#║ vii. SILENT HILL ( and god herself will be with them )

[confessthysiins]

♱ indie & selective  OSWALD of CARIM of Dark Souls. some personal lore & canon divergence. sideblog to @henosiis. strictly 18+. written by kat!

EXPLORING sin, devotion, redemption, forgiveness, self-reflection, and loving what can never die.

♱ est. 2014 resurrected oct. 2021 ♱ affiliated with @sunmad

[houseisekai]

House Isekai: A Realm Reborn - Part 2, Through the Maelstrom (2 of 3)

House Isekai ARR Masterlist Here

—

Client: Hilda Valentin Goneril

Refusing to work with the newly reformed House Isekai due to Class VII, Duvalie takes her orders and storms off to Goneril territory, trying to get home faster. Not wanting to leave Duvalie completely alone, Raelyn and Fireteam Alpha-Nine accompany her.

Reports indicate of a giant serpent-like beast terrorizing the ocean trade routes near Goneril territory, and an unknown entity accompanying it…

—

(Raelyn) “I will accompany her to ensure their survival. Until then, House Isekai.”

Raelyn turned to the portal and walked through it.

After getting the minimum knowledge required about the Abyss Mages, Buck and his squad followed her through the portal.

(Kazuma) “…Wait a second, none of them knows anything about Fodlan. Why did we let them go anywhere alone?”

(Sitri) “…That’s a good question.”

When Duvalie stepped through the portal, she was still muttering to herself angrily.

(Duvalie) "Ugh, the nerve of those people! As if we can work hand in hand like nothing's ever happened!"

Her ranting continued, even when Raelyn stepped in behind her, looking around his environment.

(Raelyn) "...Duvalie, was it?"

(Duvalie) "And that jackass, Rean! What on EARTH ever made him think we were friends?! I ought to-"

Raelyn sighed and holstered his bolter. Even his footsteps didn't alert her.

(Raelyn) "Cease your complaints."

Duvalie spun around and opened her mouth about to continue until she realized she was only up to his lower chest. Her head tilted all the way up for her to even see Raelyn's helmet.

(Duvalie) "Listen you giant yellow tin can, you don't know what they're like!"

(Raelyn) "They seem calmer than you."

(Duvalie) "Tch, whatever. Why are you even here anyway? I can handle this on my own!"

(Raelyn) "Ah, then I assume you know the layout of the land? The person we're supposed to meet? What the state of the world even is?"

(Duvalie) "...I-I...I can just figure it out myself!"

(Raelyn) "Indeed."

Raelyn turned to the portal and saw the ODST squad walk in.

(Buck) "Right, we got the information we need. As for lay of the land, think one of the locals is about to tag along."

Aigis and Kazuma were on the other side nodding about to say something before the portal suddenly closed.

(Mickey) "...Or not."

...

Everyone was confused on why the portal closed.

Sitri made sure no one was looking at her as she whispered.

(Sitri) "Sothis?"

(Sothis) "Uh, don't look at me. I wasn't even the one who opened it."

(Sitri) "Wait, then where did...?"

...

(Romeo) "Great. Now we gotta wander around and pray to god it's the right way."

(Dutch) "Not even sure the good lord would poke his head out in wherever this is."

(Duvalie) "Wha-DID THEY CLOSE THE PORTAL ON US?!"

(Raelyn) "You were the one who wanted to do this alone."

(Duvalie) "IF I WANT YOUR INPUT, I'LL ASK!"

(Buck) "Enough of the shouting already! Complaining isn't going to do us any good. Besides, we got the data we need, we'll be fine...probably."

(Duvalie) "Fine, whatever."

Duvalie had her hand on the sword sheathe as she stormed off.

(Duvalie) "Let's get going then."

(Mickey) "Wrong way. It's behind us."

Duvalie quickly marched towards the direction Mickey pointed to, muttering something.

Raelyn slowly walked up to the squad.

(Raelyn) "I cannot speak for her, but it is a pleasure to fight alongside you."

(Buck) "Feeling's mutual. Come on, we should hurry before she pops a vein."

The five walked casually behind Duvalie who stayed in the front.

Fodlan, Goneril Territory, Evening...

[Stilness of Night - Trails of Cold Steel 3 OST]

The group eventually found a path leading towards a town inside Goneril territory, and continued on it until the sun began setting.

(Buck) "Huh. Place doesn't look half bad with a sunset."

(Dutch) "Yeah, somethin' you'd see from a storybook."

(Raelyn) "I have not had the pleasure of experiencing a world as quiet as this before."

(Duvalie) "Hm. My world was something kind of like this, but not as primitive to not have lamp posts at least."

(Romeo) "Think you're the most primitive out of all of us here, lady."

(Duvalie) "Excuse me?!"

(Mickey) "Changing the subject, just how far is this place?"

(Buck) "Shouldn't be more than a few minutes. The town according to that Sitri lady is about to come into view right about...Ah, there we go."

They eventually reached the top of a hill and saw a small fishing town with the sunset directly shining on top of it.

(Raelyn) "Excellent. We should reach the town by nightfall."

They all continued walking silently until Dutch spoke up.

(Dutch) "So uh, any idea what that creature is like?"

Everyone had read the report given to them by Sitri, but no one actually knew what they were in for.

(Romeo) "It said a serpent, so maybe an underwater snake or something."

(Mickey) "We aren't strangers to alien life, but I doubt it'd be simple to kill. This place seems to have magic after all."

(Raelyn) "It matters not. If our guns can work, then we can kill it."

(Duvalie) "I'm more concerned about those weird floating chubby things the Knights of Favonius mentioned."

(Buck) "What did they call them...Abyss mages?"

(Dutch) "Think that's it. They don't seem that tough to beat."

(Romeo) "Especially when we can put a round between their eyes from a hundred yards away."

(Duvalie) "If that's the case, then why are they so dangerous?"

(Mickey) "Guess we'll find out soon. Until we actually fight one, don't think we can properly assess the situation."

Finally, they reached the town's entrance. The concrete path shook beneath their equipment, gathering strange looks from the townsfolk.

Some mothers hid their children behind them while some of the men passing by whispered to each other.

(Romeo) "Think we might be standing out a little."

(Duvalie) "You all maybe, I look perfectly fine. Might be mustard bottle over here that's getting all the looks."

(Raelyn) "...You are referring to me?"

(Duvalie) "Duh! Who did you think I meant?"

(Raelyn) "What is 'mustard'?"

(Buck) "Good lord man, just how far in the future are you?"

(Raelyn) "It is the 42nd millennium."

(Dutch) "...Damn. That explains why you don't really seem to lighten up."

They made their way to the center of town, where multiple people kept staring at them.

(Romeo) "Any particular reason why we're standing out in the open like this? Not exactly doing us any favors with the people here."

(Duvalie) "Shut it, trying to find a tavern or something. There's gotta be one here."

Mickey and Buck helped Duvalie look around their surroundings to try and find a tavern. Romeo and Dutch shrugged and made sure the townspeople weren't going to try anything.

Raelyn was about to help when he heard small footsteps approaching.

It was two children who were chasing each other, most likely playing. They had failed to notice the offworlders they were running towards until a girl hit her head on Raelyn's leg.

(Girl) "Ow...! What in-"

Her eyes went wide when she stared up at the 8 foot tall Space Marine looking down on her.

Both the kids look terrified until Raelyn knelt down, trying to get on their eye level the best he could while taking off his helmet. He made sure his Bolter was strapped to his back.

(Raelyn) "My apologies. Are you hurt?"

(Girl) "N-...No sir."

Raelyn offered a hand to the girl. His hand was massive compared to the child, he could effortlessly crush her head with one hand.

Yet, he was extremely gentle in making sure not to harm or intimidate the children, the girl grabbing his hand and standing up.

(Raelyn) "If I can bother you for a moment more, do you know where the Tavern is?"

(Boy) "Um...It's to your right, mister. The building next to the docks."

Raelyn nodded and motioned away from them.

(Raelyn) "Thank you. Get home safe, now."

(Girl) "Thank you, mister."

The two kids appeared to be put at ease despite the size difference, and continued playing as if nothing happened. Something that shocked the adults watching.

The ODST's and Duvalie watched the exchange and were surprised that this walking ton of armor managed not to utterly terrify the two kids.

(Raelyn) "You have your tavern. Let us get to it."

(Duvalie) "...Right."

They continued off to the Tavern, still noticing all the adults watching them, albeit slightly more at ease.

(Romeo) "Now that sweet moment's over, time to see how well you work with a bar full of drunkards, big guy."

(Dutch) "Come on, I'm great with people."

(Mickey) "Sure, you are. How about Raelyn? Actually can he even get through the door?"

Duvalie was the first to enter, followed by the ODST's with Raelyn the last one.

He stared awkwardly at the doorframe, and back to his armor.

Even if he tried to crouch, he would break the doorframe.

(Raelyn) "I...will keep watch out here."

(Romeo) "Put those people skills to work."

(Buck) "Think you should be worried about doing that yourself."

[Another Round - Final Fantasy XIV OST]

Everyone inside the bar stopped talking when they saw Duvalie march in with the ODST's.

Duvalie saw the bartender and sat down on a stool.

The bartender was a bald middle aged man who had clearly seen better days. He had a scar over his left eye and a beard that was barely kept clean.

(Bartender) "...Can I help you with something missie?"

(Duvalie) "We're here on request of...what was her name?"

Buck stood next to Duvalie, making his visor visible so the bartender could see his mouth.

(Buck) "Hilda. Ring a bell?"

(Bartender) "Ah, Lord Holst's sister. And who exactly do I owe the pleasure of speaking to?"

(Duvalie) "I'm Duvalie."

(Buck) "Call me Buck, and this is my Squad. Fella outside is with us too."

(Bartender) "I see. And another question, who exactly ya workin' for? Don't see people dressed like yer group at all."

The people in the nearby tables began whispering. Mickey was the furthest from the group but he was only able to hear snippets of conversations.

(Man) "Hey, you think those are those House Isekai freaks? The ones from the calamity?"

(Man 2) "They sure as hell don't belong here, that's for sure!"

(Man 3) "Worse, they could be spies for the seppies'!"

(Mickey) "Think we might got a problem..."

Duvalie was clearly getting impatient, and before she could open her mouth and start a bar brawl, Buck butted in.

(Buck) "Mercenaries. We work for money."

The bartender raised an eyebrow as he eyed them up and down. Finally shrugging, he dropped the question.

(Bartender) "Fair enough. We'll send a letter to let 'em know people have arrived to take care of the problem. Shouldn't be more than a day or so. Now, ya buying something or am I going to have ta' throw your asses out?"

(Duvalie) "Hmph. Thought bartenders were supposed to be friendly."

(Bartender) "And I thought customers were supposed to be paying."

Now Dutch decided to intervene.

(Dutch) "Apologies for the lady. She's got a temper on her. Surprise us."

(Bartender) "Can do. You got gold?"

Everyone looked at each other awkwardly.

(Romeo) "Oh you have got to be kidding..."

(Buck) "Think we can get this one on the house?"

(Bartender) "This isn't a charity. And you're mercenaries, right? Surely you got some gold on you to get all the equipment on yourselves."

This got more people talking, and it was clear some of them were getting riled up.

Raelyn could hear the conversation from outside, and saw some of the adults from earlier getting a closer look at him.

(Raelyn) "..."

Raelyn's visor picked up more signatures. Some of them were armed. He used one hand to knock on the doorframe, alerting Romeo and Mickey.

(Romeo) "Hey, Gunny. Think things are about to get real ugly."

One of the customers stood up from his table and shouted with an ale cup in hand.

(Man) "Come on, pay the damn drink and quit causing a scene! Mercs always got coin on them! You one of those damn offworlders?!"

(Man 2) "Nah, worse than one, he's a seppie!"

(Man 3) "WE DON'T WANT ANYMORE TO DO WITH YOU, KEEP YOUR SEPARATIST MOVEMENT OUT OF HERE!"

More and more people riled up, making the ODST's keep a finger on their triggers.

Duvalie kept her cool on the outside, ready to lash out if someone dared make a move.

Raelyn grabbed his Bolter and calmly held it in his hands, watching everyone suddenly stiffen up.

(Bartender) "...Well?"

(Woman's voice) "Sorry, sorry. We'll pay, they're with us."

Everyone suddenly turned to a girl who seemingly appeared out of nowhere, putting gold onto the table.

Duvalie made a noise that no one could decipher if it was a swear or a gasp.

Buck turned to the girl who had just saved them from a potential firefight.

[End Song]

(White-haired girl) "They just forgot to bring their gold with them...Again."

(Bartender) "Hmph. Aren't you a little young to be the boss of a mercenary team, kid?"

(White-haired girl) "Could say the same for the second Blade Breaker."

(Bartender) "Hah, got me there."

(Duvalie) "I...You...!?"

(White-haired girl) "If you wanna complain, do it later and not in front of customers. Gives us a bad rep."

(Buck) "...Thanks boss."

Everyone quickly played along.

As Raelyn was about to point the Bolter at everyone, two more people got in front of him, motioning to the left.

(Blue haired girl) "Hey, got our room. Quit standing around all scary-like."

(Orange haired boy) "Come on, it's this way!"

The orange haired boy winked at Raelyn, and having no better idea, he played along.

The blue haired girl looked at Fie and nodded.

The white haired girl slid the gold to the Bartender and sighed.

(White-haired girl) "We'll take it to go. Keep the change."

The white haired girl turned to the group and pointed at the blue haired girl.

(White-haired girl) "Follow her and don't cause a scene again."

Duvalie looked like she was about to scream when she saw the blue haired girl. Not wanting to deal with this mob, Buck shoved her along.

(Duvalie) "H-Hey, what the?!"

(Buck) "Shut the hell up and move it, the last thing we want to do is start a fight!"

The ODST's, Raelyn, and Duvalie followed the orange haired boy to what appeared to be a rented out building. Amazingly, Raelyn could actually fit through the door.

When everyone was situated, the blue haired girl put a device on the door and window, and with a little static noise, she nodded in satisfaction.

(Elliot) "Whew, man! Things looked SUPER bad there..."

(Laura) "Oh...It's you. That would explain how the townspeople became aggravated so quickly."

(Duvalie) "Believe me, you lot are doing the same to me...!"

(Elliot) "Wait...Duvalie?!"

(Romeo) "Jesus lady, just who DON'T you know?"

(Raelyn) "More friends like Rean, I presume?"

(Duvalie) "WE ARE NOT FRIENDS!"

(Buck) "Clearly. Anyways, thanks for pulling our asses out the fire. Where's that white haired one?"

The door opened, and she was carrying some mugs of ale in her hand.

(Fie) "...Hey."

She casually gave most of the group their mugs, leaving Duvalie without one.

(Duvalie) "...Really?"

(Fie) "Figured you didn't want one...Actually, we didn't figure you'd be here at all."

(Romeo) "That's great and all, but mind explaining just who you people are?"

(Elliot) "I'm Elliot! That's Fie and Laura, and we were part of the original House Isekai. Class VII, to be specific."

(Dutch) "And clearly you know Duvalie."

(Laura) "For better or worse..."

(Raelyn) "Seeing the situation we are in, I would rather not alienate the only help at talking to the locals here."

Despite the fact he had a helmet, she could feel a piercing gaze shoot straight through her.

(Buck) "Agreed. So, what brings people such as yourselves here?"

(Fie) "Hm. Long story short-..."

===

Doomguy's Base, 1 Day Earlier...

[Briefing Time - Trails of Cold Steel 3 OST]

(VEGA) "All attempts of establishing a secure line has failed. It appears something is blocking our ability to respond."

Doomguy frowned as he checked the screens. Nothing was damaged on anyone's end, yet he was only able to receive Sitri's distress call.

He said nothing as he turned to the teleporter. It appears someone was finally arriving.

(VEGA) "Signatures detected. Class VII members: Elliot, Laura, and Fie. Authorize access?"

Doomguy nodded as he put his helmet on, letting the three former House Isekai members materialize onto the pad.

The first one was Laura, quickly followed by Elliot and Fie. Elliot appeared to be staggered while the other two were barely fazed.

(Elliot) "Oh man, still not used to that!"

(Fie) "Doubt we ever will."

(Laura) "Instructor. It's been quite some time."

They turned their attention to Doomguy who gave them a nod.

(VEGA) "It is a pleasure to see you all well."

(Laura) "Likewise. I only wish the circumstances were better."

(Fie) "Tried contacting everyone else we could, but they were either busy or didn't respond at all, so for now we're all you're getting.

(Elliot) "We received a distress call from Sitri. Is everything alright in Fodlan?"

Doomguy shrugged and motioned for them to follow him out the room.

(VEGA) "A distress signal was sent out, and normally we would have been able to respond, but an unknown variable has been preventing us from doing so. However, we are still able to keep track of any movement via teleportation of former House Isekai members."

(Fie) "If it has the ability to block dimensional calling, that's pretty strong, whatever it is."

(Laura) "Has anyone else been able to respond this entire time?

(VEGA) "Yes. Rean Schwarzer, Towa Herschel, Satou Kazuma, and Aigis have been the only four to do so."

(Elliot) "That explains why we couldn't call Rean and Towa."

(Laura) "Aigis I can understand, but for Kazuma to show up? That surprises me."

(Fie) "Guessing you haven't been able to ask them what's going on either?"

(VEGA) "Your assumption is correct."

(Fie) "Guess that means we gotta get our hands dirty."

Fie checked her gunblades and stretched her arms.

(Laura) "Hopefully combat won't be necessary."

(Elliot) "Buuut that doesn't really seem possible, if I'm being honest. Trouble tends to follow us no matter where we go."

Doomguy checked his shotgun's ammo as he opened up the door to another teleportation chamber.

(VEGA) "We thank you for responding regardless, but we will ask if you may investigate this phenomenon on our behalf."

(Fie) "Sure. Things are pretty stable back home."

(Elliot) "So, if we're going into Fodlan, how are we going to keep in contact?"

(VEGA) "We are assuming there will be a total communications blackout. If you do not respond within a week in Fodlan's time, we will directly intervene."

(Laura) "All right then. Looks like our goals are to find former House Isekai members and find out what's going on."

(VEGA) "Affirmative."

(Fie) "Mission parameters established then. Let's begin."

(VEGA) "...Strange. There appears to be a teleportation to the Goneril territory."

(Elliot) "What's so weird about it?"

(VEGA) "It was not activated by Sothis, but rather the tower itself."

(Everyone) ?

(Laura) "But there is no one there. Right? Instructor Byleth made sure of that."

(Fie) "Guess that's another thing we gotta investigate. First let's head to where that teleportation took place.."

(Elliot) "That's Hilda's last name, isn't it?"

(VEGA) "Hilda Valentine Goneril. Unofficial retainer to Claude Von Riegan."

Doomguy stood behind a console and pressed several buttons and looked at the members of Class VII.

(Elliot) "So three things to do, got it! We'll see you soon!"

(VEGA) "Good luck, Class VII."

Doomguy gave them a thumbs up before he pulled the lever.

They were absorbed into a beam of light and were taken to the location VEGA reported...

...

===

(Buck) "So...that portal wasn't theirs?"

(Fie) "No. Something else pulled you here, and we came to find out why, among other things."

(Elliot) "On top of that, we have to find out specifically why you all were brought here. Our group didn't have much reason other than it being chance but yours it seems almost deliberate."

(Raelyn) "I fail to think of anything unique happening to where I'd be brought into a world like this."

(Dutch) "Same with us."

(Duvalie) "Agreed..."

(Laura) "Well, despite the unusual circumstances that has brought us here, the former members of House Isekai ask to join forces with your group."

(Raelyn) "No objections here."

(Romeo) "It's either work together or be stuck in this place forever, so we might as well."

(Mickey) "You got our support."

The ODST's and Raelyn turned to Duvalie.

She crossed her arms, barely able to keep her anger down.

(Buck) "How old are you, exactly?"

(Duvalie) "SHUT UP! FINE! FINE! WHATEVER, YAAY WE'RE BEST FRIENDS! NOW ENOUGH!"

(Elliot) "Hah...g-glad to see she hasn't...changed?"

(Raelyn) "There is nothing about her personality that I have seen thus far that you should be glad about, Elliot."

(Duvalie) "EXCUSE ME?!-"

[TO BE CONTINUED]

[bookshelf-imagines]

Chasing Light | Part II

Pairing/Fandom: Lumity/ToH

Summary: Things are...spicing up.

Warnings: ABUSE, BLOOD, VIOLENCE AND A LOT OF IT

Notes: Strophium - Cloth wrapped around the breasts (bra) Palla - Female Roman equivalent of a toga; best to look it up for a picture. Don’t really know how to describe it beside “scarf” but it’s not:( PART I || PART III || PART IV || PART V || PART VI || PART VII

Odalia’s iron grip tightened around Amity’s hair and wrists with each struggle, causing the captive to cease her rebellious actions and comply with the older woman. Besides, she broke the rules. For that, one must pay.

Amity was dragged back in the direction of the dreaded manor, only to be thrown into a shed that sits off to the side. It was unkempt, dirty. The cement floor was stained a dark crimson and the walls were cracked from the harsh sunlight. The brown-haired girl knew the room too well, for on occasions where her mistress was angry, she would be pulled there and beaten until miles past exhaustion. She had learned to not fight it - there was no point.

Her knees slammed against the rough stone as she was shoved to the ground, scraping the skin off her hands in an attempt to catch herself in the process. Odalia took her time. One by one, causing her ‘daughter’ to anxiously wait for what was to come.

A candle was lit. The shadow behind Amity grew as she covered the back of her head and curled into a ball. She couldn’t fight it, she would never win.

A whip bounced off of the dry walls, sending a shiver through their brittle bones. They could only watch the poor girl suffer, even after all these years.

Amity flinched, sucking in a sharp breath. The first was easy, the rest would be easy as well.

Wrong.

Another crack broke the air and stripped straight through Amity’s tunic and strophium, licking her bare flesh.

A weak whimper escaped her lips. Odalia cackled and drew back once more.

CRACKLE!

The scourge painfully sliced through the thin flesh on Amity’s back, feasting upon the red that dripped from the wounds left in its wake. The sharp edges dragged back and forth, digging deeper with each thrash and pullback.

Odalia continued the beating until there was barely a shirt left on Amity’s back, completely shredding it and everything else in its path. The latter lay limp on the floor, silently sobbing.

Her back stung like the sting of a thousand scorpions. She was in unbelievable pain, unable to move a single muscle in fear of the rest of her body shutting down permanently. The torn flesh screamed in agony as the air clung to it like a wet washcloth, making her shudder.

Amity stayed rooted to the stony deck as Odalia triumphantly smirked and threw the scourge back in the corner before making her exit. A vile woman, that one, if one should choose to even address her as human.

It was many minutes before any of the other slaves poked their heads inside as they usually did. Granted, the first few beatings they did not help her since she was a Blight, but after they witnessed the inflictions, they eventually opened their arms for her. They did not interact with her outside of the shed, but they would sate her wounds until she could continue working.

So, they did what they do best. They got to work.

~~~~~~~~~~ One week later ~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s not like she’ll actually see you. Just walk by.” Luz mumbled, pacing back and forth. “Smoothly. Walk by smoothly. You can do that. You’ve slain a cyclops. You can stroll by a house.”

The legionnaire had been on patrol for the last three hours checking the perimeter of the town and establishments within five miles of said town. Well...for the last ten minutes she had been tracing and retracing the same eight steps barely outside the view of the Blight Manor.

Luz never would have thought she would have this much difficulty simply passing a house. Even if the house wasn't what she was afraid of seeing, her mind was screaming at her to woman up and continue her patrol.

Without warning, a crash not far away caught Luz’s ear. She poked her head around the corner and saw a carriage with a figure behind it, seemingly loading it. Apparently, however, the figure dropped something, so Luz being the curious soul that she is went to investigate, unknowingly gravitating toward the building she had been avoiding.

“Stupid,” Luz heard a thud follow the word, “Worthless,” another thud, “slave!”

Upon hearing the last word, Luz quickened her movements and fully came into view of the two figures. What she saw sent her into a frenzy.

Amity was curled into a half-ball on the dry road whilst Odalia kicked her again and again. On top of that, a dark crimson could be seen seeping through the back of Amity’s shirt - and it looked like streaks.

Luz immediately went into fight mode and pulled Odalia off of Amity, throwing her to the ground in the process.

“Stay down.” Luz warned.

“She’s my slave-”

Luz unsheathed her sword, pointing it directly at the woman’s throat.

“I said stay down.”

Odalia seemed to stay down at that point, allowing Luz to sheath her sword and turn back around to the injured girl that was struggling to get up. Luz crouched and hovered by Amity, mentally figuring out how to go about the situation.

“Amity.”

“I don’t need your help.” Amity grunted, grabbing on to the side of the carriage but ultimately slipping and hissing in pain.

“Put your arm around my neck.”

“I said I don’t need your help-”

“I’m not asking.” Luz affirmed.

Amity looked back and saw the intense and, not to mention, serious, gaze of the centurion. Her back was screaming due to one of the wounds opening back up when she dropped the box, but she didn’t want to look weak. If she looked weak, she would be punished.

Reluctantly but surely, Amity slung her right arm over Luz’s neck and the latter carefully scooped her into her arms. The arm under Amity’s legs supported most of the weight in fear of causing her back to bleed more.

“You can’t take her. She’s not yours!” Odalia howled, dusting off her tunic.

Luz continued toward the hill, patrol and Odalia long forgotten.

“She’ll...find you, you know.” Amity dazedly mumbled, subconsciously tightening her arms around Luz and burying her head in the woman’s neck.

“Let her find me. It’s you that I’m not letting her near.”

At that moment, Amity’s heart did a backflip. No, two backflips. Was this the feeling of being cared for? Cared about? She didn’t quite know, and she didn’t want to question it either. If she did, it would slip away. Gods, she didn’t want it to slip away, no matter how foreign it was to her.

They continued up the hill until they reached the town, briskly but not enough to irritate Amity’s wounds further. Swerving before they arrived at the gates, Luz traveled around the wall until they were on the eastern side and then entered the town. She went to the first house on the left, seeing her friend outside.

“Willow!” Luz shouted, “I need your help.”

Willow gasped and ran over, “What happened?”

“I’m not sure.” Luz continued, “I need uva ursi and plantain.”

The nature-lover took a second glance at the body her friend was carrying but did not say anything related to them.

“Right.”

With Amity completely passed out from blood loss and no doubt exhaustion, Luz gently laid her on her stomach and ripped open the back of her tunic and carefully peeled off the vermillion-soaked strophium.

What she saw next caused her to choke back a sob.

From shoulder to shoulder, from the neck down, from top to bottom. All that was there were scars and a lot of blood. Lash marks in x-shapes, divits in the tissue, countless short scratches. It was practically a murder scene.

Shaking herself from shock, Luz grabbed a cloth. As she did so, Willow entered the room with the three plants in hand and a bucket of water. The cloth was dipped into the water, wrung, and sluggishly placed on the re-opened wounds, turning from white to red within a second. Every few dabs, the uva ursi would be applied, aiding the effort in discontinuing the bleeding.

After replacing most of the clear liquid with scarlet ichor, Luz got to work with the plantain - one of the weeds to heal wounds. She took the reeds and placed them accordingly, then wrapped them so they would stay.

When she was satisfied with her tasks, she moved Amity to a cot in another room and draped a blanket over her. The latter was still unconscious but seemed to have a more tranquil than agonized expression. Luz soundlessly exited and latched the door, coming face to face with her friend.

“Is she okay?” Willow worriedly inquired.

“She will be.”

“Thank goodness.”

“Wait. Do you...know her?”

“It’s-it’s complicated.”

“Willow.” Luz put a hand on the other girl’s shoulder, “I might be able to help her if you know something.”

Willow paused and contemplated the thought for a moment before sighing.

“Amity Blight. We...we were friends as children-”

“Blight?” Luz blurted.

“Well, yes-”

“Amity Blight.”

“That’s...what I said, yes.”

“I’m sorry, Willow, but I think there’s something I need to take care of. I’ll be back.”

“But, Luz-”

Before Willow could finish, Luz had already sped out the door and outside the gates, winging her way back over to the southern wall.

With each step, Luz’s stance became more intimidating. Her shoulders broadened, her anger visibly flared, and her strides elongated.

She was infuriated.

Odalia had just dismissed a few slaves and was, unfortunately for her, still outside the main house.

Every footfall caused Luz to clench her fists tighter. The sight of the woman sent pure fire through her body, fueling her actions.

“She’s your daughter!” Luz yelled, coming up to the Blight household. The slaves stopped and leered.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking abo-” Odalia was cut short.

Luz grabbed Odalia’s palla and threw her against the wall, securing her by pressing against her shoulders with her left arm.

“You heard me.” Luz growled. “She’s your daughter. Amity is your daughter.”

Odalia sneered. “That abomination is not my daughter.”

“You’ve been passing her off as a slave for Gods know how long. Why?”

“I said,” Odalia spat, “That thing is not my daughter.”

Luz attempted to strike back, but was surprised by Alador opening the front door with a solemn guise present on his face. He looked at the legionnaire.

“She’s not worth your time.” He sighed, “Trust me, I would know.”

“Amity’s your daughter.”

Alador cast his gaze to the ground before resuming eye contact. His demeanor exuded fatigue, as if he had lied for far too long. His lips drooped then formed a line when he replied, a slight nod in his movements.

“She is.”

“Alador-”

“Not now, ‘Dalia.”

Luz’s force subsided, allowing the woman to slip from her clutches. However, said woman seemed as if she was about to burst. The centurion stood tall, clenching her fists once again and lifting her chin.

“Tell me everything.”

[mermeriso]

Sunday Morning

(Wallace Stevens, 1915)

I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,

And the green freedom of a cockatoo

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

She dreams a little, and she feels the dark

Encroachment of that old catastrophe,

As a calm darkens among water-lights.

The pungent oranges and bright, green wings

Seem things in some procession of the dead,

Winding across wide water, without sound.

The day is like wide water, without sound,

Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet

Over the seas, to silent Palestine,

Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?

What is divinity if it can come

Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else

In any balm or beauty of the earth,

Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

Divinity must live within herself:

Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

Elations when the forest blooms; gusty

Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

All pleasures and all pains, remembering

The bough of summer and the winter branch.

These are the measures destined for her soul.

III

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.

No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave

Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.

He moved among us, as a muttering king,

Magnificent, would move among his hinds,

Until our blood, commingling, virginal,

With heaven, brought such requital to desire

The very hinds discerned it, in a star.

Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be

The blood of paradise? And shall the earth

Seem all of paradise that we shall know?

The sky will be much friendlier then than now,

A part of labor and a part of pain,

And next in glory to enduring love,

Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

IV

She says, “I am content when wakened birds,

Before they fly, test the reality

Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;

But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields

Return no more, where, then, is paradise?”

There is not any haunt of prophecy,

Nor any old chimera of the grave,

Neither the golden underground, nor isle

Melodious, where spirits gat them home,

Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm

Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured

As April’s green endures; or will endure

Like her remembrance of awakened birds,

Or her desire for June and evening, tipped

By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

V

She says, “But in contentment I still feel

The need of some imperishable bliss.”

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,

Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams

And our desires. Although she strews the leaves

Of sure obliteration on our paths,

The path sick sorrow took, the many paths

Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love

Whispered a little out of tenderness,

She makes the willow shiver in the sun

For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze

Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.

She causes boys to pile new plums and pears

On disregarded plate. The maidens taste

And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

VI

Is there no change of death in paradise?

Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs

Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,

Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,

With rivers like our own that seek for seas

They never find, the same receding shores

That never touch with inarticulate pang?

Why set the pear upon those river-banks

Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?

Alas, that they should wear our colors there,

The silken weavings of our afternoons,

And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!

Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,

Within whose burning bosom we devise

Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

VII

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men

Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn

Their boisterous devotion to the sun,

Not as a god, but as a god might be,

Naked among them, like a savage source.

Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,

Out of their blood, returning to the sky;

And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,

The windy lake wherein their lord delights,

The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,

That choir among themselves long afterward.

They shall know well the heavenly fellowship

Of men that perish and of summer morn.

And whence they came and whither they shall go

The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

VIII

She hears, upon that water without sound,

A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine

Is not the porch of spirits lingering.

It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.”

We live in an old chaos of the sun,

Or old dependency of day and night,

Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,

Of that wide water, inescapable.

Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail

Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;

Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;

And, in the isolation of the sky,

At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make

Ambiguous undulations as they sink,

Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

[izaswritings]

Title: Faults of the Mind

Synopsis:  Having escaped the perils of the Dark Kingdom, Rapunzel finally returns home—but all is not well in the Kingdom of Corona, and the black rocks are quickly becoming the least of her troubles. Meanwhile, over a thousand miles away, Varian struggles with new powers and his own conscience.

The labyrinth has fallen into rubble. A great evil stirs in the world beyond. The Dark Kingdom may be behind them, but the true journey is just beginning—and neither Rapunzel nor Varian can survive it on their own.

Warnings for: cursing, threats of harm, blood and violence, aftermath of trauma, vivid and reoccurring flashbacks to previous trauma, and references to past injury and almost-death. If there’s anything you think I missed, please let me know and I’ll add it on here!

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AO3 version is here.

Arc I: Labyrinths of the Heart can be found here!

Previous chapters are here.

And, the newly created discord server can be found here!

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Chapter VII: The Remnants

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Finally, one day, when the Sun had almost given up hope on ever seeing that lovely woman again— the Moon at last left her shadows, and approached.

How frozen the Sun was then! The being who created song itself was struck speechless at the sight. Moon drew up to her and Sun could hardly believe her eyes; here she was, the lovely woman, the one who danced on the ocean waves.

For a moment the two gods stood, still and silent and each watching the other. At last, the Moon spoke. “Why do you chase me so?” asked lovely Moon. “Why did you sing that day? I cannot understand.”

“Oh!” said radiant Sun, overcome with having found the Moon at last. “I never meant to chase, not really. I simply wanted to see you again. And to apologize—I did not mean to frighten you. Your dance was so lovely, I couldn’t help but want to sing for you…”

The Sun’s words trailed into silence, and she flushed.

In the ensuing quiet Moon considered the Sun, secretly touched. For all that Moon loved to dance, she had never before had someone to dance with, nor to sing for her. Though the Sun’s song had startled her, for a moment it had enchanted the Moon as thoroughly as Moon’s dance had enchanted the Sun. In that song she had heard belonging; in that melody she saw a light that took her breath away.

And so the lovely Moon, her stone heart softening, offered her hand and said, “Tell me your name then, stranger, and sing for me again, and perhaps this time, I will dance for you…”

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.

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They reach the Great Tree just before dawn.

It’s been a week since that conversation in the Riesling woods, and since that day their journey has been a rush of travel. Adira has pushed them forward relentlessly, even as her own jaw winds tighter and tighter with tension. Varian follows her lead without complaint, even as his blood burns ever colder in his veins, the Moon’s displeasure near-physical. They are in agreement, Varian and Adira, and with their destination set everything else is secondary—he needs the knowledge in the Great Tree, no matter the risks. No matter how much the Moon hates the idea—no matter if there is someone there, guarding the Tree. No matter what.

Adira is right, in the end. So long as Varian can’t control the rocks, he can’t do anything at all.

Varian doesn’t know where they are now, just that they’re close enough to the Great Tree that the Moon’s presence is like an icy needle in the back of his mind. It’s so early in the morning the sky’s still black, with only the barest hints of blue light to suggest dawn is coming at all. Adira has refused to light a torch, claiming stealth, and so beyond the very dim pink glow of the nightlight, they are completely in shadow.

It’s not as dark as it should be, though. Despite the heavy clouds and lack of light, Varian can see fairly well, enough to keep steady on the rocky path he would otherwise be tripping over. He wonders, for a moment, if night vision is another of the Moon’s side-effect powers—and then pushes that thought very, very far away, because that’s something he doesn’t want to think about right now.

Beyond the dirt road beneath his feet and the dry, crumbling cliffs looming beside them, the terrain is barren and cold. It’s still iced over from the winter season, lingering pockets of snow clumping at the overgrown paths. The shadows wind tight around his throat; night-vision or not, darkness still makes Varian’s skin crawl. Every once in a while, he has to reach out a hand to the empty air, just to remind himself there are no walls enclosing him. This darkness is not the labyrinth—it is Adira in front of him, not Rapunzel. Ruddiger is settled warm around his shoulders. This isn’t the Dark Kingdom. This isn’t the black rocks.

Nevertheless, as Varian steps up onto the next ledge, he has to take a moment to catch his breath. His hand gropes blindly for the nightlight, and he clutches it tight to his chest. Even Ruddiger’s weight on his shoulders isn’t quite enough to snap him out of it.

The silence, too, is getting to him. The Moon is quiet now. The closer to the Tree they’ve gone, the more her hissed cruelty has fallen to a seething silence. For the past three hours, she hasn’t said a word to him. And Adira, too, abrupt at the best of times, has become almost mute with every hour that passes, with every step closer to the Tree.

It grates on him. It gnaws at him. Varian adjusts his grip on the nightlight and grits his teeth.

“…Are we there yet?”

It’s not what he wants to ask, and in actuality, talking at all feels rather forced; there is a stranglehold in his chest that makes breathing difficult, and talking more so. But the darkness is heavy and the line of Adira’s shoulders is stiff. She’s standing a few feet in front of him, already making for the next ledge.

“Are you a child?” Adira wonders back, absently. Her tone is dry with mild reproach, and in the dim light Varian can just barely see her fingers flex, instinctive fists. She hefts herself up the next step, and her words come out gritted. “For the last time. We’ll get there… when we get there.”

He’s annoying her, Varian knows. But they are so close to the Great Tree his skin is crawling, so he tilts up his head and keeps talking, just to break the silence. “Even Yasmin gave me a time estimate,” he says, trying in vain to keep his voice steady. “She brought me to the city and it was all ‘half an hour left, boy, keep going,’ and blah, blah, blah.”

“Yasmin is more patient than her mouth would suggest. All bark, no bite. I am the opposite.” Adira looks back, her eyes a pale gleam in the dark. “Stop asking, Moony. I get that you’re nervous, but taking it out on me is just—do not.”

Varian bites his lip hard, near tasting blood, and slowly picks his way over to the ledge. He presses his gloved hands against the dirt and pushes himself up on the first try, wheezing faintly from the strain. Adira helps steady him as he stands, swaying on his feet.

“I’m fine,” Varian mutters and brushes her hand away. This new leg of the path is higher up, less a real road and more a thin line cutting up around the mountain. It’s rockier up here, all gravel and loose stone and sharp jagged edges, barely a blade of grass to be seen. Varian bites his lip at the sight. This is—going to be very hard to walk, even with his stupid night-vision. Actually, how has Adira not tripped yet?

Adira just shakes her head at him. “Watch your feet, Moony,” she says, and draws back to start up the path.

A moment’s pause, and then Varian picks up his feet, almost jogging, staying close to her side. Ruddiger snuffles by his ear. “Stop calling me Moony,” Varian says, instead of what he wants to say. “You make me sound like a sulky child.”

There’s a moment of silence. His shoulders hunch.

Then Adira snorts, and the silence breaks, and suddenly despite the darkness and the Moon and the looming danger, things feel a little more normal again. “Oh, yes,” Adira says, visibly amused. “Because it’s so inaccurate…”

Varian glares at her, even though he knows she can’t see it. “Come on!”

“Hm, you disagree? No, you might be right. I should choose a nickname more suited to your actual personality…”

Varian eyes her. She’s smiling. He does not like that smile.

“…Moonrat.”

Varian splutters. “What!”

“Oh? Don’t like it?”

“Aren’t you just insulting me now?”

“Have you ever seen a moonrat? Tiny things. Like a mix between shrew and raccoon, except you can hold them in one hand, and they always seem to be screaming.” The smile on Adira’s face curls into a smirk. “Well? Moonrat?”

“…I hate you,” Varian decides. “I’m going to give you a stupid nickname someday, and then you’ll be sorry.”

“I’m shaking in my boots.” Adira picks her way up the hill and then turns, offering her hand; Varian makes a face but takes it, and she pulls him up beside her. Her voice lowers. “Look, I get it. I do. But we’re getting close, so we need to be quiet now.”

Varian looks down. It takes him a moment to find his words. “…I know.”

“Good.” She squeezes at his shoulder and pulls away. “Any changes? With your, hm…” She gestures. “Godly houseguest.”

The ease, so hard-won, turns sour on his tongue. Varian swallows hard and then looks away.

“Varian.”

“I know.” He squeezes his eyes shut, biting his lip hard. He feels shaky, trembling on the inside. He rubs at his chest, over his heart, and tries to focus.

Ever since the Riesling woods, all those days ago, when the Moon flashed fury and ice-cold fear through his head at the mention of the Great Tree... she’s been closer than ever, and yet, even farther away. Beyond the occasional hissed threats and momentary tantrums, she’s been almost dead silent.

He understands now why she’d avoided interacting with him all those long months before Port Caul. In the aftermath of Riesling, Varian finally understands. In saving him, in awakening this power to control the rocks—she has linked them. The door is open, the way unbarred, his thoughts and her power tied irrevocably together. This is what it means to be the vessel of the Moon’s power: it is her power, and so she is there, a vague sense in the back of his head, looking out through his eyes and into his mind whenever it pleases her.

But Varian is lucky, though—because it doesn’t please her. He gets the sense Moon despises speaking with him as much as he does her; she is there, yes, like his shadow is stuck to his feet, but though the door is always unlocked there are still times, like right now, when Varian gets the sense she has slammed it shut in his face.

Lucky, lucky. If she wanted to, she could make his life a living nightmare. The only thing saving Varian is the simple fact the Moon needs him alive and cooperative. He knows that, too. It’s the only reason they’ve made it to the Great Tree at all, despite the Moon’s displeasure—she hasn’t tried as hard as she could to dissuade them from coming. The rocks are bursting up like weeds everywhere they go, sure, but neither Varian nor Adira nor even Ruddiger have been harmed. Adira had been suspicious of it, but… in a way, Varian understands that too. Like when he was travelling with Rapunzel, before the labyrinth—he had hated her, he had hated all of them, but he’d still played along. Because he needed them, and that meant he couldn’t make an enemy out of them.

The Moon hates him; Varian feels much the same. But she has said this outright: she needs Varian, at least for now. So of course they are not injured. Of course she hasn’t killed them. If she had hurt them even slightly, Varian would have never, ever listened to her again.

And so they have reached the Great Tree unhindered.

And so they have reached the Great Tree unhindered.

Still—he can’t deny it unsettles him. His connection with the Moon means he can feel, vivid and violently, exactly how much she hates them coming here. It’s more than Varian defying her, and searching for answers—she’d dared him to, after all, and if there’s anything Moon respects, it’s a game. No. Moon’s hatred, her presence, her hissing rage—in this moment, it has little to do with Varian at all.

It has everything to do with the Great Tree.

The Moon’s hatred for the Great Tree bothers Adira, Varian knows, and frankly it bothers him too. The Moon is mercurial at the best of times, but this is uncharted territory. Whatever the Moon’s thoughts on the Great Tree, they’ve only made Varian even more determined to go— and yet.

He can’t forget that moment in the woods, either. The fury and the fear, that feeling almost like a memory, before she snapped the connection closed. And he can’t help but wonder. What is it about the Great Tree—former base of Zhan Tiri, now little more than a ruin of a library—that makes the Moon react so strongly?

For three days after that conversation in the woods, the Moon had been almost violent. Her whispers had been there in the forefront of his mind for hours—hissing, furious, cruel. Varian had dropped bowls and staffs at the sudden pain in his hand, had been struck with deafening static and blinding bursts of light behind his eyelids at varying intervals. The rocks bloomed vicious and vehement around the camp almost every night. And the less said about Varian’s dreams… the better.

But the closer they’d gotten to the Great Tree, the quieter the Moon has become. And now, in the dead of morning, as Varian reaches for that cold presence, he can feel nothing but an icy wall, a muted snarl like a door being slammed shut in his face.

He shakes his head, unsettled. “She’s not responding.”

Adira’s frown flashes across her face. But all she says is, “I see.”

They get moving again. This time, there is no banter. The sun is coming up, little by little—and they are close. Varian can practically feel it: a looming presence like a void, an absence, a gaping maw in the fabric of the world. They climb up together on the last ledge, and turn the corner—and then the mountains break, and Varian can see their destination in full.

There, in the distance, cast against the dark skyline, the Great Tree blots the otherwise pristine horizon like a warped and malevolent growth. The sun is just beginning to rise by now, and in the burgeoning glow the Tree is shadowed and cold and larger than even the mountains. It’s as big as a castle, wide branches twisting up in a mimicry of towers, the trailing ends reaching for the distant sun like grasping fingers. It is the only living thing for miles around, and even from this distance, Varian can see that the dirt around those giant roots has gone white and dead with poison.

There is something sick about the sight, grand though it may be—something awful and rotted. Varian holds a hand up to his nose, convinced for a moment that he can smell smoke, lingering heavy and acrid in the air.

But when he breathes in again, all he can smell is the snow.

Adira’s hand falls heavy on his shoulder; he almost jumps. “You okay?”

Varian inhales sharply—but the air is crisp and clean, nothing burning for miles. After a second, he nods. His mouth feels very dry.

Adira grips his shoulder. Her jaw is tight again. “Careful,” she says, at last.

Varian swallows. “I know that.” His eyes draw back to the tree. His breath shudders on the exhale. “Is that…?”

“The Great Tree.” Adira’s voice is dark. “Ugly, isn’t it?”

“The land looks like… like it’s dying.”

“Old legends say that Zhan Tiri turned the place into a parasite. With that demon at the helm, the Tree sucked up everything. Life, power… even light.” Adira clicks her tongue, shoulders tense. “Tens of thousands of years later, and the world still hasn’t recovered.”

There’s something like a shiver—an icy presence, the afterimage of glowing eyes. He thinks he can feel a hand brush the back of his neck—and tighten, a brief and vicious warning, the sharp prick of claws in his skin before the Moon drifts back again, seething and cold.

Adira waits, lips pressed thin. Varian catches his breath, and squeezes his eyes shut. “She doesn’t like it,” he whispers. “At all.”

She squeezes his shoulder again. “…You don’t have to go in. It might even be safer. I still don’t know if someone might be… waiting for us there.” Her eyes draw to the Tree, before she forcefully drags them away, back to Varian’s face. “I can sneak in alone, look around—”

“No!” Varian sucks in a sharp breath. “I—no. No. I have to do this.”

“…All right.”

“I have to,” Varian repeats. And he does. The rocks are his problem now. If he doesn’t do all he can—if he can’t say he did everything he could—then if things go wrong again, (and they will, they will, because they always do)—well. Varian isn’t sure he could ever forgive himself.

Adira searches his face. Whatever she sees seems to please her; she nods once, calm acceptance, and unhooks one of the training staffs from her back. “Take this, then,” she says. “We’re leaving our travel packs here. Gather up what you need, and be mindful—there’s no telling what we’ll find in there.”

Varian nods and takes the staff, and lets his packs fall back into the dirt. He stares down at the staff, just for a moment—the knotted wood, heavy in his hands. He sets his jaw and meets Adira’s eyes.

“Let’s go,” Varian says, with a bravery he doesn’t feel, and takes the first step down the cliff. Ruddiger chitters soft on his shoulder. Adira’s footsteps follow heavy behind him. Varian grits his teeth.

For over a year, he has been looking for answers. For months, he’s been left in the dark—and now, no longer. The sight of the Great Tree chills him, but Varian is decided. If the answers are there, he’ll find them. He’s done waiting. He’s done doing nothing.

He’s going to do better, Varian promises himself, and so he goes.

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Rapunzel is watching the sunrise.

It is the morning after her talk with the King—with Frederic—and the storm that has plagued Corona for the past week and a half has moved on fully at last. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the dining hall, the sunrise is bright and clear and crystal, shining pale and crisp in a near-cloudless sky. The whole sea is shining with it, the whole room set ablaze, and there is a weird comfort to be found in closing her eyes and still feeling the echo of sunlight on her skin.

It’s over, Rapunzel thinks, which is in actuality a very silly thought. In truth, things have just begun. But she can’t help but feel some measure of relief. She is tired, and sore, and aching all the way down to her bones, exhausted fully—but this morning, when she’d woke, she’d stared at her ceiling and sighed, and then she had gotten up. And she had gotten ready. And there was no real change to it, no real difference, except that maybe getting up came a little easier to her, this morning, than it has in a very long time.

That’s a victory too, Rapunzel would say. And so she sits at the ridiculously long dining room table watching the sunrise, and has to hide a smile in the rim of her mug.

She’s the only one eating here, at the moment; she looks, Rapunzel thinks with some delight, absolutely ridiculous. One small girl with gloves and no shoes and a plain purple dress, nibbling on dry toast at a table so long it takes up the hall.

Behind her, Elias stands at the ready. She’s relieved to see him. When she’d opened her door and saw him standing there, apparently none the worse for wear, she’d almost hugged him. The poor boy still seems nervous, though—he’s been casting her glances for a while now—but while Rapunzel is curious, she’s content to ignore him, if only for a moment. She has toast to finish. Options to consider. Things to finally process, now that the sun is up and Rapunzel has gotten some much-needed sleep.

For instance: the issue of where Rapunzel now stands with the King.

She’s… fairly sure her father understands her side now. Less sure if he’s agreed to anything, and what might change in consequence. Eugene can probably come and go from the castle as he pleases again, but for Cassandra, and the problem of Varian—let alone Stalyan…

Rapunzel makes a face at her plate and puts down her toast, frowning slightly. Stalyan. Rapunzel still isn’t sure what to do about her, or what she’s planning. Oh, honestly. She doesn’t even know if she’ll be allowed into the next meeting! For all her talk the night before, she doesn’t really have a plan. She doesn’t know what to do.

She still has time, hopefully—she’ll be seeing Eugene soon, if all goes well, and he’s bound to have some ideas. The problem of Stalyan isn’t something Rapunzel has to tackle alone.

Rapunzel hums, and brushes the crumbs from her gloves. That reminds her. She twists back to look at Elias. “Can I ask you something?”

He blinks at her, a little startled. “I, um, that’s… sure?”

Rapunzel manages a smile for him. “I’m sorry, I meant to ask earlier, but—you didn’t get in trouble yesterday, did you? When I…” She trails off, unsure of how to word it. When she ran away? When she snapped? Hm.

Elias shakes his head. “N-no! No. Just scolded. I’m okay.” Rapunzel exhales hard at that, relieved, and he shifts on his feet. “Um, were you—did you get in trouble?”

“It’s fine.” Elias seems uncertain. Rapunzel looks down. “It… it is.” She smiles again, or tries to— it’s a weak thing, this smile, thin and fragile. But true. “It’s fine now. Things are going to be okay.”

She hopes.

“Okay…” But his shoulders slump, and this time he smiles back. “That’s good. I’m—I’m glad.”

“Thank you.” She looks away, ashamed for asking him this question, unable to keep from asking. “Have you… heard anything about, um— if Cassandra—”

It’s a cruel thing to ask him, but Rapunzel can’t help it. She’s missed Cassandra, despite the tension between them recently. And she can’t help but hope, just a little, that maybe… maybe getting her old job back will help. If Cassandra can get re-instated, if she can get assigned out of the dungeons, then maybe…?

Maybe. Rapunzel is praying with all her heart.

Elias catches on quick. “Oh. Oh. No, I… I’m still your guard detail, I— I think. I didn’t hear… anything about Cassandra.” She can hear the regret in his voice; he sounds truly upset at the lack of news. “I’m s-sorry.”

“…It’s okay.” But it settles a little colder in her chest. She should have known—not every problem will be solved with a conversation, after all. And Cassandra’s situation with the King, while not helped by Rapunzel’s silence… well, Rapunzel is starting to suspect the feud has very little to do with Rapunzel at all. She’s not even sure where to begin with fixing that.

Behind her, Elias shifts. “Um… about, about Cassandra…”

Rapunzel blinks, looking back at him. “Yes?”

Elias won’t meet her eyes. He’s staring at the floor so hard he could bore holes, brows furrowed. His hands are clenched so tight around his halberd, the leather of his gloves is stretched taut. “I—I’m sorry, it’s not my place, but… doesn’t she seem a bit—”

He stops. Rapunzel waits, but all Elias does is press his lips, head bowing even lower. He’s trembling, she realizes, with a strike of worry. Shifting on his feet, shoulders shaking, breathing starting to hitch. She leans forward, worried now. “Elias?”

“Just,” he says, but his voice is going small. “I, I think—I think there might be—!”

A knock sounds at the dining room entrance, the doors opening, and Rapunzel jolts around, startled. Her mother—the queen—Arianna, and as much as it hurts to think of her parents so distantly it’s the only thing she can really handle right now—is standing in the doorway, pale-faced and looking frantic. When she sees Rapunzel, sitting stunned at the table, Arianna almost seems to crumple.

“Rapunzel.”

Rapunzel bites her lip. “…Mom.”

“I thought I’d find you in here,” Arianna says, relaxing a little. Her smile is weak, though, pale and thin. “I… I’m sorry to just barge in. Your father told me—well.”

Oh, Rapunzel thinks. She swallows, looking away. Right. She closes her eyes, exhaling slow and thin. “Okay,” she says, and turns back to Elias before she can get truly distracted. “Wait, just, what were you—”

“It’s nothing.” Elias’s voice has gone quiet again. “Just… it’s nothing. I, I’m being silly.” He gives a short bow to the Queen and steps back, giving Rapunzel and Arianna space to talk, and Rapunzel watches with a tense jaw. Elias catches her eye and gives a weak smile.

“It’s r-really nothing,” he says, still small. Then, lower, so low she isn’t sure if she’s supposed to hear this at all, he says: “I doubt you would believe me anyway.”

“What—”

“Rapunzel, dear, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to speak with you.”

Arianna’s voice, apologetic but firm, pulls Rapunzel away once again. She turns back to the doors, flustered. “Right, right, but—”

“Rapunzel.”  Arianna approaches the table, worry clear in her eyes, and settles down gingerly in the chair beside her. She leans forward, hand outstretched, and reaches for Rapunzel’s hands with a look like despair. “May I…?”

Rapunzel considers her. She bites her lip. She casts one last look at Elias—who ignores her gaze and shakes his head at the floor—and then finally faces her mother, reluctant but not sure what else to do. She thinks about it.

“Please,” Arianna says.

Rapunzel sighs. She offers her hand.

Her mother is careful—too careful, really—removing the gloves, and turns Rapunzel’s scarred hands to the light gingerly. Her face falls. “Your father told me,” she admits, staring quietly at the scars. “But I had to see for myself. Oh, Rapunzel.”

Rapunzel tries to offer a smile, but mostly she just feels tired. “It’s okay.”

“Does it hurt?”

“…Only sometimes.” And even that, Rapunzel is becoming accustomed to, but she doesn’t think her mother would be happy to hear that, even if it’s true. “It’s healed well.”

Arianna shakes her head. “You should have told us earlier. We could have—we must call the healers. Maybe—”

“I already saw a doctor.” Rapunzel tugs her hand back, gentle but firm. She’s sympathetic, but mainly her mother’s words just exhaust her. Rapunzel has heard this for months now, the horror and the pity and the false platitudes. Over and over and over again. But Rapunzel has had these scars for six, now near seven months; she’s gotten used to the sight, to the gloves, to the near-chronic pain that echoes through her fingers. It’s not fun, or pretty, or nice—but she’s becoming accustomed to the idea of living with this. She just wishes everyone else could, too.

But that’s unfair, she knows—her mother only just found out, after all. “It’s fine,” Rapunzel repeats. “Really. I have exercises to do, to help with the healing and the pain, and I’ve been careful. It’s just…” She looks down at her palms. “This is just how it is now. I’m okay, Mom.”

Arianna bites her lip. “Rapunzel—”

“I’m fine.”

“I— I’m sorry.”

Rapunzel stares at her lap. “I know,” she says, unable to look Arianna in the eye. “And I’m sorry too, for not telling you. But—” She closes her eyes. The words are lost. She can’t remember what she wants to say.

So she switches tracks, instead. “I... I wanted to ask, about Cassandra—”

One look at her mother’s face tells her everything. “You can’t,” Rapunzel says, helpless and starting to get heated. She’s my friend. And more than that— “She didn’t do anything!”

“Cassandra’s situation is different,” Arianna says, regretful but with an edge of steel to the words. “You aren’t under house arrest anymore, Rapunzel. No longer under watch, either, though,” she casts a sly side-eye to Elias, who straightens so fast he almost drops his halberd, “your father thinks keeping the new guard might help, if you insist on seeking out danger.” She grins a little, as if it’s a joke, but Rapunzel doesn’t smile back. After a moment, Arianna sighs. “Rapunzel. Cassandra—she gave her word to protect you, and it was broken.”

Varian, and the arrow. Rapunzel grits her teeth. How many times must that day come back to haunt her? “Because of me!”

“And because of her own choices, too.” Arianna’s look is soft and apologetic. “She mentioned it in the letter herself. She was lax on security. She left you alone with Varian, a breach of the protection protocol—and you almost paid dearly for it. That cannot be forgotten, Rapunzel.”

Rapunzel doesn’t agree. But she takes in the look in her mother’s eyes, and has to stare at the table instead, jaw tight.

“I’m sorry,” Arianna repeats, heavily. She presses her lips. “I know, what you must have wanted… but there are always consequences, Rapunzel. It cannot be forgotten, but perhaps one day it can be forgiven. We aren’t doing this to be cruel.” She reaches out, hesitates, then draws her hand back. “I… I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Rapunzel closes her eyes. “Me, either.”

There’s a stiff silence. After a moment, Rapunzel sighs, turning around, and finally opens her arms for a hug. Arianna gives it gratefully. She’s warm, and her grip is strong—her mother has always given the best hugs Rapunzel knows, tight and fierce and secure.

Rapunzel hugs her mother, head tucked in her shoulder, and admits, “I don’t like it.”

“I know.”

“I’m still a little angry. At dad. At you.”

“I… I understand.”

“But I did miss you.” Her eyes burn. Rapunzel hugs her mother tighter. “I missed you guys—so much.”

Arianna breathes in sharp. Her exhale is ragged. “We love you,” she says, voice shaking a little. “We do. And I—oh, Rapunzel. I’m so happy to have you back.”

Rapunzel nods against her shoulder and stays quiet, just soaking in the warmth, the comfort, the strength of Arianna’s arms around her. She takes a deep breath and pulls back first, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Arianna has to take a minute to catch composure too; behind them both, Elias looks like he’s trying to sink into the shadows. Despite the tension, and all her questions, Rapunzel can’t help but giggle at him, and after a moment Arianna laughs too.

Elias splutters. His cheeks darken, and he waves his hands, looking frantic. “Sorry, s-sorry, I should leave, sorry…”

“It’s all right,” Arianna says, eyes shining, bright with tears but now, too, with laughter. “At ease, guard. It’s all right.”

Elias buries his face in his hands, looking overcome. Rapunzel ducks her head with a smile and then draws herself tall, straightening up. A weight has lessened from her shoulders—but there’s still something she has to know. “Mom, can I ask…?”

“Of course,” Arianna says, at once.

Rapunzel hesitates. Time to test it, she supposes. “When is the next meeting with Stalyan? Has she requested one yet?”

Arianna hesitates. Her smile fades. “…Yes.”

A pause.

“…Mom—”

“I know.” Arianna closes her eyes, looking frustrated, and visibly shakes herself. “I know. Yes. It’s—” She sighs. “Five days from now. Dawn of the second weekday.”

Rapunzel watches her, the struggle on her face. She understands. Her mother doesn’t want to tell her. Even now, Rapunzel’s parents can’t stand the idea of her getting involved, of stepping back into the danger. But they are telling her anyway, and that is—

It’s enough. It loosens something in her shoulders, uncurls the knot in her gut. Rapunzel reaches out and rests her hand over her mother’s, and smiles when Arianna looks up and meets her eyes.

They’ve heard her. They’re listening.

“Thank you,” Rapunzel says warmly, and smiles so wide it hurts.

.

It takes them an hour to reach the Tree.

It’s an hour gone tense and taut with silence, stiff and cold with waiting. Varian hardly dares to breathe the whole way there, and in the back of his mind, the Moon’s icy silence is like a magic-induced brain freeze. Adira too is wound as tight as a wire, eyes sharp and watchful, and the whole way there, she doesn’t take her hand from the hilt of her sword, not even once. She’s warned Varian, vaguely, of what they could expect—another former resident of Adira’s Dark Kingdom is supposed to guard the way to the Tree—but beyond his name, Hector, Adira hasn’t said much else.

Varian hasn’t asked, either. The only question that comes to mind, did he know Quirin too? —it isn’t worth asking. He’s not sure if he wants to know. The secrets Dad kept from him… it feels almost wrong, to search for them now. Now that Quirin isn’t here to tell him himself. Now that Varian will never get an answer.

Does it matter, Quirin’s past? Maybe. Maybe not. If Varian is being honest with himself, what bothers him the most about Quirin’s connection to the Dark Kingdom is that Varian had never known.

(That Quirin never told him.)

And so. Varian doesn’t ask, and Adira doesn’t tell him, and this final leg of their journey is made in silence, as the sun rises slow and burning behind their backs.

Yet, despite their caution—nothing happens. No shadows leap out to take them into the night; no monsters loom around the bend. They reach the entrance of the Great Tree—a hollow space that looks more like a gaping mouth than a door—with only the wind to haunt their footsteps.

The Great Tree is even more intimidating up close. It looms so high above it blocks out the light, and despite the fact spring has just barely begun, those bone-white branches are adorned with spiny, fragile leaves that look as brittle as glass and as sharp as needles. There are no birds in this tree; no life surrounding—even the wind has gone flat and dead, even the grass unable to grow in the sickened soil. On his shoulder, Ruddiger takes one sniff and then shrinks back, and Varian is suddenly and vividly struck with a memory from months and months ago, when they first stepped into the Dark Kingdom. His ear had been recently torn then, and he’d been half-out of his mind with guilt and confusion and hatred, but… he remembers, still, clear as day. Halfway to that mountain of black rocks, the animals had stopped stone-cold.

Varian’s steps falter, then slow, then stop. Adira stops too, frowning back at him—but Varian hardly notices. He stares at the Great Tree, that hollow entrance, and something in his chest goes cold.

The Moon.

It’s not like when he called upon her in Yasmin’s home. She hardly seems real at all, like she’s standing in some thin veil between reality and dream. He can just barely see her, distant and thin and faint like a desert mirage. She’s standing there, in the entrance, in their way—her eyes cold and shoulders stiff, like to have her back to the Great Tree is to have her back exposed to an enemy.

Varian doesn’t move. The Moon stares down at him, eyes bright and ghostly in the darkness, and for a moment there is nothing in her face at all.

This is my final warning to you.

Her voice is icy. Her eyes never leave his face.

Leave, now. Never return. Give up this foolish quest for answers, beg for my forgiveness or accept your fate—but leave this wretched place behind you, and perhaps I’ll be inclined to think more favorably of you.

Varian takes a deep breath. She needs him, he reminds himself. For now, at least, she needs him alive.

“I don’t care what you think.”

You know not of what you are doing. The risks involved. To enter this place—

“I don’t care.”

There is a long silence. The Moon’s eyes narrow. Varian hardly dares to breathe.

You will regret it, Moon says, simply. It is not a threat. She says it plainly, flatly, true—almost pitying. And when Varian blinks, and opens his eyes again, she has vanished once more into the wind, and his head is all his own.

Varian swallows hard, and brings a hand to Ruddiger’s head, petting him firmly. Ruddiger hides his face in the curve of Varian’s fingers, ears flat against his head and teeth baring at the empty maw of the Great Tree, and Varian turns, giving Adira a helpless look.

Adira is watching Ruddiger too, eyes darting between the entrance and Varian; her lips press thin. “Is she…?”

So Adira didn’t see her, then. Varian closes his eyes. Magic, ugh. “She, um… she’s gone.” For now.

Another pause. Varian takes a deep breath. Despite all he’d said to the Moon—

“Adira, um, should we—”

“I know,” she says, grim. Varian snaps his mouth shut. “But at this point…”

They can’t turn back.

“I know,” Adira repeats, again, and she says it quietly, almost to herself. Her teeth are clenched so tight it looks like it hurts, and her expression is livid, eyes fixed on the shadows. She looks—he almost can’t place it; the emotion is so strange to see on her. But she looks, Varian thinks, almost as if she is bracing herself.

Varian steps a little closer to her, looking up at the shadow of the Tree, so dark the rising sunlight can just barely illuminate it. In a whisper, he says, “I thought you said someone you knew was here?”

“A former ally,” Adira says, tense. She grimaces. “Well. He should be.”

Varian bites his lip. They stare together into the darkness.

“The Moon?” Adira asks, finally.

Varian shakes his head. “She’s…” Pain flashes up his arm; he pulls his right hand behind his back, trying to breathe through it, the icy chill crawling up his hand. “I-ignoring me.”

Adira side-eyes him. “She’s hurting you.”

“Not seriously.” He curls his aching hand to a fist. “She’s just being p-prissy.”

The pain stabs at him, momentarily blinding, before fading to a dull ache, the Moon apparently losing interest. Varian hisses his next breath through his teeth.

Adira places a hand on his shoulder. For a moment they’re both silent, waiting, watching the darkness of the Great Tree, and then Adira sighs, soft and heavy, and takes her hand away.

“Come on,” she says simply, and pushes him through the door and into the first room of the Tree.

And it is, Varian realizes as he walks inside, a room—a space so big it must take up almost the whole base of the tree, so wide the light can only barely illuminate it. The floor is solid stone, smooth and slate-gray; pale dirt and withered husks of plants break up between the cracks. On the right side a whole section of the floor has completely fallen away into a solid drop. Pillars rise through the gloom, into a distant ceiling Varian can’t quite see. The air, stale and dusty, tastes as rotted as it smells.

It is like a living shadow. It is chill, and dark, and yet: there is something alive about it all. Something breathing, and watching, and biding its time. But maybe alive isn’t the right word—because there is rot here, too, heavy and lingering in the air, and the smell of smoke is so strong it nearly chokes him.

It feels like a dead place. It feels like…

He can sense the Moon, though only briefly—a flutter of cold, a catch of breath like pain. For a moment he thinks he can hear screaming, but when he goes to follow it, the sound has already faded away.

“What is this place?” Varian whispers, feeling sick. “What… what happened here?”

“It used to be a place of knowledge. A stronghold.” Adira lifts the torch higher; the firelight flickers, weak and thin in the whistling drafts of the tree. “Legends say Zhan Tiri took it for his own, when the demon tried to take the land.”

His vision spins. Varian stops mid-step, swaying on his feet, and has to steady himself against a nearby pillar. It doesn’t feel like wood, or bark, or anything natural. It is too smooth and slick, too false. It reminds him of bone, picked clean and polished. A shiver crawls down his spine. The screaming echoes in his ears again.

He snatches his hand away.

Ruddiger chitters in his ear. Varian shakes him off. “Zhan Tiri,” he whispers. Again, the name shudders through him. This time, the Moon speaks aloud, her voice hissing dark with warning.

Stop.

Varian closes his eyes. “Knowledge,” he says, voice unsteady, and when Adira glances at him he only shakes his head. She can’t—he can’t—they can’t do anything. There’s nothing they can do about Moon, except this. “K-Knowledge, um, is—a good place to start. About—the Sun and Moon and their powers, right? Do you know where we could find it?”

Adira never gets the chance to answer.

“Oh, it’s still here,” a new voice says, and Adira inhales sharp, hand flying to her sword. “But you certainly aren’t getting it.”

Adira just barely draws her blade in time.

Varian doesn’t even see the man move.

In an instant, the situation has shifted—and they are no longer alone. From the deep shadows of the tree, a stranger comes rushing into view, jumping down from above with a shout and a thin blade that shines deadly in their torchlight. He slams down between them, dust rising in a cloud, and before Varian can even think to scream that shining sword is swinging for Adira’s throat.

Adira blocks just in time. The man throws himself forward into the blow, and his silver blade catches and locks against Adira’s own dark sword. For a moment they are in a stalemate, and Adira makes to speak—and then the man laughs, high and vicious, and a second blade slips out from under his sleeve.

“Adira!”

The man punches for her neck and Adira throws herself back, the second blade only just missing her throat, scouring up the bottom of her chin. She stumbles back and the man follows after her, blade flashing—and Varian finally snaps out of his shock, inhaling quick and lunging forward with a cry.

He doesn’t know what he plans to do—to help, to summon the rocks—but he doesn’t get the chance. Yellow eyes shine out from the shadows, and Ruddiger’s claws dig so deep into Varian’s shoulder they draw blood. Varian freezes in place, and now he can hear it too—from behind him, from in front of him: a low and rumbling snarl.

Varian steps back, involuntary, and two beasts stalk out from the shadows. They are—they are huge, as big as a horse, their teeth as long as his arm and claws clicking deadly sharp against the Great Tree’s stone floor. The beasts look like a mix between wolves and wolverines, and for Varian, who is already small for his age—they tower over him.

Varian steps back again, mouth dry. The beasts have begun to circle him, caging him in between them. Drool drips thick and rancid from white gums, peeled back to expose every one of the creatures’ yellowed teeth. Their eyes are wild. Their eyes are hungry.

Ruddiger’s claws are starting to dig into the skin of his shoulder. Varian can’t breathe.

Across the room, Adira and the man are again in a stand-still. The man is smiling. Adira is not. Their blades are locked in place, stuck in unwilling truce, and already, both swords are slick and shiny with blood.

“Hector,” Adira grits out, and her eyes burn in the light.

“Adira,” the man replies, mild. He is tall, whip-cord thin with dark hair and skin so pale he’s almost translucent. His yellow eyes shine bright in the flickering light of the fallen torch. His smile is a bare of teeth, feral and cold. “So nice to see you again. It’s a shame to have to gut you like the traitor you are.”

.

One month after leaving the castle behind, Eugene returns with his heart in his throat.

He feels sort of nervous, and isn’t entirely sure why; his palms are clammy, and he keeps having to dry them off on his pantlegs. It’s noon on a clear day, and the streets are cluttered but not crowded, and the path up to the castle is like getting hit face-first with nostalgia.

Honestly, Eugene thinks to himself. A month! When he’d left the castle behind that day, he’d never thought things would go that far. Well, he’s learned his lesson: royals hold grudges, apparently, and maybe Rapunzel came by her stubbornness honestly. That’s the only reason he can think for why that tug-of-war standoff had lasted as long as it had.

And it’s over now, apparently, at least according to Rapunzel. Still: Eugene walks up the winding road, into the shadow of the castle, looming ever closer, and can’t help but swallow hard. It’s not entirely because of the castle, or the guards—though after a month of hiding in the shadows convinced that he was going to get locked out for turning his back on the whole political soap opera scene, he can admit neither guards nor castle is a very welcome sight. It’s just… a lot of things, maybe. Everything.

Lance had told him directly, and Lance wouldn’t lie—not about this. But still, still, Eugene can’t quite wrap his head around it.

Stalyan is here.

Stalyan is in the city.

It makes something in him go cold; it makes something in him go small. Eugene can’t find a name for the feeling. Shame, maybe. Guilt. Fear? He doesn’t know. It’s been years since he last saw Stalyan, and longer since he’s thought of her—of all the things in his past he’s been grateful to leave behind, she is most definitely one of them. Flynn Rider, rogue and scoundrel… but it hadn’t just been his reputation that bid him to run, that day at the altar. It had just been… the look on her face, maybe. The smile in her eyes. Like loving him was less about happiness and more about power, and all that could be gained from it.

Love isn’t meant to be like that—even then, he’d known that. For all the stupid masculinity jokes people make about marriage being a chain, in truth it is meant to be happy. Fulfilling. Freedom. Eugene hasn’t truly understood it until meeting Rapunzel, until looking in her eyes and knowing with his whole heart that staying by her side and seeing her smile was worth the world—but he’d got an inkling of it then too, seeing Stalyan that day.

Stalyan had loved him, albeit maybe in a twisted sort of way. And Eugene, fool that he was, had loved her too, once. But it wasn’t the kind of love that would make them happy. Great, sure, rulers of the criminal underworld; but Eugene had looked in her face that day and known, suddenly and sharply, that with her he’d never be happy again.

Stalyan must hate him for abandoning her—Eugene would expect nothing less, and he can’t even blame her for it. What can he say! At this point, it’s starting to become a trend: Flynn Rider, ruiner of lives and breaker of promises, useless in everything he did. In everything he does.

But even now, he can’t quite shake the feeling that she had left him first.

He can’t explain it. Like most things with Stalyan, just thinking about it gives him a headache. Whether it was the distance in her eyes or the cool chill of her smile, the way she gripped his wrists or the way she said his name, called him hers… who can say? It was a long time ago, and Eugene has left it behind him.

Still, though. Stalyan, here? He can’t deny it makes his skin crawl. Every passerby makes him jump; the distant echo of high laughter sets his teeth on edge. Eugene returns to the castle at long, long last—and because this is his life now, apparently, he can’t even be happy about it. So unfair.

Eugene blows out a heavy sigh and pushes the thoughts away as he approaches the castle gates. He looks up, a grimace tugging at one side of his mouth. Hello there, looming castle. Long time, no see.

The guards don’t stop him from entering, though they look surprised to see him. Eugene gives them a blinding smile and a wink-and-finger guns combo (devastating as always), and scampers on inside before they can stop him, or worse, ask him where he’s been.

The castle doesn’t seem to have changed much, really—a little greener, and covered in a whole lot more flowers, given spring is finally starting up. Eugene stuffs his hands in his pockets and rocks on his heels, watching the castle gates with one eye. She’d said noon, right? Gods, he should have brought the letter to check.

He doesn’t have to wait long, thankfully. Five minutes after Eugene arrives in the gardens, the main doors push open, and Rapunzel slips out, bare-foot and smiling and hair braided behind her head, rushing down the stairs.

It’s cliché, maybe, but it’s true: for a moment the sight of her takes his breath away. His heartbeat stutters and thuds, and when Rapunzel meets his eyes, Eugene smiles so wide it hurts.

“Sunshine!”

“Eugene!”

He opens his arms and catches her when she leaps, spinning her around once, twice, and again until she’s laughing like she can hardly breathe and his smile has settled wide and true on his face. Her arms wrap tight around his neck; her cheek brushes his as she hugs him. “Eugene!” Rapunzel shouts again, right in his ear, and there’s laughter in her voice, laughter and tears and a smile so wide he can hear it. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”

He hugs her back just as hard, and spins her one last time before setting her back down on her feet. Rapunzel laughs, bright and loud, and leans in to hug him again, so strong his feet lift right off the ground. Eugene yelps, then settles, and laughs himself—then yelps again when Rapunzel spins him.

“Woah, woah—”

“You’re here!”

“—I am.” She puts him down, and he fakes a stagger, just to make her laugh again. She ducks her head with a beaming grin, and he straightens, smiling too, pulling back but leaving his hands on her waist, his eyes on her.

Eugene is smiling so wide, his cheeks actually hurt. He winks. “Miss me?”

She’s crying, but not in the bad way, thank the Sun—her eyes watery and wet, a little red, her cheeks flushed. She looks happy. She dabs at her eyes and laughs again. “You have no idea,” Rapunzel says, through her smile and the tears. “I am—I’m so happy you’re here, Eugene.”

“Me, too.” He brings a hand to her face. “I know it’s just for the day, but…”

“That’s fine. More than fine.” Rapunzel rests her head against his chest. “Things are—I’m figuring it out. You’ll come again?”

“Every day,” he swears.

“Eugene.”

“Fine, every other day—” She lifts an eyebrow. “Every three days—” Rapunzel tilts her head. “I’m coming at least once a week, Blondie, spy stuff doesn’t take up all my time, I can spare a day. For you, especially!”

“Mm-hmm…” But she’s grinning again, wide and pleased, and he knows he’s said the right thing.

Eugene sobers, looking her up and down. It’s been awhile since he’s seen Rapunzel face to face, though he’s sent her letters every chance he could. She looks—tired, honestly. More worn than he can remember. There’s an exhaustion to her, a haggardness to her face, that speaks loads about how badly the stress of everything has been weighing on her.

And yet—even so. Despite her red-rimmed eyes, her expression is clear and focused. Her hands aren’t shaking, and neither is she. She’s holding herself tall—taller, even, back straight and chin tilted up, quiet and constant defiance.

“You’re okay?” Eugene asks, already half-sure of the answer, and when Rapunzel smiles, he smiles too. That right there—that’s a true smile. A real one. He can tell by the way it lights her face and crinkles, warm, at her eyes.

“I will be,” Rapunzel says, firm as if making a promise.

He believes her. “Okay.” Still, he draws her in again—and just holds her, for a minute, and lets her hold him, and soaks in the comfort of finally being with her. “I’m sorry,” he says, at last. “About not being able to visit before now. And for not telling you about Stalyan in person. And—”

“It’s okay,” Rapunzel says. He chances a look down at her face. Her eyes are closed. “You’re here now. We can talk about it later, and I—I forgive you, anyway. It’s fine. We’re okay.”

“…Are you sure?”

Her arms tighten around his waist. “Mm-hm.”

He considers this, and tucks his chin down in the crook between her neck and shoulder, breathing in the scent of flowers. “I missed you,” Eugene admits, quietly, muffled in her shoulder. “Every day, Sunshine.”

Her voice goes hushed too, like they’re sharing a secret. “I missed you too.”

And they stand there, for a moment, just holding on. Her arms are warm, and she smells like clean linen and flowers. The sun is soft at their backs. If Eugene closes his eyes, he can hear her heartbeat.

Then Rapunzel giggles, and Eugene exhales, almost laughing too, and they step away as one, grinning at each other.

“The day is ours, milady,” Eugene says, with pompous grandeur, and is gratified to see her giggle again at the title. “What do you want to do?”

Rapunzel loops her arm in his. “Maybe a walk around town?”

“As the lady wishes.”

She laughs again. The sound warms him.

Eugene leads her out the gates, and though the guards frown, they don’t stop them. Rapunzel spares a moment to wave back at Elias, lingering behind by the castle doors—the boy still looks totally spooked by everything, so at the very least that hasn’t changed—and Eugene grins and waves too. The boy waves shyly back, and noticeably doesn’t follow them.

“Things have changed,” Eugene observes, relieved and a little surprised. Though not that surprised. He has full faith in Rapunzel to win any contest of wills ever, by pure virtue of being five feet of nothing but sheer determination. Still, he hadn’t been entirely sure the King and Queen would listen—or accept defeat quietly, or whatever the right political term for that whole mess was. But if Elias is no longer being ordered to shadow Rapunzel’s every move… that’s a good sign. A great sign.

Rapunzel curls her arm a little tighter around his. “Yeah,” she says. It’s not exactly a happy tone, and Eugene casts her a side-glance. Rapunzel shakes her head. “Oh, I’m just being silly. It’s nothing, really.”

He nudges her with his elbow, and she looks down at her feet, bare toes flexing against the pavement. “Just. Things can’t go back to the way they were before, can they? I mean, don’t get me wrong, things are getting better, but… even then. It’s never going to be the same.”

Eugene frowns at that, considering, unsure of what to say. Rapunzel pats his arm. “I said it was silly,” she reminds him, and before he can reply, is off with a flutter of fabric, hop-skipping down the street. “Ohhh, a cider stall!”

Eugene looks up to the sky—dear lovely Sun god, are you as stubborn as your Sundrop? —and then jogs to Rapunzel’s side, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. “Sunshine—”

“Raspberry pastry and cider, please,” Rapunzel says to the stall owner, and Eugene rolls his eyes and drops it. For the moment. They get their pastries (divine, as always, how does she find these places, dear gods), and drinks (apple, tart, yum), and for a moment, things feel almost normal—the sun and the Coronan streets, and them, sitting on the side of a bridge, their feet left to dangle towards the water.

But Rapunzel is more right than she knows, and so Eugene waits until she has a mouthful of raspberry pastry before making his move. “You know,” he tells her, nursing his cider absently, “just because things won’t ever be the same as before, doesn’t mean those times are gone forever.”

Rapunzel puts down her pastry very slowly. Eugene laughs at her glare. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, and holds up his hands in surrender. “Just. Er. I’ve been thinking about that too, actually.”

Rapunzel looks away, swallowing hard. She doesn’t speak—just fiddles with the edge of her sleeve, looking tired. Eugene scoots in a little closer, and rests his arm around her shoulders. “Really,” he says. “It’s not—a bad thing. You know. You, uh, you take what you can from everything, you know?” Rapunzel looks a bit confused. Eugene waves a hand, trying to put the thought into words. “Like… okay. Hah, confession time. You know how these past few years, ever since you settled back in the castle, I’ve been… well. Trying to put the past behind me, I guess. The thieving, the sneaking, the law-breaking and… yeah.”

Rapunzel squeezes his arm and leans against his side. “Mm.”

Eugene relaxes. “Right. But, lately… these past few weeks, going back into it…” He grimaces, and blows out a heavier breath. “I’ve spent three weeks digging up my old contacts and brushing off my old skills, and it’s like… it’s just like before, but also really, really not. I’m doing it for a different reason. It’s not the same. It’ll probably never be the same again, I mean, I’m different, so.” He shrugs. “But it’s still with me. For better or for worse. If that makes sense.”

“A little.” Rapunzel blows out a heavy breath, a stray strand of hair fluttering in the exhale. “I get what you’re saying, anyway.” She leans against him, a little harder. “…Did you miss it?”

“Hm?”

She’s watching the sky. “Using your old skills.”

Oh. Eugene goes very stiff, and then, watching Rapunzel’s face, slowly forces himself to relax. There’s no judgement in her eyes, or in her voice; just honest curiosity, and a quiet sort of understanding.

Still. It drags at him, to admit this. It frightens him, just a little, because— “I missed it,” Eugene admits. The thrill of unearthing secrets, of sneaking where he’s not allowed, of slipping through the shadows. Of getting away with the target none the wiser. Yeah. “I missed it more than I realized.”

Rapunzel frowns at the sky, and then cranes back her neck to frown up at him. “That’s not a bad thing, Eugene.”

He laughs, but it doesn’t feel very funny. “Isn’t it?”

“No.” Her voice is firm. Eugene raises an eyebrow at her, and Rapunzel turns in his arms and straightens, leaning forward. “I don’t think so, anyway,” she says, a little quieter. “I mean, Cass might disagree, but—there’s ways to help and defend and—be that aren’t always what people think. Locksmiths can pick locks too. The skills aren’t bad, it’s just… what you do with them, I guess. And why.”

Eugene laughs again, mainly to cover the fluttering in his chest. Is it really so simple? He’s spent so much time trying to distance himself from the past that going back felt like a betrayal, and liking it even more so. Hearing her say that—so plainly, so sure, with such strength—it nearly takes his breath away. It doesn’t mean she’s right, but…

He wants to believe her. Her faith is, as always, contagious.

“That’s—okay.” Eugene takes a deep breath. “We-ell, Sunshine, I don’t know if agree with that—”

“Hmm.”

“—but I’ll think about it.”

Rapunzel shakes her head, but smiles. “You’ll figure it out.”

Eugene has always had faith in Rapunzel, and so her faith in him shouldn’t be a surprise, really—but still.

He turns his head away, uncharacteristically flustered, and grins when he can feel Rapunzel giggling by his side. “Don’t mock me,” he complains, still unable to stop the smile, and swings his legs over the side of the bridge, hopping back down onto the road. He offers Rapunzel his hand, and when she settles back beside him, he checks her with his side. Rapunzel laughs even harder at that, gripping tight to his arm to keep from falling. Gods, he’s missed her laugh.

“Though, speaking of Cass…”

Rapunzel’s laughter drops off, and her smile goes quiet and distant. Eugene looks back at the road in front of them, feeling his heart sink. “You too, huh,” he murmurs.

Ever since that day in the rain, Cassandra has been avoiding him, and he hasn’t stopped her—Eugene of all people knows the value of respecting space. But even so, he can’t help but feel it isn’t the right move to make—and yet, he doesn’t know what else to do.

Cassandra doesn’t want them there. She doesn’t want to talk. And Eugene isn’t keen on forcing his way through regardless, because there’s a thin line between helping a friend, or stepping up and letting them flay you alive.

Rapunzel, too, looks drawn.  “I— she doesn’t want to talk to me.”

Eugene thins his lips. He’s of the mind that isn’t much of an excuse; he knows better than to voice it. He hugs Rapunzel to his side, instead. “She’s… having a rough time.” Or something. He sighs. “She might just need a little space, Blondie. You know how she is.”

“I know, I know, I just…”

He hugs her again. “…Yeah.”

There’s a moment of silence, weighty and awful and stiff, and finally Eugene shakes his head and the troubling thoughts away. They’re almost into the main square now, and it’s as bustling as ever, a welcome distraction. “Anyway! Sad friend times aside—ow, Blondie, don’t pinch me—what are you thinking? Cupcakes from Attila’s? Or, ah ha, I heard a new sweet shop opened in the time we were gone, they make these powdery chew candies and tiny chocolates that taste divine according to Lance—”

Rapunzel stops walking.

Eugene just barely stops in time to keep from dragging her forward. “Hm?” He glances at her, and his heart plummets to his gut. His smile drops. “Sunshine?”

Rapunzel has gone white in the face. Her fingers are digging painfully into his arm, trembling so badly there’s no way it isn’t hurting her, but she doesn’t even seem to notice. Her eyes are wide open and shocked.

“What is it?” Eugene follows her gaze to the street. “What are you—” And then he stops, the words withering on his tongue, the world fading out into white noise. Because there, just down the road, walking in plain view as if she hasn’t a care in the world—

No.

“Stalyan,” Rapunzel whispers.

And so it is.

Bizarrely, his first thought is: she’s hardly changed at all.

Of course, Stalyan looks different now. Taller. Older, obviously. She’s grown out her hair again, and it looks good on her, wavy and soft. She’s figured out the makeup thing—her eyeliner looks sharp enough to cut, and less like she’s suffering from insomnia—and she’s got new clothes. But in every other way—

The cool look in her eyes, judgmental and dismissive. The slightest tinge of distaste as she walks through the streets. Anyone who gets too close gets a sneer and a hand brought to her blade. And this, too—when she turns, and sees them, and her eyes fix on Eugene with a fury that is straight from a memory.

Eugene clenches his jaw, refusing to step back, and curls his arm around Rapunzel, keeping her to his side. “Don’t—” he says, panicked, when Rapunzel makes to step forward. “Rapunzel, we can’t—”

“Hello, Flynn.”

The sound of his old name, in her voice, makes him wince. Hello, old memories. Wonderful of you to join us. Please go back into the locked box you belong.

Rapunzel is frozen by his side, and Eugene takes a deep breath. This isn’t the first time he’s been in this situation—old flame and new flame, and him in the center of the explosion—but this is the first time it’s… mattered, really. What Rapunzel thinks of him.

And, too—because Rapunzel’s hand is gripping his, almost possessive, but the anger in her face has little to do with Eugene at all. The problem with Stalyan is not because of Eugene. Stalyan is a threat not in romance, but in everything else—and that. That, Eugene doesn’t know how to deal with.

Stalyan is blackmailing Corona.

Why? For what purpose? Eugene doesn’t know, except for the fact it likely has little to do with him at all. He’s not a part of this feud, not really. He’s just an unfortunate shared connection.

“Stalyan,” Eugene says back, finally, not quite a greeting. It comes out a bit forced. It’s hard to muster the good ol’ charm when Stalyan is standing those few feet away with narrowed eyes. The idea of being charming, or even mildly flirtatious with her, is nauseating. “How… nice… to see you.”

Her eyes narrow further, but her lips curl in a smile. “It’s been so long,” Stalyan agrees, and it’s almost frightening, how quick her anger vanishes—hidden, now, behind a saccharine smile that makes something in him want to back away. “I’ve missed you.”

She’s ignoring Rapunzel completely, and Eugene is noticing that. Politics, politics. He swallows, mouth dry and aching. There’s no safe answer to that—he’s thief enough to know a trap when he sees one. So he stays quiet instead, and answers in actions: draws Rapunzel closer, and presses a careful hand to her back, a reminder.

Rapunzel exhales hard. She glances at him from the corner of her eye, quick and darting. Eugene just looks at her. He squeezes gently at her arm. There’s a pause, a moment of thought—and then some of the tension wound in her shoulders eases away.

When Eugene looks back at Stalyan, she’s no longer smiling.

“Stalyan,” Rapunzel says. Her voice is a little shaky, but there’s a force and control to her tone that almost makes Eugene duck his head to hide a smile. Rapunzel, setting her feet. This is about the time when the frying pans start swinging, hah. “What do you want?”

“How rude. Not even a hello?” Stalyan’s jaw is tight, eyes flashing. She tosses her hair, her hand settling on one hip, and eyes Rapunzel up and down. Her gaze lingers a little too long on Rapunzel’s bare feet, the flowers in her hair, the paint cracking on her gloves and the hem of her dress. Stalyan’s smile curls small and smug. “Don’t forget your manners now. I know you’re new to learning them, but after two years, that’s really no excuse, princess.”

Rapunzel’s jaw goes tight. Even Eugene is struck silent. That’s a goddamn low blow.

“Just Rapunzel,” she corrects, at last, stiffly. “I don’t have much use for the titles. Also—” Her arm tightens around Eugene again. “His name is Eugene. Not Flynn.”

Stalyan scoffs. “Look, you—”

“She’s right, actually!” Bright, bright, bright. Poisonous. Stalyan’s eyes snap back to him. Eugene smiles with all his teeth. “I don’t use Flynn anymore. I’d appreciate it if you used my actual name.”

Stalyan laughs. It fades quick. “Oh, you’re serious? Please. That’s—”

“What do you want?” Rapunzel repeats, cutting Stalyan off again. Stalyan looks livid.

Eugene presses a hand against Rapunzel’s back, trusting in her, unable to keep his gut from twisting. Stalyan is dangerous angry. Stalyan is always dangerous. How many times had he and Lance snuck into a place to rob, trusting her to clear the way out—only to walk out to find all the guards poisoned and dying on the ground? It had never been overkill to her. Non-lethal is rarely an option in her eyes.

And more than that—Stalyan frightens him. The more he sees of her, the more unsettled he is. There’s something off about her, something odd, something biting and cruel. He has never known her to be jealous; normally she would just dismiss Rapunzel, not mock her so blatantly and so doggedly. She hasn’t even mentioned the fact he left her at the altar, not even once.

It hits him all at once. Of course. Of course. How obvious is that? Just as Rapunzel’s anger towards Stalyan has very little to do with Eugene, neither is Stalyan’s anger towards Rapunzel about him either.

Corona—it must be about Corona. This whole situation. The blackmail, the attacks, the Baron risking his neck and his empire for this impossible deal… and why? Why is the Baron backing this? Why does Stalyan want this? What is it all for?

He has no idea, not even an inkling, and yeah: Eugene will admit it. It scares the shit out of him.

“Can’t a girl walk around and shop in her spare time?” Stalyan’s voice is light. Her eyes promise a knife to the back. There’s a light in her face like a spark, maybe just from the midday glow, that washes her pale and bright and grim like a corpse. It reminds him of campfire nights from long ago—of sitting before a fire, crackling cold, and looking across to see nothing but the reflection of the flame in her eyes. “Silly me—I didn’t realize negotiations started today.”

Rapunzel watches her. Her lips press. Eugene squeezes her arm again, bouncing restless on his heels, and she glances up at him. Her brow furrows. Then her eyes harden, and she nods.

“Okay.”

Eugene blinks. Stalyan looks startled. And Rapunzel is already turning away, her back to them both, walking back up towards the castle. “We’ll be going, then. Enjoy the shops.”

Eugene casts one last glance at Stalyan and then follows after her. It makes his skin crawl to turn his back on Stalyan, and he is wound tight and ready for if she decides to draw her sword. He lingers by Rapunzel’s side, uncertain. They’re leaving? He looks at Rapunzel. She is shaking, faintly. She isn’t breathing right. The cool determination on her face is faltering.

He puts his arm around her shoulders. They’re leaving.

“Flynn.”

He doesn’t turn around.

“Flynn Rider.”

Eugene grits his teeth so hard he tastes blood. He looks back.

“You’ve gotten soft,” Stalyan says. It’s half-challenge, half-coaxing. An offer veiled and sharp. “Don’t you miss the game?”

Eugene searches her face. And he realizes, all at once, that he was wrong. She has changed. He knows because he knew her best; he knows because he once felt it too. And it horrifies him, to recognize it, to see it in her smile. It’s terrifying.

There is a hunger in Stalyan’s eyes that chills him to the bone.

Guilt is such an ugly emotion. He can’t ever bring himself to regret leaving that altar, but—he used to care about her, once. He regrets that it hurt her. Because he did love her—and he did miss her, once upon a time. He did miss the game. He still does.

But in this moment, all he can feel is cold—because she, too, is lying.

This isn’t a game at all. To either of them.

“My name is Eugene Fitzherbert,” he says. It’s all he has left to say to her. “Enjoy your stay in Corona, Stalyan. I get the feeling you’ll be leaving the city real soon.”

He turns around before he can see the fury in her eyes. He walks away.

Stalyan doesn’t follow. For a long moment, she doesn’t speak. But her eyes weigh heavy on his back, and when she finally speaks again, her voice is cold with promise. “We’ll see about that.”

Rapunzel reaches out and takes his hand. It’s shaking. She squeezes his palm. It probably hurts her, but she does it anyway.

A moment’s pause, and then Eugene squeezes back.

.

The sun is coming up, the beasts are closing in, and Varian doesn’t know what to do.

His breaths come in short bursts, and the darkness wavers before his eyes. The beasts approach, and Varian backs away, knees weak and hands trembling, and for a moment he doesn’t know if their eyes are shining yellow or a cold unfeeling blue, if those are claws he’s seeing or the hand of the golem, the Moon’s puppet, reaching out for him from the shadows once again.

He needs to get out of here, but he’s trapped. They are behind him, they are in front of him, they are everywhere he turns. There’s nowhere for him to go, nowhere safe to run, and for a moment the whole world feels whited out and thin, the walls closing in and Rapunzel’s hand crushing his, screaming at him to run—

Ice shocks up his hand.

The memory shatters. Varian cries out, almost falling to his knees, gritting his teeth against a cold so sharp it throbs in his head like a heartbeat. For a moment the air is weighted and heavy, and around the back of his neck, fingers curl with the prick of claws—not a threat but a reminder, a grounding force.

Wake up, you idiot child! The hand tightens. Her voice breaks through the fog. Do you not see the sun behind you? Do you not see your mentor there in the shadows? The little rat on your shoulder? Would such things be in my labyrinth? No!

“I—”

You chose to come to this wretched place, against all my attempts to drive you off, the Moon hisses in his ear. If you die here after all I’ve done to keep you alive, little vessel, I’ll throw you off that ledge myself!

But I’ll already be dead, something in Varian thinks, snide and sarcastic, and the irritation is a relief, something to ground him back to reality. The cold in his hand and Ruddiger on his shoulders, the beasts circling around him—the nightlight, pink and soft and swinging off his coat strap. He’s not in the labyrinth. He’s not in the labyrinth.

Varian sucks in a deep breath, shakes away the lingering echoes, the whispers of a scream, and yanks his training staff into his hands. He holds it out and in front, pointing the blunt end at the beasts encircling him. “Get—get back!”

Yes, because that is so intimidating.

On the other side of the room, from the corner of his eye, Varian can see Adira still in the midst of a fight, pushing back against the newcomer’s sword. Her teeth are bared in a snarl. “Hector.”

The man grins back, wide and furious, and pulls away only to cut in close again, blade flashing for her face, so quick Varian can barely follow it. “Traitor.”

“I didn’t come here for a fight!”

“I told you what would happen if you showed your face to me again. You betray your king!” The man—Hector—sets his feet and lunges, lashing for her ankles; Adira dodges back, just out of range. Blood is dripping a steady stream down her face, almost invisible against her red face paint if not for the way it stains her shirt collar. “It’s too late to say you don’t want to fight, Adira.”

A low growl rises behind him, and Varian jumps, attention torn back to his own problems. One of the beasts is approaching him, too close for comfort. He clutches his training staff to his chest and backs away, his heart in his throat. “Adira—”

Her eyes flash to him. She shoves Hector away, snarling openly now. “Varian! Fight back, kid!”

“I—!”

“And who’s this, anyway?” Varian stills, breath catching, as Hector’s bright eyes fix on him. In his head, the Moon snarls, and the shadows grow ever darker around them, a low mist beginning to tangle at their ankles. “Not the Sundrop girl you said you’d drag through here, unless the rumors of the Sundrop were greatly misinformed. A random child?” He laughs, high and mean. “You brought a kid, here? You?” He turns, eyes flashing. “In addition to disloyal, you’ve apparently gotten soft.”

“I have never been disloyal!” Adira snaps. For the first time since the fight began, she looks truly angry. Her sword holds steady, but her knuckles are near-white from tension. Her expression is livid. “Maybe you were content to let the Dark Kingdom die, but I—”

“I follow the word of our king!”

“As did I!” Adira takes a deep breath. Some of the fury fades from her; her sword lowers, just slightly, and her eyes flutter as if she is in pain. “Hector. You’ve been here a long time. You don’t know what—”

“I know enough.”

“Listen to me! King Edmund—the Dark Kingdom is already—”

But it is clear that Hector isn’t listening. He lunges forward, grinning again, and the clash of their swords scrapes so loud it aches. Metal against metal, stone against stone—

The golem—

But no, no, he already knows—he’s not in the labyrinth, he’s not. But each time their swords clash, his skin crawls, and Varian shakes his head and stumbles back, breath hitching, hands rising for his ears.

(And Yasmin had asked him once, weeks ago: Are you afraid of the dark?

Yes, he thinks. Yes.

I’m terrified of it.)

His hands clap over his ears. The screech of metal rings in his head. His knees feel weak, and the walls are spinning, and he almost loses his feet entirely.

And again, that icy hand—and her voice, rising in his ears, sharp with offense. What are you doing!? Snap out of it! The binturongs, boy!

Varian blinks fast. He feels dizzy. “I— the what?”

The beasts, you little idiot!

Oh, he thinks, shit, and the world rushes back just in time for him to see one of the creatures—a binturong? —lunge for him. Varian yelps, scrambling back. He only just manages to get out of the way, and he drops to his knees, hands fumbling for the staff again. Ruddiger is clinging so tight to his shoulder that it’s starting to go numb.

The binturong lunges again, almost testing, and Varian has just enough muscle memory in him to remember to dodge. His staff slams down on the beast’s nose—it yelps and recoils back, and then it peels back its lips and snarls.  

“Adira—!”

“Go, Moony!”

“But I can’t just—” He doesn’t want to leave her; Adira had mentioned an old ally, now possible-enemy, but she’d never said he was like this. But Varian clutches the staff close and knows his options are limited. He whips his head around, breath caught. The pressure behind his eyes is dizzying. He can’t think like this!

I don’t suppose you could help? he thinks at Moon, and gets a blinding spike of ice-cold pain through his temple in response.

His vision spins from the sudden shock of pain. He drops to his knees. The snarling rises to a howl, high and screeching. Varian snaps his head up just in time to see the binturong lunge for him, jaws unhinged and claws outstretched—

“No!”

Light flashes across his vision, burning and blue.

The first thing that hits him is the silence. He can no longer hear their fighting, or the metal shriek of the swords. Even the growling has stopped. Varian pries his eyes open, chest sore, heart aching—and already knows, on some level, what he’s going to see.

The black rocks have saved him.

They are tall, they are unmistakable; they have blocked the beast from reaching him. They are not his doing. In the piercing blue glow of the rocks, already fading, he can see a flash of white hair and yellow-white eyes, Moon’s snarl etched dark across her face.

You asked for help and received it. She sneers at him. Reap what you sow, little fool.

His hands are shaking. Varian backs away from the rocks, and looks to Adira almost on instinct. All the color has drained from her face. She looks horrified. Varian feels his heart drop to his knees.

“…What is this.”

Varian snaps his gaze to the side. The man—Hector. His mouth goes dry. Hector isn’t smiling anymore. His eyes have gone hard and flat, and for the first time, Varian feels a shiver crawl down his spine at the look in his eyes.

Hector’s hand clenches around his sword, his eyes wild, and rushes right for Varian.

Varian throws himself away—and backs right into the wall of black rocks. Ruddiger yips in his ears. His eyes widen. Oh, fuck—

But Hector never reaches him. Adira throws herself in-between them, swinging for Hector’s neck. This time, it is Hector who pales. His block is rushed and desperate.

It’s too late. The angle of the blade is wrong, and the black rocks are absolute. Adira’s black blade cuts right through his sword, the tip ricocheting away across the stone floors, cutting up across Hector’s cheek. Blood wells and drips down his chin.

He doesn’t even flinch. Just leans forward, fury in the set of his face, and hisses, “What have you done.”

Adira sets her jaw. “Moony—Varian, run!”

“I—I—”

“We came here for a reason, kid! Move!”

The rocks—learning control—the scrolls. Varian catches his breath and throws himself onto his feet. His eyes dart around. There, just to the side: a hollow pit of a tunnel, half-concealed in the rubble. Still, he pauses, something ill twisting in his gut. “I can’t just leave you here!”

“You can! And you will.” Hector haymakers at her temple; Adira ducks and then kicks him so hard he goes flying back. “This doesn’t involve you—let me fight my battles! You have your own to worry about right now.”

“I don’t think so.” Hector is climbing to his feet, a snarl twisting his face. He tosses away the broken sword and draws another from his belt. His expression is blood-curdling. “What power is that, boy? Where did you get that?”

“Varian!”

“What did you do!” Hector howls, and the binturongs scream and lunge again.

The room is spinning before his eyes. The Moon is a weight in the back of his mind that nearly cripples him. The world wavers, caught between reality and something like a memory—the Great Tree old and broken and rotting; the Great Tree new and cold and so utterly empty it makes him feel ill—and the distant screaming, once again, high and shrieking and pained, echoing in his ears on loop.

(And he thinks: he has heard this voice before. He has heard this once, long ago. In a tower, half-dead and half-awake, drawn back to life by a burning gold, and as Varian opened his eyes, that same light had twisted around Moon like a vice and she had—)

Varian forces the echoes away, breath rattling in his ears. He is in the Great Tree—he is Varian—Adira is fighting again, pushing Hector back, buying him time. She is waiting for him to run. She is waiting for him to leave, and that is—

And what is Varian supposed to do? What is he supposed to think about this? She’s not his dad. She is nothing like his dad. But Varian is frozen still and shaking with it, struck with the sudden and terrible fear that if he runs, if he leaves, he will come back and she will be gone too.

Don’t, son!

“Run, Varian!”

Varian takes one step back—then another—then again. Then he turns his back on Adira and Hector both and sprints for the tunnel, into the shadows, deeper and deeper into the twisting labyrinthine halls of the Great Tree.

Hector screams at his back. Adira matches him; the clash of their swords shrieks through the air. The mist that has tangled low at their ankles surges up in a wave, consuming the room in seconds, and Adira and Hector both vanish from sight. They are swallowed by the fog, by the darkness, and Varian—

Varian does not look back. Varian runs. On and on and on, until he can no longer hear them at all, and the only light left is the nightlight on his belt and the only sound is his breathing and Ruddiger’s low growling, harsh and ragged in his ears.

And in the back of his mind, quiet and grave, the Moon whispers. Foolish child. You should have left when you had the chance. You should never have come.

I warned you, boy. I warned you.

And now it is far too late to run.

.

.

.

Andrew is awake, when the footsteps come; he is always awake, always alert, before she even thinks to walk through the door. In these past few weeks her approach has become routine, and never fails to make him grin. His role in this part of the game is minimal—minor manipulations only, using this new power his partner has given him, to twist minds and wills with his words—but important, all the same. She passes by his cell and Andrew hisses soft poison for her ears, each moment, every hour, every chance he has.

Cassandra is not here for him. Of this, Andrew is well aware. But she is drawn to this cell block by a force more than she can comprehend, led like a lamb to the slaughter, forced to listen to the whispers Andrew has been ordered to cram inside her head. And Andrew is a simple man. He is easily pleased. The idea of that strong-willed guard now serving as a puppet to the same thing Andrew is partnered with brings him a feeling of sick satisfaction.

He delights in it—the show, the slow fall. Every day she walks by; never does she know why, if she remembers walking here at all. Each day, the shadows in her eyes are a little deeper, her scowl darker, her eyes glazed and exhausted. He can see the bitterness wound tight in her shoulders, can almost taste the hatred building behind her tongue and in her throat.

This day is no different—Andrew is awake and aware and watching as Cassandra stalks through the halls, half-hidden by the shadows and grinning so wide his white teeth look almost like tombstones. She looks so wretchedly terrible today, he thinks with glee. She is as composed and put together as always, a lie of control, but her expression betrays her: her face is drawn and her teeth are grit, her lips cracked and bloody from all the times she has bitten angry words back.

She never sees him—never looks—never will, because Andrew’s new helper is clever and quick and will not let Cassandra see until the time is right and she is on their side. So Andrew watches and Cassandra does not look, and his smile stretches wide and cruel.

“Soon, you think?” he says to the air.

Cassandra’s hands are curled to fists.

“I think so too.”

In the great depths of Corona’s prisons, Cassandra walks by the prisoner hall with a cold expression and trembling fists. She doesn’t hear Andrew’s whispers. She doesn’t see him smile.

But in another room, sitting cross-legged in the empty cell above Andrew’s, another does. A hand shakes and then curls tight around the halberd. For a moment the other, unseen, unnoticed by shadows and prisoner and Cassandra all, sits there in that open cell and takes in all he has overheard, all he has overheard for the months and months Andrew has been whispering. All the things this boy has seen, ever since that first day months ago, when he and his friend stumbled upon this empty cell by pure accident, and heard Andrew muttering underneath.

For a moment this boy almost seems to tremble. His head bows, shivers wracking his small frame. His hands shaking, fingers cold. For a moment fear grips him like a vice, as it has for all these months before, walking through the castle knowing a monster was sleeping beneath it. For a moment he is lost to it.

Then his shoulders set. His teeth grit.

And when Elias finally raises his head, his expression is cold, and his hands are no longer shaking.

[trueenemyorfalsefriend]

vii - Painful Love - Bruce Banner

Bruce Banner x Original Female Character | Avengers AU [masterlist] | [ ← previous chapter]

The scattered golden sunlight crept through the thick leaves of the old oak tree, throwing calming rays of warmth onto Laussa’s skin as she lounged in the dewy, summer-green grass beneath. A few culms were brushing against the naked skin of her lower leg, but she didn’t feel the tickling sensation, too absorbed in the view of the world around her, enveloped in the incomparable golden glow she’d only ever experienced here on Asgard. 

A slight breeze brushed her soft, blonde curls into her face, making her turn her head away from the draft, surprisedly laying eyes on her teenage brother leaning against the ancient tree behind her. ‘What are you doing, sister?’ His voice was calm as his dark hair was blown out of his face by a gust of wind, his green cape flowing behind him as he stepped closer to her.

‘Just thinking.’ His leather boots squeaked against the ground as he crouched down next to her. ‘Aren’t you a bit young for that?’ She gave him an offended look. ‘That’s mean, I’m already 6!’ Laussa hit his shoulder playfully. Loki, however, let himself fall over and roll down the hill, his cape wrapping around him in the process, making her laugh almost hysterically as he struggled to get up. 

‘You dare to attack me? You have no idea who you’re dealing with!’ He rose his arms, conjuring up a bunch of toy knives, sending them soaring towards her. She rose her hands as well, snapping her fingers together, all of the knives promptly turning into small, shiny bubbles, rising up into the golden sky. Loki faked a scared expression as Laussa got up to run towards him, fleeing back towards the tree. ‘Where did you get those powers? You can’t be stronger than me!’ He ran around the tree, still shouting, her right on his heels. ‘Have mercy, little girl!’ As she rounded the tree, the dark-haired god had vanished, and she stopped to listen for any movement around her except the lush leaves above her faintly rustling in the wind.

‘You’d have mercy with me, wouldn’t you?’ The voice of her oldest brother surprised her as he stepped out from behind the tree. His straight, blond hair barely reached his shoulders, stands of it blowing into his eyes, his red cloak waving behind him dramatically. Now, Laussa might have been 6 years old, but she wasn’t easily fooled, especially not with a brother that was the god of mischief. Taking a small breath, she cocked her head to the side slightly, looking her oldest brother deep in the eyes ‘What do you think, Loki?’ 

He let go of the green facade immediately, running off again. She tried to get him, but this time she had to stop after a while, out of breath, leaning forward while propping her hands on her knees, as she slowly gained control of her erratic breathing again.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him, his black hair now falling into his face as he peeked out from the other side of the oak tree, also breathing heavily. She saw him shudder slightly as he tried to calm down and took a deep breath before talking. ‘I know father told you, not to play with me anymore. He thinks I’m a bad influence on you.’ His voice was bitter, and she breathed in once more, standing up straight again. ‘Well, he’s wrong then.’ Loki’s frown turned into a smile, one of his rarer, genuine smiles, and he vanished behind the tree again. Suddenly, Odin’s head appeared on the other side of the tree, an angry expression on his face as he shouted: ‘How dare you speak the truth, girl!’ She laughed at Loki’s illusion, shouting back at ‘her father’: ‘Well, what are you gonna do, send me back into that box again?’ 

Her own laughter distracted her from the transformation, but all of a sudden, Loki was himself again, his features overcome with a sad expression. She was by his side in the blink of an eye, hugging his torso as tightly as she could. He hesitated, his sorrowful eyes now on her, laying his hand on her back gently. ‘Not so tough now, warrior.’ she laughed, observing his facial expression change back from sad to smiling, then a wicked smirk taking over. She felt him transforming right under her hands before she could see it, green light enveloping him as he shrunk out of his humanoid shape. When Laussa could see through the blinding light again, she just barely saw the long, green snake on the ground in front of her before letting out a shriek of terror. ‘Eek! Stop it, you know I hate snakes!’ He hissed at her, his slick body then quickly slithering into the high grass next to them, effectively vanishing completely. 

The atmosphere shifted quickly when suddenly, dark clouds gathered under the golden sky and a distant thunder dove everything into a darker mood. Slightly scared, she started calling out for her brother. ‘Loki?’ The rain started just seconds afterwards, big, heavy drops of cold water hitting her and the environment around her. ‘Loki, where are you?’ The high grass rustled around her, but she couldn’t spot him anywhere. ‘This isn’t funny, Loki.’ She shouted now, the fear clutching her tightly as she frantically looked around her.

Then, there it was. An ear-splitting scream of pain in the distance. She felt a sharp pain shoot through her heart immediately. Loki. She raced back to the oak tree, knowing instinctively the scream had come from here. ‘Loki! Where are - ’

Loki stood there, right next to the tree. He looked older, an adult, his longer, wet hair and clothes were clinging to his body, his posture rigid, as his hand dipped down to his chest. She looked down in shock as she saw the blood pooling on the front of his tunic, running down his torso, and he collapsed onto the ground. ‘Loki!’ She ran to his side, taking his hand into hers, her other hand brushing the wet hair out of his pale face. ‘No no no no no, Loki, what happened?.’ Her hands sought out the wound intuitively, pushing down onto the long stab wound with all the pressure, she could muster up. ‘Stay with me, Loki.’ she whispered, trying to stay calm as her heart beat out of her chest in panic.

He pulled her bloodstained hands away from his chest, taking them into his. As tears streamed down her face, he rose his other hand to her cheek, his cold, shaking fingers brushing over her skin softly, forcing her to look up at his face, clearly contorted in pain. ‘Please don’t, Loki, please don’t leave me alone.’ She whispered frantically, his hand gripping onto her face tighter, using all his remaining strength to pull himself up to her, face to face, then turning to her ear.

‘Then why didn’t you save me?’

 Laussa woke up, panting, feeling the tears that covered her face, soaking the thin shirt she was wearing. In an attempt to calm down, she tried opening her eyes, but her body didn’t move, didn’t respond to her cues. Oh no. Sleep paralysis was nothing entirely new to her, but it had certainly become a rarer occasion over the past year. 

After slightly calming down her irregular breathing, she finally managed to open her eyes, looking up at the dark ceiling, lit only by the faint moonlight coming through the window to her side. The panic of her nightmare still enveloped her, making it more difficult to try to move in any way, so she tried her breathing exercises. Slow, deliberate breaths, slowing down her heartbeat in the process. Then she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye.

Her eyes snapped towards the right side of the bed, where she'd registered the motion, her breathing stopping altogether abruptly. There he was. There was Loki, sitting right beside her bed, dressed only in a withered black suit, his hair long and messy, his eyes tired, but focused on her with concern. She let out a shriek, her breathing suddenly erratic, her body now twitching wildly, desperately trying to move. 

‘Shhhhhhh.’ he whispered, now leaning forward, his black hair falling in his face as he did. ‘Breathe, slowly.’ He rose his hand to her cheek, letting his fingers brush the hair out of her face as she whimpered. ‘In, and out.’ She could see the scarred, dark burn marks on his arm, perfectly shaped in a handprint - her handprint. He was so close, she could smell him, feel the coldness he always radiated. Looking back up at him once more, he smiled at her sadly, almost exactly as he had in her dream, and, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

As she splashed the cold water on her face, she could already tell it wasn’t going to help. The images of her dream were still so vivid in her mind, so lifelike as if it had really just happened to her. She dried her face, turning to look at her phone. 3:51 am. Thor had returned to New Asgard a few days ago, and she had half in mind to go there now, just to not be alone after a dream like that. But what would she even tell him? That she had had a nightmare? That she had seen Loki sitting by her bed? No, that was not an option. She wasn’t a child anymore. She left her room to go to the kitchen, quietly making herself a cup of coffee, her mind drifting back to the doctor. What if she went to see him? He would understand, wouldn’t he? It had been almost three weeks since that incident down in the lab where he’d helped her. He would listen, she knew. Taking her cup and warming her hands on it, she entered the elevator, her finger hovering over the button to Banner’s floor for a while. She couldn’t burden him with her problems, he had enough to bear on his own. 

Laussa let out a sigh of relief as the metal doors opened to the now familiar view of the lab. The lights around her switched on automatically as she walked in, but she quickly noticed that some of them hadn’t been turned off, as bright lights were emitting from Banner’s area. Was he still here? Trying to be as silent as she could, she snuck over towards his desk, and sure enough, there he was. 

He was sitting in his chair, slouched forward, his head lying on his arms, fast asleep on the table. She stepped closer, an affectionate smile on her face as she regarded the attractive man in such a vulnerable position. 

He was wearing a thin, wrinkled grey sweater, and his dark curls moved with every breath he took, brushing over his forehead. He probably hadn’t slept for days, as usual... Laussa hurried to her desk, picking up the soft fleece blanket she kept there for long nights, rushing back to Banner. Slowly, she walked closer to him, wrapping the blanket around him gently. He stirred, his eyes flickering open and up to meet hers. His voice was raspy as he spoke, and Laussa felt her heart beat faster. ‘What are you doing?’ She smiled at him, fighting the urge to brush the loose curl out of his face. ‘I think you should go to bed, Dr. Banner, it is very late.’ He shook his head sleepily. ‘No, no, I was working on something here.’ He sat up quickly, motioning to get back to work, only groggily pushing his keyboard to the side and knocking a mug off his desk. She moved quickly, her reflexes sharp, catching it before it hit the ground. She put it back on the desk as she suppressed a peal of laughter. ‘Come on, Dr. Banner, I’ll get you up to your room.’ 

He was shaky on his legs, clearly still half asleep as they reached the elevator. She waited, but when it seemed like he couldn’t hold himself up anymore, she wrapped her arm around his back supporting him. She inhaled sharply as she felt the taut muscles of his back through his shirt, only gripping tighter onto him as he drowsily lifted his arm around her shoulders, automatically pulling her closer to him.  It felt almost intimate, standing so close next to each other, their limbs entangled, enjoying each other’s company, but she knew he was barely conscious anymore. She couldn’t help herself and let her hand wander upwards from his waist to his pronounced shoulder blades and the firm muscles surrounding them, only snapping out of it when the elevator stopped abruptly.

The doors opened to virtual darkness, no lights turning on in the room, as they entered. Her free hand fumbled for a light switch unsuccessfully for a moment, until she gave up. She imagined this floor would be essentially the same as hers, and they found their way to his room quickly with the help of her phone’s flashlight. She let him fall off of her shoulder onto his unmade bed, then let her eyes wander around his room. It was bare, pretty much like hers, no personal belongings anywhere except for a few books on one of the tables and a few candles. Not wanting to turn on the main light, she walked over to the table, snapping her fingers above the candlesticks, igniting them immediately, illuminating the room in a dim, pleasant light.

Turning back around to the man on the bed, she noticed he hadn’t moved at all. As she had let him fall onto the bed, his thin, grey sweater had ridden up his torso, his trained body and the faint line of dark hair continuing down under his dress pants now clearly visible in the faint light. She shook off the urge to stare longer, quickly walking back to the bed, to nudge his legs up onto the soft mattress, taking off his shoes in the process. She had just pushed him to lie on the bed completely now, as he groaned softly. She couldn’t suppress her laughter this time. ‘It’s like you’re drunk.’ Her words made him chuckle as well. ‘I feel drunk, too.’ He opened his eyes now, slowly, his golden brown eyes looking even more captivating in the warm candlelight. ‘You’ll be fine, doctor.’ she said, breaking free from their eye contact to grab the blanket she had brought with her, gently throwing it over him. As she turned to leave the room, he grabbed her wrist, his touch sending tingles through her body. ‘Laussa.’ She turned her head back around to him, his eyes back open, looking at her, his curls falling back onto his forehead. ‘Yes?’ He took a shuddered breath, talking slowly, but sincerely.  ‘I’m really happy you’re here. I like… I like having you around.’ She smiled, her heart suddenly beating much faster as she felt butterflies in her stomach. ‘Thank you, Dr. Banner.’ she said and nodded, now once more turning to leave as he softly let go of her arm. ‘Call me Bruce, please. I should have said that much earlier.’ Her smile grew wider. ‘Okay, Bruce, have a good rest.’ His delicate snoring filled the room mere seconds afterwards, and she only turned back around to him when she’d reached the door. 

He looked incredibly peaceful right here in the soft candlelight, and she was overwhelmed by the overbearing desire to stay, just lay next to him, maybe cuddle up against him. She shook her head again, closing the door gently behind her, her subconscious still hard at work. 

Maybe one day.  

[drnucleus]

Dancing scars from long nights I've been bruised by your light Help me now, lonely lover Show me how to uncover

- Freak of Nature (Feat. Tove Lo) - Broods

Bedroom Hymns - A Reylo Fic by drnucleus

Author: drnucleus Rating: Explicit Genre: Modern AU, Romance, Mild Angst, Semi-slow burn Pairing: Ben Solo | Rey, Minor character pairings Warnings: Healthy BDSM, D/s relationship, Male submissive, FemDomme Summary: For much of his life, hotshot architect, Ben Solo, lived a life full of privilege and entitlement. Son of a Senator and Admiral, the world was his oyster. He slid easily into the alpha male persona that was expected of him. Yet, running his own architecture firm by his late twenties he’d never expected to be saddled with the control behind every single decision. And underneath that façade lay a man, yearning to lay it all down at the foot of a powerful woman. What happens when he uncovers that side of himself and that leads him right to Rey Erso; a psychologist and domme who decides to help him navigate the world of dominance and submission in the local scene. That is until they find they’re more compatible with one another than either of them previously thought.

Story Aesthetic | Story Playlist Master Post | Story Misc. Post (Paperwork)

I. Prelude | II. Awakening | III. Painted Faces on Parade | IV. Paperwork | V. Defying Expectations | VI. Connection | VII. Burning Desire | VIII. Fight or Flight | IX. Elastic Heart | X. Ache | XI. Pursuit | XII. Off to the Races | XIII. What Kind of Man | XIV. Collar Stays On

Chapter XIV now on AO3

Chapter Playlist: Mysterious Ways – U2; Running Up That Hill – Placebo; Big God – Florence + the Machine; Test Me – The XX; Freak of Nature (feat. Tove Lo) – Broods

Chapter Sneak Peek

Good morning, hope you have a lovely Monday.

Smirking to herself she opened up the message, unlocking her phone and tapping out a reply laden with self-deprecation.

I’m glad one of us is having a good morning.

Across town Ben grinned at the quick reply but soon his face lost all trace of that grin as he read her message.

Everything okay? He asked, noting that she was already replying the moment the message said Read beneath it.

Oh, just fucking dandy. Woke up at 8:45 because I stupidly left my phone on silent last night. So, no run, no coffee and pastry at Finn’s. Thank fucking God that my 9am appt. cancelled. And the cherry atop this clusterfuck sundae is that I left my laptop charger at my apartment, and I have a client in fifteen minutes. Not enough time to run home and get it until lunch. But how’s your morning going? I hope better than mine.

Ben worried his lower lip between his teeth as a plan began to hatch in his mind. On some level he knew that she’d probably balk at the idea but he couldn’t stop himself from trying. Seeing as his morning was just him sitting at his drafting table messing around with new design ideas until his lunch meeting at noon.

His thumbs hovered over the phone, hesitating before he threw caution to the wind and replied to her message.

I’ll admit my Monday is going well, but what can I do to make yours better?

Rey read over his message, her heart clenching in her chest at the sentiment behind it. He wanted to help. And that was so painfully kind of him. She was half way typing a response telling him not to worry about it when a short series of messages came from him.

I could go get your charger for you, if you’d like? I mean, I have a key to your place. And my morning is free.

She bit her lip as he quickly dashed her counter arguments but couldn’t fight off the growing grin on her face at his eagerness to help her have a better morning.

I’d hate to be a damsel in distress, here. She replied getting a response just as fast.

That’s not a no.

She snickered and kept typing, adding to her earlier statement. And I’d hate to make you go out of your way to my apartment just for my laptop charger. I can run to the Apple Store and buy a spare to keep in the office.

Still not a no. And what will you do until then? Don’t you need your laptop for case notes? He argued back reminding her that her laptop was in dire need of its charger in order for it to function again.

She cursed under her breath realizing that he was indeed correct.

Sometimes, I really hate it when you’re right.

Read More Now on AO3

[onetwofeb]

Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens

Sunday Morning

      I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

      II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul.

      III

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind. He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds, Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

      IV

She says, “I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?” There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured As April’s green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

      V

She says, “But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss.” Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

      VI

Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

      VII

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

      VIII

She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.” We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

[cyrelia-j]

[fic] Inside a Dream VII (Garak/Bashir and others)

staAs part of my update project here is chapter 7 at last with more angst of course but leading into some garashir smut next chapter. For @alexisafanst

Past Parts are here:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Summary: Still AU but not really an AU set at the end of everything show/books. This is inspired by book stuff but definitely diverges from book canon.

After Sarina’s death and Julian’s coma, Julian dreams. With the aid of a device provided by the other augments, Garak is able to bring that world to life. And then Jack shows up in the flesh, wanting “his” Julian back. Garak is forced to confront the truths he didn’t want to face and decide if he’s going to fight for him. But that isn’t his only difficulty decision, and he’s not the only one at stake.

Pairings: Mainly garashir but also tragic Garak/Parmak and past Jack/Julian (really Jack pack/Julian). Finally decided on end game Garak/Bashir and Jack/Parmak (It’ll make sense, I swear just have to get there first)

Warnings: ANGST, Drama, Romance, falling in love [again maybe] and bittersweetness with much tragedy to be had, (No one’s gonna die though, I promise :))

Warn your warmth to turn away

Here, it's December every day (I like that)

Press your lips to the sculptures

And surely, you'll stay (love like winter)

For of sugar and ice

I am made, I am made

In four hours he wakes and realizes that it’s his head resting on Jack’s shoulder now, Jack awake, fingers softly typing on the keys one handed, thumb his his mouth, a study of concentration. The moment that Parmak’s eyes settle on him, he sees a jerk of the hand away from his mouth with a long breath out.

“That’s not necessary,” Parmak says, sitting up straight as he’s able with a wince. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“It isn’t Correct,” Jack mumbles as his hand stops on the keys. There’s a compulsive wipe of his hand over his pants over and over as Parmak adjusts his glasses and looks at the monitor. He blinks when he sees it.

“You-”

“I fixed it for you,” Jack answers, not looking at him. “See you, you didn’t account for that protein structure and I remember…” Jack doesn’t look at him, instead staring straight ahead, and now that he’s stopped, Parmak feels the agitated bounce of his leg. “You know I I wanted to be a doctor once. Couldn’t. Forbidden, not Allowed by the Federation but now I… I have heard men talk about the blessings of freedom… but I wish any wise man would teach me what use to make of it now that I have it…”

“I’m not much of a teacher, I’m afraid. As you can see, it would seem that I cannot even fix my own poor broken brain.”

“Why fix it?” Jack asks with a shrug and a bite - seemingly defiant - of his finger. “By God, if I ever cracked, I’d try to make the world crack with me.”

“Then why do you keep pulling your finger out of your mouth?” Parmak asks smartly, pushing his glasses up, still marvelling that he thinks he might actually be able to falsely induce the mental state which had-

“Maybe I won’t hm,” Jack says around that finger as he types a few more keys over Parmak’s fingers. “Maybe I’ll I’ll just leave it there until it rots off mmhm, An offering of body.”

“One doesn’t barter with the gods, with the State. One doesn’t appeal, one merely serves.” But then, if he truly believed that shouldn’t he let his penance stand? Shouldn’t he abandon this silly idea of bringing himself back to Garak? Of erasing Tain’s mark? Parmak sighs as he watches Jack’s mouth turn down, watch his teeth nibble, his head turn, his hazel eye still bright, snow white dusted auburn hair thrown back from his face.

“There’s another way to do this you know mmhm,” Jack says suddenly. “The mainframe is down, and when falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls- the world. But… but they were wrong… Julian and I made it out... Like Apocalypse - Patrick loved Xmen mmhm - but from a single atom can be regenerated…” He trails off and Parmak realizes in that moment what he perhaps should have suspected all along. The trinity is dead. The other Augments are dead. It’s only Jack and Julian after all at the end of the world, at the end of their own fire come through burned and scarred like all of them. “But you’re not a mutant, not hunted by the Sentinels, not one of us and… and  your brain is more compatible than a basic’s but it would still probably kill you. And it… wouldn’t be quiet hm, it’s a buzz, a constant hum not always mellow wedding bells but brazen Alarum!”

Parmak laughs softly as he stands up.

“Do you think I would be working on this formulation, this psychedelic induction if I was concerned for my life? You’ve clearly gone over everything, ‘Doctor Merriweather’. You know just as well as I do that the odds of fatal cerebral hemorrhage are sixty percent.”

“Fifty now,” Jack corrects looking at him with a turn of his head more the jerk of an aging automaton. “Fifty percent isn’t a logical risk for… for the lying Morlock who’s only dreaming of Bashir.” The slip is a curious one, and Parmak sees Jack shut his eyes after he says it and Parmak wonders-

“The link is breaking down, isn’t it?” he asks brilliantly, even as he feels that adrenaline wearing off with the fatigue of little bit of sleep coming back. “That connection. You said you had to sever it from the Mainframe. That’s not all is it?”

Jack is silent as he continues working, head down, crawling onto the top of the table to sit cross legged, closer to the screen.

“You should sleep. I’ll work, finish this. Forty percent, thirty percent, it can be improved. Lauren said I… I wasn’t a surgeon, wasn’t a doctor but I could have been. Could’ve been better than Bashir, could’ve won a dozen Carringtons could’ve should’ve de profundis domine dum spiro spero…” comes the whisper as Parmak shuffles back over with a sigh. It would seem that they’re both hopeless.

“You don’t think you should sleep too then? I promise you with all the years of work another night won’t make much difference.”

“I don’t sleep,” Jack answers flatly and another jerking motion of his hand to the back of the neck where Parmak sees the faint scar. He stops when he sees it.

Parmak remembers treating a woman after The Fire who’d blinded herself so that she would no longer see the destruction behind her eyes. And when that hadn’t worked she tried to have him cut it out of her head. She’d mutilated herself so badly with the scalpel that she’d died that night. The scar is precise, small, neat, and Jack’s words haunt him. A hand goes to that shoulder again and he wonders just what he’s doing. Even if Jack doesn’t understand the gesture he shouldn’t be making it. Parmak sees the tension go out of Jack’s shoulders, sees the comfort that it brings him, the way his head tips to the touch with a breath and it reminds him so painfully that he can’t do the same for Garak.

“I do,” he says, wondering just what in the name of the Sky Serpents he’s doing.

“I… I don’t do that either,” is snapped quickly, Jack’s hand going over his to move it away.

“I wasn’t asking you to,” he says with another yawn.

“Oh…” Understanding that Parmak only is asking for company, for warmth though he still looks suspicious as he demurs. “Oh then I… I’ll probably keep you awake. I talk- talk books, novels, kept Julian up some nights but Sarina always liked it mmhm.” He’s back to “Julian” again, Parmak notes curiously as he steps back.

“Books?” He sees Jack uncoil from the table and slip off of it, arms crossed tightly now, biting his finger again, looking far younger in stature than he had when he first came.

“I don’t forget things. Anything. Ever. And it’s… it’s too quiet at night,” he practically whispers. “It’s the Wrong kind of quiet the kind of quiet not your quiet.”  Poor boy, Parmak thinks. How much of that control forced in him was because of Julian’s influence?

“So then you’ll tell me a story?” Parmak asks amused, stumbling over his own foot as he becomes lost in thoughts, as he chides himself for thoughtlessly reaching out a hand to another stray. He catches himself on the wall, wincing at the strain on his back. He nearly starts when he feels Jack’s arms around him, so many years knowing that sudden physical contact is death, is pain but… fighting back that tension for Jack’s sake. He feels his heart racing when Jack picks him up and carries him up the stairs, speaking softly, in Kardasi directly, he notes when he catches an odd choice of phrase.

“In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster…”

And then, he sleeps.

---

If Garak is damned then Kelas is coming with him. Kelas had once said (The first time that he knew him as Kelas and not Doctor Parmak) in a moment of anger, that the State gave birth to its lying snake of a son to drag those it deemed unworthy to the underground to be crushed by the darkness.

They came together hard and fast that first night, and that was when Garak realized that in spite of the rumors the doctor was not Tain’s toy after all.

It will pain him, it will bring him to the edge, may very well set him over it to see Garak tonight, but Garak needs him. Garak needs him and he knows if he knocks on Kelas’ door it will open. He knows if he asks, if he asks forgiveness soft, eyes down, tells him that there’s no one else who can comfort him that Kelas will swallow that bile, will shut his eyes tightly and open his arms to embrace him no matter how torturous. Kelas will forgive him even as it rips him apart and there are nights where that brings Garak a pain that he can’t stomach but… tonight is not one of them. Tonight he needs to know that no matter how cursed their union that Kelas will-

Garak stops himself at the doorway to the hall, frozen, never feeling more commiserate with Kelas than he does now. Bile, shaking, dizziness grip him and he takes a soft step back into his room to mask his presence from the Augment, a hand over his mouth because he… he, Elim Garak, Castellan, Spy, Interrogator, Murderer… might not be able to catch the sob burbling his his throat, growing, a nauseating bubble growing larger until he either screams or vomits where he stands.

“Maybe I’ll say a prayer to the slug slithering amongst the ancients that tomorrow I’ll wake up and be your Kelas again...”

It echoes, that ever present memory, swirling in his head, overlaid with the voice some eighty years past as they lay intertwined scratched, spent, breathing heavily with their chufas touching “shall I be your Kelas tomorrow when I wake up, Elim? Where tonight I’m Tain’s Parmak?” He’d stopped being Tain’s Parmak that night, to tease that Garak would only want him as long as he and his mouth were of some use… Garak doesn’t know that Kelas ever realized a day what he ever truly was to him. He doesn’t know that he ever realized a day what Kelas truly was to him beside a steady and familiar companion welcoming him back home from that human concept of Hell. Not until now that is.

Garak sees Jack carrying him up the stairs cradled to his chest like a breeze would break him… break them both.

“That’s you, Garak. You’d never save me…”

No, he wouldn’t, would he?

Garak has never saved anyone.

And yet when the door closes, Garak is flying down the stairs to Julian’s room.

Julian dreams of the space station again, only this time he dreams in color, dreams with names. The faces come into view. The cold comes back to him but it’s a chill that’s familiar. It’s a chill that’s home. In his dream like all dreams he passes through like a pitiful shade, the people walking through him, not seeing him, not hearing him as he calls out “Jadzia!” perhaps louder than any other, not knowing why the desperation to catch that brown haired woman (Trill? What’s that? Like music?) He doesn’t understand as it spins and spins around him, that lizard man, that Garak who’d abandoned him walking away always just out of his grasp no matter how far he runs, no matter how fast he tries to make his damn useless Augment muscles (Augment? I don’t understand…) move.

“Why is it that no matter how fast I go, how deep down I sink I can never measure up to what you want?”

He doesn’t understand where that thought comes from suddenly. It comes like a memory but it doesn’t make any sense because the memories he’s recovered are only of his wife, only of Sarina smiling at him before his… before his accident.

Except now there are other that he passes by chasing the lizard man around the dimly lit habitat ring. He passes the doors and sees a man with a mustache smiling at him and he hears Jack? He sees a door with an auburn haired woman grinning at him seductively hearing Lauren? He passes an older white haired man looking up from a massive three dimensional puzzle hearing Patrick? And then he sees Sarina but she’s wearing a uniform. A… Starfleet uniform? Section 31?

Julian feels a pain shooting through his head as he sees Garak moving farther away and he feels his throat vibrate, hears himself screaming “why am I never enough for you?!” Why isn’t he?... “How far into the darkness do I need to go for you Garak?! How much of me do I need to stain with blood to be worthy of you?!”

See Garak, I’ve given everything to the bloody State too!

I let them rip everything out of me and put it back for you!

And now you’re with him?!

That should’ve been me, Garak!

Julian runs past the last door seeing another woman with short dark hair and spots dotting her skin. She smiles at him and he hears Ezri before he stops with another whisper of “Jadzia”, the smile changing to a frown as the hall turns to gray and the portraits freeze.

Julian remembers.

He hadn’t whispered “Jadzia” though that was what he’d told her.

It was “Garak” that had passed his lips.

“Garak!” he wakes with a start, the apartment hot, too hot, the heater acting up again, though it’s a far cry from the halfway house where he started. It’s a far cry from that hospital bed and the smell of sickness. It’s better. It’s improvement. Recovery, isn’t that what Doctor Parmak had called it?

Doctor… Parmak?

Why is that name so much more familiar now?

He hasn’t seen Doctor Parmak. He hasn’t seen Garak as the flowers of spring have started to bloom and he’s begun to remember bits and pieces of what he might have once known, preganglionic fiber and postganglionic nerve echoing strangely in his head like a mantra, a chant of the Ancients (Ancients?) knowing that somehow They could never know… could never find out that he- But it slips away again as his legs tangle in the sheets and his knees draw up, forehead hitting them hard with a soft whimper. He doesn’t know how long he remains like that sure he’s going to be too tired for his shift, sure that his interview hangs in the balance because he’s finally remembered enough that he can… that he can get back to… to...

Julian feels a pain in his head, heart still hammering hard in his chest when he hears the doorbell. He wonders if he was screaming again? He think about it as he tries to remember where he left his robe. Zelda, his new neighbor a woman of few kind words, had complained about that the one day, but- There’s a knocking, a frantic pounding that follows and he wonders if the building isn’t on fire which would be dreadful because he’s still in his t shirt and shorts and Zelda might be a miserable old bird but he’d still feel obliged to see to her as well and that’d probably give her something else to be cross about but-

“Alright alright I’m coming!” he yells as he rushes to the door and throws it open.

Oh. It’s not the building on fire after all.

Its Garak, standing there breathing hard, half dressed in some sort of dark tunic, half off a shoulder, hair mussed, eyes wild and desperate as they look at one another from that brief distance of doorway separating them.

And suddenly, Julian’s the one on fire.

[nitewrighter]

Of Blades and Broomsticks Pt. VII

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Witch AU on AO3

---

Genji’s eyes flicked open and he found himself in a dark chamber that carried a faint smell of briny, otherworldly fermentation. The walls were black and slicked wet, yet the texture could vary from gleaming like black glass to porous and rough as pumice. The light in the room was eerie and green, and, Genji looked up to see that the light was sourced from some bioluminescent fungus or algae on the walls, and about six or seven disembodied bright green eyeballs, all roughly apple-sized with black slitted pupils. The eyeballs hovered in the air above him and all of their pupils fixed on him as he stirred on the raised slab of black stone he had been laid upon.

 Genji felt a weight on his chest and saw something there that was bright green and amber-colored, and looked midway between a deep sea basket star and a Portuguese man o’ war, and it was now covering most of his bare chest. Any sensible mortal would be rightfully horrified by the slimy mass of fractal-branching tendrils and tentacles covering their torso, but Genji had seen this before and gave a short sigh of relief.

“You tore a hole in the veil with a roar almost loud enough to wake the slumbering dead,” a calm voice spoke in the darkness, “Almost.” 

The green eyes hovering around Genji all swiveled in one direction to face the corner of the room, the source of the voice.

“Master...” Genji said softly.

Zenyatta emerged from the shadows, his own face a mass of violet and green tentacles. “The banishing itself would have killed most lesser demons,” said Zenyatta, “But its disturbance of the veil was strong enough to get my attention, and I found you quickly,” he gestured at slimy eldritch organism currently fixed to Genji’s chest. “Your injuries will be healed soon, but you must tell me what happened--what force on the mortal plane is strong enough to send you here against your will?”

“A witch hunter...  A mortal trained in destroying anything from beyond his plane...” Genji suddenly tensed, “How long have I been here?”

“Time is meaningless,” said Zenyatta.

Genji rubbed his forehead, “I mean... how much time passed in the mortal plane?” he said, lifting up his arm and giving a glance to the gold bracelet around it. It was glowing itself. She was calling him. He remembered reading somewhere that the mortals had all sorts of terrible ways to treat witches and women they thought were witches. 

Zenyatta looked thoughtful, plucked one of the green hovering eyeballs out of the air, gave it a good shake, stared at it a second, and released it back into the air saying, “A mere moment.”

Genji sighed with relief.

“...By mortals standards about 16 hours,” said Zenyatta.

“16 hours!” Genji sat bolt upright then winced hard at his own injuries.

“You must be patient and allow my healing to work,” said Zenyatta.

“I don’t have time---my witch---Mercy---she---” he exhaled, “She’s in danger. I need to get back.” 

Zenyatta floated over and placed a reassuring hand on Genji’s shoulder and gently set him back down to a reclined position. “You will, but you cannot do so in your current state. I take it this is no ordinary mortal follower.”

“She’s not my follower,” said Genji, “She--she freed me. Well--then she started yelling and hitting me with a broom--we... had a bumpy start. But she’s...” something like a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, “Clever. Stubborn, yet adaptive. And there’s this warmth--this wellspring of power within her that... I’ve felt it and she knows it’s there but I don’t think she’s fully grasped it yet but... when she does...” Genji breathed out, “I can’t let the other humans destroy that. I can’t let them destroy her.”

“I thought you had an odd magic on you when you entered this plane... there was a smoke about you, an arcane charge I have not felt in...” Zenyatta trailed off. 

“Master?” said Genji.

Zenyatta gestured dismissively. “Did she enchant you?” he asked.

Genji shook his head. “I was possessing her--then... there was some kind of seal... it split us apart, and sent me here.”

“I see...” said Zenyatta.

“I gave her my word that I would protect her,” he glanced back at the cnidarian-looking creature currently healing him, “How much more time do you think it will take?”

“Hopefully not too long,” said Zenyatta, “Magic is stronger here. Rest. I will make preparations for our return to the mortal plane.”

“’Our?’” said Genji.

“Yes, ‘Our.’ We are going together.”

 “Master---you don’t have to---”

“You cannot do this alone, my student. If the humans have the means to banish you, then perhaps I should see for myself the extent of their advancement. The humans were doing some very interesting things with bronze last time I was on their plane. Tell me, how is their bronze work now?”

“Um...” Genji was not really sure how to answer that.

---

Mercy was hugging her knees in a cell of the castle. As soon as the Witch Hunter shackled her wrists, a part of her had a mad instinct to claw at his face and make a run for it, but then her eyes fell on the dragoon descending from the ramparts, loading her musket. Consecrated or not, shot was shot. The Witch Hunter didn’t make a big show of Mercy’s capture, simply shackled her hands and fettered her ankles, slung her over the back of his horse, trotting to Adlersbrunn castle. 

The hill of Adlersbrunn was honeycombed with catacombs, and Junkenstein had told her once that he theorized those catacombs dated back far earlier than the current Adlersbrunn castle itself, which was hundreds of years old. She could feel the hundreds of years of death here. She wondered how many had died simply forgotten in these cells. It was cold, and it was dark. She wrapped a lock of hair around her finger once, twice, then three times and waited, only for nothing to happen.

Either he has broken off our deal or he is dead, she thought to herself, staring at her own hair coiled around her finger. She sighed and brought her hands down, the chains of her shackles clinking in her lap. The wooden door at the end of the dungeon opened with a creak and the Witch hunter entered, carrying a torch. The sudden glare of the light of the fire left spots in her eyes and she looked away as he walked over and put the torch in a sconce, then pulled up a stool and sat down, the bars of her cell dividing them.

“Is this where the torture starts?” said Mercy, “The needles first, I take it? Just keep poking until you find my ‘witch mark?’ Then the thumbscrews for confession?”

“I don’t need to find a witch mark. I saw fire forming in your hand, I found a demonic book full of your writing back at your home, and the guard captain has seen the true form of your... companion. There’s more than enough evidence of witchcraft. So...” Gabriel shrugged, “I suppose that saves us the trouble of the pricking, searching for extra nipples, and dunking you in a pond.”

“Wonderful,” said Mercy, flatly.

“However this means you will most certainly be burned,” said Gabriel.

“Ah...” said Mercy.

They were both silent for a while as Mercy let this sink in. 

“Do I detect regret in your voice, Witch-Hunter?” said Mercy, her eyes finally adjusting to the light of the torch and turning to face him.

“I take no joy in my work,” said Gabriel.

“So why are you down here?” asked Mercy.

“I am here to ascertain the full extent of your maleficence.” He reached into the interior of his coat and pulled out his small glass vial of the fiery liquid he had found in her home. “What is this?” he asked.

“It’s nothing evil,” said Mercy, “It’s for healing--that’s the only use I’ve seen for it, anyway.”

“No harm will befall me if I carry it?”

“Do you mean in the magical sense that nothing can harm you while it is on your person? Or that the object itself is not harming you?” asked Mercy.

“The second,” said Gabriel.

“It will not harm you... not on its own, I assume.”

“Explain.”

“I’m still figuring out its full properties,” said Mercy, “But since having it in my house has not harmed me, I should think it won’t affect you.”

Gabriel frowned, “So what were you hoping to do with it?”

“I wasn’t sure what I would do with it. There was still much research to be done before I could figure out what to do with it. But of course with my other work there’s hardly been any time for it.”

“Your other work?” said Gabriel, “What do you do?”

“I heal. I observe. I research,” said Mercy, frankly.

“Without the jurisdiction of the church?” said Gabriel.

“I was not aware the jurisdiction of the church was needed for my studies,” said Mercy.

Gabriel leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his interlaced fingers. “Were you ever baptized, Gramercy?”

Mercy shrugged. “If I was, I was a baby at the time and thus do not remember.”

“There was a Gramercy before you, the old woman who raised you---is that correct?” 

“Yes.”

“Was she a godly woman?” asked Gabriel. 

Mercy was silent. Gabriel kept his eyes leveled at her.

“You don’t like to lie, do you?” said Gabriel.

“I imagine there’s very little point in lying at this point,” said Mercy.

“She taught you much of what you know, the Gramercy before you?” asked Gabriel.

“Someone had to take care of the village after she was gone,” said Mercy.

“Your research seems to go far beyond your little village,” Gabriel sat up and folded his arms.

“The world is far bigger than my little village,” said Mercy, sitting up slightly as well but being unable to fold her arms with her shackles on, “Does God forbid seeking to understand the mechanics of our world?”

“Only when such pursuits violate his teachings,” said Gabriel. He kept that steady gaze on her. “Do you fear hell?” he asked.

“Of course,” she answered this easily.

 Gabriel’s eyebrows raised. Usually that question tended to shake suspects more. “So do you confess that you are a witch?” he asked.

Mercy’s brow furrowed at him and she glanced off.

“Do you know why we go to the lengths we do for a confession?” said the Witch Hunter, standing up, “We still hold out hope that your immortal soul might be wrenched from the jaws of hell. It’s for just as much your sake as the souls of everyone in Eichenwalde. Do you confess you are a witch?”

“You’ve already said I’m going to be burned. A confession won’t make any difference.”

“This is for your sake,” said Gabriel.

Mercy’s brow furrowed. “I confess I’m a woman who seeks to understand this world and the worlds beyond it. I firmly believe such women and such pursuits have predated Witch hunters. Predated this church,” she suddenly turned and gripped the bars of her cell, the clink of her chains against the bars causing the Witch hunter to instinctively back in his seat. Not a full flinch, but something close to it. “The world has always needed women like me. And... perhaps it has always feared women like me. But it wasn’t until your church came along and called what I do ‘witchcraft’ that that fear became license to imprison, to torture, to kill.” Something glinted in those blue-gray eyes of hers. “I fear Hell, Witch Hunter, but not your hell. Hell is a place on earth, and men make it for themselves.”

The witch hunter just stared at her, his brow furrowed.

“And I believe,” she leaned close, leaning one cheek on the bars, “That you’re coming to believe that yourself. Every witch you hunt. Every confession you drag out. Every woman you’ve watched burn.... You’re building your hell around yourself, brick by brick.”

Gabriel didn’t break eye contact with her as she said this, but his hand moved, smoothly and surely to his boot. The moment the last word ‘brick’ passed her lips he whipped out his consecrated rod and struck her left hand on the bars, causing her to cry out and flinch back, gripping her bruised and bleeding knuckles. He could have struck her face. but he chose not to. Her breath was short.

“You will burn,” said the Witch Hunter, “And you have my pity.” He took his torch and walked away from Mercy’s cell. He walked up the steps out of the dungeon and the wooden door closed behind him, leaving Mercy in the dark.

---

“But there must be something you can do!” Junkenstein was pacing behind Lord Reinhardt Wilhelm Von Adlersbrunn through the halls of the castle.

“This is in the hands of the church,” said the lord of the castle, “I have no interest in forcing people to choose between their lord and their bishop over the matter of one witch.”

“Gramercy is not a---!”

“She is a witch, Doctor,” said Lord Wilhelm, “And it is in your best interest to distance yourself from her.

Junkenstein’s hand balled into a fist at his side. “So you won’t have to distance yourself from me and I can keep making your... your... bloody toys!” Junkenstein gave a bitter glance to the automaton sweeping the hallway.

“I tolerate your eccentricities, Junkenstein, I even sponsor your labor in the design of new creations--that does not mean you have any leverage here,” Lord Wilhelm.

Junkenstein sighed. “At least let me see her.���

“I have just said it is in your best interest to---”

“She’s my friend,” Junkenstein said, “Grant a poor madman the chance to say goodbye, at least.”

Lord Wilhelm Von Adlersbrunn heaved a weary sigh.

---

Mercy flinched at the door opening to the dungeon again, then eased up a bit where she was sitting as she heard the reassuring ‘clunk’ of a peg leg. Junkenstein hurried down the steps into the dungeon, torch in hand. “Gramercy? Gramercy!” 

“I’m here,” she said, pulling up to the bars of her cell, the fingers of her left hand bruised and bleeding and swollen.

Junkenstein hurried up to the cell and set his torch in the sconce next to it, 

His eyes flicked to her fingers. “Oh Gramercy what did they do to you?”

“Believe me, Jameson, it could be a lot worse,” said Mercy, smiling a little.

“Tell me how to get you out of here,” said Junkenstein.

“Jameson...” Mercy said quietly.

Junkenstein gripped the bars of the cell, some mix between fury and desperation on his face, “If you can conduct bloody lightning you can get yourself out of a cell! Now what do I have to do?!”

“I don’t know...” she said, “Jameson---I won’t let you get yourself any more mixed up in this than you already are.”

“The hell you won’t,” said Junkenstein, “Please. Just... tell me there’s something I can do. Anything. Anything I can do to help you.”

Mercy looked thoughtful, then pointed to one of the empty glass phials on Junkenstein’s harness “Give me one of those.”

He took it off and handed it to her without hesitation. She uncorked it.

“Your penknife,” said Mercy. 

“Of course---” Junkenstein took it out of his pocket and handed it to her, “Are you going to pick the lock or---” Mercy ran the knife across her palm. “Gramercy--!” he said in shock but then his voice died in his throat as he watched her ball her hand into a fist above the open vial. Blood dripped from the bottom of her fist into the vial, but it didn’t look like blood.

It looked like liquid fire.

“The person who made me like this,” said Mercy, “Her blood stayed like this long after her death. I can’t let this magic die with me. If there’s anyone left who can figure out its properties,” she corked off the phial once it was full and held it out to him, “It’s you.”

Junkenstein took the phial and tucked it into his coat. “Gramercy, I promise you---”

The door to the dungeon opened and a guard called out. “Oi! Junkenstein! Your time is up! Leave the witch!”

 Junkenstein bowed his head and the grip of his prosthetic hand tightened on the bars of Mercy’s cell.

“Leave him be, two days and they’ll be burning the only cunny he could ever get at the stake.” Both the guards laughed and Junkenstein’s teeth gritted.

“It’s all right,” said Mercy, putting a hand over Junkenstein’s.

“It’s not,” said Junkenstein, his voice hushed, “But I’ll make it right.” He pushed away from the bars, and walked out of the dungeon. The guards still laughing. As the door closed behind him, she realized Junkenstein had left the torch in the sconce next to her cell. Whether that was his intention or his being distracted by the commentary of the guards she wasn’t sure, but it was nice no longer being in the dark.

The phial still felt warm in Junkenstein’s coat as he walked out of the castle. The wheels in his mind were already turning. The fury in his heart made his hands twitch at his side, eager to get to work, eager to build, eager to destroy. Years later the legends would paint him as a madman, puppet, and fool, but the truth was that Adlersbrunn had stirred in Junkenstein two of the strongest forces on earth: Loyalty and spite.

[cursethedarkness]

Wallace Stevens

Sunday Morning BY WALLACE STEVENS

     I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

      II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul.

      III

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind. He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds, Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

      IV

She says, “I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?” There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured As April’s green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

      V

She says, “But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss.” Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

      VI

Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

      VII

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

      VIII

She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.” We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

[confessthysiins]

Send “💋 ” + palm

VERY Late Sunday Asks

It was not a particularly deep wound, though quite the unfortunate one. A gash along the length of his right palm prevented the Order priest from properly bandaging himself; he sat with the wounded hand resting on a crossed leg, holding the other end of the gauze with his teeth as his less dexterous hand tried to wrap himself up.

When relief had come in the form of a worried-looking Henry, Oswald's clothes were stained with his own blood and he was exhausted from frustration. Salvation, at last.

-------------------

"Y-you should really be more careful."

Oswald winces as Henry dabs a cloth into his palm, bubbles of peroxide foaming at the edges of the wound. The disinfectant burns, certainly, but it is not the only source of the priest's discomfort.

"I shall. A mere accident, it was," he lies. He had drawn a dagger across his own palm in one of his Order's monstrous rituals.

Though Henry speaks admonishments, he means well, and his touch is gentle. He holds Oswald's bony hand in both his own, softer and thicker fingers prodding lightly at the flesh to measure the injury. It might not occur to him that though they have been close before, it is the first time their hands meet thus, the older man's usually hidden under leather gloves. As he tightly pulls the gauze about them Henry's fingers on the leathery skin leave trails that burn as much as any wound.

With both hands the young man takes Oswald's closer to his face, carefully inspecting his work. The priest stands before him with pursed lips, awaiting judgement. Every bolt of sensory lightning screams to Oswald to pull away from what he feels to be torturously intimate touch. He doesn't.

Henry seals the bandage with a shy kiss to the elder's palm, lips pressing into the soft crease just above the wrist.

"...Thank you. You are like a Saint," the priest says after a pause, retracting his hand and slipping it carefully back into its glove.

"O-of course. Um, you're welcome."

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #97

gaming survey.

let's start with the classic: what's your favorite game?  why?   "silent hill 2."  it is so fucking well-thought out and went places no one ever thought a game would go.  it was psychological as fuck and absolutely terrifying in that sense.  it had such an intricate storyline and was positively heart-wrenching.  the characters were very unique, and oh boy, don't even think of forgetting the soundtrack.  it was so, so immersive.  the monsters were incredibly symbolic, and it really, really got you to question your own conscience.  i could literally go on about how wonderful this game is for hours on end. least favorite game?   probably "eleusis," whose name i don't care if i spelled wrong.  i know it's an indie game, but holy fuck, it's horrible.  the puzzles make legitimately no sense and literally requires a walkthrough. what's your favorite gaming genre?   psychological horror, easily. least favorite gaming genre?   probably first-person shooters. what's your favorite childhood game?   "spyro the dragon: year of the dragon."  i loved the entire series, but that was my favorite. when did you start gaming, anyway?   literally as soon as i could hold a controller and had the coordination to understand the buttons. scariest game ever?   "scp containment breach."  i couldn't play it because the first scp scared me so much lol.  however, i've watched my favorite youtuber play it many times.  despite it being in the indie scene, it's an incredible game and should really, really cost money.  hmmmm... actually, "parasite eve" may overthrow it.  not in terms of jumpscares, but in terms of, "what if that really happened?"  scientifically, maybe it's possible.  it explains why so very well.  it's the only game that ever resulted in me having to take an anxiety pill.  oh yeah, fun fact, we actually had a demo of the game on a demo disc, and mom hated the preview of it so much that she refused to let my sisters and i play it lol. favorite comedic game?   oh that's easy, "five nights at fuckboy's 3."  it is sooo fucking funny.  i love all of them, but the third's the funniest. favorite action game?   "resident evil 4."  it was one of my first action horror experiences. saddest game in the history of ever?   "silent hill 2," again.  i fucking cried so hard and my week was ruined lol.  that game legitimately changed me and made me ponder my decisions much more. favorite game based off a tv show or movie?   probably the first season of "the walking dead."  the characters were very unique (kenny is the Love of my Life), and the plot was phenomenal.  i wasn't much of a fan of the gameplay (or lack thereof), but i was there for the story.  the ending had me sobbing.  i've never actually watched the tv show, but man i love that game.  season three hasn't been that good imo, but i enjoyed the second one, too. game with the most interesting concept?   the entire "silent hill," obviously.  the idea that our biggest regrets and demons exist in multiple layers of reality is cool as fuck.  "soma" is a close second.  the philosophical debate of "if you move a human's conscience to a machine, is it still human?" is incredible. game with the most fucked-up storyline?   "silent hill 2" or "silent hill 3."  sh2 was more psychological in how screwed-up it was, but sh3 was very brazen abut it.  it also has the only scene ever in a video game that made me gag.  like i had to walk away from the controller because i literally almost puked. favorite gaming otp?   that's p hard.  actually, wait, i like tyrande and illidan from "world of warcraft" a lot.  their story was sad as fuck.  jaina and arthas from the same game, too. favorite video game protagonist?   i have two: heather mason from sh2 and leon kennedy from the "resident evil" series.  both are just total badases.  heather mason reminds me a lot of myself, and leon is just super fucking cool and gives zero shits. favorite video game antagonist?   does pyramid head from the sh series count?  i mean in ways he's not really an antagonist, so.  if he's not included, maybe claudia wolf from "silent hill 3" (LOOK I KNOW I'M TALKING ABOUT IT A LOT BUT THE SERIES IS MY BABY OKAY).  she is a prime example of how religion can absolutely destroy a person, and i think it's really cool that she truly thinks she's doing what's good for the world.  i also really like walter sullivan from "silent hill 4" because he is just sooo incredibly fucked up with a really tragic story.  arthas menethil from "world of warcraft: wrath of the lich king" is also amazing and i pitied him so much. favorite video game monster?   pyramid head, bar none.  he is so mysterious and terrifying in his concept. sequel that disappointed you most?   hmmm.  i'm not sure.  i mean, if i absolutely had to pick, maybe "silent hill: origins?"  i mean don't get me wrong, i enjoyed the game, but it's my least favorite in the series. most under-rated game?   "AMNESIA: A MACHINE FOR PIGS."  oh my GOD.  i do NOT understand why people thought it was disappointing to the title.  that is one of the most fucked-up, greatest games i've ever played (it's my second favorite game) i've ever had the pleasure of playing.  it is way, way better than the first game.  it's another game that had me depressed for days and questioning my life. most over-rated game?   probably "call of duty" and the like.  i just don't see the appeal. favorite quote from a game?   "i have stood knee-deep in mud and bone and filled my lungs with mustard gas. i have seen two brothers fall. i have lain with holy wars and copulated with the autumnal fallout. i have dug trenches for the refugees; i have murdered dissidents where the ground never thaws and starved the masses into faith. a child's shadow burnt into the brickwork. a house of skulls in the jungle. the innocent, the innocent, mandus, trod and bled and gassed and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved. this is your coming century! they will eat them, mandus, they will make pigs of you all and they will bury their snouts into your ribs and they will eat your hearts!" - "amnesia: a machine for pigs."  i get literally covered in goosebumps every single time i hear it.  it's about how absolutely horrid the world is today from the perspective of the past.  i also really enjoy "the only me is me... are you sure the only you is you?" from "silent hill: p.t." game you want made into a movie?   "SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS" OH MY GOD.  CAN YOU FUCKING IMAGINE. game you currently most want to play?   "the last guardian."  the story and trico are so fucking cute. what do you think of revamping classic games to "improve" them?   eh, i've never been too into it.  don't get me wrong, it works sometimes, but imo, it takes away the charm of the game sometimes.  ex., with "crash bandicoot" being remade.  i loved that game as a kid, but i think its graphics just added to the charm. favorite movie based off a game?   the first "silent hill." did you ever get those old demo discs as a kid?  did they ever influence you to buy a game?   yes.  i think we had three.  i was first exposed to "shadow of the colossus" by a demo disc.  i was totally into it and only played it a thousand times before buying it. were you ever or are you into the "final fantasy" craze?   not really.  i used to play "final fantasy viii" on a demo disc; my sisters, brother, and i loved it.  my bro was the only one who could beat the final boss (the spider thing) of the demo; he and ashley used to play it a lot.  i really liked it, and when i was young, wanted to buy it.  we all used to think squall was sexy as fuck lol.  the summons were super-duper cool too, especially rinoa's (i used to make her do her water dragon limit break constantly ha ha).  i did, however, have "final fantasty vii," and i got all the way to the second disc, but i eventually just fell out of playing it.  i think it was too long for me personally, although i really did enjoy the story. i'm sure you've heard of the "five nights at freddy's" one, too.  were you into it?   i've never played it myself and i personally wouldn't, but i've watched youtubers play it and i enjoy it.  the story and characters are cool (especially springtrap), and the story is quite frightening. hardest game you've ever beaten?   i am not even remotely kidding, "the legend of spyro: the eternal night."  it took me over a fucking year to beat that game and i rage-quit a lot. hardest boss monster?   jesus fucking christ.  there are three that top the list.  the ultimate being from "parasite eve" is probably number one, though.  he was hard as FUCK and took me like a whole goddamn day to beat.  his multiple phases were annoying, and the fact he could trap you at the VERY END if you picked the wrong door was a cardinal fucking sin.  basaran from "shadow of the colossus" was also horrific.  even malus wasn't that bad.  getting onto his back was a goddamn nightmare, especially when he got back up and if you misjudged your jump, you'd go flying.  ripto of "spyro the dragon: ripto's rage!" was also a childhood nightmare.  his phases were also annoying and he was just overall difficult.  i felt like a fucking god when i finally did beat him lol.  memory of alessa of sh3 was also hard for me, although she herself isn't that much of a difficult boss.  it was just that i had no ammo so had to melee her the whole time.  i got so fucking angry. how did you feel about "silent hill: p.t." being cancelled?  it was probably one of the most anticipated games of 2014.   want my honest opinion?  i'm glad it was cancelled.  that series is my fucking child and i would be legitimately furious if they fucked it up.  i had many issues with it.  one, the fact that norman reedus was made a model of the main character.  it just pissed me off that they designed him to look pretty much exactly like daryl dixon.  i don't want people to think "oh hey a guy from twd went to silent hill."  i also had a problem with them changing the name to "silent hills;" i really don't know why since it's such a minor thing, but it irked me regardless.  it also really, really bugged me that kojima openly said he's a bit of a wuss with horror games.  dude, you can't be like that when you're working with what is well-known to be one of the scariest series of all time.  i had full faith that del toro would be great for the series, but not kojima.  it also pissed me off that it was said that aliens might be involved in the game.  just... no.  that's not what silent hill is.  i get that it's a joke in the series, but to make it canon?  if they actually went through with that and made it so extraterrestrials were involved, i literally would've broken something.  ultimately, i'm glad it didn't work. favorite running joke or something of the like in a series?   the "i'm totally gonna stick my hand in this filthy toilet for a wallet" joke that the "silent hill" series has, rooting from when james sunderland did so in sh2.  i love the references. favorite side-kick?   uhhh.  cynder from "the legend of spyro: dawn of the dragon."  she not only looks super fucking cool, but she has an interesting story and is just overall really rad. saddest video game death?   well that's hard.  prepare for spoilers.  the one that hit me the hardest personally was probably vol'jin from wow.  he was my favorite character out of like the billion wow has, so him dying sucked.  not to even mention his death was super anti-climactic to where it pissed off the whole damn fanbase, despite being one of the most important characters.  lee from twd was also absolutely horrible.  ha, what a coincidence... they have the same voice actor.  #stopkillingdavidfennoy favorite plot twist?   spoiler warning once again.  my favorite and to me the most shocking was the fact james was responsible for mary's death in "silent hill 2."  it rocked my fucking world. best soundtrack?   "shadow of the colossus."  ko otani is a musical genius.  sh2 is a very close second. what's the first gaming console you ever had?   the original playstation. favorite setting in a game?   that's super hard considering so many games are absolutely gorgeous.  but i suppose lakeside amusement park from "silent hill 3."  i love the blood & rust, macabre feel to it.

[sansa-hand-of-the-king]

My otp is Sansa stark x Winterfell. I mean look at these amazing quotes: 

“She turned that way, and saw only the city, streets and alleys and hills and bottoms and more streets and more alleys and the stone of distant walls, Yet she knew that beyond them was open country, farms and fields and forests, and beyond that, north and north and north again, stood Winterfell. “ AGOT Sansa VI

“The hot woter made her think of Winterfell, and she took strength in that”  AGOT Sansa VI

 "They tell me you visit the godswood every day. What do you pray for, Sansa?

"I pray for Robb's victory and Joffrey's death . . . and for home. For Winterfell. "I pray for an end to the fighting."  ACOK Sansa III

She knew the hymn; her mother had taught it to her once, a long time ago in Winterfell. She joined her voice to theirs. - ACOK Sansa V

That was such a sweet dream, Sansa thought drowsily. She had been back in Winterfell, running through the godswood with her Lady. Her father had been there, and her brothers, all of them warm and safe. If only dreaming could make it so . . . - ASOS  Sansa IV

She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that. Home. It was a dream of home.The Eyrie was no home-  ASOS Sansa VII 

Outside the flakes drifted down as soft and silent as memory. Was this what woke me? Already the snowfall lay thick upon the garden below, blanketing the grass, dusting the shrubs and statues with white and weighing down the branches of the trees. The sight took Sansa back to cold nights long ago, in the long summer of her childhood.She had last seen snow the day she'd left Winterfell. That was a lighter fall than this, she remembered. Robb had melting flakes in his hair when he hugged me, and the snowball Arya tried to make kept coming apart in her hands. It hurt to remember how happy she had been that morning. Hullen had helped her mount, and she'd ridden out with the snowflakes swirling around her, off to see the great wide world. I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done. - ASOS  Sansa VII 

Her maid rolled herself more tightly in her blanket as the snow began to drift in the window. Sansa eased open the door, and made her way down the winding stair. When she opened the door to the garden, it was so lovely that she held her breath, unwilling to disturb such perfect beauty. The snow drifted down and down, all in ghostly silence, and lay thick and unbroken on the ground. All color had fled the world outside. It was a place of whites and blacks and greys. White towers and white snow and white statues, black shadows and black trees, the dark grey sky above. A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here.Yet she stepped out all the same. Her boots tore ankle-deep holes into the smooth white surface of the snow, yet made no sound. Sansa drifted past frosted shrubs and thin dark trees, and wondered if she were still dreaming. Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover's kisses, and melted on her cheeks. At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me. - ASOS Sansa VII

She remembered a summer's snow in Winterfell when Arya and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning. They'd each had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she'd had none. Bran had been perched on the roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless. She might even have caught her, but she'd slipped on some ice. Her sister came back to see if she was hurt. When she said she wasn't, Arya hit her in the face with another snowball, but Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing snow in her hair when Jory came along and pulled them apart, laughing. - ASOS  Sansa VII 

The snow fell and the castle rose. Two walls ankle-high, the inner taller than the outer. Towers and turrets, keeps and stairs, a round kitchen, a square armory, the stables along the inside of the west wall. It was only a castle when she began, but before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell. She found twigs and fallen branches beneath the snow and broke off the ends to make the trees for the godswood. For the gravestones in the lichyard she used bits of bark. Soon her gloves and her boots were crusty white, her hands were tingling, and her feet were soaked and cold, but she did not care. The castle was all that mattered. Some things were hard to remember, but most came back to her easily, as if she had been there only yesterday. The Library Tower, with the steep stonework stair twisting about its exterior. The gatehouse, two huge bulwarks, the arched gate between them, crenellations all along the top . . . - ASOS  Sansa VII

She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell.- ASOS Sansa VII

"Winterfell is the seat of House Stark," Sansa told her husband-to-be. "The great castle of the north."

I will tell my aunt that I don't want to marry Robert. Not even the High Septon himself could declare a woman married if she refused to say the vows. She wasn't a beggar, no matter what her aunt said. She was thirteen, a woman flowered and wed, the heir to Winterfell

I am a Stark of Winterfell, she longed to tell him.

Once, when she was just a little girl, a wandering singer had stayed with them at Winterfell for half a year. An old man he was, with white hair and windburnt cheeks, but he sang of knights and quests and ladies fair, and Sansa had cried bitter tears when he left them, and begged her father not to let him go. "The man has played us every song he knows thrice over," Lord Eddard told her gently. "I cannot keep him here against his will. You need not weep, though. I promise you, other singers will come."They hadn't, though, not for a year or more. Sansa had prayed to the Seven in their sept and old gods of the heart tree, asking them to bring the old man back, or better still to send another singer, young and handsome. But the gods never answered, and the halls of Winterfell stayed silent. But that was when she was a little girl, and foolish. She was a maiden now, three-and-ten and flowered. All her nights were full of song, and by day she prayed for silence. - AFFC  Sansa I

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though. If not for Petyr Baelish it would have been Sansa who went spinning through a cold blue sky to stony death six hundred feet below, instead of Lysa Arryn.- AFFC Sansa I

They made a race of it, dashing headlong across the yard and past the stables, skirts flapping, whilst knights and serving men alike looked on, and pigs and chickens scattered before them. It was most unladylike, but Alayne sound found herself laughing. For just a little while, as she ran, she forget who she was, and where, and found herself remembering bright cold days at Winterfell, when she would race through Winterfell with her friend Jeyne Poole, with Arya running after them trying to keep up.- Alayne I   TWOW.

[subtextures]

Sunday Morning

BY

WALLACE STEVENS

     I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,

And the green freedom of a cockatoo

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

She dreams a little, and she feels the dark

Encroachment of that old catastrophe,

As a calm darkens among water-lights.

The pungent oranges and bright, green wings

Seem things in some procession of the dead,

Winding across wide water, without sound.

The day is like wide water, without sound,

Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet

Over the seas, to silent Palestine,

Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

      II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?

What is divinity if it can come

Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else

In any balm or beauty of the earth,

Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

Divinity must live within herself:

Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

Elations when the forest blooms; gusty

Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

All pleasures and all pains, remembering

The bough of summer and the winter branch.

These are the measures destined for her soul.

      III

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.

No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave

Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.

He moved among us, as a muttering king,

Magnificent, would move among his hinds,

Until our blood, commingling, virginal,

With heaven, brought such requital to desire

The very hinds discerned it, in a star.

Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be

The blood of paradise? And shall the earth

Seem all of paradise that we shall know?

The sky will be much friendlier then than now,

A part of labor and a part of pain,

And next in glory to enduring love,

Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

      IV

She says, “I am content when wakened birds,

Before they fly, test the reality

Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;

But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields

Return no more, where, then, is paradise?”

There is not any haunt of prophecy,

Nor any old chimera of the grave,

Neither the golden underground, nor isle

Melodious, where spirits gat them home,

Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm

Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured

As April’s green endures; or will endure

Like her remembrance of awakened birds,

Or her desire for June and evening, tipped

By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

      V

She says, “But in contentment I still feel

The need of some imperishable bliss.”

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,

Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams

And our desires. Although she strews the leaves

Of sure obliteration on our paths,

The path sick sorrow took, the many paths

Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love

Whispered a little out of tenderness,

She makes the willow shiver in the sun

For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze

Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.

She causes boys to pile new plums and pears

On disregarded plate. The maidens taste

And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

      VI

Is there no change of death in paradise?

Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs

Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,

Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,

With rivers like our own that seek for seas

They never find, the same receding shores

That never touch with inarticulate pang?

Why set the pear upon those river-banks

Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?

Alas, that they should wear our colors there,

The silken weavings of our afternoons,

And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!

Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,

Within whose burning bosom we devise

Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

      VII

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men

Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn

Their boisterous devotion to the sun,

Not as a god, but as a god might be,

Naked among them, like a savage source.

Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,

Out of their blood, returning to the sky;

And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,

The windy lake wherein their lord delights,

The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,

That choir among themselves long afterward.

They shall know well the heavenly fellowship

Of men that perish and of summer morn.

And whence they came and whither they shall go

The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

      VIII

She hears, upon that water without sound,

A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine

Is not the porch of spirits lingering.

It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.”

We live in an old chaos of the sun,

Or old dependency of day and night,

Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,

Of that wide water, inescapable.

Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail

Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;

Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;

And, in the isolation of the sky,

At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make

Ambiguous undulations as they sink,

Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

[blueclock3000]

Caretakers of the Emperor

By Sicilian Oravarian

[In 3E 389 the wicked mage, Jagar Tharn, ensnared Uriel Septim VII’s form onto his own and sent the Emperor to Oblivion. While the prison was of Jagar Tharn’s design, it was vulnerable yet to the influence of Princes who dominated the realm. This text documents the meeting of the unholy royalty and their concerns of what to do to their new guest.]

“Give me his asshole.” Molag Bal grabbed one of his servants and sent their head into pieces against his table. “There is much to do with a Septim but a little reminder of the forces he has mingled and barter with is in order first.”

LET’S KILL HIM! It’d be so easy just bash Bash BASH his skull in! COME ON! Just do it!

Mehrunes Dagon was never raised properly and thus didn’t know how to quote his words. Peryite’s many claws rapped against the chair his serpentine form curled around. The chaos and cacophony of these meetings always riled him up and it came to be expected that every few meetings he would explode into insanity much like his kin.

“Order, I say, order!” He chimed. Peryite rested his head as his temper fumed.

“Give me that royal ass! Aren’t you sickened by the violating hands of mortals slithering into our realm and taking our servants? I say we violate them back.” The Prince who said this needs no identification. He turned over to the woman quietly scrying far across the table. “And what are you up to, Azura? You secretive bitch!”

Hermaeus Mora slithered by, his casual negligence of his tentacles and their proximity to bodies giving Molag Bal a much arousing shiver.

“Vivec?” He cried out in desperate want.

Azura burst into laughter.

“Your lover is still struggling to maintain power in his faux temples. Don’t worry, I’m quite certain you and him shall see each other again.”

“I’ll rape you! I’ll rape all of you!”

“Order! Nothing gets done if everyone is just shouting what they want!”

“You’re shouting you want order.” Azura said as her second self spoke whispers upon dying sun rays to her servants far away.

“Yes, but what I want is best for all.” Peryite hissed.

“Azura.” Groaned out Mora. “Perhaps you and I shall discuss Morrowind. I have schedules with a certain part of it, if all works out accordingly. Shall we see if there’s any conflicts….or rather,” His voice dragged into a malevolent growl. “How far you intend to influence it.”

The sudden stink of wet swine and carcass invaded the room and all but Malacath quivered at the intense rancid mist only a Prince of dying animals could marinate and concoct.

“Morrowind, we speak? What business have any of you with it?” Hircine said.

“Far more than a mere hunt.” Mora replied.

“Technically you want Solstheim, idiot.” Azura said. “Keep that filthy isle. It’ll make a great dumping ground for your hogs and dogs. So please tell them to stop defecating on the meeting floor!”

Malacath rose out his seat and slammed his hand against the table.

“Stop oppressing his personality!!”

Sanguine’s mind found its way through the intoxicated fog.

“We should think of how to care for the Emperor. Uriel knows the pleasures of life and beyond, let’s at least be gracious hosts for a while.”

“If it’s sustenance he needs…” Namira gracefully but with quick purpose uncurtained her left breast, revealing a mushroom infested rot lump quivering with the release of new age pus, “…let’s give him a taste. They say in strife a man may find his star.”

Sanguine’s cheeks ballooned with a torrent of vomit, only withdrawn with hesitation and reminders of his drinks the night before.

Throw my lands into CHAOS! THE EMPIRE IS DESTINED TO FALL AS ARE ALL THINGS! I refuse to rest until we usurp the throne and GIVE ME WHAT IS MINE!!

A xivali risked it and whispered into the ear of his lord, reminding him of their meddlings in Nirn and the long term benefits. Suddenly the disappearance of Uriel Septim VII seemed to work just perfectly.

I WITHDRAW MY DEMANDS. PROCEED AS YOU WISH. I AM PLEASED.

The moving flow of stars left Azura’s eyes as she snapped to Dagon.

“What does that mean? What are you scheming?”

NOTHING. STATEMENTS WITHDRAWN FROM I. ONLY APATHY TOWARDS THIS MADNESS.

“Bullshit!” Azura screamed. “You monkey-looking maniac, what are your plans? Give them to me!”

Molag folded his arms and chuckled heartily.

“You plot too? I’ve got my eyes and servants on your vampiric hordes!”

“I’ll have my vampiric hordes on your servants as well.”

“Fucker dick! I’ll have a little surprise for your boyfriend.”

“Taking a male form are we?”

“Now why would I want to make you insecure?”

“God….damn…” Sanguine muttered through his pants. “The banter…”

Meridia hummed to herself as the outline of her form danced through many colors and lights. Peryite had used them to comfort his mind until he realize there was no pattern to them after spending half an hour thinking there was. It only swelled his stress. The maiden of lights just watched as others spoke, keeping note on Mehrunes Dagon and his sudden satisfaction.

Clavicus Vile had spent the whole meeting uttering conflicting information to pin the Princes against each other but none had cared to listen. Despite Sanguine’s invitation to a meeting afterparty, Vile proceeded back to his realm to listen to music and ponder if he had lost his touch.

“Why do you all fret so wearily?” Yawned out Mephala. “Is it not enough the Empire has been deceived by a falsehood, a falsehood that this Jagar Tharn will be unable to keep up? He’s a sneak with no knowledge of how to rule. With patience we shall see the Empire tear itself apart.”

“Death to evil!” Yelled out a paladin as he leapt upon the center of the table. “By the Nine I see all the vileness of all the worlds at conference! You fools! You merely line your heads for an execution!”

“ENOUGH!!!” Peryite shrieked as he slid onto the table, wrapped himself around the paladin and vomited cancerous surges down his throat. The paladin’s body erupted piece by piece into blood plops and infested meats.

“Whoa ho ho! Sick!” Molag Bal laughed as he pulled up to the edge of his seat.

For Sanguine this was hilarious but with the upset caused by Namira’s prior exhibition, it was the last straw. He later stood in a two foot hill of his own upheave.

“Boethiah doesn’t even bother showing up but she sends her pranks!” Peryite shouted. “ORDER I DECLARE! BAGAWK! ORDER!!” He span his head wildly in circles as Meridia slid over to talk to Dagon, as Namira began to produce lewd and putrid juices while darkness overwhelmed her among the vomit - which pile of vomit is up to you - while Nocturnal stood as she did since the beginning and waited for the ramblings and initial madness to exhaust itself to only incredibly irritating levels. She could exert her status and speak truths of the void but that cannot be withered in use. Namira knew of Nocturnal’s presence, which stirred her lewdness in the first place.

“Shut the fuck up!” Azura yelled as she hurled an ebony moon AND a star at the dragon. Peryite’s temporary fray into insanity had already expended itself in the taking of a life so he took the blunt damage as a reminder to maintain himself and returned to his seat. He left the tumor vomit corpse as punishment.

"What takes Nocturnal so long?" asked Azura.

Molag Bal whipped out his menacing rod and smiled as the narrative was now forced to use unpleasant innuendos.

“Yeah, where is she? I wouldn’t mind a threesome with you and her.”

Sheogorather blurred his form as his torso leaned in 45 degrees to the cloaked and despicably fragrant Prince of Nightmares. The blur was to hide or perhaps make notice of his legs remaining strictly upright. Lips popped in and out in a bubble fashion about Vaermina’s head, whispering plots. She took heed of each as she held her sharp chin in thought.

“Tell me your voices on this, Mad Prince. Nightmares for one long stayed in Oblivion will only seem like the anxieties of one in a crime ridden village. Horror awaits in memories of a world far kinder growing more distant away.”

Sheogorath nodded before jerking his neck abruptly and collapsing on the ground. A Sheogorath from within the corpse emerged, ripping through the carcass as if it were paper. The mouths around Vaermina’s head whispered in fear as they beheld the display. The new Sheogorath stepped out of his corpse like a man at last ready to attend the ball. He rolled the corpse into a paper ball and tossed it to the side. The mouths parted, allowing a silent one in the back to fly onto the featureless jaw of the Mad Prince, cracking a growing smile as it glided through the air.

“Old ideas scrapped, Vaermina!” His golden eyes sharpened. “This dream business has a lot more potential than what those deviled eggs over there are cooking up! I say, why torture the man any further? Give him pleasant sanity from these wonderful waters.”

“Help the Emperor? You’ve intrigued me before, I thought you’d be pleased with another Pelagius.”

“Bitch, please.” He chuckled. “Pelagius is more than one Pelagius as far as he and I are concerned. Besides, the Septim’s head is already a festival. The Divines speak to him, what’s another friendly voice? That Tharn lad has given us gold here. In the Septim’s time of need he will find new loyalty in wondrous dreams, loyalty that will carry over once he returns to Mundus.”

Vaermina’s brow jolted to join the wrinkles above.

“You speak of others but what are you concocting, Sheogorath?”

“A new kind of future for Tamriel. I say we proceed with Love, shall we?”