Chapter Text
Loop #96
Jophiel truly didn’t know or understand why Saparata was against leading the meeting about island two. Anytime Saparata was pushed by others, namely Fluxion, he would always state that ‘it’s a conflict of interest’. To which when pressed for more detail, he would clam up and fiddle with that golden pin on his cloak. Even by Island two standards, Saparata was an oddity. The nationless individual always wore his armor, almost never removing it. Saparata also only used harder, coarse fabrics. Cotten, leather, and hemp. He never bought clothing from stores with currency and always traded in goods when he could. Notable, Jophiel can only remember very few times when Saparata used currency in the form of acquiring materials for boat security. But most of the time, Saparata kept to himself.
From what she had heard for Fluxion, Saparata had a rather large stockpile of materials- a good prevent of which was food. But he also spoke of the resource materials. Saplings, bundles of wood, wool, pressed flowers, dozens of wood crates of seeds, iron, gold, Diamonds. Fluxion had also stated that on occasion those stockpiles suddenly dropped drastically. That as if whenever Saparata suddenly hit a certain quota, more the half of his built up supplies would suddenly disappear. Saparata had never quite answered where those supplies had gone, nor why he had even been stocking up such a large amount.
Now frankly, it was something Jophiel had been truly thankful for. For all that Saparata had been off or too consumed, he was kind. For all that Saparata denied and had refused, he was an excellent diplomat and frankly, Jophiel could understand now why Fluxion was constantly trying to poach Saparata for Luminaria. Still, Living within Saparata’s house after Serephimes… attempt.
(It broke her heart into a million and one pieces. It was frankly a miracle that Saparata had chosen to visit and join on her stroll. But even as he chased off Seraphime, he was kind. It didn’t stop her heart from breaking, but nevertheless he was kind.)
Ultimately, Jophiel had sent her guards to spread the message of a second meeting while she stayed and aided Saparata in the construction of his vacation- soon to be meeting room. It also turned out that Fluxion had underestimated Saparata’s food storage. Crates of cured meat, unwashed eggs, carefully packed and stored cheeses, dozens of flour, spices, sugars. Crates of iron and diamond, well forged swords in styles that Jophiel doesn’t recognize, seeds for a variety of plants made to grow in harsh soil and some she knew that Saparata had specifically requested to be changed to grow in harsh soil. All packed up and hidden well.
It was stupid to go alone.
But Jophiel could not deny answers that must be sought as she snuck out to follow Saparata. She’d seen him earlier that day sneaking crates of his supplies out to the well made boat by the shoreline. In fact there were several boats, all well attached and filled with the crates. It was by chance that she managed to hide undetected- at least until Saparata came to a complete stop.
It had sprouted a bit of argument and eventually ended with Jophiel swearing her silence. Jophiel had wanted to demand answers, but kept her tongue. It was still quiet regardless, but Jophiel had ideas quickly form the closer they arrived at the barrier. There were a few larger ships on the other side, but perhaps more importantly were the groups of smaller ships huddled as close to the barrier as they could safely be. Different flags and symbols literally the small crews aboard the boats. It was easy to tell that these were groups- nations perhaps, of the other island.
Saparata held a hand to prevent her from standing as he spoke to the group, “This is Jophiel, Queen of Tri-color and friend, she will hold her silence.” It seems that she had not gone unnoticed, especially considering how some of those had looked upon her. But Saparata’s word had gained affirmations from the several existing groups. She watched as Saparata stood up and carefully began pulling the boat over with the rope. Jophiel had to help. She gathered some rope and helped him pull it closer. Saparata had looked surprised for a moment, before it turned to grateful and then focused back on their work.
The two pulled the first boat as close as possible before Saparata removed his cloak and made a stay motion to her. The other bundled the rope at the edge of the boat before jumping into the water and swimming upwards, paddling. There were a few concerns and people who seemed ready to jump into the sea, but were topped as Saparata waved at them. Jophiel herself nearly yelled as they did. But instead she watched Saparata push and nudge the first boat past the barrier, nearly grazing it himself. Seriously, he was going to give her a heart attack.
But when noises of panic ensured, she looked up to find another member of the Island two group. They jumped from one of the boats with the flags of a red and golden sword. The swam quickly and pushed the boat over quickly towards a near crew with a blue cross that quickly began pulling the long group of boats over to their side. Then the Island one swimming got as close to the barrier as possible. She saw the silence and watch the dark haired man pop a large, relieved smile. He placed a gloved hand as close to the barrier and Saparata did the same.
‘A conflict of interest’
Oh.
Jophie understood more then she did in that moment then in the years on Island two with Saparata. The silence, the longing looks over the ocean, the ring that dangled from his neck, the golden clasp of his cape being the exact same one as the flag of the ship this man jumped from.
Saparata was married to a man on Island one
Loop #176
“You kill me, you risk war with Yggadrasil.” Saparata had pleaded, had damn near begged. “You court war with the Covenant, with Westhelm.”
Back then, no one had understood Saparata’s words. There was no known nation or land as Westhelm or the Covenant. Peace had stood for a while with Island one, until they discovered Saparata. Suddenly, hostility came into form and forge. Suddenly, they were prevented from access to Island one, suddenly once friendly eyes turned to glares. Then one day, they received a war proclamation from Westhelm and The Covenant for Saparata’s death.
They had tried back then, then had a war meeting, they had several war meetings with Fluxion being dead silent. The one tactication of them, the one person who saw this as a possibility long before any of them. Yet, they were scattered, they were still trying to recover from the incident at Saparata’s house, which had been quickly followed by ThreebelowZeros death only weeks beforehand. Before they even had the chance to forge and use the defense pact, Westhelm struck first.
It was a massacre. Luminaria was massacred. While they were in meetings and discussing the defense pact and ways to reason with the leaders of Westhelm and the Covenant, Luminaria was massacred. There were no survivors, not a singular living person, besides one young body named Newkids. A young body who spoke in a dead, hoarse voice in front of everyone to Fluxion. ‘They know’ The teenager had said hollowly, ‘They know the truth’. Fluxion had stopped breathing for a long moment, and had curled into himself where he stood. ‘This is all our fault’ The child had said with dead eyes, ‘Flux- this.. This is all our fault- They wouldn’t- They wouldn’t have if we hadn’t-’.
Fluxion had laughed back then, bitter and ruinous. The laugh of a man who knows what he’s done is beyond forgiveness, beyond repair or fixing. The laugh of a man who knows he’s damned them.
While Westhelm had no prospects against attacking during daylight and with loud noises and war. The Covenant was different. The Covenant came by nightfall and silently. They broke into homes and slit throats and damage. Even when those of Aprieon finally figured out what was happening, barely under a fourth of them had survived. For all that they were stronger in resource and material, they lacked experience, they lacked the discipline of Westhelm, of the Covenant, of Yggadrasil.
Conflict was sparse and little, they had not needed to fight for their lives in homelands, had not needed to take up blades for the sake of war when all had enough resources, when all had been content. Their futures were secure, their children never went hungry nor had they themselves ever looked true starvation in the face. They had never needed to learn to fight for their lives. For all that malnutrition had done its damage to their enemies, they had forged themselves into strength, had struggled and fought enough to turn the lands in their favor. In turn, they had been rewarded in the form of strength and subsistence.
They had fought for their lives with every bit of strength they had, those of Island two hand it handed to them by comparison.
(“How do you make nations turn on each other and tear each other apart?” It was a question that Spyder had asked many loops ago. All the way back that when in one of them the commonwealth had remained their own separate nations instead of merging together. Still, Schpood hated the commonwealth, it was just something that stuck to him.
Schpood had previously pondered that question for a while, before answering. “A bigger threat would obviously draw a group together. You allow them to think everyone is together in the same situation. But someone in that group has to have cracked before, so long as that happens…” Schpood remembers the silent look Spyder had, “..you make them believe that they can trust each other, and then you instill doubt. You make sure there is evidence of wrongdoing. And you make sure it can be found, and that it can be known."
“They are more than willing to tear each other apart, especially if one of them is the reason they are in that situation in the first place.”)
Therein had been looking through his video rolls for moments of happier times. For moments that could give him some form of hope when he discovered it. Then he brought it to Cass and Cass couldn’t help but recall that moment. That seemingly useless moment of what they had all assumed was grief, that the kid was blaming himself, was blaming his leaders who should have protected him, who should have protected them. Yet, that kid had not looked away from Flux. The same Flux who had built Saparata’s home. It was a silent realization that felt like someone dropped several anvils atop her.
(For every one of the members of Westhelm they brought down, nearly eight of their own fell. For any member of the covenant they managed to injure badly enough, they brought down at least twelve members.)
Losses that could have been prevented, losses that should have never happened in the first place.
Cass immediately tries to kill Fluxion for his actions. She has her hands around his neck as she screams, she screams for those who died over his actions, she screams for the senseless deaths of the other leaders, her friends, her citizens, all in the name of some brat to obtain power. She hears his life, his words, his slithering tongue. He calls her insane with false sympathy in his voice, with fear she knows. He is aware that she knows the truth, that she is no longer a puppet, but a threat.
Her mind screams and shouts at his words.
We are dying. We are burning. What use is your lies? Why must you keep avoiding blame? If you feel even a fraction of guilt, a moment of remorse, then speak the truth, take the blame damn it. Your- no FiveBelowZero’s, Legacy’s citizens have paid for your crimes with their lives, Alke’s, Luki’s people were slaughtered in the dead of night for your actions.
Fluxion does not answer for his sins as she is escorted back. Cass understands that no one will stand, that this land, This Pandora, as those of Yggdrasil have been calling it. (Pandora’s box. Misery came out first and hope was all that was left. But what if you burn the box containing hope, believing it to be misery? That means only misery exists.)
Cass cannot stand for a land that is nothing but a slow death for her people.
(Turntap only laughs when the leader of the Cass coalition steps forth with an offer. It seems he wins this bet Schpood. He can hear the grumbling of Westhelm's manic leader.)
It's easy to capture the leaders of Pandora. They are forced to dispatch the guards and end up killing that boy they let escape right in front of Fluxion. Turntap regrets that the kid had to go, he knows Saparata wouldn’t be happy about this, but both him and Schpood know that Saparata wouldn’t be happy about their actions regardless. But personally Turntap can’t help but find the despair, the grief, the regret of Fluxion's face amusing and vindicating. Normally, Turntap knows he’d reel Schpood. It was practically second nature by this point- When Saparata wasn’t around or Spyder was more particularly willing to let Schpood go off the rein, it was up to Turntap to draw the Warlord Emperor into sense and to let go of his bloodlust.
But they’d had a pretty shitty few loops, to put it extremely lightly.
Truthfully, Turntap was more than willing to leave Pandora to itself. Schpood was more then willing to let Westhelm rule itself under Owo for this run and Spyder needed a break. They had even had plans to kidnap Benji and Sidefall. They had an area picked out and everything in the edges of the winter mountain. A nice spot on the coast where they would be able to transform a cove into a steambath, let up a seaside cabin, relax and get away from politics, take a breath from the insanity of the loops.
But then instead of Saparata ever showing up, they were met with silence. Even when they asked about a wanted terrorist, they were met with the horrible news that Saparata had been executed.
They were supposed to have a break loop, to have a rest, to have a chance to gather themselves after the hell for the more then dozen loops of hell. Loosing Saparata- even before they could properly settle in, for the best words, broke something in their little gathering. If the world wouldn’t give them their break, then they would force the world into ending early.
Turntap wasn’t an Extinction Avatar for nothing.
Loop # 001
(The ending was a miserable one. But it was one that Saparata had come to be content with. His house was more or less a bar and home, he spend a few at Westhelm and visited Turntap's grave every three months. He’d stood in for the Emperor's council more than once and had talked Schpood out of risky decisions more than a dozen times. At some point, every three months turned to every month, and then a few days into a week and then that week into three. It was at the point Saparata had spent more time within Westhelm then he did Pandora.)
(But when he suddenly awoke in bed, nearly three years in the before. All he could do was cry in sorrow for an hour, mourning what he lost. Then he got himself together and swore to make a new better lifetime. Yet..)
Saparata had tried- He had tried impossibly hard. He had stopped Sereaphime from stabbing through Jophiel, he had pushed to the have the meeting elsewhere yet-
He couldn’t help but stare in shock at where ThreeBelowZeros’ body lay. For all his efforts, every single attempt to keep the leaders alive, to keep Fluxion in check, he still failed. Part of him, that unspoken part from the previous life, gathers ThreeBelowZero in arms and wails. He curls his body around Luminaria’s leader and sobs over the body of the brave and kind man. He doesn’t care who sees him, doesn’t care that Fluxion is right behind him and could easily backstab him as he has done many times in the past. Fluxion could try, Fluxion could try again and again, but he will not let Fluxion sing lies about this man in his arms. Saparata knows that he’s saying that he’s speaking, but he cannot care.
There are those who attempt to pull him away, Fluxion, Thomas, and numerous others, but its until Jophiel- his sister- appears and tucks him close to her while he cradles ThreeBelow in his arms. She kisses his forward and says, “You must let him go.”
She doesn’t get it. Saparata failed. He failed and he failed and he failed. But the words that leave are the closest thing to truth, “It should have been me.” He watches the way his sister's eyes widen, feels the way she wraps her arms tighter around him and cups his cheeks and whispers, “Never little bird, I would never wish that upon you.” Saparata can’t help it, can’t deny the facts, as he confesses to his sister, “I never got to tell him.”
I never got to tell him thank you for believing in me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for standing by me even when I accused you. Thank you for your kindness.
Saparata doesn’t know if he should have said those words when there are dozens of gasps around him, when his sister's eyes widen and somehow soften impossibly more. But he can’t care, not when he failed, not when in this second chance, he failed.
He blocks out the majority of his sister's next words and turns back to ThreeBelowZero, only barely catching the eyes of the culprits who somehow believes he has the right to be devastated for this act of his.
A dead part of his heart calls, I loved you once. I hate you, his mind whispers.