Episode 140 - Sacrifices

## Sacrifices

A black background with a white, asymmetrical border. Within the border two hands are depicted touching index fingers, positioned in a way that is likely a reference to "The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo. The hand on the left is skeletal and depicted in white, and the hand on the right is covered in human eyes and depicted in red. In the space between them white dots like stars are depicted. Below this image but still within the border the words "140.SACRIFICES" is depicted in white.

### Author

William A. Wellman

Percy reaches the north, Mort makes a friend, and Diggory completes their purpose. The theme of tonight’s episode is Sacrifices.

> ***Content warning**: Abuse, Animal death (Bert, Heidi as usual), Several suicidal themes + mentions, Violence, Kidnapping and abduction, Death + Injury, Blood, Character Death, Birds, Static (including sfx), Emotional Manipulation, Drowning, Body Horror, Consumption of Inedible Materials (Mort). Life Support*
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## Intro - Deep Wounds

Nikignik speaks to the Dreamers as if he were addressing Marolmar, calling him "all that [he] loved". He recounts to the Dreamers his neglect from the Council of Heavens, but Marolmar had noticed him with a fascination. He'd known Marolmar was troubled, that he could not always let him in, and he'd never needed an apology for it. He'd known he cared, so he asks that he not think Nikignik was forgetting him as he prepared to stop his heart.

Nikignik resides at the doors of the Council of Heavens, and at the spire of ice with Diggory Graves and Mort (see Episode 137 - Snares).

## Story 1 - Die a Martyr

Percy Reed approaches Diggory Graves and Mort at the spire of ice above the Heart of Marolmar (see Episode 137 - Snares), Diggory noticing him before Mort, and Percy tackle hugs them in a rush of emotion. He tells them that he was relieved, ash he'd thought he'd never find them again (see Episode 139 - Splinters), and Diggory apologises for telling Percy to break his wire (see Episode 122 - Creeps). Percy forgives them and ask if Cindy Lockheart was there. Diggory tells him that it was only them and Mort, asking of Percy had seen the others. Percy explains to them what had happened with Riot Maidstone and Clara Martin (see Episode 139 - Splinters), that he hadn't seen Olivier Song (see Episode 129 - Cats). Diggory explains their plan to drop the remaining explosives on the heart, and if that didn't work, they tell him about Irene Mend and her plan (see Episode 120 - Wilds).

Percy refuses to let them do this, but Diggory reminds them that if they did not them everyone they loved would also die. Percy acknowledges this but tells Diggory that it wouldn't affect the two of them, that they would live on after it. Diggory tells him that they hoped someday he'd understand why they were making this sacrifice asking that once he made it back to the Scoutpost they he told everyone about that they'd done this for them. Percy tells them that they didn't get to do this, that they were the second person in his life to have tried and he wasn't going to let them die a martyr. Percy disappears into the wind.

### Interlude 1 - Flood the World

Nikignik tells the Dreamers that if they lived in the Northern Hallowoods, they should brace for impact, the new age was coming soon, and they would see shortly what kind of age it was. Either the heart would stop beating, and then their lives will go on. time would pass and they would notice things slowly returning to how they were before the night of Black Rains. Or the heart would erupt as the spring began, and the world would be flooded venom, and life itself would twist into shapes not yet dreamt of, and they would lose themselves within the eternal call of the garden.

## Story 2 - Start Again

Mort sits next to a hole in the ice he'd dug to watch the fishes in the ocean bellow (see Episode 3 - Books). He reflects of how he felt that he was scared. He had only pretended to be brave when he'd told Yaretzi to go back to the forest (see Episode 137 - Snares), because he wasn't expecting the survive the explosion. He's interrupted in his thoughts when Diggory approaches him, telling him that it was time they start.

Mort asks if Diggory know how to detonate the explosives, as he couldn't do it with his gloves. Diggory tells him that they remembered how and asks Mort about how they were going to stage their timing of the two them going down. Mort expresses confusion, as he was under the interpretation that he was the only one who'd be descending. Diggory tells him that he didn't have to, as they would be going down as well. The two begin to argue over who should go down, until Mort tells Diggory that he'd beat them to the heat, and dives into the water.

### Marketing - Friend's House

Lady Ethel Mallory interrupts Nikignik's broadcast with her 'marketing' segment. She narrates her approach of Solomon Reeds house, congratulating herself for having made it and wondering what Solomon Reed would say when he saw her. She trails off when she comes to the clearing the house used to be in and finds it's burned out remains (see Episode 46 - Teeth), and the forest's reclamation of the yard. She morns this loss, more so for her waisted effort then Solomon's death. She decides that the 'new' Lady Ethel wasn't getting her anywhere, so she'd bring the 'old' lady Ethel back, and the first thing she was going to do was go back to California and bite Oswald Biggs Botulus's head off.

### Story 2, Continued - Start Again

Mort and Diggory descend together, Diggory attempting and failing to wrestle the control panel from Mort. Then the water around them moves, and (similar to in Episode 136 - Faults) Creep - having survived Cindy's attempt to kill it - takes on both the forms of Mort and Diggory. Mort accuses it of having killed Cindy, but it points out that Cindy had killed herself. It tells them that it'd been agonising putting itself back together, bit it was just in time to rain on their parade. Mort tells it that he had one question for it before it killed them, before taking his suit off and handing it to Diggory. Mort lets himself float up to Creep and asks it if it would be his friend before allowing it to consume him.

Mort dreams himself to be on the beach one bones, with Bert (see Episode 115 - Fishes) as she pecked at a piece of blue fabric (see Episode 7 - Nightmares) and Creep in an anthropomorphic shape. Mort asks if the beach was Creep, and it tells him it was, though the moments on the beach never lasted long, it devoured everything it loved and then it was lonely again. It would only take a moment for Mort's bones to settle amongst the rest, and then it'd be alone on the beach again. Mort tells it that when he was lonely, he used to pretend that the fish here his friends, and then he left the fish and made real friends. Creep tells him that tit didn't understand what he was getting at, as no one was going it be it's friend. Mort tells it that from now on they were going to be friends, offering a handshake. Creep says it isn't sure as it only hurt people, but Mort tells it not anymore as they were the same, and thing were going to be different now. The remains of Mort slip away, and Bartholomew 'Barty' Chum takes Creeps hand in his, and tells him "let's begin again".

### Interlude 2 - Blame Me

And with that, Mort ceases to be. Or continues to be, in a different way. That is what it always is, although I am not sure you can see it from your mortal position on the coil.

Did I know? When I woke him up from his slumber in the laundry room of the hotel where he was comforted and safe and loved, that it would come to this?

No. Of course not. Not exactly. But I had my suspicions, perhaps. Truth be told, to venture into this North, the guarded realm of Marolmar’s heart, is death for all who trespass. Yaretzi does not dream; she peels across the snow and finds a smoldering umbrella in the ice. She will not know for a while yet. And Apollyon is a world away. Neither of them will know yet, then, that Mort is gone. And I have done it.

I never wanted to hurt any of you, dreamer, with rare exception for marketing employees and annoying little men with guns. I did not think when I began this narrative that I would lead any of its members to their demise.

You can blame me, dreamer. It is alright. Yes. I have made a choice, to ultimately try and help you. Allow you to live. Not just you, but millions of dreamers upon your world. And if you think I have done wrong by trading one life for all of yours, you would be right to think so, I am sure.

But we can not linger long in grief, not yet. There will be a time for it. We go now to one who sinks into an empty ocean.

## Story 3 - The Heart - 2

### Closing statements - 4

A ghost flies against the wind, without care for where he is going. His home is nowhere if not Diggory.

Another spirit hovers alongside a girl on a broom, bound southwards for the black pines, bound for ritual and redemption.

A weather witch reaches from a frigid balcony for the clouds, and they do not respond to her call, and she weeps cerulean tears.

A wolf holds an umbrella in her jaws, and weeps gold as she flees the ice barrens, and knows that her home and family have been lost in a day for the second time.

An old groundskeeper holds his sweetheart close, both long dead phantoms, and waits for the ice to shatter beneath their feet as the Grackle roosts and croaks.

A black expanse escapes the song of the arctic ocean.

A frog walks back from the arctic into the Northmost.

The Faceless King stands beside a long-dead German Shepherd; they wait patiently together over a torn yellow hat. A court of rats study the mysteries of the stars above, hoping for answers.

A father who knows each plant in Ontario, or at least he used to before they turned stranger every spring, holds his child and the other German Shepherd close, and hopes they can survive one more tribulation.

A girl who walks in dream searches against hope for any sign of her friends returning from the North.

Six siblings, each sewn from a dozen lifetimes, comfort each other in the early darkness, and mourn the seventh, already long gone.

A girl who began life fully formed, and yet has had to find her own substance, comforts her broken mother, a place she finds herself in too often.

Two elderly scouts look up at the sky, as the earth shakes, and wonder if their world is about to end for the second time of their lives. If it does, they will face it like the last one, together.

A former security guard and a former secretary for the most powerful woman in the world watch too, and worry for what future waits for their unborn child.

In the Spirit Sky Observatory, the Ascended Scientists of Xyzikxyz spread their wings and prepare to take flight.

An outcast from Fort Freedom stands on the ramparts of the Scoutposts, and wonders idly if Rick Rounds is still alive. His attention is diverted as he spies the survivors of the Downing Hill Fire, making their way for the safety of the Scoutpost.

In a dark lake, many liches wake at once, for their dreams have been disturbed by the vibration of the water, stirring hibernating frogs from their lungs.

Journeying North alongside a headless rider and a deathly steed, a grave keeper wonders idly if Buck is still alive. What he would say. Who he has become.

An invisible man returns inside, from welcoming the Friends of Zelda, to discover that the bed of his impromptu guest is empty, and he does not know where the man with the wooden arm has gone, and his green-finned lover comforts him.

A giant nestles with his dogs in the Find a Friend Animal Center and waits for the forest to stop shaking.

At Fort Freedom, a terrible mother prays in the living room, with her children gathered around. She prays that revelation will not come to pass just yet. She prays for more time.

Lady Ethel Mallory marches through the forest, lunging out to snap the trunks of trees as she passes in rage, and sets her sights on the silver angles of Box Polaris. I don’t care about her.

An old woman clasps her hands around the eye of Nikignik, and watches the end arrive.

A cat in many places surveys these potentially final moments. It is disgusting.

In the old chapel of the Church of the Hallowed Name, a woman who has given everything to the church prays before a painting of a field of sunflowers, and a hand of silver bones reaches out from the canvas.

In the Blackwood Coven, grandmothers and mothers and daughters raise their hands around a bent tree, and praise the coming spring.

Two vampires, and a head of crystal, and an eyeless corpse of mummified flesh, and Zorgelleck, gather what they can from the fallen hotel and know that something terrible has happened.

An automobile’s wheels touch the concrete floor of the Streets of Yesterday for the first time in months.

A man blessed by the spring walks hand-in-hand with a Herald of the Garden of the End, descends a mountain of little stones to walk together in the wastes of Marolmar’s World.

One who speaks to Moths opens moth’s eyes and pulls a dreaming visor free from moth’s head, and wakes from the endless nightmare.

The world’s most powerful man turns down reports of dangerous seismic activity and the alarming power surges from the Engine in the arctic. His son is all he cares for now, and the potential that comes with him; to save humanity in his own way. His dedicated scientist hatches his own schemes in the shadows.

A museum keeper holds a baby with the head of a beetle in their hands as the legs of the museum scrape on ice below.

An auditor, burning with hellfire and iron, pauses in his endless journey across America to acknowledge me. I am too sickened to return it.

A donut baker prepares a fresh batch for the morning, and looks outside the window, wondering what customers the dawn might bring.

A spirit in a Toronto apartment waves at a passing biologist; he is carried by a weed from beyond the stars, its blooms changed to thistles for the colder weather.

And of course, there is you, dreamer, sleeping as you should at this hour of the morning, before dawn. Perhaps wondering what this will mean for your world. I hope it will be a good life that follows this, dreamer. I hope that time, with all its blessings, will allow you to forgive me.

And Diggory’s pale eyes flicker as they dream a last dream, of a beach of bones, of their pasts and their singular future. The timer of their explosives, a blast large enough to cleave apart this dread machine, ticks into its last minutes, but they have enough time after all. Any moment now they will wake, and draw the pulsing flame of the Heart of Marolmar into themselves, and it will end.

Wait.

There is another dreamer.

I have felt it, for the first time, just now. A fault line appears in the surface of the great machine.

This stone. This heart. It is hollow. Someone dreams inside. If I venture a little closer, perhaps…

No. No, it cannot be....

Marolmar? Is that you?

### Until Next Time, Dreamers

*Remember, if you get a splinter, soak it in water. Soak your entire body in water. Stay there for hours. Every part of it. It is better than living with the splinter.*

## Trivia

* A standard season of Hello from the Hallowoods is 48 episodes long. Due to scheduling complications William A Wellman, the show's creator, had to make season 3 forty episodes long.