It took quite some time to put that puzzle back together. Somehow the bundles of threads had so thoroughly wrapped themselves around one another that it was almost like a knot. It took time and patience, but after a while the two bunches were sorted out and back where they belonged. He had done good work. The iridescent threads of the first shimmered and glowed as they curled around each other in a thread cage that was nearly too transparent to be seen. The second was a melody of greens, twining around each other and shimmering with a warm, strong light.

On he moved to the next, the combatants still tied to the ground by the threats attached to his horn, and the boy still clinging to his back. The next tangle to be unraveled and pulled back from its floating escape was a curious blend of oranges, bright and dark that were snagged by the horn and drug back to their proper cage.

This one was far easier than the last and soon another thread cage was full. The people were watching now, and nobody had lifted a hand in violence since He had tied those down before. Maybe they were transfixed by the beauty of the threads as well. All that beauty escaping was infuriating, but they hadn’t been able to see that more fighting was not the way to stop it. Now they could see.

The unicorn tossed its head and moved on to the next escaping bundle, ignoring the people who were starting to get up and move. Leaving the area. It was beyond the unicorn’s concern though as they started to escape the cavern that was still painted in blood, he had more threads to untangle and more thread-cages to fill. What did it matter if a few of the cages took their threads away?

It was as if someone had flicked a spinner: there were no newborns to nuzzle, or meadows to frolic in, so the unicorn had settled on ending the battle.

Slate laced his hands through its mane, and concentrated on not being heavy. He was glad he had been in the camp for a month: he had lost some weight. As the unicorn dragged people around by their own souls, pushing them back into their bodies or pulling combatants apart, he simply tried to be an innocuous presence on its back. A childish smile had latched onto his lips, and would not let go.

Slate had never ridden a unicorn before. Especially not through a battlefield.

His smile left as the unicorn set to work on a hulking form of red. One of the Abyss clones—he was not sure which one. They looked the same, for the most part. The only real difference came in their personalities. A dead body does not have a personality. But it was okay: the unicorn made it better.

The unicorn… made Ghost appear?

Slate frowned. He was not sure what Ms. Csendes had been doing inside of the clone's body, but he was fairly certain that it was not appropriate for a married woman. Also—and possibly on a related note—she was rather naked. What would her husband think? This unicorn might not mind, but he thought the other one would at least wish for his wife to wear clothing while in public. Sebastian was old-fashioned, like that.

Slate slid off of the unicorn's back, and dropped lightly down to Ms. Csendes' side. He removed his coat and draped it over her.

When she awoke, he would offer his pants, as well.

Time played games with the unicorn, and he played games with time. He fixed person after person, again and again, putting them back together again. As he worked, he was completely absorbed in the task at hand and time seemed to stop around him. Then, as he moved to the next victim of this bloody battle, time would speed up again. Over and over he fixed the tangled skeins of color and light until it felt like he was living the same moments over and over again in a circle that would never end.

The shapes before him grew fuzzy, then clear again. He thought he recognized some of the shapes of the people he healed. Blood red threads returned to a blood red cage. Another, a brilliant white girl, so light she was nearly transparent, returned to one piece as well. Had he already fixed these already? They looked so familiar.

Abyss? ...Ghost! Somewhere deep inside the mind of the merged being a man struggled for control, trying to steer their course back to where his wife was laying.

The unicorn shook off the sudden impulse to turn. There was more to do. On to the next, and the next...*

...until there were no more broken cages. No more fleeting colors. Everything glowed as brightly as it should, each color in it's rightful place. The unicorn looked around, gave a contented sigh, then collapsed with exhaustion. It had taken much more effort than he had expected to put everything back the way it was supposed to be. All he wanted to do now was sleep. Above and around him, his own bi-colored threads began to unravel. Silver separated from gold, untwisting rapidly as the unicorn set his noble head on the floor and closed his eyes.

--
(Continued for Sebastian in The Necromancer's Wife.)

(*PM me if you'd like the Sebby/Tarin unicorn to appear in any other threads that are also taking place in the courtyard. I'll write a cameo post where he heals your character whenever your thread progresses to the point where you need that healing to happen. Or, you can write the big guy yourself, if you prefer. Just say that he came over, did the healing, then trotted off to fix someone else.)

Shin pointed. He simply pointed and said there. Nothing else, but Lee's eyes followed his finger, and she once again saw the unicorn looking creature with Slate riding it. But no Tarin.

Her eyes widened as she started scrambling backwards awkwardly. He'd merged. Tarin had merged, and because she hadn't seen the unicorn pull her spirit back, and it had left before she had opened her eyes while once again in her body, she hadn't had an idea. And didn't know that it was what healed her.

Still scrambling, Lee's eyes darted to Shin quickly before going back to the unicorn. "We need to get out of here," was all she said in response to Shin's question.

But even as she spoke, Lee saw something that surprised her. Was the unicorn healing people?

Lee stopped, just staring at the scene in front of her. It was unlike anything she had ever seen. And she had no clue what to do as a result. So she simply sat there, still on the ground, barely even out of the puddle of blood that remained sitting there, the blood soaking her clothing drying and hardening.

And then the unicorn collapsed. It laid it's head on the ground and stopped moving. Next thing she knew, there was a shimmering, blurring, weirdness around the unicorn, and suddenly there were two bodies laying there. Naked.

There was almost no movement around the whole courtyard area they were in at this point. Pushing herself unsteadily to her feet, Lee stumbled across and fell to her knees beside Tarin. "What the hell happened?" Lee asked, reaching out to touch Tarin's shoulder gently. "Are you alright?"

Lee seemed shocked. More shocked, perhaps, than the usually response one would elicit for seeing David Bowie turn into a unicorn and raise the dead. The fact that the unicorn in question was both her husband, and Ghost's, brought some context to the reaction... though Shin couldn't possibly have known for certain it was Tarin that had brought about the merged emergence emergency. He had a hunch something crazy had happened. Was happening. Happened. Would continue to happen.

Lee wanted them to go. Shin would have moved to follow her, if he'd had the ability to connect movement with thoughts, but she froze. He couldn't well follow her if she was stuck in one place.

Or maybe, standing around lamely was the absolute best way to follow a stationary individual.

Shin's head turned to instead let his eyes follow the not-so-stationary unicorn as it moved, and seemed to glide... all the way over to a very familiar individual. Then, it collapsed. And suddenly, there was Tarin, and there was Sebastian. Mental gears ground into place.

Aha!

So, Tarin and Sebastian had done a fusion... earrings or dance, it didn't matter. Shin blinked at the nudity. They needed to work on maintaining their clothes...

Lee moved to Tarin's side. Now, she was moving. Shin could follow that. He did. He dropped to his knees next to Lee. "Tarin... hey, Tarin... do you want my pants?"

All her hard work. Really.

People around the courtyard were rising. The unicorn was prancing. It was all so happy sappy, and sad. Lenna had to roll her eyes.

Well, at least they brought back the woman... Lenna noted, eyes swinging to Lee. The fact that it had been her husband, a fact Lenna learned only moments later when he split apart from Sebastian and broke Unicorn form... only brought further questions to Lenna's lips.

Slate dismounted his steed. All healing looked like it had been handled. Perhaps, now Lenna could break her distance and do something to help... like eye Slate for his choice in rides, and offer some words of advice.

She slipped through the dispersing crowd, eyes locked on the drug lord.

"Hey," She muttered as she came up to him. Lenna crossed her arms. "What the heck was that?"

“I do not know,” Slate said, his lips still intent on grinning. He turned to Lenna. “I rode a unicorn. Did you see?”

The unicorn was Tarin and Sebastian and colorful lights, apparently; this being the base components it split into. Both men seemed worse for clothing, but otherwise unharmed. Sebastian was comforting his wife, now; Slate briefly thought of offering his pants to the man, but realized that with his coat currently in feminine hands, his pants might be quite necessary for warmth when they went outside. It was still winter in Romania, he presumed, although... he admitted he was not quite sure.

“What day is it?” He asked his employee. The fully clothed one.

Somewhere deep in His mind, the unicorn was screaming over and over again in absolute torment. She was dead, she was gone, she was never coming back. He didn’t know how to console the weeping, desperate voice, and instead of ebbing as he fixed thread cage after thread cage it grew louder and more desperate. He didn’t know what to do. He was so tired.

Above and around him, His bi-colored threads began to unravel. Silver separated from gold, untwisting rapidly as the unicorn set his noble head on the floor and closed his eyes…


He was still crying, tears rolling down his cheeks, but his body was so exhausted that all Tarin could manage was laying on the floor of the cave. It was so cold, so absolutely freezing cold that he was pretty sure that he was dying. What did it matter though? He had been holding Lee’s body just a few moments before…before what? Tarin realized, for the second time, that he was laying on the cold stone floor of the cave and he lifted his head in puzzlement at the eerie near-silence of what had been utter chaos a few moments before.

Then he saw her.

Lee. She was pushing up from the ground, she was moving. The movement was unsteady, but it was her. God, had her spirit come back again? Was it going to stick to him…Tarin decided that would be alright. It would never be enough, but as long as she didn’t leave him completely, he could go on. Then her warm skin touched his shoulder as she asked what had happened and it all slammed into him with a burst of clarity.

The feelings, the emotions, the pins and needles that had spread through his body when he’d reached out to grab Sebastian by the shoulders. They had merged…they had done this. Tarin pushed himself up slowly, completely unconscious of his unclothed state and looked around. There were no more bodies. It was as if the work of the spirits, the guns, the fire, and the chaos had completely been erased. They had done this, but none of it mattered, all of it paled in comparison to the woman who was still terrified and covered in her own blood, on her knees beside him.

Tarin lurched forward, arms wrapping around his wife as he held her close and sobbed happily into her hair for a few moments, not caring if she was overwhelmed by the action. Eventually he pulled back, hands on the sides of her face and in her hair, ”I thought I’d lost you there for a minute…” he said. Then Shin offered him pants.

Pants? Tarin turned his head, unaware until that moment that there was anyone else in the world. ”Why would I need…” the Medium looked down, ”Oh…that…well…uh“ Suddenly, Tarin felt awkward. ”Yeah…but then what are you going to wear?” he said.

“Merges are funny like that…“ he said, shifting to hide all the really inappropriate parts.

Lenna stared at him. The way he'd said that... almost seemed giddy... He was pleased with himself. He was pleased with himself for riding a rainbow horse. The whole thought process behind that... just didn't make sense. How could he be so pleased?!

And why was he so casual about it? She'd come to rescue him, and he'd ridden a pony. All he cared about right now... it wasn't how they were going to get out. It wasn't about thanking her. He merely wanted the date.

"... December 31st," She crossed her arms. "The Underground came to rescue you. Sebastian orchestrated it. I helped." It didn't matter much, but it was information. He'd probably like it. Whatever. "You... brought Lee back to life." That was the more important topic. "Cheated death."

That wasn't cool. At the same time, it was.

December 31st. Of 2009, presumably. Ah. That was not very bad, at all.

“I appreciate your promptness in this rescue,” Slate stated, with an honest nod. He really did. The Romanian Resistance had beaten the New York Resistance’s break out record by several months.

>> "You... brought Lee back to life. Cheated death."

He shook his head. “No—that was the unicorn. Did you see? I rode it.” He had. Since she had not answered his previous claim to such, he felt the need to repeat it.

“What transportation have you secured for moving the prisoners out? I need to return to the city. Promptly.”

“I saw…” Lenna replied slowly. “I’m not sure what to make of it yet… Congratulations?” The blond shrugged. At least an ally was brought back. That was a positive note.

“We can either leave the way we came in, through the tunnels, or take the exit up top and walk back to the resistance. It’s snowing. I’m more for taking the tunnels.” It was snowing, and cold. Slate didn’t look like he had winter clothing on. It wouldn’t do to save him, then freeze him to death. “We should bring Tarin and Lee.” Lenna glanced towards the couple, and suddenly noticed Tarin wasn’t wearing clothes. The tunnels would be far better, indeed.

” Not sure about their Asian friend. Is he one of us?” Her focus fell on Shin.

It was a very good question. What would he wear? A smile? He had no idea what the time, or weather, or date outside the walls of the camps were. He might need those pants to keep himself warm… but Tarin had nothing. The least Shin could do was give him the shirt off his back.

… Or, in this case, his pants.

Off they came. Shin was still wearing boxers. He was covered. Tarin most certainly was not. Shin’s pants would have to do. He held them out for the man with an embarrassed hint of red on his cheeks. “Dude, take them. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Lenna saw. That was good. He was not sure why it was good, but it was: one of his most reliable employees had seen him ride the unicorn. It was too bad Sebastian hadn’t seen. Though then again, Slate supposed his mentor had.

Slate nodded his agreement with her suggestion: the tunnels sounded agreeable to him, and his lack of coat. As they would no doubt prove agreeable to Tarin’s lack of shirt (the Asian in the process of providing him with pants, it appeared) and Ghost and Sebastian’s respective states of attire. Slate realized that he was one of the better dressed Kabal members, at the moment. As was appropriate. He was their Leader, after all.

>> ” Not sure about their Asian friend. Is he one of us?”

“An X-Men, if I recall,” Slate assessed. “He can come with us. We simply need to lose him before we get to business back in Bucharest.”

There would be much to do, after he took a shower.