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chameleonchocho · 2 years ago

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DEATH COMES, LIKE LOVE

FANDOM: A Mage Reborn

CHARACTERS: Leon de Param, Saine de Param, Ilya Magritte de Alviar, Eliana “Eli” Revelois, Sister

RELATIONSHIPS: Leon/ MC

Prelude: I started writing this fic 3 months ago, but after a bout of writers block, left it to rot in my google docs. I picked it up and (mystically) managed to finish it! Huzzah! It’s a celebratory gift to @mage-parivir to commemorate AMR’s release! It’s basically a pov of my Mage, Lilith, during the bbq. Hope you enjoy! (The fic is underneath the cut.)

The creatures of the desert will encounter jackals

And the hairy goat will call to its kind;

Indeed, Lilith will settle there

And find herself a place of rest.

- Isaiah 34:14

As a child, Lilith had loved spring.

Spring, when the world was shiny and new. Spring, when the birds sang in the sky, soaring overhead in great patterns, lines, flocks. Spring, newly freed from Thaubal's lab, and running down the slope of a hill, Sister- Myreille- and Eli a ways behind, laughing and shrieking and alive. Spring, with flowers in their hair and the air whipping about them as they realized that, for the first time in a long, long time-since they were but a babe- they were safe.

It seemed fitting then, in some sadistic way, that Lilith should die on the first day of spring.

Lilith's feet burned as they stumbled down the well-trodden path, colliding against overturned stones and loose pieces of waste. Their body ached; the feeling had become a constant presence to Lilith, as familiar as the twists of the seals on their body. The pain, the aching, had roared into their body with a vengeance when they were thrown into the cell, a vicious thrumming in their body. A weakness, that made their head loll to the side and their breath come out shallower as they brought their knees to their chest, closing their eyes and trying to ignore the accusing glances, the sneers and whispers.

It was almost comforting, in a way. The pain was something reliable. It served as an anchor to the world around them, kept them stable and whole. It let them feel something, at the very least. Ever since turning away Ilya's attempt to free them from the prison, something cold and numb had seized Lilith's heart, slithered over the valves and muscles before burrowing solidly into their chest. It was a great weight that sunk low into their core and made their once quick steps slow with weariness, heavy with disdain. The Lilith from before- all bright smiles and warm laughter, rolling charm and unabashed kindness- had shed their skin during their confinement, leaving only a sun-burnt husk behind.

Lilith wanted to have the ache, at least for a bit. Until they couldn't feel anymore

They reached the main road after what seemed like minutes to Lilith, though from the strengthening light of the sun, it was bound to be closer to midday. Lilith's mouth went dry as sandpaper as they cleared onto the road, greeted on all sides by a throng of townspeople. Almost immediately at Lilith's arrival, the rushing whispers of the crowd grew louder in volume, until it was a deafening roar. They flung insults at Lilith's face as venomously as they threw their fruit, rotted and misshapen. Molded apples, soft and mushed; peaches gone wrinkled and brown, white spots digging into the skin like blisters; hard pieces of bread, green and misshaped. These were only some of the impressive arsenal of ruined produce flung at Lilith's head as they were dragged, limp and shaking, down the street.

If Lilith were stronger, they might have thanked the crowd for the food- this, like it or not, could count as their breakfast. No matter how rotted through the food was, it was probably leagues better than prison food. Or Leon's slop, for that matter.

An orange, bruised and small in size, hit Lilith's hair, the soft pulp dripping down Lilith's brown skin. They squeezed their eyes shut, the acidic juices sticking to their hair. A burst of pain bloomed from the hit spot, almost overwhelming them in their limp state. The orange sludge congealed on their skin like curdled milk, gummy and thick. Lilith wanted to tear their hair out, free it from the oppressive pulp. Wanted to claw their way through the crowd and find the one who'd thrown the orange at them and rip and tear and-

A sudden movement on their face. The soft cloth of a handkerchief- one of the guards- swept quickly, brusquely, over their eyes and at the corners of their mouth. Lilith's eyes opened hesitantly, angling their head to stare at the guards. It was a struggle- they had Lilith in an iron hold, forcing them forward in such a way that it was a pain to look behind them. But they did, twisting themselves around to regard their jailers for a precious moment. There were only two physically restraining Lilith, their blank gazes flashing into twin looks of irritation and- Lilith felt a sudden, unbridled mirth steep inside of them- fear.

Before the Incident, Lilith would never have inspired fear in the guards, their sworn siblings. Annoyance? Perhaps. Amusement? Most definitely. But never fear, in all its ravenous glory.

Lilith, almost as quickly as they'd turned around, focused back on the path and shuffled their way to the square. Lilith's feet were scabbed from all the walking they'd been doing, they were sure of it- they'd been vain, prideful even during wartime, meticulously applying creams and poultices to their skin in an attempt to stave off calluses. It had been a ridiculous notion, Lilith knew. They'd been the King's retainer, once, and they would most definitely have gotten some form of blemish had they continued with their duties.

Lilith had given up so much, had worked so hard just to be considered as the King's Retainer. Had become sweat and bone and undying loyalty all to a man who’d kill them.

They lived in the worst of all possible worlds.

The pyre now, strong and sturdy, appeared in Lilith’s vision. Hateful, malignant- a specter of death on the horizon, promising no mercy, none at all for a murderer.

Myrielle’s collar tightened about their neck.

They were carried softly to the pyre, softer than they’d expected. They could mistake it as a loving act, were it not for the burning in their feet and the lump in their throat. A rope tightened about their middle, then their arms, before being worked into a tight knot in the back. Lilith closed their eyes as they bit down the waves roiling inside. If this was to be their last moment on this forsaken earth, let them at least keep their dignity. They would not cry.

They would not cry.

Lilith opened their eyes slowly, incrementally. Green eyes pierced into their soul, as fresh as a blade of grass. As flaccid and as bloated as rot, murky and killable. Eyes like light; eyes like death.

Lilith had loved those eyes once. Still, even as those eyes glanced towards the knights beside the pyre and the hand rose up in a gesture- burn the traitor, burn them now- they thought they might forgive them.

Lilith could forgive, in this moment, hordes of people. Or- not really, no, not hordes. Certainly not the horde in front of them. If they ever learned what had truly happened, they’d fall over themselves with forgiveness, regret, pleas- they couldn’t just get a story or stick to it.

Wishy washy bootlickers. Always looking for an enemy, for some way to paw off their own faults.

Maybe Myrielle was right, after all. Lilith, for the first time since she’d died, allowed a sliver of grief to weave its way into their heart for her sister-once-upon-a-life. Myrielle had been everything to Lilith, once.

They wondered if any of it had been real.

No, now was not the time. It would never be the time, for the torch had been laid against the pyre and smoke clogged up the air around Lilith, heady and thick like fog. Lilith breathed it in, the ruined air thickening in their lungs. A hacking cough split their body. They tried to clamp their mouth shut, end their breathing, but knew it was futile. You couldn’t escape the smoke, especially when you were, more or less, chained to it.

Besides, dying from suffocation would be a kinder end than barbecuing to death.

The embers crackled against the wood as it ate, languid, as if it had all the time in the world. The jeers of the peasantry came through distorted, warped, as though being heard through thick walls. Lilith was growing ever so light headed and thick as they breathed in more of the smoke.

The world was growing faint around the edges. It was in thin swirls, bleeding from its edges like a ripped corpse. Lilith had seen many over the years- running from death, contracting with her, (and, in retrospect, perhaps towards it) had given them a certain familiarity with the dead. They knew how a corpse looked- the hollow eyes, the bloated middle from starvation, the gaunt face from fear. The coldness, the ripped organs. The blood and vomit and utter gore was almost an old friend to Lilith at this point.

A sudden stab of fear pervaded Lilith’s calm grief, a horror at becoming one of the many bodies left in Leon’s wake. Leon, on the battlefield, anger in his eyes and a bloodied sword in his hand as he swung it down, down, down, onto some poor saps juglar. He didn’t even watch as the head bounced off, instead directing his wrath onto some other wretch, too young to die yet too old to do anything else.

This was a different type of battle, an extension of that war. Except Lilith was the target of his ire now. And while Leon’s love was slow and soft and giving, Leon’s hate burnt hot and red as flame.

The sky had grown darker now, swathed in gray smoke- like silk. Lilith had gotten a grand silk dress when they’d first come to Sienan, thin and gossamer, shining underneath the light. They’d been a vision in it. It had long since been lost to the throes of time, but Lilith experienced a longing for it in their final hour. If they were to die, at the very least they could have died in luxury.

It had gotten hard to breathe. Lilith’s body shook with coughs, broken gasps wrenching out of their used body as they struggled against the wood. The pyre had grown hot, burning, the flames burping with glee below. It wouldn’t be long now.

Lilith could hear distant walking, growing closer. Humming. Lilith wondered if it was their own. Lilith dinly remembered Eli’s humming as she carded her hand through Lilith’s hair, forcing it into a braid as the younger child had whined. Eli comforting them after they’d messed up on an alchemy quiz, rubbing their back as they blubbered into her shoulder. (Little Lilith had been so gloomy back then.)

“It’s ok,” she’d said, again and again until her voice had gone raw from it. “It’s ok.”

It hadn’t been ok, not that or anything after. Lilith wondered what Eli would think if she could see them right now. Angered that they had squandered Eli’s sacrifice, had ignored Eli’s demand for them to live? Or sad because of just how thoroughly useless it had been, of how she’d given her life away just to save something that had been fated to death from the start?

No matter. Lilith would be going to Eli soon enough. Would hug her until she’d suffocate from it, apologizing over and over as the world burned down around them.

Lilith’s eyes closed. They breathed in deep as the smoke tightened around their lungs. Thought of Saine and Ilya and Aunt Bess, their smiles, their laughs, the promise of home and good food and love and sleep. They thought of Leon, his nose against theirs, breath hot against their cheek. Come back to me.

Lilith goes home.

#A Mage Reborn #a mage reborn if #Fanfiction #this is bleh but I tried #Here take my quarries #Not me writing a angst at 11 on a sunday #Very emo of me #If u like the fic show it some love on ao3!#amr #leon de param #saine de param #Ilya Magritte de alviar #Lilith #constellation writes

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