Episode 132 - Crossings

## Crossings

A black background with a white border resembling dozens of bubbles. Within the border a white jellyfish is depicted with a red sword caught amongst its stingers. Below this image but still within the border the worlds "132.CROSSINGS" are depicted in white

### Author

William A Wellman

Yaretzi graces a royal court, Riot reaches her destination, and Jacob Wicker speaks his mind. The theme of tonight's episode is Crossings

> ***Content warning**: Religious abuse, Ableism, Survivor’s Guilt, Violence, Death + Injury, Character Death, Blood, Gun Mention, Emotional Manipulation, Body horror, Religious Violence, Child Sacrifice, Metaphor involving a pig turned inside out, Rats (rat king as usual), explosives, house fires*
>
>

## Intro - Train Tracks

Nikignik speaks to the Dreamers of someone who lay upon the train tracks, hoping that there would be one train let after the end of the world to come and serve them justice. They feel wracked with guilt for being the one who was still alive, and not one of many who they'd trampled over. They hear the sound of a train approaching down the railway, and in a moment it was upon them. They find that it was not a train, but Old Afterclaps, and he did not stop for them because they were not guilty despite what they told themself.

Nikignik stands before the Faceless King.

## Story 1 - Repugnant Royalty

Yaretzi and Polly stand before the Faceless King's court, the Rat King also present if scattered in the surrounding woodland. Yaretzi expresses disgust of her surroundings to Polly, as well as concern that the Faceless King may have hurt Mort (see Episode 103 - Crossroads). Polly tells her that was what they were there to find out before the Rat King demands them to be silent for the Faceless King to speak. It asks them what right they had to cross through the North Most Hallowoods. Polly tells it that they weren't there for it, that a friend of theirs had gotten lost and they wished to reclaim him and leave. The Faceless King tells him that his insolence would noy hide his fear, and that the forest would keep all that it claimed. Yaretzi asks if Mort was alive, and it explains to her that if he was he would not be for long, telling her about Creep.

It tells them that Mort was out of its hands, but if the two of them did not return south they would die with him. One of the Faceless King's Jesters approach it and whisper in its' ear, the Faceless King exclaiming that what it'd said was a delightful idea before telling Yaretzi that it'd tell her where Mort was if she ripped out Polly's heart and ate it (see Starwolves). Yaretzi calls The King vile, telling it that they were going to continue on their way regardless, asking if it planned on halting their progress. Both her and Polly prepare for potential violence, but The Rat King speaks up, telling the Faceless King that they should not waste it dealing with them, and instead leave them to the Spring. The Faceless King accepts this, informing Polly and Yaretzi of its decision before contorting space around them so that the two were out of sight of the Court. Yaretzi asks where they should go now, and Polly informs her that there was only one direction that mattered now (North) before opening another Vorpal.

### Interlude 1 - A Hallowed Earth

Nikignik asks the Dreamers that the Black Rains were in all their sources of water, and now there were many forests like the Hallowoods. In Quebec there was La Forêt Maléfique, in Germany the Schwarzwald, in the Amazônia in Peru, the pitcher plants had grown to swallow children and hounds whole, and the towering forests of the pacific northwest had turned from redwood to black. He tells the Dreamers that there was no escape from the Hallowoods, theirs' was now a hallowed earth.

## Story 2 - It Keeps Going

Riot Maidstone, still lost and slowly freezing to death in the blizzard summoned in Episode 124 - Educations (see Episode 127 - Hooks), puts considerable effort into not falling asleep again as Danielle O'Hara had told her to do. She thinks about Danielle, Clementine Maidstone and Valerie Maidstone, wondering where Percy Reed and Diggory Graves were (see Episode 131 - Chasms), what had happened to Mort and Cindy Lockheart, but she mostly worried for Olivier Song (see Episode 129 - Cats), knowing that the storm was their doing, she was proud of them for managing it, even if it was killing her. She finds herself laying down, having collapsed at some point, tried to get up again but finds her muscles numb and frozen, and she was very tired. The storm had also stopped at some point, finding this made her sad though she didn't know why, and she looked up at the night sky, green stars backing the Northern Lights.

She hears the approach of the Grackle before she sees it, offers it her sword in exchange for passage, which it accepts and picks her up in its claws, takes off and carries her away. She finds that it does not carry her far however, maybe sixty feet before it dropped her spirit in the snow and landed in a nest, dropping the sword into a vast treasure trope of all assorted shiny items, including the Stonemaiden band pin Walter 'Walt' Pensive had given it (see Episode 36 - Swords). She stands up, finds Walt's ghost sitting nearby on a shelf of ice, and her turns to her and tells her that he'd by lying if he said he was happy to see her.

### Marketing - The Road Again

Lady Ethel Mallory interrupts Nikignik's broadcast with her 'Marketing' segment. She tells the Dreamers that she could feel she was getting close to her destination (see Episode 105 - Dependencies). She tells them that she was just walking along Canadian highways, explaining to them that she knew about Candian traffic because Rizwana Mirza had made building Box Polaris a 'shipping nightmare'. She tells them that the black water sand to her, and when she thought of her friend (see Episode 106 - Departures) she didn't think about a person but rather a place where she might belong.

### Story 2, Continued - It Keeps Going

Riot tells Walt that she'd thought he was dead, and he tells her that he was, and that she was too. She tells him that "Ghost dead and dead dead [were] not the same thing" before coming to the conclusion that she was dreaming and calls for Danielle to show herself. Walt tells her that she wasn't dreaming, that he was sure he was there because of the Grackle, explaining to her all that he knew about it as if he was making an almanac entry, and tells her that he'd been scared that it'd bring her to be with him some day, thought he hadn't thought it'd be so soon. Riot sits on the ledge next to him, and tells him that she'd needed him, that she'd been trying her best but hadn't been able to succeed. He pats her on the shoulder, tells her that he was sure whatever she was trying to do it had been important, and she'd tried, there was no shame in trying too hard. She tries to explain to him what she'd been doing but tells him that they were all going to die, and everything was over.

He points out a Jellyfish below the ice to her, relating it to her in that it had lived through so much change but was still there. He tells her that chapters ended, but the story didn't, whether it was a story about an old Groundskeeper, or Riot Maidstone, or jellyfish, it kept going. She tells him that it didn't seem like it went anywhere from where they were, asking him if he'd been sitting up there all year. He tells her that he hadn't been alone, having at the horizon and revealing that what Riot had initially thought was the Northen Lights reflecting on the snow, was actually a glowing ghost hoard. He tells her that the Grackle didn't like it when spirits tried to get too far away from its nest but points out a vortex in the sky and tells her that she could get out via it. She asks him why he hadn't gone through it, as he'd been sitting in the artic for close to ten months at that point. He tells her that he'd had a good reason, one of the spirits from the ghost hoard stepping forward, and he greats her a Daphne, telling her to come meet Riot.

### Interlude 2 - A Plague of Grackles

Nikignik tells the Dreamers that the Industry was vast and had many agents in the worlds that it occupied. For the vast majority of the work, the harvesting, no great power was necessary. Just the Grackles that spirit away the glinting souls of trillions to store them in Syrensyr's warehouses. And when a world was quarantined, it was not uncommon for a bird or two to be left behind. And in the silence, to pursue their own devices in absence of a purpose, try to enforce the parameters of their work without ever understanding why.

## Story 3 - Losing Children

Jacob Wicker sits at the dinner table with his family the night of the events that transpired in Episode 130 - Cradles. The rest of the Wicker children go upstairs to bed, leaving him alone with Mrs. Wicker, who tells him that she hadn't told him to shoot the Vicar. He tells her that it wasn't anything she hadn't done to Bob Wicker, but she stands by that he'd killed him in cold blood. Jacob reminds her that The Vicar was going to kill Jedediah Wicker, but despite this Mrs. Wicker stands that they could have just left him, and Jacob should not have brought his father into the argument. She reminds him that Bob had used to beat him and his siblings, but he tells her that her killing him was so that she could beat them instead.

He tells her that she was going to lose them, explain to her that she was the reason Johannah Wicker ran away from home all the time, she was just as bad as the people she claimed to protect them from. He tells her that they were all waiting until they were old enough to leave, and if Mrs. Wick didn't change she was going to be alone someday. She asks if he was suggesting she raise them without discipline, but he tells her that discipline was a bad excuse, they were not her property, he knew she loved them, and because of that she may still have a chance with the other children, be he was already gone. He stands up from the table and heads for the front door, she attempts to demand him to sit down again, but he tells her that he'd said all he needed to, picking up the plastic cane she'd used to beat them (see Episode 61 - Protectors), snapping it in two and throwing it on the floor. She asks him where he was going, but he just tells her that he wasn't sticking around anymore. He leaves, find the Freedom Egals waiting for him outside, having organised for them to pick him up, and he climbs into one of the trucks. They leave Fort Freedom, heaving for The Church of The Hallowed Name with plans of burning it down.

## Outro - Crossings

Nikignik waxes poetics about crossings. Telling the Dreamers that there was a chasm beneath them, and they were already upon the bridge they must cross. What lay beneath may change, from train tracks to stream and river to deep gulch and glade. It was upon these crumbling stones that their journey would traverse it all. They may never see the other side in their lifetimes, for they did not live very long. But if there was an end in sight, a day where the crossing from one age into the next was finally completed, when they return to the solid ground from whence they'd come, he tells them that he would let them know.