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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StalkingBlue" data-source="post: 1312153" data-attributes="member: 645">Cho's account might go here if I have time to write it. Which most likely won't be before next Sunday's game, so I'm being cocky and reserving space.  Wouldn't want to upset chronological order.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Edit:  Here it comes.  ---Little Black Snow It has been instants.  The snapping of an insanely huge maw around her, the coiling of a scaly body, the fetid tunnel waters boiling up and over her.  Her head snaps back, she scrambles for the thread holding her to the Void but the thread shivers, breaks under the strain.  Focus.  Focus!! Ribs snap and her spine is slipping apart under the pressure of the monster’s giant jaws, limbs going out like dying candles;  then the very water implodes around her and an unbearable whiteness sears her inside and out –  … no balance … Snow whirls as her little feet patter down the path.  “Jifu, Ji-Jifu!”  Father, little father.  “You are back!  Are you back?”  He catches her and swings her into his embrace.  Ice crackles on his quilted sleeves.  “Snow, my girl.  My own Little Black Snow.”  He’s smelling of frost and travel and old beard.  “What have you brought me, father?  What have you brought me?  Did you see the Guardians?”  … no balance … without faith … A face as large as the sky, whispering a song:  shapes and words hazy in the mists of memory.  Safe.  A mother’s nuzzling flesh …  … no faith … without love … Fabric tears under the shepherd’s crippled hand as she folds into their shared need:  another rend in a shirt already almost past mending.  At this instant, neither of them cares.  “Why now?”  she whispers as their mouths mingle.  “Why only now?”  “Because you are healed.”  Because you are leaving.  “Why don’t you hate me?  You should hate me …”  … no love … without balance … … no … balance … No!  Where?!  Where are you, Lady?  I have lost you!  I have lost my path. I am here, Child.  I am always here. I have failed you.  I died?  You are here.  But why now?  I cannot die now!  I have not – You are here, Child.  That path ends.  I have failed my friends. And as that last thought pearls away, with it, or an aeon later, rides acceptance, and quiet.  Time wheels.  Aeons of peace spread, a pair of dark, endless wings.  No more meaning.  Balance at last.  ***Balance.  ***Far away, a calling.  A groping.  A ripple in the quiet.  All that still remains turns away from that imperfection.  No.  The ripple spreads;  shimmers with sorrow;  and with a promise of pain.  No!  But already the balance is broken.  Please no … They were your friends once.  They are searching for you.  They have made sacrifices.  Will I go then?  she asks sadly.  Would you stay, Child of Crane?  It is, of course, not a question.  I shall go if you command me, Lady.  I am ready.  So she summons what strength she can find here:  fragments of an unbeating, heavy heart.  Memory.  Focus, long shattered and forgotten.  And as peace and quiet peel away from her in layers, a new path begins.</blockquote>

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