A Subversion of Seams

"A Subversion of Seams" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread started on [IRL DATE] and finished on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
Nobody that currently knew of Hel’s current state felt like sitting around and waiting for terribly long, but neither did they want to rush or crowd whatever process that the leadership was currently trying to enact to regain Hel’s godhood. So, the best they decided to do was to press onward and train–with a healthy shot of urgency in doing so. 
“Emotional” wasn’t the right word to describe how Yun felt, even though he was certainly full of some kind of emotion. There was just some kind of atmosphere hanging around him like it didn’t belong to him, something that gave him the appearance of being forlorn when he was really just as anxious and alert and active as ever. The iron-gray sky sprinkling dashes of sleet overhead brought no better omens. When the time came to step through Akkey’s portal, he was reassured by both Dario and Milae, and it only added to whatever bewildered feeling that currently gripped him. Maybe the news still needed time to settle in. He’d slept terribly, after all.
The weather seemed fairer at the other end, and as Yun set foot against the gravel, he immediately missed being able to simply travel on his own. His eyes also fastened on a frozen, spraying mass of black ice at the other end of the beach. He gulped.
akkeyagentofhelheim
The more he stared, the darker and colder the structure seemed to become, although the surrounding weather still remained pleasant. The contrast was unnerving. Further observation of the rest of the beach and the small cottage that stood daintily behind showed that he was in fact, completely alone, with no sign of the dark haired nix. If he ignored the ice spike, it would’ve been the perfect place to relax, with the sun softly shining through clouds overhead onto the lake.
It wasn’t for a few more minutes when he noticed the water was acting bizarrely. It was completely flat and still–not frozen, persay, but like there was a sheet across it that willed it to stay, and took away the turmoil of rolling waves it would naturally have, leaving it unmoving, controlled by an outside hand to behave.
“Hey! You’re here!” His ears picked up a faint call. If he squinted, he could make out a tiny, familiar figure that was out on the lake, waving at him. She moved towards him, but seemed to glide forward without having to use her legs as the water finally rose only slightly out of its odd state, and came to a stop a few feet before the shore line.
Akkey stood barefoot on the surface of the lake like it was solid ground, grinning at him, “How’s it going?”
foresight-botgd
“It’s…uh…” Yun’s eyes were wide, taking in the supernaturally still water, his hands drifting together to fidget with the cuff of his long sleeve. He skipped over the answer to the question and said, “Is that all you?” while nodding at the lake. He had a basic scope of her powers thanks to Milae, but he’d never seen anything like this before. 
akkeyagentofhelheim
She glanced behind her like she also had to see what he was staring at, and wrinkled her nose in amusement, “Yeah. Although it’s only this flat because it’s my place, and I’ve been manipulating these waters for years. Anywhere else would be much more difficult.”
Her hand waved at him, signalling for him to step closer towards her onto the water, “We’re not starting yet. I want to check if this will work.”
foresight-botgd
Tucking in his lips nervously, the young man paced up to the water’s edge, and looked down at it, seeing his own reflection against a shifting blue-and-gray sky. He curiously stepped out towards the water, expecting his foot to sink through the surface to the round pebbles just below the surface.
akkeyagentofhelheim
Yet he didn’t.
If anything, he had more solid footing now compared to when he was on the beach, standing on top of loose gravel. The water looked and felt like glass beneath his boots, and the only giveaway that it wasn’t was a slight ripple from each step he took.
“Oh, perfect,” Akkey pulled him closer by the sleeve, putting distance from the shore behind him, “Surface tension usually has some sink to it, but I wanted to give you as much space as possible for today beyond just the beach. Normally it’d still feel like there’s waves under you, but it seems steady, so you’re free to come as far as you want. It does dull my senses somewhat, so I can’t feel you on top of where you’re standing, so…” she lowered her lashes and Yun could see her concentrating and failing to manipulate the water specifically beside him, then grinning wryly, “That’s to your advantage, really.”
foresight-botgd
“Wouldn’t usually think that, since I’m surrounded by water and facing a nix…” Yun peered at her and offered a hesitant smile, relaxing a little. Out of pure instinct, he was still holding her wrist, like he would sink through the water if he let go, but if he didn’t look down, it simply felt like he was standing on the floor of a basketball court. “Thanks. I don’t wanna mess up your house.” He gestured his chin at the cottage on the shore.
akkeyagentofhelheim
“You are inherently more powerful than I am, so I’d still need some type of edge. Like I said, it’s up to you,” she teased, her face lighting up in a friendlier manner than the Helheim captain–although, the resemblance was even more striking today with how she tied up her hair and her newly cut fringe hung loose in the same way, “That house has seen some shit. So I won’t hold it against you, honestly.”
She squeezed his wrist in return, pulling him farther out into open water, her smile turning serious, “I’ll be emulating Frigga as much as I can remember. Your goal is to pin me down until I can’t move, or until I’m unconscious. Aria’s on standby back at home,” she tilted her head behind her, gesturing towards an unseen shoreline in the distance.
She trained her green eyes towards him, “Any other questions?”
foresight-botgd
Yun’s small grin, in return, turned into an anxious but thoughtful frown, as he set himself up to get in the right mindset. “By…any means? Am I trying to go, y’know…all the way?” He raised his hand up near the top of his head like he was filling an invisible meter.
akkeyagentofhelheim
“Do you think you can win against Frigga if you don’t?” Her tone became hard, glare unbreakable.
Yun’s hand, which was flat, slowly curled into a loose fist, and he brought it down back to his chest as he stared at Akkey. The weight of her words hit him square in the gut, which went cold. He felt his shoulderblades prickle, and almost instinctively, he lifted his other hand behind him, a bar of indistinct teal light hovering between his fingers, glinting off of the reflective water below them. 
“No,” he said quietly.
akkeyagentofhelheim
She followed the path of his hand with her eyes, recalling the exact motion only a little over 24 hours before from a certain Bookkeeper, then down at the reflection on the water, then lifted it back up to look at him, “Then all the way.”
Akkey pushed herself away from him, skating backwards and putting distance in between them. The sound of ice cracked across as she froze an ice blade that was more sceptre-like. A single breeze blew through the mountains that rose around Yrus, scenery and sky reflected perfectly onto the unnatural surface, doubling at the horizon like a new world turned upside down beneath their feet, two very small figures standing across from each other in the middle of the lake.
She was far, but Yun could see the shift in her, a shadow passing across her eyes, and a battle lust that emanated from her shoulders. The wind dropped, one heartbeat loud against his ear.
A mass of thin, silver tendrils burst from her feet, water spun into thread-like forms, and streaked up to his face before he blinked.
foresight-botgd
Yun gasped, his arm whipped out, and light and space warped as a banner of force flashed in front of him in the nick of time, turning water to stinging mist as it blasted past his cheek. The rest of his weapon, now seamlessly in tune with him, sang into his hand, with streaks of color flashing up his fingers and beginning the steady crawl up to his wrists. He began his internal mantra: defend. Survive. Protect.
The ribbon had barely finished forming before Yun crouched and gathered his strength, water humming in rising pitches and in dancing droplets around his shoes, and then a thump shook the air as he sprinted forward, strides yards apart and buzzing with energy, looking for an opening to drop her early and avoid as many entanglements as possible. 
akkeyagentofhelheim
She strode forward in large, but slow steps, uncharacteristic from her usual explosion of speed and technique, and let him approach her instead. Her wrist twisted, and the sceptre spun once, twice, somewhat like Milae’s own habits, then overhead to clash with Yun’s naginata, sending out a wave of energy that rippled across the surface. Her left hand simultaneously stretched open to freeze a new blade, this time in a true form of a sword, and she turned quickly, her bare feet dancing in intricate steps against the cold water as she swung her other weapon arm around to knock against his and bring his grip on it off balance.
foresight-botgd
Similar to Nala’s spar, Yun allowed himself to be thrown aside, soles skidding across the water and letting the staff be ripped away from his off hand and bringing it back around in his right. The blade whined as it swept in a huge arc to steady and stop himself, and the seidkonur instead paced around Akkey, feet moving in a cautious sideways prowl, making the water vibrate in a large radius around his steps. His free hand clenched into a fist and then shook out angrily as the light sliding up his tattoos stayed at a slow creep. Come on! he growled to himself.
akkeyagentofhelheim
Akkey remained where she stood, watching him circle her, seeing the same defensive hesitation from a couple weeks ago as he tried to bring his magic to a rise. Her tongue clicked audibly.
“Is that what you will do? Wait while you take your time powering up?” Her eyes flashed as both weapons spun once in each hand. Her voice rose in anger and impatience, “Do you think she will?!”
She didn’t allow him the luxury to answer, as she stabbed the surface by her foot with her sceptre. Ice spikes as tall as her waist punctured the unmoving water from below, and with a big swing of her arm, she wrenched the weapon out of their makeshift ground in a slicing motion, sending a line of newly frozen terrain at Yun in a single breath, rumbling larger and more ominously the closer they got to him. It exploded in a shower of droplets and shards right before his eyes, clipping him underneath the chin and sending him flying high into the air as it grew tall and fast.
The surface beneath Akkey dipped in response as he flew, launching her in a glide, almost too smoothly, mimicking a sultry movement to follow him. She bore down from above, arms raised to swing both weapons at two different levels in double arcs to her left. The intent in her eyes to draw blood was unmistakable.
foresight-botgd
A short roar. Yun twisted in midair to slam her weapons aside and then followed through with the haft, channeling enough force around the wood and iron to knock her back out of the air. He leaped against an invisible web of his own making to propel himself towards one of the largest spikes, sliding down its length on both feet and rolling to the ground at it’s base. If the terrain was going to be this malformed, he had to use it to his advantage.
When he stood, the frequencies around him increased in depth, and he exhaled sharply and shakily. Aquamarine light bled through the water like ink, rather than earthy cracks, and it collected inside of the ice like shining veins, cracking them apart like they’d been submerged in boiling water. Shards taller than either of them broke out of line and tilted forward, centered on Akkey as he willed the heavy pulse of his magic to be drawn to her instead of himself.
Yun clenched a glowing fist and pulled, threads strumming, and the ice moved inward like a reverse explosion.
akkeyagentofhelheim
She coughed from the dull pain that stung where he hit her as she crouched a small distance from him, the water forming small ripples under their feet while she watched the projectiles trained towards her. She huffed in some satisfaction, …sure.
The shards were flung forward, and again she met them head on. They gravitated towards her at immense speed like they were being sucked in through a portal. Her sword came up and glinted in the sunlight, cutting through the immediate projectiles like they were butter as manipulated ice fell around her, spinning weapon around with a flick of the wrist in smooth lines of defense, ice chipping against ice as the blade slowly disappeared from the multiple impacts. Several sharper spikes managed to graze her side and forced her to shift her feet, but this time she didn’t bat an eye at the new pain. Shadow flickered across her scleras.
She twisted and dragged the sceptre again in the same line break of terrain and balance, just as her sword disintegrated in her hand. But the loss of the weapon didn’t matter–instead, it gave her a free hand.
In a flash of light, Akkey spread her fingers wide, open palm in his direction, then curled them rigidly at the joints. The same mass of water tendrils burst from her feet, but this time they were even thinner, stringy, like hair twisting and knotting around each other, horribly similar to Yun’s own threads. They exploded towards him like silver ink, crashing against the surface and spikes that peppered around them, but the obstacles didn’t slow them down as they surged for the seidkonur.
foresight-botgd
He had already been charging towards Akkey when the ice cleared and he saw the water streaking towards him, and he didn’t have time to slow down. He skidded to his knees, sending water spraying across the lake, and planted the naginata straight down in front of him, and it melted into an aura of teal light that surrounded him and forced the watery threads to divert, first at the front, then at the back as the water lashed back around to try to attack from behind. Silver liquid raged in a tall orb around him and he gritted his teeth, getting back to his feet with his forearms crossed in front of him, focusing on the nix as he started to take one step forward at a time. As he advanced, light continued to bleed up his sleeves, and he saw the edges of threads lashing in the reflection of the lake, bright filaments that snapped in a cosmic wind, and he saw the remnants of recently snapped, fraying, blue and gold threads lingering around his opponent, crossed over her shoulders, tied to her arms, flailing around her face and tracing the lines of her scar.
Heat flooded Yun’s gut instead of cold. His pupils briefly flashed. His markings illuminated to nearly halfway full. He took another vibrating step, and another.
The fear and caution that she felt yesterday when Yun asked her about Juro returned, trailing down her back like water droplets tracing lines. But she grinned a little wider instead, her eyes unabashedly trained towards the light that became brighter at each passing second.
She released the surge of watery threads from her left hand and simultaneously threw the remainder of the scepter towards him like a spear, but there was no expectation for it to land. She turned her concentration fully to tendril manipulation, twisting them even finer and thinner than before as they weaved on top of each other in a wave over head that resembled the portal’s explosion, sliding across the air like glittering snakes straight for him in multiple directions in intent to entrap him. Just as she knew Frigga would.
“Are you mad, Yun? At me? For what I did?” Her voice was small amidst the roar of magic, but still audible. Her joints cracked as she strained, and the silver tendrils suddenly morphed into a different colour, turning darker and colder in its mission towards him. She was taking water from the blackened ice.
foresight-botgd
Yun’s vision was temporarily blinded with the reminder of exploding, twisting light, and he felt rattled, not physically, but he still felt like he had been shaken out of his frame by something else. A torus of energy bloomed out from him, forming subtle rolling trenches in the water below and streams of freezing liquid were forced into spinning upright wheels as it passed by, pushing Akkey back a few feet before she managed to ground herself. He lifted his head in the aftermath, still fending off as many tendrils as he could, but they were finding their way through the webs and layers of his defensive barrier, and as the strongest whipped out and reached for him, he lurched a shoulder back to dodge it and the faint green light encircling him released and dissolved, following him as he pushed off with a foot and barreled through the hissing black streams in an indistinct form. He appeared to stutter through several places in a straight line and then the iron pommel of Yun’s weapon slammed into Akkey’s sternum with an ear-piercing thump and a narrow wave of force that shook the water below again, tossing her several yards back towards the middle of the lake. 
Jets of psychedelic light traced below the surface under Yun’s feet as he began to quickly stalk forward, weapon steadily spinning at his side, emulating Milae almost exactly. The center of his seal, the second set of crossing lines, was beginning to fill. “You threatened him!” he yelled, and though his power hummed viciously around his feet and traced the naginata’s blade in bright, singing circles, his voice still cracked, thin and strained.
He wasn’t mad. He was afraid.
akkeyagentofhelheim
She rolled then skidded, twisting to bring her feet back under her in a spray of water, now black as shadowed ice mixed with her arsenal, ignoring the way her body pulsed with pain from every hit she had taken. She exhaled, her breath now misty dark, flickering in her eyes, even more turbulent as they began seeping over the edges.
“I did! So? Is keeping your distance and watching all that you’ll do about it?” she growled back, the tendrils reconstructing and bending back to attack him from behind. He could tell that they came, and his swinging weapon knocked them away in retaliation. The clash of element and energy became more complicated as they kept building in layers in continuous twists and turns. She closed the distance between them, a new blade forming to collide with his as surface churned again beneath him. 
But that was a distraction, all of it had been. it was a certain tendril that she wanted, that zipped by his feet, hidden behind the barrage, slipping between cracks and spaces amongst attacks that took his attention, intent on snaking its way around an ankle, a leg, pinning an arm and weapon to his side, around his neck to his head in place.
foresight-botgd
Her confirmation shook him again, and he moved to sprint, he had to stop her, but when blade struck blade, a gush of freezing water clawed its way up his leg, constricting his movement, and he tripped and unfocused, and he felt his arm get yanked down to his side and back, and he managed to rescue the naginata from his now-useless right grip and trade it to the hand that braced him against the ground as he fell, hard. The light across his arms shivered and danced and flashed wildly, and his right-side markings dimmed while the vibrations shimmering across the surface of the lake died to a much smaller diameter around them, more focused to the left than the right. Water bubbled across his face as he rolled away and got to his knees, hyperventilating in a panic as his magic continued to boil and build erratically at his core, like an immovable dam hedged his way, allowing no proper release. The skin of his neck burned with cold, and he could just manipulate enough repulsion to keep his left arm free, but that was it. His eyes watered with the intensity of the situation, the oncoming luminance in his eyes dulling as quickly as it had arisen. The long silver blade hovered in his hand at his side; he was afraid to move. 
akkeyagentofhelheim
Her feet slammed into a solid stance beside where he laid, eyes glaring down at him with a green flame as shadows continued to boil around the whites of it. Black dribbled over scars and lips and tear ducts as her fingers cracked under pressure of what she wanted to do–no, she didn’t want to… but she chose to. Bile rose in her throat at the idea of it, but she quickly pushed it down. She couldn’t afford to give him time to escape.
Darkness darted up the tendril that writhed around his body, finding its way within folds and creases of his clothing in a sickening, watery imitation of Frigga’s technique, thinning out around his face. The pressure increased, forcing his jaw to hang open. The threads began crawling their way over his skin, like his dark tattoo markings suddenly decided to come to life, into his ear, his mouth, painfully scratching and clawing to his eye like it wanted to tear it out.
There was no way in her lifetime would Akkey be able to accurately replicate her personal experience with the goddess under the dungeon, the disgusting invasion of mind and memory, but still she could try to emulate it to the best of her nix abilities, utilizing shadows and personal demons for him. His vision in his one eye immediately blurred, his hearing dulled into nothing and his throat filling up into a choke, as Liam’s leftover magic bubbled within the tendril, leaving him partially blind and deaf and incoherent.
Akkey shifted, her other hand coming up, and with his good eye, Yun saw three frozen figures sprout within his vision, dark in icy shadow but seemingly alive as the turmoil of magic continued to hum around their immediate space, supplemented by the seeping darkness that had half of his face trapped underneath.
He could see who they were. He knew them.
“Here’s the thing, Yun! Frigga will threaten way more people with way higher stakes than I ever could! And you’re here, just hanging back, watching, waiting– because what? You’re scared? Do you really have time to be? When its these lives on the line?” Black, water claws grew from her fingers, pointing it purposefully towards the familiar faces. 
Yun Milae. Dario Hjort. 
Jin Juro.
Akkey raised her hand towards them, and in a flash of horrific light, the makeshift tendrils extended and punctured Milae and Dario through their temples. The forms buckled where they stood, an illusionary shroud of red appearing from their wounds before they broke and dissolved into frozen chunks that fell into the water.
“If you just keep defending, hesitating, and focusing on surviving, she’ll be up at your face and would have taken everything you’ve loved from you,” she trained her gaze towards Juro this time, aim directed straight for the bottom of his sternum. The humming intensified, “Then it’ll be too late.”
foresight-botgd
Darkness and shadow encroached on all of his senses, leaving the only thing visible in his point of view a pointed, razor-sharp claw, shivering with power as it made to pierce the icy facsimile of the Bookkeeper through the chest.
Everything sealed over, and with a piercing pain, all went black.
Yun was in a quiet void, not silent, just tranquil. There was a single, thick, glowing thread floating in front of him, with a few strands weaving in and out of its main body, jittering copies both sweeping away and drawing near, floating as though there was no gravity. The seidkonur, now unrestrained by anything, brushed his inked fingertips over the string, curious about its nature. As he did so, Akkey saw his physical body jerk and briefly thrash under his constraints before freezing entirely.
He quickly inhaled and stared into the void, coming back to awareness to with the complete knowledge and story of a separate timeline driving towards an inevitable end–not quite concluded, but headed towards a doomed conclusion. He wasn’t strong enough. Nobody was strong enough. They were going to lose. There was no other possibility. Akkey was right, and the existence of this timeline was proof. It was too late.
An ethereal figure stepped into view, features coming into being as they were illuminated by the thread floating innocently in front of her. Black feathers rustled around her shoulders. Her solid black eyes were fixed on Yun as she took both ends of the timeline in her pale hands, lifting it to chest height. Her dark lips did not move as she spoke. “You do not want this end.” It wasn’t a question. He nodded, still strangled by oily black shadow.
In response, she outstretched her arms, the thread drifting closer to him, and Yun suddenly felt the handle of a familiar naginata in between his fingers. 
“Then eliminate it.”
Yun looked down at it with wide eyes, heart pounding dangerously fast, wondering if he even had the ability to do what Urdr was suggesting. The building surge of power came into his reach, whining and pressing up against the very borders of his being, like he would explode if he wouldn’t channel it. I can’t… 
Very distantly, he barely heard a muffled sound, the broken pieces of Juro’s statue clattering to the ground and sinking below the surface. He felt one more intense rattle of his very soul. The naginata spun and traveled upward, and with a clean snip, the doomed timeline was severed, and it frayed and splintered into oblivion, leaving them both in the dark once more. In the fading light, Urdr smiled, and then was gone.
Around his knees in the middle of the lake shifting in sunlight, the frantic droplets quieted into mirror stillness. Then Akkey caught the double shine of teal in eyes blinded by writhing shadow. 
Like a wire cutting a block of snow, the lake was still one second, then completely bisected the next, making a sound Akkey was familiar with–the echoing ring of a snapping glacier. It sent a curtain of water shooting upwards into the sky almost instantly, and directly underneath Yun’s right side, and the invisible line of force that had caused such an extreme split in nature shattered his dark bindings in an earsplitting arc as he arched his back, fragments of white and particles of black and droplets of silver slashing through the air. 
Yun lowered his head, leveled directly at Akkey, pupils afire with light, and he rose to his feet as the lake gushed back in to fill the temporary cavern in the ground he had created in freeing himself. A mist of frost and shadow swirled down around him, but any water that splashed up hit an invisible bubble, repelled as though by hydrophobic glass. And then he advanced, feet curving craters into the ground, and everything went temporarily silent with the sheer force of his blade swinging back around his shoulder, over his head, and down towards his opponent, towards his new threat.
akkeyagentofhelheim
Her stomach dropped as the lake fell, shifting balance and foothold at earthquake levels of movement. It was a tumble through water and air before she finally regained her stance properly. Yun approached her, magic and power at cosmic, unreachable levels. Pure, primal fear coursed through her entire being as she watched him.
The hunter had now become the hunted.
She staggered back for a moment, tilting her chin up in a trembling exhale of breath, then straightened herself. The shadows streaked across her skin in both oily and dusty paths as different darkness mixed, flickering, surging, in troubled waves, tapping into a dangerous, yet to be fully controlled power, before stilling themselves. She opened her eyes to reveal them fully dark, forearms dipped in inky black, and face split in a toothy grin that betrayed sheer terror yet also stubborn resolution. She knew she was in trouble. She was expecting to be.
The remainder of the ice spike melted and crashed around her with a roar, dark hair-like tendrils receding at first, then bursting forward with new life, the familiar hum of teleportation filling their ears as Akkey shifted once again to her own fighting style to mix with Frigga’s threads, spinning back into existence through a portal above the left side of his head, bearing down with her own frozen blade that was now held more comfortably in her hand. But it was only for a breathe as she disappeared again into another portal before making contact, popping up from the ground on his right to twist and slice her weapon upwards, just as waves of tendrils crashed down on him, sharpened to deadly points in hopes of  piercing through his barrier and breaking it.
The naginata seemed holographic as it blurred around Yun, shredding the initial threads while locking Akkey’s sword in place, and with every contact against something physical, there was a heavy pop of force that left their ears ringing. Yun looked automatic, possessed by instinct, eyes fixed on Akkey while he threw a hand out to his side, fingers clenching, and this time, as though his illuminated seal revealed them for her, Akkey could see handfuls of shining teal thread entangled around his fingers. The shadowy tendrils still drove towards him en masse, and as they did, he rotated his knotted-up hand to be in front of him, the sound of screeching wires and stressed fabric piercing the air. All of the writhing attacks were suddenly sucked backwards as soon as they made contact with the kimono across his shoulders, and the air undulated and warped for a moment, the energy moving underneath that second skin, that slip in space that he was becoming so familiar with, and then their senses were nullified for a heartbeat as an explosion rocked the very reality around Akkey, as he rewinded and redirected everything she had thrown at him thus far into a single blast, throwing her rolling and skidding sideways for nearly a hundred feet. Just as the nix had been gliding across the surface of the lake, Yun also had little trouble catching up to her with a few of his impossibly long strides, and he ran ahead of her velocity and skidded back on his heels, stopping her up against the haft of his weapon. As her waist bent around it and snapped her to a halt, a heavy pressure settled around the pair of them, bowing the thick surface tension of the lake into a shallow crater, with sheets of droplets and the naginata’s silk banner and complex layers of shifting aqua energy and clouds of shadow hanging frozen around them, shivering in their suspension. It felt like there was a crushing weight across every inch of their skin, and Yun’s eyes blazed with an unnatural sternness and frigidity as he stood above her, cold iron planted into the lake by her side, threatening.
“You won’t get to do that,” he said darkly, “ever again.” Iron scraped across thrumming water as he slid the pommel up to be next to Akkey’s throat. “You will back down.”
akkeyagentofhelheim
There was no time to think or breathe. Every nerve and muscle in her screamed in pain as she took the brunt of all of her own attacks, searing against her skin and bruising all the way until bone, coughing up blood at the impact with Yun’s weapon. Red trailed over her chin as she choked, vision swimming and ears ringing as she laid on the stretched water , feeling every ripple and rhythm of his power as it pressed down on her to such high degrees that she could barely breath.
His command was rough against her ears, vibrating within her chest painfully as she felt whatever was messed up inside her shake, the weapon heavy in its presence beside her. She cracked her eyes open to reveal dilated pupils, thinning out the green in them so much that they practically disappeared, then slid her gaze towards him. It was desperate.
“W-what if–I don’t?” Akkey choked out, breathing laboured and painful, fluids pooling at the back of her throat, “Will–you finish the job? –will you kill me?” It was weak, but a hum fought against the overwhelming buzz of his energy.
foresight-botgd
The twin frequencies made their bones tremble. Yun tilted his head slightly. He’d never seen someone refuse to submit before. His entire mind felt like it was trapped in a dream state, entirely convinced of its own internal logic that didn’t apply to the real world. But she did see him pause and think; he wasn’t turned dumb with rage or fear. This went beyond their current match. Akkey’s death would be crippling for many things. Those possibilities led to defeat, not victory. And oh, how he wanted to succeed.
“You are trying to help me now.” The steel pommel traced a small circle by her ear, grating the surface tension below. “I won’t kill you for that. But you threaten the Bookkeepers by provoking him. If you don’t stop…”
In a blur, the naginata slid down next to her arm, and with a precise, applied pressure, he flicked the blade back towards himself, rolled the staff of his weapon across her elbow with his foot, snapping it with a crunch, and left the blade tip-down next to her bruised gut as the handle fell easily back up into his palm. The space around them bent anew as a new pitch filled the air. Thread began to strain.
“…I’ll make you wish I had.”
akkeyagentofhelheim
Her back arched as she recoiled from the pain, screaming against gritted teeth, blinded momentarily as her vision became spotty. Her good hand wanted to curl towards her shattered elbow, but the naginata blocked her path, the energy sharp against her pale skin. She reduced down to a heavy pant, still staring up at him with darkened eyes, at her impending executioner.
The fear that coursed through her was no longer distinguishable from the agony of her injuries, as well as the desperation to see if he would go far enough, fast enough. She had only ever seen him struggle slowly to elevation, and ending both encounters with mercy. The way he regarded her, she didn’t exactly doubt his words, but she wasn’t entirely convinced that he would go all the way when it truly mattered.
Her free hand gripped the surface, creating tiny indentations into it, “I provoked him, but Frigga will do much worse. And she will not stop. She doesn’t deserve your grace, because she doesn’t need it, no matter your threats. She will kill your Bookkeepers without second thought, before hooking her fingers onto you.”
The humming intensified. Then she released her hand. The flat expanse that was forced to a standstill suddenly receded, a bright line of light zooming inwards with them in them in the center. The reflection of the horizon disappeared as the waves below finally burst free of their constraints, surging at immense heights and booming sounds, returning nature to its original state of life and movement. They plunged in, cold waters closing over their heads.
Akkey twisted where she floated underwater, and with her remaining arm she willed the lake to do her bidding, capturing Yun in a tornado of water and forcing him deeper, towards the floor, in a stormy torrent of currents, knowing that it would be useless, but hoping he would take the reality to heart. Frigga will not yield. He needed to eliminate her.
Her voice sounded through the water, “Will you still take your time and ask her to stand down, just as you are to me?”
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Everything abruptly shifted in Yun’s head, almost blindingly fast with his new stack of priorities. As the surface faded from above, and the depth of the lake pressed inward, filling his senses with freezing, suffocating liquid, he craned his neck up to look at Akkey’s hovering form through clouds and veils of shimmering bubbles. He now saw a threat to his own existence, as well as Jin’s.
His hand stretched above his sinking body, tattoos shining, and grabbed hold of a single thread, a flashing mix of teal, green, and violet, and the dark waters around them suddenly illuminated with the same colors in a convoluted web of knotted thread, like a drunken spider’s rampage. In the next breath, he was in front of Akkey, like he had already been occupying the space the entire time, and her limbs were just as tangled and constricted as Yun’s had been on the surface. With every micro-adjustment she made, the luminous strings twanged and plucked eerily.
Yun stared at her, hovering in place calmly, blade held ready by his side. An exhale of bubbles left his mouth, and he reached out with his off hand, cupping her cheek, fingers snagging in long black hair, both their faces lit strangely from underneath by surging magic.
“Not any more.”
His fingers gripped tighter against her head, and then the water rumbled as a long silver blade flashed and pierced the half-breed to the side of her gut. Scarlet spilled into the water between them; the same thread that Yun had manipulated earlier immediately frayed to almost nothing, held on by a fine filament as it hovered in the same space as Akkey. The naginata hummed and then dissolved upward into scattered light, as Yun watched her, the unnatural glint in his eyes starting to flicker out, uncertain microexpressions starting to show through his cool façade, his chest starting to spasm slightly as it took on more water and less oxygen.
akkeyagentofhelheim
Akkey choked in a voiceless cry, air bubbles escaping her lips, unnatural for the nix, and mixing with blood that floated around them, sensations slipping from her fingers, the water intensely cold to her skin for the first time. She trained her eyes to meet Yun’s, holding it for what seemed like a very long time, watching his face very carefully. The shadows that tainted her body churned across her skin at immense speed, then dissipated into nothing in an oily cloud of darkness, her eyes returning to that bright green colour he knew. A hand shakily came to touch his that gripped her head. She gave him a sad smile.
“Good. Then I surrender.”
Every bit of magic she cast disappeared, and water flowed into lungs, suffocating, unable to breath, waves stilling into nothing as she lost consciousness, on the precipice of death. But it was short lived, as the calming currents around them exploded again, large deadly nadder claws hooking around each by the waist, lifting them to the surface and setting them down on the gravelly shoreline then flying away.
Aria stood a few feet away from them, hands held up in lowered defense as non threateningly as possible, just as her aunt had instructed. She had been watching carefully on her dragon, and when the still surface returned to its natural state of churning waves, just as Akkey said it would, she knew it was time.
“I’m not here to fight anyone,” she said, uncharacteristically calm compared to her usual abundance of energy. Yun could see threads around her, her lifeline, a healer’s essence. It was a mix of green and yellow and gold, shifting between the serene colours, “Please. Let me help you.”
foresight-botgd
Yun took a wobbly step towards her, then another, and then his knees gave out, palms stinging against gravel while his tattoos snapped and flickered from teal back to black ink, and he hucked up a thin stream of water, coughing and heaving, asthma wracking his chest while he struggled fiercely to breathe. He shakily sat sideways, arms still braced against the ground, shuddering in the wind while it numbed his extremities. The inside of his ear, eye, and throat still burned, and he felt raw welts up across his shoulder, collarbone and neck. But for as battered as he felt, and as mentally wracked as he was, he slid a hand in Akkey’s direction, pebbles crunching, watery eyes beseeching Aria as soon as he was able to identify her. Her threads felt so familiar.
“Save her,” he rasped. He was trying not to black out; the effort to avoid doing so was massive. “She’s bleeding…quick…”
Hazel eyes met with watery hazel for a microsecond, before Aria burst into action, speeding past the seidkonur and skidding to her knees beside her aunt. Akkey laid in the gravel, unmoving.
She already had her hands out, palms crossed into each other, with pointer fingers stretched towards the gaping wound, the red creeping up the nix' shirt at a deadly rate. The hazel in Aria's eyes swirled then disappeared into nothing, a lifeless white against white, practically in contrast with Akkey's previously dark eyes.
"Elohim, essaim."
The familiar incantation echoed in two voices from Aria's lips as she shifted her hand seals into outstretched fingers over Akkey's abdomen. The wound and her hands began to glow between yellow and green light as the work to save her began.
What was curious was, even through his exhaustion, Yun could see it was no ordinary healing. Invisible threads that only he could see were strung around the young healer's fingers, floating and grabbing blood and muscle and organ, stitching the wound close like some sort of divine limbs, and rearranging her insides back to where they belonged. Except it was more than that.
It was an oddly similar magic, one he could tell was reminiscent to his, even to the point that it could have been possibly been seidr once, but it was morphed into a form that Aria controlled unknowingly, unaware of its mechanics, instead concentrating all of its ability specifically into restoring, returning, practically rewriting the minutes and seconds only around the injury, turning the clock backwards to before it was broken by his blade and nearly cut off her life. The glowing, hairlike tendrils flashed green, then yellow, then gold... then once a specific blue that Yun could pinpoint from Milae's oldest memories, just as Aria's shape glimmered into the form of a long necked half breed.
But it was gone in a flash, and Aria was Aria once more as the injuries were finally fixed, leaving behind pale skin that was void of any new scars that could've been sustained from that day. Akkey's chest rose and fell slowly, but it moved.
The young rabbit half breed turned her face towards Yun, expression doll-like and frightening and dead, but she was clearly alive and aware, as she stretched out her hands to shift the magic towards him.
foresight-botgd
Kindness...or a threat...?
Yun's eyes brightened for a moment. A weak barrier shuddered between them before collapsing into energy and flickering uselessly around his fingers, mimicking the stutter that he felt within himself. Yun came out of the elevated trance again, falling to his elbows and bowing his head low enough for his hair to brush the gravel. There was no longer a restriction to his magic, but he was far too spent to channel anything substantial. His shoulders heaved arrythmically, and from hidden eyes, glowing tears streaked down his cheeks, like trails of bioluminescence.
"I'm sorry," he choked, too tired to sob. "I couldn't stop..."
akkeyagentofhelheim
Aria didn't reply, and instead turned the energy into helping him as she promised, restoring him into a previous state where the pain that flared down his face and torso and anywhere else no longer existed, and he could feel the weariness rolling off him.
"Don't be," she finally spoke again, her ears flapping once with her head shake, the echoing voices slowly becoming inaudible. She lowered one hand in a gentle, wiping motion, and he could feel the existing tension loosening its knots as his body relaxed and screamed for sleep, "You should rest. I'll take care of the rest."
foresight-botgd
Yun’s eyelids dropped with the motion of her hand, and he felt one last shiver before he rolled out limp across the beach, arms uncurling from a tortured stress. The clouds shifted, casting soft sunlight across the cove, and for a moment, Yun was somewhere safer, back warmed by the morning radiance of a wide window.
The heavy buzzing of his mind calmed, and he slowly drifted away, exhaling in the familiar patterns of sleep.