A Lullaby For Gods Chapter 140

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: WHETHER NEAR OR FAR

“Where are we?”

It was a beach, clearly – white sand splashed between the spaces of Terezi’s toes, prompting her to curl said toes at the unwanted texture, the blue sky spread wide overhead, near-cloudless with only a few wisps drifting about here and there, and beyond them, as far as the eye could see, the cool blue ocean, lapping its waves onto the shore while people dove into it or dragged others into it with much gusto.

Terezi looked down to shake the sand out of her foot and found that she was no longer wearing the pajama pants, shoes, and shirt she’d been sporting earlier that morning, but was instead in flipflops, beach shorts and a leaf-print button-up. When she looked up, she was no longer standing, but instead sitting by a table across Sapphrel Angeles underneath the shade of a large umbrella. They weren’t on the edge of the beach anymore, surrounded at all sides by sand, but rather on the second-floor veranda of a large house.

All the other tables were empty. The building was quiet. Far below them, familiar figures ran around a volleyball court while several others swam in the water.

“In Hal’s mind,” Angeles said, sipping on a bright blue drink with a lemon wedge on the glass. Where they’d gotten the drink when Terezi hadn’t seen them go anywhere was anyone’s guess. “With a bit of soul put in there, it’s complicated.”

“I think we can both understand what you’re about to say.”

The corner of Angeles’ lips lifted, and they adjusted the heart-shaped glasses on their face. “The mind governs logic and visualization, but the heart governs passion,” they said, making a so-and-so motion with their hand. “Essentially, our physical surroundings are a product of his mind, but what makes its essence is fueled by his heart.”

“So everything here is fake,” Terezi said, glancing towards the volleyball court where Vriska – or at least, a facsimile of Vriska – was spiking down the ball with a wide grin on her face. The opposing team failed to catch it, and the ball crashed onto the ground in an explosion of sand.

“Save for Hal.”

“What about you?” Terezi turned back to Angeles, taking the opportunity to be able to visualize their face. “You don’t look like some mindless figment of someone’s imagination. And you did that freaky welcome spiel earlier.”

“I’m real,” Angeles said.

“So you…haunted the android after you died?” Terezi asked – as she eyed their drink, she found herself wishing she also had something to cool down with in the warm weather, and found that in her next blink there was a tall glass of strawberry parfait in her hands.

Nice. If she was a ghost, she’d want to spend an afterlife in some dreamworld where she could wish for anything too.

“No, not quite,” Angeles said, looking mildly amused at Terezi’s delight.

“Did you possess his chassis?”

“No,” the kid chuckled. “When I died the first time, I saw memories and possible paths from all my other selves and knew when this version of me was going to die. I also saw things that came after my death, both from adjacent timelines and from the walls of existence getting thin, so I sought to put measures in place.”

“Like putting Strider in a coma?”

“Among other things. I actually hoped it wouldn’t be so long as to manufacture the image of a coma, but, collateral. Nothing I can do about it now.” They waved a hand.

Terezi frowned slightly as she ate her dessert. They always seemed attached to Hal when they were alive – maybe their nonchalant attitude was from their death; Aradia did become a boring wet rag when she died. Maybe emotions just took a nosedive when someone turned into a ghost or something.

“So,” she said, “Instead of like, fading from existence or moving onto a dream bubble – if you guys have that here, at least – you just stuck around in his mind?”

“No, I cut a piece of myself out and stuck it into his soul,” Angeles said, idly stirring their drink with their straw.

“…huh,” Terezi said, “That sounds dangerous.”

Angeles snorted. “I was already dying, what was the worst it could do? Kill me?” They snickered. “We got the idea from him anyway. He was the one who forcefully revived me after I died the first time; a splinter of his soul superglued my soul to my body even when it’d already given up the ghost.”

They took a loud sip of their drink, trying to stall, but eventually, their glass emptied and they had to set it back on the table.

They still took a moment’s pause, and then lifted a hand and snapped their fingers. Terezi looked up as the beach around them disappeared without so much as a flicker; it changed with that jarring jump cut again, and instead of the bright summer sun bearing down on them, the sky was overcast, the second-story veranda they were on no longer on the second floor but rather lying on the ground surrounded by snow.

At the sound of footsteps, Terezi set her spoon down and turned, her chair scraping against the tile as she looked behind her to see – Sapphrel Angeles? She turned back to her seatmate to find them still there, and then turned back to the second Sapphrel. Yes, it was them, but bundled in a sapphire blue coat, stepping out of a building with a phone in their hand. They held it up to their ear.

“Are you there, god?” they asked, an amused smile on their face. “It’s me, Sapphrel Angeles.”

Now that she had something to compare to the Angeles she was talking to, Terezi could see that this one, the one in the snow, looked a lot healthier, with a bit more meat on their bones and color in their skin, instead of the wasting, bloodless corpse she was sitting with. This one’s breath misted in the snow. Her seatmate didn’t so much as breathe.

There was a spark of emerald green beside the younger, much more alive Sapphrel, as they continued to speak on the phone. Noticing the person behind them, they stilled, before turning around and looking up at their friend – the dark-haired magician with bright green eyes that Terezi’d met on the island.

“You really are Loki,” Sapphrel said, eyes wide as if in disbelief.

“As if there was ever any question of who could execute plans that span galaxies,” the mage said, earning him a flat, unamused look.

“I like to think I was pulling my own weight, Senna,” they said. “Or…the other me, anyway. God, that’s so fucking weird.”

Senna – wasn’t his name Loki? Whatever, it made things a lot less confusing – Senna, then. Senna chuckled, before his mirth slowly died down to something sadder, something more pitying as he stared down at his friend.

“You died,” he said, eventually.

“I did,” they said. “…did the Heir tell you what I saw?”

“They didn’t need to, I was the one who theorized the true state of your class, when we were younger,” he said, “Why would death be something to fear for one who inherits it, after all?”

Sapphrel nodded, slowly. “Ah,” they said. “That makes sense. The other me felt…frankly, absolutely pathetic when they were younger. Makes sense that you took a helm during the early years.”

They pocketed their phone, turning to face him fully, though they kept their eyes on their shoes.  “…I need your help,” they said.

“With?”

“I’m going to die for real soon,” Sapphrel said. “I’m not going to be around for a lot of things, so I need to make sure I can help as many people as I can.”

“I’m already trying to make sure of that,” Senna said. “What do you think your other self is doing?”

“I know what they’re doing, we talked, in the – in that weird place when I died.”

Terezi raised an eyebrow. A dream bubble, probably, unless this universe’s afterlife was structured differently due to its ancestral session.

“I need your help with something else. You know how Nereus could create a memory version of himself out of his magic?” Sapphrel looked up this time. “Could you do that?”

Senna’s brow furrowed. “What would you need it for?”

“My cosmic guardian’s at risk for possession by the Heir of Blood,” they said, pointing to their temple. “I’ve seen it. A bloodleech is not enough to completely drain him, especially since his soul is so strong, so after my death, brother’s little parasite will have learned his lesson and have a more aggressive approach. If he cannot destroy a destroyer of souls, he will have him as a puppet.”

Senna’s frown deepened. “Explain.”

“The Sylph of Hope will die at the Empress’ hands,” Angeles said, the phrase ticking a memory in Terezi’s mind. “And will be resurrected as a puppet of the Heir of Blood – one part her corpse, the other his blood, merged together by an empty kernel sprite.”

Was that what was happening in the outside world? How the fuck did the kid even know that? Their death visions or something?

“The Seer of Void will confirm this for you later – they will tell the Heir of Doom first,” they said.

“You saw it from them when you died.”

“Yes,” Sapphrel said. “They’re planning to…well, that’s theirs to say. But given that her ability is to soothe and restore dreams and wishes, she could pretty much break the universe without having lift a pinky finger as long as someone hopes for it, and she declares it should be so.”

“She still has weaknesses.”

“She needs things to already exist, yes,” Sapphrel said, expression tightening. “When the grief overtakes Strider, the Heir of Blood will have his opening. And from there, when he wishes it…”

They lifted a hand and then sighed, shoulders dropping.

“Nobody can just tell someone to stop grieving,” they said.

“You could just not die.”

“No, I have to,” Sapphrel said, conviction returning to their eyes. “It has to happen. Otherwise…it just has to. The Heir and I talked; we know what we’re doing. I’ll have a better chance at staving off the end of the world when I’m at my most powerful.”

“When you’re dead.”

“Yes.”

Senna sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. After a moment, he dropped his hand and gave Sapphrel a weary look. “Can you never think of anything where you don’t die at the end?”

“Everybody dies at the end.”

“Okay, edgelord.”

The kid chuckled, lightly kicking some snow up with a foot. They both stood there in silence for a bit, Senna deep in thought, Sapphrel moving snow about with their shoe.

“To create a memory with my magic just like Nereus’ spell isn’t feasible with what you have right now,” Senna said. “You have little to none at the moment. Ampora only makes it look easy because he’s ridiculously overpowered.”

“I know it’s ambient,” the kid said, frowning. “Isn’t there a way to draw it out?”

“When do you die?”

“…like a month-ish from now.”

“That’s not enough time for you to develop your magic, especially not when you’re still alive,” Senna said. When Sapphrel looked like they were going to protest, he held a hand up. “But there might be another way for you to anchor a separate piece of yourself in the living world.”

One of his gloved hands glowed as he reached forward, finger tapping Sapphrel’s left collarbone. “I can sense magic that is not yours with you, and if my hunch is correct, then we might be able to replicate the way it’s grounded itself with you.”

“Okay.”

Senna’s expression pinched. “Little Heir – ”

“Okay. Do it.”

“I think it will involve severing a part of your soul.”

“Okay.”

The man blinked rapidly, fury momentarily flickering on his features before he gave up and sighed, opting to instead pat their head and mess up their hair.

“Every version of you I meet will be the death of me,” he said. “You assholes are way too reckless and suicidal.”

“Hey, maybe that’s what makes us, well, us,” Sapphrel said, chuckling, stepping forward and linking their arm together with Senna’s as they began to drag him down the path away from the building. “Though maybe we should test that theory – did you know there’s a universe where I’m split into seven diffe - ?”

The beach was back.

They were on a second-story building again. The sun was hot above them. Vriska’s volleyball team was winning on the beach.

Terezi sneezed from the sudden temperature change.

“A warning would be nice,” she said.

“I apologize,” Angeles said, inclining their head. “I can’t really feel the temperature here. I wasn’t even aware it felt real. I’ve just been faking it to make it seem like I’ve been affected.”

“Can’t feel much when you’re dead?” Terezi asked, glancing at one exsanguinated forearm. “You are dead, right? Even if you have a part of yourself somehow attached to something else?”

“I am, yes,” Angeles said. “With a piece of my soul, I cursed a bracelet I was going to pose as a gift to Hal. Gave everyone else a similar one so it wasn’t too suspicious.”

That was why that bracelet had looked broken. Huh. Terezi’d initially thought it’d just smashed when Strider collapsed.

“It is sort of similar to a haunting, given that it’s a departed soul attached to an object, but instead of the full ghost, it’s just a part of it. Whatever I experience is fully separate from the rest of me, so I have no idea what the real me is doing now, and they have no idea what I’m doing,” Angeles continued. “I just know my function.”

“Can you go back to them when Strider wakes up?”

“Ah, no,” Angeles said, readjusting their glasses again. Must be a nervous tic. “I’ll burn out.”

“You’ll what?”

“Burn out,” Angeles said. “Actual hauntings and curses are powerful because they’re whole, they’re a complete thing with their own designation in the universe and all that. But a piece of something that’s been lopped off and stuck somewhere – it’d be like if you chopped off your own finger. The rest of your body will be fine, but your detached finger will rot.” They motioned to themself with a hand. “I will slowly burn out and cease to exist, and Hal will wake up, at least if he doesn’t wake up before my expiration date.”

“Huh.” Terezi leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms. “What are you doing with him, anyway? I get that you’re trying to protect him, but this whole place is made from him, isn’t it?”

“I serve as a barrier, the foundations of this dreamworld,” Angeles said. “I am the data – ” they motioned down to the beach this time. “ – his mind renders it as I command, and the essence of the people he interacts with are from his own understanding of them. However his friends act around him and how they interact with the world is how he thinks they would act.” They brought their hand back and tapped the table, momentarily rendering it into streaks of numbers and commands, alight in green. “It’s a like a Matrix where I keep everything together, essentially. And I make sure he stays in here to keep him safe. I don’t have eyes in the real world, I can only be aware of what’s going on here.”

“So you were just going to wait until you burnt out and he woke up?”

“It was one consideration.” Despite their dead, filmed-over irises, mischief still shone through their eyes as they watched Terezi. “Why else would I have made sure to bring a Seer of Mind and a Thief of Light to my home?”

A Thief of Light for forced luck, because while Vriska wouldn’t have cared about Hal, she would have cared about her chances of survival, should things have gone wrong, and he was their local powerhouse who needed to be woken up.

A Seer of Mind who could look into the spaces of the sleeping android’s dreams.

“That’s why you’re telling me things freely,” Terezi said.

“Yes,” Angeles said. “And so you’ll at least have some fun comparing notes with everyone else.”

Right, the real them, the rest of them, was still out there in whatever afterlife they went to. If they were even in the afterlife. They could have been pulling an Aradia for all Terezi knew.

“I’m guessing you didn’t bring everyone to your hive because of some other big plan?” she asked.

“It was a necessary risk. The end of the world comes in…or perhaps I should say came in, by this point – it arrives slow, giving malicious forces enough time to operate safely. If we all travelled to Night Vale, we risked never finding the Sylph of Hope or the Sylph of Hope invading the last safe place on Earth if the Heir of Blood wished for her to do so. He’s from there, after all, he knows the way, and I do not know if the town would have accepted him. I did not want to risk it,” they said. “So the bulk of our assets stayed somewhere she could find them, with only just enough ‘escaping’ to make it look believable – those who are ill-equipped to fight, along with two people I managed to convince other-me to give up.”

“Me and Vriska.”

“Yes,” they said, clicking their tongue. “Would have taken Loki too, but the Heir insisted that he would be needed once the apocalypse passed…if it passes, at least. I only have my instructions and my memories up until my real self ceased contact with Strider. If anything has changed, then they could be using other contingency plans.”

Terezi snickered. “Well, we can’t actually get news outside of your weird town. I can barely read your alphabet and the humans are having a nightmare trying to get your time to line up with the rest of the world.”

“That’s to be expected,” Angeles said. “But when it’s safe, you’ll know. I promise.”

“How?”

The kid gave her a shit-eating grin. “You’ll see a sign from heaven,” they said, dipping their voice dramatically. “A beacon from one of its heralds to call all the lost home.”

“Sure,” Terezi said. “We better not miss it.”

“You won’t, you’ll see it,” Angeles said. “You’re still safe in Night Vale, then? If you have time to try and look for news outside of it?”

“We are, it’s pretty boring, actually,” Terezi said, picking up her spoon and poking at her half-finished parfait. “Though I guess that’s a good thing.”

“It should be,” Angeles said. “And Hal?”

“Pretty much tuckered out in his bed for days now,” she said. “It’s why we thought he was in a coma.”

Angeles nodded. “Perhaps it is time I wake him up. So long as he doesn’t venture outside of the protection of Night Vale, he should be safe.”

“We can make sure he doesn’t,” Terezi said. “Gog knows Vriska’s bored as shit anyway.”

“Thank you, I’d appreciate it.” Angeles smiled, inclining their head again. “It’s only been days?”

“Yeah, how long’s it been here?”

“A year and a half,” they said, and when Terezi raised an eyebrow, they waved a hand. “Dream logic. Time flies by weirdly.”

“Guess that makes sense.” She turned to look down at the beach, where the volleyball game had concluded and everyone was now rushing to the beach. Most of them now had water guns that they’d retrieved when Terezi wasn’t looking, and were currently engaged in heated gunfire – or gunwater, whatever.

Terezi could spot Angeles’ – or perhaps it was just an illusion of them – sitting under the shade of a large umbrella, sleeping, while the rest of their friends were having fun.

“What are you going to do?” Terezi asked.

“Wake him up,” they said. “Apologize, perhaps. He’s had a fun year and a half here.”

She nodded, scratching her cheek with one sharp nail. Below them, Strider poured icy water from a cooler into his water gun and shot Egbert in the back while the boy was turned away. The kid yelped at the sudden chill, and Strider ran as fast as he could to sea before Egbert could blast him in the face with sand.

“I mean, we’re not really doing anything in the real world,” Terezi said. “He can…have a bit more time here, can’t he?”

When she turned back to Angeles, their expression was soft, half-grateful, half-pitying as they smiled.

“You’re a good person, Miss Pyrope,” they said. They turned towards the beach, observing the others below, their smile slowly fading.

“It’s alright,” they said. “I’m almost out of time, anyway.”

“Oh.”

They nodded. “Give it a few days or so,” they said. “And I’ll let him know what’s going on before he wakes up. He deserves that kindness, at least.”

“Sorry,” Terezi said. They turned back to her, head tilted in confusion. “That you had to die and everything. I mean that, uh. That’s kinda rough.”

Angeles chuckled. “I guess it was,” they said, and when they smiled this time, it was a little more at ease. “I hope the rebirth of the world will be kind to you, Miss Pyrope.”

They raised a hand and –

#

Terezi blinked, finding that her vision was once again gone, but that she could hear the birds chirping outside of the Angeles estate again, as there were an absence of birds on Strider’s dream beach. There was the scent of cobalt, and the scent of pumpkin spice. She was back.

“Pyrope?” Vriska asked. “Helloooooooo? Are you awake?”

“Don’t disturb her,” Jeremiah said.

“She just moved, clearly she’s not concentrating as hard as she should be.”

“Maybe she could if you shut up.”

The bed creaked. Terezi spoke before Vriska could bite the human boy’s head off.

“I’m awake,” she said. “I got in.”

“Whoa, for real?!” Jeremiah asked, excitement in his tone as his footsteps went around the bed and stopped right beside Terezi. “So he still is in there and there’s just something funky going on in his head?”

There was a lot going on with Strider right now, but – for all that she and Angeles had an insightful talk, she couldn’t get a single whiff of their scent out of them. Despite how corpse-like they looked, they didn’t reek of rot or old earth or death. Whether they were telling the complete truth or mixing it in with lies, she had no idea.

But they seemed too attached to Strider to deliberately cause him harm. If the kid was lying, they were most likely lying by omission – simply telling her what she wanted or needed to hear and leaving the rest of their machinations in the dark.

That was fine. They did say she might have fun comparing notes with everyone else, and Terezi loved getting to the bottom of a good mystery.

“Yeah,” she said, turning towards Jeremiah’s direction. “Robot’s haunted.”