Quotes: Heartwarming

Heartwarming:

His hair, his clothing, his thick gloves, his companion, and his electrifying entrance were wondrous strange, but Cora's mind was sufficiently over-full of strangeness to make these secondary concerns. He had kept himself too far away to reach out and touch her, but his eyes were full of kindness as he said:

"Don't be afraid."
–Canaan


The giant sighs.

"I suppose if I never got promoted before, now's not my special day …" he says, dejected. He allows the Lord of the Night in. "Tell them I put up a fight
okay?"
-Mithras

The Noble is about the step through, when he hears the sun-giants words.

Blake…pauses, as he hears the dejected tone of the guardian he'd just insulted.
That doesn't feel right.
He looks up at the sun-giant (well, he tries, anyway), and considers it all, for a second.
"I think…
They will be told more than that."
He simply says, an odd sound of compassion in his voice.

Then, he speaks, with the voice of the God of Night
"Keep up th' good work."
-Blake


"Why should I care?" she demanded, her shawl of howling vacuum sucking in the air in the room as she spoke. "I'm a Warmain! I enter this world to test it. To try it against my strength!"

She looked at Blake. A single tear dripped from those dangerous eyes and rolled down her porcelain chin. Instead of dripping off of her face it floated off of her and into the air, unhindered by gravity. She grit her teeth and narrowed those haunting peepers.
-Teja

Blake looks at the teardrop floating in the air - helps him look away from those eyes for at least a moment
"…Well, despite what you're saying here, it seems you do care."
-Blake


Almost as if it has a life of its own, the knife in Tom's hand flickers from incoming icicle to incoming icicle, shattering them all until he strides through a glittering cloud of brilliant shards. He keeps on coming. The reflected light from the shattered ice creates a glimmering corona around him, a halo of trapped light that limns him in cold glory. The heatless white blaze against his dark skin make him seem like a statue carved of jet, moving with terrible and resolute purpose. His arm around Evelyn's Barbie-perfect waist is the only indicator of any humanity: he cradles her tenderly, almost possessively.
-Tom


The power of Darla's miracle weighs down Tom's limbs with ice heavier than chains, but his approach is relentless. His joints grind with every step, and some hair-strands break off as they're converted to frost, but he continues to put one foot in the front of the other. Each steps falls slower than the last, until finally he stops moving. He stands, a sculpture of a man caught in mid-step, his expression resolute.

And then he takes another step. And another. And another, faster now, his bones like ancient Arctic ice, the joints becoming supple. The water of his life flows and freezes as he moves, his heart a pneumatic pump that drives him forward. "It'll take more than that to hold me down, little Sister," he says, and there is the rumble of glaciers carving rivers across the world in his voice.

He pulls her into a gentle embrace. "You've hurt me, but you hurt yourself more. I rise above the hurt; you can too. Fight it, Sister."
-Tom


Evelyn is sitting on Darla's other side, frozen in a reflection of Tom, save that this ice statue is pointing. Pointing at the other ice statues… which are dancing.

The dance is not exactly graceful, but it is close. A complex and intricate ballet formed by the army of imperfect ice sculptures, in an almost clockwork rhythm. Starlight sparkles and gleams off a thousand points of moving ice, a whole array of points of light moving in the darkness, so much like the glimmering lights in New Atlantis.

"They are like me," says the Mannequin, the tiniest mote of sadness in her voice, "They do not love. I like this world of yours. It is very pretty. But, I think you will like our world, too. In our world there is no love. It is not allowed. But, there is beauty."

Even the shards of the statues that Darla shattered apart are part of the dance now, blowing like snowflakes fluttering through a wind, though they are too heavy to do so.

"If you choose to make it."

Evelyn is standing now, her visage no longer of Tom, or of Darla, but a simple, frozen, mannequin.

"Make this world your own. No love, or honor, or kindness, but make it beautiful. A mirror to your own heart. I would like to watch."
-Evelyn


For what felt like the millionth time since he got to the Furnace in this damnably bright sun (he's not going to think of the thing with any big letters, dammit!), Blake isn't entirely sure what to say.
No one ever taught him what you should say, when you face an Excrucian you don't want to see sad.
-Blake


"You're the angel I saw in my dreams." She was still out of it as she took the kind strangers hand. She looked at him the way she had never looked at anyone. Her voice was shaking and weak, she was barely able to get out a whisper. "Thank you."
-Cora

The softness in her eyes, drowning out even the memory of pain, is unmistakable, but unlike his brother Tom does not pull away. Instead he touches her hair, smoothing it down from the tangled result of the night's drama. "No, I'm not him. But I can take you to him. He wants to meet you, you see. He has made ready a place for you, and he's waiting."
-Tom

"I think I'm pretty good right here." Cora says losing herself for a moment. She was normally pretty shy around guys, but he had healed her and was treating her so gently. She didn't even know his name but she felt safe with him somehow. He was the only thing keeping her stable. "Please don't leave me."
"We'll always be close, you and I." He gives her hand a squeeze.
-Cora

"I'm Thomas Dylan… Tom. We have a lot to discuss. But for now I'll let you say your goodbyes." He nods to Abigail. "Ma'am."
-Tom


"What happened. It was like magic, I don't understand. I'm scared Cora, really goddamn scared! I've put up with a lot of shit from you," she began, pacing about her kitchen. "I stuck with you in the dark times in high school, and I got you that job at the public aquarium. I've dealt with the lineup of crazy men who stalk you, and had to deal with all sorts of absolute madness.

But this is too much.

"I can't handle this. You're too much for me Cora. This is the breaking point. You missed his birthday. He cried for two nights. I couldn't get him to touch his toys, all he wanted for his birthday was to know you were okay. You could have answered your phone! You could have left a message! What the FUCK happened to you, Cora? What are you trying to do to me!?"

At some point she choked up and tears had begun to well in her eyes. She clung to her chair to stay up.

"God dammit, you're running me ragged. I can't go day to day wondering if you're alive or dead and when you're going to just suddenly reappear and want to act like nothing happened! Not this time! I can't TAKE IT! Now come here and hug me!"

She began to bawl.
-Abby


They were like kids again, playing make believe. The world was alive and magical and they were in control. She felt lucky to have been chosen to share this with her friend.
-Abby


They sung no songs on the way to the underground garden beneath Locus Entropy. Elder horrors didn't appreciate merry tunes, nor did the domicelli know any. Benjamin just hugged Evelyn tight and did his best to reassure himself this would all be over soon. One day, that was it. And they had promised not to hurt him.

He could do it. He was little but he could do it.
-Benjamin


"What's that thing's problem?" asked Teja. She thought about it for a moment and then gave a sly smile. "Well, if it's pissing your Family off, lets give them something to really be angry about. Hey, dummy, take a good look at this and show the others exactly what it was like."

And then she kissed Blake.

At first it seemed spiteful, like a show for Evelyn to rat on her brother.

But it gave way to actual making out. She was into it. It repulsed her; strangely, she couldn't pull away.
-Teja


The Power of Defiance gathers her up effortlessly, cradling her in the fold of one arm as if she is a wayward kitten. "We're almost there. Barakiel will explain everything. We're your family now — we'll stand by you." He takes her hands and lays them over her heart. "There. You feel that? That's all of us in there. There's a piece of all of us, living in you, with you.

"Wherever it is you go when you have those blackouts, you'll never be alone there with whatever it is that's taken you over. Now we'll be there too."
-Tom


The displaced lord of Society looks out the window thoughtfully. He closes the blinds for now.

"Look Cora, I believe in you. So I'm going to do something I never do and give someone else my full attention - you. Just don't flake out."
-Tifon

"Alright, if I'm going to fight this I need to get through this nightmare. I need to face it if I'm ever going to beat it. It's not gonna be pretty though." She follows her young self through the party.

"If you see me naked or something close your eyes or whatever, kay?" She blushes slightly.

"Oh and Tifon," she says walking over garbage, "I'll take you up on that dinner if we ever get out of this."
-Cora


For Benjamin's part, the dreams taught him his own strength, not the literal strength his hero self had, but the strength of his own dreams and vision, what he can do with his mind.

The mannequin head watches the boy grow.
It is fascinating.
-Evelyn


"Yeah, friends don't usually shoot each-other. I don't have very many friends either, just Abby and a few acquaintances I work with. But we're friends now. I mean it! If we get out of this … when we get out of this, I owe you one. Anything you want. I won't even ask questions."

The man had guts. Too bad they were spilling onto the floor. This had given her a boost of confidence. If he could keep moving forward in his condition, she could do it too.

"Okay Darla. Let's see why you're so fucked up."
-Cora


Teja frowned a bit at Blake's attempts at playing it cool. "Don't try modesty, Blake, it doesn't suit your dharma. Yours is the massive overkill, the all-consuming secret, the sky-shaking miracle, the majesty and the …"
-Teja

The more Teja speaks, the wider Blake grins
"Oh my, yes.
The overkill, the firmament-shaking might, all of that, it's absolutely me."
He agrees, sunnily.

This is the kind of thing Blake loves to hear, above almost all else.
-Blake

"I hate your style!"
The last bit was a frustrated outburst when she realized she was waxing a wee bit too loquacious.
-Teja

Blake place a hand over his chest
"Aww, that hurt."

…Huh.
It…almost did, a little.
-Blake


"You. Will. Not. Harm. My. Creator."

And, with those words, the weapon become phantasmal, unlike the others, turned like the Nobody, into massless things with no gravity to be drawn in.

The Pearl Darla moves forward with the pull.

"Enough of this. I have been pleasant, I have been kind, I have given you a world of your own to rule as you will, and still you destroy without thinking. You fight without reason. You are weak, and spineless, and right now a young mortal boy who has more strength than you, for all your godly might, have ever mustered is in danger because of your weakness. And I shall not let you harm Benjamin anymore than I shall let you harm my creator.
"So, this ends now."
-Darla 2.0


Imitations could be original… if they were different… in a certain way.

Evelyn lay there, a bright red painting of the Universe.
It listened to the tears falling from the imitations it had made.
It listened to the tears falling from Benjamin's eyes.
And it saw all those tears, falling from each of them, forming a larger painting, a mural of the Universe larger and grander than Smada's.

This is not new. Tears are old.
This is not new. Love is older.

Love…

Evelyn was certain that at this point it was supposed to laugh out loud. But, for once, it did not wish to do what it was supposed to do.

But, there it was, all along.
Love.

When Evelyn had crafting Canaan from lightning, it had not wanted it to love it, it had wanted it to be Canaan.
When Evelyn made Darla from ice, it did not want it to love it. It wanted it to be Darla.
They were meant to be imitations.
And, yet, they loved.
They were different.
Different in a certain way.

That accident… that glorious accident, was all it needed.
And, in all that red paint, in all those tears, it made a painting of the Universe so wondrous, so beautiful, an imitation of the World Ash itself. And, though it was an imitation, the work was different, was vibrant, was original.
It was, of course, imperfect. Marred in places, incomplete in others, just wrong in others.

The paint pulled itself off the floor and became the mannequin again.

"Smada, it is a pity you have come to this end, but not entirely unexpected. They do, after all, say that the original is always better," this time Evelyn smiles, not because it thinks it should, nor for any reason it can name, "You will be missed."

And the mirror flips round again and shows Evelyn.
The mirror breaks again into billion one hundred eight milliard six hundred seventy two million nine hundred ninety three thousand four hundred three pieces…

No.

Evelyn knows without even counting, there are billion one hundred eight milliard six hundred seventy two million nine hundred ninety three thousand four hundred four pieces now, because it can see the one piece missing before, a reflection of itself. The integral element that makes Evelyn Adams, God of Imitaiton, more than merely the sum of its parts.

It closes its painted eyes, and stands very still.

"Creations," it says.

The crying ceases.
The wailing dies away.

"I love you," and it is true, Evelyn can feel this strange love building inside it, something pure and vibrant, and so well known to others, but different, original… potent.

"Benjamin," the words come not only from Evelyn, but from the tiny drawing in Benjamin's hands, "I am coming to save you."

And with those words the mirrors split again, down to the sizes of photons, down to a number that ends in a seven, and Evelyn opens wide and swallows them all into itself.

And Evelyn stands again on the banks of a lake on the Moon.

"I am coming to save you."
-Evelyn


He lets the boy go. He dashed off to hug the tired Cora tightly around her waist. "Oh Cora! There's lots of scary things out there but … it didn't really make me afraid to see them all of them. Because I knew I had people who loved me watching over me, like you and Evelyn. She's really nice, Cora, you should be friends with her even if she's weird. I even got to be a monster for a little time, she let me be whatever I drew if I wanted! What were you doing? Where were you?"
-Benjamin


The mannequin fell back to its state of wreckage and knew no more.

It rose again when it felt a pull of lightning, the electric attraction. It opened the remaining, melted eye and looked up to see Canaan holding it.

"You came back…" it said.

"Yeah," he said, "Thought I'd clean up the mess."

"I missed you."

Canaan paused, his brow furrowed.
"I… I think I missed you too."
And, having said that, the Power of Lightning did not feel he could simply throw the pieces away. So he took the wreckage back to Atlantis, cradled in his arms.
The mannequin had never been happier.
-Evelyn and Canaan (Insertname)


"Nara Salamundi said she saved me, but it was Canaan who brought me back. And for Canaan that I struck. And now… now he is dead." She brushes hair out of the horse's eye, "I think I shall call you Lightning."
-Evelyn


"Evelyn," she said sort of shyly. It was sort of awkward to interrupt a conversation, and she seemed to be in one with Tom. "I wanted to tell you how grateful I am to you. Thank you so much for looking out for Ben. It means the world to me, really. You will always be a friend in my book."

Canaan had told her she was crazy but she didn't think that was true anymore. Plus who was she to judge?

"I also wanted to apologize for any trouble Darla may have caused you. I know my showing up hasn't exactly made for fun times."
-Cora


"Heyyyy you. Brody's doing fine. We went to the bottom of the abyss on one of his leads and he was right. Couldn't fix the problem right away so now he's totally crushed about it. I think I can cheer him up with a few friends of mine."

He tried to wave the face away as he typed up a quick message.
-Tifon

"Nice try." She reappears in front of the Power of Society again. "You're clearly in a fight to the death right now. Guess that happens to you a lot. I trust you Tifon, please don't let anything happen to Benjamin! Oh and try to remember his name this time."

Then she disappears. Tifon could handle himself, she had come to trust him in the Mindscape. Even though he acts like he doesn't care, she had a strong feeling he did. Benjy would be alright with him.
-Cora


As the final step he built a second seat onto the back of the chopper and made sure it was extra secure.
-Tifon


Who is Evelyn Adams?

I am…

… myself?

But what does that mean?

It means…

I…

I have qualities all my own, bound to no one else.

And what are these?

I… I love with ferocity. I cling tightly to those who matter. I bow to none, and hold myself high. I live in the skin of others, but my mind is my own, impenetrable, as I am impenetrable, free as I am free, but bound in all things, for I am them as they are never me.

This is the thread.

Follow it home.

And from this this thought, Evelyn Adams drew its- no- herself home. To the home she had made for herself, away from others. The home that had been left with Nobody in charge, that had been ruined and shattered. But, one mirror still stood there, and one was enough.

For a moment she dwelled there beside the boy she had sworn to protect. It would be such a simple thing to become him again, to enter him and save him from within…

There was lightning, as there was at her genesis. But, this time Canaan did not make it, she did. This time it did not strike a mere mannequin, but the Eight Hand Mirror itself.
The Mirror shuddered at the blast. The glass melted and all that was left was Benjamin, but the melted slag formed round him and became like flesh, and then hardened like plastic, two arms around the boy, then a head and body and legs to support those arms. A body almost identical to her first, hugging the boy fast.

There came the sounds of thunder, banging across the razor wire and fences, echoing up to the very citadel itself, as Lightning ran nowhere, his mane a dark blaze, his motions sure and true, his nostrils flaring, his eyes dead set on the citadel.
But, even so, though he does not look away from the citadel where he knows his maker to be, the horse stops beside Tifon Leer and lowers its back for him to mount.

And even as the thunder still echoes through the citadel, Evelyn Adams, Imitation of Power, speaks with all the surety of an Imperial Decree: "I am here, Benjamin. You are safe."

Not even Nobody would change that.
-Evelyn remade


Before anyone knows it - least of all Blake himself - the God of the Night is crouching, having wrapped the weeping little girl - the daughter of Canaan - in a hug, thoughts of pursuing and finally breaking Bethany not there
"Shhhh…
It'll be ok, little miss Reyes.
It'll be ok."

He gently patted the poor little girls head - to Trisha, it feels just like that summer night she got to stay up late and eat ice cream, watching cartoons.
The Night is residing gently above this world, and the soft night air blows into an open window, quite unlike what deceptions had been here before, suffocating everyone.

"It'll be ok…"
-Blake


"I know I have caused you grief in the past, Tifon. I am sorry. It is what I was, but not who I am. I fear I have interfered again, robbed you of closure in this latest undertaking. Still…"

Evelyn runs up and hugs Tifon tight.

"I understand what it is like to be alone, but no matter what happens you don't have to be. All you need do is look in a mirror, or a dark subway window, or in still water, and I shall be there. We may not be family, as Barakiel wanted, but I hope we can be friends."

She gives one final squeeze before releasing him.

"I would like very much to attend the funereal of Canaan. And, afterwards, to have a grand celebration. It is sad that Canaan is dead, but if he were alive he would fill us with joy and wonder, it was the glory of his illumination, and we should honor that. Besides, I believe it is traditional to throw a party to warm up a new home.
"Tifon, nobody in the World Ash throws parties like you do, and not even Nobody throws them better, so will you please help me prepare?"

It is strange to anticipate like this, to act instead of react.
But, many things will no doubt be strange now that she had a life to live.
-Evelyn

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