#I want my heart carved out again. I want my soul to float slightly away while I wander around dead completely to the world

[manicali]

Occasionally I get stuck with the need to change my life and be happy but right now I don’t want to live happy I just want to die happy. I want to die surrounded by loved ones and their voices and laughter to carry me to the calming embrace of sleep while I pass away and their faces to be the last thing I see I just want to die happy.

[booksweet]

Could I request a Gojo fic/drabble/whatever based around Halsey’s song Colors?? I feel like it fits Gojo perfectly. Angsty. Fluffy. Whatever you’re feeling.

Hollow Purple

starring: sorcerer!Gojo x human!reader

synopsis: there was happiness when blue and red met, but they didn't know grey would claim their place in between them.

contents/warnings: ANGST, SFW, slightly mention of blood, trauma, violence (if I miss something, please warn me), both reader and Gojo are 18+

WC: + 2k

A/N: hello, anon! I swear to god I tried to make it a fluff, but I coulnd't, it screamed angst on my mind. This request reminded me I'm into writing pain stuff like my heart was broken a thousand times, and I wish I could say sorry for the pain, but I'm NOT hahaha no regrets. Enjoy!

tags @noritoshiikamo

main navi | masterlist

You were gone. You were gone and destroyed every piece of him, every inch of him were carved by you.

He knew by the first time he saw you that you'd have so much power over him, you could end him without even using words.

And that's what happened.

You with your beautiful eyes, and beautiful red dress. You broke him.

His blue eyes now devoid of bright, of color.

But he knew it was his fault.

His fault to insist bringing you to his world while you should've had stayed in yours, oblivion to everything related to jujutsu. Yet, he couldn't regret it. He would never regret meeting you, and being with you this whole time until you got apart.

There he was, above the skies, searching for cursed spirits who ran away from him, their fear reasoned since he was the strongest above all. He couldn't care less about their feelings. Within the curtain, without non-jujutsu sorceres, he just wanted to finish that spirits as fast as he could to call his day off and eat some sweets.

"Guess I'll have to go a little rough now, uh?" With a movement of his hands, he felt his cursed energy shaking inside him like an ocean of power, such powers had he overwhelmed by years until he could plenty control them.

But suddenly he felt another presence, aside cursed spirits and jujutsu sorcerers, he felt a human presence. With a frown of his browns, he took off his blindfolds, revealing beautiful blue eyes, in order to find out who or what was that feeling. His flowing energy all at once disrupted.

And then, he found you. He found you walking calmly through the lonely streets wearing a red dress he could never forget. "What an interesting..." He muttered checking out if you were truly human, six-eyes working hard to find it and, when he was certainly of it, his interest on you just grew even harder.

You were about to cross an alley between two buildings and he took the chance to teleport there by connecting his hands. You took a few steps and stopped to admire some store's window and he couldn't help but wonder how you were still there in that chaotic place so relaxed and withou fear.

"Who are you?" He came closer to you and you stepped back with surprise, staring at that tall white-haired man with suspicious eyes and a smirk on his lips.

"Who's wanna know?" Your hands ready to punch his face if he dared to try something on you. His growing interest reached alarming levels as his heart bumped hard on his chest.

"I'm Gojo Satoru," He said without approaching you, and with a bow, he added. "The strongest above all. At your service."

"The strongest?" You said while lifting your chin up to him in defiance. "Oddly of you to say that, isn't?"

And he at that right moment, he knew he was lost. He was lost to you.

- x -

He was supposed to protect you, he was supposed to take care of you ever since you met. Instead, he brought you danger, he brought you pain, he brought you despair.

What's the point of being blessed with six-eyes if he couldn't protect the only one he cared the most?

Not a bless, but a curse. A sin held upon his shoulders. A burden so heavy he couldn't breath.

A sin so harmful that had stained you. Your naive soul. Innocent. Heavenly.

And he missed you. He missed your red lips. You red clothes. He missed how your smile seemed to warm him just like the red sunset you two watched once. His blue eyes missed staring at your for hours, drowning in yours.

Blue and red.

Red and blue.

Two parts independent from each other, yet they floated against them, their souls wiling to be one.

Convergence and divergence.

Divergence and convergence.

And when both opposites reunite...

The second time you met, Gojo wasn't on a mission and you weren't in danger at all. You had an average day and stopped by a coffee shop to drink some hot coffee, eat your favorite sweet and maybe read your favorite book just to get away from craziness of your life, you wanted to relax. You were at your favorite table, alone, and the costumers were passing around you and you weren't giving them attention when the doorbell left out a "ring!".

He couldn't help but desire some sweets, it was his nature as sweet-eater. He knew he would bring attention to him, he was tall, handsome as hell and was wearing a blindfold, of course everyone would've looked at him.

But you hadn't looked at him. You didn't even take your eyes out of the pages to check what happend at the cafe. Nevertheless, once again you caught his attention and he recognized you from your first meeting. "What do we have here?" He muttered with a glimpse of a smile on the corner of his lips.

He ordered a chocolate cake and signed the waiter to take it to your table. Meanwhile, he moved his long legs on tour way, like you were a force bringing him closer and closer each step. He moved the chair loudly and had his seat in front of you. "Hello, Y/N! Long time no see, ugh?"

Surprised by his suddenly entrance, you put your book down and looked straight at him. That weird man you met months ago, still you felt different about him. "Long time no see, strongest above all" you replied playfully. "What bring your majesty up here?"

— x —

When you third met, it was your first date. That turned into a second, and then a third, a fourth... And suddenly you were about all his life, above your weird friendship. All at once you became the one he needed the most to feel himself.

Yet he chose not to tell you about jujutsu. He chose not to tell you about his powers. About why he couldn't stay a little longer with you at your place. About where he would've been travel out of city for weeks without giving any news if he was okay.

He dissapeared for weeks in a roll. And you worried about him. About his blue eyes. You worried about never going to see him again, even though you didn't figure out what you feared at all.

Once, he came back of one of those long trips, after several weeks of nothing about him, but what he gave you to remind of him — his shirt, a photograph of you two, one of his blindfolds.

And you couldn't help but cry while kissing him. You couldn't help but to say you loved him you never wanted for him to disappear. And he would retrieve, he would say he loved you so hard you had him in your hands. He was yours to be loved, to be destroyed.

The strongest on his knees at a human's mercy.

Had never his eyes sight such a colorful being, such a colorful existence. He was at your mercy, his existence, his entire being was yours to paint, to stain, to rip him apart if you wanted.

And then, when you two lay down together, messy sheets and pillows. Blue and red met once again, but not apart, they were together. That time blue and red turned into a beautiful tone of purple.

— x —

Someday you would find out, he knew it. Yet, he still longed for time to be with you, time to be himself without necessarily being the strongest, the head of his clan, the balance between cursed spirits and jujutsu sorcerers.

But he knew he had no time, you had no time with him. There wasn't enough time with jujutsu and curses. They would've come for you by anytime.

He masked his worries from you. He always seemed so happy in his nonchalant and playful way. Always trying to annoy you and make you laugh everytime you spent together.

You mocked the "strongest above all" out of him every opportunity you had. And this had him caring about you more and more.

But then it wasn't a joke anymore.

Jujutsu were real.

Cursed spirits were real.

And you were just a human.

Alone.

Blood. Red. Everything is red. Everything is blood. Pain. You were in pain screaming. You couldn't see what hurt you, but that ominous feeling was still there in your place. "What happened? What happened? Who are you? Who are you?" You couldn't help keep muttering it like a prayer, thinking of Gojo who was to come by and see your hurt state.

But Gojo Satoru felt the overflowed cursed energy arisen from your place. His bare eyes naked with worry and, for the first time, fear. And then he broke. Every piece of him.

He found you on the floor, muttering non-sense words — including his name in your dizzy state — blood running over you limbs, torso and head. A cut on your beautiful face. And above you, at the ceiling, that goddamn cursed spirit laughing out loud mocking you. Mocking your pain. Your despair.

He ran out of control. He released this powers untamed, uncontrolled. In a blink of an eye he exorcised that cursed spirit from existence. He was furious, feral. He could bring fire to the world if it means to keep you safe, to keep you alive. "Y/N?" He came closer to you, checking out your pulse as his hand held your wrist. It was so weak his heart almost stopped. "Don't leave me, please. You don't deserve to die."

— x —

When everything fell apart, he took you to Shoko at Jujutsu High nursery. She healed your physical wounds in silence while he stayed by your side. You kept unconscious the process, sometimes mumbling while your expression turned into a painful one.

When you woke up at his place, you said nothing. Nothing came out from your mouth, even though he tried to make you speak. He kissed your forehead, your cheeks. You could hear him say "Love, love, love, please, talk to me" in a desperate broken tone.

Yet you couldn't say a thing.

When purple turned into grey, everything faded away. Everything blurred.

Happiness overpowered by despair and pain. You were broken such as the beautiful thing you two had.

"Y/N, please, please, I'm begging," Once more his voice muffled on your ears. Why they hold such pain? "I'm on my knees, Y/N, please, come back, come back to me."

He told you the truth about him so many times expecting some reaction, something from you. Yet he received anything at all. You were numb to reality, there was nothing he could do about that.

But one day, after weeks and weeks of him trying to call you back, you spoke for the first time. Pale eyes meeting him lifeless. And he felt his world falling apart again. "I want to go" You whispered and he widened his pretty eyes full of tears.

"What, Y/N?"

"I want to leave. I wanto to go away from here. Take me out, take me out, take me out..." You kept saying repeatdly, each time a knife stabbing his heart.

"Y/N, love..." He tried to touch your hair, but you moved away from him.

"No, no," You muttered afraid. "It's your fault. The monsters. The blood. The pain..." You shrunk yourself in your bed, crying. "The nightmares. It's your fault." Your crying getting louder and louder. "I wish I could forget you."

"Y/N, I-I," He struggled his words, afraid and crying. "You know I can protect you, you know I will."

Your voice cold in his ears aside your tears. "No, you can't."

— x —

Blue bright eyes once, but not anymore. Not when the reason they shone for now It's gone. When you've chosen to forget him since your accident.

That was what you asked, to forget. To forget the pain, the blood the nightmares, him...

It was quite easy to manipulate your memories, cursed energy manipulation and then it's done. Not that it means it did not hurt him, but it had to be done.

When light came back to your eyes, Gojo's bright faded away.

When you smiled red, blue was not his color anymore.

When your life was colorful, his was grey and devoid of any color.

Red and blue turned into purple. His heart was craved by yours, when you were together.

Purple danced in front of his eyes as his memories overflowed his mind. Blue eyes crying because of red.

Blue eyes seeing grey because now red is gone forever and blue is alone.

[dropssofjupitter]

Red as the Dawn

Pairing: Dramione

Summary: It has been 3 weeks since Hermione Granger died in a freak accident at Malfoy Manor. Consumed by his own grief, Draco blames himself for his beloved’s death, and gives in to the destruction devouring his mind.

Word Count: 3.7 k

Warnings: Angst, mentions of death, mentions of blood, arson

Masterlist

A/N: This is my entry for the Dramione Death Fest on A03 because I am, first and foremost, an angst writer. This fic has not been beta read. Any mistakes or inconsistencies are my fault and mine alone. - I accidentally deleted this fic when trying to edit it, so this is fun

Draco was in tatters.

He was erratic; slashing portraits, throwing plates, burning the hedges that bordered the walkway in front of the mansion. The house-elves avoided him, his own mother, for once, didn’t know how to calm him down.

He spent his days wandering through the mansion, destroying whatever the house-elves had fixed the night before. He went from room to room, upending tables, tearing curtains, ripping apart books.

Each day he reigned over his realm of self-destruction, and each day he paused before one door. He would walk up to it, determination draining from him with every step. Some days he would simply stare at it, and then move on, leaving it untouched. But other days he would let his hand rest on the doorknob, his forehead pressing against the cool wood, and let his memories take him away.

“Honestly Draco, I don’t understand why we can’t just put my study with yours. It’d be much simpler.”

“Because, Granger. Your workspace is absolutely filthy, and I don’t want that mess bleeding onto my side.”

Hermione scoffed, indignant. “It is not filthy.”

Draco stared at her, his hand resting on the doorknob to the room that would henceforth be known as Hermione’s study. “Ignorance is not a good look on you Granger,” he stated simply, opening the door and slipping through before Hermione could throw one of the numerous books overflowing in her arms at him.

She shuffled in after him, a retort that was poised and ready on her lips dying as soon as she saw the room. “Merlin’s beard,” she breathed out, turning in a wide circle.

A mahogany desk sat against one of the walls, a large ornate office chair seated behind it. On the desk sat a nameplate, perched towards the edge and accompanied by fabulously extravagant bookends. Parallel to the desk was an entire wall fitted with four wondrously large bookcases, two of which had already been filled with research books, journals, and memoirs that had previously been in the Malfoy library. Illuminating the entire room was a wall filled top to bottom with windows. Enchanted ivy climbed them from the outside, and multiple house plants hung and floated around the windows. Assorted chairs, benches, and even a couch decorated the remainder of the study, all enchanted to immediately conform to the users body.

Draco would never admit it to her, but he had taken weeks out of his schedule to personally design the study. He had haggled with construction workers over the prices of installation, and had even acquired his mothers help in absolving some of the blood curses placed upon the books that now filled the room.

“Do you like it?” he asked cautiously, hands clasped tightly behind his back in order to hide the nervous twisting of his fingers. His eyes bounced between her eyes, to her hands, to the books about to fall from her arms, and then back to the look of awe on her face. He would do anything in his power to make sure that she always looked as wonderfully happy as she did right now.

“Do I like it? Draco, its stunning!” She replied, a soft, incredulous laugh slipping from her lips.

He nodded his head, looking around the room. “It’s alright.”

She looked back at him, a bright smile lighting up her eyes. “Thank you, truly.”

His heart skipped a beat. His hands stopped twisting. A smile snuck its way onto his face despite his better judgement. “You’re welcome.”

“Draco, darling?” Narcissa called, her hand placed delicately on the staircase railing. “Are you alright?”

Draco’s head snapped up, his eyes narrowing and his lips turning into a snarl at the realization that he was interrupted once more. His hand left the door, and he turned sharply on his heel, walking swiftly past his mother in a swirl of black cloaks. “Perfectly adequate,” he replied with a sneer, returning with vigor to his previous path of destruction.

Narcissa sighed, her eyes looking forlornly towards the study. In the background she heard a crash echoing out from the living area. She flinched, hand inches away from the handle, and moved on.

~~~

Draco paced the halls of the manor like a caged animal. He walked, up and down, left and right, until he had patrolled the entirety of the manor over 20 times. Then he moved outside.

His feet slowed, ever so slightly. His breathing evened. And the feeling of an unknown pressure against his chest lifted, just a little. Here, he was free from the endless onslaught of memories. Here, he could relax and relent under the night sky.

His feet led him to the maze that decorated a small portion of the yard, his hands outstretched and brushing against the hedges as he passed them. He inhaled, deep and pure, and let his body carry him to the center of the maze.

There was a small stone bench in the middle, weathered from years of sitting stationary upon the ground. A pond bubbled nearby, magical fish of every variety content to swim in its waters.

Draco sat down on the bench, the tension leaving his body as he tilted his head up to look at the stars that littered the heavens. He closed his eyes, a soft smile perched treacherously on his lips. And then his heart twinged with a memory, and his peace was ruined.

“Draco keep up! You’re going to miss it!” Hermione called out, already yards in front of Draco as she ran frantically through the maze.

“Really Granger, is it that important?” Draco called back, feeling a laugh bubbling to the surface as he watched Hermione get swatted by an overgrown hedge.

“Oh just come on you twat!” She replied, a laugh slipping from her lips as well.

Draco turned the final corner, a goofy grin chiseled onto his face as he took in the scene before him.

Hermione had a muggle telescope set up to the side on the bench, already pointed at the sky and calibrated correctly. Astrology books lay strewn haphazardly around the mini safe haven, and a blanket was laid across the grass no more than a few feet away. She stood behind the telescope, bent at the knees as she peered through it.

She glanced up, her smile returning as she saw Draco. She waved him over to the telescope, excitement seeming to exude from her very being. “Well come on!”

Clasping his hands behind his back, Draco sauntered over, walking as slow as humanly possible.

Hermione, seeing this, waved her arms in exasperation and ran behind him, placing her hands on his back in an attempt to push him forwards. “You absolute prat!”

A deep, low chuckle escaped Malfoy’s mouth as he turned his head to look at her. “Why Granger, whatever do you mean? I’m walking as fast as I can!” He placed one of his hands on his chest and looked at her, appalled. “Are you claiming me to be a dishonest man?” he asked, incredulous.

“Well, I’m certainly not calling you an honest one!” she retorted, still hopelessly attempting to push Draco closer to the telescope.

He laughed again, relenting and continuing willingly towards the contraption. He hummed, contemplating his actions before bending down and peering through the eyeglass. “I don’t see what the excitement is about, honestly. It’s just the sky. We’ve seen it hundreds of times in - oh.” Draco’s thought was cut short as the stars began to rain down, trails of wispy ethereal light painting the inky blackness of the sky in their wonder. He moved away from the telescope, his head instead tilting up to look at the sky without the object’s assistance.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Hermione breathed out, her eyes trained on the sky as well.

Draco looked over at her, his heart beating erratically against his chest as a soft smile creeped onto his face. He watched as the heavens fell in her eyes, as her beauty built cities in his mind and tore down any deities previously known to man. He watched, helplessly, hopelessly, as he fell for her. Mind, body, and soul. “Yeah,” he breathed out, hands itching to intertwine themselves with hers as he watched her face light up. “It is.”

Draco opened his eyes, once again staring up at the stars that littered the heavens. He felt a now familiar ache return to his chest as tears began to blur his vision.

“You always were able to see the beauty in everything,” he whispered to himself, eyes wandering down to the corner of the stone bench. His hands ghosted over the initials carved there only weeks before. H.G. Hermione Granger. “Even in a monster.”

He felt a stray tear begin to slide down his cheek, and he quickly wiped it away, standing abruptly and walking towards the exit of the maze. Before he left, however, he turned. Gazing upon the place that had been so painful for him to exist in. Without a second thought, he lifted his wand, eyes staring at the cursed stone bench as he set the haven on fire.

He saw his mother run out of the mansion moments later, collapsing to her knees as she saw the destruction that her son had wrought, saw his true nature. He walked past her, pausing just behind her, and turned his head. She looked back at him, tears in her eyes along with an emotion that caused Draco to grit his teeth in anger. Pity.

He didn’t want, nor did he need his mother’s pity. He turned sharply, walking back into the darkened mansion and slamming the door behind him. Let her watch the wretched garden burn. Let her inhale the ash with every cry, and scream for the house elves as she desperately tried to put out the flames that he had created. He was done receiving her pity. And he was done avoiding his own.

With his anger rising and his emotions high, Draco stalked up to the study that he had avoided for so long. A concentration of magic that Draco hadn’t even known existed within him burst towards the door in his high emotional state and knocked it off its hinges. Without a second thought, Draco stepped into the room.

His mind went blank. His eyes took in the room, a thin layer of dust covering the objects. He saw photographs of him and Hermione decorating the walls, pictures of her parents, the plants that she had meticulously cultivated for so long in order to test their in a new sleeping drought. His eyes roamed over the bookcases, overflowing with double and sometimes triple stacked books, scraps of parchment sticking up from where she had found something of note in her research. Quills were set about in no particular order in the room, essentially guaranteeing that she would be able to have one handy at all times, just in case.

Draco inhaled, and his face crumpled. It still smelled like her.

The intoxicating scent of honeysuckle and cedar that he had come to know so well was stuck in the room, circulating over and over with nowhere to go. It filled his senses, overwhelming his mind and making everything else . . .muddled. He tried to take a step backwards, but his legs were weak. He stumbled.

His eyes slid over to her desk, and his breath caught in his throat.

A letter was perched on the edge of it, caught in between the two bookends that he had gifted her long ago. His name was written on the front in her messy handwriting. Hesitantly, he reached out towards it, his fingers smoothing back the folds in the envelope as he stared at it. Had this letter been here for him this whole time?

He flipped it over and was face to face with the glaringly red seal on the envelope. He dropped it.

Draco looked down at her body, convulsing on the floor. Red bloomed on her stomach, spiraling and twisting in intricate patterns as it soaked through her clothes. He had said many times that Hermione looked ravishing in red, but not this kind of red. This red was hot, and dark, and sticky. This red drained the color from her face every time it grew more vibrant.

He rushed over to her, falling to his knees and sitting in the puddle of her blood that had harrowed him so. His mind was racing, or was it numb? He couldn’t tell. He pulled out his wand and hoarsely spoke a healing spell. “Vulnera Senentur.” Nothing happened. Frantic, Draco tried it again, his voice stronger now. “Vulnera Senentur!” Nothing.

Hermione weakly opened her eyes, moving her lips in an attempt to speak.

“Shh,” Draco hushed her. “Save your strength Granger. You’ll be at St. Mungo's in no time.” His thumb caressed her cheek as he turned his head towards the door, calling for his house elf. “Winky! Winky I need you!”

Desperation filled his being. He couldn’t apparate her, or he would run the risk of splinching her. None of his healing spells or diagnostic checks were working. He didn’t know what to do.

Hermione raised her hand, wincing as she placed it on one of his arms. Her mouth moved again, and a hoarse whisper of his name escaped.

He looked back over at her, leaning his head down and touching his forehead to hers. “It’s okay Hermione, it’s going to be okay. Can you tell me what hurt you?” He shifted his weight, slowly and cautiously dragging her body into his lap. One of his hands ran over the cut in her stomach, and he grimaced.

“Draco. .” she whispered again, her hand moving steadily up his arm until she was able to cup his face. Her lips curved up in a small smile and she dragged her thumb over his cheek.

He leaned into her touch, looking down at her with hot, angry tears in his eyes. “Don’t you dare say it Granger. Don’t you dare say goodbye.”

“We both. .” she inhaled sharply, and it sounded wet and coarse. The cough that followed caused a small splatter of blood to find purchase on his shirt. “We both know that I’m not getting out of this alive.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he replied, his voice wavering as his own hand reached up to wipe the blood off of her chin. He cleared his throat, hands shaking as he gingerly held her face. “You’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this. Bloody hell, you had Potter and Weasley for friends, the amount of pure chaos that follows those two should have gotten to you long ago.”

She laughed, her face growing paler by the second. “I’ve always been curious,” another deep, shuddering breath, “you know? I mean, this is the one question that I’ve never been able to answer.” She paused, and it almost looked as though she was staring past Draco and up at the ceiling. Her eyes were unfocused, her hand fell slightly on his face.

He brought his other hand up to hers and held it against his cheek, knowing what she wanted, and knowing what she deserved. She deserved an answer that would make her happy, that would make her peaceful. She deserved an answer that held just as many mysteries as the question, and one that was just as fantastical as the world she had been brought into.

“I. .” his voice caught, and he cleared his throat again, tears falling from his eyes. “I always liked to think that we never actually die. That our magic just gets passed on to some new witch or wizard. Someone like us.”

Her eyes focused back on his face, and her smile seemed content now. “I’d like that,” she said. Her voice was weak. Her breathing was shallow. Her hands and face were growing cold to his touch. “Maybe,” another wet cough shook her body. “Maybe our magic can find each other again. Like soulmates.” Her smile was shaky, and her eyes were beginning to shine with tears.

“Draco,” Hermione said, her thumb weakly running over his bottom lip. “Thank you for showing me what it’s like to be loved.”

And then she was gone.

Her body went limp. Her hand fell from his face. Her eyes, once filled with an undeniable brightness and eagerness to learn and solve and question, were dull and void.

“Hermione?” Draco called out, his voice breaking. His hands were shaking. He was frantically running them over her face, her hands, trying to elicit some sort of response from her.

“No... no no no no.” Tears were streaming down his face as he picked up the wand that he had discarded earlier on the floor. He dropped it twice before he was able to properly hold it, and even then, his hands were shaking too much to perform the wand work required for the diagnostic spell.

Frustrated, he threw it across the room and gathered her body in his arms. He leaned down and touched his forehead to hers, willing for her to open her eyes and lecture him over the proper way to stir a wolfsbane potion, or to hit him and call him insufferable. To do anything.

“Please,” he whispered. “Please I . . I can’t . . I don’t know what to do without you.”

Draco hadn’t realized it then, but he knew it now.

When Hermione had died, he’d died with her.

He looked down at the letter on the floor beneath his feet, and stooped down to pick it up. He flipped it over in his hands, looking once more at the bright red seal. The image of Hermione, on the ground, covered in her own blood came back to him, and he closed his eyes, gripping the letter in his hands like a lifeline.

Even if it hurt him. Even if it somehow caused him more pain than he was already feeling, he had to know what she had written to him.

Carefully, he opened the letter and unfolded the parchment, his eyes watering as he scanned the page.

My heart,

I had hoped that you would never receive this letter, and never have to feel the pain that you are going through right now, but alas, it seems inevitable.

I suppose that I should explain what this is, though I would wager that you have already guessed. Upon my death, however likely or unlikely, I had arranged for a letter to be sent to you. I updated the letter weekly, of course, to keep things recent and up to date. However, lately, I have been writing a letter to you every day.

It’s not necessary, in fact it’s far from that. It’s . . well I suppose it’s simply because I don’t entirely know how to fit everything into one letter. If you wish to read them, they should be stashed in the top left drawer of my desk.

On to the main purpose of this letter. To put it simply, I love you.

I’m not exactly sure when it happened if I’m being honest. Whether my affections began when we were forced to work together for a project in the Ministry, or when you had somehow memorized my caffeine schedule so thoroughly that it no longer surprised me when you brought me my morning coffee. But it happened.

I imagine that this is of no shock to you, considering that we are currently engaged, but I also know that you don’t hear the words enough. And I know that you doubt, every day, whether or not I will finally ‘come to my senses’ as you have put it before, and leave you for something or someone else.

If it wasn’t already evident, let me put it more clearly. I am yours, Draco Malfoy. Body and soul. I have been and always will be. I love you more than you will ever know, and more than I would ever care to admit.

And if I know you well enough, which I do, I know that you are blaming yourself for whatever has happened to me. Please, for your mother’s sake, mine, and your own, don’t. Know that I could never, ever, blame you for anything that has happened to me.

You are the one mystery in my life that I will never get bored of, the one puzzle piece that finally completes me, the one constant that I never want to change.

I can guarantee you. In my last few moments, all I will think about is you and the happiness that you have brought me. I will relive our first kiss, and your proposal. I will relive the day that I moved into the Manor, and that tea that I had with your mother where she showed me your baby photos.

And if I am so lucky, you will be there with me. And I will get to see you one last time. I will get to memorize every feature of your face, and your temperamental eyes. I’ll be able to run my hands over that scar on your bottom lip, and tell you how much you mean to me.

But most of all, I want you to learn how to be happy again. I want you to smile when you remember me, and correct my work when you go through my research. I want to be remembered as I am.

All my love, and so much more,

Hermione

Draco smiled weakly as he finished the letter, his legs finally giving out as he collapsed onto the floor.

He heard footsteps behind him, and moments later his mother’s arms wrapped around his shoulders. “It’s like she never left . .” she murmured, tears falling down her cheeks.

He looked up at the study once more, taking in the piles upon piles of research and notes and musings that covered the room. There, in that moment, in that place, he swore he could hear Hermione laugh at something snarky that he had said, and feel her hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t think she ever will.”

.

.

Add yourself to my taglist!

[a-dorin]

sorrow | fives

word count: 978

warnings: angst (lots of it and i am not sorry), ptsd, dealing with grief, mentions of loss, mentions of death, mentions of violence 

prompt:  “You gave me the ok so here we go: Fives comes back from Umbarra and just needs to be held because he almost died and so many of his brothers did and just some really soft fluff. I really don’t care how long you make it but I am a whore for soft fives”

one hand rested on the transparisteel, speeders zooming by, the lights glittering. coruscant at this time was enchanting, a sprawling ecumenopolis bustling with the chatter of civilians, advertisements flashing, neon lights twinkling and glowing. 

the other hand clutched your heart, your mind racing as your eyes scanned the skyline, desperate to witness that shuttle descend, to watch as it docked, promising of soldiers. 

soldiers returning home. 

“miss,” your advisor cleared his throat, his cerulean skin a silvery hue in the light, “i received word that your fiance has returned from umbara.”

your heart fluttered, a sliver of joy bubbling in your stomach.

“linus, will you inform him to come visit?”

“dully noted miss,” linus dipped his head, “although, from text inscribed in the transmission, you may want to prepare yourself, (y/n).”

“what do you mean?”

linus’ eyes scanned the datapad, shaking his head slightly, “it appears as if the clone army suffered from heavy losses-”

“that is all i need to hear,” you exhaled, crossing over to your desk, “please, linus, if you see fives, just send him in, will you?”

“always,” linus responded coolly, his head tails swinging behind him as he turned, padding towards the grand doors, “the second i am aware of his presence in the senate building, i will fetch him.”

“thank you,” bringing your fingers to your temple, you inhaled deeply, in a vain attempt to keep your composure.

“anything for you.”

settling into your chair, you absentmindedly sift through some paperwork. yet, it was no use. 

there was no distracting from the inevitable. 

it was almost as if you could sense his presence as he approached the doors. the temperature of the air decreased, the space crackling as three soft knocks echoed. 

springing from your chair, you smoothed out your gown, running a hand through your hair, “come in.”

the soldier who stood before you was no where near the man you once knew.

eyes that were once glimmering chestnut pools, bursting with joy and amusement were now hollow and vacant. 

two obsidian canyons, deepened and carved by grief, hardened by loss.

new wrinkles etched into his forehead, his lips curved into a frown. 

yet, the moment his gaze fell on you.

the corners of his lips tugged into a weary, broken smile. 

“i never thought i would have lived to see that gorgeous face again.”

“oh fives-” your lower lip quivered, tears blurring your vision. 

there was a flurry of arms, bodies tangling together as you held onto him, clinging to his blacks. his head burrowed into your chest, his shoulders shaking as he wept. wails rang through the office, bouncing off the walls and back into your ears.

the cries were far more horrid the second time.

“i-i-” fives sputtered, but you were quick to hush him.

“my love,” you murmured, your voice faltering, “you don’t have to-”

“we lost so many,” the words were barely strung together, “we lost so -- i lost so many of my brothers.”

squeezing your eyes shut, you inhaled sharply, “fives, i am-”

“i wish i could forget. baby, their faces are permanently ingrained in my head. they won’t fuckin’ leave. every time i close my eyes, i see their faces. i see us all in the mess hall together, sharing a meal. i remember the jokes we shared and the nights where we’d disobey orders, just to sneak out and watch the stars as we floated in space. but then, oh gods. i can’t shake it away. i remember how they died, and how i just watched.”

“fives,” his name was firm as it rolled off your tongue, an attempt to soothe him, yet your fiance continued, his voice eerily quiet as his head rested on your collarbone. 

“how come it was them but not me? how come i got to live while my brothers perished?”

a hand laced into his dark hair, fingers running through the locks, “fives, i want you to listen to me. i was not there at umbara, so i cannot even fathom how awful it was. i know how much you adore your brothers. not only do you fight for the republic, but you fight for your brothers too. i can promise you that their deaths were not your fault, fives. i know that you fought hard for them.”

“but i failed to protect--”

“you did not fail,” you whispered, “fives, you did not fail.”

“i love you,” fives let out a shaky breath, his breathing more steady as the cries ceased, “i couldn't even fathom of any other woman in my life, cyar'ika. you know when the timing is right and you always say the right things.”

“i need you,” you murmured, your voice delicate, “i love you too, fives.”

“i need you, cyar'ika,” his gaze drifted upwards, “i’ll always need you. especially during times like this.”

“i won’t ever stray from your side,” leaning in, you placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, “i won’t ever leave you, fives.”

“do you promise?” the words were a content sigh as your fingers began to roam, tracing his back.

the soldier’s grief dissolved for a moment, his features softening as fingertips danced, drawing lazy circles and shapes. 

for a moment, the memory of umbara disappeared from fives’ mind, his thoughts replaced by the sheer bliss of being in your embrace. the arms of the love of his life. his soul mate. 

for a moment, the sorrow was diminished. 

yet, in your heart, you knew that there would be more instances like this. more moments in which you would bring the soldier comfort as he wept, promising that there was always a new dawn. that there would always be a light at the end of the tunnel. that there would always be light in the darkness. 

that there would always be joy to come after the sorrow. 

“i promise.”

[varyen]

home is wherever i’m with you

I wrote a little Childe x Zhongli fic last night. Here’s the AO3 link. Under cut because of lenght. 

It’s the rain, Zhongli thinks, the rain does something to people, especially at night. It has a way of washing away facades and lies and oftentimes brings out confessions between people … — lovers.

The rain is heavy in Liyue this night. 

Zhongli doesn’t remember when the rain started nor does he know when it will end — in his humble opinion, it shall not. There is something peaceful about the rain, the steady sound of drops hitting the soil and the soft smell of rainwater lingering in the air. It’s something so simple and yet so eternal — the rain has always been while the rest around him evolved and changed. 

The streets are empty and cold in Liyue this night, the rain and the freezing wind keeping the people in their homes, tucked away behind their fireplaces and spending the time with their loved ones in privacy rather than out on the streets. 

It’s the same for Zhongli; he likes to believe himself to experience something mortal this night. The simplicity of it; it crawls under his skin.

The window is cracked open just a bit but there are no noises coming from the outside; there is no turmoil, none of the busy noises that usually go hand and hand with Liyue Harbour, the sound of the crowds and people and work. Tonight, there is just the rain. 

 Zhongli sits on the bed, a cup of tea on the nightstand next door to him, the book in his hands open but both long forgotten. 

His attention lies on Childe and Childe alone — the Fatui Harbinger of danger and wrath, sleeping peacefully next to him, his breath even and his legs tangled with Zhongli’s. He’s relaxed against Zhongli and his body rises and sinks in a slow rhythm. His slender fingers are wrapped around Zhongli’s wrists softly, barely holding on.

The delicate sound of the rain falling outside and Childe’s deep, rhythmic breath creates a melody in Zhongli’s head so full of yearning and love that the Archon almost can’t recognize himself.

Is this mortality?, he wonders, his eyes wandering over Childe’s relaxed features, a faint smile covering his face. 

Is this what mortality will be like? Moments so precious like this — in all of his long life Zhongli cannot remember being soft. He’s always been as hard as stone, had to be, even with peace among the land, he has been hardened and formed by centuries of war and slaughters. Softness was never a luxury Rex Lapis could afford — Ah, Zhongli stops himself, a faint smile on his face; but he no longer is Rex Lapis. The burden of his Gnosis, the burden of his name, the burden of the divine; it was all lifted off his heavy shoulders. It finally feels like he’s able to breathe. 

And now, with Rex Lapis deceased and bygone, will he, Zhongli, be able to afford the luxury of softness, of vulnerability? Maybe, he thinks to himself and eyes Childe.

“Your tea still warm?” Childe’s sleepy voice rips Zhongli softly out of his thoughts — the Fatui has one eye open, staring at him with sleep still smudged all over his face. 

“I’m afraid not”, Zhongli answers, his lips still carved up slightly enough for Childe to recognize his smile. 

He yawns and turns around, resting his head on his hands. His eyes are sharper now, more perceiving but his face is still made soft by sleep. “It’s late, Zhongli. You should go to sleep.” - “I find much more rest in watching you”, Zhongli replies and finally closes that book in his lap and puts it away — he’s lost his interest in it as soon as Childe fell asleep. 

“It’s a peaceful night”, Zhongli adds, his head making a slight movement towards the open window. The rain hasn’t stopped or decreased and Childe hums in acknowledgement, his everblue eyes throwing a quick glance outside — the orange light of the lanterns is almost magical in the wet night, clashing against the dark, warm and yet cold at once, a paradox that cannot be explained — just like either of them, Zhongli and Childe, in their own ways, and without so much as having to look at each other, they know that they’re both thinking the same thing. 

Childe leans upwards, his hands running over Zhongli’s arm like a faint whisper. “I don’t know for how much longer the Tsaritsa will let me stay”, he whispers against the rain. Childe’s voice is tainted. 

The night is peaceful until Childe decides that it isn’t.

Zhongli’s eye twitches but the rest of this face remains as neutral as he can manage. It’s the rain, Zhongli thinks, the rain does something to people, especially at night. It has a way of washing away facades and lies and oftentimes brings out confessions between people … — lovers. 

Zhongli tilts his head — in all his long, long life he’s never met quite a challenge like Childe — everything about him is surreal; his decisions impulsive and his emotions reckless in a way that it moves something deep within Zhongli — he can’t quite grasp it, he can’t quite comprehend it. It must be love, Zhongli thinks to himself. It must be the kind of love only a god can give.

 “What about you?” Zhongli asks, looming over Childe like a dark shadow, eyes narrowed. 

Within Childe, something seems to crack — his features derail and he looks away, as if ashamed, and suddenly he’s much smaller. 

“I wish I could stay”, he whispers so quietly, Zhongli almost mistakes his voice for the rain. 

“You can”, Zhongli replies simply. There is a certain warmth in the Archon’s voice, a certain tone that rings right through Childe and punches a dagger in his heart. 

Childe looks up to him, eyes wide open, cheeks flustered and his mouth slightly agape. 

“And if you cannot, well… I can follow you to Shneznaya. I am no longer bound to Liyue”, Zhongli stops for a second and smiles again. “Home is wherever I am with you.” 

Childe just stares back at him — the Harbinger looks so vulnerable in this moment, so fragile, Zhongli is sure he could break him with less than his fingers. He could swear that Childe’s eyes swill up with tears but the Harbinger blinks away quickly. 

“I have nothing to offer you”, Childe suddenly breathes, his fingers wrapping tightly around Zhongli’s wrists. 

Zhongli is quiet for a moment, processing what Childe just said before he chuckles low. Really, Childe is one of a kind but Zhongli knows a thing or two about patience. 

“I have been worshipped, Ajax”, Zhongli starts and Childe’s eyes open wider as if he’d only now realize who Zhongli is and what power he holds, still, even without his Gnosis. 

“I have been worshipped in blood and sacrifices and many more things worse. I have slaughtered and taken. I have led and protected.  I built Liyue and watched over it for thousands of years. The people have given me everything over these millennia and there is nothing I want except you.” 

His hands slowly cup Childe’s cheeks, his thumbs pressing into the soft skin underneath the Fatui’s eyes. 

“You never will have to offer anything to me. Quite on the contrary, I offer myself to you.”

Childe inhales sharply. 

“Will you accept the devotion of an old man like me?”, Zhongli doesn't smile but Childe recognizes a faint glow in the Archon’s eyes that gives his amusement away anyway.

“I desire nothing else but the gift of your love”, Zhongli adds, and he leans toward to press a gentle kiss against the corner of Childe’s mouth. He can feel Childe’s heart skip a beat, his breath shuddering in his throat. 

Childe groans, his fingers pressing hard into Zhongli’s skin; like he would float away if he didn’t hold on tight enough; or like Zhongli would slip away from him.

“You will be the end of me”, Childe whispers. “You’re killing me.” 

Zhongli’s eyes light up on that, like the eyes of Morax, clear and sharp Amber. Yet another reminder for Childe to not forget who Zhongli is — or was. 

“Do not think about the Tsaritsa now. Instead, think about me and what I can do — Gnosis or not.” And after six millennia of being a god, there is a command in Zhongli’s voice which is undeniable and, more importantly, not negotiable with. His words have been the law for a very long time and who is Childe to disobey the God of Justice, the God of War? 

Childe swallows and all he can do is nod. 

Deep within himself, underneath layers and layers of lies and betrayal, Childe knows, he knows, that if Zhongli called, he would answer. His devotion to the Tsaritsa started to thin in the very moment Zhongli gave his Gnosis up — without a fight he handed it to Signora, freely, and he seemed almost relieved to be rid of it. Childe knows this in the very abyss of his soul; and so does Zhongli. 

“Will you still require blood and slaughter?”, Childe asks, half joking, half serious. “I can give you both.” 

Zhongli snorts which catches Childe so off guard that his jaw drops — he never heard Zhongli making such a sound.

“The times of war and battle have long passed. I am no longer an Archon. I am no longer the god that I needed to be. I may not be as mortal as you are, my love, but mortal enough.” Zhongli turns to look outside, the rain still heavy, still falling. 

“In all this time of being alive I never felt so alive.” 

His gaze flatters back to Childe but he remains silent then. Childe’s heart pounds so fast and so loud that he’s sure Zhongli can hear it. His blood rushes through his veins like a wildfire and ignites something beyond passion and desire.

Childe closes his eyes and lets his head bump against Zhongli’s shoulder. 

“You’re right”, he says then, finally giving in,  his lips trailing over Zhongli’s skin. “It’s a peaceful night.”

Zhongli finds himself leaning into the touch, into the warmth, and he hums. He presses a kiss on Childe’s forehead. 

“It surely is. And we have many more ahead of us.”

[landprince]

Her eyes burned and brimmed with tears but she had long since given up her pitiful wails for help. How long had she been walking now? Hours? 

The forest was dark and deep, and she was hopelessly lost amongst it’s heavy moonless boughs. Her legs ached from both all the walking and the myriad of brambles, bushes, rocks and other things that had bruised her over the course of the night. 

If she ever made it home, her legs would be a mess for many days to come. 

Naminé sniffled, her hand reaching up to smear away tears that had started to drip down her cheeks. She wiped her hands against the front of her dress, now tattered and stained with dirt and grass. She coughed on a sob that had started to make its way out. 

This was all the seven year old could do now: walk, cry, and hope she managed to stumble her way back home. 

She couldn’t even create a fire, or signal her mother somehow, the innate magic ability she possessed as a witch hadn’t bloomed yet and she was impotent in caring for herself at that moment. She was just like any other child lost in the woods.

A wrong turn at a berry bush had led to the child wandering in circles for hours, screaming out for her mother before her pleas turned to anyone who would be able to hear her. But no one came to rescue her before the night’s descent. 

Nearby, a branch suddenly snapped, making the young girl freeze in her tracks, blood running cold as her heart began to beat quicker inside her chest. Her breathing even stopped as she strained her ears, listening out for any danger that might be approaching. 

Not everything was friendly in the forest. She knew that. Her mother always told her this and trusted Naminé to remember this vital knowledge. 

An owl cooed from nearby and her tiny body began to tremble with all encompassing fear. Tears ran even quicker down her face as she listened. The quiet did nothing to alleviate the terror that had sunk into her bones. 

Her eyes, while not created to see in the dark, had at least become accustomed enough to make out vague shapes and the outlines of trees. Nearby an old oak stood, tall and strong and proud, with a crevice carved out at the base from either time or an animal. It was a perfect hiding spot until the sun rose enough to make it safe to traverse the forest again.

Taking a chance at movement, Naminé slunk ever so slowly over towards the tree before nestling in the almost too-small hollow. Her legs were drawn up close to her body, her forehead resting against her knees and her arms wrapped tightly around herself as she allowed herself to softly cry in the dirt. 

She didn’t know how long she sat there in the cold, but eventually her tears dried up and her whimpers tapered off into silence. She was so tired. Her eyes slid shut, the trembling starting to subside as sleep tried to coax her into its gentle embrace. 

“If you fall asleep, you’ll die from the cold,” a voice said, startling her out of her drowsy state. 

“W-who’s there?!” Naminé called out. 

She was terrified of another person at that moment. She was grateful for another person at that moment. The two feelings fought, neither able to overpower the other, so the child just trembled in the hollow of a tree and looked around frantically for the source of speech. 

“I could be a friend, maybe,” the voice replied. “Would you like me to take you home?”

“I don’t know.” She sniffled, wiping at her face before peeking out of the shelter she found, desperate to see who was talking to her. The dark was all she could see. “Who are you?” 

Indulgent laughter echoed, as whispery and light as a breeze. It was nice to hear, Naminé decided, and she relaxed ever so slightly. Maybe this person could lead her home safely.

“Little witch, I ask again: would you like me to take you home?” 

The relaxation that had quickly started to blanket her ended at that moment. How did this person know what she was? 

“You called me, that’s how I know,” the voice explained without prompting. “You reached out to me, not with your voice, but with a power you haven’t found yet. You’re so young, barely a witchling, yet your voice was so loud. You needed me.” 

“What do you want?” Naminé asked, now uncertain of the owner of the voice. While witches were no longer reviled by most people, it was still sometimes dangerous to announce yourself as such. People could still hurt you, her mother always warned her. 

Be careful, my love, her mother would tell her, hands cupping her cheeks ever so gently. Her mother would wash her in her ever present scent of herbs and poultices she constantly worked on. The world may seek to use you, be crafty and cunning and always be wary of another’s intentions. 

“I want a life,” the voice replied. “I would be content to spend a lifetime with you, able to see and feel and explore through your eyes and body. I am not bound by mortal existence, merely floating in the void until I’m able to form a pact with someone. I choose you as my new master.” 

“You’re a demon,” Naminé hissed out. Her mother told her demons couldn’t be trusted, the way they hid meanings and left out things to better their own agenda meant they were fickle things. “I refuse to give you my soul or body. Leave me alone.” 

“I am no demon, I just simply am,” came the cryptic response. The child didn’t understand the riddles and way the creature spoke. It was messy and confusing. She just wanted to go home. 

“I aim not to possess you, child, but share your existence until the end. I’ll take you home if you give me this, and in return I’ll be your familiar, obedient to a fault. I can let you see my memories, my thoughts and intentions, only after we completely out pact.” 

Naminé thought about it all. Everything it said could be a lie, a trick, but she was so tired and cold and hopelessly lost in the dark recesses of the forest. 

If this thing promised to protect her, promised to swear fealty to her and listen to whatever she commanded, would it really be all that bad? Her fingers dug into the soft earth below her as she weighed the heavy options. 

She’s barely seven, all her milk teeth weren’t even gone, and a creature was enticing her into sharing her body and soul. Getting lost in the woods was almost laughable compared to the choice she now had to make. It was hard, and she was scared of either answer. 

“Make a choice, witch. I have not long in this realm before I have to go,” the voice urged her. 

“Promise me,” Naminé demanded, pleaded. “Promise me that you’re not a demon.” 

“I swear, child. I am no demon looking for a soul to consume.” 

“Then I accept.” The words were heavy, like a weight had been placed inside her. “You’ll be my familiar, I’ll share my life with you. I’ll make a pact with you, creature.” 

“Xion,” the voice said. “You can call me Xion.” 

“Xion…” Naminé tested the name, felt each letter thoroughly on her tongue. “Take me home. I want to go home. I miss my mom.” 

A bright light suddenly engulfed her right hand, and when she was finally able to see again after the flash, a ring was on her index finger, silver, slender and arrayed with amethyst gems. The ring was beautiful, warm and felt like it had a heartbeat that thudded in time with her own.

The voice was softer the next time she heard it, almost as if it was speaking in the very back of her skull. This time the voice was soothing, comforting. “I’m yours to command. The pact is made, we are bound together.” 

Naminé sniffled, suddenly overwhelmed by these foreign feelings of thankfulness, excitement, of absolute trust and the deep need to help. Frustration at these new emotions quickly overpowered her and she was nearly overbalanced by how crowded she suddenly felt. “Xion, are these your feelings?” 

“Once you’re older, once we practice, we’ll be better able to keep our emotions separate. But now we share the same space, the same body, we’re tangled in many ways and that includes emotionally. For a while we may be overwhelmed with each other. In time it will be easier.” 

Her brows furrowed as she tried to understand what her familiar was saying. “Okay, I guess that makes sense.” 

That laughter again, and her ring seemed to thrum against her finger. “Basically: we’ll get used to each other. For now, let me take you home.” 

The world passed by in a blur and suddenly she was on the steps to her house. Her stomach lurched and she stumbled slightly from the vertigo that suddenly engulfed her as the world still seemed to spin on its axis wildly out of control. Even her eyes seemed to roll around as she struggled to remain upright on the stone steps. 

But she was home, even if it was shifting ever so slightly. 

“Can I tell my mom about you?” Naminé asked as the world started to cease it’s twirling and grasped the handle to the door. 

“You can tell her whatever you like.” 

“Okay. Thank you for taking me home.” 

The joy that surged through her was nice, she decided as she opened the door. 

[nalgenewhore]

sharpen your knife 

rowan x lorcan, take me to church song fic, word count: 4266

TW: homophobia, blood, knives, death, angst 

Soft fingertips trace over the fading ink, a giddy feeling growing in Rowan’s chest. He pores over the letter, countless others spread across his bed.

His lover’s handwriting is messy and scrawled, practically illegible, but Rowan reads it just fine. He’s had his bag packed since the first time Lorcan uttered the thought. Ever since they thought about running away and leaving this cold little town in their dust. 

They plan to leave during the night, slipping off into the shadows so no one sees where they go. 

Rowan looks out his window, scrambling to gather every precious letter up and putting them back in the carved box his gentle mother left for him. One slips off the pile and floats to the wooden floors of the bedroom in his father’s house. 

Rowan carefully puts the others away and leans off the edge of his bed, picking it up. It’s one of the letters they exchanged for months, two different styles of script marking every last millimetre of the rough paper. 

He smiles softly, reading the conversation. At one point, he jokingly wrote they would never go to heaven and Lorcan wrote back, The only heaven I’ll be sent to is when I’m alone with you. 

So dramatic, his love. 

Heavy boots stomp up the stairs and Rowan slams the box shut, shoving it beneath his bed just before his bedroom door is shoved open. His father stands on the other side, already looking at Rowan with a disapproving glare. “Son, you’ll be late for temple.” 

“Oh, sorry, I just–” 

“What will they think if their priest’s own son can’t even care enough to be on time? It's embarrassing.” 

Rowan flushes unwillingly under the critique, feeling himself shrink slightly. He dreads every interaction with his father. “I’m sorry. I was out late with Aelin, she needed help with her store.” His father likes Aelin. Aelin is much better at hiding her sins, at hiding her heart and the fact that it lies cradled in the iron-tipped hands of their town’s healer.

Approval flashes across his father’s mud brown eyes. Rowan inherited his mother’s green colouring, yet another thing for his father to resent him for. “Just get ready.” 

Without another word, Rowan’s father turns on his heel and walks back down. The front door opens and then slams shut, making Rowan flinch as he picks up a clean white shirt and his brown slacks. 

He hurries out after getting dressed, not noticing the one letter he didn’t put away, the most intimate of all.

+*+*+*+*+*+*

The pew is uncomfortable. Rowan stifles the urge to shift as he listens to his father’s sermon, trying to keep his eyes open. He turns with everyone else when the temple doors open and in steps a dark figure, his face bordering on bored. 

Eyes, black enough to make his pupils indiscernible from his obsidian irises, slide to Rowan’s and affection flickers through them as Lorcan takes his seat. All things considered, Lorcan is relatively early for his schedule. 

Rowan turns back to his father, recalling the time Lorcan entered five minutes before the end and how his father’s craggy face mottled with purpling rage. Later that night, when he had snuck over to Lorcan’s house, they had laughed themselves hoarse. 

Soon and yet far too long, his father dismisses the congregation. Rowan tells him Aelin needs his assistance yet again. His father frowns but nods, “Fine.” 

Triumph sparks in his veins and somehow, Rowan manages to shove his emotions down. He leaves the temple, not bothering to check over his shoulder when he goes straight instead of left to the town square. 

He breaks into a sprint when he sees Lorcan leaning against a tree, his smile unbridled and free. He crashes into Lorcan, making the dark haired man take a step back to avoid tipping over. “I missed you.” His hands curl into Lorcan’s hair. Rowan wishes Lorcan would come more often, just so they interact in public without being suspicious, but his love can’t do it. 

They were born sick and are fed a fresh batch of poison each week, the cure determined to rot their pure souls, but it doesn’t work. It could never work. 

“I missed you too,” Lorcan whispers. He puts Rowan down on his feet and smiles at him, “C’mon, I bought something for you.” 

“Is it a surprise?” Rowan asks as he laces his fingers with Lorcan’s, letting himself be guided down the path to Lorcan’s one-room cabin. 

“Yes.” 

He bites his lip as he smiles, draping his arms around Lorcan’s shoulders as he opens his door, “Won’t you tell me?” 

“No, I shan’t,” Lorcan says, turning in Rowan’s arms to grip his hips.  

“But I would like for you to tell me.” Rowan pouts, lazily sliding his fingers into Lorcan’s hair once again.

Lorcan laughs, “Go sit down, I’ll tell you.” He pushes Rowan to his bed, which is tucked in the corner under the window. 

Rowan goes, sitting expectantly on the comfortable mattress. He looks around, smiling again at the sight of Lorcan’s bag packed by the door. “You’re all ready, then?” 

Turning, Lorcan nods, a glimmer of anticipation glowing in his eyes. “And you?” 

“I’ve been ready for eons,” Rowan says quietly, but not shyly. 

“Me too,” Lorcan whispers, digging a brown paper package, tied neatly with string, out of his kitchen cabinet. “This- it’s for you.” He crosses over to the bed and sits down, one leg folded on the mattress and the other hanging off the side. Lorcan rubs the back of his neck, his cheeks reddening, as he hands it to Rowan. “You- can open it, or whatever. I just-” 

The silver haired man kisses him softly to shut him up, smiling gently, “Thank you, my love.” He sits back, excitedly tearing through the paper to uncover the unblemished face of a brand new book. 

His eyes shine as he runs his fingers over the finely made book, not like the ragged copies Rowan has practically read to pieces. The title is embossed and golden, reading The Iliad. “Lorcan,” he breathes, looking up with wet eyes, “this- you- how did you pay for this? You shouldn’t have.” 

Lorcan shrugs, picking at the worn hem of his heavy pants - perfect for the menial tasks he performs around town. “I saved up. I just wanted you to have something that reminded you of home. Of Aelin.” Aelin runs the bookstore in town and stocks classics just for Rowan. 

“It’s perfect,” Rowan says, hugging it to his chest. “I love it. I love you.” 

“And I love you,” Lorcan replies, pulling Rowan close to kiss him. His lips are soft and warm against Rowan’s, his tongue gently prying Rowan’s mouth open to tangle with his. “Are you sure?” About leaving. About leaving and never coming back, never even looking back. 

Rowan doesn’t reply and instead puts his new book and the wrapping paper to the side. He pushes Lorcan down on his back and lets his kisses be his answer. 

Yes, a thousand, a million times yes.

After, later, when night has fallen and Rowan knows he should go home before his father grows suspicious, they lie together. 

Rowan is sprawled across Lorcan’s chest, his nose pressed into the curve of Lorcan’s neck. Lorcan’s fingers slowly drag up and down his spine, the movement soothing and grounding as their pleasure fades. 

“Are you sleeping here,” Lorcan murmurs, burying his face in Rowan’s silvery-blond curls. He can… handle one more night, one more lonely night. 

They have the rest of their lives. 

Rowan groans, dreading moving from their little world, “I shouldn’t.” He moves, but only to look down at his lover, “Are we wrong? Is our love… wrong?” 

Lorcan shakes his head, cupping the side of Rowan’s neck to stroke his thumb over Rowan’s jaw, “There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin.” 

“You’re so dramatic,” Rowan mutters, rolling his eyes in jest. Then, he settles back down, his eyes drooping shut. 

All that is heard is the slow, even breathing of two beings completely and utterly comfortable together. In their own world, which they carved out for themselves - just for them. 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

The sun is barely up when Rowan wakes. He is still laying across Lorcan, his lover dead to the world beneath him. 

Lorcan’s leg hangs off the edge of the mattress, his other slotted between Rowan’s. One hand is tucked behind his head and he cradles Rowan to him with his other arm. His plush lips are parted, the disarrayed strands of hair shielding his face shifting with every even exhale. 

He needs to leave, before the village wakes up. 

But he can’t leave. He can’t leave. 

So Rowan puts his head back down and sleeps just a little while longer. 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

It’s Lorcan who wakes him up the second time, “Ro, shit, Ro, you have to go.” 

“Mm-hmm, yeah,” he mumbles, stumbling to his feet. Lorcan tosses his clothes at him. Rowan just barely catches them and manages to pull them on, still half asleep. He yawns and slaps his cheek a couple times. 

Lorcan chuckles softly, “Go, go home. Meet me here at nightfall, ok? And we’ll leave.” 

Rowan nods, leaning down one last time to kiss him, “I’ll be back. Be… quiet today. Lie low.” 

Lorcan’s laughter is raspy, “I promise.” 

“I love you.” 

His dark eyes are soft and open, reflecting too much as he softly murmurs, “I love you.” 

It takes one last kiss for Lorcan to physically push Rowan away, banishing him from his house. Rowan glances back once before he closes the door, smiling at the way Lorcan turns onto his stomach and hugs his pillow. 

He meanders back to town, taking his sweet time as he cracks open his new book and reads as he walks. 

Rowan gets to a fork in the path. If he goes left, he’ll go home, but if he goes right, he can go see Aelin. 

He chooses right. 

Rowan flips through the pages, eyes catching on black ink that marks the page after the title. 

It’s a rough sketch of him, depicted as a deity. Before him, there is a kneeling man, dark hair spilling over his shoulders and back. It half hides the tattoos he knows so well. Beneath it, Lorcan penned a short sonnet, only two lines.

If I’m a pagan of the good times, my lover’s the sunlight 

To keep the god on my side, he demands a sacrifice.

His breath hitches in his throat and Rowan swiftly shuts the tome as he enters the square, making a bee line to Aelin’s store. Despite the early time, she’s already opened and is even waiting outside. 

The minute she spots him, walking with purpose, tears line her eyes and she runs to him, “Ro, where is Lorcan?” 

“...at home. I just left him, he’s sleeping,” Rowan says in a hushed voice. “What’s wrong?” 

Aelin shakes her head, fearfully looking around them, “Someone figured it out. They- I heard them last night, in the pub. They talked about catching you two, you need to go home, now, Rowan.” 

Terror sharpens his senses as Rowan turns, his book falling from his hands as he breaks into a sprint, racing for his father’s house. Maybe he can stop them, maybe he can save Lorcan. 

The house looks like a storm swept through it. Furniture is upturned, plates and bowls shattered against the floor. Rowan hears clattering upstairs, gasping involuntarily when something is thrown down the stairs. 

Swallowing his panic, Rowan carefully walks up the stairs, dodging a forgotten tea cup hurled towards him. 

His things, they’re ruined, tossed around carelessly. The bag he packed lays empty, his clothes and most precious books in a heap on the floor. Rowan peeks into his room, seeing his father sitting on his bed with a letter in one hand, the locked box in the other. “Father–”

“Don’t you fucking say a word, boy,” his father snarls. “I saw you. Running to his house after temple. Open this gods-damned box, right now!” 

He flinches at the volume, at the anger in his father’s voice. Shaking his head, Rowan steps back, “No. It’s none of your concern.” 

“None of my concern?” His father stands up, his hands shaking in rage as he prowls closer to Rowan. He corners Rowan against the wall, his face centimetres from Rowan’s. “You’ve been fucking that disgusting heathen! He corrupted you!” 

Spittle flies out, landing on Rowan’s face. “I love him.” 

He’s never seen his father so angry. His father hurls the box on the floor, the fragile wood shattering. Letters upon letters spill out. “Boy, you are a gods-damned embarrassment. You are disgusting. Why would you do this to me?” 

“I’m not doing it to you! I love him, I am in love with Lor–” pain flares across his face when his father backhands him. 

“Don’t speak his name,” he hisses, eyes livid. “Don’t you dare mention that sinner’s name in my house, boy!” His hand fists around the letter, crumpling it up into a ball. 

Rowan holds a hand to his cheek, tears forming in his eyes, but it’s not from the slap. He is not a sinner, he is not disgusting. His father sees the defiance in his green eyes, sees that this will not break Rowan. 

He pulls something out of his pocket - a matchbook. He flicks his eyes to the letters on the floor and moves like a shadow, shoving Rowan hard enough that he falls to his ass when he grabs his arm to stop him. 

“Please, don’t touch them, please,” Rowan begs, crying as he watches his father light the match and drop it. The flame doesn’t catch, but when his father curses and tries again, Rowan sobs, “No, stop, please, father–” he is sent reeling when his father slaps him once again. 

“You are not my son.” The dark figure looms above him and grabs his throat, squeezing as he drags Rowan to his feet. “You. Are. Not. My. Son.” 

Rowan claws at the hand, gasping for air. “L-let… me go.” He is shoved into the wall, his head knocking so hard that the painting of his mother rattles. In his unsteady state, Rowan is powerless when his father grips the back of his neck and forces him down the stairs in a hunched position. 

He is dragged through the town, onlookers silent to his humiliation. He hears one cry, looking to the side to see Manon holding Aelin back. Tears pour down his cheeks as he’s pushed and his knees bark in pain when they make contact with the stones of the square. 

Someone yanks his head back, pulling at his hair. Lorcan is a mere three metres away from him, his hands bound to posts, his shirt stained and torn where it lays on the ground. Someone stands with a bloodied whip behind him, red liquid dripping from the braided leather. 

His head is bowed, his shoulders hunched. Rowan screams, maybe Lorcan’s name, and his dark haired love looks up, something in his expression breaking. One of his eyes is nearly swollen shut, his nose bloodied and cracked, his lip split and bleeding.

“Ro,” he groans, “Rowan, no, don’t… don’t touch him, please. Don’t touch him.” Lorcan shakes his head slowly. “I’ll do whatever you want, please, just don’t touch him.”

“This is what you get,” hisses an evil voice in Rowan’s ear. “This is what happens to people like him, boy.” Rowan turns his head away when the man standing behind Lorcan raises his arm, but his head is wrenched back, “Open your eyes.” 

A broken sob rips from him, tearing his throat as the whip cracks across Lorcan’s back. Lorcan cries out, arching against the restraints. But he looks at Rowan, his own tears cutting through the mess on his face. I’m sorry. Lorcan’s spine curves, he groans in pain when he’s lashed again. I love you.

Rowan breaks, sharply head butting his father behind him and staggering to his feet. He regains his balance quickly enough, the dizziness secondary as he runs to Lorcan. 

He crashes to his knees again, so close to touching him when he’s pulled back again. “No,” Rowan screams, fighting against the hands that hold him, “Lorcan, no!” 

“Quiet, quiet or I’ll gut him. I’ll make you kill him.” 

Rowan sobs again, shaking his head as he’s dragged back but still, he reaches for Lorcan. He’s tossed to the side like a rag doll, hitting the ground like a sack of hammers. Gods, he can hardly move, but he needs to. 

He groans while he tries to stand. His legs are too weak so he tries to crawl, rocks cutting into his palms. Slowly, painfully, Rowan drags himself closer and closer. His father is busy spewing scripture to the onlookers and praising the whipper. 

“Lorcan,” Rowan whispers, his voice cracking, “my love, please, look at me.” 

Lorcan lifts his head. When Rowan brushes his hair back, Lorcan rests his forehead on Rowan’s, breathing heavily, “I love you, Rowan. You are my god and I love you.” 

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” Rowan weeps, gently cupping Lorcan’s face and kissing him once. Someone tries to rip him away, but Rowan holds on tighter, refusing to let go, kisses him again. “We’re leaving, ok, this is a dream, it’s not real, it’s not real, love.” 

The hands on him are squeezing tight enough for him to whimper and finally, they drag him away. Rowan yells, “It’s not real! Lorcan, this is a dream, please.” He’s dumped on the cobblestones, but before he can move, someone holds him back, someone with soft and gentle hands. 

Aelin hugs him, fisting her hands in his shirt, “Ro, please, stop, they’ll kill you, stop fighting.” She rocks him like a babe, whispering meaningless words as he bawls, hot tears blurring his vision. He looks to Lorcan, watches as his father yanks his head back and holds a sharp dagger in his hand. 

Rowan screams again, too weak to fight against Aelin anymore. Her own tears drip into his hair as they watch, unable to look anywhere else. 

Lorcan looks at Rowan, giving him that soft, loving look he only ever gives Rowan. “I love you,” he says, gritting his teeth against the sharp pain of his hair being pulled. “Say it back, say it back to me.” 

His voice is cracking and fear shines in his eyes, “Please, Ro, say it back.” 

“I love you,” Rowan shouts, trying to push Aelin away as his father cuts the ropes binding Lorcan’s hands. Lorcan collapses, just barely managing to catch himself before he falls on his face. Rowan looks to his father, “Don’t touch him.” 

He can’t do anything, not when his father pulls Lorcan back up, “I told you, boy, this is what you get when you stray. The gods will punish you, for listening to him. He is of the dark lord, what did you expect?” 

Rowan shakes his head, watching with wide eyes as his father lowers the blade to Lorcan’s exposed neck, right over his pulse. “Please, please, leave him alone. I’ll do whatever you want, please–”

“It’s too late for begging,” his father sneers, snapping Lorcan’s head back. “Any last words?” 

Lorcan’s eyes don’t shift from Rowan as he says, “I love you.” Rowan sees that Lorcan’s accepted his fate and wants to rage, he wants to riot. He wants to curl himself around Lorcan so that he can never be hurt. 

Time comes to a standstill as Rowan sees his father’s arm move, holding the blade up high. He thrashes, throwing Aelin’s hold off as he dives forward. Lorcan reaches for him, yet even still, he’s too late. 

Just as Rowan’s fingertips brush against Lorcan’s collarbone, the tip of the blade pokes through Lorcan’s chest. Lorcan roars, falling as the blade sinks into his body over and over in a bloodthirsty frenzy.

Rowan’s father releases his hold on Lorcan’s hair, letting him drop into Rowan’s arms. Blood drips from the dagger and Rowan swears he can hear every droplet hit the stones. He isn’t in his body anymore. 

He watches from afar, watching himself cry hysterically, his hands pressing against Lorcan’s countless wounds.

Lorcan’s blood spills over Rowan’s fingers and Lorcan chokes on it, coughing onto Rowan’s white shirt. In a flash, Rowan crashes back into his body, wracked with sobs. “Lorcan, don’t leave me. Open your eyes, please, open your gods-damned eyes!” 

His dark lashes flutter as he opens his eyes, his skin paling. His lips move, trying to say something, but he coughs again, blood dripping down his chin. Rowan shakes his head, his heart cracking, “Don’t- don’t talk, love.” He lowers his head, pressing his forehead against Lorcan’s, “We’re gonna wake up and we’re gonna leave, yeah? We’ll be-” he chokes, crying softly, “we’ll be happy, my love. We’ll be so happy.” 

Lorcan smiles softly, his hand weakly grasping Rowan’s. “I should’ve-” his words are strangled and he swallows once, his breathing laboured. 

“Lor, please, don’t talk, it’s ok–” 

Lorcan channels every last dreg of strength to grip Rowan’s hand, his blood making their fingers slippery, “I should’ve… wor- worshipped you…” he breathes in a shallow breath, his lungs giving up, “sooner.” 

His eyes fall shut and they don’t open again. “No, no, nonononono,” Rowan breathes, his eyes searching for any sign of life. “Lorcan, wake up. Wake up, please, please.” Lorcan’s body grows limp, his hand slipping from Rowan’s. He cries, sobbing, and shakes Lorcan. “Wake up, look at me.” 

He looks up, begging anyone to help. They all stare silently at him, their faces blank. Rowan sobs, gathering Lorcan’s lifeless body up in his arms. He rocks back and forth, his brow pressed against Lorcan’s shoulder. It’s still warm. “Come back to me, come home to me,” he prays, tears streaming incessantly down his cheeks. 

Rowan lifts his head, begging Lorcan to breathe, for him to open his eyes. But Lorcan remains still and Rowan’s tears fall onto his cheeks. It looks like Lorcan is crying for Rowan’s tragedy. 

“Wake up,” he whispers, whispering it over and over. He whispers it when the villagers go about their days, still kneeling on the ground. He whispers it as he sways to and fro, whispering it until his voice is hoarse and night falls. 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

An old man lives in the village, down a dirt path behind the temple, in a small cabin. 

He never comes to town, instead sustaining himself by the garden and livestock he raises. Every week, the elderly bookkeeper goes to visit him, bringing him a new book. 

He never bothers anyone and in turn, they keep their distance. He has silver hair, but some say it’s always been that way. His eyes are green, vibrant enough for the youngins to see when they spy on him through the trees. 

Every morning, he makes two cups of tea and two plates of food. He walks to a patch of land beneath his house. It’s decorated with an abundance of flowers, ones he cares for lovingly.

He sets down the cups and plates, a thick stack of papers tucked next to the two books he carries - one that is always, always the same. 

He sits down even though every morning it becomes more of a challenge to stand up again. When he speaks, he doesn’t speak either the common or Old Language. It’s one none of the children have heard before and when they ask their parents, they’re told to leave the poor man be. 

One brave child, the bravest of all, once asked the bookkeeper. She gave them a conspiratorial wink and whispered of a land leagues away, made up of small, broken pieces of land in the cold and unforgiving sea of the north. 

She doesn’t tell the children the old man senses them as they watch him. It amuses him and he talks about it to the flower patch as he reads, mentioning it casually. They never see or hear anyone respond, but he laughs and chats, as if in real conversation. 

When he finally goes back inside at the end of the day, they spy through his window to see him writing letters that he never sends. 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

The grass rustles with a gentle breeze. Rowan breathes in deeply, shuffling down the path he’s worn over the past half a century. So long to be without his love. He’s sensed the end coming for a while now. A gentle premonition that settled over him. 

Manon confirmed it, her eyes glowing with a soft joy. Not out of a cruel amusement, but out of love, that his pain would soon be forgot as he is returned to his heart, the one he buried what seems like a lifetime agony

He doesn’t bring tea or breakfast today. “If you’re angry about that,” he mutters as he lowers himself to the ground, “you can yell at me later.” 

The Iliad is cracked and weathered now and as always, Rowan flips through to the drawing Lorcan left for him, his shaky hands tracing the words until they come into focus. His eyesight isn’t quite what it used to be. 

“You always were a dramatic bastard,” he whispers fondly in Lorcan’s mother tongue. Rowan remembers the patience with which Lorcan had as he taught Rowan. 

With a soft sigh, Rowan looks up, looking at the grave, “Well. What shall we read today, my love?” 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

an: ........well. that happened. 

@mythicaitt @ladyverena @keshavomit @empress-ofbloodshed @ladywitchling @darklesmylove @shyvioletcat @the-regal-warrior @theoverlyenthusiasticwriter @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln @thewayshedreamed

[oc-and-art-review-reblog]

name: wildheart specise: fire element draco-morphiad (explained below) pronouns: she/her

specise info: draco-morphiads are, basically, a specise of sexless magic cat furries. each one of them controls one of twelve elements (although two of them are special); fire (fire elements are also able to control one type of igneous rock, differing depending on the individual), water, earth, air, plant, plague, void (this void being concentrated everythingness and named for its pitch black color, there may only be one void element at a time and only two have ever been recorded), quantum strings (this has been proven to be possible, but never recorded), gemstone, metal, sound and light. draco-morphiads have a unique internal anatomy, their body cavity is filled entirely with liquid magic. this magic contains their consiousness and, when needed, forms organs to keep the draco-morphiad alive. draco-morphiads also have whats known as elemental bits, an extra part of their body made from their element or regular body part modified by it. draco eye color is also generally dictated by their element. just a draco-morphiad generation (they live tens of thousands of years) ago, they had an expansive interdimensional (this takes place in a multiverse) empire. but for reasons now lost to time, it fell. the specise took heavy casualties, although it was nowhere close to extinction. theyre rarer now, and... scattered, to say the least. their natural ability to create interdimensional portals doesnt help that. given that draco-morphiads are sexless, their native language's pronouns were dependant on element, but wildheart was raised by a sexed specise tens of thousands of years after the near extinction of the language (plus draco-morphiads were invented to explain her so i think she should get to keep her pronouns).

apperance: wildheart has brown fur, which turns abruptly black (like, theres a straight, non-gradiant divide between the back and brown) at the waist, so approximately half of her is black and half is brown . she has blood red eyes. fire element eyes are usually orange, but this is explained. she has a pair of half-crescent obsidian wings coming out of her shoulderblades, each one flanked by three floating obsidian triangles. embedded in her chest is a peice of obsidian shaped like a broken heart, and her claws are obsidian as well. she has a couple notches in each ear and a scar over her eye.

story: wildheart is born on a remote planet in a remote universe. save for her and her littermate, their parents and their older sibling squirreltail. soon after the two's birth, their parents die of reasons. unprepared to take care of them, squirreltail opens two portals to random inhabited parts of the multiverse and sends them through, hoping each will be picked up by someone responsible and more able than him.wildheart ends up being adopted by a family of goatlike skeleton monsters, where she stays for the first 13 years of her life (draco-mophiads age like humans up until about their 20th birthday). during this time she becomes incredibly close with her adopted brother, [edit with name later, i forgot it]. shortly after her 13th birthday, wildheart discovered her ability to make portals. with their parents permission, she and her brother went out to explore the multiverse a little.on their little jaunt, the two encountered a creature totally alien to them, and wildheart dared her brother to go poke it with a stick. unfortunately, the creature turned out to be a bear-esque superpreadator and ripped wildheart's brother to shreds while she watched.wildheart opened a portal to nowhere in particular, landing her at a market in the interdimensional void (my imagining of the multiverse is, like space, mostly empty. universes take the shape of enormous white orbs with the texture of frosted lightbulbs. their glow is soft, yet can be seen from light centuries away). scared to go back home, she wandered.and wildheart never stopped wandering. she quickly exanded her scope to universe hopping, trying her best to repress the memories and emotions from her brother's death.during the next eleven years, wildheart developed a routine. explore and universe hop, break gear, plunder something ancient for rare stuff, sell it at the interdimensional market, get new gear, repeat. in ancient tombs and temples, wildheart saw one thing over and over again. carvings of things that looked like her, had the same powers as her. naturally, she assumed she was the last.on the eve of her 24th birthday, wildheart was traveling through the market, looking for something special to get herself. wherever she went, the vendors all talked about one thing. the nearby combat arena had a new champion, a catlike (cats are p much a multiversal constant) calling herself reaper. knowing wildheart, many suggested she challenge her.wildheart was confident in her abilities, both physical and magical, so she decided that a championship would be the perfect gift to herself.

she actually proved a pretty even match for reaper, but in the end the champion won. though wildheart's energy seemed boundless, reapers patience and tactical skill were ultimately able to exhaust her.

after the fight, the two met by chance somewhere in/around the market. they got to talking, reaper asking what wildheart does for a living. finding the prospect of universe-hopping more interesting than beating the shit out of people, reaper asked to join wildheart.

reaper was a tall (for a draco) draco-morphiad with black fur, white patterns outlining the shape of her skeleton (or what it would be if draco-morphiads had those). she wore a grey hoodie. her wings, skeletal things composed entirely of ice, marked her as a water element, though her eyes seemed to contradict that (although wildheart didnt really know that). instead of the slightly desaturated off-teal you would expect from a water element, reapers eyes were pich black with pupils colored a deep, beautiful blue.

anyway, after a few weeks of traveling the multiverse together, the two encountered something strange. a universe with no glow, just a dull grey orb.

portaling inside (and quickly leaving), the two found that the universe was empty. it had experienced a heat death, something totally unnatural in this setting.

wildheart and reaper agreed that they had to find and kill whoever did this.

idk how, exactly, they found him, but that person turned out to be a being calling himself entropy, the incarnation of the void, the nothingness that came before the multiverse. while he was monolouging about a pair of beings called 'chaos' and 'order',  wildheart and reaper tried to jump entropy. entropy did not like this. he used some sort of attack that sent the pair into a strange voidspace.

sat in this voidspace was a pair of beings. a scribbled dragon, with eyes of wildheart's blood red, and a hyperrealistic marble statue of a woman with a buzzcut in a dress, with gemstone eyes of reapers deep, beautiful blue. the two were enormous, the tip of the dragons talon bigger than wildheart's entire body. they were playing chess on a table of equal proportions.

"you're back early." remarked the dragon "did something happen?"

after a bit of confusion, it became understood that wildheart and reaper had no idea who these people were or where they were.

the two giants explained that they were chaos (the scribbled dragon) and order, demiurges of the multiverse.

many googols (a number with a hundred zeroes) of googols of eons ago, there was nothing. out of that nothing arose chaos, pure unbridled creation. but without filter, chaos could not create or take any definite form. and so, it (chaos is they/it) sat as a sort of existance soup for not even they know how long. until, at some point, order arose from the void. order was filter, what chaos needed to truly create. she (order is she/it) could not create by itself either, each dependant on the other to do something they instinctually longed for. order's form was also much different from her current day form, either a ball of quantum strings or a colorless cube of indeterminate material (i havent decided). so, the two came together and created. one of the first things the two created was a pair of souls, one blood red and the other a deep, beautiful blue. each one carved their true name into the corresponding soul in the first language, marking them as the incarnations of chaos and order.t hey were to be sent out into the multiverse together every once in a while, when the multiverse needed saving or just spicing up. of course the current incarnations were wildheart, incarnation of chaos and reaper, incarnation of order. they had been sent out this time for the purpose of killing entropy, whose trail of destruction included countless universes. but for reasons i dont know yet but were probably a mistake on chaos and orders part, they couldnt do it by themselves. they needed two more of their kind (chaos was vague about what 'their kind' was because i want it to be revealed in the narrative later). idk if its the two specific dracos they meet later or just any.

theyre currently in the place behind existance, chaos and order's personal voidspace.

chaos also reveals when talking to order that wildheart and reaper are siblings, before promptly sending them back out into the multiverse. entropy has long moved on, assuming he killed the two siblings.

the story isnt too well planned from here but

after some freaking out/contemplating/whatever over the fact that theyre siblings, wildheart and reaper continue on.

eventually, they encounter Six Of Spades, child of the last draco-morphiad monarch. saen (six of spades uses saen/trah pronouns, the traditional draco neutral/no-element pronouns) is a no-element, a semi-rare mutant with, you guessed it, no element. six of spades percives this as a fault of some sort, and overcompensates for it by playing up the ‘last heir to the draco-morphiad throne’ thing. Technically, saens cousin would have inherited the throne, but saen has no cousins saens aware of. six of spades would actually make a good monarch, if not for saens general neurosis and feeling of being (mostly) superior to those around trah.

six of spades watched saens parent die in front of saen to poachers, who wanted monarch eris (six of spades's parent)'s teeth. the teeth are the only part of a draco-morphiads pure magic core that doesnt simply dissipate after death. theyre an extremely potent source of magic, thus why draco-morphiads were killed for them shortly after the fall of the empire.

apperance wise, six of spades is an average sized (about 4 feet tall) grey draco-morphiad. saen has medium-grey fur down to saens waist, where its abruptly replaced by light grey scales. saen has ear fins like a dragon, and spikes going down saens back that may or may not start with the scales. six of spades has a lizard like tail and long, angular talons. save for color scheme (monarch eris was green), the spitting image of saens parent. six of spades also wears a worn gold crown and carries a worn gold staff with a magic gemstone orb, both posessions of monarch eris

wldheart and reaper convince six of spades to come with them.

eventually, they encounter a young (about 13 year old)

[eunsuri]

Stay

Pairing: Loki/Reader

Summary: A peaceful moment in which you allow Loki to explore your memories during your time apart. Second part to Fool.

Word Count: 1,853

Warnings: A little angst over the events of Svartalfheim and just a tiny bit of implied smut oops.

A/N: I couldn't get this idea out of my head so I just had to post a little second part to Fool. If you're feeling a little confused, I'm very sorry! I've always loved the idea of a power duo as a couple, and so I have created a full origin story for you, the reader, hence all the references to your home world. Also, “Ketani” means “My Heart” in your world. You can also read this on AO3 if you prefer :) 

The air was sultry and soothing in the King’s bathing chambers. The ambient noise of water dripping and rippling filled your ears, while clouds of steam floated from the heat below you, creating a light mist over the thick columns. Shelved along the walls were stunning floral arrangements which hung over and provided a pleasant, fresh scent. A small fire flickered and licked at the wood towards the end of the room, adding to the shine of the raven locks between your fingers. 

Upon your arrival to Asgard, you had not anticipated that you would find yourself in the King’s private bathing chambers, wearing only a sheer silk gown, with the King himself between your legs. 

Your feet were submerged in the hot and soapy bath water, while you rested on the edge with your knees on either side of Loki, as he relaxed in the heat. Using a beautifully carved brush, adorned with golden markings, you gently combed through his thick dark hair from behind. Meanwhile, his long fingers trailed over the bare skin of your legs, barely touching you as he traced small circles over and over.

“Your hair has gotten longer,” you commented softly, running the bristles along the strands above his temples.

He remained silent and gave a slight nod, eyes closed with slow breaths. You could see his long eyelashes shying behind his pronounced cheekbones. His face was serene, undoubtedly enjoying your soothing touch along with the warmth of the water. Although he was not often the most affectionate of lovers, the many long months of separation and his survived death had now brought him closer to you. 

Once the knots in his hair were smoothed, you placed the brush at your side and pressed your cheek to his temple, twining your arms around his neck lightly. He brushed his fingertips along your forearms, calming your senses as your eyelids also fluttered closed. Moments of peace were fleeting in your chaotic lives, so you relished in the sensation of surrendering your steeled walls, however, your mind swam with memories of Svartalfheim and the events which occurred. 

You felt your stomach knot and your chest constrict as you recalled the memory of being hauled away from Loki’s lifeless body. It felt as though you were hallucinating the moment you had seen him, alive, only hours prior to your current situation in the bathing chambers. The thought of opening your eyes and finding yourself elsewhere without him was terrifying, so you tightened your grip around him.

“Are you getting in?” Loki’s smooth voice snapped you from your contemplations and you loosened your hold.

He turned to face you, taking your hand in his own when you nodded and tugging you towards him. Before you could speak, you found yourself immersed in the hot water, your white and gold gown soaked through.

“You should’ve at least let me take this thing off,” you cringed at the strange feeling of your drenched dress and reached to remove it.

“You do look rather ravishing in it,” he brought you closer with a pull at your waist while he eyed the way it sheered out further, your assets visible as the silk clung to your skin.

With a shake of your head, you chuckled lightly and placed your hands over his bare chest. You chewed your lower lip as you grazed your fingers over the space you had witnessed being torn through, and your heart plummeted. There was a faint scar etched into his skin, and as relieved as you were that he had survived, the same frustration you had felt prior began to prod at your chest and up your throat. You had watched him die.

Your chin was then tilted up and his bewitching eyes searched yours, his brows furrowing together. “What has you so distracted?”

You curled your lips in, pressing into a line and studying his features intently. Every bit of his face was just as you remembered, from his high cheekbones and his sculpted jaw, to his pointed nose and soft lips. Most of all, his captivating and bright, yet deep eyes were your favourite. You always felt as though he could see into every hidden part of your soul with them. 

When Loki’s hand cradled your face, your shoulders dropped, muscles loosening instantly as you realised how tense you had been. He tilted forward and gingerly touched his forehead to your own. You knew precisely what he was about to do, and so your eyelids fluttered closed and granted access to the storm within your mind.

The two of you were launched into the memory of Svartalfheim, where you had witnessed your lover’s slaughter at the hands of the mutated Dark Elf. The vision of his body laid among the terrain in the barren wasteland and his greying face, along with your cries and the chill of horror you had felt, passed through to him. He felt the adrenaline which had pulsed through your veins and raging fire in your heart when you had seen Malekith on Earth. 

Next came the sorrow which consumed you over the past months and the grim thoughts that flooded you, as you stood at the tall Temple of your home world. Although vengeance had been taken, nothing had quelled the dull ache in your chest and the guilt of neglecting your duties to mourn. Unwilling to relive the chaos, your hand landed upon his as an indication to break the connection. 

Once your mind was free, your gaze found his face again, taking him in as you had when he’d revealed himself in the Throne Room. 

“I assure you, I’m not going to disappear,” he tucked a strand of your hair back. “And you will never have to endure that again.”

Nodding silently, you rubbed your thumb along the contours of his lips, before lifting yourself onto your toes to tenderly brush your own lips to his. He responded with a mild hunger, the hand at your jaw moving to the back of your head, where he drew you nearer. You felt your stomach stir and a tickle made its way up to your chest, your breath shaky as though it was the first time. You melted into his embrace, your body releasing every bit of tension it held, and your soul drowned willingly, succumbing to the comfort of his touch. 

“Stay,” his voice came in a low whisper through another kiss.

“Hm?” You eased away from his lips with a puzzled frown.

Loki licked his lips and sent a knowing gesture. He had sensed your guilt. “You feel obligated to return to your post, but you should be here.”

A sigh pushed away the cloud of steam near your face before you spoke. “The people need me, I must return.”

“You are one of many Guardians, I am certain they could spare you to me for a time,” he remarked as you freed yourself from his grasp.

“You forget that I was the one who found and returned the Eyirdin Star. They expect me to remain at the Temple,” you glared down at the bathwater, spinning tiny whirlpools with your finger.

“Ah, yes, the Champion of the Arsya,” he chuckled lightly and tilted your face up to analyse you. “Saviour of the people.”

“Please,” you scoffed at the title with an eye roll, dipping yourself into the water and floating to the opposite end, behind him. “I only did what I had to. I wasn’t going to let my family go down along with the apocalypse.” 

“Truly admirable, darling,” he swivelled around to face you, a smirk curved across his lips. “But, you must stay.”

“I took an oath, Loki. And what of Thor? I’m sure he will question what business I have spending time here with the Allfather so closely,” you added as you swept your fingers through your wet hair.

You noticed his jaw clench slightly for a moment as he muttered. “My brother will not be an issue. I assure you, I have measures in place to notify me should he return, although I doubt he wishes to leave the side of his beloved mortal.”

“Yes, Jane Foster, I am surprised to hear she still lives. Mortal bodies are rather fragile, I didn’t think that she would survive long after having absorbed the Aether,” you recalled and rested your back against the edge of the deep pool.

“Mortal lives are transient,” he agreed, stepping forward and caging you in with his hands against the wall of the bath. “But, you are diverting from the current matter at hand. You will stay.”

“Ketani,” you breathed as you brushed a thumb over his forehead to smooth away a loose strand of his dark locks. You had only called him that once before, but the twitch of his lips indicated that he understood. “There is nothing I’d love more than to spend eternity at your side, but they will call for my return soon. You are a King, you of all others should understand the responsibility of protecting your people.”

“And you are a Guardian, the burden does not fall upon your shoulders alone,” he insisted, watching you contemplate his words. 

Your world was finally at peace and the balance had been restored, but after the time you had spent apart, Asgard was the only place you wanted to be. Though the prospect of it was precarious, you pondered the response of the Council of Elders upon your request to remain in another land. Would the loss of one Guardian for a period truly compromise the safety of the Temple? They have no quarrel with Asgard, but handing over the ‘Champion’ could raise outrage among the Council... 

“Causing possible tension between our worlds might not be ideal. Asgard is safely prospering under your rule and I would not see that blemished. Your people love you,” sighing, you dropped your hand and tucked it into your elbow, folding your arms. “But I’m unsure that even your silver-tongue could sway the Elders to relieve me of my duties.”

“You doubt your King?” Loki’s tone was taunting and his eyes glittered.

“No, and you are a great King,” you countered with a small frown.

“Then as King, I command that you remain in Asgard,” he ordered firmly.

“But you are not my King, Your Highness,” you snickered and lowered yourself into the water once again, slipping around from behind him, but your arm was caught as you floated away.

“First you attempt to slaughter me, then you defy my orders. You forget that you are in my dominion,” his hand travelled up to your shoulder while the other laced into your hair, tugging your head back to reveal your neck. “I should have you punished for your treason.”

“I doubt that the Elders will be pleased to hear Odin has imprisoned their Champion,” you couldn’t resist a smile as you felt his lips caress the skin below your ear, sending a shiver through your spine. His fingers trickled along your neck and shifted your gown to cascade your shoulders, lips following the path.

“Stay.”

[the-headbop-wraith]

1 _ 19 Brambles

Soft voices glide through the room, cutting and retuning to a new scene or tone or voice with rhythmic pauses.  It was a delicate matter to set one claw to the button of the remote and press with a stiff finger, cycling through the dull white noise that made up the blubbering television theme of each channel.  What was defined as ‘news’ was scarcely credible, many channels were dedicated to realty programs, infomercials that promised ‘satisfaction guaranteed or money back,’ and as always the static infused HBO special feature.

Therehad to be a better use for television. Humans just refused to find it, or the general population was content tonumb their minds into oblivion with this toxic waste of ozone.  Mystery huffed into the folds of the blankethe lounged over, and pressed his paw to the button again.  None of his companions had said anything, aslong as the soft background chatter remained below audible they were somewhateased by his habit.  The dog halflistened as Vivi went over the next destinations marked on the map, there werea few but they had lost time after the van was put into the body shop for repairs.  Mystery rolled over, sliding the telly remote along the sheet cover as he did, for ease of access and the minimal of movement required of reaching it.

The argument between Vivi and Arthur had been typical, Arthur on the opposing side wanting no pair of hands on the van aside from his own, and Vivi adamant about getting the exterior of the van patched up. Lewis had been like Mystery, huddled outside in the parking lot where it was relatively safe.  In the end, Arthur had folded under the assurance that nothing within the vans metal hull would be tampered with.  That had been the case of course from the beginning, even Vivi didn’t want the off chance of strange people poking through the vans back, and seeing the mess that none of them had made the effort to pick up.  There was no concern shed over the ward scripts, carved stones, and endless containers of sage and salt stashed in the cuvees – all over the floor.  Long ago Vivi had given up any attempt to explain these items to the inquisitive outsider.

“But the baseball stadium sounds more interesting,” Vivi said.  She and Lewis had the selection narrowed down – a hospital, a maternity store, and a bed and breakfast that was on their route.  Mystery personally preferred the bed and breakfast, and they might just stop in along the way since it was literally on one of their roads.  “A batter ghost?  Why is he there, and who is he?”  She scrolled through one of the tabs she had opened on the main page, there were a few pictures but nothing clear, no definite image of a spirit aside from a gray glob that could be easily be explained as lens flares or rudimentary odd shadows.

Behind her hovered Lewis, just above the head rest of the hard chair she had claimed.  Mystery had caught Arthur glancing over at Lewis a few times, from his position on the opposite side of the one bed.  It was probably difficult for him to wrap his mind around the sight, with Arthur being the analytical one of the group, struggling to rationalize whatever science there was into a free floating body.  To describe it, imagine bungee cords that are not visible, Lewis’ body was parallel of the floor but suspended a good two feet above the headrest and peering over Vivi’s fluff of blue hair and into the computer she held on her lap.

“What’s this activity about?” Lewis inquired. His body dips down, folded arms coming within inches of the headrest above Vivi.  He spoke aloud before she could read off the page, “‘Seen after games end on the field, sometimes caught in the stadiums big screen.’  Groovy.”

“There’s speculation he, or she – we don’t know – they could be a fan,” Vivi continued.  “There’s a case where one of the spectators suffered a concussion from a free flying ball, but they never went to the hospital and by the time they realized how serious the concussion had been, it was too late.”  She shifted in the uncomfortable seat, and Lewis raised himself a foot more reflexively.  “They could be trapped there or something.  What do you think, Art?”

Mystery recoiled from his leisure sprawl when Arthur jerked on the bed.  “Who- what?” Arthur sputtered.  He had met eyes with Lewis, when the free suspended body had shifted so Lewis could see him better.  Vivi kindly reminded Arthur the subject they were discussing, and Arthur set aside his notebook as he thought it over.  “Batter ghost sounds the most low key, but what about the rumors?”

Vivi tapped at the laptop, and Lewis shifted to view the key words she searched for.  “There are all the usual grainy shots, most caught when there’s a game. Lots of people, lots of cameras going off?”  She rubbed her finger over the scroll pad quickly, eyes flashing behind her magenta glasses.  “There are a few post game pics, but they don’t look any more better.”

“We could do with another low key investigation,” Lewis chimed in.

“You liked the ‘Owl Widow’ ghost?” Vivi accused, half a smirk on her face.  The Owl Widow had been horrifying as hell, but she was all bark and no bite.

“I can sympathize with anyone who would terrorize people that would hike all the way out to my house, to wreck the furniture and break the windows,” Lewis grumbled.  “But… she had such a gentle heart.  After all those years, it’s a tragedy.”

Vivi sighed and sank down in the chair, she pushed the laptop higher up onto her knees for Lewis viewing ease.  “She’ll be okay,” she persisted.  “Decades gone by and she just keeps on protecting those owls.”

Mystery folded his wrists together and pinned the remote under his lower paw. Those that study the occult would recall a myth which went, when a person and an animal die in each other’s company the souls are bound, and if the trauma of the event was powerful enough, a spirit would return.  The people of the town spoke of a young birder who had a favorite owl she took out to train.  It was believed that hunters may have mistaken her for some animal and shot her, and her owl, or some variation of the scenario.  Murder was suspected but due to lack of evidence ruled out, and the case was never solved.  However, not long following the incident hikers and campers began to tell stories about an abandoned home in the area, where dozens of owls would congregate to roost, and at night the shrill cry of a woman or a shrieking owl was heard within. Few would dare stay in the home, and those that attempted only made it a few hours into the evening before the ear splitting shrieks would drive them out into the night.

The Mystery Skulls had no problem with the Owl Widow and even believed the rumors false, until they as a group ventured up into the unexplored attic where the owls roosted during the day.  Vivi had no way of hailing the spirit, and the Owl Widow was as feral and skittish as any bird.  When the Owl Widow realized she was discovered, she abruptly vanished without a trace.  Later, Vivi learned that it was the local’s thrill seekers sport to stay in the home or try to draw out the Owl Widow for a good scare, and that was commonly done by vandalizing the home.  This disgusted Vivi and she refused to do anything more that would negatively affect the spirit.

Arthur climbed off the motels bed and gave Mystery’s head a warm rub as he waked by.  Mystery took his cue and climbed off the bed and followed his companion to the door, where Arthur pivoted and stopped him.

“Stay here,” Arthur urged, motioning the dog with his metal hand as his other hand took the door handle.  Mystery sat down and tilts his head as Arthur backed out. “I’ll be back in a gif, I’m just gonna check the laundry.”  Mystery raised an eyebrow as Arthur turned away and shut the door between them.

“Hurry back, then,” Vivi answered.  Mystery glanced her way as she resumed scrolling. “It irks me though.”  Lewis hummed in question and Vivi continued.  “This would be a lot of work running around, for one ghost.  Stadiums are huge, unless we find a binding object.”

“What’s the info on our subject?” Lewis asked, and pointed to the screen.  “Is there anything?  A name?”

“We could just use any old baseball I guess, if that’s what caused their death.”  Vivi was clicking links, hunting for a newspaper article in the cities historical database.  “There’s a lawsuit, but when s’there not?  Mystery.”  The dog looked up at Vivi when she called his name.  “Arthur said he wouldn’t be gone long.  Don’t worry.”

“That link there,” Lewis cut in, pointing to the un-highlighted title among the few darker cousin links on the screen.  “I got a good feeling about that.”

“Keep your socks on.  I got it.”  She clicked it and the two read silently to themselves.

Mystery shrugged his shoulders and returned to the bed. The layout of the motel room was as basic, dry, and boring as the thousands they had the privilege to stay in before – table, armchair, lamp, vanity desk, single bed – a picture print of a pasture with deer grazing in the tall grass, a distant lake and tall trees surrounding the scenery – framed and hung on the wall above the bed.  Mystery stretched out over the tussled sheets and adjusted his thin ankles over a stiff fold of the covers.  He raised the volume only slightly and resumed his meditation through channel surfing.

“There was also this guy that overheated and died while in the mascot costume,” Vivi mentioned.  “You’d think he’d come back as some sort of demon bonded to his costume.”

Lewis often wondered over Vivi’s unique style of thinking.  “What was the costume?”

Vivi fixed her hairband, then put her hands back to the keyboard and scrolled.  “A badger?”

“The stadium no longer sounds low key?” Lewis humped.  He rolled sideways in mid hover and folded one arm under his neck, as if to support his head by some invisible tabletop.  “None of the reports remark on any aggression, accidents?”

“No, you big chicken.”

“Bawk-bawk,” Lewis droned, void of any enthusiasm. “Is it too much to ask that we return to cases where some… angry thing doesn’t come crashing out of the shadows with a huge chip on its shoulder?  Have I mentioned, I would like that?”  He nods, as if agreeing over an important matter.

“Well…” Vivi let her voice trail off, and glanced up at Lewis.  They had those cases too often.  Failed cases she categorized them.  The encounters which were too volatile for traditional techniques and it was advised by any veteran paranormal investigator, that if you have no training in that particular field, you have no right to meddle with it.  In those instances it is strongly advised to pack up and book it rather risk harm, or worse.  It was another topic she wanted to ask Arthur about, but she wouldn’t bring it up with Lewis since he was in that realm himself.  

That place, it would have been one, it should have been a Failed case.  They just didn’t recognize the danger in time.  Another notch, a proud scar in their resume.  They never failed a case, but often the case did fail them, and she had failed them.

Packed up and ran away.  No matter what danger they left to those that came in their wake. Let the experienced, the demon hunters, deal with it.

“Huh?” Lewis asked, slanting one dark eye at her.

Vivi gave her head a shake and returned her attention to the screen.  “I thought of something.  Anyway,” she paused, noting she had exited out of some of the history articles. “Just a bunch of sightings. Nothing threatening.”

“Great,” Lewis chirped.  “What were you thinking, then?”

“I was wondering,” Vivi mumbled and curled down into the chairs back.  She looked up as Lewis peered down at her, prompting her to go on.  “Well….”

“Well what?”  There was something in his voice, something that had been absent until recent. Vivi had only realized it herself, but his voice was sounding more natural, vocal rather hollow.  Solid as if projected, rather than suggested through the vague scratch of an outdated radio.  The slight transition had been lost to her, while in constant company of her subject.  She wondered what sort of voice outsiders heard when Lewis spoke with them, or were they oblivious?  She could ask Arthur how much Lewis’ voice had changed.  “Vi?”

“Are you aware you’re floating?”  Vivi looked between Lewis and the floor, through the back of the chair she was nestled in.  “Can you do that intentionally or—” She winced to the audible thud that came. “Uhh….”

“I was not aware,” Lewis’ garbled voice came, somewhere beyond the chairs back.  “Thank you for notifying me.”

“Explain that to me.”  Vivi set the laptop down on the seat cushion and stood up, to peer over the chairs headrest.  “How can you not realize you’re free floating?”  She pulled back and sat on her knees when Lewis poked his head up, skull in place of a face, and he resumed a buoyant hover above the floor.

“I’m kidding,” he said, as he fixed the jacket collar.  Lewis felt his face, recognized the common distinction of solid spectral that symbolized his skull.  “My concentration broke—  I knew I was, but….” He fumbled, voice breaking off into scratches and he gave up. “Hard to explain.”  He winced and looked up to Vivi when she set her hand on the side of his skull.  The embers of his eyes brightened, most noticeably in Vivi’s glasses as she smiled at him.

“I get it,” she hummed.  “I’ll try not to do that again.”  

Lewis let his gleaming eyes dim and fall away from her tender gaze.  He pressed his cheek into Vivi’s palm and let his ethereal essence sooth out, calming from the choppy ripples that dug through his usual insubstantial eminence. Passive waves rolled through Vivi’s aura, strong, vibrant, and cool.  No wonder she had such power over the spirits; how could she not?  It was compelling and desirable, more than the once strong call that had persisted on him in that early time.  As the days ticked away the call became less, and less vibrant, until the draw had subsided into faint tugs; unpalatable and easily ignored.  Bleu Moyen.  High blue waves to dose his fires, severing his ties to the ravenous fury and blind ambition.  So clear. Everything became so crystal clear when he was with Vivi.

A low shudder burned in Lewis, when Vivi leaned over the headrest to kiss the upper edge of his jaw.  His eyes brightened in their dark sockets and a wisp of flame faded as Vivi drew back.  Lewis didn’t want to lose her, he could scarcely recall that time of the between. He only wanted to believe his feelings were genuine.

An interesting segment was on the history channel, describing ancient magicians of centuries past.  Mystery turned his ears up as the narrator described a priest of the pharaoh whom became famous for cutting the heads of various animals, and that animal would function normally, walk around, but without a head; after some time the priest would restore the head to the creature and it would resume life as normal.  This spectacle was never performed on a human, never a servant, the priest would always refuse, and what matter of the illusion was never discovered, though attempts have been made to recreate it.

By the programs end, Mystery was on his side fully content to watch out the conclusion.  No animals were harmed during the making of the program.  A hollow promise, but it had some effect of easing him a little to see the message and be reminded that some humans did care.  He rotates his head over to see Vivi more or less in the chair, she would be in the chair if Lewis wasn’t under her.  They had resumed discussion of what case was more favorable, but softer, as if Mystery wasn’t there.  He took a deep breath and let the air wheeze out of his nose.

Wait.

Mystery rolled over, off the bed and padded to the door.  He sniffed along the edge picking up Arthur’s most recent scent, and pawed at the scuffed up white paint of the door.  Mystery whined and looked up to Vivi and she peered over the computer in her lap, down at him.

“What’s up, Mystery?”

He barked and sidestepped at the door. Arthur.  How long has Arthur been gone?  Mystery resumed scratching at the door, and reared up on his hinds legs to take the L shaped handle between his wrists.

“He should’ve been back,” Vivi paused as she looked to the clock on the laptop.  “Forever ago.”  She stood up off of Lewis and crossed to the vanity desk, where the telly was stationed. She unplugged the computer, shut it, and stuffed it into her overnight bag on the desk.  She fished around for the room key as Lewis raised up from the chair.

“Maybe he had to re-dry the clothes,” Lewis suggested.  He stepped up beside Vivi and set his hand upon the shimmering surface of the mirror, and stared into the steady state of his skull and bright eye sockets.  He had worked on this off and on, he could ‘jolt’ his state back into his more favorable appearance with a flash of a thought.

“Or he could’ve gone for a walk.”  He briefly examined his face, the stubborn dark eyes, then turned to Vivi.  “Clear his head.  Think for a bit?  He’s been really quiet lately.”

Vivi’s attention was directed past Lewis, toward Mystery standing on his rear legs.  Mystery had tottered backwards with the door following his movements, and was now stepping out.  The door began to slip shut, but stopped when Mystery blocked its progress and gave a bark at them to hurry.  “Mystery doesn’t like to be away from Arthur for too long,” she said, as reason.  “I worry about him, I have to.”  Mystery ducked out of the doorway when Vivi stepped over to him.

“I know.”  Lewis snatched his sunglasses off the table as he followed Vivi out the door, and into the blazing sun of midafternoon.  Way past noon, the sky was getting the dusky soft purples that Lewis appreciated.  He wanted to converse with Vivi about the one time when the group managed to get hopelessly lost and spread out around the motel, only because they kept following each other around the main office building, with a length of the wall distancing them apart.  What messed them up was that they were just barely in ear shot, they could hear the nearest person but in all the confusion they never got it across, “Stay right there, I’m coming.”  They had run around in circles all day, but the scenario was straight from a cartoon and they had great fun anyway.

He decided not to encourage the memory.  It wasn’t so much for her benefit, but the thought of it pained him worse than….

“We just barely ate an hour ago,” Vivi mentioned. She and Lewis followed Mystery down the steps and through the small hallway that cut between the two halves of the motel.  As per destiny, the nearest convenience mart was adjacent to the motel.  Night or day, it didn’t matter to Arthur when he drank an energy drink.  Hell, he’d drink one before taking a nap.  Vivi would check there next.  “You didn’t have to come.”

Lewis gave a sheepish smirk, missed by Vivi. “Well, you didn’t stop me.”

Vivi could smell the warm scent of the dyer heaters as they walked along the wall to the laundry room; beside the kids play area, and the gated and tarped pool.  She pulled the door open and let Mystery and Lewis enter before she followed them into the cramped room.  “Not here?” she spoke, as she moved into the adjoining room with the washers and laundry detergent vendor.  

Mystery’s paws scratched and clacked on the cool tile as he wandered around, sniffing under a table and then at the edge of a wall. He turned to Vivi and gave some soft barks that echoed, unintentionally loud, off the walls.  Arthur hadn’t been here lately, but with all the oddball scents it was a trial to discern accurately a time.

The dryer was still thumping and rumbling. Lewis examined the timer and found it had fifteen more minutes.  “If you don’t think you’ll need me, can I have the room key so I can get this stuff up there?” he asks.

“Sure.”  Vivi pulled the car key out of her wrist sleeve and handed it over to Lewis. “We’ll see you back in the room in’a bit.”  She waved to Lewis as she returned to the glass door, Mystery scratched over the slippery linoleum to catch up with her at the door.  “Chao.”

“Good luck,” Lewis answered, as the door shut. A few minutes drift by and a thought occurred to Lewis.  When Arthur stepped out, Lewis wasn’t certain but he didn’t think Arthur had picked up the laundry bag.  If Arthur had come to the same conclusion, Lewis might run into him on his way to or from the room.

The room was still empty of Arthur and provided no insight of a short return.  Vivi shut the door and took the opposite path along the rooms, her eyes scanned about as she walked, in hopes to catch the faint blur of yellow contrasted on the open car lot below.  Mystery padded at her heel as they took the route for the back stairs that ran above the main office.  Below, a group of kids laugh as they race by, shoes slapping on the hard cement.  Vivi tottered at the rail trying to catch sight of the jovial youths; maybe Arthur was down there lost in his own thoughts and mildly discomforted from the innocent play.  It seemed like the situation he would be tossed into when he craved some seclusion.  The sounds fade somewhere, and if Arthur is below she cannot see him from the angle she’s at above.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Vivi murmured.  She paused on the steps to look out from the narrow arch and scanned the clear sky, the moist tinge still on the air from the recent rains.  “There was a park when we rode in, wasn’t there?”

Mystery stood sideways on the steps and stares at the sky.  He gave a soft yap.

“I know this deal with the van put us on a tight schedule, but we can do with a lil TLC.”  She continued down the steps, and Mystery followed.  “We’ve spent so many weeks cooped up together, I forget what open air feels like.”

The road that cut through this section of the city was not very busy, even throughout the day when people would be busy with errands. Vivi with Mystery crossed to the nearest shop mart with the highest gas prices she had seen in a hundred miles.  Down the sidewalk from their current residence, it was only a few blocks among the stores and cafes to the open flat of the body shop where the van was being adjusted.  The body shop was only going to fix up the ragged sides where the van had fallen and scraped, part of the deal was allowing Arthur to do the paint job himself.  That would leave the van looking half finished and metallic until they returned to home base.

As Vivi pushed the door of the convenience store open, a blast of balmy air hit her.  Immediately the clerk at the cashier counter piped up:

“I’m sorry, miss.  No dog’s allowed.”

Vivi let Mystery in anyway, and Mystery went on his way examining the racks assorted foods, and the doughnut case positioned across from the cashier counter.  “He’s a therapy dog,” Vivi answered.

The cashier, a tall woman with curly hair, hesitates as she looks back to the white dog free of a leash.  “Do you have papers?”  She seemed uneasy as Mystery sniffed along the corner of the tall doughnut case.  In Mystery’s defense, the doughnuts smelled exceptional that day.

“That depends,” Vivi rebuked.  She turned from the woman and looked over the near empty store, a few people drift around picking at the inventory in various sections – sweet, salty, and standard household goods.  “Did you see a guy come in here?  Shocked yellow hair, quail curl, orange vest.”  She turned to the cashier and the blank stare the woman wore.  Vivi motioned her elbow.  “Metal arm?”

__

Indeed it was a beautiful day.  Arthur was glad he had stepped out to enjoy it, get some fresh air.  He hoped the van was all right, he hated the thought of strange people putting their greasy hands all over his pride and joy.  Even if the van liked to break down in the harsh weather conditions, or guzzled gas like a leech did fresh blood, they didn’t pay for it.  He never asked how much it was going to cost, but Vivi had been the one driving at the time and she always insisted on these matters. Arthur gave up trying to fight her about it long ago.

He sighed and leaned back into the cool wall in the stores shadow.  It was cold only in the shadow, but standing in direct sunlight had warmed his chest too much and so here he stood in the shade, listening to the children in the nearby neighborhoods whoop and holler in play.  He put his hand back in his pocket, pushed the pack of gum aside, and pulled up the chainless pocket watch.  Four thirty-nine.  The laundry should be done by now, he didn’t want a collection of his pants in bacon ripple style.  Sickly yellow, bacon ripple style… whatever.

The watch went back in his pocket and Arthur brought the cigarette back to his lips for another draw.  His eyes half closed and he let the sizzle work in his throat. Two more minutes.  He calculated the time up in his head, two more minutes coupled with the walk back to the motel—, he forgot the bag.  Get the bag, go back down and collect the freshly dried pants and shirts.  Or he could forget the bag, have five more minutes to let his blood mellow.

“Arthur!”

He jumps in place and turns to Vivi’s accusing stare.  “Hey. I didn’t worry you, did I?” he rasped. Arthur took another breath and looked down from Vivi, to Mystery huddled behind her legs.  When Vivi began towards him, Mystery turns and bolts out of sight. Arthur backed up and hit the wall. He gets out a vague question as Vivi slaps the cigarette out of his metal hand.  “Whoa now!  What gives you the right—” He shut his mouth when Vivi grips the front of his shirt and heaves back a fist.

“You promised me you quit!” she snarled.

“I did!  I DID!”  Arthur tenses but makes no move to defend his face.  He probably deserved it.

It was on the prescription, among the long list of drugs compiled into his blood to keep his kidneys from shriveling up, his heart pumping, his capillaries clear of toxins.  They worried about toxins in his blood.  Arthur had laughed that day, it was so out of character they had to call in a psychiatrist to evaluate whether or not his brain had suffered mental trauma that was not foreseen since his earlier evaluations. Oh what medical science was blind to; oh what they were willfully ignorant of.  The only person that might’ve gotten the joke, wouldn’t have gotten it anyway.  That cruel irony made looking at her twice as difficult for the remainder of the month, but he found his way out of it.

The doctors advised Arthur to quit, obstructed capillary networks was what they labeled it.  It was common in amputees.

“Was this your first pack?” Vivi growled, tugging Arthur towards her.

He choked and spat out a no.  “I’m gonna stop though, I will!” he stammered, leaning back.  Why was Vivi so strong?  Arthur was no heavyweight, but she could pick up Lewis when he was alive.  “It always helped, with the… it just helped!”

“We have sage!” she hissed, face twisting, tears brimming in her eyes.

“But that’s so rude!”  Arthur cringed down fully expecting the blow to connect and knock some sense back into him.  He bought gum and sometimes chewed that instead, but it wasn’t the same.  He’d show Vivi once she calmed down.  He was hauled forward, staggering through the dark shade of his thoughts and awaiting the flash of light from her fist to cleave through his mind… but the harsh blow never comes.  Instead, soft arms wrap around him.  Arthur risks opening his eyes and stares down on the weed riddled pavement behind her blue heels.  His muscles remained locked, he didn’t dare move even when Vivi’s shoulders quivered. Arthur clenched his fists at his sides and rested his chin on the poofy sweater around her neck.

“I should have asked,” she mumbled into his shoulder.  “I should have asked you.”  She squeezed tighter around Arthur’s chest, as if fortifying his presence with her embrace. “Why didn’t I?”

“You…” he began, and hesitated.  Vivi said nothing, hadn’t calmed down, and Arthur went on, “already knew the answer.  Nothing’s changed.  This is fine.”

“No, it’s wrong.”  She pressed her forehead into the collar of that stupid amber vest Arthur always insisted on wearing.  “I wasn’t thinking about you, I wasn’t worried that….  Jesus, I don’t think.”  How could she forget?  Why had she been blind to this?  For all her intuition, her flexible and quick mind, how could she overlook such simple, yet crucial details?  Essential, yet fragile.  Delicate, but poisonous.  A balance that tipped dangerously.  

Arthur brought his arms up and wrapped them around her shoulders, gently.  “Vi, we’ve talked,” he insists.  “I told him I was solid.  I don’t have the right—” Arthur froze again when Vivi recoiled and pushed him back by his shoulders.

“That’s not an invitation!” She snapped.  “That’s submission!  That won’t do.”  Arthur let his head hang, but Vivi cups his chin in her fingers and pushed his face up. “No, Art.  Look, I’m not mad, I’m frustrated.  Well, maybe that’s not the truth.   I’m mad at me, not you.  But— Would you look at me!  I’m frustrated, that’s it.”  She stares into Arthur’s face as his eyes crease and his brows stretch, into a conflicted expression she was too familiar with.  “You’re not allowed to destroy yourself.  Are you listening?”  He nods, and tries to let his eyes drop from her steady gaze.  “What did I just say?”

“Don’t wreck myself,” he mumbled, below a breath.

“That’s good enough, I guess.”  Vivi sighed, and raised a thumb up to touch the lone tear that had made it past Arthur’s resistance.  “How do I save you?  How do I save my boys?”

“I miss Lewis,” Arthur says.  He shuts his eyes and begins to slip down to the cold ground, his knees fold up under him.  Vivi helps him down, pulling at his vest and trying not to grip the upper space of his left arm where metal met flesh.  “I’m keeping it together, pulling myself back.”  Vivi kneels in front of him and pulls him upright when he begins to sag sideways over his knees.  “I’m not gonna fuck this up too.  I can do this.”  He shuts his eyes and presses his metal palm to his forehead in an effort to cool his fevered brow.  “I can do this.  Just… just give me some time, and I’ll work it out.”

“Hey.”  Vivi brought her hands up and clasped Arthur around his forehead, his shocked blond hair folded under her palms as she held him.  Arthur tucked his eyelids shut and winced to her touch.  “Don’t push yourself so hard.  It’ll… you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I know my limits,” he murmured.  Arthur feels his heart being ripped in two, skewered by icy teeth and shredded across his ribs.  “I can endure.  I can.”

“Don’t give me that,” Vivi hissed.  “You’re not impervious to— Art, wait!”  Arthur had ripped himself from her hands and managed up onto his feet, stumbling a bit as he spun away from Vivi still crouched on the broken asphalt. Vivi hopped to her feet and followed his stabbing steps. “Art’ur!”  She jerks back when he whirls on her.

“I’m not fragile, Vi!  God, I’m not going to come apart and scatter in the wind.” Arthur screams, his body movements erratic as he gestures with his hands; the prosthetic arm is dull and awkward while he’s amid a state of distress.  “My legs are strong, my mind’s still here!  I’m okay!  Just… chill.” He motions his arms, bringing them down to his hip level as Vivi watched.  “You don’t trust me?  Do you?”

Vivi searched for something else to focus on, and settled for the edge of the motels roof beyond the corner of the convenience store Arthur had hidden behind.  “Sometimes you forget Art,” she says.  “You’re so focused on anything else, you avoid the little things.”  She shakes her head and then looks back to Arthur.  “I don’t want to forget for you.  I can’t drag you down.”

Arthur stuffs his hands into his pockets and toes at the crumbling cement, trying to dislodge a thick stubborn stalk of a wilting weed.  He recollected on Vivi before the Cave, ambitious headstrong Vivi, always leading the way.  Lewis always right there for her, to grab her and pull her back from the edge of disaster when it suddenly opened up in her path.  And Arthur… him, always a step behind, the last one into the room, always lagging behind the others.  The first to run, or the one somehow caught.

“Vi,” he says, “you never dragged me.  If anything—” He stopped, and looked up at her.  “You brought me back.  You were there when I woke up.”

Vivi doesn’t meet his eyes as she moves towards Arthur.  She takes him by the wrist of his metal arm and pulls the hand into hers and examines the stiff, numb digits, Arthur had carved himself.  “I wasn’t always there,” she confessed.  “I didn’t want to be there.  Art?”

“Hmm?”  The air became chilled when a cloud, or the sun, had inched behind some obstruction that blocked the strong yellow rays.  He couldn’t feel Vivi’s fingers tracing the mars and etches in place of his metal palm, he could only detect the vibrations he had grown accustomed to when faint touch fell onto his false limb.  When he had built his first prosthetic and attached it, Vivi had never taken a second look at it.  He had always been gratified by this.  

“We should look for Mystery,” she suggests, and tugs him by the wrist with no force applied.  “I think he went this way.”

Arthur followed without protest.  “We should talk a bit.”

“We’ll talk a bit,” Vivi echoed, leading Arthur behind her by his hand.

“It’s such a nice day, or was,” Arthur muttered, and squinted at the darkening contours of the sky.

Vivi led their way towards a dark alley behind the convenience store, chain link fences and the clay floor packed down, overgrown with trees and weeds.  It looked more interesting and secluded than the open sidewalk beside a road.  “I thought we could hit the park tomorrow.” Vivi’s voice brightened a bit.

As they departed the wall and Vivi’s voice twittered with the prospect of a day for just them, a dark shadow rose across the glossy paint of the brick.  The shadow seeps from the walls surface and reforms itself, bright magenta illuminates along its outline and spreads across its torso and legs.  A gilded heart pulses at the broad chest as the dark hue fades by degrees, until it is restored to its pacified shape.

Lewis took a step from the wall and leaned back onto it, he crossed his arms over his chest as he watched Vivi and Arthur disappear down the alley.  He thought of following them and making certain Vivi was safe, but he decided that may have been a lame excuse to eavesdrop on following conversations. He’d… done enough of that.

“What happened to us?  I mean, why did we let this happen?”

Vivi’s words rattled in his mind.  He remembered Arthur then, catatonic, sleeping.  His aura had been in its most indolent in that state, and Lewis had for a moment believed Arthur had died, if not for the shallow movement of his chest.

The questions plagued his deepest contemplations, alternating, “Why did we? What happened?”  As if she were before him now asking the same question, inquiring for some form of answer he too yearned insight into.  There remained the questioned he flittered away from, the ones that he could ponder over for long hours, while time held him prison to witness superficial events from afar.  The locket thrummed at his chest, always steady, sometimes thunderous, and then at other times its as somber as a coo.  The questions in their most basic function nibbled at him:  What and Why?

It was all a ruse, he promised himself. He only intended to frighten them.  Get them to abandon his mansion and force them far-FAR away, never to return.  Leave him to sleep and forget, and fade away with each pulse of his heart.  That was his intent, he swore it was all that he meant to do. Play up the theatrics, convince them it was not worth their time or sanity.  He was incapable of killing.... unlike Arthur; it was beyond his nature, he swore it wouldn't go that far no matter how much… he suffered. The long, endless cycle of time tormenting his existence, abandoned and betrayed by someone he thought of as a dear friend. Something...  somewhere… it all went wrong.

  Reuniting with Arthur. The event brought something out of him, something he never genuinely contested before. Not with earnest. The unbridled horror in Arthur's features when Lewis emerged from his coffin, the unsightly attributes which cost everything he held dear and precious; his brazen perplexity upon seeing this… ghost. It pissed him off. He wanted to wipe it out, make Arthur taste some of that spite that curdled his soul. He couldn't stop, he absolutely could not stop himself. How far could he drive Arthur on before he broke? Arthur deserved the suffering, the torment and hostility unleashed by his failings. Nothing would make this right, but Lewis also couldn't elude that anger. It was as much of a part of him now as the locket affixed to his chest. Inseparable. 

And then she was there.  It had happened so fast and Lewis couldn’t bear it.  The ache in his hollowed chest when he saw her for the first time since….

He said goodbye.

Why he remained far past his expiration was never a controversy for him.  The question that stumped him when he was not careful, and it came upon him when his defenses were down: What was he now?

Lewis rounded the corner of the convenience store and walked across the parking lot.  He saw Mystery on the sidewalk beyond the gas pumps waiting for Vivi, or him, he was on the sidewalk beside the crosswalk marks that bridge across to the motel.  The dog perked up at Lewis’ approach, and Lewis said nothing until he reached his four legged ally.  “How’s it going?” Lewis rattled, his voice near toneless.

Mystery’s answer was to tilt his head and lower one ear at an angle.  He stood and pivots to cross the road, glancing around for any speeding traffic; there were no cars but Mystery was careful to look anyway.  He spins about when Lewis begins to walk off, and Mystery pads up to follow at a distance.

“I’m not going back to the room yet,” Lewis explained.  “Vi and Art are looking for you.”

Mystery’s steps slowed and he fell back.  That didn’t make sense, any one of them knew without a fail that if he was separated from his company, he would either turn up at the van or the current place of occupation.  He gave his head a shake as he resumed his quick pace, struggling to keep up with Lewis long stride.  It was evident Lewis was in no hurry, but Lewis probably wanted to be alone and Mystery knew he couldn’t allow that.

They came to the busier district of the widespread city.  Mystery recognized it down the road from the motel, an easy to and from for some of the better diners and the cafes.  Arthur was impossible when it came to the prospect of being stranded, and the distance to a place for a worthwhile cup of coffee.  Mystery woofed at Lewis’ back.  Lewis didn’t need a reminder that he was out in public, and not dressed for one on one interactions.  Numerous shops throughout the city block catered to tourists, featuring carved wooden animals, jewelry, or rugs and quilts.  The small clumps of people they passed would give Mystery odd stares, and Mystery began to wonder what for.  It wasn’t unusual for people to stroll around with a ‘pet’ off the leash, was there a city ordinance he was not aware of?

Then it dawned on him.  No shadow was cast under Lewis and he had no reflection in the shop windows.  Lewis was hiding.

This didn’t alarm Mystery, if it was Lewis’ wish to go unnoticed then he was entitled to that.  For Mystery matters were complicated.  Head up, chest puffed out, ears proud and forward facing.  He had someplace to be and that was where he was headed.  He observed that humans rarely bothered a dog with confidence, minding his or her own business and on their way to wherever dogs go.  What humans did not trust was a timid, confused, lost creature that scuttled away from attention or drifted around.  If he kept moving it would make tracking him difficult.  Even so, he had his collar and tags and people would regard that and conclude he was just a regular out for a walk.  He would be fine, and he had some notion of Lewis’ destination.

As predicted they arrived at the body shop where the van was left.  Show Car Remake and Renew, a general garage and minor vehicle repairs.  The main garage was a long gray building with a few windows along the uppermost walls, and the large shutter doors at the base drawn down and locked for the evening.  The far side of the lot was overnight parking, the cars and trunks caged in by tall barbed wire fence.  Mystery followed Lewis to the fence but was forced to wait, as his transparent companion slipped through the metal links and entered amongst the many vehicles.

Mystery lost sight of the ghost as his tall figure weaved around the portion of large vehicles and trunks.  Mystery spun around and looked back to the road as the first streetlamps snapped on, cars sped by and after a short time of waiting the street quieted.  It was getting late, the air grew colder.  He sat down and gave the spot behind his ear a dedicated scratch, working to straighten out the hair bent there.  He tensed when a white utility trunk drove by and seemed to slow down – at least to Mystery it looked like the vehicle was stopping – but no, the truck sped up and the dog let out a sigh.  Never was the best time to run off and get lost somewhere in a strange city, with strange people, and strange beliefs.

Vivi and Arthur would be wondering where he was, if they had managed to reach the room by now.  They shouldn’t worry, but Mystery admitted he was not immune to dangers, or the mild irritations offered by the few humans he could do without meeting.

The sudden awareness of a presence at his back caused Mystery to twist around.  It was only Lewis, slipping through the large chain links in the fence.  Mystery examined him over and noted the piece of cloth tangled in his hand.  Ah.

Lewis looked at the cloth between his fingers as he untangled it.  “Are you still afraid of me?”  Mystery raises his snout higher and glares through his spectacles at Lewis.  “Would it be enough if I apologized?”  He unfolded and refolded the cloth and straightened out the creases to the best of his ability.  It had been folded and pressed wrong for quite some time.  

Mystery give a soft woof and steps back from Lewis. They should head back now.  The dapper specter wouldn’t budge.

“You were there for Arthur,” Lewis whispered, traces of flames bud from his shoulders and hair.  “But not for me.  Why not? Why is it…?”  He tightened his fist around the sad piece of cloth, “Why did I have to be the one abandoned?” He looked down when Mystery stepped forward and set a paw on his foot, the white face looked up at him.  Before Lewis could utter a word, Mystery had whisked away and was already halfway across the parking lot, the faint tapping of his claws fade as the ghost stares after him.

He could have just haunted Arthur.  Or he could have remained in his mansion, his sanctuary from the world ticking by with the tempo of the seasons cycling through, worlds moving; moon sweeping through crescent to quarter, harvest and back to the new moon.  What time had passed while he had slumbered?  Existing but not in a state of present, not dispersing but not fully cumulative either.  A piece of himself was lost in every wedge of every day, not noticed and not missed. Small segments of his childhood, the places they frequented as kids, the warm smiles of his parents.  How could he miss what he couldn’t reflect with?  It may have been a process of Acceptance, or it just happened naturally.  He ceased to worry, and he couldn’t care.  The lethargy of simply existing drained him heavily, and he fed on the lone coal of his passion, his raison d'etre.  What purpose, and what meaning had come to him, when the cycle of existence had evicted a squatter?

It was Mystery’s aura that had stirred him. That wild, untamed thing – a font of composer and class, with a writhing tangle of insanity that clawed for escape. He would know it anywhere, it was the last, and first thing he had latched onto before the fulcrum of his final volition had scattered.  He didn’t remember much in that span of time between… before….

The light of the motel room was out.  The curtains were drawn shut, as Vivi had left them, and the walls would be absolutely silent, if not for the dull rattle of the heater.  Night was well upon the motel now, and Vivi and Arthur would not be far behind it. Without a thought Lewis pushed his palms into the cracked stucco of the wall, and allowed his unsubstantial shape to slither through the cold molecules of cheap drywall and plaster.  Mystery gave a soft yap at his back as he faded, and then, the room was opened up before Lewis.  The interior air warm from the buzzing heater in the wall, bags and a few essential supplies sat in grainy detail along one wall, the bed was overtaken by blues and yellows.  Lewis turns back to the door and pulls the handle, but stood in the way when Mystery tried to nudge through and enter with him.  Lewis picked up the piece of cloth he had dropped, but paused as Mystery searched for a way around him.

Somewhere in the parking lot below the walkway, Lewis could pick up on the soft warble of Vivi’s voice accompanied by the timid tones of Arthur’s speech.  “Hold on,” Lewis murmured, as he shooed Mystery out of the threshold.  “They’ll let you in, but I have something to do real quick.”  Mystery stiffened when Lewis gave his scalp a comforting rub, an action Mystery was unaware of how much he missed.  Mystery stepped away when Lewis straightened up and shut the door.

What… just happened?  

Mystery whined.  That was not fair!  He scratched at the door and sniffed at the crack along the frame and listened for the muffled sounds from behind the door.  He tugged at the handle, though he knew the door couldn’t be opened without a key.

“What up, Mystery?” Arthur was the first to ask. He stepped behind the dog and raised his knuckles to the door, rapping gently.

Vivi leaned down and hugged Mystery around his shoulders, plucking him up off his front feet as she rocked him.  “Did Lew leave you outside?”  Mystery whined and stared at Arthur, pleaded at Arthur’s back with his eyes.  “I’ll talk to him about it, and we’ll fix this.”  Mystery strained his whimpers, and Vivi took note of that tone in his voice. “D’you have a key, Art?”

“Hmm?  Yeah, sure,” he muttered, as he began digging through his pockets.  Arthur found the thin plastic card easily, and with one swipe the red light on the handle lock flicks to green.  “Lew?”  He asked softly as he pushed the door open, intent to enter before Vivi for once. “You left Mystery outside.”  The heater of the room chattered as it stuttered off, and the dark plain before Arthur was left with the reverberations of its silence, along with the strange emptiness of the room.  The scarce glow of the few streetlamps outside tumbled around his shoulders as he stood in the doorway.  He was startled only briefly by his own reflection in the mirror, directly across from the doorway.  “Damnit,” he gasped, and clutched at his chest as his heart pounded behind his ribs.

“Lew?” Vivi chimed in, as she and Mystery pressed in behind Arthur.  She shuffled to the tall lamp stationed in one corner of the room and flipped the light on, coating the walls and floor with its pale white coat.  “Are you here?”  She had the impression that he was hiding for some reason.  Vivi brushed past Arthur and crossed to the bathroom at the furthest side of the room.  Mystery followed, sniffing along the bed and the corner of the wall.  

There was nothing in the bathroom.  The light blazed harshly over the white walls and plastic floor, a few bottles of shampoo sat around but mention nothing of guests. Vivi was usually comforted by the fragrant soaps, but she had only noticed them now when she was uneasy.  It didn’t feel right.  The bathroom heater came on with the light, but the air retained a chilled quality.  The whole of the room felt reticent, inhospitable.

Vivi shut the light off and stepped out.  She felt unnerved and was not certain where this sensation had crept out from, but it was there and she couldn’t shake it.  She heard the door shut as Arthur entered fully, he cast his eyes over the walls and the short carpet as if anticipating Lewis to pop out from a surface at any given moment.  Arthur sprang in place when Mystery poked his head up from the opposite side of the bed.  Vivi shared a look with the white face, then their sight feel onto the bed.  

The scent of fresh laundry overpowered the room, and Vivi with Mystery examined the shirts, skirts, and pants laid out over the bed covers where they wouldn’t wrinkle.  Further evidence of Lewis’ presence was not visible, aside from the large leather jacket draped over the back of an uncomfortable armchair.  On the table rests the room’s twin key card, beside a pair of dark purple sunglasses.  There was nothing to suggest anyone had been in the room recently.

[ghost1643]

Finding out the captain’s secret

"Who the hell is that?" Ban asked looking at a poster on a wall. King shrugged a bit floating on his pillow while looking up at the sky. He could honestly care less. All he wanted to do was dream about Diane.

"Who cares....What flowers do you think I should get Diane?" King asked rolling into his stomach as he rested his cheek in his hand. Ban sighed looking at the male, rolling his eyes slightly. Kind was aware it was night time, right?

"I don't know. Daisies?" He scoffed looking at the male. King sighed sitting up on his pillow, sitting criss crossed. He pouted a bit looking up at the male.

"You should know. I mean Diane practically is your sister." King sighed glaring a bit. Ban smirked a bit looking at the male. He spun around looking away from the poster of the tiny female covered in thousands of colour, mainly the colour red though.

"I thought you would know. I mean you're both practically lovers." Ban teased. King blushed a bright shade of red as his heart speed up. Did they really act like that? Was it that obvious that he liked her? That was when Ban giggled.

"You're jerk Ban! I'm going back to the Boar hut!" King snapped flaring away. Ban begins laughing louder watch the male leave.

"King! Come on man! You know it's exactly what it looks like between you two!" He laughed. King glared at the male stopping in the air. That is before he flipped him off and left. Ban chuckled a bit before he fell silent. The second King was gone Ban spun around looking at the poster of the girl.

The young female had black markings over her body along with blood. Her eyes were a very dark shade of black as well. Her hair was standing up on end as if it was a flame. She also seemed to have a forked tongue that was licking the blood off of her face. She seemed to be wearing a white dress covered on blood stains. There were corpses of many creatures all around her. Under her it read, 'Migas, the goddess damned.'

Ban bit his lip looking at the picture next to it. It was the same poster except I had a few differences. One of which has a large x carved over this Migas girl and had the word, 'sinner' written over her body. Then the poster next to her had her eyes carved out with red bloody holes for her eyes with the words 'horrid killer' written on there as well. There was a fourth one that had been vandalized as well. This one had the girl's body on poster ripped into shred. It was like someone had dragged a knife over the body over and over again. The all words were scratched out of the poster except one. That word would be, 'damned.' There was more posters all over this town of her. Ban had noticed each one had been vandalized. One had her complete naked with her stomach carved out.

The most violent one though would be the one where she looked heart broken. Literally. That poster had her looking like a normal girl with bright green eyes filled with tears. Her outwit had been ripped and her heart had been carved out. All the corpses around her had been scratched out. Yet, the blood stayed for her. Her blood was everywhere. Under her the words, 'beautiful soul' was written over the printed words. That wasn't what was what the worst part was though. She looked like she was standing in the same spot they were in crying her heart out while dying.

Though the most disturbing part to Ban was that Meloidas almost vomited looking at the posters that called her a killer. So he knew that these posters were all different. He sighed reaching forward and pulling over of the poster that read, 'sinner', off of the wall before stuffing it into his pocket. Ban was gonna get to the bottom of this all.

With that he made his way back to the boar hut whistling a bit as he walked. It seemed like just yesterday he had helped rescue the kingdom of Lionas with his friends, the seven deadly sins. Along with princess Elizabeth. Their leader Meloidas was his greatest friends out of all of them though. He had given him so much support for so many years.....which he threw all away by trying to kill him. Yeah, so maybe Ban wasn't a good friend. Though that wasn't gonna stop him from trying to make things right again between the both of them. Yet, it wasn't like he as gonna admit it out loud. As far as Meloidas needed to know, Ban trusted him when he said they were still good friends.

Ban stopped in his tracks soon coming across the poster from before. The one with the girl looking human and sad. He sighed ripping that off of the wall as well.

"What ever you're up there for better have been worth it." He sighed stuffing it into his pocket as well. That was when he heard someone yelling at him. He turned to see an women rushing towards him. She was wearing a normal village outfit with a brown handkerchief over her long head of brown hair.

"What?" Ban asked.

"I said put it back! That is an important part of our village's heritage!" She snapped glaring at the male. Ban stood up straight revealing he was taller than the women.

"And what exactly does a picture of a girl being vandalized have to do with your village's heritage?" He asked. The women scoffed glaring at the male with her dark brown eyes.

"Tourists." She sighed. Ban crossed his arms looking at her while tapping his foot on the ground. There was no way he was putting those pictures back up.

"She is the goddess damned for a reason you know." She scoffed.

"Okay, so what did she do?" He asked.

"She was a product of a demon raping a goddess. She gave birth to that, that THING! That thing locked away the entire goddess race with he bare hands, destroyed all magic and slaughtered thousands! That I until our village leader, my sixty seven times removed great grandfather ended her rain of terror by carving out her heart to helped free as much magic as he could! The world is still imaocted by this demon though and as a testily of this the goddesses are still sealed away." She explained. Ban scoffed. He heard goddesses before. They weren't exactly as nice as they were made out to be. The goddess he talked to literally convinced him to try and kill his best friend.

"Well it's the truth. Now out the demon's pictured back up." She snapped. Ban smirked a bit.

"Sure thing." He smi,ed digging out a picture from before. The women smiled turning to leave with a wave of confidence waving over her. He went to hand it back on the nail only to stop making sure she was wow,I g back to her place. That was when the ripped down the one of Migas naked before running off. The women yelped spinning around.

"As soon as you give proof of it!" He smiled yelling over his shoulder before running back to the boar hut. He was laughing by the time he entered. Meloidas smiled looking up from the bar he was cleaning at the male.

"Hi Ban. How was your run?" Melodas smirked.

"Pretty fun. I gut you a few things." Ban smiled. Meloidas giggled a bit putting a cup away.

"What did you steal now?"  Melodias asked.

"A few posters. I made a lady really mad over it though." He smirked pulling the posters out of his pocket. He walked over and placed them all on the bar. Meloidas smirked leaning over the counter to look at the picture. Yet, that smirked disappeared seeing the naked picture of Migas.

Mel turned pale reading what it read before looking at the other dean poster Ban hadlaid down. His heart broke more seeing how they'd aw his sister. She was never gonna be more than a monster to them. The girl died for no reason while they praised a monster.

"Oh wait! There was another one!" Ban sated digging through his pockets. He smiled happily pulling out another poster.

"I don't wanna see it." Meloidas blurted out turning to leave. Ban placed the table down on the bar before wiping the other posters off of the table.

"Oi! But, Captain she looks more human and kinda like you in this one." Ban whined. Meloidas stopped in his tracks before he spun around seeing the poster of what his sister was really like. It looked just like her. She was in so much pain in the picture that she was crying and her blood was everywhere. The blood was everywhere. Just like in real life. Before Meloidas knew it his breath had speed up and tears began to fill his eyes.

"Mel, remember how when I found you, you couldn't walk or do anything but, you weren't in any pain?" Migas asked. Mel nodded his head.

"Mel, this hurts. It hurts as much as you being stabbed of you were still conscious. So, I want you to remember that I loved our time together and that I love you." Migas smiled as tear filled her eyes. Then she let out a large cough which made her cough up blood. Meliodas's felt his permanent smile fade for once.

"Don't go." He begged. Tears were leaving his eyes.

"You were my first friend. You're now the best sister ever. You are also my best friend in the whole wide world. There's no one else I would rather live with than you. So, please don't go. Please, sister I need you." Migas begged as he began to cry over his sisters corpse. With what little strength she had, Migas reached her hand up and whipped her brother's tears.

"Don't cry. What happened to the smile that I love so much? That we all love so much." Migas smiled. Mel swallowed what fear her had and put on a fake smile.

"Ahh. There's the smiling demon that I know." She smirked as more blood came out of her mouth. As she said this neither of them had noticed that someone had come looking for them. Eros and Harmonia froze as the as they saw their little sister bleeding to death on the floor at her half brother's knees. Eros was the first to run over. He dropped down next to Mel and tried to use magic to save her. Meanwhile Harmonia was to her right crying her eyes out.

"Oh god. You're gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine. Just don't go." Harmonia begged her sister. Migas just smiled as her siblings.

"I love you guys. All of you. Even Kitty, Fidi, Scales, Slither and Medusa even though we aren't blood related. So tell them that Harmonia. Please." Migas asked.

"I promise but, just stay alive okay." Harmonia stated.

"Eros, you can stop now. You're actually hurting me more." Migas admitted. Eros shook his head no as tears fell from his eyes onto the floor.

"You can't go. We just got you back." Eros sobbed as he moved his hands.

"I know but, let's face it, fate screws me over a lot." She smiled.

"Migas please don't go. I need you." Mel begged his sister. The world seemed to go more blurry around them. Then all she saw was darkness. As for the last thing she heard it was Mel begging,

"Please don't go." Mel begged. His sister's body went numb. Harmonia let out a loud sob scream. Eros let out a sob before crying into his arms. Mel meanwhile kept quiet while he looked down at his outside feeling something wet on him. His clothes were red. He began sobbing as he realized what was on him. It was his sister's blood. It was everywhere. It was everywhere. Her blood was everywhere. Her blood was on him again. He had to get it of. Get it off!

"GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF OF ME!" Meloidas begged tearing up unaware of where he was anymore. He fell backwards seeing blood everywhere. Ban jumped up out of his seat looking panicked. He had never seen Meloidas act like this.

"Meloidas, are you okay?" Ban stated running over to him. He dropped down next to Meloidas who was now screaming to get her blood off of him while shaking. King raced down the stairs while Diane glanced in from the window behind them. Elisabeth not rushed down stair.

"Sir Meloidas!" She gasped racing over. She dropped down next to him, holding the male's wrists so that he didn't hurt himself. The girl began trying to calm the male down by speaking to him.

"Ban! Ban what did you do?" King yelled running over to his friends.

"I don't know. I don't know!" Ban stated sitting in front of Meloidas trying to help him.

"Well then why is the captain screaming. Gunther yawned as he slowly walked down the stairs.

"What's with all the noise?" Gunther yawned. Everyone ignored him for a minute.

"Well I must have been something! The captain doesn't break over anything!" Diane snapped.

"I just showed him a poster." Ban stated looking at Meloidas. Meloidas screaming bloody murder while shaking and crying. He kept saying 'You can't leave me', 'get it off of me!', 'I can't be alone again', and 'I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!'. Elizabeth tried to calm him down by saying he was fine and that no one was mad at him.

"Well what was on this picture?" Gunter asked walking over. He was a lot more calm then the others.

"A-A girl. Her name is Migas and she's a goddess." Ban stated quickly.

"What else?" King snapped.

"That was it!" Ban snapped back. Genuter walked over to the picture.

"Oh." Gunther mumbled. Everyone looked at him except for Meloidas and Elizabeth. Meloidas was still freaking out. Mean Elizabeth was trying to calm him down

"It appears Ban has showed Meloidas a picture of his sister." Gunther explained. The room feel silent for a moment.

"The captain doesn't have a sister." Diane blurted out.

"Not anymore. When we first meet I searched his memories. She was in most of them. She was always referred to as his sister. Though his most damaging one is of her dying in his arms." Gunter explained emotionlessly. Ban swallowed a lump in his throat remembering Eliane.

"I-I didn't know that." Ban mumbled.

"The captain must be in a state of shock and is living through his worst memory again." He stated. Elizabeth gasped before saying that he was fine over and over again. Meloidas kept shaking and yelling. Ban looked at the male and remembered the first time he had heard about what had happened to Eliane's corpse. He had done the same thing. When he had snapped out of it, Mel was holding him by the shoulders smiling at the male.

With a sigh Ban moved forward pulling the male into a hug. Meloidas sobbed into his chest while apologizing. Ban wrapped his arms around the male. Diane yelled at him while Elizabeth watched in awe.

"It's okay. She forgives you. We both know she forgives you." Ban sighed as he ran a hand through Meloidas's hair trying to calm him down. Meloidas's sobs got a lot quieter and he began to shake a lot less. Bane kept repeating what he was doing for a while before looking up at the others holding a now sobbing Meloidas in his arms.

"It's fine guys. Go back to bed. I got this." Ban sighed. King bit his lip before nodding and heading back up to his room. Elizabeth gulped before heading up to her room, which happened to be shared with Meloidas. Gunther walked up stairs normally.

"Ban are you can handle this?" Diane asked. Meloidas sobs got loud for a minute before Ban ran his hands through the male's hair again.

"It's fine Diane. Go. We'll be fine." He sighed. Diane gulped before nodding with a frown and heading to the hammock she had made to sleep in. Ban sighed looking down before trying to rock the male back and forth.

"It's fine Meloidas. It's fine." He sighed looking down. Meloidas whimpered a bit snuggling into his chest.

"Go to sleep. I got you man. I got you Meloidas." He stated running his hands through the male's hair one more time. Meloidas whimpered a bit moe while crying before falling fast asleep. Ban sighed before taking the male and laying the male in his room. He pulled the blankets of his hammock over Meloidas.

"Goodnight brother." He yawned laying on the floor getting ready to go to sleep. He closed his eyes.

"Night Brother." Meloidas yawned before dozing off completely. Ban's eyes budges out of his skull looking at the male. There was a moment he spent think before he realized what he had said. He smiled looking at the male.

"Suck up." Ban chuckled laying back down.

"He's less of a suck up then you."

Ban say up hearing a girl talk. He looked around the room looking panicked while hearing a girl giggle. Soon the giggling stoped and the room was early quiet. He sighed dropping back down on the floor. His began thinking his mind was just playing tricks on him as he dozed off to sleep.

Migas's ghost giggled leaning over and kissing her brother on the head. She smiled leaning back over a sthe moonlight shined through her white dress.

"Goodnight brother.....I love you brother."

And just like that, she was gone.

[wrathofthewind]

viii. Ash

A thin blade came to rest near the young woman’s throat, so that should she dare move an inch her main artery would be instantly sliced. But when the girl took another step it was as if the skin cracked like paper, and nothing came out. Tyssen didn’t notice this detail and, just as she was about to leap forward and take hold of Arnalt, the blade swiftly tore through her like a bolt of lightning.

Arnalt barely screamed “NO!”, before that entire body crumpled and cracked and suddenly burst into shreds floating all over the room while a flurry of powder sprung from her throat like a fountain, where the blood should’ve been. Arnalt had barely woken up, with no time to rush to Pallax or Tyssen’s side and cover their mouths, himself taking a gulp of the powder and coughing incessantly.

“What—cough—sire!” Pallax shouted.

It was like a hurricane had been unleashed within the tiny room and metal and wood clang and danced, the table with scissors and needles lifting and forcing Arnalt to jump from the bed towards the far stone wall, holding his shoulder with one hand.

All three instinctively closed their eyes. The illusion soon broke, the powder stopped slamming against their throats, and the body standing like a mass of crinkled parchment simply collapsed on the ground.

“This is—!” Arnalt wanted to explain but the quality of the air quickly changed and suddenly they were enveloped in a blue mist.

Tyssen and Pallax looked at each other, with Pallax being the first one to slam a palm to his face in annoyance. He gruffly mumbled. “Gala.”

Tyssen looked pale. Arnalt quickly comforted him. “It’s alright, it’s not your fault, that…” he looked at where the “girl” had been. “That was her best puppet yet.”

“I—“ Tyssen was shaking, feeling both responsible and the most afraid. Arnalt understood. The one most susceptible to Gala’s formidable spell would always be Tyssen, it was the nature of those with the most regrets, the most secrets in their heart, and the most painful pasts to bear. Tyssen had all three in spades. Arnalt never dared ask too much about Tyssen’s upbringing or how he’d lived before he came to train at his palace. But he knew enough by the shadow cast on his face to not pry. And the last time Gala had done this cruelty, Tyssen had been found curled up and shuddering, his arms scratched bloody by his own nails as he wailed in a corner.

“It’s just one of us that has to get through the maze, it’s alright if you stay here Tyssen.” Arnalt controlled his coughs.

“Sire, I should be the one to go this time, you’re injured.” Pallax squeezed Tyssen’s shoulder, which Arnalt found a bit rare, and started heading towards the door which now glowed in a faint purple light, or a deeper blue than the mist in the room. It was hard to tell, Arnalt’s eyes felt itchy and blurry, but he still shook his head resolutely and walked to block Pallax.

“This is just because of me, you two have nothing to do with it. Gala’s angry, you know how she gets.”

Tyssen was still shaking slightly, looking down with his fists clenched.

Pallax continued, “why would she be mad this time? You lost! Ithana won!”

Arnalt chuckled slightly and winced with the pain in his shoulder. “I still hurt her didn’t I?”

It had been subtle, barely there, but when that one hit had connected and Ithana widened her eyes slightly and praised him, her fingers vibrating at the impact before she applied full force and sent him flying to the other side of the arena, Arnalt knew that she’d only acted like it was nothing. To the outside world, it was as if he’d barely gotten one solid, but still useless, hit. In fact, he’d soundly cracked one of her spiritual veins, and the force she’d used to shove him was precisely because she’d freaked out so bad. The whole time, she’d been slightly afraid that he’d managed to do that. With the King present, with her own name on the line, she’d then been so brutal to his arm but at least let him keep it. The injury hurt but it would heal eventually.

And sure, it wasn’t the time to feel cocky, but it’s not like he hadn’t improved and was glad he could finally show it to her, even if it meant that now Gala was enraged.

He opened the door and a hallway, endlessly white beckoned him. “It doesn’t seem to be a nightmare this time, just a mirage or something. I’ll go ahead and as soon as I solve the maze, we’ll return.” He glanced at Tyssen. “Pallax, take care.” … of him, he wanted to finish, but didn’t have to. Pallax nodded and put a single arm around Tyssen, even more concerned than what Arnalt had anticipated. He wanted to ask some questions when he returned.

Arnalt passed through the threshold of that door and was immediately spirited into a familiar mirage. His palace, near the kitchens, next to the training grounds. A long figure stood in the center practicing his form. His lips curled up a bit, and he leaned against the wall to watch.

“Alright Gala, I know you’re angry but think about my arm? Ithana paid me back tenfold, she should be fine after ten days, but what about me?” He spoke absent-mindedly to the air, chuckling slightly at the sight of Marius, again, tripping over a complicated combination and falling on his face. Another thin chuckle erupted to the side and he found a younger version of himself was also leaning against the opposite wall, his face equally rapt with the sight.

He hadn’t seen what his face looked like when he was appraising Marius, but now that he could stare, he found that it was a little bit cold, a little bit wicked, and a tiny bit soft. It was jarring to see himself this way. He knew which memory Gala was plucking this dream from, though he didn’t know why.

Suddenly his face turned sour, and in a minute, he would see that sour expression reflected on his younger self.

Footsteps approached and a few people clad in the most exquisite of attires surrounded Marius. The boy was still trying to get his bearings when a the practice sword he was using got swiped abruptly from his hand and broken clean in two.

“Arnalt, what is the meaning of this?” A deep, velvety voice calmly drifted to his younger self. “Sword arts? Since when do our servants practice sword arts?”

“I gave him permission.” A young Arnalt replied.

“Your permission has no authority when I’m here.” This person, whose voice became deeper and richer the more he lowered it, forcing everyone into an uncomfortable silence just to hear him, was a member of the High Council; the one known as Phoenix Rain, the words on his hilt spelling out clearly “Rebirth”—his Highness the crown prince, Ronan.

“Whatever punishment you might have for him should still fall on me.” That younger self of his walked firmly to stand in front of the even younger Marius, who at that point was wide-eyed and shaking. No wonder. Ronan was a large man, the shadow of a beard always clinging to his wide square chin, a scar on his eye and long refined nose did the bare minimum to give him a human appearance, because the rest were harsh lines like a carved gargoyle. He looked endlessly bored and naturally malicious. His armor was a second skin and though he didn’t wear it now, even the casual robes he wore to take a stroll somehow glinted like metal and chain. Upon closer look, it wasn’t too far off. Ronan wore a chainmail frock, casual, aware, that any moment someone might strike from the inner family and claim the title… just as he had.

“Boy, I could crush your skull.”

“I’m no threat to you brother, I’m not even a top ten contender, so just how satisfying would that be?” Arnalt realized his younger self did indeed look overly presumptuous and cocky.

“You dare call me that.” Ronan wouldn’t humor him by repeating it. In a flash, this dear older “brother” of his struck him so hard with the back of his palm Arnalt coughed blood on the floor and had to choke back his sobs. Marius had immediately rushed forward, like a tiny beast and Ronan simply lifted him by the neck and threw him soundly towards the well. With a bump he bounced off the edge and into the orifice. Arnalt heard the scratches and bangs before he splashed below.

“He looked a little thirsty. Consider that generous.” Ronan wiped his hands. “Arnalt, I know the Opal favors you, and Father looks away because you have that precious face of yours… but I won’t tolerate your breaking the Azurian mandates. Your mercy keeps the Kurian alive, but that doesn’t mean he’ll want to live when I’m through.”

Arnalt, the present one, hadn’t noticed when his fists clenched so ruthlessly his nails broke skin. He felt the blood on his hands. He abhorred this memory.

He’d been powerless to stand and do anything and was only praying that Marius knew how to swim.

It was then that his attention was drawn to the young maid who came over and bowed deeply to the prince. “Magnanimous Lord, Light of the Eastern Aurora, your guest has arrived.”

Ronan shifted his tunic slightly and gave her a sweeping glance, then turned with his retinue and was on his way. All Arnalt remembered after that were some fuzzy noises, some “quickly, quickly!” And the sound of rope, pulling and heaving. But watching the scene unfold and gradually turn grey as his consciousness faded, he realized his mind retained more information than he’d thought. Like the fact that this maid looked awfully familiar…

He saw her call over others but no one dared to come. Saw her lift his young body and carry him to a wooden bench, laying him there carefully, softly placing a wet compress on his head. Saw the “splash” he remembered, as she took a rope and dived into the well. Moments later she brought out a crying Marius. She was soaked to the bone and heaving. He’d thought others had come, but it turns out no one had helped her. And the last thing he remembers, the last thing he heard… “You, come here.” His brother’s voice before he’d passed out.

Her face. It was the same face of that puppet in the medical room that burst like paper and turned to ash.

His soul turned cold. This was definitely a mirage maze. 

But this was not done by Gala.

[jahaanofmenaphos]

Art by the awesome @tommieglenn!

Of Gods and Men Summary:

When the gods returned to Gielinor, their minds were only on one thing: the Stone of Jas, a powerful elder artefact in the hands of Sliske, a devious Mahjarrat who stole it for his own ends and entertainment. He claims to want to incite another god wars, but are his ulterior motives more sinister than that? And can the World Guardian, Jahaan, escape from under Sliske’s shadow?

Read the full work here:

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TUMBLR CHAPTER INDEX

QUEST 11: SLISKE’S ENDGAME

QUEST SUMMARY:

The eclipse is nigh. The end of Sliske’s games draws near. All the gods gather for one final race for the Stone, taking them through a shadowy labyrinth of the devious Mahjarrat’s design. Not only does Jahaan have to survive the trials Sliske sets out for them, but he has to compete against every major deity in Gielinor. Then, and only then, will he have a shot at ending Sliske’s madness once and for all…

CHAPTER 3 - THE WRONG PATH

Jahaan and Icthlarin entered through the latest riddle door they solved and into a large square chamber. It was a seemingly innocuous room with no tiles, no masks or pillars, nothing.

Satisfied with the easy progression, Jahaan went to step forward, but Icthlarin pulled him back. “Wait,” suspicious, he sniffed the air, an involuntary growl escaping from his lips. Shaking his head, he said, “Bad. Place smells bad.”

Icthlarin backed away to the safety of the wall, shrinking up against it in fear.

Taking the hint, Jahaan stepped back, surveying the room a little closer this time. Again, there was nothing obvious to see; before, he and Icthlarin had come across a trap in the floor indicated by pressure pads, but it was bypassed easily enough. If this room was rigged, these traps were a lot more insidious, and therefore a lot more deadly. If Icthlarin hadn’t stopped in, who knows what Jahaan would have wandered into.

Peering over his shoulder, Jahaan regarded the whimpering Icthlarin with heavy eyes. Then, something caught his eye above the canine deity, just above the door frame. An inscription, slightly faded, yet the only noteworthy thing in the entire chamber. Curious, Jahaan stepped on his tip-toes to try and get a better look. Squinting, he just about managed to make out the words, but noticed they weren’t in the Common Tongue.

“There’s something up here written in Infernal,” Jahaan announced, reading aloud, “‘Si solverit mihi, non cesset; si me tangere, ego, ut sit snared; si perdas me, nihil refert. Quid sum ego?’. I think that translates to ‘If you break me, I do not stop working; if you touch me, I may be… caught?; if you lose me, nothing will matter. What am I?’”

“Snared,” Icthlarin corrected, twitching. “If you touch me... I may be snared.”

The canine deity’s brow was furrowed heavily with the strain of keeping lucid. “I… do not…”

“It’s okay,” Jahaan assured, “I’ve got this, don’t worry.”

Playing the riddle over and over in his head again, Jahaan tried to fumble for a solution. This was slightly trickier than the terrible-poetry-turned-riddles he had encountered thus far, and he knew that the longer he spent here, the further he was from the Stone.

“Any ideas, Icthlarin?” he asked, knowing it was in vain. Icthlarin’s mind wasn’t working well enough to solve riddles right now. The deity shook his head, whimpering.

Minutes passed, and countless ideas turned around in the World Guardian’s mind. Time? The soul? Secrets? Nothing fit the profile, and Jahaan found himself stuck in a rut, the same wrong answers repeating over and over in his mind. Now he was starting to panic, that he’d be trapped in this room for the rest of the maze. Icthlarin had tried the door, but it had locked behind them. His heartbeat thumped hard against his chest, beating in his throat. Jahaan placed a hand on his neck, feeling his heavy pulse.

That was when it came to him.

“I am the heart!” he exclaimed, gleefully. “A broken heart will not stop working, a touched heart can become snared, but if you lose your heart… then nothing matters anymore.”

Depressing, yes, but it fit the profile. Still, even by thinking he had the right solution, Jahaan didn’t know how to proceed. There was nowhere to enter the solution. Frustrated, Jahaan stood on his tip-toes and examined the riddle again, trying to see if he missed anything the first time around. But when he traced his fingers over the inscription, the room started to shake. Glowing tiles with letters on them emerged from the floor, covering the length and breadth of the room. A small column emerged from the ground at the other end with a button on top. But more worryingly were the holes that appeared in the walls with javelin tips pointing out.

Gulping, Jahaan seriously hoped he had the right answer now. The issue was, ‘heart’ in Infernal was ‘cor’ - there weren't enough letters for him to step on to cross the distance. Same went for the Common Tongue spelling of ‘heart’. From what Jahaan could tell, he had eleven tiles to cross. Fortunately, he quickly came to the realisation that ‘I am the heart’ translated to ‘ego sum, et cor’, which was eleven characters long.

Praying to- well, nobody in particular, since they all had their own problems right about now, but he prayed that he had the right answer.

Tentatively, he stepped on the first tile - ‘E’ - wincing as he awaited imminent death. When death did not arrive, he opened his eyes and exhaled the breath he’d been holding for far too long. Carefully, Jahaan hopped across the remainder of the letters, all fairly close to one another, all fairly easy to jump to… except the last one.

Jahaan made for the ‘R’, hoping he could just stretch his leg far enough to land on the correct tile. Unfortunately, he stumbled on his take-off, realising mid-air he was going to undershoot and land on the neighbouring tile instead of the ‘R’. As soon as his foot made contact with the wrong tile, Jahaan had enough sense to fall forward, off the tile-board, and make himself as flat to the ground as humanly possible. The sounds of javelins whizzed behind him, hearing the dull *thunk* of them embedding in the wall instead of his flesh.

Once Jahaan was absolutely certain no more javelins were going to fire, Jahaan heaved his way to his feet, trying to remember the correct way to breathe. His heart threatened to jump out of his throat, pulsing and pounding in his neck, making every gasp for air a challenge.

After composing himself, Jahaan pushed the button on the pedestal and the tiles vanished. Seeing it was safe, Jahaan ushered Icthlarin across the room and out the next door which, to their delight, led to the glowing orb.

Jahaan hurried to touch the glowing orb with Icthlarin fast in tow, panting with relief. Catching his breath, Jahaan tightly squeezed his eyes shut, determined to maintain composure as he knew what would have to happen next.

Sliske was nearby this time, Jahaan could feel it, but he fought past the temptation to peer into the Shadow Realm.

Predictably, Sliske’s voice weaved its way throughout the chamber. “Ladies and gentlemen, the World Guardian has taken a decisive lead and is now the first through the door. As promised, he can now remove the entourage of a participant, leaving them to walk these cold corridors all alone. So tell me, Janny, who’s it going to be?”

“Myself,” Jahaan declared, his confidence shaken as soon as he glanced at the twitching form of Icthlarin at his side. He was walking on all fours now.

“Erm, what? You don't even have an entourage!” Sliske countered, bemused.

“I-I have Icthlarin! Let him out of here!” he just about refrained from saying please. He didn’t want to be reduced to pleading, but the waver in his voice betrayed him, “Icthlarin is part of my entourage. He's in pain. Let him leave.”

“That is not how this works.”

“This is your game and your rules, Sliske,” Jahaan clenched his fists, his teeth gritted. “Are you going to follow them, or is this all a big farce?”

There was a pause, followed by a long, exasperated sigh. “Fiiine. You get to let your doggy out for a walk. But Death’s part of that package deal too. If Iccy goes, he goes.”

“Fine, just let him out,” Jahaan hurriedly replied.

Icthlarin looked so fragile now, so hollow as he tilted his green eyes upwards to meet Jahaan’s gaze. “Th... Thank...  you… friend.”

Putting a hand on Icthlarin’s shoulder, he bent down to his level and assured, “You'll be okay. Don’t worry about anything.”

The canine deity just about managed a cracked smile before he was teleported away to, hopefully, recover with dignity.

“There,” Sliske huffed. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

I’m going to murder you, you piece of shit, Jahaan growled inwardly, storming off down the next corridor in search of further progress in the labyrinth.

Zamorak stomped through the maze, rounding another corner that only led to a dead end. It was the fifth dead end in a row. Grunting, he punched the wall, watching as pieces of stone crumbled away, before regenerating themselves back into perfect place in an instant. Hazeel, Moia and Lord Daquarius dutifully followed in tow, but they didn’t dare raise their voices, sensing easily the foul mood their deity was in.

“Sliske! I know you're watching! Get here now!” Zamorak shouted to the skies. “I can hear that fucking chuckle. Don't think I can't!”

Out of thin air, masks floated from above, each with a different emotion crudely carved into them. For every mask that fell, the echoed voice of Sliske followed.

“Feeling lonely, Zamorak?”

“Want to chinwag about old times?”

“Remember when you and I turned the Mahjarrat against Icthlarin?”

“Remember when you stabbed Zaros in the back?”

“Remember when you burned a hole in half the world?”

Zamorak caught one of the masks and threw it against the labyrinth wall, shattering it on impact. “I'm getting tired of your shit, Sliske. Get down here NOW!”

More masks fell. “Remember when you tore a chunk out of Lumbridge?”

“Remember when you almost died at the hands of the blue charlatan?”

“Remember when Zaros plucked the wings from you like a fly?”

“Remember when you were drawn to this game, even though you said you wouldn't play?”

“ENOUGH!” Zamorak cut in. “I should have known better than to get an adult conversation from you, you mad bastard. Oh, I can’t wait to get my hands around your throat, as soon as I've got the Stone back…”

To worsen his mood, when Zamorak and company rounded the next corner, they came to a sharp halt at who they saw at the end of the corridor. There, working on a locking mechanism, was Seren and her entourage.

Seeing Zamorak’s presence in her peripheral vision, Seren slowly raised her head and turned towards Zamorak.

The glare in the Mahjarrat deity’s eyes could cause nightmares.

Taking a tentative step backwards, Seren gulped. “Zamorak, I…”

“Kill the elves,” Zamorak ordered, crossing the distance between them. “I will deal with Seren.”

Edging backwards, Lady Trahaearn quivered, “What do we do, my lady?”

Drawing his thin sword, Lord Arianwyn answered in Seren’s place, “We stand and fight!”

“No, we leave,” Seren ordered. “I will not risk your lives.”

Zamorak challenged, “Then maybe before we kill them, how about we shed some light on your true nature?”

Seren's breath caught in her dry throat.

“Oh, what's wrong? Do you not wish to subject your favourites to the truth?” Zamorak chided, venom on his tongue. “Are they too precious to hear who you really are?”

Narrowing his eyes, Lord Arianwyn declared, “We have no wish to hear your lies, you snake.”

“Snake?!” Zamorak roared a sharp laugh, acid spewing from his forked tongue. “That’s so fucking rich. You really don’t have a fucking clue, do you? You don’t know the goddess you stand beside. For an age we adored her as you do now, and all we got from it was fear, terror, and paranoia. We were all abused and wandering Children of 'Mah', all thanks to the curse she inflicted upon my people.”

Lady Trahaearn scrunched up her brow. Looking up at Seren, she queried, “What is he talking about, my lady?”

“I’ll answer that for her,” Zamorak cut in, fire in his eyes. “I’ll tell you all what Seren, beloved of the elves, did to my people. Did she raise us up to crystal towers? Everlasting life? No. She hid behind the mask of Mah and made us kill each other. Did the elves have to sacrifice their own fucking breatheren to subdue an elder god? No, they were too precious for that. Let the Mahjarrat die out. Let them suffer for centuries. We built a society and culture centred around these murders of hers, bound to them, for if we do not kill one of our own, we wither and die. That is who you stand beside, elves.”

Seren felt the heavy weight of her own elves’ eyes upon her, regarding her with an emotion she’d never seen from them before. It was a crude blend of confusion, fear… and disgust. Once again, the shame she’d endured for generations reared its ugly head, constricting her breathing as it once did. She felt like she was back on Freneskae again.

Taking a deep breath to try and clear her mind, she forced herself to look into Zamorak’s vengeful eyes and plead, “Zamorak, time has changed me. I did what I thought I had to in order to ease Mah, to stop her violent nightmares tearing apart Freneskae. I see now how very wrong I was to bestow that upon your people.”

“Save your bullshit speeches,” Zamorak spat. “I have to claim the Stone of Jas. Then, we will finish this…”

Zamorak and his entourage turned and walked away, and Seren could only watch him go, her mouth agape, her hand slightly raised as if she wished to call him back... and the haunting image of betrayal and loathing in his dark eyes to overwhelm her mind.

“You do not know him as I do!” Azzanadra persisted, standing between Char and the next corner, angering the fire enchantress.

Azzanadra and Char had been at loggerheads since the start of the labyrinth, much to the exasperation of Zaros. The Empty Lord did not care to be a mediator in their conflict; it was bad enough having to endure these mortal humiliations without two of his closest allies biting each other’s ears off.

In response, Char squared up to him and hissed, “Look at everything he has done. You are a blind fool to continue trusting him. Just because he warmed your bed once, doesn’t mean won’t kill us all now.”

Maddened, Azzanadra swung around to Zaros. “Why do you listen to this… to this dancer, lord?”

“Better to be a dancer than the high priest of a church of dust!” Char countered, summoning fire to her fingertips.

“Enough!” Zaros cut in, stepping in front of the two incensed warriors. “You two have been at one another’s throats for too long. We must not lose sight of our goal. So, we settle this now, maturely, not like squabbling children.”

Humbled, Azzanadra bowed his head, “Apologies, my Lord.”

Char muttered a similar, yet less whole-hearted, apology of her own, before she declared, “We need to kill him, preferably before he has another chance to open his mouth.”

His tone now a lot more measured, Azzanadra replied, “If it matters at all to you, I do not want to lose one of my few remaining brothers if I can help it. I do not care to be the last of my kind.”

“So considerate of you, brother!” Sliske’s voice floated from out of nowhere.

“Sliske!” Azzanadra exclaimed, relieved. “We still have the opportunity to resolve this amicably before anyone else gets hurt.”

With a chuckle, Sliske replied, “Oh Azzy, you silly, silly moo. I think the time for amicable resolution has long since passed, wouldn’t you agree?”

“No, it hasn’t. You and I were blood brothers once, Sliske. Friends,” Azzanadra reminded, his eyes heavy as he looked upwards.

“Yes, friends. Tell me Azzy, if I had come to the Ritual Site... would you have had me sacrificed?”

Azzanadra’s hesitation was all Sliske needed to confirm his suspicion. “So you were more than willing to sacrifice your ‘friend’ then, weren’t you?” he growled, “I wouldn’t call the Marker an ‘amicable resolution’!”

“What was I to do, Sliske?” Azzanadra snapped in his frustration. “You had turned your back on everyone. You had betrayed our lord!”

“Your lord,” Sliske corrected. “I’ve been ousted from that little club, remember?”

Zaros stepped forward and placed a gloved hand on Azzanadra’s shoulder. “My child, we must continue onwards. Do not let Sliske infect your mind with his poison.”

“Yes, go on, Azzy,” Sliske sneered, “Run back to your lord. See if I care.”

“You,” Saradomin narrowed his eyes, his entourage instantly unsheathing their weapons. “I had hoped you had fallen prey to one of Sliske's little traps. It would be a fitting end.”

As misfortunate would have it, Saradomin had run into Zamorak and company at a crossroads in the maze. Naturally, pride would not let them turn back. If anything Saradomin was glad for the chance at confrontation.

Zamorak’s follower’s readied themselves for the inevitable conflict. The Mahjarrat deity replied with a cruel sneer, “Do you think yourself deserving of such fortune, old man? Of course we had to run into each other.”

“Ha. Perhaps, but last time we had this dance you were not so fortunate…” Saradomin recalled, a taunting upturn in his smile.

“Ah, bit it’s different now, eh Sara?” Zamorak’s eyes flashed. “You feel it, don’t you? Mortality’s a motherfucker, isn’t it? Aching bones and weary joints... the ravages of age and the inevitability of death… it’s eating at you, isn’t it?”

“Do not mistake experience for frailty, usurper,” Saradomin warned, haughtily. “Mortal or not I am still your better. I am Saradomin. I governed worlds before you even knew what another world was. You don't really think you're a match for me, do you?”

At this, Zamorak actually laughed. “Without your divinity you’re just a sad old bastard. Do you even know how to fight? I’ve snapped the necks of creatures that would give you nightmares. But hey, if you’re tired of living, step up. I’m sure your human shields won’t mind if you handle this one alone, right?”

Jahaan stopped dead when he heard the voices he was encroaching on. Pressing against the wall, he edged along it and peered slightly around the corner to confirm his suspicions.

“Shit!” he cursed, dashing back behind cover and praying he wasn’t spotted.

Of all the deities Jahaan had to run into, it was two of the ones that had a real bone to pick with him. What’s worse, they were blocking a crossroads in the maze, one that would hopefully progress him further through the labyrinth. After losing Icthlarin, Jahaan’s sense of direction had undergone a string of back luck, running him into dead ends and forcing him to circle back on himself one too many times. Finally he found a new door, an unexplored route… and it had led him here.

Bracing himself, Jahaan took a deep breath and strode around the corner to meet his fate, hoping they would be too wrapped up in each other to care about him passing through.

“Ah, look who dares to show his face,” Saradomin drawled, narrow eyes glaring down at the World Guardian. “Now I can kill both of my enemies in one go.”

Zamorak scrunched his brow, biting back a smirk. “What did he do to piss you off?”

“He murdered one of my knights in cold blood!” Saradomin declared, angrily.

Jahaan opened his mouth to defend himself, but then realised he couldn’t, instead saying, “None of us have time for this. Let’s just move on.”

“Where are you going, World Guardian?” Zamorak stepped out to block Jahaan’s path. “For all we know, you could be in on this. Not like you’ve got the best track record, what with that shit you pulled at Sliske’s lair. We wouldn’t be in this fucking mess if you hadn’t stabbed me in the back!”

Jahaan didn’t raise his chin to look up at the Mahjarrat deity towering over him, but his eyes trawled up to meet Zamorak’s. “I’m not working for Sliske. Move.”

“In fact,” Zamorak continued, brazenly, “For once in his miserable life, Saradomin might be onto something. Let’s settle this, right here, right now.”

“I have no objections,” Saradomin motioned for his entourage to draw their weapons. Zamorak’s did the same.

“Yeah great idea,” Jahaan rolled his eyes, taking a step back to get some breathing room. “Give Sliske exactly what he wants. Kill each other. And you know what he’ll do when you kill each other? He’ll laugh. He doesn't want you dead because of some great plan. He wants you to kill each other because it’s funny.”

The deities and their respective entourages were forced into silence, Saradomin reluctantly admitting, “The World Guardian is right.”

“Of course I’m right!” Jahaan found himself getting more heated now, the intensity of his tone increasing as he continued, “Who do you think has been at the centre of all of this shit? Not you. Neither of you have seen friends killed by Sliske. Neither of you have seen those closest to you warped into mindless wights. Neither of you have been beaten into a bloody mess after enduring his sick and twisted games. For all that you've been through, know that it's a drop in the ocean compared to what Sliske has done to me. So don’t you DARE think I’m siding with that psychopath. And for once - just for once - shut up and stop giving Sliske what he wants.”

There was a long, tense pause following this. Saradomin and Zamorak gave each other a look they’d never shared before, one that silently conveyed the begrudging acceptance that perhaps - just perhaps - their conflict wasn’t all that important right now.

Clearing his throat, Saradomin spoke first, “You have endured much, World Guardian. I respect that. Truly. But you would be wise to watch your tone.”

“He’s got a point tho, Sara,” Zamorak stated. “And Sliske’s a little higher up my shit list than you are. So let’s continue this another time, eh?”

“Indeed,” Saradomin agreed, readying his entourage to move on. “My followers and I have a Stone to claim. We can return to our conflict once all this is over.”

Zamorak grinned. “Count on it.”

With that, Zamorak and his followers continued on to a path to the east, while Saradomin took his entourage down a westernly route. In the centre of the crossroads, Jahaan was left alone, his body crumbling with the relief of a conflict avoided. Catching his breath, Jahaan straightened out his armour and marched on northwards.

DISCLAIMER:

As Of Gods and Men is a reimagining, retelling and reworking of the Sixth Age, a LOT of dialogue/characters/plotlines/etc. are pulled right from the game itself, and this belongs to Jagex.

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[darthrena]

I Should Tell You

Part II:  I'd Die For One More Day

Part I here

He comes to her in dreams.

Solid beneath her touch. Breath warm against her skin.

She swallows his exhales and whispered declarations and takes him inside her.

"Are you here? Is this real?" she cries after pleasure crashes over her.

Exhilaration bleeds into fear into loneliness into pleasure all over again.

"As real as you need me to be."

o-o-o-o-o-o

50 days after Exolgor, Rey digs out the ancient moisture vaporators.

She finds them buried deep in the sand, corroded by the elements, damaged, some in pieces and others long scavenged for parts. The Force aids her, divulges their locations with the memory of moisture and wind, drags them through the earth and into the light.

The power which had flooded her on Exolgor, imbued with the voices and the wisdom of generations of Jedi, has left her.

It is only Rey that remains.

But that, at least, is nothing new.

There is little to make her smile these days, but it is with fierce satisfaction that she lines them in the courtyard, and buffs them into, if not pristineness, at least presentability. Readying them to this point was a task of two daycycles' hard effort, however the true testament of her hard scrabble skills is to follow.

"This isn't going to work, Rey."

The familiar, gruff tone is both a delight and an irritant. Glowing blue in the guise of a Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker hovers beside her, arms crossed and a look of obvious skepticism as he glances over her scavenging.

"It will." Rey rises to her feet slowly, stretching out kinks and wearied limbs, and pointedly not meeting the Jedi Master's gaze. It is easy to recall the frustrating grump from Ach-to, in moments such as this.

"Rey, the circuits are degraded beyond repair. Even a mechanic as skilled, and resourceful, as you won't be able to get these running. You'd be better off scrapping them for parts, and trading for newer units. Better yet," and now Luke's chiding tone softens somewhat, "go back to your friends. Make a life with the family you chose."

Ignoring Force Ghosts with unhelpful comments and unwanted suggestions, Rey grunts as she pulls open the side paneling of one unit to reveal the inner circuitry. The sight isn't pretty, but she is reluctant to give voice to any dismay before her almost-Master. Still, despite his apparent reservations, Rey remains optimistic. Luke's family had operated several vaporators suitable for moisture farmers. Rey's ambitions are more modest. Two to three working units would provide much needed water reserves and allow her to carve out a kitchen garden from the commercial hydroponics garden she found in the homestead.

After muttering, "Stubborn girl," Luke leaves her alone.

The rest of the day passes in industrious silence as Rey works on the vaporators into the evening.

"Whatcha doing?"

This time she greets the interruption with an upturned mouth. "What does it look like?"

Ben dangles his long legs over a crate of dated provisions, an amused air as he studies her efforts. This time, Ben wears sand colored robes tied with a brown belt, dark hair cropped slightly but for a narrow braid by his ear. They peak out slightly, round and adorably large. Pink colors cheeks as if the thought transferred to him. And maybe it did. If the garb does not warn her, Ben's face would--high cheekbones and pale, smooth, unblemished skin. No faint scar to bisect soft, warm, vulnerable eyes.

"Looks like your scavenging days aren't behind you."

And Rey is grinning now. Why is it only now that those years of hardship and anguish fill her with a fierce pride? She survived, not for any powerful bloodline or great purpose, but through her own determination to live. "Your Uncle was very unhelpful. It would have been nice to have some practical advice from someone who maintained them. But it was not to be."

"I'm afraid I won't be much better help." Ben hops down from the crate, or perhaps more accurately, floats into a standing position, and then materializes at her side to peer into the decrepit vaporator upon which she currently worked. "Is that the power cell?"

Rey glances to where he indicated, then nods. "Backup power cell. Runs primarily on solar energy."

"Well that's about all I know. Learned enough to build my saber, and what not to do from watching my Dad tinker with the Falcon."

Tatooine’s double suns threaten to bleed across the horizon, and take the needed daylight in their passing. Although Rey has already managed to salvage some workable solar panels and rig up the existing lighting grid, her power reserves remain conservative and she has taken to stopping work after the suns have set.

Letting her tools rest on their makeshift tool box, Rey studies her ghostly former nemesis and almost lover as she ponders the sum of her knowledge against the seemingly endless mysteries of the Force. “You look younger. Than I remember you. Or since the other times I’ve seen you.”

“Death becomes me, you mean.” The words come at a deadpan, barely a flicker to ruffle his normally intemperate expression. At last a smirk peaks out.

"No--" Rey aims a smack through a translucent arm that sends a wave of static up her wrist. "That's not funny." But soon she is laughing anyway. If a bit of tears glimmer upon her lashes, Ben is kind enough not to comment. "Can you change your form?"

He glances down over his own body, taking in the robes and the back of his hands. "I'm wearing my padawan robes. I must be a teenager." Incredibly his ears, visible with the shorter cut, flush a darker blue-purple.

Rey gives him a lingering once over, before drawling, "I like it. Very pure." As Ben's blush only intensifies, Rey chuckles and heads toward the 'fresher, Ben trailing her. Although knowing Ben would hear her anyway, while shucking clothes on the fresher floor, Rey calls over her shoulder, "Do you have any control over your appearance?"

"Uh-h, sort of."

At the odd tone, Rey glances up to see Ben pointedly averting his gaze. Reminded suddenly of her own flustered state after glimpsing Ben shirtless in the Force bond, Rey smiles fondly. In a low voice, she calls, "You can look, if you want."

Very slowly, as if afraid she would retract the offer, Ben turns to face her.

And the breath stutters in her chest.

Lust and longing, love and agony. They are written in the depths of soulful eyes and the taut planes of his face. For what could have been theirs. For what should have been theirs. He drinks her in like a man starved of love and denied his greatest desire. The intensity of his longing drives away any levity, and drags the clawed feet of desperation through her chest cavity. Wet trails tracking down her cheeks are reflected in the tears glimmering in Ben's eyes.

"Will I see you?" Later. In my dreams. The longing in her own voice is palpable.

"Yes," he promises with the resolution of his former persona. Then his voice breaks. "I'll try."

o-o-o-o-o-o

She is buffeted by waves.

That day, on Kef Bir, she had jumped into the tempest without hesitation. Kylo on her heels.

She, for whom the water trough in Niima Outpost had once been the most water she had ever seen.

Fear, and a fierce determination, had kept her moving, kept her fighting.

Something is out there. Beyond the waves. She follows it like a siren call, helpless to the instinct for survival.

This time it is not a watery graveyard that awaits her, nor a convergence of Darkness.

The waves part to a grassy plane with a red sun on the horizon. It is here she finds him. It is here he waits.

“Ben.”

A hand trembles as she presses it against the soft black shirt to feel the steady beat of his heart. In disbelief, a soft sound escapes her. “Is it really you?”

“It’s me. I’m here.” Ben speaks the same wonder, the same longing for touch and connection. “Rey,” he pleads, reaching forward to cradle her jaw in his large hands, the same which had gripped her with determination to transfer his lifeforce into her own.

“You’re not alone.” The familiar promise slips her lips earnestly before she brings them in wordless devotions.

Ben leans into her kiss eagerly, sliding his hands from her jaw to cup the back of head, carrying her forward.

The kiss on Exolgor had been sweet, but brief, joyous and awoken to shared passion. To remember those seconds of wholeness was to be reminded of the agony of separation which followed.

Rey pushes those thoughts aside and gives herself to the warm, smooth press of Ben's mouth, his hard, powerful body against her own. She opens to the tentative probe of his tongue, and chases his shy retreat with her own.

In the real world, beyond this reprieve of breathy sighs and intimate pleasures, Rey has never known a lover, and neither, she suspects, has Ben. Perhaps there, noses would have bumped in awkward kisses and fumbling touches would have them laughing as often as sighing.

Minds intertwined in this dreamscape, more so even than the connection of their Force bond, thought translates into feeling. Ben's love, Ben's longing echoes seamlessly with her desire for closeness and answering reassurance.

There is no pain when he enters her. Only ecstasy.

The teasing glimpses of skin and perfect harmony of their bodies in combat were a prelude to this rightness.

There is a wave that is Rey, building to a momentum both frightening and exhilarating, and the shoreline that is Ben, bringing her to greater heights and steadily drawing her in.

"Ben, please--". Don't leave me. Be with me.

The exhale in her ear, the sharp pistoning of Ben's solid thighs, the hot drip of tears upon her shoulder, and his voice breaking a rough command, "Let go, Rey," break and remake her. I'm here. You're not alone.

Be with me.

Be with me.

Be with me.

Passion bleeds into serenity, and Rey loses herself.

Rey is Ben, and Ben is Rey.

Have they always been one? Two broken shapes finding meaning in a whole, that nothing, not even death, could divide.

In this moment of grace, they are together.

Also posted on AO3

[thekitchensnk]

and the spider lilies bloomed in the fall (chapter 19)

Rating: T Warnings: Violence Pairing: Gin/Ran Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19

“They say that lovers doomed never to see each other again still see the higanbana growing along their path, even to this day.”

A girl collapses on a dusty road one day. A boy takes her home.

The girl lives.

—

(The boy doesn’t.)

Rangiku leaned over and scrubbed viciously at the table under the window.

She was good enough for the academy. She was more than good enough- she was brilliant. Then why could she not bring herself to leave?

She bit her tongue and it poked out from between her teeth slightly as she cleaned. There was a recalcitrant water ring marking the table’s surface. She paused for a minute, and, casting a glance around her to make sure no one was watching her slacking off, ignored it and craned her neck to look outside. The sun was shining high in the sky, and the shadows of nearby buildings were short. They were still in the shadow of the walls of Seireitei; they stood like pale grey giants in the distance.

He was out there somewhere, out there in the big wide world, clothed in black, learning magical spells and sword fighting techniques to fight monsters.

That could be her too if she wished it. She was strong enough.

Then why did she resist?

She stared out into the distance, rag clenched in her hand.

Three square meals a day- good ones too, she had heard. She would make as much as a shinigami in a month as she currently did in almost a year- all the sweets she had once dreamed of, the fancy silk kimono given only to the highest earners at the Floating Moon, they could be hers with money like that. She was strong already, she knew, but she would become stronger still with a bit of training, and the thought appealed to her. She would be able to put her strength to use, protecting innocent souls in the world of the living and banishing monstrous creatures.

She would be brilliant.

She could imagine herself in black. Now that she’d thought about it, had pictured it, she wanted it. She wanted it badly.

She’d look good in black.

Then why did she resist?

We don't need you. We made it through before you came, and we'll be alright after you're gone. We don’t need you, Rangiku.

How could words spoken so gently have hurt so much?

It had been a week since Ayame had confronted her, but the truth still stung.

Rangiku bit at her lip as she looked out.

Maybe it doesn’t matter if they don’t need me if I need them, she thought.

(But really, she needed them to need her, so that they would never abandon her.)

How could she leave them?

Sayaka with her raucous laughter and her dirty jokes; Rin with her dignified, aristocratic manner and her endless tendency to indulge her; Yuki, with her sad smiles and her soft, lined hands; Ayame, fussy, ferocious, beautiful Ayame with her impeccable aim and her scathing comments, those scathing comments which she never truly meant. They were hers now.

She had just found them; how could she leave them now? Did it matter if she wasn’t needed when she wanted so badly to stay?

(Would it hurt, she thought, to give up that brilliant future?)

She sighed, and her shoulders sank as she did so. Her eyes were downcast and unseeing, and her cloth made vague circles on the table-top.

She’d be alone if she left; alone again.

But-

But-

(He’d be there.)

It was a whisper in her heart, a small and furtive thought which she tried to pretend she wasn’t thinking. She could only bare to examine it if she looked at it from odd angles, from out of the corner of her eye, if she refused to acknowledge the full weight of the thing.

But there was no way that she could avoid thinking of him, not on this day of all days. The trees were putting on their autumn finery; the world was painted in shades of auburn and gold; the autumn mists were descending.

It was her birthday and it had been almost three years since he’d left.

What was he doing? What was his life like now? Did he wake late with messy hair and have to run to his lectures, like she’d heard all the students did? Did he go out and drink with friends, and did his cheeks glow pink when he was drunk? Did he still play pranks, and did he still hustle at go with a hidden gleam in his eye? Did he drive his teachers crazy? Were they smart enough to see through him?

Had he grown, as she had? Did he still smile widely and inscrutably, as he always had? Had he learnt to cut his own hair, or was he stuck with it stupid and lopsided? Had he grown stronger, more skilled, more powerful? Was he still stupid and annoying and mocking, and brilliant, so brilliant?

Could he possibly be standing right now, as she was, and be looking at the same rosy sky? Could he be eating the autumn-harvested persimmons he had loved so much, and which he had once shared with her, had once fed her hand to mouth?

What would he say if he could see her now, with her long hair and her wide hips?

Would he-

(Would he look at her softly, as he once had?)

Her heart squeezed like a vice at the thought, and she had to steady herself.

Or-

Would he still feel whatever it was that had made him leave her? Hatred, boredom, contempt- whatever poisonous thing he had felt which had inspired him to leave?

She balled her hands into fists, and her nails carved semi-circles into her palms. Shaken, she faced up to what she had suspected all along.

She was frightened.

She was scared to go to the Academy because she was scared to see him.

She was scared because she would see him. They were drawn together, he and she; it was inevitable. She would see him, and the moment would come when it would all be confirmed anew.

She was not sure she could survive being rejected again.

Maybe she’d prefer it if she never saw him again. It would be safer that way.

(She frowned. The thought did not sit right in her mind.)

She’d never hurt again.

(Except for want of him.)

The sun, just beginning to set in the sky, was painting Seireitei’s grey walls pink. She stared into the distance blankly, her mouth a grim line. Pink, as far as the eye could see.

Something banged suddenly on the window, rattling the frame loudly. She yelped and stumbled backwards.

“Could you help me?” a baritone voice called plaintively. “Are you open? Do you have any sake?”

Rangiku shrieked.

“Ow!” the voice whined. “No loud voices, okay? Can I get a drink? I’ve got money.”

“Ayame-chan!” Rangiku hissed loudly, her eyes darting to the amorphous skein of pink at the window. Now that she paid attention, she could see that the pink was embroidered in a floral pattern. A woman’s haori.

Not the walls of Seireitei then, she thought sheepishly. Just some creepy drunk.

Ayame walked over to the window and squinted out. “Some weirdo in a woman’s haori and a straw-hat, Rangiku-chan. He must have been day-drinking and gotten lost. No one would wear that get up together otherwise.” She nodded to herself, convinced of her logic.

Rangiku sat up from where she had lain sprawled on the floor, and rubbed her shoulder.

“Helloooooo?” the voice said morosely.

“Should we let him in?” Rangiku asked, hoping that Ayame would say no so that she could continue to shirk work. “Opening’s only an hour and a half away.”

Ayame’s mouth twisted as she ran calculations. “Could you manage him alone? I need to get ready for tonight.”

“I guess so,” Rangiku sighed. “Extra work.” She glared at Ayame, as if it was her fault the man had turned up.

“Stop being lazy, you,” Ayame huffed guiltily. “You know you would just have spent the time in the tub anyway.”

“I like my baths!” Rangiku muttered in protest. “It soothes my aching bones from all the scrubbing you make me do.”

“You talk like you’re Chiyo-san’s age, Rangiku-chan. Stop being lazy.” Ayame rolled her eyes, and moved to let the man in.

“Hello, sir!” she said brightly, putting on her best and most enthusiastic customer service voice. “I’m afraid we don’t officially open for another hour and a half, but of course we’ll try to accommodate you. My name is Ayame-chan, and it is my pleasure to introduce you to my colleague, Rangiku-chan, who will be serving you whilst I make preparations for opening!” She rattled the pre-prepared spiel off perfectly, as if it has been engraved on her eyeballs, having given it a million times before.

The man looked delighted.

“Ayame and Rangiku! Will there any other lovely flowers joining us?” he said, casting his eyes around hopefully.

A vein pulsed in Rangiku’s forehead. Such an original joke; no one has ever been creative enough to make flower jokes based on our names, Rangiku thought sarcastically, internally throwing her hands up in the air 

Ayame lips quirked upward as they shared a look, doubtlessly aware of what was running through Rangiku’s head, having heard the old complaints countless times before.

“I’m afraid not, sir! Not until opening!” Rangiku said with feigned cheer. “What can I get you to drink?”

She slid behind the bar, rolling her sleeves up as she went. Her hands flew with precise and automatic movements to a cleaning cloth, which she threw over her shoulder. Her working nights were already long; this was going to be a tough evening.

“I’m going up to get ready,” Ayame said. “If you need help…” she trailed off, and mimed ringing a bell.

Rangiku cottoned on quickly, and gave a thumbs up. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she said, genuine cheer starting to enter her voice. She was sure she could handle one drunkard in a straw-hat by herself, no matter how massive he was. “We’ll be fine.”

Despite her complaints, she did enjoy the perks of the job, and getting to meet new people ranked chief amongst them. She had spent many nights listening to tall tales and gossip, getting genuinely invested in her customers’ complaints, periodically letting out an outraged “No!” or “You’re joking!”.

She was particularly intrigued by her customer’s interesting choice of dress for the evening, and was looking forward to getting that story from him.

Ayame trod steadily up the stairs, leaving Rangiku alone with the customer.

“Sake,” the man announced grandiosely. “Sake. Gimme the good stuff. The good sake. Rangi-Rangiku-chan.”

She was mildly impressed that he had managed to keep hold of her name in his sorry state. He looked as if he had been dragged through several hedges backwards and had slept on someone’s roof. The stranger’s warm, brown eyes seemed to have trouble focusing, and he seemed insistent on giving her his dopiest, drunkest smile.

But his seemed to be a well-intentioned face. And he seemed like he liked a bit of fun, which made him alright in Rangiku’s book.

She played along, pouring him their second best sake. The real good stuff was for special occasions, and she was hesitant to let a dubious pink-robed stranger have some without sign off from Chiyo.

“One of our finest sakes coming right up for you, sir,” she said in the stuffiest impression she could muster of a noble.

The stranger heard her, and guffawed so loudly that his straw hat fell across his face. She handed him his sake, and added the amount to his tab, and the man plonked his hat down on the counter.

“I am glad to see that I have found my way to an establishment of quality,” he said with the same feigned pomposity.

“Everything here is quality, sir,” she assured him. “Booze, music and tits.”

“Now you sound like a true noble,” he grinned.

“What?” she said with lazy disbelief, “You can’t be saying that the nobles go around talking like that? They’re not that rude. How would you even know anyway?”

The stranger ignored her and stretched his large limbs across the bar, his bearded cheek pressing against the cool wooden surface.

“Ahhhhh,” he sighed in pleasure. “So nice and cold.”

Ayame had polished the bar earlier, but it irked Rangiku know that the facial imprint of a drunken eccentric would be smudging it all evening after her efforts. She resisted the urge to poke him in the offending cheek. A vein twitched in her temple.

“Hey!” she said loudly instead, “What do you mean, ‘like a true noble’?”

The man rumbled and vaguely waved his hand in the air. “You meet the Shibas, and they’re all vulgar, the whole lot of them- riding boars and screaming, shooting off fireworks into the sky, swearing. The Shihoins aren’t much better.” His liquid brown eyes took on an amused gleam. “And the Kyourakus- well, they’re a bunch of ingrates. The less said about that lot, the better really.” He grinned, seemingly entertained by his own jokes. Rangiku was lost. “Once you’ve got enough money, you can afford not to have manners,” he informed her, and he sloshed his sake around in his cup as if to prove his point.

She digested this, and then nodded vigorously. “That makes sense,” she said sagely. “I was talking to a-“ rival? Antagonist? Pain in the ass? “-guy here one night who’s in Seireitei at shinigami school, and he said that the students from noble families are stuck-up pricks who look down on everyone from Rukongai.”

The man scratched sheepishly at his hair and twiddled with one of his hairpins. “It does happen,” he admitted, “but usually they get over it by the time they graduate. By that point a shinigami is a shinigami and you’ve got to trust your comrades when you’ve got a Hollow breathing down your back.” The man changed the topic quickly. “It’s quite rare, isn’t it? A shinigami coming from fourteenth?”

For a drunk man, he spoke very cogently. Rangiku was impressed, and wonder what that spoke of- a long and practiced history with alcohol, or a tendency to try and get people to underestimate his abilities.

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug. “Not that rare though. It’s far harder making it to Seireitei from a district out in the thirties or fourties. If he was from Inuzuri, then I might be more impressed. I kicked his ass.”

The man laughed, and Rangiku flushed in self-righteous embarrassment. “I did!” she protested hotly. “I kicked his ass.”

“No, no,” the man said placatingly. “I was laughing at the fact that it would take coming from Inuzuri to impress you. Those are some pretty high standards that you’ve got there, Rangiku-chan. I’m sure you did kick your poor boy’s ass.”

Rangiku considered the man’s justification for a moment. “Okay,” she said grudgingly, a suspicious look on her face. “I can buy that. Anyway, my friend made it to Seireitei, and I think we were from around that number, though it’s hard to tell- we didn’t live in a village or a town.”

“Makes sense,” the man said reasonably. “Guess you would have high standards if that was your experience.” His warm, dark eyes filled with pity. “That must have been pretty rough. We don’t do enough for the poorer districts.”

Rangiku felt uncomfortable; she had never liked to be pitied. It made her feel as if she was being singled out, exposed, and for all the wrong reasons. The increased scrutiny of the man’s gaze felt like worms wriggling on her skin.

She changed the subject quickly.

“Why were you out drinking? What’s the occasion? Did you lose your friends? What sort of a party costume is a woman’s haori and a straw hat?” she asked rudely.

The man looked affronted. He shifted his head, with all its dark curls, onto his arms, and gave her a pained look.

“It makes no sense to say something like ��woman’s haori’,” he complained. “Why can’t it just be a haori? And even if you insist on calling it that, it’s no big deal. I suit it.”

A slow grin crept across Rangiku’s face as she realised.

“It’s not a costume,” she said gleefully.

The man pouted at her. “I wear this every day.”

“But a straw-hat? Really? ‘S not very stylish” she asked dubiously.

He looked wounded. “It stops my pretty face from getting sunburn if I fall asleep on a rooftop,” he said plaintively. “My friend told me I should wear it because I kept getting silly sunburn marks. He’s more sensible than I am.”

He had fallen asleep on a roof! Her first impressions had been bang on. Pleased, she hummed to herself.

“So what’s the occasion then? What brings you out tonight?”

The atmosphere turned in a moment. The man’s eyes were suddenly stony serious.

Rangiku reeled from the mood whiplash.

“Eh?” she said in shock.

The man held her gaze intensely for a few seconds, and his eyes bore down into her soul. It was transfixing and a little frightening. He looked at her, and then-

He could not help but sputter in laughter. He took a sip of his sake.

“Hey!” she said in alarm. “That was just plain creepy! Watch it before you stare like that at a pretty lady!” In spite of herself, she leaned over to refill his cup.

“I’m sorry for giving you a fright. I’ll tell you why I’m drinking.” There was something there, something tight about his eyes, which she had not noticed at first, and she looked at him in concern. “But…” he trailed off slowly, and sudden merriment danced in his eyes. “I’ll only do it if we play a game!”

He winked at her.

“Eh?”  Something about the man was thorough disorienting. He was serious one moment, morose the next, and then his eyes would twinkle and he would joke and laugh and offer to play games. The constant feeling of disorientation reminded her of someone. “What sort of game?”

“Quid pro quo. I ask you a question, you ask me a question.”

That seemed very reasonable to her. It could even be quite fun. She grinned. “No. I ask you a question, you ask me a question." She paused, and sighed melodramatically. "But if we're going to talk all evening, my poor throat will get all dry and sore and my voice will get raspy..." She looked at her customer with big, blue, beseeching eyes.

He leapt on the opportunity. "A drink then!" he cheered with a wide smile, "For my lovely, attentive barmaid. And another one for me!"

"You're my new favourite customer!" she enthused.

She poured their drinks, and raised her cup. "Kanpai!" she said, before knocking back the drink. It certainly beat staring at the ceiling gloomily in a bathtub, as far as birthdays went.

She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, and bent over the counter, her weight resting on her arms. "Right," she said with determination, looking over him. "Right. Let's get this started. First question. What's your name, mysterious stranger?"

He blinked balefully at her. "That's a boring question!" he whined.

She stuck to her guns. "Name!" she demanded, banging her cup on the bar-top.

The man pulled a face. "Kyouraku Shunsui."

"Kyoura-" she paused. "Wait! You said that name before! You're a noble? You?"

He moved a hand lazy hand in the air. "That's circumstantial evidence! Immaterial to the case at hand!" He protested. "I'm innocent, I swear! And anyway, that was two questions. You’re cheating already," he said accusingly. "Wait your turn. It's my turn now. What," he paused dramatically, "is your name?"

Her palm came up to smack her face before she could help it. "You already know my name! I told you earlier! How drunk are you?"

"Oh yeah," he said with drunken cheer. "You're like the flower. Rangiku-chan. Whoops."

She sighed weightily and sipped her sake with a scowl. It was going to be a long night if the man insisted on asking questions like this. "Ask another question."

"Hmmmmmmmm," he extended the sound for a comically long time. "Okay. Right… How long have you worked here?"

"Almost three years now."

He looked at her expectantly, as if expecting more detail.

"What?" she said. "That was your question!"

"Booooo," he drawled childishly. "This game won't be any fun if you don't give any details."

"There aren't any details to give on that question!" she argued hotly. "It was a bad question. You want good answers? Then ask good questions! It's my turn now. Why do you wear that haori?"

He looked taken aback, and he ran his fingers through his tousled hair. "Yare, yare," he sighed wearily. "I wear it to commemorate a woman I loved." His eyes took on a strange gleam and a smile twitched at his lips. "Or I wear it because it's the only socially sanctioned way of wearing something as comfy as a blanket outside my bedroom. One of those two things- you figure it out."

Rangiku was annoyed. "You're supposed to tell the truth," she complained to him.

"I was!” He smiled mysteriously. “Maybe. It's my turn anyway."

"Go for it."

"How did you beat that shinigami student?"

Rangiku perked up. "That's an easy one. We went out into the street behind the bar. I concentrated my spiritual energy into my hands, and bam!" She punched the air ferociously. "Just like that. I got him smack bang in the chest and he went twirling through the air. It was brilliant,” she informed him.

He nodded slowly, and as he did so, sake sloshed out of his cup. She moved to refill it.

"So you have spiritual power. That makes sense."

"What about you?" she asked. "You're a noble. Don’t you high and mighty folks usually have powers?" Thinking about it, he had seemed to know a lot about the academy and how students treated those from Rukongai. That should have tipped her off.

He seemed to find the question hysterically funny for some reason. His shoulders shook with barely suppressed laughter, and he kept making sputtering noises.

Her eyes narrowed. "Hey!" she said hotly. "It's rude to laugh at a beautiful girl's heartfelt questions"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." His eyes shone with humour. He did not look sorry in the slightest. "Yes- yes, I have spiritual power. Y’know- just a little bit."

"Are you a shinigami?" she demanded.

"Not your turn!" He wagged his finger at her, and she huffed at him. "If you have spiritual energy, why aren't you at the academy?"

It was a question she had been asking herself all week, put to her by a complete stranger.

"Was that a bad question?" he asked, not unkindly. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to. Who even says that you want to go?"

She looked at him, and sighed, her previous melancholy washing over her again. His eyes, warm and brown and full of compassion, looked at her with genuine curiosity. "I do want to go," she said firmly. "A lot, actually. It's a two-sake cup question.”

"Would you like me to buy you another cup?"

"Go on, and I'll give your question my best shot."

She poured herself more sake, and began to piece together an answer.

She did not know what it was that compelled her to answer him.

She had always avoided expressing her worries and her fears to people that she knew. It was not a rational or thought out thing, as far as she could tell. It was just that it was... Safer. In her experience, if you became too much effort for someone, they would just leave you behind. It was best to show the world a smiling, happy face, to laugh and to be merry and beautiful; there would never be any reason to leave behind someone who was no trouble.

A stranger though- there was no reason to hide from a stranger.

She'd likely never see him again, and so she took the plunge.

"At first I didn't think I was good enough. Or at least, that's what I told myself for a long time." She told him with a side-long glance. "I think… That it was just an excuse I was using, so that I wouldn't have to think too hard about anything difficult. It was easier just to say 'Oh well! I can't make it, so what's the use of trying? Guess I have to stay here.'" She took a deep breath. "But that was a pile of shit! It turns out that I'm actually amazing. But actually... I think knew that all along. I was just lying to myself because I didn't want to leave. Do you get me?"

He looked at her, and his gaze was soft and serious. Was this really a drunk man? For a moment, she doubted it.

"I think so," he nodded, and almost to himself, he said, "Sometimes the person we're best at lying to is ourselves." He paused, and addressed her directly. "What is it that's keeping you here then?"

A small, shy smile crossed her face, and when she looked at him then, it was like she was looking past him, to something that only she could see. "My job. My friends,” she said warmly.

But then her smile faltered.

“They don’t need me though,” she said quietly. “Not like I need them. Ayame-chan is desperate for me to leave. She'd kick me out the door with my bags tomorrow if she could. She doesn’t want me to waste my talent. She doesn’t want me to get ‘trapped’.” She looked at him earnestly. "It's difficult, because I want to go! I do! So much! But I don't want to leave either."

Kyouraku hummed in sympathy.

Rangiku could not stop. “But I don’t want to be alone. Not again. Not ever.”

The man pulled himself up from his drunken sprawl across the bar.

“I don’t think loneliness would be a problem for you. Look at us! Nattering on like fishwives! And we’ve only known each other for what, an hour? You’re a charming girl. I don’t think that would be a problem.”

He paused.

“Just for the sake of argument here,” he said, “why couldn’t you visit them? You’ll be very busy for your first few years, but of course, you’ll get plenty of vacation time from the academy. It wouldn’t be a hard thing.”

She had gone still, very still, and his sharp eyes had noticed it immediately. He inclined his head towards her slowly. “There’s a gap here…. You knew that you would be able to visit. So why not go? You knew that you could always visit.”

He was very sharp, for a drunk man.

She swallowed, and closed her eyes slowly.

There was a beat of silence, and then he spoke.

“Is it a boy?” he asked with mischievous delight.

Rangiku squawked loudly, and glared daggers at him.

“It is a boy!” he crowed.

She could not even deny it, so she just fumed uselessly at him. “It isn’t like that! Not at all!”

He was obviously very entertained. “Isn’t it?”

“No,” she gritted out, and he grinned. “He left me behind.” Her heart was sickeningly tight. “I didn’t even know he was going to leave, and he abandoned me. I should have known. He was always leaving, but I’m stupid and didn’t even suspect a thing.”

To her horror, there were tears in her eyes, and she tried furiously to blink them away. She felt a kind of writhing anger. She had never told anyone before, and it was shaping up to be every bit as intrusive and bruising as she had thought it would be.

Kyouraku noticed the tears, and was shame-faced.

“I’m sorry,” he offered quietly, and she gave him a fierce look. “I didn’t mean to pour salt on old wounds. That must have been very difficult. It’s tough, being left behind.” He paused. “I know I may not seem it, looking as virile and handsome as I do, but I’ve been round the block a few times. There’s not much I’ve not heard in my time. You should talk to me about it and I’ll see if I can give you some advice.” He was obviously trying to make up for his insensitivity by extending an olive branch.

Rangiku sniffed, suspicious, but she took it anyway.

“You say ’Talk about it’ like it’s an easy thing… Where would I even start?” she said accusingly.

“How did you meet?” Kyouraku prompted gently.

She was silent for a long moment, pulling together her thoughts. It did not all come flooding back. It was not an easy thing. She had to reach fiercely for every word, to fight down the reluctance to speak, to strain and grasp to pull the sentences together.

But she did it.

“I’m not sure how long ago it was, now. Time had a way of blurring together, back then, so that days could go by and feel like hours and months could pass in minutes. But this is the way I remember it, and that I’ll never forget,” she said.

“There was a day, a day a long time ago, when I was stumbling along a dirt road in my old, worn out shoes with the sun burning the back of my neck. It was the kind of dry heat that you occasionally get at the end of summer, before the mists set in- the sort where your throat dries up with the heat and your eyeballs itch, where the cicadas buzz so loudly that the noise feels like it will never stop bouncing around in your brain.

“I hadn’t eaten in almost five days. I just knew that I had to keep moving, because if I didn’t, it might just be the day I finally collapsed and never got up again.”

Kyouraku’s expression was a grim line, and his eyes were dark.

“As it turns out, I did collapse.” She laughed but it was an odd, soft thing. “But it was okay.

“When I opened my eyes, he was there. He had a dried persimmon in his hand, and he put it to my mouth, and I chewed it, though I don’t know how I could have, my mouth was so dry.” Her gaze fell to her hands, her expression was gentle, but she didn’t see them. She was too far off, lost in some distant, untouchable memory.

“I don’t know how it tasted, that first persimmon. I don’t remember. I was too out of it, too light-headed even to stand. But it must have been the sweetest thing in the world.” She looked up at him. “I don’t remember what happened, but when I next woke, I was in his bed. I had stolen his only blanket.” She laughed brightly at the memory. “I was so panicked! I thought he was going to throw me out! But he didn’t- he told me to stay. That’s how we met.”

Kyouraku looked troubled, but captivated nonetheless.

“I don’t know whether that’s beautiful or incredibly sad,” he admitted to her.

“A bit of both, maybe?”

“Maybe. The most beautiful things are usually a little bit sad.” He said the words with such sincerity that she knew in her gut that he had to be speaking from experience. She looked at him askance, but he motioned at her to continue on.

“We lived together for a long time,” she said after a beat.

“I have a bad habit of only remembering the good bits- the times when we laughed, the times when he tried to push me in the river and I managed to slip him up instead, or the one time I ever managed to beat him at go, when he had stolen a bottle of sake on my birthday. I remember the songs we sang by the river, the made up lyrics he added, the times when he held my hand the first time we went into town, or the way he kept me safe. What I remember most is the way he never let me starve again after he found me.

“I forget that he was a pain in the ass, that he pissed off everyone he ever met, that he would leave all the time telling me where he was going, that he made me feel so lonely, that people were scared of him, that they all hated him. I even hated him sometimes, I think.”

Her voice trailed off.

“I was so stupid, to think that all of it- any of it- meant anything at all. In the end, he left me, and that’s what I keep coming back to. He just… left. And I was alone.”

She paused, shame-faced. Something she had buried deep and secret within herself was rising from in her, something so fragile and so powerful that she could barely face it in the light of day. But she was tired, too tired to keep it back now. She had kept it to herself for almost three years, and now she could bear it no longer.

She looked at her hands, at skin that had been made rough and worn by the endless work of cleaning. Her hands, which had never been soft.

“He didn’t love me,” she said quietly. There it was now, out in the world. There could be no turning back. “If he’d loved me, he would have stayed.” She looked Kyouraku in the eye. “I think I might have loved him though.”

There was a heart-rending beat of silence.

“Anywa-“ she tried to rush out.

“Is that why you’re scared?” Kyouraku asked compassionately.

She bit her lip, and she nodded mutely. “I keep wondering what would happen if I were to see him again,” she confessed quietly.

“Would that be such a bad thing?” he asked reasonably.

“What if he hated me?” she mumbled pathetically.

He held her gaze, suddenly very serious. “And what if he didn’t?”

“What?”

“What if he didn’t?” He repeated. “What if he was just being stupid and insensitive when he left, Rangiku-chan? What if you’re throwing away your shot at a comfortable future on a groundless, misplaced fear- a misinterpretation of the situation- when things could actually work out? When you could be friends again? I don’t know the odds- I don’t know the boy- but wouldn’t you want to at least try?”

He paused, and he sighed.

“The time you have isn’t infinite. Not even here. Trust me, I know what it’s like to be working on a timer. That friend I mentioned earlier- he’s really not well. Time is precious. Don’t waste it.”

She bit at her lip, uncertain, but he continued.

“And consider this- what if it’s worse than that? What if he is such a bastard that he really didn’t ever care? Why would you let fear of a bastard like that rule your life?” He looked at her intently. “Don’t let fear ruin your life.”

He paused, and he grinned then, and for a moment, she could remember that he was supposed to be nothing more than another drunken fool.

“Or bastards. Don’t let those ruin your life either. Or fearsome bastards for that matter. They’re probably the worst of all. It might even be the case that you don’t even see him at all for a very long time. Seireitei is a big place. So why worry? Be merry. Drink. Party. Have fun. Don’t let it get you down. Forget him, even if only for now.”

He knocked back the rest of his sake, and gave her a hopeful look. “Did that help?”

She looked down, her brows furrowed in thought.

“Actually…” she said, “I think it might have.” She paused, her face twisted. “Weird!”

It felt suddenly like a massive weight was beginning to lift from off her shoulders. All of a sudden, she could not fathom how she had managed to struggle for so long in silence.

She smiled shyly at him, with such heartfelt gratitude that he was taken aback. His brown eyes widened, and his hand flew up to his hair self-consciously.

“Thank you,” she said. It was as simple as that.

She looked around furtively, and reached up to the top shelf.

“This is the best sake we have,” she whispered to him in a conspiratorial fashion. “I think you deserve some after that speech.”

The change in track allowed them both to circle back to less emotionally fraught ground, and they both seized on it.

“Rangiku-chan!” Kyouraku whispered in a betrayed voice. “You were holding out on me the whole time! You said the other sake was the good stuff!”

“This is for emergencies!” Rangiku whined, glad to be back on familiar ground. “Chiyo-san- my boss- measures how much is left in the bottle with a ruler, I swear. I’m taking a serious risk just showing this to you. She’ll kick my ass if she finds out that I let you have some on the house.”

She poured him a generous helping, and looking around to make sure that no one was watching, sloshed a little into her own cup.

“Kanpai!” she cheered in a hushed voice.

He raised his cup to hers, and his haori sleeve dragged in some spillage. He groaned lowly. “I’m going to have to ask Lisa-chan to get this cleaned for me tomorrow and walk around naked until I get it back.”

She tasted the sake and she moaned. “This is the good stuff. I’m ruined now,” she informed him dramatically. “Now that I’ve tasted this, I’ll never be able to go back to the cheap stuff.”

He grinned. “You can get better stuff than this in the mess halls in Seireitei, I’m pretty sure.”

She knocked him with her hand. “You’re just making that up. No way you can get such good sake there so easily.”

“I’m not kidding! Even on an unseated shinigami’s wages, you would be able to drink nothing but sake of this quality every night, I reckon.”

Her head went back and she laughed joyfully. “Now that should have been their sales pitch. Do you think I would have worried for a moment about joining up if I’d known that? I’d have left years ago.”

She hummed to herself as the sake curled warmly in her belly. “I’ve forgotten- whose turn was it to answer a question? Was it mine?”

He looked at her hopefully. “We’re still playing?”

“Don’t see why not. It’ll keep me entertained until we open,” she said with a shrug.

“I think it’s your go to ask a question.”

She hummed again, this time in thought.

“Who were you drinking with this evening?”

Kyouraku smiled a lazy grin. “I started off with some of the higher seated officers, but they couldn’t keep up. No one else wanted to keep going, and so I marched the long march to drunken glory by myself after they all left.”

Something about that sat wrong with Rangiku. “It’s no fun to drink on your own!” she protested. “You should have gone with them.”

“I’m not alone now,” the man pointed out quickly. “I’ve got you to keep me company.”

But he had been before, Rangiku couldn’t help but notice, and her eyes narrowed keenly.

Kyouraku whistled innocently to himself and gave her a dopey look. “My question. Who’s your favourite co-worker?”

Rangiku stumbled. “I can’t answer that!” she protested hotly.

“That’s my question, so you have to answer it,” he said, pointing his finger at her in triumph.

“That’s too hard! I can’t choose between them!” she whined pathetically.

“That’s my question!” he sang at her and she pouted.

“They’re right upstairs- they could hear me,” she said desperately.

“Rangiku’s a chicken!” He grinned.

It was a blow to her honour, and she pulled herself up with a kind of clumsy haughtiness. “Fine!” she said with a bang of her fist. “Fine!” She scowled. “Yuki and Rin are the nicest to me, but they’re older than I am, and so they treat me like a child. That can be nice, but it means that they’re less fun, and they’re less willing to mess around.” She mulled it over. “Sayaka is the most fun, but she doesn’t always think about what she says, and it’s her fault that I had to fight the shinigami student in the first place, so she’s in my bad books at the moment. Ayame is a pain in the ass.” She paused. “But it’s so much fun to wind her up. She gets so angry and she stomps around in a huff, even though she likes to pretend that she’s so above it all. It’s fun when you get her to join in.” Rangiku paused again, and a small smile crossed her lips. “It’s probably Ayame,” she confessed.

Kyouraku had a devilish look on his face. “I’m going to tell the rest of the girls you’re playing favourites,” he announced.

Rangiku glared. “No you’re not. I’ll kick you out before you can.”

She suddenly felt the pressing need to come up with a good question, to get revenge for his stupid prodding. “My go!” A devious look crossed her face. “What was so bad that you had to go on drinking alone?”

One eye looked at her from under a heavy eyelid. “What makes you think that?”

This was what he did, she realised. He equivocated and changed the subject and artfully wrong-footed her to keep her away from topics that he did not want to discuss, and he had been doing it all evening. Rangiku was young, and, she admitted to herself, occasionally quite self-absorbed, but she was not stupid. She knew what avoidance looked like.

She gave him a level look. “I’ve stood behind this bar for almost three years. Give me some credit. No one drinks on their own unless they don’t want to be sober.”

“I’m not drinking on my own,” Kyouraku insisted again. “I’m drinking with you.”

“You were wandering the streets alone before, looking for a drink.”

“Because I knew I would find someone to drink with,” he said firmly.

Rangiku was not convinced. “It’s not very fair to avoid the rules of your own game just because you’re afraid to answer. I answered your questions, and it was painful. If it’s a bad question, you should tell me and I’ll ask you a different one.”

He had a haunted expression in his eyes. “I’m not afraid,” he said, but the look in his eyes gave lie to his words.

“Sure,” she said sulkily. It stung a little that she had spilled so much of her soul to this stranger, only for him to refuse to do the same. Her heart clenched with the unfairness of it. Her lips curled in a pout and picked up a cup and began to clean it with quick, agitated movements. “I told you everything,” she said intensely, refusing to hold his gaze.

“You didn’t have to,” he pointed out sharply.

“But I did anyway.”

He sighed deeply. She took a chance, and glanced up quickly from her busy hands, but he caught her eye. His brown eyes were dark and heavy, and focused on her. She fumbled with the cup and glared at him fiercely.

He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, it was slow and reflective.

“My niece has applied to the academy this year. I saw her application letter with my own eyes last night.”

Rangiku halted. His expression was fragile- vulnerable- and he could not meet her eye. It moved something in her. She put the cup down slowly, and rested her arms on the bar, leaning forward so that he face was only inches away from his own.

“Is that so bad?” she asked gently, her eyes wide but searching.

“Yes,” he said, swallowing. “No. But also yes.”

“Why?”

He was silent for a moment, and could not hold her gaze. “She’s so young,” he said finally.

That was not it, and Rangiku knew instantly, but she was hesitant to say so.

“I’m young,” she said, her heart fluttering oddly. “My friend was young when he left.”

Kyouraku’s mouth twisted, and something in Rangiku twisted in response. He was a stranger; he should have meant nothing. But here she was all the same, reluctant to say the thing that would upset him.

“Too perceptive,” he said quietly. “Too perceptive by half.”

She took a deep breath, then, and said what she had suspected all along.

“You’re like me,” she told him quietly. “You’re scared too. Scared like me.”

Something lit in his eyes, a wariness or a fear- that he had been seen and seen so easily- but he said nothing.

“It’s alright to be scared,” she said, and she drew in a deep breath. “But ‘don’t let fear ruin your life’. Right?” They were his own words, offered back up to him tentatively, and her forget-me-not eyes were bright and blue and earnest. “Right?”

His eyes widened. His mouth was dry.

When he laughed, he laughed and laughed, and it sounded hollow.

“Can’t even take my own advice,” he said bitterly, and she caught the self-loathing in his voice.

Rangiku’s mouth formed a small ‘o’. “Hey…” she said hesitantly, leaning forward. “Hey-“

He stood suddenly, and did not wobble at all. It was hard to believe that the man had ever been drunk. He grabbed his hat as he rose. She had not realised before how tall he was.

“It’s late,” he announced blithely, ignoring her. “And I should be off. Lisa-chan will be out looking for me, and I don’t want to make my adorable Lisa-chan any angrier than she is already. That wouldn’t be nice.”

He was running, Rangiku realised- running away from the truth and the pain of confronting it. “Hey-“ she said sharply.

“It was a pleasure, Rangiku-chan,” he said. He paused, and as had so often been the case that evening, Rangiku found herself wrong-footed once again by his emotional turns, these strange games he always seemed to be playing and always seemed to be winning. He grinned at her, and she could only blink back. When he bent down to push a hair behind her ear, she looked at him with wide eyes. “I’m looking forward to seeing you in Seireitei,” he told her warmly, as if he wasn’t running away in a bid to avoid confronting his problems. “Maybe we can do this again.”

She stumbled. “Y-yeah,” she said uncertainly.

He placed a generous amount of money on the counter, and Rangiku’s eyes went wide. He beamed at her. “A smart, pretty girl always livens up a party! We’ll definitely see each other.”

He left so suddenly that had Rangiku looked away, she would have missed it. One second he was there, and then next, he had vanished as if he had simply melted into thin air.

She blinked owlishly for several seconds after, alone behind the bar. She wondered what it was that frightened him so much that he had felt that he’d had no choice but to leave.

The last thing she had seen of him had been a flash of white as he had turned on his heel, where his pink haori had lifted with the speed and turn of his movement-

A flash of white, and the number eight.

[yukiwrites]

Byleth, Asking Questions

Thank you for the support as always, @xpegasusuniverse​! I hope you like it!

Summary: After retrieving the Lance of Ruin from Miklan, Byleth wonders alone in his tent about the origin of the Heroes Relics. Sothis’ reaction to the questions only makes Byleth delve deeper into his musings, to the point of bringing it up to Rhea...

Commission info HERE and HERE!

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Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 -  Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10  - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 

The loud noise of the rain shaking the outside of Byleth's tent only made the silence inside of it to ring in the professor's ears more with each passing second.

Sitting on his bed, the former mercenary held the recently recovered Lance of Ruin in his hands, observing it intently. The ancient weapon had many intricate details, from the crest stone so carefully carved into it to the forgotten language etched all over it.

Not to mention these... moving spots.

The lance itself behaved as though it were a living being -- when wielded by someone with the right crest (namely, Sylvain), it glowed in a vibrant red, much like the Sword of the Creator did whenever Byleth himself brandished it. However, different from the Sword, one could feel something akin to a faint heartbeat once they harnessed the power of the Lance of Ruin.

The bone-like structures close to its tip would move ominous and disgustingly, honestly giving Byleth the creeps.

Frowning, the professor placed the dangerous weapon on the floor in front of him, promptly placing his own Sword of the Creator by his lap. He took it upon himself to once again observe the weapon, as though he could figure something out if he stared at it intently.

The pommel, shaft and hand guard were all so well made they've yet to see decay even after withstanding the use of a thousand years. Trailing his fingertips through the blade, Byleth narrowed his eyes, deep in thought, towards the abandoned Lance on the floor.

The moment his fingers reached the flexible structure on the Sword, his eyes reached the creepy, bone-resembling bits of the Lance, making realization hit him almost like a slap on the face.

"Hey, Sothis?" He closed his eyes so as to see his mind roommate, needing but a moment of concentration to be able to see her in the waking world, even after opening his eyes.

The young-looking green-haired girl floated in front of him, descending towards the Lance as her expression turned somber. "Still thinking about that terrible happening at the Tower?" She whispered, forlorn. “That man... His form was changed. It was as though that lance was swallowing him whole. Upon that sight, it makes sense that your students were upset. I wonder if those Relics truly hide such power? Yet even still, that power seems familiar. That form as well... As one who wields the Sword of the Creator... Does that mean you possess that power too? It is not a wonder you've left the Lance on the floor -- what sort of danger could you be at risk of encountering should you keep it too close for more than necessary?"

Byleth once again trailed his hand through the Sword. "Well, that's not exactly what I was thinking about, though I confess it did cross my mind."

Sothis looked at him from her apparent seat on the floor. "Oh? Enlighten me."

It took the professor a moment to gather his thoughts, the frown growing deeper by his brow. "It's just... these weapons are a millennia old, yes? Apparent gifts the goddess bestowed upon mankind in its time of need?"

"Or so the Church says, indeed." Sothis bobbed her head to the sides. "Get to the point already! I'm beside myself with curiosity."

"But these are clearly bones, Sothis. Look, here," he activated the Sword's extension by twisting his wrist, watching how it apparently broke into several parts, joined by a whip in the middle. "This is a spinal cord, no way around it. And these?" He pointed to the shapes close to the Lance's tip, "don't they look like spatulas to you? What kind of benevolent Goddess, Progenitor of all life, gives weapons made out of bones to protect the ones devout to her?"

"Not a good one, apparently." Sothis mused, placing one hand under chin in thought. She stared intently at the Sword of the Creator, watching how it flickered bright red simply by being close to Byleth. "This is... making me feel utterly uncomfortable." She declared, her expression turning bitter with each word.

Byleth felt nauseous, surely because he channeled what Sothis was feeling at the moment. "Sothis-" The nausea and light-headedness made the professor wince in pain, quickly lying down to regain his balance.

"Enough! No more of this!" Sothis panted, holding her head with both hands. "This topic- it is not right. You should not delve deeper into this lest you regret what you might learn!" She huffed before disappearing, certainly to rest.

It still took a few minutes for Byleth to start feeling better, though he never took the Heroes Relics out of his sight, his mind set on what he was going to do next.

It took their party another three days to return to the monastery due to the bad weather -- although the cold season was still a ways to come, the rain in Faerghus stung as hard as a snowfall, and was just as cold.

Weary from the trip yet still resolved to finding out more, Byleth trudged directly towards the Archbishop's audience chamber. His clothes still drenched and travelling supplies hanging all around his belt and back, the professor marched in holding one Relic in each hand.

Rhea gasped with relief upon finally seeing that Byleth had returned, quickly trotting to him so as to offer him her handkerchief so he could at least dry his face.

"Professor, you have returned." She flashed a motherly smile, "The goddess is indeed generous with her protection. I have already read Gilbert's report on the matter -- see that you keep all that happened to yourself. We would not want panic to spread amongst the students or populace regarding the misuse of a Hero's Relic."

"Of course," Byleth nodded in compliance as the Archbishop carefully approached to dry his forehead. "I have, however, a question mostly unrelated to the matter."

"Oh?" Rhea stepped back to give the professor his space, watching how he placed the Lance of Ruin between the two of them.

"The Church teaches that the Heroes Relics were gifts bestowed to mankind by the Goddess herself, yes?" He asked, not waiting for an answer, though receiving a nod of confirmation. "How did she come by these weapons, though? They clearly look as though they were assembled from the bones of some sort of... creature."

That statement made Rhea blink in surprise, her expression changing from shock to disgust before quickly reverting back to her serene mask. "There were, ah, many a question regarding this matter throughout the ages, dear Professor. I cannot claim to understand what the Goddess was thinking the day she blessed the land with her presence, however, I can promise you that: the Heroes Relics were made using very powerful... materials." She narrowed her eyes as though retching what she had just said, looking down to the tip of the Lance of Ruin.

"You fool!!" Sothis screamed at full capacity, startling Byleth out of his skin. "Do not go asking questions you might regret hearing the answer to! Stop talking this instant! I feel sick already!"

Yet, that only spurred the professor further. "Materials, Lady Rhea?" He lifted the Sword of the Creator overhead, focusing his conscience in it so it would glow blood-red. "The spine cord of a powerful monster is the secret of the strongest Relic in history?"

"Monster?!" Rhea hissed, forgetting her composure for a moment. "Ah! Forgive this outburst of emotion, I-"

"Stop talking, stop making questions! Aren't you feeling this gut-chilling fear that's shaking my very soul? Do not utter another word!!" Sothis yelled and, true to her words, Byleth did feel light-headed and scared out of his wits. Forcing himself not to sway on his feet, the professor shook his head as Rhea kept on speaking.

"I am rather tired due to all of this excitement, do you not, Professor?" Rhea shook her head in distress, color leaving her face. "The Church will formally return the Lance to House Gautier, so if you would..." She reached out to the Lance Byleth inadvertently used as support once he started feeling dizzy.

Hesitating, the Professor simply gripped harder on the lance for a split of second.

"Give it to her! Get away from here this instant! I cannot bear this conversation any longer...!" Sothis begged in his head and Byleth knew that if she had a physical body, she would be kicking him on the shin right there and then.

Ultimately, Byleth let go of the Lance, dutifully handing it to Rhea.

"Thank you, Professor," she smiled weakly, the color still far from her face. "I knew I made the right judgment in trusting you with this mission."

"Of course," Byleth bowed slightly, staggering so faintly it escaped Rhea's watchful gaze. "If I may, I wish to come back and ask more questions regarding this matter... another time, of course."

Rhea frowned slightly. "Another time, indeed."

"If you'll excuse me," Byleth bowed once again, turning on his heel to leave. The next time he was to approach Rhea on this subject, he should be better prepared -- with at least more Relics to study the pattern of the bones (or bone-like structures, one could never say) and figure out what they truly were.

He felt that the answer to these questions were directly related to Sothis and the reason she was trapped inside his heart -- seeing and truly feeling what she felt whenever the matter was mentioned only proved that there was something relating the girl with the power of the Relics… And Byleth was going to find out what, no matter how long it took.

Sothis was a precious presence and friend to the professor by that point, and doing whatever he could to help her regain her memories was the very least he could do, even if it meant going against her immediate wishes from time to time.