two, two, two posts in one; 4/6

[wearingguess]

[ hey, it's a prismagram post from 1stQadrMargaFan! you know, that one c-plus/b-minus-list influencer who's always posting magic tutorials, fashion selfies, food pics, and random animal encounters. (well, not so much recently, but... yeah.) ]

Hello, First Qadr!!
Thank you all so much for your comments and messages over the past couple of weeks. I can't believe I went three entire days without responding to anything! 😳 But I always read everything you send me, and I will try to answer you all as soon as I can. 🧡🧡🧡

But now I must make an important announcement!
✨ Starting today, this account will be going on indefinite hiatus ✨
I will keep comments open, but I won't be posting any more pictures or videos. This is just a personal issue and there's no need for anyone to worry! 🦋😸🍇
I want to say thank you again. Your support over the past several months has meant more than I can possibly express!! You're all breathtaking, with and without your Moonheld and Moonblessed traits! Let's all keep doing the very best we can to look out for one another! 👋🥰

[ a few minutes later, there's another post, from another account: laurea. this one's video. long antennae and parts of the colorful underside of a pair of butterfly wings are visible on the subject (who doesn't appear particularly jazzed about them). ]

Hello.
Ah... this message is primarily for my fellow Moonblessed. For those who don't know me, I am Titus Alexius.
I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately, and... I think that we ought to, if possible... that is, to the extent that it is possible...

[ deep breath! ]

I think we should stop moonlacing.

[ and now the hurried qualifiers. ]

We need to do a little, of course, to survive. Obviously we should all feel free to do that amount. But beyond that minimum, we should most likely refrain.

[ he hunches his shoulders and looks down!! ]

This will certainly be a great sacrifice... and terribly difficult, especially during the moon cycles... and no doubt quite unpleasant in many ways as well. For some of us more than others. But while the effects of chroma generation initially seemed exclusively beneficial, with the very worst of them still being harmless, it is now more than clear that there are others that are neither predictable nor safe.

[ now he shuts his eyes. ]
...All of Port Sylvel paid the price for that. And many perished in the subsequent battle as well. We cannot bring them back, but we owe it to them not to let it happen again.

[ another deep breath. then he opens his eyes and looks back into the camera. ]

At least that is what I think.
I would like to know what all of you think.


[ there's a slightly awkward pause!! ]

...On that note, I am also looking for work.
I am willing to do anything, though... physically demanding work is probably best avoided, unless you don't mind its being accomplished poorly and only after a likely unreasonable length of time.
Nothing that requires moonlacing, either, though I suppose that much is obvious.

...
And that is all. Thank you!

Comments

[numbertwohero]

[Titus definitely looks...not just tired. Worn, and worn out, and tired, and lost. He knows that look. And it's definitely strange that his first impulse on seeing that look these days is to want to offer a hug. Maybe a sign that he's been here too long. Or possibly just long enough.

But Titus doesn't want to moonlace, seems to be really opposed to it, and so instead Shouto just stands awkwardly for a minute and then takes a seat on the couch near Titus, but not touching, a cup in his own hands to keep them occupied.]

It's okay. You don't have to say anything, if you don't want to. But I'll listen, if you want to take your time and figure it out. I'm not going anywhere.

god this is going to be the worst, i'm so sorry, please feel free to just skim LOL

[wearingguess]

[ he feels such a rush of affection and gratitude that it almost knocks him over; but since he's sitting down, it just makes him sway a bit. ]

Thank you so much. I'm so glad that we met, Todoroki. I...

[ he sniffles awfully, but after a moment he gets it together!! ]

I do want to tell you, though. I've wanted to for a long time, but I was nervous... and it never seemed like the right moment.

[ he takes a deep breath, and then he begins.

he tells shouto about lady scheherazade, the high priestess of the reim empire and one of the world's three magi—magicians beloved by the rukh, who receive an infinite supply of magoi from the world around them instead of relying, as other magicians do, only on the magoi generated from the rukh in their own bodies. and how scheherazade used some of that endless magoi, along with fragments of her own flesh and bone, to create puppets—spare bodies—clones of herself. unlike the original, these clones did not receive unlimited magoi from the rukh around them—and unlike real humans, they could not indefinitely generate magoi from within themselves, either. instead, the magoi poured into them by scheherazade while she cultivated them was all they would ever have, and when it ran out, they would die. their lives, once scheherazade completed them, would last about a tenth of the time it had taken to create them.

one of these clones was titus. he had been cultivated for fourteen years; during that time, he had been "alive," but his consciousness had been in darkness. scheherazade had spoken to him and told him many things, but other than her voice, he had perceived nothing and experienced nothing.

then, at last, he had been "born." she had shown and taught him the things he could not properly learn until then, implanted magic gems in his forearms with which they could communicate instantly from any distance, and sent him to magnostadt, a country ruled by magicians, to investigate on behalf of reim. there, he'd experienced life for the first time; he'd made friends and enemies and enemies who became friends, felt the sunshine and wind on his face, seen cats and heard them say "meow"...

of course, many other things had happened as well. and at first titus had been content and happy simply to have had the chance to see the many wondrous things he had once only been able to imagine. but as time passed, he began to establish a life in magnostadt, and even (quite against scheherazade's advice) formed a makeshift family with marga, an orphaned five-year-old. though she suffered from a degenerative illness that would have claimed her life within a year, the chancellor of magnostadt had, for titus's sake, arranged for her to receive regular treatments from the nation's foremost experts in healing magic. she no longer suffered from the pain her disease caused, and it seemed she would be able to live out a normal lifespan.

so titus had grown increasingly attached to the world and to the people in it, and increasingly desperate and unhappy at the knowledge that his time was coming to an end (a fact he had kept hidden from everyone). he'd had about a month left to live when scheherazade told him the role he'd been created for was almost finished and that it would soon be time for him to return.

then marga had asked him if he would stay with her forever, and he had promised her that he would. and then he had gone to chancellor mogamett to tell him everything and beg him to (if such a thing might be possible) preserve titus's life.

that was when he had come to prismatica. and because his nearly depleted store of magoi could be supplemented by chroma—and because he could generate as much chroma as he needed, whenever he needed it—he had been able to live for another year instead of another few weeks. indeed, as long as he remains here and continues to generate at least enough chroma to sustain him, he can probably live on indefinitely.

then majestas had come, of course. and then, three days ago, titus had gone back to his own world.

more than three days had passed there, though not all that many more. but scheherazade had announced her intention to make magnostadt into a province of the reim empire, and reim and magnostadt had gone to war, and titus had fought on magnostadt's side. the losses on both sides had been devastating. but eventually, a cease-fire had been called, and aladdin—a dear friend of titus's, and himself a magi—had convinced scheherazade that to continue the war would likely have world-ending consequences.

so they had all spoken together, and she had agreed to withdraw—and to allow titus to remain in magnostadt. she had apologized for treating him as nothing more than an extension of herself and for trying to force him to live only for reim; she had acknowledged him as her son.

but she also had to tell him that his wish to live longer could not be granted. she had managed to stretch out the life of her original body for 268 years, but it had finally reached its limit; within days she would die, and all her clones would die with her. so although mogamett and the other learned magicians of magnostadt had indeed believed they could preserve titus's body... it would not matter.

then the kou empire had suddenly launched an attack from the east, and disaster began to befall all sides as it seemed that the consequences aladdin had warned of were about to come to pass anyway; and titus, still in shock and unable to decide whether he should use up the last of his power and life on behalf of scheherazade and reim, of aladdin, or of the magicians and citizens of magnostadt, had gone to see marga for what would certainly be the last time.

then he'd woken up on iris moon again, and the moon knights had found him and brought him back to the city. his memories of this world had returned as soon as he had, of course, and they had mingled with the new memories he'd acquired from home, and he had found himself unable to think of almost anything besides the scenes of carnage from the battlefield at magnostadt and the frozen tableau of death at port sylvel.

so once he'd made it back to his apartment, he'd gotten on his burner prismagram account and methodically blocked every single one of his main account's prismal followers so that none of them would spot him on his alt, even accidentally; then he'd gotten back on his main and announced that it would go on hiatus; then he'd gotten back on his alt and asked his fellow moonblessed to generate less chroma so that they could avoid awakening more monsters like majestas.

and now he's here.
the original spread of tea and snacks is probably long gone, and titus is also likely to have put quite a dent in whatever supply shouto had available of kleenex-like material. ]

HUSH I LOVE IT AND YOU AND THEM

[numbertwohero]

[It's a lot. Not just the amount of words, or the time it takes to tell them, though that's a lot, too, and he listens to it all, supplying tissues and more tea until it all runs out, and even then he listens.

It's a lot. But the least he can do is listen, since Titus has lived through it all.

But in the end...in the end, there's only one thing that matters.

Titus is his friend, and Titus is hurting, and whatever the method of his creation, Titus is a person, with valid and real feelings and desires and dreams.

Shouto's quiet for a long moment, processing everything. Finally, he takes a deep breath, letting it out in a slow sigh, before finally looking back up at Titus.]

...I understand why you said all that about moonlacing, now. After what happened at Port Sylvel, and what happened when you went home. But...I still want to hug you. If that's okay with you.

[He doesn't have words to express just how he feels about the rest. But if there's anything he's learned here, it's that sometimes you don't need words.]

[wearingguess]

...

It's okay.

[ he tries to hesitate but doesn't quite manage it. in the end, he doesn't even wait for shouto to be the one to initiate. he's just too exhausted, too wrung-out, too fucking sad... and at the same time, so overwhelmed with gratitude and love. ]

[numbertwohero]

[The way Titus all but collapses into his arms tells Shouto everything he needs to know about just how lost he's feeling, but honestly it's okay. Or, it's going to be, somehow. Shouto's arms wrap tightly around the smaller boy, his face buried in Titus's hair, and he'll hold him for as long as he needs. Not for the moonlacing, but for what it means.

And after a while, he murmurs a quiet comment into that hair.]

For what it's worth--I don't think differently of you, just because you weren't born the same way as most people. You're a person. And I care a lot about you.

[wearingguess]

[ his voice is a little muffled for obvious reasons!! ]

Todoroki... thank you. So much, for everything.
...I really hoped that you would feel that way. Aladdin told me people would, but I was so afraid...

[numbertwohero]

There's nothing to thank me for. If anyone thought that made you less of a person, they'd be wrong.

[He's quiet for a moment, a hand stroking Titus's back, before he speaks again, voice a little uncertain.]

It's not the same, but--I kind of know how it feels. A little. I was only born because my father wanted to create someone with a quirk strong enough to overtake my world's number one hero. He couldn't do it himself, so he forced my mother into marriage for her quirk and had children until one of them met his standards.

[He's never actually said this to anyone. It still feels weird to be saying it.]

I wasn't a child, I was a creation. A means to an end. So I mean--I'm not trying to say I know exactly, but...I think I get it.

[wearingguess]

[ titus tightens his embrace... a little fiercely. ]

That is... a terrible reason to be born, I think...
But nonetheless, I am so glad that you were. And that you are here.

[numbertwohero]

[That's okay. He doesn't mind at all. In fact, he nestles just a little further into the embrace, holding Titus as close as he can.]

I feel the same way about you. You're a good friend, Titus. And I'm your friend, too. I'm here if you want to talk about anything, any time. Or if you don't want to talk, and just...need this.