Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kinox floated through her father's war moon following a thread of tithing that had seemingly dried up. Who had betrayed her to tithe to one of her siblings? It was a sizable bit of tithing she was missing too. Not enough to make her worm yawn in hunger but it would soon if she didn't find out what had happened. Who had been lured away? And which sibling would find her claws in their organs for daring to disrupt her flow of tithe? She would not be amused if this was some joke.

Long before she found the source she came across her cousin. Dûl Incaru often came to and from Crota's moons and Oryx's Dreadnaught at her pleasure, enjoying the company of her cousins more than that of her great nieces. Dûl Incaru flew right up to her, down from a lofty rafter where she'd hung like a bat, as if waiting for her. Or perhaps avoiding her many suitors. Many a knight fell on their own blades in an attempt to woo a beloved niece of the Taken King.

She grabbed up Kinox's hands as she came up on her and twirled her through the air. Faster and faster until she wasn't sure where she had come from and where she had been. All she knew was Dûl Incaru's infectious giggling that also bubbled up out of Kinox.

And then Dûl Incaru released her and she spun away, wobbling in the air like some newly hatched thrall who couldn't get their claws up under them. She shook herself to regain her stability even as her older cousin pulled her to her side to whisper into her horns. The sound of Dûl Incaru's voice rang in her head as it echoed through her horns even as her voice was whisper soft.

"My mother played a devious trick on yours," the secret settled against Kinox's worm in a shiver of delight. "Do not be angry with her. To find the way through you must find the laughter in the moment," and then her mouth was away and Kinox was left floating there feeling so confused. But Dûl Incaru was already floating away. And she was much like her mother. She wouldn't tell Kinox anything else.

But a secret trick Savathun had played on Omnigul? Her mother was not the type to take lightly to tricks or find humor in being fooled. And the way through? Through what? She shook her head. She'd puzzle it through later. She still needed to find this lost thread of tithing.

The sound of her screaming some time later summoned several knights to her, drawn by her distress. She found the lost thread of tithing. Noornoon's body lay decapitated in the middle of one of the great hallways of the moon. Her beloved dead by gruesome and medieval injunction no doubt! Had she eyes great steaming tears would pour from them but instead all she could do was shriek and wail. She lowered herself to the floor and held his cooling body to her with a hateful fury in her breast.

There was no need for this! Her father Crota had declared that Noornoon was living to expectation so he was worthy of Kinox. And yet here she found him.

"Lady Kinox," one of the passing Knights who'd come to her screaming, tried to get her attention. She hissed at him. Gnashing teeth and hateful sounds.

She could not let this pass. She had a good idea who had done this. Or at least who was behind it. She rose up from the ground. "Take the body to my tower," she hissed, voice thick and tight.

"And what of you, Lady Kinox-

"Do as I say!" she screamed at them, her voice shaking the hallway. The three knights who'd come stood at attention but averted their eyes. She heard them mumble that yes, they would take the body for her tower as she flew off in a rage.

She tore her way through the barriers and protections that her mother cocooned herself in when she was brooding. Omnigul screeched when she saw Kinox but was so laden with eggs amid her flowering chitin she could barely raise herself from her brooding bed. Crota was nowhere to be seen for now but Kinox knew her father had been alerted that someone had entered the safe kept chamber of Omnigul's brooding nest. He'd be here in moments.

"Kinox. What is the meaning of this?" Omnigul demanded, trying to appear imposing when she was at her weakest.

She pointed accusingly at her mother. "I know what you have done, mother," she snarled hatefully. Omnigul did not dispute her and there was no lie as Kinox's worm fed on finding the thing that had harmed her so, and uncovering such an ill laid plot. "Father told you to leave him be but you could not help yourself." She formed magic in one clawed hand. "So I want you to see for yourself what you have wrought for yourself you shrieking hag!" she screamed even as she heard and felt Crota burst into the chamber behind her. She could feel the presence of his sword as it was about to cleave her in twain but instead just felt the wind as he stopped it a hair's breadth from her horns.

"Kinox what-

Kinox plunged her hand filled with magic into her chest with a scream of agony and hate. Her spindly fingers curled around her writhing worm and found where it gave tithe to her mother. She shucked it from her worm like a barnacle. She saw it in Omnigul's eyes as Kinox severed their connection, Omnigul feeling the loss of Kinox's tithe instantly.

"I am your daughter no longer," she spat at Omnigul. "And now may my brood lay barren until the Final Shape draws to a close," she pointed an ichor covered finger at Omnigul.

"What is going on?" Crota demanded.

"Ask your witch," and Kinox floated away from his grasp. She knew he wouldn't go after her, too beholden to look after his mate in such a delicate situation.

She flew back to her tower nestled among the many towers of her sisters that hung like stalactites or great pointed teeth above the Cathedral of Shapes at the heart of the war moon. Red lichen raced to meet her in the hallway leading up to her entering the tower and through it she could see the shape of her tower. As she opened the door it adorned her slender hand and despite having no eyes she could see the magnificent tower she'd constructed. And she could also see the corpse of her beloved Noornoon left on the floor on the lowest floor.

She floated down to him and settled amid the rapidly growing lichen. She brushed her clawed hand across his chest and felt him as a hollow death. A failure of the Sword Logic. A failure to her. She would have wept. She would look like such a fool to her siblings now. It had taken centuries for Noornoon to gain the respect that was offered Besurith's mate without reservation because he was an Acolyte. But they didn't see that he was better than them. Could stand up against a trained Knight his own age or older and yet moved through the Swarm none the wiser because his crown of horns wasn't as large as a Knight or a Wizard's.

She let the lichen grow over Noornoon's body so she could see the entire shape of him. The gruesome shape of his empty shoulders and the powerful expanse of his chitin. What a waste.

She sat there for some time not moving. She didn't know for how long her heart betrayed her with this horrid clinging pain. Digging into her own chest earlier was less painful than sitting by Noornoon knowing he'd never hold her again. He'd never pluck her from the air like a kite and hold her in his strong arms. He'd never watch over her in her sleep, giving her the most peaceful she'd ever had knowing he'd rather die himself than allow any harm to come to her. They'd never discuss their future children again. They'd never plot and scheme or gossip again. She'd never hear him tell her the latest rumors and gossip of the swarm. They'd never attend the opera together again.

She lay over his lichen covered corpse. Stuck by grief that was so unbecoming a princess of the swarm. He had been a failure. And yet her heart would never be whole again. It would always have a chunk of it missing that she had entrusted to Noornoon. As he had given her his heart too.

It was a long, long, time before her grief had found a place within her that was manageable. And only then could she think about what Dûl Incaru had said to her. Savathun had played a trick on Omnigul. What sort of trick? It took her a while to realize this was the trick. Noornoon's death was the trick. But why would she play such a mean trick? Savathun liked Noornoon and whenever the extended family got together she seemed to dote on him. Or at least be one of the few who'd engage with conversation with him. He was almost her favorite nephew. Why would she kill him?

The way through was to find laughter in the moment. That was what Dûl Incaru had said.

Was she supposed to find this a joke?! That her great aunt had done something that convinced her mother to kill her beloved? Or perhaps Kinox was the joke. A foolish girl who'd loved wrong and the trick played to Omnigul was that Kinox would be her daughter no longer. That sounded like quite a terrible trick to play on Omnigul. And on Kinox.

A ragged, broken, laugh wrenched itself from her mouth at the thought. That she was the set up and punchline of this joke. This stupid trick Savathun was playing on Omnigul at Kinox's expense. The laugh came out as a sob at first and then the hysterics started to get to her. She floated away from what had once been Noornoon, laughing despite herself. Laughing at this absurd and foolish thing that had befallen her. Laughing to deal with her grief and-

The lichen snapped all at once beneath her as it was ripped up from the floor. "Akka's shit maw," came the graveled voice of someone who should be very much dead.

And yet she could see his shape in the lichen. Sitting up. Head reattached to his shoulders and covered in his own blood. "N-Noornoon?" she asked tentatively.

The body turned and looked up at her. "Kinox. What are you doing on the ceiling?" he asked and indeed she had floated up to the ceiling in her hysteric shrieking laughter.

"... Are you alive?" she asked him slowly.

"What question is that?"

"You had no head not a moment before."

He reached up, snapping and breaking more lichen, touching his head, his horns, his face. "I seem to have one now," he said. He got to his feet, the lichen trying to cling to his legs but he snapped it off and brushed the dead plant matter from his chitin that fell off him like ash. "Come down from there," he reached a hand up to her.

She just stared down- as best she could having no eyes- at Noornoon. "You were dead. How are you alive?"

"I was dead?"

"Only my uncle Nokris had the power to bring back the dead."

"I wasn't dead," Noornoon said. "I was simply... somewhere else. Somewhere dark, and quiet. And then I heard you laughing from far away and I went to find you. And now you're acting quite strange."

"I!?" she demanded in a shriek. "You were decapitated!"

"My head works fine now. Even have all my eyes," he strobed them at her to make a point.

Slowly she floated down from the ceiling and put her hands on his head, his face, his horns, his neck. He was whole. Unscarred. Unassaulted. Perfect. As if he'd just stepped in from outside the tower to come home to her. There wasn't even a scar on his neck where the flesh had been severed. She touched him like she'd never beheld him before. "What did you say happened?" she asked him.

"I was somewhere else. And when I heard you laughing I went to find you. And here you are," he said curling one of his arms around her lithe form.

"I-- excuse me," she pushed herself off of him and went to find a long distance communicator. She had to sort through them before she found one linked to Dûl Incaru. She ignited the rune on the device and held it against her horns to hear.

"My sweet cousin," Dûl Incaru said after a few moments.

Kinox looked at Noornoon standing there, confused why Kinox was so upset, patches of dried and dead red lichen clinging to his chitin. "What is that trick your mother played on mine?" Kinox asked.

"Oh have you found out! Did my advice help?" Dûl Incaru giggled.

"Yes. And yes. Now tell me."

"Is it not obvious?"

"I'm a little stressed right now that my consort who was beheaded is now quite alright and fine," Kinox hissed.

Dûl Incaru giggled yet more. "Mother carved out a space in the Sea of Screams, just for him and sewed it to him with her finest needle. He is Ascendant. Now do you see the marvelous joke my mother played on yours?" she asked excitedly.

Kinox was quiet a moment. Noornoon was... Ascendant? And had a place in the Sea of Screams? But more than that. Such a place was a Throne World.

Her mother could kill Noornoon over and over and over again and she'd never be rid of him. Unless she found the small place Savathun carved out for Noornoon and killed him there he was beyond her ability to hurt. And that would infuriate Omnigul. That Noornoon, the Acolyte she detested for 'corrupting' one of her proven daughters, was beyond her ability to kill.

Kinox laughed and it was a joyful laugh. Dûl Incaru laughed with her as they delighted in the wonderus joke Savathun had played upon Omnigul.

"I will be sure to give your mother a proper thanks when I see her again," Kinox said.

"Indeed," Dûl Incaru giggled and the connected faded.

Noornoon was still standing there. "What?" he asked. Then he grunted when Kinox threw herself onto him, just on reaction he caught her in his arms, supporting her weight entirely.

"That somewhere else, my love, was a Throne World. Your Throne World," Kinox cooed to him.

"... What? But I'm nothing."

"Savathun carved a piece of the Sea of Screams just for you. So you could torment my mother with your existence forever," she was delighted by this news. "And all I must do is call you back to me and you will come," she held his face in her hands so gently, so perfectly. She could see the exact shape of him as she was so close to him.

"I will always come when you call, my love," he said. "What now?"

"Now we wait until father summons me to scold me for cutting tithe from Omnigul. It won't be until after she had laid her eggs. So he can scold us both. And I will bring you with me, perfect and whole, as you always will be," she caressed his face, adoring the shape of him.

"Aiat," he said.

"Aiat."