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It was a mistake. Jane saw that now, it had all been a terrible mistake (there was a reason it was Quentin Coldwater that always stepped up; the reason wasn’t what she had thought), she had underestimated the power of Prometheus and thought that she understood the keys after so long with the Time key. She had been wrong. He lasted fairly well, all things considered (she had never, never understood the power of his pain, the latent malicious power of it under his skin; of his utter lack of self-preservation, of what it meant that he had lasted as long as he had while his mind tired to destroy him from the inside out), she knew that before he was He Quentin liked to think that he would have found a way had it not been for her (she knew he thought often in those early decades that that was sort of the story of his life wasn't it, "if it hadn't been for Jane"). But he couldn’t last forever after his Key took hold and the Abyss Key had always been a bit more than the others, unlike her Time Key; and once the last of his small group was gone….well. He only lasted a few decades, just long enough to start forgetting how long it had been since the twisted up mass of power was dumped in him when he first came to the Blackspire with the Abyss Key; just long enough for love to have dulled in his eyes for people long gone with whom he had never truly had closure. And when the love dimmed and he forgot to hold on, forgot why he had to, He was forged; the Black King they called him Jane knew, this mix of depression-niffin and godling, just like they called her Lady Time.She regretted it of course, wished that she hadn’t found Prometheus and the secret of the Key and used it on her Time Key to go straight to her knight without thought or understanding of what she was doing or becoming herself (she hadn’t known then what she was, that she had already become more than human, something eldritch and strange; all she had thought was that this power could help the boy who had always helped her and so she took the Flame to him – wherever he was); it was in bringing the Flame to the Key that it was forged into what it embodied and with the Abyss Key in Blackspire which had long stunk of ancient pain…. There had been a being there, old and powerful and dark. The lighted Abyss Key consumed it in seconds for it had nothing bright left – God Killer or no its own pain killed it and Quentin, the brave child – the heart broken man, had stepped up as he had to stay in that hellhole and claimed the Key, unlocking the Black King from his own darkness though he held it at bay for far longer than anyone could have asked. Jane hadn’t know what to do, standing there as something new herself facing a being more powerful than even she, holding the Flame in a room of Keys….She had fled, dragging Quentin with her though he hadn’t fought her, she had hidden the flame in the Abyss where only Quentin could find it (she no longer trusted herself and didn’t yet understand) and spent as much time as she could (and she could spend time forever, it was after all, what she was made of) trying to help Quentin come to terms with his new power. The first thing he did when he was calm was rip the controls on magic from the gods and rip it into many parts; some for the two of them as Embodiments, some for gods if they kept their worshipers, some for the land in its own right, some for mortals and all they lost. It was a wild act and reaped wild consequences and as he rested (unconscious) she set about finding the other Keys and gathering them so that this couldn’t happen again – though she didn’t actually disagree with Quentin’s actions. It was in that quest that she met his friends again, Kady cared little just glad magic was back and Penny 23 even less though he knew enough to be warry of what Quentin might become; Alice….died. Jane didn’t ask how. Margo raged, Josh was high, Julia was numb, but Elliot…. If there had ever been another that had almost taken Quentin’s place in these time loops it was him and always it the two of them were inextricably linked (in 23 it was only after Elliot was dead that Quentin was lost, Alice or no Alice) so perhaps it wasn’t so surprising to see him after Quentin had vanished.But still, she was surprised. He was…broken, agonized and stunned with regret and loss, not numb like Julia (for whom it was always a little bit about herself, good person or not) juts…broken. Like he and he alone understood what he had lost and it was far greater than she could understand; he looked at her with hollow eyes from his throne, the lone filled chair in the room as the other’s gathered dust. “No starting over this time” he said, it wasn’t a question but Jane shook her head slowly anyway, wondering if, on some level they didn’t remember the other loops for him to hurt so deeply – like his Shade was cracked down the center. He nodded, eyes dry not from lack of tears but from inability of the body to cry any more, “Is he dead?” he asked then eyes intent on her’s and Jane sighed deeply, not sure what to say. “Not….quite, but, functionally, yes. And soon…” she shrugged, “Its not like the Beast, like Martin,” (his name still hurt, even after all this time) “but – the power that he took…it is no longer compatible with this plane.” She thought. Maybe. It seemed the kindest thing to say at the time but as soon as she did, as she told him that Quentin wasn’t coming back, something went out in those hazel eyes and Jane was suddenly sure that Elliot would not live long now.He nodded again, looking down and held up his Key, the first Key, murmuring something to the gold and then held it out to her, no questions. She took it, feeling residual warmth in the gold and felt oddly like she should apologize (she had thought she was over that years ago, loops ago, right about 10), or offer condolences like to a widower; but they had never been that to one another, not in any of the loops, and…he didn’t look like he would care. So, she left. She went back to the In Between and the slumbering Quentin and hid the Keys in herself they way she had hidden the Flame in him; settling down for a long watch as time spiraled past, and they Outlasted.The Black King looked out over the In Between, the ever spreading Abyss unrolling over the words as failing gods faltered and fell and died; despair and pain consuming all into the darkness from whence it had come. He was clothed in night, bracers of blood on his arms engraved with the names of the lost, his hair a long fall that faded from hair to whispering shadow around his hips and brushed the ground when he walked to murmur despair, his face gaunt he knew, shadowed eternally but for fever bright eyes of no discernible color and the bells on his crown of pain made a low, terrible sound now at the end of worlds. “Will you not stop it?” the voice was soft as the ticking of a clock and the Black King tipped his head slightly to look at his sister, the Lady Time glowing softly golden with her red hair and emerald green dress; the clockwork cornet on her fiery red head slowing as he watched (even time died). “Why would I?” He asked absently, watching another world vanish into the dark, “Everything has its time and everything dies, from the dark we have come to the dark we must go. Something else will rise perhaps. Or not. But Darkness will fall.”His sister pursed her lips, jaw tightening, and He turned slightly to her, a faint whisper of surprise threading through Him “You are the one that lit the Key and opened the lock in the heart of the most powerful darkness in the worlds, you are the one that finished Prometheus’s work and Embodied us that we might balance the universe again to see lite have a chance; why do you act so surprised?” His sister looked away to another falling world, her face conflicted, “It was never meant to be like this.” she whispered and He frowned, “It was always meant to be like this, to Darkness we go in the end.” He disagreed and she shook her head “Not that, I can see as you can that this was always the fate of the Universe in Time. But – the other Keys remain unopened, we are perhaps the most powerful but to have the others unfulfilled…and –“ she hesitated, looking uncertain. It had been a long time since He had seen her uncertain. “You cannot close the door once it has been opened.” The Black King murmured, he had been Forged, he could not be undone even with her power for he existed beyond even her reach now; in every shadow and every ache and every end, he was the Embodiment of the Abyss and he existed out of her Time.But still she shook her head, she had never mined before that she was no lit in a place of power for her Key like he had been so it was unlikely to be that and she knew that both of them would end – her when the Abyss took the last time and Him when the Abyss ignited into new light again. As it always had. As it always would. “It is not that, I know what we have done but the unopened Keys weigh on me, the potential that was lost for more that our time could have been had things not gone so awry.” The potential mattered little to the Black King, it was in her nature to always want more time (it was why she had been chosen, why the Key had burned for her), but the other…that the other Keys weighed on her was a little more interesting. “The Keys bother you?” He asked, glancing back as a strange world was consumed, a tiny pang whispering through Him like the scent of opium on the air. His sister winced at the world’s demise, looking to him again and his feverish gaze, “They do, I was wrong to take them and not light them. I understood so little then…and –“ another hesitation, He was getting bored of them and she could see it “The first Key, it – it belonged to someone once, someone that held you dear. I did not understand then but I do now, what he did that day when he gave it to me; he bound something to it in the hopes it would find its way to you, I never passed it on as you seemed to not care but….to leave the words unsaid even at the end of all things feels – wrong.”…..The King looked at her for a long moment, not sure what to do with the writhing pain in His heart or where it had come from, “I do not remember.” He said finally, a touch irked as his sister pursed her lips, “I know, but, you are the Abyss, the place men scream to in the night – it is your duty to hear what he wanted you to hear before the end.” And in her hand was a golden Key, the first Key, the Illusion Key that made His breath catch for some reason and the bells tolled again, low and sad. Slowly He reached out, black gloved fingers hesitating for a moment but He was as much His nature as she hers and He could not stop from probing a wound; His fingers curled around the gold and He lifted it, closing His eyes and listening, “Q, its me, Elliot, I – I know it’s too late but…fifty years. Who get's proof of concept like that?” a wet sound “I wish I could have been braver for you – I wish I could have learned it from you. I –“ another choked noise “Peaches and plums, m-motherfucker.” And it slammed into Himhim all at once (Elliot), the pain, the sheer breath stopping agony of losing his love and his family and friend when he has just thought he was safe, the soul stopping moment when he never should have said a single damn word and maybe he could have kept the best thing in his world. He was made of loss, and this loss had broken himHim.Slowly the King that was Quentin open burning eyes that still reflected the light of Prometheus’s fire even after so long and looked at Hhis sister-who-was-also-Jane, “What have you done?” Hhe whispered, something that in another would have been anger lining hHis words and sister-Jane firmed her jaw. “I can’t stop this” she waved at where one last world still burned against the dark “I can’t stop you becoming now that you have, I can’t give you back what you lost in my crusade. But. Honestly, this is always going to happen and I think I can go back one more time, one last loop so you can have him, ignite him with his Key, ignite them all but for the sake of all that it good; do not be alone in the end, not like you are now.” Hhe didn’t argue that she was there, not when he didn’t really even care (he would care if it was Elliot), but, still…”You would have a being such as I pretend to be human, live as a human and act as one? You think I would be successful? That it would be worth your own destruction so painfully? This promises a painless death of time, dragging it out to make another loop would leave you to die for the centuries of time that stretch between Now and Then.”And then Jane Chatwin tilted her chin up in the willful way she had and said “Fuck it. This is my fault I can pay for it, finally. I think I owe that at least. And it won’t be so bad, it will be worth it to play out the last story well.” a breath “I owe you brother, Quentin, let me pay my dues before the last world dies.” Which….there was much that could go wrong, but nothing to lose, not really; Darkness would always come and Hhe could always be the King, but…to see Elliot again….and there were ways to help his sister out after the other Keys were lit, she could hold out for a few decades while things were sorted. And – H-he could make sure Elliot was happy this time, safe, maybe with Mike (the real one), free; it would hurt but oh h-He was used to that and “Peaches and plums, m-motherfucker.” he had always been a sucker for the people he loved. “Well, I guess we had better get moving then, sister. It looks like Time is almost out.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Quentin Coldwater on the day of his alumni interview woke instantly, going from laying in the bed to standing in front of the mirror in a breath, the sound of whispers and far off sad bells following him like a perfume. He looked the same, hair an inch or two longer than it had been then he thought (maybe?), face gaunter and eyes over-bright with Prometheus fire, but much the same – close enough no one should notice the way the shadows clung a little too much or the odd distortion of his own. Eh, it would work, he wasn’t planning to be overly careful with this anyway; 41 – or, 42 if you counted the mosaic and well, Quentin did but Elliot didn’t, so. But he would call it 42 anyway, he rather liked the idea having read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in inpatient. It was….strange, being back in humanity, he had stuffed his power down as far as it would go, bending the burning dark into smaller and smaller shapes until he was something a bit like his human self again but still, it was a thin façade. He looked at Julia (beloved, hated, wonderful, and clever and fierce and a little too self-absorbed and used to getting her way – then again he had been no saint and was a certifiable Eldritch terror now that whispered doom and bells so. He probably shouldn’t judge) and suddenly thought, no, no she will not be falling the way she fell before; she will come the Breakbills and flourish and he would kill whatever his name was.But if Julia was fine and Jane was amusing (she knew that something was off about him He was sure) seeing Elliot on that sign….he wasn’t clutching his bag this time and his clothes were mostly shades of black (they aways turned black eventually, no matter what color he wore, it was a bit interesting in a unattached way) but still, Elliot, both more and less than last time Quentin saw him. Elliot. Who he never did get over after seeing all of once. His gaze was making the other man a little uncertain, though he didn’t think Elliot knew why and it was with only a little attention that Quentin choked out something close to what he had said when they first met; following the love of his life (and death) and drinking him in, wondering how to make him happiest. It certainly wouldn’t be with Him, Elliot was clearly a bit unnerved by Quentin as he left him at the test and that…hurt, it did, but He was made of hurt and it didn’t matter nearly as much as making Elliot happy. So Quentin turned right around at the test and walked to Dean Fogg’s office, entering straight through the closed door and shedding a bit of His human skin as his did; Jane- Eliza he supposed- was leaning over the desk and both of them froze at the sight of him swathed in shadow with a whipping crown on his head and the ringing of bells. “Here” He said, reaching out and pressing a finger to the outline of the Key she wore under her dress and watching it Ignite (there that should help his sister suffer less as she held this stable – also, turn about’s fair play and she still wouldn’t be as powerful as him lit here rather than a clockbarrows) and then tuning to the Dean “Call Julia in for the test, leaving her out improves nothing and Martin is chaff in my way.” the Dean stared and He smiled “Times run out, and I am not here to play.”(Later when the shadow king that was Quentin Coldwater was gone Fogg did as he was told, chilled to the bone at the power he saw in those eyes that made the Beast at his worst seem like a chew toy. Whatever he was, whatever had happened in the last Loop- they made it so far- it had changed everything and now he had an Eldritch Being living on his campus.) (A little further away Elliot Waugh walked back to the Physical Kids Cottage trying to ignore the goosebumps that covered his skin every since he had met those strange eyes; there was no doubt in his mind that Quentin Coldwater would get in- he reeked of magic- and the way the first year had looked at him….those fever bright eyes looked at him like – like Elliot was something wonderful, something rare and precious and treasured and even the very faint whispering and odd sound of bells hadn’t been enough to make him not crave to have more of that look directed at him. No matter how dark the man it came from was, that look was enough to warm Elliot down to his gut where he thought he would never feel safe and clean again.)Quentin flowed through his entrance into Breakbills with ennui induced ease, being ‘tested’ for his discipline by Fogg and sent to the Physical Kids Cottage without much comment and absently noting that Julia was headed to Knowledge with Penny (Penny didn’t look at Quentin, not because he didn’t notice Him but because he didn’t seem quite able to face the Abyss that lived in the younger man for instinctual fear it would look back at him; not that he knew that, only that Quentin chilled him to the bone and it pissed him off) but not spending much time with her. He didn’t know what to do with her now, he loved her in an absent way that was both habit and affection but she…she was so different from him – she had been a good goddess for a reason and an Embodiment was too different from a goddess for it to ever be comfortable for either of them though she didn’t know the difference. Honestly Alice was far more comfortable for him, she had been a niffin once and some whisper carried over through timelines so she understood Quentin better than most even if she was skittish as ever. In the Physical Kids Cottage it was Alice that gravitated to Quentin most, Elliot and Margo kept their distance and he didn’t blame them (he knew what He was) though he kept a sharp eye out for Elliot and someone that might make him happy (maybe he should look in Fillory?) and – well, it was hard not to look at Elliot when he was around, not when he ached for the other man in a well known way that felt quite like the Fire of Prometheus in his Abyss.“Q,” Alice murmured “are you ever going to make a move? You’re always watching him but you’re not even trying to be friends with him.” Quentin dragged his eyes away from Elliot making drinks to look at Alice, her pale hair nearly glowing in the light, evaluating for a moment, “No” he said finally “he’s better off without me, but I can look, watch. I just want him to be happy – he deserves it.” Alice frowned slightly, a crinkle between her brows as she looked at him, trying to find something in his over-bright eyes before she nodded in acquiescence and looked down at her book again (Alice had no illusions about her relationship with Quentin, they were friends and he was kind to her, sitting with her as she researched her brother without question; but there was nothing more, not when his eyes tracked Elliot any time the older man was in the room, still, there was something nice about having a friend – something better than having a boyfriend). Quentin thought about it, considering, he wasn’t going to let Alice return her brother but he could insure that she had closure with him and a way to have a bit of him close which helped (the Illusion Key burned against his chest where it hung on a chain); he had been planning to let her try to bring him back so that he could get a good look at this Martin, but maybe that would be showing his hand too soon? Did he even want the Beast here where he could possibly get a look at Elliot? That….Elliot wasn’t trouble prone last time- at least not until after he got to know Quentin- but….the risk….Suddenly agitated Quentin flowed to his feet, not quite muffling the sound of bells or making the movement fully human much less the awkward movement he normally had, “Come on Alice, I think I found something to help you get what you’re looking for.” He said, distracted but aware that Alice was following him (she always would where her brother was concerned) as he strode out of the Cottage and into the sunshine, agitated to the max with the idea of Elliot coming to risk from that child. (Margo watched her Elliot watch the new first year from the corner of his eyes, haze reflecting golden and something longing in them that Margo didn’t understand. Oh she had seen the way the unnerving first-y looked at El, like he was something rare and wonderful and precious and oh god did she understand why that must be drugging to Elliot who had never experienced someone looking at him like that – much less without trying to get in his pants, or even get to be friends. No, Coldwater was willing to watch from a distance as long as Elliot was happy apparently- that far listening spell was a nice little trick, Margo just wished that El hadn’t heard the answer too given how stunned he looked; nor was she sure that Coldwater hadn’t know it was there, only that he hadn’t cared- and it…it wasn’t that Margo minded, if she had any faith in Coldwater’s intentions she would even be pushing them together- El needed someone that looked at him like that- but Coldwater….there was something off about him and it made her skin prickle. He knew too much and cared too little and too deeply both at once and with the Otherness that followed him Margo – Margo didn’t know what to make of the man. But, when she glanced at Elliot again she could see it on his face, the wanting, the deep intrigue, the way he was slowly falling closer even when Margo tried to introduce him to other people like he couldn’t look away. It frightened her.)(Elliot had no idea what to think of the first year that looked at him like he was everything good in the world, no idea what to think of the dreams that had started happening; dreams of another life where Quentin didn’t sing of power but still looked at Elliot as if he was a shinning thing even when he and Alice were together. Another world that was almost his and yet not, a world where Quentin was his friend that warmed him all the way down with a soft glow Elliot had never expected to feel, a Quentin that was he belonged to as much as this Quentin had seemingly given himself over to Elliot without question or interest in anything but being near him and seeing Elliot happy. He had never had someone like that. He – he wanted, he wanted to quiet nights with Q by the fire and the laughter and the way they were always safe together; he wanted what he had so easily in his dreams but this Quentin was so…shattered, Elliot feared to come even an inch closer.)Alice stared at him, her mouth hanging slightly open as she stared at the book in his hands, “You – how did you-?” Quentin shrugged, watching her thoughtfully. “You want your brother back. I have loved like that, I know how it hurts; I also know what it costs to do it and that the other person would never ask for it – or forgive you for doing it.” the mulish look was growing on her face, one he knew well by now and Quentin had to smile a tiny bit at that, tilting his head and ignoring that his hair was too long “I know. It didn’t stop me either. Love is so very selfish isn’t it? But Alice, I can help you bring him back for long enough to get closure, long enough to know, and if you’re very clever, I can find a way to help you keep in contact with him even on the other side without making him hate you. Because you think it would be worth it now, to bring him back even if he hated you for it, but I promise; it’s not. It poisons love that was once there and slowly kills it, it destroys them and everything they cared for; death isn’t the worst thing Alice, a life without love and hope is far more terrible and time passes faster than you think.”Alice had frozen, pinned by his unnatural eyes like a fox under a dragon, anger and fear and worry writ large on her face, “Your person, the one you brought back, they didn’t want it?” she breathed and he hummed. She licked her lips “And they – did you regret it?” It came out smaller, more uncertain and Quentin had to think about that a bit; so much had happened in the end had he regretted it? “I did” he said finally, thinking of the years of 41 with Elliot, of all that they had learned together, of learning how to love right instead of just hard, “Not at first, because love is selfish sometimes, but later; when I understood what I had taken from them, the choice that I had made for them without their consent or wish. When I understood that love is selfish but devotion is not and I was never devoted to them like that, when I got older and saw the pain I caused them – then yes, I regretted it. Deeply.” Alice swallowed hard, looking down at her lap as a few tears brimmed on her lashes and Quentin sighed, “Alice, you can find love again; in other places and people, in yourself, in magic. Fuck your parents, love your brother, mourn, grow, love again; you have the potential for it in you, you could be so much if you get the chance to let this go.” And then she was crying for real, quiet and soft like late autumn rain, and Quentin sighed, forcing down the Abyss as far as he could and shifting close enough that she could sob into his shoulder. (No one had ever said that about Alice, not unless it was her magic they were talking about; no one had ever believed in her without any ulterior motive and told her she could be more like this, no one had told her she could love again.)Quentin said nothing, leaning his cheek on her hair without a word as she cried and watching Kady’s shadow shift against the wall, wondering what it would take to free her from her mother and Marina. So often it was the shackles we put on our selves that bound the tightest and her’s were heavy indeed (Quentin would know, he had been willing to do all this just to see Elliot and try to give him one happy life); Kady’s shadow slipped away and Quentin said nothing. He knew she and Penny were together again and friends with Julia who was still trying to have all and he was glad for them but he would have to do something about Penny soon and Kady should be freed; Julia’s binds were mostly of her own making so he felt less need to help there though if Reynard should pop up again he was killing the bastard without a thought. God or not. Actually, Penny would be the easiest, he instinctively avoided Quentin but that wasn’t an issue really and all Quentin had to do was slap a hand on him and shove a bit of the Abyss in – ah, actually, maybe that wouldn’t be the best idea. Hmm, something to think on between watching Alice and Elliot and waiting for the Beast.