#Alas is such a dumb fucking word to use (contextually) I love that

[hellohoihey]

have i talked about my love for spring yet

[damienthepious]

lalalalala oh we’re still here with the poor lizard

The Beast In On His Chain (chapter 13)

[ch 1] [ch 2] [ch 3] [ch 4] [ch 5] [ch 6] [ch 7] [ch 8] [ch 9] [ch 10] [ch 11] [ch 12] [ao3] [???]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien, Sir Damien/Rilla, Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Sir Damien, Lord Arum, Rilla, Sir Absolon

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, prisoner/guard dynamic, Dehumanization, (which feels like a weird word to use for a nonhuman person bUT. it’s what i got.), Despair, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, (EVENTUALLY!!!! it’ll take a while), Captivity, Suicidal Thoughts, (that will be a theme throughout. inescapable in this particular fic. alas.), Eventual Romance, (Yes the dynamics in this one are fucked. honestly i’m kinda Stretching my limits these days.), (having fun with it. fucking around. it’s fine.), Recovery, (eventually), Self-Reclamation

Chapter Summary: Rilla rages, and Arum dreams.

Chapter Notes: This one got... kinda abstract on the back half and MIGHT have made me cry at least once. Warnings for references to violence and blood, references to the treatment of dislocated fingers, continuing malnutrition and dehydration, and Arum continuing to be passively suicidal. oofa doofa.

~

"I want to see him," Rilla half-growls the next morning, pacing the floor like a cat, clenching and unclenching her hands in front of her stomach. "I want to- after something like that? I just- I can't even imagine what he must be thinking, I just-" she spins quick, throwing her body in another direction with a grimace. "But I can't, because it would be stupid to draw attention to myself after that happened, worst possible idea and it could come back down on you, too, because they're not complete idiots actually and if your fiance goes and hovers around the monster captive the so soon after he tries to escape, if Absolon is there and he recognizes me-" she huffs. "Only make things worse. I'd only make things worse and it might block off possibilities later, I'm already next to useless here anyway-"

"You are not useless," Damien interjects, feelingly, and Rilla pauses long enough to throw him a grimacing sort of smile, vaguely grateful, before she spins on her heel again and continues.

"I just... I want to see him. I know I can't see him. I'm worried. And it makes me want to break things! Which is a dumb, unhelpful urge. But it's there, and I'm not even the one who got hurt! I hate this, I just-"

"I think... I believe that patience is a tool we must employ," Damien says quietly, looking towards the window. "Time is the resource we have in the most abundance. It is very likely, my love, that without our influence, nothing at all will change. He will remain static, trapped, yes, but- neither better nor worse off. We must be..." he pauses, winces awkwardly, and then continues. "We must be careful. We mustn't move too quickly, or we risk..."

Speaking in terms of subterfuge makes Damien feel... twitchy. Dirty. Uncomfortable. He tries to bury the feelings, tries to refocus on the way Arum trembled as he released Damien from his grasp. The way Arum collapsed into his arms after Damien set his fingers.

His eyes.

Damien shakes his head. "I want to do this right," he settles on, after a long moment.

Rilla slows, slightly, and sighs. "Me too," she says, and then she pushes her hair out of her face again. "Me too. I just- it doesn't feel right."

Damien's lips tighten, his brow furrowing. "I don't expect that it will," he says, slowly. "Not until..."

"Not until he's free," Rilla says grimly. "Which won't happen unless we're careful, and clever. Which- I can be careful," she says. "Contextually," she adds when Damien flicks his eyes to her with gentle amusement. "When I need to be. It's like medicine. It demands precision and care, or the prognosis..."

He nods. "And we are both of us, I think, rather clever." He smiles. "Contextually."

She scowls at him, but her eyes are dancing. "I think he might be, too," she says after a beat. "He... his eyes-"

Damien's hands flex, oddly, and he twists them together in front of himself for a moment, the memory of Arum's eyes burning at the back of his mind.

"He looks... he looks like he's always thinking three steps ahead," she says. "I'm not actually all that surprised he tried to escape. I'm more surprised that he doesn't try more often."

"He used to," Damien says, almost without thinking, remembering the stories he used to hear, newer context making them seem... darker. More grim. If the result of this most recent escape attempt on Arum's physical form is any indication. "He... he used to."

Rilla meets his eye for a moment, expression hard, and then she swallows. "Well," she says, tone firm. "Good thing, then, that he's only going to need one more try."

Damien thinks-

The towering spire of the Citadel, the layer after layer of guards, the chains, the stone collar, the wide countryside full of knights-

He exhales, and then he nods.

"One more try," he agrees.

~

Arum's dreams are changing.

(His waking hours are changing, for the first time in however long. Perhaps this should not surprise him.)

They are changing; some sharper and darker, bloodier. Some of cutting and burning, like when he first came here and his worry for his Keep overwhelmed everything besides his rage and defiance. Some of Sir Absolon's gauntleted knuckles. The taste of blood.

Some of-

Other things.

Water, now.

Waterfalls, rivers. The collapsing ocean at the edge of the world. Water on Sir Damien's cheek, a handful of droplets, rivuleting together like condensation on a cool morning, running down his skin, trickling from the curls of his hair. The brightness of tears in his eyes.

(He does not think that one is real. He cannot remember, exactly. Wetness on Damien's cheek from pouring water unsatisfyingly over his head, but- not tears. Not real. Does that matter?)

Water on Arum's tongue, flowing down his throat as if to drown him, but he breathes it in and breathes it in and it fills him with soothing coolness as if he is himself a goblet, as if he is himself a lake. As if he could be filled. As if he could, perhaps, be satisfied.

(Damien sits with him every day, now. Brings a canteen full to the mouth every day, pours him cupful after tin cupful every day, allows Arum to drink it all the way to empty. Every day.)

(His throat hurts less. He feels- slowly, slowly, so slowly it is hard to be certain, but- he feels the difference. Drop by drop may still fill a bucket, and Arum...)

(Every day, Arum feels a little less empty.)

Some dreams are stranger. Some dreams, his vision comes in charcoal lines on pale parchment. Sketch-lines that move, landscapes shifting in soundless wind. Playful watercolors breathing in the plumage of a heron, in the dancing leaves of an aspen, in the light-scattering surface of a lake.

(Memories, or wishful thinking, spilling to mix with his only recent window into the outside world.)

Flowers. Flowers and flowers and flowers, bold dark lines contrasting with sweet yellow or vibrant orange. In the dreams they lay out in front of him, deep and endless and lovely, but- nothing he can touch, through the paper.

(Amaryllis hasn't come back since the attempt at escape.)

(They are not bringing tour groups through, just at the moment. He would feel satisfied, about that, if not for...)

He dreams of paper, charcoal. He dreams of water, yes.

He dreams adjacent to fire, as well. Adjacent, only, because it is not about fire, truly, in the dreams, it is only-

Heat.

(No sunlight, down here. No touch. Torches on the walls, far outside of his reach, and only cold steel and stone at his fingertips, he is so cold, here. Always. Except-)

Heat, against his scales. The suggestion of fire. Or-

(Damien hasn't touched him again since the day he set Arum's fingers. Has only touched him twice, in truth, and only once of his own will. Though- he still caught Arum, the first time, after Arum let him go. But that second time- the pain, yes, of fixing what had broken, but- afterwards, as well. A hand on his shoulder to keep him from falling, his snout almost pressed against the human's shoulder, Damien's other hand a suggestion of blazing heat, hovering just barely, just barely aside from Arum's cheek.)

Dreams of false fire. His scales hot with heart-heat, the heat of the blood in someone else's veins. Skin, soft dark skin against his scales. Hands on his shoulders, hands on his arms to help him fall into that blaze. Hands on his face. Heartbeat in his wrists, pulsing where Arum can feel it. A second rhythm, to accompany the lonely useless thing in his own chest.

(Arum wakes gasping. Wakes gasping. Wakes gasping, and finds himself surprised when Damien isn't there.)

He dreams-

He dreams of Sir Damien's bow. Dreams of his hands, raised. Dreams of pity transmuted to action. Dreams of his eyes, bright and bright and bright, blazing with heart-heat.

Arum still dreams the old dream, rekindled new. An arrow in his heart, and freedom.

(And from this revivified dream, Arum finds that he wakes in tears.)