Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somewhere, a Kabr is always dooming himself.

Somewhere, they are always reaching for each other for the first time.

Somewhere, the hand remains uncut.

From his cell, Praedyth watches timelines unspool. Anything that could ever happen is always happening, always about to, always long gone. There are so many versions of the universe he can't understand, full of people he doesn't recognize. Things and places and events he will never know. But every now and then he catches glimpses. The glint of familiar armour. The moment Kabr first turned to him and they both finally understood. Somewhere and everywhere, that moment is always happening; it is a comfort that drives him mad.

Somewhere, they are turning away. Kabr is laughing, the helmet he made for him shining in the sun. Beside him, another Praedyth is smiling, unaware how lucky he is. Pahanin tosses a candy at his head and it misses. They never breach the Vault. But a hand is always being cut. Kabr is laughing. The wound is always being made. They are reaching. The shield is always forged. He is falling. Pahanin never misses. A Kabr is always dooming himself.

Goblins sing to the flowers. He tries not to hum along as he runs his fingers over the creases in his paper crane until he's thumbed it ragged.

Kabr is laughing, the helmet he made for him shining in the sun. He speaks he is not himself. He speaks he is himself. He will never speak again.
He tastes the sea.

Praedyth throws bottles into the ocean of time. It swallows them, they miss, it spits them back out, someone reads them, no one ever knows. Everyone drowns in it, that remains the same. None will ever sink deep enough to reach him.

Kabr shatters to become unbreakable.
Preadyth shatters.

They are reaching for each other for the first time.

A Kabr is always dooming himself, is always speaking, is always himself and not.

A Praedyth is always being left behind to weep and dream and wither.

Chapter Text

Correlation:

A team enters the Vault. None leave. Eventually, the timeline is swallowed by the Darkness.
His team enters the Vault. The timeline spins on, outwards, into patterns and fractals and uncountable moments.

Correlation is not causation.

Far back in time, he turns left. Kabr turns right. There is no beginning; there are no futures. Threads will lead will lead him alone to the gate, through it, but never all the way. Never all the way through alone.

Correlation is not causation.

Infinity demands variation. Shattering cannot bring wholeness. Every door cannot depend on a single hinge. Why can one be a shield and not another?

Correlation is not
Correlation is not
Correlation is not

Chapter Text

Praedyth sits with his back against the trunk of a sturdy, ancient tree. He twists one of Kabr's curls around his finger, the weight of his head in his lap familiar and comforting. The sun is low and everything is golden, suffused with warmth. Praedyth has memorized Kabr's face but he studies it still, lost in the way the light bronzes him further, the new planes shadows draw along his cheeks.

Kabr's lips move but form no words.

He wakes and it has not happened. He wakes and it will not happen. He wakes and he is jealous of the place where it is happening.

Praedyth drags himself upright and tries to remember, unsure if he was dreaming or watching, if the line now matters at all. He thinks it was a memory, his own or stolen from another time, greedily devoured. He is every Praedyth and they are him; there is no reason in separation now.

The sun sets and it does not rise again. The heavy veil of the Darkness claims another one. He is starting to see the pattern and he doesn't want to know it.

In the garden, the goblins follow the paths, intricate linework traced between the flowers that are more than flowers. Everywhere there are patterns, it's natural to see them. Invent them. Not every correlation is true.

When he dreams again, there is a tree twisting out of his chest. Its limbs feed from his own, bursting into silver leaves. It abandons him, surprised by the shape of his body and how sharp it has become. His hands are not as strong as they once were, but they remember. The burn, the jolt, the chill of the Light. What it felt like to touch his skin. The weight of the knife Pahanin gave him—he is at risk of losing him all together.

But he is not yet a dead thing. He has loved; he has done more than kill. He will touch the leaves of ruin if he must, swallow them until they are one and it devours no one else.

One day he will find the place in which Kabr is laughing with him and does not stop, where he remains himself. He will find the place where he does not fall. Where Pahanin can run fast enough to outrace fate. He will find it, because if he does not find it, there was never any hope for them—there was never a place where Kabr could speak for hours, golden in the sun.