total cinema

Torchline’s sun hung like a molten coin overhead, bleaching the clouds to bone and burning down upon the sand with no mercy. The waves rolled lazily against the shore, too languid to be threatening, too rhythmic to be soothing. Even the wind seemed to retreat, hiding in the shade where it could watch what unfolded next.

Because the man who arrived wasn’t meant for sunlight.

Dorian appeared as though carved from shadow, his presence unfolding across the sand without sound or spectacle. One moment the shoreline was empty. The next, he stood there, his dark clothes immaculate despite the heat, his hands clasped neatly behind his back like a man out for a stroll in a museum. But the air around him buckled faintly, like it knew to flinch.

Behind him, the tide whispered secrets it didn’t understand.

Ahead, a handful of soldiers—those foolish or unlucky enough to be assigned this stretch of shoreline—stared at him like he might fracture the air again at any moment. None dared lift their weapons. Not yet.

He regarded them with the stillness of a blade in its sheath. "Bring me the Tidebreaker," he said, softly. A pause. Polite. Controlled. Then his voice sharpened—not louder, but deeper, a scalpel slipping into flesh. "Now."

He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy

The guards ran.

And Hadama came, stepping through moonlight from the cool depths of the Court of Stars to the burning sand of the coast in bare feet and bare chest, brown and gold and silver in the sun. His armor remained coiled demurely around his bicep and his arms rested at his sides, relaxed and still as he studied the face of the man who had sent his guards fleeing.

It was a face that was oddly familiar, as though he had seen it in the past. He matched the description that Deimos had given the demigod at their last meeting, and Hadama contemplated him for a few seconds more before inclining his head with stoic courtesy and the respect due to a fellow leader.

Or a powerful enemy.

"Dorian." A pause as he raised his head to meet the Head of the Family's gaze, unflinching and outwardly calm as his voice rumbled into the unnatural stillness. "I am listening."

Dorian didn’t move when Hadama arrived. He simply observed, as one might admire the tide itself—silent, exacting, inevitable. The sunlight gleamed off the Tidebreaker’s skin, casting his bare shoulders in warm gold and silver, but Dorian remained untouched by the radiance.

Only when Hadama spoke his name did Dorian incline his head, the gesture precise and oddly courtly. He looked utterly out of place in the tropics: dark coat tailored to the waist, hair immaculately swept back despite the heat, hands folded behind his back with the patience of a man who had already considered every outcome and chosen the one that suited him best. "Your reputation precedes you, Tidebreaker," he said, voice calm and cool, untouched by the humidity. "A leader who protects his people. Steady. Deliberate. Not prone to theatrics."

His gaze drifted toward the sea beyond them, then back, sharp and clear as a scalpel.

"Which is why I’ve come to speak with you directly." He smiled—pleasant, even genuine, as though this were a diplomatic visit rather than an act of fury masked in diplomacy. "Your region is in possession of something I would very much like returned," he said. "Dahlia."

He let the name hang there a moment before continuing, smooth as silk over glass.

"In return,I offer you a promise." He stepped forward—not threatening, but inevitable, as if the sand itself welcomed his footfalls. "Torchline will remain untouched. No harm will come to your citizens. Not here, not on your islands, not beyond. No member of the Family will harm any who boast your citizenship." He stopped just shy of striking distance, the smile still on his lips.

"You needn’t like us. You needn’t believe in our cause. But I imagine you care about your people." Dorian’s voice, always soft, now edged on intimate. "And I imagine you understand how easily a tide can turn."

He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy

In spite of the shape he wore to blend in upon the world, Caido itself seemed reluctant to touch Dorian. A fact that Hadama noted as the flattery earned a tilt of his head in acknowledgment, but nothing more. His own eyes remained steady and clear upon the personification before him, focused and without distraction. Even Dahlia's name drew no reaction from the Tidebreaker. It was the natural consequence of the events of recent days, and he remained courteously silent to hear what Dorian would say.

The offer, when it came, was also no surprise. He stepped neither away from Dorian nor towards him, his feet planted firmly in the sand, offering neither welcome nor threat as he considered the other being's smile.

"My people" His voice was also quiet, but in the hush it carried without effort across the narrow space between them, "do not reside only in Torchline." A pause, and a breath taken deeply of the sun-salt air as he held the blade of Dorian's gaze. "My family is not bound by regional borders." And then the slightest tilt of his head in recognition of a shared bond, his tone turning thoughtful.

"She is human now. Fully of Caido. If she is returned to you, what will happen to her?"

Dorian’s head tilted, the motion as fluid as a thought slipping into place. He regarded Hadama with something like fondness—a teacher’s patience for an overreaching student. "My, my," he murmured, voice like velvet pressed against a knife’s edge. "That’s quite the mantle you’ve wrapped around your shoulders." He let the moment breathe, stepping closer to where the shoreline melted into seafoam, as though he were simply taking in the view.

"You govern Torchline," he continued, lightly, almost distracted. "But your concern for those beyond your reach...how touching." His gaze flicked back to Hadama, and this time the smile that touched his lips was small and cold. "And how naive. A king rules those who he reigns over. Perhaps those you don't are deliberately not under your thumb."

Then came the shift—the crack in the mirror-glass. Dorian stilled. For the first time, something in him twitched. Not a flinch. Not quite. But as if some unseen string had been plucked a note too sharp. The smile broke—fractured into a sneer so brief and bitter it might have passed as a trick of the heat-haze. He exhaled once through his nose, sharply, and turned his back to the demigod, as if to compose himself. When he spoke again, his tone was smoother, even indulgent—but it glinted now with something darker beneath the polish.

"Dahlia is not of your world, Tidebreaker. She did not rise from your soil, nor draw breath from your waters. She has burned through galaxies and brushed her fingers through the fabric of dying stars. She was made for more than these soft-lunged mortals who cling to sunlight and sentiment like driftwood in a storm." He turned back, slowly. The breeze caught at his coat, carried the scent of sea and void alike. "To call her human is to chain a tempest to a teacup. She is not yours to define. She is mine to reclaim."

His voice dipped, now rich and warm as honey—almost kind. Almost. "And I am not in the habit of letting go of what belongs to me."

He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy

That he was young compared to the existence that was Dorian was understood, and the Tidebreaker took no outward insult at the other being's indulgent tone, any more than he flinched from the threat that purred through it, subtle as starlight on silver waves. He might have been a statue, for as still as he held himself. Sweat beaded on his skin unheeded, trickled across gold-chased scars in contrast to who he spoke with, but Hadama faced the heat, embraced it, and made his peace with it.

Dorian's veneer of civility cracked, then. Only for a moment, but Hadama's attention had not wavered and he took note of the sneer without comment, content to wait for the eldritch man to regain his control. Sharper than ever when it returned, but the blade had been there before. Now it was simply coming out of its sheath. There was neither pity nor sympathy in the gem-like gaze of the Tidebreaker, but an adamant certainty coalesced there as he considered the poetry and the promise that Dorian revealed, perhaps unknowing. He listened to the leader of his enemies, and he learned. And only then did he speak, quiet and unhurried in his own time.

"Indeed, she did not rise from here. But now she is also a... hmm. A 'soft-lunged mortal.' Dying, as are all of us who walk this world. And whether her last breath is tomorrow or a century from now her soul will go to Mort's Halls, as do ours."

His gaze was almost tranquil as he looked into Dorian's eyes, the scent of the Void an unpleasant taint upon the sea air that he did not, for the moment, allow to distract him. "What is her worth to you, Dorian of the Void? One such as you describe... A creature of aeons. Of things we of Caido cannot even name. A member of your own far-traveling family."

Finally he took his eyes from the being in the dapper black suit, offering a bow of respect.

And, perhaps, understanding.

"A single region is too meager a price for such a being."

The bow was what did it. Not the words, not the steadfast gaze, not the understanding that glinted so quietly behind Hadama’s calm—but the way he lowered himself with respect. As though he were equals with something carved from stardust and shadows. As though he saw past the suit and the smile and dared to name what he saw.

Dorian inhaled slowly, and for a moment the shoreline seemed to still around him. His smile did not falter. But the shape of it changed. Gone was the warmth. Gone was the indulgence. What remained was precision: thin and clean as the line between mercy and malice. He unhooked his hands from where they’d been laced neatly behind his back, and folded them before him with elegant finality—each motion measured, a ritual of self-restraint. Of not letting his fury show.

"She is…irreplaceable," he said softly, almost to himself. No sneer this time. Just a fact laid bare, like a blade left on a table between them. He let the silence sit for a moment, the sea air sharp with salt and something colder still — the faintest trace of void caught in the breeze.

Then: "So." A pause. A blink. That cool, elegant smile. "What do you propose?"

He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy

No more pleasantries. No more games. Hadama looked into Dorian's eyes and saw death within them. His own the least among them, to this existence that had seen suns die. But there was honesty there as well, as clean and cold and cutting as the space between stars. A truth more harsh than daylight, offered like a lily upon his grave.

The question came, then. The opportunity. And for all that his expression did not change the weight of his next words settled upon Hadama's shoulders. A world rested there. A future, intangible and heavy beyond measuring so that he drew in a slow, deep breath and held it while he assembled each word with precision before speaking.

"This world, for her ransom." For all its boldness it was a simple price. One world, for an irreplaceable existence. "Take her, and all your people. All of the pieces of the Void that remain here. Take them gently and leave us in peace, Dorian. Return to the places beyond the stars. Beyond the reach of Caido's gods, and Mort's Halls. Perhaps there Dahlia can be returned to what she once was."

And if his voice was quiet and inescapably young compared to that which he spoke to, still it was steady as he inclined his head slightly in recognition of the loophole that had almost been left.

"Go, and give your word that the Void will not return."

Dorian grew still. Not in shock—no, not even close—but in that particular way predators do, when something shifts in the air and the hunt begins to change. His gaze didn’t waver, didn’t blink. He simply absorbed Hadama’s words with the kind of attention usually reserved for symphonies or sharpened steel.

And then...he laughed.

Softly. Sincerely. Not cruelly, but as if genuinely delighted; the way one might laugh at a child who’s drawn blood in a sparring match. He turned, a slight pivot of polished boots in the sand, and glanced over his shoulder toward the horizon. Starfall. The place where his empire first took root. The place that had already begun to shift beneath them all.

When he looked back to Hadama, the smile had not faded. If anything, it had grown.

"A clever gambit," he murmured, tone warm with something dangerously close to admiration. "One world for one woman. I suppose that is the kind of math mortals think sounds rather romantic." He stepped forward once; not to close the distance, not to threaten, but merely to move, always in motion, as if the stillness of thought must be balanced by the grace of action. A showman’s poise, laced with a conqueror’s control.

"If I were to agree," he mused, "much of the void would remain." He let that hang in the heat between them before lifting one hand, gesturing vaguely toward the north, the east—everywhere and nowhere. "I am no gardener," he said simply. "No wrangler of beasts. The void has already been sown, and it grows where it pleases. Roots sink deep, even when you try to burn the garden down. As for my word..." His smile turned faintly rueful, head tilting just so. "Surely you don't believe it means much."

He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy

Laughter, sincere and lacking the subtle danger that had characterized their conversation until now, finally drew an expression to Hadama's stoic face. A brow rose, curious as to the source of the humor, and he turned his head to follow Dorian's gaze to the violet-laced horizon. The moon that had become an island. A place he had come to know better than he would have liked.

Again, the flattery-- or, no, a true compliment, perhaps. Hadama inclined his head slightly in acceptance of it, and acknowledgement of why he had named such a price. Grand, but Dorian himself was not without his grandeur and courtly charm.

But he was not mortal. No matter the body he now wore much like his suit. Even so his power had limits. His reign did not extend to all of the pieces of the Void that had scattered across the world and Hadama considered this for long moments before nodding in slow acceptance.

"Very well. We are capable of removing it ourselves, in time. Your Family, and what grows in the heart of Starfall, however, would be her price." To leave, to cease sowing fresh seeds of chaos and destruction and violet infection. But Dorian's charming smile surfaced again, a sharp fin against blue waters, and Hadama let his emerald gaze rest upon the most dangerous man upon Caido for a long moment.

And then turned his own eyes back to Starfall, his expression and the quiet tone of his voice both contemplative. "Mmn. Perhaps it does not," he said simply. "But our protections grow with each season. Those who resist you grow stronger. Better suited to this conflict. And we now hold the means to remove the Void from your people as well as our own." He turned back to the head of the Family, and only now was the clarity of his gaze lightly troubled.

"Return, and the conflict will resume. Escalate. And the price will be... significant. To both sides." A calm statement of a much colder and less romantic math. An acknowledgment that the Family would take a terrible toll on Caido's warriors before they were through.

But the Family was now vulnerable as well. Singly, they were the more dangerous predators, but Caido had its hunters now, and they did not fight alone. As Dahlia had discovered to her sorrow.

Dorian did not speak at first. Instead, he stood in thoughtful silence, the kind that stretched long and deep, like the shadows cast by dying stars. No twitch of the mouth, no idle movement of hand or foot. Still again, and this time not in the way a predator waits—but in the way a god considers an equation that no longer adds up in his favour.

This was not the outcome he had envisioned. Not precisely. But that was the nature of games played over centuries. Even the best-laid stratagems bent beneath the strain of lesser moves, of luck, of timing, of chaos. And sometimes—rarely—of sentiment. He’d accounted for all of them. And still, this—

He exhaled softly through his nose. The smile that followed was faint, but it was real, though its curvature bore the weary grace of a man who’d just tallied the worth of a kingdom and found it overvalued. "Your species is not clever, Hadama. You are narrow-minded and cowardly at the wrong times. You were simply...lucky. But then," he added, glancing once more toward Starfall, "even luck becomes inevitable, given enough time."

When he turned back, it was with a look like glass: perfectly smooth, perfectly clear—and utterly unyielding. Then, finally, the smallest nod. Agreement, edged in iron. "Very well," he said, the words precise and balanced, as if weighed on scales no one else could see. His eyes—so like frozen oceans, so achingly blue—did not blink. "How long will you need before your end of the arrangement is complete? It will take no more than a day on my end before Starfall is...emptied."

He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy

The silence stretched, but Hadama felt no need to fill it. He waited, patient as the tide that had risen to wash over their feet. The world hung balanced between the calculations of a creature far older and crueler than the demigod could fathom, but he had done all he could to tip the scales in Caido's favor. Still, he did not know how the minds of the Family worked, and there was always the risk that he had miscalculated.

The smile that emerged was not proof alone. Not until the words that followed. The Tidebreaker simply inclined his head in acknowledgment of his species' faults, unable to argue them in the face of experience.

But luck could carry a species far. Far enough, perhaps, to learn and grow from its mistakes someday.

Blue eyes bored into emerald, and Hadama held the gaze for three thoughtful beats of his steady heart before he nodded deeply, disinclined to challenges now that they had reached an agreement. The timeline was unexpectedly swift, but he did not let his surprise reach his face as he considered.

"Two days," he said slowly. Remembering Noe standing high upon Haulani next to a being of eldritch static. In spite of how much damage that static had done to the city. "For... sentiment. And those who wish to say farewell." He would not pretend to understand them, but he would not take that closure from them, either.

Dorian gave no response to Hadama’s reasoning—no judgement, no commentary. If sentimentality offended him, he did not show it. If he understood it, he did not say. His features remained composed, controlled, not quite blank but impossible to read, the surface of a pool so still it gave no hint of the darkness beneath.

"Two days," he repeated softly, the words crisp and surgical, as if etched into glass. Then, a small nod. Not deferential. Not gracious. Simply confirmation. That was all.

"I’ll return here."

He did not step closer. He did not offer parting pleasantries or threats. He only moved back, polished boots pressing into the sand until they left no mark at all. Then—like smoke curling from a candle’s last breath—void-black mist began to coil up around his form, streaked faintly with deep violet, too dark to be twilight and too quiet to be storm.

It folded around him like a cloak, and then collapsed inward—

—gone.

~FIN

He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy