• Takes its Toll by BloodBonesNerves (Pathologic, Burakhovsky)

╰┈• Daniil is staring into Inquisitor Aglaya Lilich’s piercing eyes, feeling his throat tighten and his stomach twist into knots. He has encountered Inquisitors before, briefly. In his experience every Inquisitor shares the same disquieting aura, and Aglaya is no exception.

“Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky. Graduated aged twenty-one, Summa Cum Laude from the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy. An early achiever, most don’t graduate until twenty-three.”

There is no question in her voice but Daniil nonetheless feels compelled to respond. “I have always been an adept student, Inquisitor.”

“I can see that. Shortly afterwards you and a cohort of colleagues went on to found your laboratory, Thanatica, yes? Let’s see – that would make you twenty-nine now, if I’m not mistaken.” Her face remains neutral. It would be an innocuous question to an outside observer, but Daniil knows what the implication was.

It is almost thirteen years prior and you are lowering a suitcase out of your second story window by a bedsheet tied around the handle. It is just after midnight on October 23rd. In a few short hours it will be exactly 17 years since the child who would become Daniil Dankovsky was born. Having successfully placed the heavy bag on the ground as soundlessly as possible, you scrabble out of the window and down into the street below, armed only with the ill-fitting clothes on your back, a pocketful of socked-away cash, and a one-way train ticket to the capital. You don't look back.

Official documentation said that Daniil Ilyich Dankovsky was born on March 15th, making him thirty years of age. He doubts that the Inquisitor is loose enough with the facts to have misremembered a fact as simple as his age. She knows everything then.

“You flatter me, Inquisitor, but I am a man of thirty,” he says with as much neutrality as he can muster.

“Ah, my mistake.” Her lips curl into a disconcerting smile. Her face doesn’t seem accustomed to the movement; she resembles an uncanny wax figure – a facsimile of human expression. “Tell me what brought you here to this place, Daniil. May I call you Daniil?”

His discomfort spikes at the sound of his name from her lips. “Call me whatever you wish, Inquisitor. I came at the invitation of one of the admirers of my work, the late Isidor Burakh. He and Simon Kain both were dead when I arrived, so I may never know why exactly I came here, I fear.”

“What terrible luck. What were you hoping for old Burakh and Kain to tell you, I wonder?”

“I-” he wavers for a moment before deciding on the truth. “I had intended to study Simon. It is said he had an unnaturally long life. I had hoped to discover the cause of his longevity.”

“Ah, yes. Your obsession with Death is well known, doctor.” She unlaces her fingers from behind her back and steps forward. She’s uncomfortably close, but he cannot show weakness by stepping back. He won’t roll over like a dog. She cocks her head slightly, sizing him up. “Tell me, Daniil, do you remember the first time we met?” He balks. He feels that he should remember any previous encounter with this unnerving woman. “I apologize, Inquisitor, but I believe you have me at a bit of a disadvantage here.

“It’s quite alright. I was but one in a crowd of many. In the capital you drew people to you in droves; they were all like moths to the lantern, jockeying to bask in the glow of your presence. You must miss being so well-received everywhere you go. You’re out of your element here.”

“Yes, I’m well aware.” He is racking his brain, attempting to recall where and when he could have possibly seen this woman before today.

“I can see the gears turning, don’t fret, doctor. Do you remember the presentation you gave three summers ago at Lamarka’s? The dead woman?”

Daniil does remember. He had been performing a demonstration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a volunteer. The woman agreed to have her heart stopped via electrical current in order to be revived. Her hope had been to catch a glimpse beyond the veil. He had never asked her what she had seen in those short minutes. Aglaya looks different than the woman who approached him to animatedly question him about his methods. She has a harder edge and her raven hair is now streaked with white. “The reanimation, yes, but you said your name was…”

“Stella – Stella Karstlich,” she freely admits. “To be candid, I came by out of sheer curiosity. I had neither a mission nor any mercenary interests, but you did make a strong impression on me. The woman’s skin was gray and her lips blue. I saw the haze clear from her eyes and the color return to her. An impossibility, and yet…” She appears lost in the reverie for a moment before returning. “You were so young, yet your fervor burned like a beacon fire to all who could see you. It is no surprise that you had your share of patrons and admirers.”

The use of past-tense stings, but she isn’t wrong. I had patrons, I don’t have them. “It isn't sheer curiosity nor my passionate nature that has driven you here today, is it?”

“Indeed it isn’t. And to be frank I haven’t come for a cure either.”

Of course she hasn't. “Forgive me for not being shocked. I had a feeling that panaceas and vaccines were far from the only tool in your kit, Inquisitor.” Aglaya’s admission of sneaking into his lecture had loosened his tongue. He is aware that this was almost certainly her intention, but he doesn’t stop himself from continuing. She already knows too much. “I’ve had my own interactions with the Powers That Be. I find their methods to favor destruction, rather than preservation or progress.”

If she is affected by his words, she doesn’t show it. “Events have taken an unexpected turn, Daniil. We have a lot to discuss and a lot to do. I'll be as brief as possible. All this time someone has been trying to kill you, deceive you, and use your authority and passion for the truth to achieve criminal goals. Would you like to know more?” “I don’t think I have much of a choice but to listen.”

“Now you're beginning to understand, doctor. You believe that you came here on your own accord? Your precious Thanatica is in ruins: your patrons fled, your colleagues castigated, disgraced, and scattered to the four winds. Your last hope rested in Simon Kain, in the possibility of a spectacular, unignorable discovery. To find something shocking – proof of your theory of functional immortality.” Her eyes are wide and bright. Daniil gets the impression that she has thought about this very conversation for days. He doesn’t move to respond, so Aglaya continues.

“Then you come across this allegedly-coincidental letter from Isidor Burakh, and here you are. So timely! Isn't it? And, as luck would have it, old Burakh, the only local physician, dies hours before your feet hit the train platform. He didn't die of the disease, did he? As I’ve been told, he was murdered. But luck is on the side of the public! You are in this remote area, and so you are ordered to come back with the shield, so to speak. Victory is the only option that's been left for you.” He is being laid bare. The points are connecting in his mind, but he refuses to believe the conclusion that they are leading to. “You’re playing with fire here, Aglaya. Who are you loyal to?”

She actually huffs out a laugh and smiles the same uncanny grin. It makes Daniil’s hair stand on end. “You will find out soon enough, I fear. The first part of the game is over, Daniil. The Powers That Be gave you a task with a catch: to learn the truth. They set a definitive condition: this truth has to be nice. The problem must be solved cleanly. The bow must be tied on this little present just so. Your honor and the fate of your laboratory were at stake. Would you care to learn something?”

“Please enlighten me, Inquisitor. My fate seems to be of such personal interest to you.”

“Thanatica has already been destroyed. There's nothing left; the place itself is in ruins, your research is in ashes. Everything is gone, dear Bachelor. Your own contact, Telman, made sure of it.”

The air goes from his lungs, like the sensation of being plunged into ice cold water. This can’t be happening. He was supposed to have time. His life’s work can’t just be gone. He feels unstable on his feet. “You’re lying to me,” he finally is able to say. “This is some Inquisitorial mind game that I can’t comprehend.”

“It is not, I assure you. I know how much you appreciate the truth – so do I. I am a seeker of truth by profession and by nature. Let me be clear with you, I consider you to be my equal and so there is no reason for me to lie to you. I believe you deserve to know when you are being toyed with. I expect a similar level of cooperation from you in return.”

None of this is real. Aglaya has clearly lost herself. The job of Inquisitor is unmerciful. Most children who are hand-picked for their ranks never complete the rigorous education and training required. Many go mad. It appears that her break from reality was only delayed. “You would have me believe that the Powers That Be have arranged this grand plot to destroy my life’s work, the work that was already on the verge of being discredited and relegated to obscurity? That they somehow orchestrated two murders in an inconsequential Steppe-Town to coincide with my arrival, Burakh’s arrival, and the arrival of a deadly plague? You rebuked Burakh for his words, yet there is insanity pouring out of your mouth here today that you do not even recognize!”

“What is it that you believe you can do here, Daniil? What have your tests produced? An irreplicable panacea that comes from an as-of-yet unidentified source? You would do well to understand that you have been sent here on a fool’s errand to fight an adversary that inherently cannot be beaten. To keep you on the path they insisted that this adversary must be destroyed – that your precious lab depended on it. Don’t you see how insidious the Powers That Be are?” Her voice is losing its practiced affect. Her chest visibly rises and falls with her shallow breathing. She is scared, he realizes. She closes her eyes for a moment and stills herself, perhaps realizing that she has tipped her hand too much. The inquisitor's mask falls back into place. She continues. “The very logic of our world dictates the destruction of anything unnatural: anything that tries to break its own, non-capitalized laws. This disease is nothing more than a tool. It is an instrument of inevitability.”

“There are no inevitabilities, only improbabilities,” he spits out. The axiom feels as true as it ever has coming from his mouth. “We once believed that the Earth was the center of the cosmos and that our bodies were fueled by divine aether. Hell, we believed infection to be an inexorable curse from vindictive gods until Pasteur and Snow and Semmelweis before them proved the existence of pathogens!”

“You are still unable to see clearly, Daniil. When mysterious evil emerges from nonexistence, it's a clear sign that law has been violated. This disease is a retribution for trespassers. It's an attempt to restore the balance. Indeed, we did believe ourselves to be the center of the cosmos, and in many ways we were correct. What is the universe without a watcher? This town is its own miniscule cosmos. It's too remote, too distant from the rest of the world to serve as an effective part of any other mechanism, so it is a mechanism in and of itself. A mechanism that's been disrupted. There must have been a flaw, a blemish, a redundant detail, perhaps. I want to find it. You will either be an ally in this endeavor or we both shall perish.”

Daniil sneers. “Throw myself in with a cracked Inquisitor bound for the sanitarium, or more likely the firing squad? No, thank you, I believe I’ll cast my lot in with Burakh instead.”

“I hope for both of our sakes that you will come to realize the mistake you are making, doctor.” Her face betrays no anger, perhaps a bit of disappointment. “Go. Try to squeeze blood from a stone. When the futility of your actions finally sinks in you will hope I am still here to offer you a hand.”

He stands there, face-to-face with the Inquisitor, trying to ascertain any hint of manipulation. She seems genuine, determined – would he even be capable of telling if she was lying? His body is buzzing with the tale she has spun. He suddenly feels sick to his stomach. Without another word he turns and crosses the nave of the Cathedral to exit. 

He makes it through the stone arch in the fence to the east that leads to the Stillwater before he doubles over and retches into the dry grass.

╰┈• It is the summer of your eighth year – Ersher’s twelfth. You are running through the Steppe. It’s green, not yet far enough removed from the rains of late spring to have shriveled and dried. The grass nearly reaches to your chest, the odd errant blade tickles your face as you sprint by. Ersher is pursuing you, his longer legs covering twice as much ground. You realize years later that he always let you lead the chase, for a while at least.

You run for what feels like hours to your child’s mind. Eventually Ersher catches you, hoisting you up with two arms around your middle.

“Got you, dүү khүbүүn!”

You screech and yelp, scrabbling to be let down, but Ersher only laughs and spins the both of you around – once, twice, three times. His footing wobbles and the both of you spill to the ground, screeching like foxes. You’re gulping air to catch your breath between giggles. Ersher pulls himself up. He drops an ear to your back, listening.

"Your soom is fleeing you, Tem.”

“My what?”

“Here.” He pulls your hand up over your chest. “Reach for your zurkhen, the beating. Feel how close together they are?” You close your eyes and grasp for the threads – no, the Lines. The nest of them below your hand thunders, thudding wildly with the exertion of your game.

“It’s so loud.”

“Now breathe with me.” You open your eyes to look into your brother’s face. He inhales through his nose and holds the air in his lungs for a few seconds before letting the breath escape out of his mouth. You follow him; you always do. In, hold, out, in again. The thundering slows until the ‘tu-tump’ is followed by a distinct hush each time.

“There’s quiet in between now.”

Ersher cracks a wide smile. “Good! That’s your soom. The place between places. Aba calls it the living emptiness.”

You consider the word. “Empty doesn’t sound good.”

Ersher flops down into the grassy cocoon you’ve wallowed into the ground, hands tucked behind his head, staring into the cloudless blue sky above. “We aren’t meant to be full all the time.”

• Dress Us in Blue & Silver written by imdeadtiredTM, That1Notetaker (HiJack, HTTYD, RoTG crossover fanfic)

╰┈• Hiccup can draw from memory, some things better than others, but there’s something satisfying about reproducing something you can see; a commingle between learning and witnessing. Something to fall back to when creativity has shut off for the remaining day, and the drive hasn’t.

╰┈• He hums, noncommittal. Grabbing a small, thin fallen branch, he swirls it around the quiet surface. Once the tips are below the surface, it disappears instantly. The ripples start at the edges of the lake, the pulse creeping towards the stick like a video played backwards, like the rippling muscles of an esophagus. Wave–particle duality turned inside out. Absorption rather than fluctuation. Hiccup stares at the motions, the surface making slight creases like crinkled sheet fabric, a cold chill crawling up his spine.

However, a small part of Hiccup is groaning at himself, saying words like: hey, idiot. How would you feel if someone prodded you with a stick? The larger part of Hiccup, the one that’s about 60% water and whatever’s left in charge of his decision tasking skills, keeps swirling the stick, intrigued—there’s probably a leak in the brain, somewhere. 

Hiccup knows he can glance at the nigrescent surface, the obsidian gleam when the ripples hit the sun, but never touch. Technically, he isn’t. Here as he honest-to-god pokes at it with a stick, but there’s nothing to be said about partaking.   The incoming ripples are rhythmical in their beating, the minute swells hypnotic in their reversed tide, throbbing like a hyaline heart. Cold to the eye, ice to the vein, the circular spokes which ring the edges like collagen fibers to the eye: when Hiccup looks, something looks back. Distantly, he realizes that he's swaying, his pace matching the mute rhythm, brought to a lull and eyes heavy lidded. 

His pupils flicker, withdrawing from the ripples, and he realizes only then that he has no reflection. The lake reflects absolutely nothing, not the sun, not the trees, not the clouds. Nothing. Greedy thing won't even reflect the light, the dark eddies that settle deep in the woods like a pool of oil, a translucent film. He feels that hunger in it, that ever-present hum which sits between the epidermis and the wry muscle of his frame buzzes through him like fine wine, the nerve fibers fizzing. The ringing in his ears intensifies as he leans it, caught in its terrible maw.

The pulsing quickens.

Something behind him bellows, the howl earth-shattering, the sound dragged out to a babbling hiss behind him, bursting the drift. 

Drift. Drifting where?

Hiccup blinks before a bolt of awareness hits him, the nerves molten from the lightning strike. Like a bullet to the brain.

Hiccup nearly trips and falls right into the lake then, before his good leg shifts and counters the weight. He almost breathed into it, a lake which continues to do nothing but wait, as if nothing happened. Eyes wide, his heart throbs in his chest, the sound thudding in his ears. “Shit, crap—” so maybe, the lake doesn’t share the wind's sense of humor—but his life has a dark sense of humor. 

• Can't Smile Like You Mean It When You're Tongue Tied by Sockhead_42 (HiJack, HTTYD, RoTG, The Big Four, and a lot of other fandoms, crossover fanfic)

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