to bring his burning light back into this cold, vast galaxy of theirs.

Aventurine leaned back into the chair and sighed, “perhaps I should take a walk.” he muttered to nobody in particular, other than himself, of course.

His daydreams of looking over the menus of the Kiliro Fish Restaurant was soon shattered like a delicate mirror when he heard the door to the data room swing open, and with the force of someone who had been fully intending to catch any intruder by surprise. However, when he swiftly pulled his head back over to face his potential adversary, he was instead met with an incredibly familiar face.

“Aventurine?” Topaz spoke, with surprise and confusion clear as the sunniest days’ skies spread across her face and in her voice. At her side, just over her shoulder, her little warp trotter buddy sniffed the air between them, while staying comfortably where he was.

 “Topaz!” Aventurine defaulted to his mask once again, “what do I owe the pleasure?”

Her face changed from a confused look, to realisation, then to a disinterested deadpan. “And here I was hoping you’d not try something like this.”

“Like what?” Aventurine tried, quickly switching off the screen before Topaz could tread over and take a good look for herself. “I’m just here for a little information on recent happenings; getting back into the work swing.”

From his fellow Stoneheart’s face. She was not taking that excuse.

“Seriously Aventurine.” she sighed, “it’s worrying. I know you’re hurting, but this isn’t good for you.”

“Y-you-” he began to huff out defensively, “you don’t know that I’m looking for revival information. I could also be looking into this potential client of ours.”

“But you’re not, Aven. I know you, plus the security systems were also picking up repetitive searches. The moment I saw what the topics were, I knew it was you.”

Aventurine leaned back in his chair. Not quite feeling defeated, but still worn down; like he’d been fighting this kind of argument over, and over and over again. “You don’t get it, Topaz.” he muttered, refusing to turn his eyes to the woman, “it’s not fair to him. That bullet was aimed at my back-”

“Doesn’t mean it should have been you.” she interjected.

“I just… I need to see him again. Even if just for a little.”

He felt the nose of a warp trotter poking into his cheek, looking towards a hovering Numby trying to bring the gambler comfort, he reciprocated the attempt to put his mind at ease with a few small scratches to the pig-like creature’s head. From the corner of his eye, he saw Topaz take a step closer, and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

 “I lost people in my life too,” she said partially to herself, her voice both softer and more distant than usual, “I suppose the difference for us, is that I was mostly able to gain some kind of closure.”

Aventurine turned his attention to her fully at last.

“If you feel you need to speak to him again for that closure then I won’t stop you. But-” she warned, “I also will not be getting involved any further than this: if there’s really nothing you’re really looking for in our banks, inquire with the Astral Express crew, being followers of Akivili and such, they should have a more extensive collection of knowledge.”

A faint smile graced his lips, and he stood up, not quite as proudly as usual, but still held a small fragment of newly found tenacity nonetheless, “I really do owe you, Topaz.” he chuckled, taking swift steps to the door. Until Topaz caught him just before he could move out of earshot; turning back to her as she spoke:

 “Be careful.” she spoke warily, “I don’t think Madame Jade would appreciate you doing well… any of this. If you piss her off with your say- determination. You run the risk of losing quite literally everything in your life.”

His smile shifted into that of his signature, sly smirk. “Ah but Topaz,” he said smoothly, “don’t you forget who I am.”

He began his departure, waving her off performatively as he left; his flair for the dramatics resurfacing once again.

“I am willing to risk it all, for Veritas Ratio.”

“I must say,” the doctor began as he and Crow stared at the gaping, faintly salty maws of coral before them, “the name Pelagic’s Passage is definitely a unique one.”

“Fitting though, isn't it?” Crow questioned; to which Ratio nodded.

“For an environment such as this one? Most certainly.”

The aforementionedly named “Pelagic’s Passage” before them was nothing short of a breathtaking work of overgrown, vibrant hues of blue; turquoise; oranges, pinks and blues. It functioned as a kind of nature trail and camping site- an underwater wilderness park- though Pelagic’s was a domain that nearly put the many wondrous places he’d once been to in life to shame; that it had this allure to it that sang the sweetest melodies to them both. There was also a beautiful, mesmerising ripple pattern reflecting from an invisible origin, and onto the surfaces of the bumpy coral poking out from the pale blue-green walls, and the dark, deep green seaweed and short, burgundy sea grass poking out from the ground below their feet as they stepped over the threshold.

 Completely, and utterly entranced.

Redirecting his mind back to Crow, he cleared his throat slightly, “so you say that there is a ferry system that will take us there?” he questioned yet again.

This was their last hurdle of their journey. Just make it across a large, supposedly bottomless body of water, and they’d reach the Axiom City.

 The home of the Truth. Ratio thought, where I can only hope these odd impulses and visions can finally be ceased with answers.

Crow nodded in response to his question. “We’ll get to the city harbours by later half of tomorrow morning.” she clarified, taking further steps into the spiraling corridors of Pelagic’s. Humming in thought, she continued to flick through this location’s guide as they kept walking forward, “it’s a relatively straight line to get there.” she said, “there’s a warning for uh- not so friendly creatures here too.”

 She slightly raised the leaflet up to him so that the scholar could read it himself: “stick to the paths lined with light pink shells to the right” the paper before them both advised; a drawn diagram to accompany the tip, “you are least likely to be thrown off by dimensional shifting, or by the local creatures this way. As these paths have the minimal amounts of warping.”

Ratio let out a small hum. “Seems like easy enough instructions to me.” he said, earning a nod from his travel companion in turn. He looked off to the right off the path and at the small, glittering pink shells dotting the seagrass. They looked so fragile, so delicate. Like they would crumble into shimmering pink dust if squeezed even slightly tight.

 “So far so good, then.” he said, mostly to himself as a strange form of reassurance, “I suppose the reason that there’s a caution note for world warping is because of the monsters. Crow, you said you’ve never been here before, correct?”

The shorter woman nodded, “I’ve heard about it, and that’s the extent of my knowledge on the passage.”

“Then we should tread with caution.” Ratio said with a seriousness hardening at the edges of his tone.

“Agreed.”

The sound of a brain-like coral creating a large bubble off to their left made him glance in its direction. This area was truly gorgeous; it made him wonder why there seemed to be no attempts to remove or relocate any of these “monsters” in the passage yet. Perhaps they weren’t as threatening as the leaflets let on? Or maybe- maybe it was the opposite. Where the mysterious creatures were far too dangerous to even attempt any form of interference.

That certainly worried him.

Crow cleared her throat beside him, so he turned his attention to her as she began to speak: “May I ask, what is it you plan to do once we get to the city?”

Ratio hummed slightly, “as we have established, I plan to arrange a meeting with the Priests of Candour. To learn about their Aeon, and what happened to THEM.”

“And what about Lethe?”

“Ah- yes, I do wish to speak with him too.” he said. In all of Ratio’s honesty, he finds it difficult to believe that Lethe had a hand in the death of the Truth. From the records of the book back in the library, the man seemed far too much of a pacifist to partake in something so traitorous in any capacity; in fact, he seemed to be completely devoted to their god. Enamoured, even. But even if the possibility was there, is it even possible for a mortal to kill an Aeon? Lethe was an emanator, so perhaps.

But, even if it were; if he did do it, why?

Ratio sighed as his mind swam with uncertainty and unanswered questions. If he only had more information, he would be able to piece it all together.

“What do you believe we should do, should you feel another calling?” Crow asked.

It took a moment for Ratio to answer. “Follow it, I suppose.”

An absentminded hum from his new friend made him cast a curious glance her way. Back in Vibrancy, after they’d left Sunset’s Respite, they stopped in an apartment complex to rest. And, late into the night, he had caught her rising from those inky, ichor-like puddles he had first met her in.

 When asked, she just said she had to take care of something with someone back at Sunset’s. But Ratio was no fool, not when it came to attempts to deceive him- Aventurine once learned that the hard way.

But, not wanting to upset the woman by pressing her for the truth, he ignored it. And had bid her farewell for the night. Now- he may occasionally struggle to decipher the mannerisms and emotions of others, but he could swear that since that night, Miss Crow seemed once again mostly detached.

It was concerning, but they would have to handle it once they reached the Axioms.

The spiraling branches of coral shifted, suddenly and sharply. As if their environment was shifting with a unique spite for these strange new outsiders; coming in waves. It was enough to make them both jump back from a small bout of fright. “What’s going on?” the doctor demanded, though to whom, he was not sure.

 “It must be a world warp.” his companion guessed, “but I’ve never seen one this bad.”

Ratio watched in fear (a fear familiar to the one he felt mere moments before life left his mortal body), as their pathway dissolved like seafoam above the surface of ocean water; twisting into misshapen, sharp and deadly rocks. The still bending coral branches above eventually paled and took on a dead matter appearance; contorted into a series of shapes akin to grasping, jagged hands, reaching out for them both with malice.

And then, everything settled down, remaining in this whole new, darker, and more worrisome corner of Pelagic’s Passage.

Regaining his bearings as he glanced around the disturbing clearing they were now finding themselves in.

 “Miss Crow,” Ratio began, “does… does getting caught in a warp typically result in this?”

Unfortunately, Crow shook her head. “Not like this.” she murmured, visibly uneasy just as equally as him.

“What could have caused this?”

“I don’t know.”

A chill ran its way down his spine. Nothing about this was right. It was all so wrong, they had gone from a reef-like beauty, to the kind of sea floor that would house a haunted shipwreck. And he could feel it. Something was watching them just beyond the sharp stone boxing them in. “There's something here.” Ratio said with a clearly wavering tone, and his friend stepped closer; looking around wildly with caution. From the corner of his eye, he could see her drawing out one of her knives. A small wisp of familiarity coursed through him, and he followed her movements, drawing out her second from the tucked away confines of his robes.

 At that moment, there was a deep, unsettling noise cutting through the air and into their ears. Not a growl- but something more along the lines of a choking or gurgling sound. On high alert, the pair's heads whipped around to see the origins of the sound.

“Help… me…”

Ratio paused as the figure just beyond a shadowy gap in the walls groaned, its voice gargled and wrong in all senses of the word. It was a diver, adorned in that heavy, metal deep sea gear; looking almost alien-like to the doctor. Crow gave the taller man she kept close to a glance reflective of his own suspicion. Ratio looked closer and took in the details as the figure continued to stay clear of any full visibility. Then, something made his eyes widen ever so slightly: the diver’s feet were not planted to the ground below them. And as his eyes travelled further up, he could say the faint, uncanny swaying motion of the body; arms hung loosely at its side; much more like the remains of livestock hanging on a meathook, as opposed to a breathing individual. As his eyes scanned above the things cracked and filthy copper helmet, he could see just why it was emulating such a motion. Attached to the back of its neck was a fleshy, pale appendage, its origins stretching far back into the shadows. It was almost comical how horribly predictable of a trap it was by this… giant monster anglerfish in the dark, just waiting for one of them to foolishly approach and driven by the instinct to assist.

 “It’s not real.” Ratio affirmed, thankful that neither of them seemed to have moved as the creature persisted in its mimicry of pleas for help; continuing to dangle its lure just a few short paces from them.

“I know.” Crow answered, slowly backing away, “and we should go, quickly.”

Ratio nodded to her. Eyes not leaving the “diver”. Then, the lure suddenly was dragged back into the darkness; that gargling hiss the only warning he was given, before a flash of cold, slimy flesh whipped forward and towards his head.

The panicked voice of Crow filled his ears for just a moment before his face was thrown backwards from a dripping cold force. There was an unholy screeching as the scent of salt and coppery blood was assaulting his nose; almost making him gag at the awful combination. Knocked off his feet and onto the gritty sand below, he was vaguely aware of his surroundings:

 Pain familiar to that accursed bullet blossoming in a thin line above his right eyebrow; a line of deep, crimson blood rolling down, just shy of getting in his eye; the choking sounds of the creature that had attacked him worming its way into his eardrums as Crow did what she could to hold it back.

 Hoisting himself up, grappling for stability as he did so, he turned to the woman as she sank and rose from the ichor as a way to dodge and speed up. But the angler was fast too; the calls far, far too close for his liking. “Crow!” he yelled with alarm, her eyes briefly darting to him, “we need to flee. We risk falling victim to the beast if we stay!”

The woman slowed herself for just a moment, before nodding and grasping his hand tightly. “Hold on.” she warned, before using her mysterious teleportation substance to take off into the forest or sharpened boulders and coral; the angler’s choked out screams of fury over a lost meal echoing in his ears even after having skating away from it along the ichor.

Ratio kept his tight grip on Crow as they spotted a small cave, tucked into a well-hidden collection of stones; coral and seagrass- the latter two of which were slowly regaining their liveliness; the faint, pale blue pulsing of glowing algae illuminating the cave for them, and a small body of water finding its way flowing back outside through the cracks in the walls trickled in the background. As soon as the shorter woman deemed they were safely hidden enough, she turned her attention back to the injured doctor, homing in on his cut. “Shit.” she huffed out, crouching down to him as he sat with his limbs splayed out and weakened by the comedown of adrenaline, “too close. Way too close.” A hint of pity  filled her eyes, “let me look for something to- don’t touch it!”

But as Ratio swiped his fingertips on the wet surface, he felt no sting of an open wound. As if it were just blood on his forehead. Confused and dazed, he took another swipe across his forehead, pressing harder this time. Still nothing. “It’s… gone.” he muttered in wonder. Crow leaned in closer, impulsively holding him still at the chin and swiping her thumb along where the cut would have been herself. Humming in a sense of confusion and curiosity of her own. With her help, he hauled himself off from the cold floor of the cave to wash off the blood from his forehead, before it began to stick.

“Regenerative abilities do exist for people in this dimension.” she explained, watching as Ratio cupped some of the nearby water in his hands, and washed away the only evidence of injury on his body. “But I’ve never seen it go just that quickly.”

“Perhaps individuals sometimes come into this afterlife with random little quirks?” Ratio tried to rationalise, sitting beside the water, and making some room for her nearby as she joined him. Eerily familiar to their moment of vulnerability back in Sunset’s. “Like your teleportation powers.”

 Crow stiffened a bit at the mention of her abilities, “I… suppose.” she said gravely.

Ratio raised an eyebrow at her. To which she sighed and brought her knees up to her torso. “Who am I kidding? You’d find out soon enough…”

She turned her full body to him.

“It’s… not exactly teleportation, that I do.” she began to explain. “Really- it’s more like- well- I can… I can come in and out of the afterlife and living world.”

Ratio was stunned; silenced, for a noticeable amount of time, prompting Crow to continue her confession.

“Don’t ask me why. I don’t know myself, so perhaps you are right when you say that some come here with little abilities. But everything I said about it still stands- I couldn’t just take you to the living world. I tried that long ago with someone, and nothing.” she began to fidget with the hem of her coat sleeves, “when you spoke about that, Aventurine guy, back in Vibrancy. I got… let’s call it curious. So I went to the living universe and just… watched him for a little. He misses you, just as much as you miss him.” She lowered her head in some kind of shame, “I am sorry I didn’t say sooner, Veritas.”

It took a few moments for Ratio to respond, still trying to grapple with this confession of hers. After a few strangling moments of tense silence, he said only what he could manage to say in that moment:

 “What made you tell me now?”

Crow could only halfheartedly shrug. “Guilt, maybe? The fact I watched him ramble madly about you to any soul who would give him the time of day?”

“Aventurine was talking about me?”

“Yep. And quite fondly too.” She couldn’t help but let out a tiny, low chuckle, “maybe with him, you weren't as lonely as you thought you were.”

 A faint laugh left his own lips at the comment, despite his emotions being a volatile mix of all kinds in the current moment. “Perhaps.”

Their moment of sweetness and calm however, was soon interrupted by that horribly familiar gurgling. The two pressed themselves in whatever tight hiding spots they could manage, as the grotesque silhouette of the monstrous angler slinked its way past the cave entrance hidden by a curtain of deep red seaweed. From his hiding place, Ratio could see how the creature moved. And eventually, see its full figure between the gaps:

 The thing’s body was legless and blubbery-looking; the stench of blood, salt and gore perpetrated by animalistic hunger clung to its cold, slimy grey skin. Nearby its gaping maws containing rows and rows of sharp, grinding teeth, were two long, human-like arms; dragging itself along the seagrass and sand. Its eyes a milky yet bloodshot white, and its fused on diver lure hanging behind its large head. A lure that, as he could now see the dark patches of dried red blood caked into the seams and folds of the suit, made the man question if it was even an empty suit or not; if the pleading from said lure was mimicry or not after all.

The creature lingered outside the entrance for just a few more moments, before hauling its body onwards down the narrow pathways.

After a few moments, Ratio and Crow emerged from their hiding places; weapons gripped in their hands and hairs on end once again. Their first true danger since their first meeting during his swarm attack. “We should linger here no longer.” Ratio said to his companion, to which she nodded, eyes hard focused on the rippling motions of the seaweed curtain.

 “Let’s not waste time then.”

Cautiously creeping out from the salty cave, they could no longer see or hear the angler, but the stench of its viscera continued to linger. Ratio looked to Crow- who seemed to be pinching her nose closed- and pointed to a path that deviated from where the beast had likely gone down.

 Crow nodded and they quietly treaded their way through the jutting, broken stone. Keeping close to each other, and continuously checking behind them.

The sudden sound of a record song made the pair jump right out of their skins.

Listening intently, Ratio turned to Crow and pointed ahead of them. “This way, just a bit more forward.” he whispered.

 Following the broken melody, the two reached a clearing, looking over the waters that stretched for amber eras, as it seemed. A small, barnacle-ridden shack was seen tucked against a higher wall, and a small, simple rowing boat bobbed along the surface of the water; tied in place by an old, worn rope on a rotting wood plank. A beaten old gramophone stood in the centre of the clearing on a stool, playing the same short tune over and over again after a certain amount of passed silence. There was a note written and tucked slightly under the bottom of the gramophone, which Crow proceeded to pick up and show him for them to read: “The monsters hate the music. Keep playing it.”

 “An interesting way to keep them at bay, I suppose.” Ratio noted. Though, judging by the absence of an owner, and the state of the surroundings, it may have driven whoever once lived here just as mad too.

Looking over at Crow, he saw her poking her head into the decaying wooden shack. “Nobody’s here.” she informed him. “Doesn’t look like there’s been anyone here for a month, at least. There's only broken fishing rods and- ew. Rotting bait, in here”

As his sandals sunk into the dark, blackened sandy shores, Ratio looked over those faintly misty waters; the sky dull and grey, intensifying the fog upon the ocean’s surface. As he gazed over the horizon, his mind vaguely aware of Crow's scavenging and the still playing gramophone, he saw something peek through the mist. A familiar looking spire off in the far distance. One he’d seen in a completely world-altering book mere days ago. “Crow.” he called, hearing the woman take her steps over to stand beside him, “it’s there. It’s the city.”

A faint gasp left her throat, and her eyes darted to the rowing boat nearby. “That’s closer than from the ferry. We can row our own way there, and possibly make it by sunrise.”

As they approached the little boat, Ratio untied the rope binding it to the shore, while Crow hopped in, picking up the oars and preparing to push them further out into the desolate waters ahead. The moment Rato had gotten himself situated in the boat, she shot him a mildly playful smile.

“To the Axiom City.”

The night sky above them glittered deep hues of blue and black swirling together in a kind of mystic, celestial sky dance, with shimmering stars like diamonds as decoration; its majesty reflecting onto the natural, rippling mirror surface that was the cold, blackish ocean. Two moons hung high in the skies too, one full and glowing, almost looking identical to a giant white pearl; while the other- much more shy in nature, as it had been reduced to a mere sliver of a crescent moon.

 The scenery was beautiful, even to a cold, and tired scholar like himself. He and Crow had taken turns rowing the small boat all the way up until this point. Now, only halfway to their destination, the temperatures of the seas were beginning to get to him.

Crow had suggested that they stop for now and take a break, as there was no wind nor currents in the water that could throw them off course. Ratio happily obliged and let his arms come to a rest, though it was not as easy when he was without sufficient layers, nor was acclimated to the sheer coldness like his new friend was.

 He watched as she dug around underneath the seats of the boat, before finding a blanket-like item, “try this.” she said, offering it to him; which he accepted almost immediately, wrapping his shivering body with the fabric. It was a bit rough; a bit coarse, but not uncomfortable.

“Thank you, Crow.” he said softly, “this should suffice until we reach our destination.”

“Anything to help, doc.”

It was such a simple series of words. The kind of thing Aventurine would say to tease him. But Ratio could see it; hear it. A hint of guilt, or shame. It was time to face the subject from earlier in the cave.

 “I…” a sigh, “look, Crow. about- what you said earlier. I don’t blame you, for keeping the true nature of your abilities to yourself. Do I wish I could have known sooner? Yes. That I must confess to, but, I can also understand your hesitation. I have done my share of thinking during our ride up to this point. And I have concluded that with the exposition of your power like that, it could potentially lead you to forms of themes like exploitation.” he glanced over as he took a moment to breathe, watching the woman’s facial expression twinge with his words, before concluding: “my point being that, well I just get it. And that- you can tell me anything.”

Crow seemed to allow herself a small, appreciative smile. “Thanks, doctor.” Her eyes drifted to the rippling water surrounding them. Sitting closer to the front of the unmoving, little boat, she suddenly removed her boots, and twisted her body to be lying down; her feet hanging off the side of the boat and breaking the calm surface of the water below.

 She seemed to think for a moment, her smile fading from her face. “Actually, Veritas, you said I could tell you anything?”

He nodded towards her.

“Then… then I need to confess that I do remember one thing from my past. Before dying, I mean.”

 Ratio leaned forward slightly, intrigued, but also wanting to be there for her, due to the vulnerability and wavering creeping into her demeanour.

“I have one memory. As blotty as it is, I treasure it nonetheless; I still don’t know much of anything about myself, but you expressing to me your feelings for Aventurine reminded me of something I once had.

I used to have lovers myself, two at once. We were all together- the three of us. We never stayed in one place, and I detest myself for not being capable of remembering their names, but I remember their hair, and their eyes. My girlfriend, she had the most beautiful eyes, like the purest, most colourful rose quartz pink; her hair was a breathtaking snowy white, and with just the slightest hints of lilac that would catch the sun perfectly in the light.” Crow paused for a moment to stare up at the open night sky. “My other lover- well he would make me think of the dark and heavenly night skies. Yes, my boyfriend was almost a polar opposite to my girlfriend in so many ways. His hair was longer in the back than it was at the front- I think me and my rose-eyed lover loved to play with it; it was a dark, ashy grey, but he’d dye parts of it our favourite colours for us. Hmm… I remember the light pink tips at the back; the dark purple streaks in his fringe.” Another pause for her to think, “his eyes were dark too: deep, dark blue, so much it almost looked like they were black, but he had these rings of an icy, paler blue around his pupils. I think… some people would find his eyes, and also mine, unsettling to stare into for too long. But our girlfriend didn’t mind. She’d stare into them all day.”

Ratio could see her mood darken. Not in the way of turning bitter, but more like a deep, yet confused sorrow. “What happened, Crow?” he gently pressed.

She let out a clipped sigh of disheartenedness. “I’m not quite sure.” he murmured, “I don’t think my mind was always that good from a young age. But I never wished or seeked harm on myself, I think maybe… It was a kind of mental entrapment beyond human understanding. I think- something we were planning that backfired did me in, I didn’t move; didn’t think, didn’t speak. I’d sometimes hear what those around me said. I heard words like “comatose” and “Nihilistic Paralysis” a lot.” She pulled her arms closer to her torso, “I’d hear my partners arguing in the same room, but I don’t know what about.

In the end, they stopped coming. They left me, and that’s when I think I came here.”

Ratio sat there in stunned silence. Nihilistic Paralysis. It was rare, with very few cases being found among even its most primary demographic: Self-Annihilators. He remembers reading an essay on it from a strange sounding, Foxian Doctor of Chaos. And Ratio believes that he will never be able to forget the symptoms he had read the descriptions of:

 Paralysis; complete shutdown of speech; almost complete shutdown of hearing and conscious thought, occasionally gaining brief moments of clarity, only to be able to do nothing about it. And then that clarity vanishes again. Until the victim passes away, or is put to rest from outside forces.

There was no denying it. Crow died from Nihilistic Paralysis. A cruel fate, for someone who did not deserve it.

But what was the catalyst for her to enter that state? They both may never know.

“Crow…” he started, “I am so terribly sorry for your fate. Nobody deserves that.” attempting to bring some kind of comfort to the woman, he awkwardly rested a hand on her tattooed shoulder, forgetting she was always deathly cold, but not moving his hand a fraction, for her comfort.

 Crow smiled weakly first at his hand; then, up at his face. “Thank you, doctor.” she said softly.

“Have you… tried to seek out these lovers of yours? You said you’ve been here for a long, long time.” he cautiously asked.

Crow looked up at the moons in the sky and shook her head. “I think… a part of me was bitter for leaving me; for giving up on me.” she chuckled slightly, “I must confess, that may be another reason I looked into that Aventurine of yours.”

Ratio raised an eyebrow at her, “oh, really?”

She nodded, “you’re a good man, Veritas. I wanted to ensure the holder of your heart was just as good as you.”

Ratio was slightly taken aback, “I- t-thank you, Crow.” he couldn’t help but stutter.

A brief silence fell across them. Only interrupted by the ripples of water lapping at their tiny wooden vessel.

“Aventurine is a good man too.” Ratio eventually spoke out warmly, yearning laced every one of his words. “Even if he doesn’t always seem like it. I only wish I could tell him how I miss him, at this moment.”

Crow eventually spoke up after a bit, “I can always pass on the message.”

He turned his gaze from the stars, back to her, “you would do that for me?"

She let out a giggle, “you know I would.”

“Then… If you would, kindly.”

The once Self-Annihilator woman before him, eyes now filled with playful, friendly affection nodded, letting her unique ichor envelop her form and melt her into where he could not yet go back to. The remnants of the material looking to be nothing more than a rippling splash of oil-like substance on the surface.