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When the flint arrow had pierced his side and let crimson blood spill out onto the sand, all Scott had been able to do was cast his eyes back to the bunker. As the air stuttered in his chest, he had caught Jimmy’s eyes with a desperate glance. This wasn’t supposed to happen, this was incredibly Wrong. He couldn’t be dying, fading-this couldn’t happen, his blood was the wrong color-
The panic in his husband’s face had his own eyes gathering with belated tears. He was already starting to drift, separated from the pain and dulled senses. He tried to hold on with a trembling grip, desperately clinging onto his fragile mortal life. His anguish was not for his own life, but for Jimmy’s- their enemies would likely succeed, and Scott was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to protect his fragile husband.
Not that he was weak, in any meaning of the word, but his eyes shone scarlet, and Scott’s fear of losing him ran deeper than anything else he felt in this hellscape they were trapped in. For some reason, it would be more permanent, irreversible-he couldn’t let it happen.
When he drifted in the void between life and death for an instant and an eternity, the world whispered to him of contradictions, errors in the spun fabric of space-time, knots in the thread. They wouldn’t tell any more even as he insisted, seemingly sympathetic and merciless all at once. You agreed to this, they whispered, we can’t undo a binding when weaved by the one they call Storyteller. You must play in his role.
The rage in him was a supernova, bright and explosive as he received Jimmy’s last belongings. He didn’t make it in time, not fast enough, not strong enough to do the duty he swore to himself. There was no way you could’ve, the stars whispered, he didn’t want you to.
The grave where he buried his husband is salted with tears. Uneven carvings told of shaky hands and ragged breaths. He swore revenge against those who killed the knight who loved all, caring to all he met. Jimmy didn’t deserve any of the suffering he had faced. He had always greeted the world with a smile as shining and bright as the sun, and in return it had snuffed out the best person Scott would ever meet, however long he lived.
It was in this grief he used to fuel the rage against the enchanter-king and his hand. He had dealt one of the final blows to the one who had killed Jimmy, and now it was time to go after the root of the problem. All he felt was searing jealousy when the bloody ruler protected his lackey as Scott nearly dealt the killing blow.
He was the one who found himself drifting again instead, screams echoing in a place where no one would hear him, let alone respond. His blind rage was his downfall, struck down a third time before even a chance of revenge.
He fell, and fell, and fell, until he slowed and landed into a valley of paradise. The world returned from the monochrome he hadn’t realized it had become when he caught sight of his long lost husband. It is a fragile dream that he clings onto with desperation only felt once before. Soon the illusion breaks into pieces, and his fingers cut and bleed on the edges like shattered glass.
The void welcomes him back, threads straightened out once more. His blood dyes darker once more, and amethyst-like stars dot his face like constellations. He reclines back among the nebulas once more, dissolving into the space between the stars. Yet something is missing, a loneliness that he hadn’t felt in decades. The deep feeling the something is wrong, someone is missing.
Then he remembers the spider. The one who had partaken in his tournament in disguise alongside a war god and the brother of the moon. He recalls the disdain when the weaver had caught sight of his knight standing by Scott’s throne. His mind then jumps to bloody fights in a sheltered world, protecting each other with all they had. The bloodlust they all faced, rooted in the Wrongness of being mortal.
Only the ones among them that didn’t have much changed remained anywhere near as they once were. Jimmy retained his kindness, as Scott devolved into feral grief. He had lost so much there, his divinity, his domain, his husband-
That was when it hit him. The supernova of anger had long since passed, and now he was a black hole, void within the void, a danger to the stars closest to him. He gathered the last dregs of Jimmy’s spirit from the sunshine of early morning to a tulip bobbing in the wind, imbuing them with stardust and the glimmering memories Scott had left. He placed the brightest star in the sky safe and far away from the depths of his ugly grief.
He watched from afar as the others who had been trapped settle back into their places in the universe. The Enchanter paints his companion with streaks of lapis that keeps him by his side ages longer than he could’ve. His heart twists with jealousy and longing for what he could never have. Most of the others gather with other celestials, taking comfort in the security of each other. The tricksters and the Timekeeper and Decay, to name a few. Alongside the Moon. They take in mortals to teach the way of building and technology after they lose a mortal most precious to them.
His kingdom, once great with riches and people from his tournaments, scattered in disarray. His people scattered in every direction, telling the tale of the star-god and his doomed romance. The faint peals of music drifted with a ballad of their fate.
And when the Angel of Death tears a hole in his domain to imprison the one of poison green, he bore no protest. The cell doors are secured by him alone, and he would have to be threatened by the universe herself to open them up again. He would probably refuse then too, anyways.
He witnesses the ones who are Not Supposed To Be, become, and there is nothing he can do. Nothing but watch as time is tipped on its scales and crimson corruption spreads throughout the world he treasured so dearly. The time was only meant to be interfered with by the Timekeeper, and the vines are nothing near the plants they appear to be.
The stars twinkled at the world’s inhabitants balefully, and few gaze upwards and look back. The ones that do, they are the ones whose wishes he grants on shooting stars. They were the ones who needed it most, as they were the ones who knew what was to come. He could only hope the Moon’s allies and champions would prevail.