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The project had consumed all of Mother Spore's focus. It was going to be perfect. He was going to make it perfect. He had let go of all notion of time, no longer needing sleep, brought nutrients by roots sank deep into nourishing soil and bodies.
The pair were to be perfect.
One mushroom to lure, scent irresistible rolling off tiny purple nodes. One mushroom to incapacitate, spores that could put even the most adrenaline-wired elephant to sleep released from delicately curved red shells.
Only one target deserving of his absolute masterpieces.
It was not easy work, and without so much as a blink, months had slid past him.
His plans crashed to an abrupt halt, goals blurring into jarring reality, as Mother Spore's target had stumbled into the clearing with him. He was so close to being done, but purples and reds swirl discarded around his feet as he instead strides over to the welcome intruder.
His hands reach out, as does every fiber of his mycelium network threading through the forest. Months of longing slam him in a single fell swoop of punching need, leaving him not even time for words before clasping a hand over a warmwarmwarm shoulder, and pulling.
He has a cave where they will not be disturbed until his true work is completed.
Where is he? Why is he here?
Scar’s head spins, disoriented and unfocused.
Months. Months of quiet, it had been. No word, no war, no slinking home after a prank had played out its full due.
Months, Scar had felt crawling under his skin from the need to move, to seek. He could not contain himself forever.
He needed to know. He needed to see. His enforcer had understood, if no one else.
He sees nothing but blurs and dizzying vertigo now.
Scar wakes up with thankfulness still on his tongue, and he doesn't remember why until he sees Mother Spore's face. Close-
Too close.
Scar scrambles back, surprised to be allowed to, until his back hits solid, clammy wall. Unyielding in every direction he can see, when he briefly tears his eyes away from Mother Spore. Only garishly glowing mushrooms lighting glisteningly damp walls. A stream or pond must pass nearby, he distantly notes, for all the good that will do him.
Eyes inevitably drawn back to Mother Spore, who is being far far too patient with him, Scar comes to terms with several harsh realities at once.
Game Over, his thoughts sing to him in high and cackling tones, mocking.
He can feel the way that his rival is not joshing around anymore. He wishes he couldn't. Wishes he could mistake that thought for a mere premonition, rather than a complete permeation of the air and surfaces down here with spores he cannot protect himself from.
But just because they are at the endgame, just because he has accepted not wasting his energy on futile things- Does not mean he has given up. He meet's Mother Spore's eyes, chin held up and a blaze still deep-set in his verdant eyes.
"Game on, then." He invites them to dance, teeth bare in a dark promise of vicious amusement.
Mother Spore closes the space between them.
Their fight is as brief as it is vicious. Hands that know well how to crack out a joint, teeth that know how to shred muscle and organ alike-
Scar tears into Mother Spore, for all the good it does either of them. The arm re-grows. The skin mends itself. The air fills with more hazy clouds. The dripping blood sprouts new shoots and caps. Their world shrinks. And shrinks. And shrinks.
And runs out.
Myriads of tiny roots invade to choke Scar’s lungs, so that when his nervous system lights ablaze, he cannot even have the relief of a howling scream.
"This is your feeling." Scar less speaks the words, than the rough shape of them is wheezed through the mycelium crowding his lungs, but Mother Spore is already inside of his intent, hears the shape of them forming in his mind clearly.
Scar has felt this before. Somehow has impossible experience with separating out what is Him and what is G- Someone else, before. Scar examines at the fused notions of loneliness that eats a person up from the inside out and neurotic care for those around you, and he knows this is not his own. He politely hands it back to them, after taking a nibble of the care in it.
Credit where credit is due, Scar rarely needs to be shown how to do something twice. When they push at his mind again, seeking to colonize his mind in the same way that they have his body, the new wall he throws up has... a door. A slightly ajar door, bidding them entry, but in polite and orderly fashion. For all it feels like a trap, they are confident he can do them no harm, cradled in the heart of their power like this.
And he does not. He does not even try to do them harm. Scar instead leans into them, leans forward and catches dark eyes with green-
Grass rolls over the hills of Mother Spore's thoughts. He freezes, uncertain. In the very breath before he gathers himself to push it back, a hand clasps his wrist.
His hand is turned, palm-up, and again Scar reaches into them, into the roots and spores and know-how they hold- Mother Spore shudders with the realization that while he had been growing his mushrooms on Scar's unwilling body, Scar has been watching. Learning.
In Mother Spore's upturned hand, a mushroom blooms, tall and thin and translucent like stained glass, glowing. He looks at it, unblinking, as that blue glow is abruptly fused unbreakably with green. The clear image in his, in their, mind of the shopping district with vivid green grass and bright blue mushroom lamp posts. The beauty and rightness of it takes Mother Spore's breath away. He turns the idea over in his head, knowing... This was not what he had wanted moments, minutes ago. But now he cannot want anything but this.
Wide, dark eyes catch every minute movement of sharp grin and triumphant laugh on Scar's face. A warm spark catches in Mother Spore's chest, dangerous. He loves this danger, this dance. His rival has proven himself, yet again, even when trapped in a position of next to no power. Perhaps it is especially under such pressure that his rival thrives and grows. Perhaps he is more like them than they had anticipated.
There is hesitation in Scar, in what part of him remains Scar. The last part of him untouched by them, and he knows it cannot last. He looks up at them, his eyes are now mirrored by two brightly glowing slits below them, easily mistaken for laughing eyes in the dark. He studies their face like he is drinking it in, like it is the only thing in his entire world.
He leans forward and kisses them. Soft. Sweet. Like there is nothing left to lose. Like there is nothing left to stop him from taking the thing he wants most. Them.
He stays close, pressing their foreheads together, when the final wall inside of him falls. They did not bring it down, this time. In his thoughts, he is a monster with glowing claws and wings, tearing through the barrier he had done everything to keep solid. He does not look at them.
He does not look at Grian.
In Scar's mind, he does not even take a single breath before fusing the concepts he had done everything in his power to keep separate for all the time of their dispute.
Grian. Mother Spore.
Now, those are one and the same to him.
His loyalty to one is his loyalty to the other. His love for one is his love for the other.
The whole network cheers in welcome as Scar willingly joins them in adoring Mother Spore above all others. He will never truly wish to harm them again. They love him in the way that they love every part of themself, whole and entire.
Grian... Grian feels that spark in his chest catch and grow. There are some days where he wonders... If he has lost what made himself... him, to what he had become. Those thoughts are less important than his work, but they had been present, regardless.
Scar, who knows his heart the best out of anyone, above even himself, had looked into them and seen him inside of it all. Different, but so is Scar now. Still here, after everything. Grian laces their fingers together.
They will do wonderful work together.
"You little- You made me care about grass!" Grian screeches indignantly at him.
This time Scar's wheezing has nothing to do with the gills that are his lungs and everything to do with laughing so hard he doubles over onto Grian's lap.
Mother Spore is them now, each having whole and entire the powers Grian had held by himself before.
The long night following Scar’s joining had them look into one another, making marks on mind and body alike with complete trust that the other would do right by them. Magic hums through their veins, laced with poison that can no longer harm them.
Grian cups Scar’s cheeks and kisses away the last remnants of grief, of guilt. They match as monsters now, they no longer need to be burdened by the red haze alone. They no longer need to fight it. They will bring this gift first to the one who had encouraged Scar to seek this path, this fog.
Scar’s mouth glows, his breath leaving blinding vapor in his trail. Grian’s legs crunch and crack and heal and crack again until he feels like they move right for the first time in his life. Scar’s hair is a riot of reds and purples tucked into the strands, reminders of the lures Grian had spent months perfecting for him. Effort well worth the payoff no matter how many times his impatience had threatened the work. Grian’s robes are dyed deep in the streaks of those purples and reds.
That fire burns in him, in them. Sweet danger. Soon, for them to share with the world.