There were ways and means and backdoors. Thorn wasn't above trying any combination of all in an attempt to get to the home world of her blood. Up to and including sneaking and fighting her way past patrols, natives, and petitioners on three of Baator's layers.

Finally, wounded, sorely taxed, and sucking air hot enough to fry a chicken in through her teeth so it could scorch her throat and bake her lungs, she stood slumped before what seemed like an ordinary stone doorway. No runes marked its frame, no wardings hid it from anyone's eye. Literally anyone who knew where to look could find it. Could open it and cross over. She'd come here to do just that.

Open the door, slip through, finish fighting her way through to her bloodline's home.

Except the door wouldn't open.

The simple, even flimsy seeming barrier didn't so much as shimmy when she kicked it, rammed a shoulder against it. Hurled spells at it.

Even the gift of the blood of a dozen "devils" who'd come to investigate the magic thrown about couldn't crack the lock. Not even a smear of her own blood made a difference. Sighing in frustration and weary to the bone, the redneck took a moment with her head resting against the door way before pushing off to retrace her steps.

She'd discovered, much to her chagrin, that teleportation magicks didn't work as they should when in close proximity to the Doorway. And so had to find a pool of shadow further away to be able to return home.

"You were right." This was her way of opening a conversation today. Add in a pretty tray with lemonade and cookies and it might be easier to pretend there wasn't still snow on the ground. Might be easier to pretend it's a lot closer to summer than it was, with color and texture exploding just past the edge of the porch where the garden fae reigned supreme through her gardens.

The old druid, nut brown skin wrinkle with age and careworn through centuries of duty, took up his cup of lemonade and briefly debated a cookie before responding. "What was I right about this time?"

She settled down on one of the chairs beside his and took a moment to stare off, out across the landscape that was just beginning to show itself again under the blanket of winter's touch. "I can't get there. The doorways are all sealed tight. Nothin' I do will get me through there. I can't get to Coi'cor."

Pretending to ignore the stubborn slant of her jaw, the determined sulk in her tone Cellin gestured with a cookie - the debate had been short lived and only for form. "Told y' so." Just because he was old, very old, and very powerful, didn't mean he was above pointing that out.

"And good. There's no point in goin' there. Not now. Not anymore."

Her incredulous, even appalled stare was met with a shrug.

"How can you --? There has to be something." Her grandfather was one of the most stubborn, downright obstinate people she knew. His giving up without a fight boggled her mind. Giving up on something that he, and his brother had fought so hard to save, to protect, just didn't compute.

"No girl, there's not a damn thing that can be done. Not this time, not last time." He snorted at her sharp look. "No, this isn't the first time this's happened. Not even the third or fourth." He thought for a moment, mentally tallying. "More like the twelfth, maybe more'n that. Can't remember that far back."

She sipped her lemonade and wished she'd thought to bring out a bottle of vodka for a ripple. "Then how do we save the people? How can get save somethin' at least?"

Cellin shook his head and reminded himself that she was still young. Young in her power and duty, young in her responsibilities and young in her actual age. Despite what she'd survived and how she'd been formed, she was still so painfully young and fresh. Tender still.

"We don't. We can't. No one can." With regret he set aside his drink and finished off his cookie. Used his power and will to fill the space between his hands with an image of a different solar system. "This is the Plane today."

Around the edges there was creeping black. An emptiness that was worse than nothing. It was an undoing. An erasure that bled forward like ink over water soaked paper. Stars died out, simply ceased to be, constellations fell soon after. Holes in the sky that flowed forward, down and around to swallow planets whole.

"This was the Plane last week." With a gesture like pulling yarn, fingers flexing and stretching, the image pulled back, zoomed out. The skies were full, mostly. Some odd pinpricks of darkness far, far away. So distant that it might have been imagined. And one by one the stars and their light, died.

"This is the World itself, today." Another gesture and the 'verse zoomed in. Focus fining down to the globe of Coi'cor itself. And the same ravenous black inching its way forward. Devouring everything in its way, leaving nothing but a cold void behind.

"Even the Powers, even the Gods are falling, being erased one by one. " There was a warning there in his voice. No matter where she'd risen, where she'd been born, her blood was as tied to the Plane, to the Realm as his was.

She was shaken, visibly so. The fingers of her left hand covered her mouth as though to stifle the terrified whimper. "We can't just let them all, let it all, end."

This was his world, his and Orin's. They'd fought to bring it back from the destruction of the Blood Wars. They'd struggled to save what was left of the population from cook pots and slave pits and worse. They, Cellin and Orin had shown her that she could, and did belong somewhere.

"We have to--."

"No. We don't. There's nothing to do girl. Everyone and everything left there?" He tipped his head in a pointed nod to the dying Plane he still showed her. "Is dead. They just don't know it yet."

When she opened her mouth to argue again his voice sharpened. "Everyone." A verbal slap to drive his point home. "Everythng."

Thorn flinched back, wincing and hissing as though physically struck, and he softened his voice. "They just don't know it yet."

She grimaced, still stiff and sore from being slapped down damn hard two nights prior. Gingerly lowered herself to the edge of the bed, and did her level best to ignore the oh-so schooled expression her Mate was wearing at the moment. The man rather looked like a child who knew exactly what his surprise was, but was waiting, for form rather than politeness, for the reveal.


He even blinked in a reasonable facsimile of curiosity when she extended her closed hand to him. "I need t' give you these," and laid a set of ordinary seeming keys in his upturned palm.

Roan considered, for all of a heartbeat pretending he had no clue what this was about. Then considered how ready she was for just that behaviour. "It's about time."

With a flick of his fingers he sent the keys to a place only he had access to. Only he knew how to find. He also ignored the sulking line that formed at the corners of her mouth when he patted the bed for her to settle beside him.

"What happened?" He had a fair idea, but the details were sure to be entertaining at the least.

Thorn sat, more like flopped, beside him on the bed and plucked at a spot of the rich blanket between them. Hemmed and hawed for all of thirty seconds before telling her tale. Watching him from the corner of her eye the whole time, she started with the phone call progressed into spinning the keys around on a finger, then feeling the life return to her (literally in this case) while lying on the ground half way across the Inn's yard with Mist and Eri in attendance, while the elven man poured energy and magic into her.

It was obvious that he'd expected something of the sort when half way through her retelling he started laughing. And kept laughing 'til the end. Damn near busted a gut when she stuck her tongue out at him and flipped him off at the same time.

"So, the next day when Mist gave me back the keys, he told me to give them to you." The next day having been yesterday, but at this point she didn't feel the need to share that much information. Especially not when she was more than fairly sure he already knew.

"And did you tell this Mist why you'd been smote? That you'd been smote to begin with and my whom?" Even with the laughter, his voice took on the tones of someone speaking to a student reluctant to explain why they'd gotten a failing grade to their parents.

Here she rolled her eyes at him, smug and preening for it. "I did. Told him what I knew of it all, and what the keys were. That'd be why he told me to give them to you in the first place." Keys to everything and a stubborn redneck on a mission. Not a great combination.

"Besides, I only have two actual secrets Roan." After all this time, he still seemed surprised by that. The redneck's life was pretty much an open book, a person just had to be interested enough to read past the first couple of pages to find out nearly everything there was to know about her.


At his slightly confused look, she chuckled under her breath and shook her head. "My name." Held up a finger as though ticking something off a list. "And Krist." Another finger lifted to complete the list.

"My Name doesn't hold power over me, but that's not who I am. I'm Thorn. I've been Thorn for a very long time now and I really dig who she's become, who she's becoming. The other? Nah, that's not me. That's someone else, someone who might have been if the deck'd been shuffled a little differently." Her shrug and facial expression were eloquent comments upon the way things had run their course.

"Krist. What happened with him, I'm still completely ashamed of." Her voice softened, its volume dropping to something barely above a whisper. Remorse turned the corners of her mouth down, drew auburn brows down at the bridge of her nose.

She sagged in relief, a laugh yanked free that she couldn't have stopped even if she wanted to. "Thank gods." The irony in her statement was not lost on her at all.

The loud, smacking kiss she planted on his lips wasn't lost on either of them. And the opportunity to rub salt in a wound wasn't going to be lost by the Abyssal Lord.

"I'm surprised it only took one smiting to convince you to listen to reason." For all his playful mockery, he was genuinely startled, and somewhat worried about her.

The mouth meant for smiles, and other things, twisted into a silent snarl that was as much defensive as it was derisive. "I got hit, and it switched me off like a lightbulb. " Snapped her fingers for added emphasis. "Just, nothin' there like flippin' a switch. " The shudder was not delicate, and not an affectation.

"When I came back Mist was there, pouring energy and power into me, bringin' me back faster than I'd've come back on my own. And aside from worryin' a friend like that, all I could think about was you, an' what you'd've done if I hadn't come back." That thought, more than anything else had finally tunneled through the wall of stubborn intent she'd built around her common sense.

He pressed a kiss to the palm of the hand she'd cupped his cheek with, letting her both feel, and see his smile. "Have you tried your magics yet? Do you know if you're suffering from smiting sickness?" Whether or not that was the actual, technical term for the condition didn't matter.

Often when a person was on the receiving end of a good smiting, their abilities suffered. Or simply stopped working entirely for a while. And once he'd explained that to her, nothing would do either of them but to find out.

Over the next hour Thorn tried her abilities one by one, with varying degrees of success. And quite a few utter failures.

When going through her forms from dhole to squirrel to cave lion she discovered that while she had no problem with the change of shape, she also had no control. She also discovered that she did not ever want to be a walnut tree again. As well as a surprising amount relief that while in the form of a hippopotamus, she did not fertilize the gardens.

Her magic was as unpredictable as her shape changing abilities. A simple spell to create dancing lights resulted in a disco party, complete with mirrored ball. Dispelling that earned a giant, glowing grapefruit. Magic missile shot berries (they were ripe and delicious), while fireball called forth a giant squirrel that swelled. And swelled. And kept swelling until it exploded and rained giant squirrely bits, pretty much everywhere.

After she'd tested all of her abilities, and found they were all very much not working properly, she decided it was best to not use them.

When her beloved, the light of her life, the warmth in her heart, decided to be his thorough self and stab her she came to the decision that smiting-sickness really sucked. No matter how gently it was done, having a dagger between your ribs was just not a pleasant experience. Moreso when you discovered it was just a regular dagger.

Knowing how vulnerable you were, however briefly, was not a pleasant thing.

Ever.

It was a day for confusing the old man it seemed. "What's a macro?"

The humor was starting to seep through her indignation. She freely admitted that she'd sort of deserved the smiting. Mostly. It was the loss of her abilities, her magics, that were grating currently.
"A macro is, it's a thing you set up to do a thing when something, or someone does a certain thing, so you don't have to do the thing." This was her understanding of it at least.

After using a finger as though keeping track of her wording in the air, he nodded. "Oh, well in that case. Yes, yes I did macro you." The word was odd in his mouth, felt weird and just, awkward on his tongue.

With the admission he watched her deflate, saw the laughter come back into her. "Shouldn't've messed with those keys." He couldn't resist I-told-you-so's. And when she stuck her tongue out and raspberried at him, he laughed.

"You've got smiting-sickness and it's messing with your, well you." Confirming what he knew she already knew with a twinkle in his eye and the twitch of a smile at the edges of his mouth.

"Okay, yeah. So how long's it gonna last? Just because I forget I have this power, regularly, doesn't mean I don't every use it. And havin' to worry if some ass-hat's gonna pull a knife on me, and how much it's gonna hurt if he gets past m'guard and stabs me, is just gonna suck a lotta wrinkly sacs." After that statement, she waited while he brought himself back under control again.

"He's nothing if not thorough." Stifling another round of snickers behind a hand, he cleared his through and drew a breath. "If you don't trigger it again, shouldn't be longer'n a month." He could see the questions raising, and held up a hand to head them off.

"Even with our magics being so very, chaotic, and stubborn, shouldn't be longer'n a month. Assuming you don't trigger it. Quit messing with the keys, sprout." He nodded, jerked his chin down in firm agreement and approval when she grumbled that she'd already given them to Roan. And blessed himself for having not reached to take them from her.

He lapsed into quiet then knowing full well that that wasn't the only reason she'd driven an hour from Rhy'din proper to her mountain home. She could have saved herself the sight of his laughing at her expense and simply called. Even though he didn't understand fully, the concept of telephones, Dae did and could have been roped into playing go-between. So he settled down to wait her out.

Thorn spent a while watching the fae dance between bud and bloom, from tender new shoots to older, more established leaves. Their industry, their dedication and presence soothed her, allowed her to collect her thoughts once more. When she spoke she was a great deal more at ease.

"'Nother thing I figured out was part of why I was so driven to get to Coi'Cor." She was still driven, but it had backed down to a need rather than an obsession. "I thought William was there still. Thought he'd gone back after Bar came home."

The pain in her grandfather's voice tore at her, tightened her throat and had her eyes burning. It wasn't an automatic denial that had her shaking her head. "No. There's no way you caused this Cellin. You did what you had to do. He'd been poisoned, pushed over the edge of sanity."

"When I struck him down, when I put him down, my attack hit and damaged the Throne of Divinity as well. His seat of Power. Part of it was destroyed." His expression severe, he pulled back. Straightening his spine and looking down his nose at her.

She took a few minutes to think, to organize her thoughts and go over the little she already knew about the incidents. And again she denied him fault or blame.

"No. You said so yourself, this has happened before, at least a dozen times. Might be something triggered it, but I don't think it was you. And even if it was you that triggered it, this was gonna happen anyway. " The words weren't empty, they weren't pretty things used to ease his conscience or guilt. They were the truth. They were also the words he'd give her if their situations were reversed.

"Until, or unless we can figure out what started all'a this, then it's gonna keep happenin' no matter what we do. You told me that Cellin." And that served as both a reminder, and a segue.

"How're they doin'? How's the world?" What's left of it? Is there any left? Silent questions that clogged the air.

Reluctant to leave off his self-blame the old man shrugged petulantly once and mumbled his reply. "It's still there, hasn't been completely undone yet. And there's three in the party. One's a follower of mine, one's a follower of one of Poa's fragments, and the other's a monk. They have faith in us, we should have faith in them I think." Waspish tones there, more than a touch of a snap.

It was then that she finally noticed that his attention kept snapping, sneaking looks at the tower her cousin had erected on her land years ago. And she noticed that every time it did, traces and hints of dread stole over his face.

"What's up?" Chin lifted to indicate the tower, though her attention remained almost completely on her grandfather.

He slumped, then wilted into the arm she threw around his shoulders. "I'm trying to figure out how to tell that boy that Suragot's dead." And because he saw the bloody joy in her eyes he finished the statement. "But it took the lives of his brothers, and damn near the life of his father to get it done."

She was crooning, humming a song under her breath and holding her grandfather as though afraid he'd shatter. And she was filled with sorrow. "I'll do it."

But before she did, she stayed there in the sun a while and just shared her warmth with her grampa, and let him grieve in his own way.

In for a penny.

She puffed out a breath and nodded once as though urging herself to speak.

"I have the classic good news, bad news for you." In Thorn's version of good news, bad news, the other person didn't get to choose which they got first. She barrelled on before he could do more than open his mouth to speak, "good news is that Surogot is dead. Destroyed, gone, ended."

"About damn time." That was his only reply. If that was the good news, and damn sure it was fantastic news, he'd wait for the bad.

"Surogot's dead, but the doin' of it ended your brothers and damn near ended your father." Like a bandaid, fast and brutal. Being delicate would quite likely do more harm than good. Laying it out just as she had also gave her no option to backout, to go back on her promise to Cellin. "I'm so sorry Branth."

The simple offering of words, the sincerity of the feeling behind them touched him, soothed the edges of shock that rocked him. "That's...disappointing." At a loss for words, that was the best he could come up with at the moment. It would have to do.

Everyone processed things in different ways, everyone had their own Way. Thorn wasn't going to judge her cousin for this, or anything for that matter. She gave him several minutes to process and adjust as much as he could. To let the shock settle in and possibly pass.

Then she asked again, "but seriously, what're you making?"

Drawn out of his thoughts again, he nodded his thanks to her for the distraction and looked at the furnace with a grimace. "I seriously don't know. It's something I've been working on for the last couple of years like I said. It just, won't be made yet. But it won't let me leave it alone for long either. Always pulling at me, always elbowing me in the ribs to get back to it. " He eyed her quizzically. "Why?"

"Because that?" Pointed at the glowing lump of Reality and Creation in the heart of the furnace. "Even I know that shit's not metal anymore. Started out that way probably, but fuck Branth. You're working some serious Creation here." From astonished and awed, to cheekily proud in a heart beat.

"Good fuckin' job man." She laughed merrily when he returned the fist bump she offered him.

He wasn't coy, didn't have the false-modesty what would demand he ducked his chin and tried to push off his gift somewhere else. Branth knew damn well where his gifts lie, and he knew damn well he was very good at what he did. He took the compliment in stride and cut a grin her way.

"Have you been having weird dreams?" They were both still staring at the globe, and even the question could make either of them look away yet.

"What kinda weird dreams Branth?"

"Two towers, three bridges that go from land, to tower, to tower, to land, and below all of that, a swamp that goes almost from horizon to horizon. There's people milling about on one side, one piece of land like the starting point, occasionally someone gets the courage to start up the bridge. When they do they run into this really big guy, he's strong, a warrior, a guardsman of sorts, and he's holding a big assed staff. When the person gets close they stop and the guard stares at them, like he's judging them or something. Then they either go on to the first tower, or he knocks them off the bridge into the swamp below. And the swamp, it's choked with people. Every time it looks like one of them might be able to climb out, the ones around them grab on to get out too and they pull the other back in.

"But, you don't see anyone on the other bridge, there's no movement past that first tower. And the landing, where people start up the first bridge, keeps fillin' back up again. It just, doesn't end. It keeps going on and on and on." He watched her from the corner of his eye, saw when she startled, when recognition flared. "When I see it, I'm waiitng to cross the first bridge. Where are you Thorn?"

Plucking at her lip, she kept her gaze on the globe for another heartbeat before turning to face him. "I'm watchin', all of it. Like I"m an observer, not a participant. I'm not actively there, but I'm everywhere and all of it feels, broken. " She mimed snapping a stick between her hands.

"Like it's supposed to work a lot differently than it does. But something's gumming up the works, something's clogged the drain." Her expression went shrewd.

"What if that's Coi'Cor's bridge to the after life? All those people, all those souls, they're dead and they're tryin' to get to their heaven, or their hell, their judgement and som'thin' isn't lettin' 'em through? Maybe, what if that's what's broken an' why everything keeps resetting?"

He could almost see it, almost see the pattern that overlaid the pattern of current events. Almost see what could be, what likely was the cause. It felt like if he reached out for it, he'd catch hold of it. "Like the souls are just, stuck. And every once in a while, whatever balance there is there gets tipped and it starts all over again. Like an overfull basket splitting open when one too many pieces of grain gets stuffed inside." His voice took on confidence as the theory felt closer to right, as his instincts urged him on.

"They're supposed to go to the first tower maybe, and go beyond if they've lived a life right for it. If they haven't, well they go into the swamp where they're either reborn to live almost exactly as they had, or they just don't move on to the afterlife. -- But if it was working properly, Coi'Cor could, would run out of souls and no one would be able to move on anyway."

"What if, the only time it can be stopped, changed, or undone, is at the very end and we need to...C'mon." He didn't wait for her response, just grabbed her by the wrist and tugged up off the couch they'd been sitting on and back to the forge. "I need you to handle this for me. Do what I say, when I say it."

By "this', he meant the lump of reality that'd been heating in the furnace.

Thorn didn't hesitate, simply took the handle of the tongs he'd held, adjusted her grip when the weight of the lump threatened to drag it from her grip and to the floor. Hefted it to the anvil and planted her feet.

Over the next several hours the only words spoken between the two of them came when Branth barked "turn". They worked together as though they'd been partnering in creation all their lives. But even with the smooth and easy flow of their movements, there was a price to pay. The work tore at her shoulders, the callused palms of her hands burned, her hands themselves cramped. She swayed on her feet as exhaustion settled in. Even the primal rhythm of his hammer strikes began to take on a hollow, tired feel. Reality folded, bent, shaped, clenched,and quenched.

Excess was nipped off and tossed aside to cool in one of many quenching troughs. And even then, the mass didn't diminish so much as, condense. Fold after fold until finally all that remained could fit in the palm of a man's hand. And after the final shaping it would.

What lay at the bottom of the final trough, the piece that had taken Branth nearly three years to bring to life, was a key.

Curious, her brows lifted and her eyes flicked looks between the key he'd scooped up, and his face. "What's it unlock though?"

"Dunno. Guess it's something we'll have to find out." The last came out a startled grunt as the key began to vibrate. Shook violently in his grip until it pulled itself free as though yanked. The key arrowed straight for the globe that represented Coi'Cor where it shrank between one breath and the next, an instant before colliding with the globe, and became a shooting star flaring across the night sky. Some deeper magic, some unknown trigger, pulled the key to a sealed off world.

"Well, fuck."

"Yeah, let's hope whomever finds it knows how to use it. Hell, let's whatever it's supposed to unlock can even be found." He was still clueless about what he'd been driven to create, and why it'd been a key. And rather than dwell on it, now at any rate, he changed the subject.

"Let's go outside, I've been in here too long." Without waiting for her reply he turned and strode for the front door of his tower. "And, you know, you really should change clothes."

Hers had been burned away in the fires and heat of creation.

Wild eyed she stood rooted to the spot while memories of all those she'd laid to rest beneath the lush grasses and well planned flower beds rose unbidden.

Krist under the lilies there, a barbarian whose name she'd never learned who'd died in her stead under the hardy vines that grew twined around the handle of his battle axe. The bed of pretty faced, colorful gerbera daisies in a playful spill to mark the memory of perverted children dicing with the eyes and bones of their parents. The roses, each one preternaturally perfect and beautiful in a long, sensuous spiral to mark the memory of her Mate's passing. The wild and dark, fairy tale tangle of thorn and vine and bloom and bud and shadow and light to mark where she should be sleeping a few times over.

Shaking her head she yanked herself free of the memories and looked around her. A quick visual search showed her something that eased her heart, and brought the confusion back sharper than before.

An extremely dirty Roan was leaning on the upright shovel, watching her silently. Waiting while she got herself back under control.

"Uhm, love? Whatcha doin'?" This place was hers. Was for her dead. The thought that he may have added some unknown, someone, to this place clawed its way through.

With a sardonic smile he glanced between the shovel, the grave, and the redneck. "Repaying a debt before I no longer have that opportunity." Cryptic, at least in part to see whether she'd break, or harness her feelings enough to question. "And you can have these back, it'll be a year before they're functioning again."

She snagged the key ring he'd tossed her way out of the air with a minimum of effort. "Where have you been love?" Some part of her already knew, but she needed to hear him say it aloud. "What'd you do?"

Pride was hidden behind his eyes when she kept the anger leashed and let curiosity lead. He knew she'd never completely control her reactions or inclinations, but she'd come so very far. "Where do you think I've been hmm?"

"You sonuva- You knew the combination all along didn't you?" Of course he did. The infuriating man knew damn near everything, and if he didn't know it right then he'd know by the next time they spoke. She took the flash of his smile as the proof it was meant to be and threw up her hands. "Of course you did. But, how'd you get back again? Cellin said the keys'd go dead if I Used 'em and made it there. I'd've gotten stuck."

Amused he watched the battalion of fae leave, sure the woman'd set this to rights again. "They did go dead. I drained an artifact to recharge them enough for my return. As I said Thorn, I had a debt to repay. There was someone who needed to be brought home."

He gave a solemn nod to the new grave, amber eyes narrowing slightly.

"Roan, who did you bury in my Glade?" Her temper eased, the edges of it sanded smooth, the question didn't whip out as an accusation.