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mechawaka · 8 months ago

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To Reach for the Sun, Part 2

A commission for @golden-feline. This is an original series set in their world and depicting their characters, and all names have been changed per request for public posting.

Genre: High Fantasy / Romance

Rating: T

Words: 16k

Summary: A deadly illness spreads across the lands; a pragmatic huntress shelters an eccentric doctor who seeks its cure. Can they overcome the anchors of tradition, the flames of conflict, and the whims of the heart in order to find it?

[ Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ]

(Above concept art credit to Tin Trung on Artstation)

Part 1: Galaran

The clans of Gaia were as innumerable as its trees and they grew much the same; many never flourished, choked as saplings by their neighbors; some occupied the undergrowth, fighting constantly for meager sunlight; some formed the canopy and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with towering peers.

But there were a few that achieved even greater heights, breaching the canopy and shadowing vast stretches of it with their ancient arms. These trees were rare and not easily felled; likewise, there were a few tenacious clans that had occupied their lands for generations beyond memory, rebuking all challengers.

The Ran were one such clan. They maintained their status through adaptability; a smaller than average population and a larger than average territory meant that they could easily relocate within their borders and range for food in times of strife. This kept their fighters consistently strong - and thus the Ran had famously never ceded a single inch of land.

But such a shining history had its share of downsides. Galaran was looking at one right now: her father, Varran, the latest of a venerable bloodline tasked with safeguarding the clan’s legacy. This solemn duty weighed on its successors, or at least she imagined so; her great-grandmother and her grandfather, the two previous clan heads, had looked more and more like overburdened boughs as they’d aged, bending ever toward their breaking points.

Even Varran, though his ashen hair had just begun to dull, wore more frowns than smiles these days, and the lines around his mouth were deepening in accordance. His decisions were harsher, his thinking less flexible; he still held the imposing warrior’s posture that Galaran had aimed to emulate since her childhood, but it seemed to sag just a little every time she saw it.

Past his prime, some of her kin murmured.

She was sure that he thought this, as well, and that it had only heightened his rigidity - and the tension between the two of them.

“- and if you thought even for a moment that it might have been humans,” Varran was admonishing, “you should have reported back to me instead of rushing in on your own. What if they’d wielded firearms? What if they’d been mages?”

Galaran sat cross-legged before him in the meeting house; it was a place of honor reserved for the clan head’s family, but still subordinate to her father’s dais. She hated looking up at him like this, subjected to his imperious speeches without recourse. He wasn’t even right - she’d prevailed against the humans’ magic and black powder many times before.

She inclined her head to acknowledge his words, glaring down at the woven rush flooring for want of an acceptable target.

Varran exhaled a long-suffering sigh. After all this time, he knew that her nonverbal responses indicated disagreement; in the meeting house, the seat of the clan head’s power where no dissent could be uttered, it was her only option for defiance.

“Daughter,” he said wearily, “you acted bravely, but a strong leader must show wisdom as well as bravery. Weigh your actions more carefully next time.”

Her right eye twitched. Until the moment he’d started speaking, Galaran thought she’d weighed her actions quite well - but, as always, her father found fault in them. In fact, if she had a fish for every time he’d reprimanded her over something trivial, she’d never have to hunt again.

“Yes, Father,” she said coolly.

Behind her and off to one side - in the place reserved for outsiders - the rushes crackled with movement. She looked over in time to see Zakiriel lift his head from its deferential bow, his brows knitted in annoyance.

Galaran stiffened. He wasn’t about to speak, was he? She’d cautioned him very strongly against speaking out of turn, but she’d also learned that Haven observed a lax hierarchy; perhaps he was used to more tolerant leadership.

She discreetly tucked a hand behind her back, out of her father’s sight, and made the quick slicing motion for silence. Zakiriel had seen her use it many times on their trek to the village, and he obeyed it as readily now as he had then.

Wise.

She let out a relieved breath and resolved to describe the clan’s rules to him in greater detail.

“Good,” her father proclaimed from his dais, and Galaran spent a frantic moment worrying that he’d noticed the illicit exchange. “Now, to the matter of the outsider.”

He set his golden eyes - so similar to her own, but hardened - on Zakiriel. “Ranse your head, Featherling, and tell me your name. What do you bring to the Ran?”

Zakiriel responded properly this time, sitting up straight and meeting his interrogator’s gaze. His wings, which had been folded close to his back, flared ever so slightly.

“I am Zakiriel, primary doctor to the people of the Floating Isle,” he said, polite but firm. “I have spent my life studying the medicinal arts. In your clan’s words, I am a ‘healer.’”

Galaran nodded her approval; not many had the spine to face her father directly on their first meeting, and he usually favored those bold enough to dare.

“If you allow me to stay, sir, I can work alongside your own healers to earn my place. I understand that your people and mine are contending with the same disease.”

At this, Varran’s eyes narrowed. He leaned forward and glanced at Galaran in annoyance, as if asking why she’d left that detail out of her report.

She tilted her head in response, mirroring his expression with a level of mockery that stopped just short of unacceptable. You didn’t ask.

“You will call me Elder,” he commanded, turning back to his original target. “Prove your skill. Describe this disease.”

Zakiriel smiled obligingly. “Of course. We call it ‘the Withering,’ since it drains vitality from its host. It superficially resembles other respiratory ailments, but doesn’t respond to normal curatives. I believe that it spreads through fluid transfer - sharing a drink, contamination via sweat or cough, and the like - but I haven’t been able to unequivocally prove it yet, given the mortality rate and variable onset of -”

Galaran thumped her tail against the floor to get his attention, then subtly jerked her chin toward the dais. Her father had crossed his arms, having always been uncomfortable with ignorance, and covered a bewildered frown with a displeased one.

“Ah,” Zakiriel realized. He - again, wisely - dipped his head in apology. “Please excuse my misunderstanding. You probably wanted a description of the symptoms - how the disease affects the sick - yes?”

Thus allowed to save face, Varran waved him on with an air of magnanimity.

Zakiriel started over, this time in a more serious manner. “The Withering first presents as a mild cough and intermittent fatigue. It is easy for the afflicted person to believe themselves merely overworked, but the lethargy does not ease with rest.”

“Next,” he continued, “the afflicted finds normal tasks exhausting. They cannot walk far, or carry much weight, without losing their breath. This is normally the point that they seek a doctor - a healer. They have already spread the disease to the other members of their household by now, if no precautions were taken, and those new afflicted will show their first symptoms within two weeks.”

This detached tone was so different from the impassioned frustration he’d shown in the cave. Galaran wondered whether he was putting on an act to impress her father, or if the subject affected him so deeply that he could only engage with this part of it from an arm’s length.

She’d known warriors who spoke of their more dire experiences that way - cold, factual, devoid of emotion. They’d had the same haunted glaze to their eyes, too.

“Finally, the afflicted loses all mobility and has trouble even drawing breath. Their skin loses its color and, very quickly following this, they expire. There exists no cure; I can only keep them comfortable.”

Varran listened with a stony expression. The deaths in their own clan troubled him deeply, she knew, and he felt partially responsible for each one. A tense silence fell over the meeting house while he considered the answer.

“This is indeed the same disease,” he finally confirmed, scrutinizing Zakiriel with renewed interest. “You say you can give comfort to the sick? How?”

The clan’s healers could numb most physical pains - those that arose from cuts, aches, fractures - but they’d been helpless against the Withering’s final agonies. Sufferers described a burning deep inside their lungs that no smoke could soothe; a weight on their chests that no herbal broth could ease.

Zakiriel drew a long, grounding breath, and the shadows cleared from his face.

“There are ointments and inhalants that can open the airways,” he said, sounding relieved to have left the previous topic. “I also prescribe a daily regimen of high-energy meals and simple exercises to combat lethargy.”

“When a patient is completely immobilized, I administer ether - that is, ah, a medicine that dulls the senses. It greatly reduces pain.”

Her father scratched thoughtfully at his chin; Galaran didn’t like the calculating glint in his eyes. “So you know how to stop this ‘Withering’ from spreading, and how to treat it.”

“That’s correct,” Zakiriel said, seemingly unaware that he was being appraised like a fine pelt. “I also seek the cure.”

Varran’s mouth split into a pleased trader’s grin.

“You are valuable, Zu-rai-el,” he stated, elongating the foreign syllables. “You may live among us. You will teach your ‘doctor’ ways to my healers.”

Though he didn’t speak it aloud, Galaran knew what her father truly valued about Zakiriel. The Withering had affected many clans; when it came time for a trade-meet, the Ran could demand a steep price for his knowledge.

It felt wrong to use another clan’s desperation that way, but Galaran couldn’t deny the potential benefits. It would be one more callous mark on her father’s legacy - a pattern he expected her to continue. But she wasn’t sure she could ever look another clan leader in the eye and request recompense for the health of their kin.

Varran’s easy acceptance seemed to throw Zakiriel off balance. Perhaps, Galaran thought, she’d gone a bit overboard with her warnings; in her defense, she hadn’t known how quickly her father would acknowledge an outsider’s value, if at all.

“I - I accept,” Zakiriel stammered, bright with elation. “That’s - thank you, Elder. I’ll gladly take your healers on as students of chemistry.”

“Good!” Varran boomed, blowing again past an obvious ignorance of his guest’s vocabulary. He swung his head back toward Galaran. “Daughter, your Featherling is worthy, but you must speak for him. Do you?”

Galaran, having anticipated this possibility, widened her cross-legged sitting position and rested a closed fist on each knee. Outsiders were normally taken in by the clan head themselves, but this was probably another test for her.

“I will speak for Zakiriel of Haven,” she intoned. “His actions are mine to bear. His safety is mine to ensure.”

In her peripheral vision, Zakiriel looked taken aback. Did he find it so odd to safeguard a newcomer? She briefly wondered how they welcomed guests in Haven, but then remembered that the Featherlings never had guests.

Her father nodded firmly in satisfaction. “Then it is done. Go and make a place for him,” he ordered, and then to Zakiriel, “Stay. Tell me more of your strange medicines.”

Galaran hesitated in a half-standing pose, reluctant to leave Zakiriel alone with the old cudgel, but ultimately bowed her head and departed. If he was going to live with the Ran, he’d have to learn how to deal with obstinate personalities eventually.

Still, she shot an uncertain look back over her shoulder at the threshold of the meeting house; the elevation difference provided by her father’s dais, from this angle, reminded her of an ocelot about to pounce on a hen.

Just as she was reconsidering her decision to leave, movement from the far end of the entrance veranda perked up her ears.

“Gala,” came a sweet, lilting voice. Sairan, her older sister, sidled up to her faster than a snake could strike, pale rose-hued hair bouncing in her exuberance.

“Sister,” Galaran greeted her warily. It was nearly impossible to predict the woman’s behavior, and while Galaran loved all of her family equally, Sairan was by far the most erratic of the bunch.

It was unusual to see her lurking around the meeting house, though - ever since she’d relinquished her rights as Varran’s heir, Sai hadn’t dipped a single claw into clan politics.

“Is it true?” she asked, straining her neck to try to peek through the slight gap between the meeting house’s doors. “Did you capture an odd little bird on your patrol?”

Galaran snorted. Of course. Her sister was peerlessly motivated by gossip; with all the strange looks and hanging jaws they’d seen on the way into the village, she really should have expected something like this.

“I did not capture him,” she explained, angling her body to block any ill-conceived attempts at infiltrating the meeting house. “I found him. Father granted him shelter.”

Sai folded her arms on the veranda’s siding and leaned on them, her tail curling with intrigue. “Oh? And this upsets you? Why?”

She cast a shrewd eye over her sister, who instinctually stiffened in response. “Could it be,” she guessed with a smirk, “that Father took issue with your creative problem solving again?”

Despite Sairan’s penchant for avoidance, she really did have a talent for reading others. A wasted talent, perhaps, but a keen one; in another life, she could’ve been a masterful negotiator for the clan.

Galaran relented - there was little point in resisting a determined Sairan - and joined her sister, taking up a similar pose on the siding. “He wasn’t there. He can’t judge my methods without seeing what happened.” “When will you learn?” Sai lamented, her pitying tone belied by a grin. “His expectations won’t ever change, but your words can. When the wind meets a stone, does it stop or go around?”

It took a guileful mind, indeed, to twist a saying that encouraged adaptability into one that urged deception.

Among the Ran bloodline’s current generation, Sai had always been different from her two younger siblings; she spurned the family duties and much preferred to spend her time in idleness, catering to none but her own whims. As such, and especially since she’d given up her inheritance, Varran treated her with a resigned indifference that visibly stung.

Galaran felt sorry for her, to be sure, but couldn’t halt the bitter thoughts that arose in response to Sai’s common glibness.

If you had just done your job, I wouldn’t have this burden. If I don’t bear this burden, it will only pass to our brother.

“Someone must stand upright,” Galaran replied carefully, but not carefully enough; her sister’s eyes became suspicious slits, ill-matched to her smile.

“Because Father doesn’t,” Sai said slowly, “or because I don’t?”

“Sairan -” Galaran began, but it was too late. She’d blundered into the trap and snapped its taut vine.

“You’re correct, Sister, as always.” Sai’s smile persisted, but her ears flattened sharply against her hair. “In this family, someone must sacrifice themself for the sake of the clan. Someone must become an emotionless boulder, because the Ran need that.”

She scoffed. “It shouldn’t happen, Gala. Our leaders should want to lead.”

“I do want to lead,” Galaran threw back defensively, but the words rang hollow.

Sai regarded her with a mix of sympathy and disappointment. “Yes, I’m sure you’re very excited to become a prize figurehead. Avderren can admire your pretty white fur while you’re birthing his cubs instead of fighting nobly as a warrior.”

The Ran clan was known for its pale fur coloration, but sometimes produced a coat of pure white. Tradition held that this was a blessing from Gaia herself, and Galaran alone had inherited the trait from her mother.

Five seasons prior, the Av clan head proposed an alliance with the Ran, specifically through mating with its scion, the rare white tigress; Varran, after much conflicted deliberation, had agreed.

It wasn’t like Galaran couldn’t see the wisdom in such an alliance. The Av were a newer clan, but large - they wanted the prestige of the Ran and could offer many valuable resources in exchange. She only wished, like so many things, that she’d had more of a choice in the matter; that less of her life felt predetermined by others.

Sai knew all of that and had weaponized it anyway.

“The clan’s needs come before mine,” Galaran said coldly. “Fewer sacrifices would be necessary if more people chose to make them.”

Her sister barked a mirthless laugh and opened her mouth to retort, but then both women’s ears twitched; behind them, the veranda’s wooden slats creaked.

Galaran turned to see a sheepish Zakiriel at the meeting house’s entrance, mostly hidden behind one of the doors as if it were a shield.

“Oh! Uh, hello. Please don’t mind me,” he said, awkwardly side-stepping the sisters to reach the plank stairs. “I’m just going to -”

Sairan slunk around him, planting herself between him and the veranda’s only exit. Her demeanor had shifted back to carefree curiosity, all traces of anger having manifested and vanished like a sudden rainstorm.

As she so often did, Galaran chose to disregard her sister’s barbs. Sai’s moods, her interests, her attention - they were all as fickle as the wind, and just as impossible to grasp. By tomorrow, she’d forget that she was ever angry, or why.

“Well, aren’t you something?” Sai practically purred, managing a full orbit around Zakiriel before he could reach out and establish personal space. She touched his hair, lifted the hems of his sleeves to watch them fall, felt the texture of his feathers; she only stopped when Galaran, reading his discomfort, pulled her bodily away.

“I’ll thank you not to do that,” he requested, adjusting the drape of his robes with one hand and keeping the other outstretched.

So there were limits to his boundaries, Galaran thought. It only took the most invasive person in the clan to find them.

Zakiriel cleared his throat and greeted Sai properly, “I am Zakiriel of Haven, and it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m afraid I had you at a disadvantage, Miss Sairan, as the walls of this building are quite thin.”

This time, Sai’s laughter was genuine. She slapped her sister’s arm companionably and managed in between giggles, “Gala, he sounds just like a human! Are you sure he came from the Floating Isle?”

Galaran nodded. She’d seen him fly down personally that morning, descending weightless into the forest like a cotton seedling.

“Though...” Sai’s smile turned mischievous. Too late, Galaran realized she’d identified a new subject for her incessant teasing. “Father accepted you so quickly. Has my sister already taken you as a mate?”

She clicked her tongue. “Avderren won’t be pleased.”

Zakiriel’s fair skin, from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears, flushed a bright apple-red. He spluttered something that might have been a refusal, forever marking himself in Sai’s eyes as an easy target.

For her part, Galaran pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I speak for him. Nothing more,” she said plainly. One couldn’t give Sairan even a hint of the reaction she sought. “Father commanded a place for him in our home. You may ask your questions later.”

In front of the whole family, where your nonsense won’t be tolerated, she further communicated with a stern glare.

Sai’s conspiratorial smirk widened, but she nonetheless backed off. “All right, all right, go fulfill your duties.”

To Zakiriel, she winked and said, “Welcome to the clan. It gets worse,” and then vaulted over the veranda’s siding before he could reply.

When it became apparent that she wasn’t going to return, Zakiriel held a hand over his heart, still flushed and breathing heavily like he’d run a lap around the village. He fanned himself gently with one wing.

“Is everyone in your family this intense?” he asked with barely concealed exasperation.

There was only one left for him to meet: Jaerran, her younger brother, who was even more committed to responsibility than she was.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Galaran led him down the plank stairs and back to the forest floor. The meeting house, set on stilts like all the other buildings, was purposely built at the village’s exact center, ringed by a packed dirt path that split off into smaller ones. Whenever the Ran relocated, they made sure that any path one treaded could eventually lead to the meeting house; it was the literal and metaphorical heart of their community.

As such, she chose a winding route back to her family home, both to provide him a comprehensive tour and to start acclimating the rest of the clan to his presence. Indeed, the stares they received this time were more confused than shocked, and a few younglings even chanced a passing swipe at his wings (which Galaran promptly dissuaded).

Zakiriel absorbed her descriptions studiously and without comment; he was content, it seemed, to follow her around in silence. Normally, and certainly during their short acquaintance, Galaran would have been eminently grateful for this - but right now she was eminently curious.

When they reached an empty stretch of path, she pounced on the opportunity.

“What did my father say after I left?”

He jumped as if she’d shouted, eyes wide as an owl’s, seemingly returned from some inner dialogue. He did that a lot, she’d noticed - retreated into his thoughts and lost all awareness of the world around him.

“Apologies,” he said, inclining his head as if he thought he’d offended her.

Maybe this habit of his was considered rude among Featherlings? Galaran couldn’t fathom why; her only concern was for his safety, as vigilance was crucial for surviving in the forest.

“He wanted me to explain ‘ointments’ and ‘inhalants’ to him. I think he was quite intrigued by their potential.” Zakiriel smiled faintly. “He truly does seem to have your people’s best interests at heart. But, ah…”

He folded his hands inside his sleeves and looked down at her. “I asked if he knew anything about ‘Liquid Gold,’ and he pretended not to hear me.”

Galaran raised an eyebrow. Her father could be juvenile in his stubbornness, yes, but never to that extent. “Did you speak out of turn? I told you not to do that.”

“Well, yes,” he admitted, averting his eyes momentarily. “But I did apologize afterward! Alas, he wouldn’t hear any more of it.”

She hummed a low, I-told-you-so note. “Respect is important to us and the elders are prideful. Listen better next time.”

To soften the admonishment, she added, “He liked you; I can tell.”

“That was his way of showing approval?”

“Yes.” Galaran stared hard to emphasize her point. “Trust me - if you had displeased him, you would know.”

They passed a copse of fruit trees and their caretakers, who predictably gawked at Zakiriel the entire time. He waved back uncomfortably.

“They will grow used to you,” Galaran offered when they passed out of sight.

“And I to them,” he muttered, then looked down at himself. “Though I suppose I must seem very strange.”

She followed his gaze to his flowing ivory garment, to the blotches and tears in its weave so ill-suited to Gaia’s climate; then to his wings, which from some angles seemed an extension of his clothing, hulking over his shoulders and impossible to hide even when folded. When she got to his hands, she paused.

“Why didn’t you say anything about your magic?”

Zakiriel blinked at the sudden question. “I - hm. On the way here, you told me your people were warlike.”

She nodded.

“Well…mine aren’t.” He turned his eyes upward, though the thick canopy spared only hints of the sky beyond. “Humans practice the arcane arts as well, but they use it to destroy. We of the Isle vowed to never wield it as a weapon.”

The children had mentioned that, too. Since inhabiting Haven, they’d said, the Featherlings had committed earnestly to pacifism and there had been no significant conflicts among them. Galaran had thought it simple youthful hyperbole - what group could pass so many moons in absolute peace? - but apparently not.

Quietly she intuited, “You thought my father would ask you to break your vow.”

Zakiriel flashed her a pained smile. “I wouldn’t have begrudged him the request itself, mind you - leaders use the tools at their disposal. But I thought it best to avoid the possibility all together.”

“Mm,” she agreed, uncertain what Varran would do with that information; he was never one to miss an opportunity to expand their territory by whatever means he deemed necessary.

“I’ll keep your secret.” She tapped two fingers twice against her clavicle to indicate a binding promise. He didn’t know that, of course, but he seemed to understand the sentiment; relief smoothed the lines around his eyes.

“Thank you.”

Part 2: Zakiriel

By his own estimation, he was doing quite well. It had been two weeks - or a half-moon, as he’d been delighted to learn - since his arrival to the Ran village, and he’d already acclimated to their meat-based diet, learned how to protect himself from the stinging monsters they called insects, and introduced his new students to the fundamentals of alchemy.

That one was admittedly easier than the others. The five Ran healers had come to him with existing foundations in herbalism and basic first aid practices, and that made it simple for him to build on those concepts. They lacked any knowledge of finer alchemical manipulation, however; when he’d asked about distillation and titration, they’d looked at him like he’d grown another wing.

Zakiriel felt he could attribute this to a deficiency not of intellect, but of material. The Ran had no access to glass or metal, nor to the means of producing them; he’d fashioned makeshift equipment out of fired clay and shaped leather, but it was unreliable at best. The precision that higher alchemy required was very difficult to achieve, he discovered, without transparent vessels and watertight tubing.

That said, he’d made it work. Measuring was the hardest part. He could control for volume loss, but there were few ways to see inside an opaque container without sticking one’s face directly above its opening - and that, he’d impressed upon his students, was often inadvisable.

But, as it turned out, the Ran had the answer. A clan on the far side of the forest made mirrors from disks of polished black stone, Galaran had told him, and regularly traded them with the rest of the clans. Their efficacy was a far cry from silvered glass, but he could still rig one up to reflect the markings inside a clay vessel.

He held one of those delicate black ovals now, wrapping it slowly in a web of hempen rope over a cushioned desk. The healers had been kind enough to lend him their - apparently rather hard to obtain - resources; the very least he could do was care for them properly.

And so, when someone knocked on the door to his work chamber in the healers’ stilt house - it had taken under a week, he was proud to say, to communicate the courteous practice of knocking - Zakiriel moved not an inch from his position.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” he called out, tying off the final set of knots that would hold the mirror in place. Such was his focus that he barely registered the door swinging open, or the whisper of footsteps, or the soft laughter growing nearer.

The leather pouch dangling in front of his face, though - that he noticed, violently, and only a concentrated force of will stopped him from flinging his precious mirror across the room. As it was, he had to unfurl his wings to keep balance, and by a stroke of luck avoided toppling his clay vessels.

“Galaran,” he complained, quickly setting the wobbling jars to rights. His scrambling only made her laugh harder; he tried to remain stern, but a smile was already creeping onto his own face.

“That could have gone horribly wrong,” he mock-chided, holding up his mirror to showcase her potential victim.

His sudden wing beats had tousled Galaran’s hair, for which he felt partially avenged; she pushed the loose flaxen strands out of her face and joined him at his sitting desk.

“I would have caught it,” she replied airily.

Zakiriel snatched the pouch out of her hand with an entirely disingenuous huff.

In reality, he enjoyed the antics; he’d only seen her behave in this light-hearted manner with her siblings so far, and even then only when her father wasn’t present. So, to his mind, it meant that he’d finally gained her trust - which was immensely gratifying after many, many days of effort on his part.

“Seeds?” he inquired, pulling a few out of the pouch. They were dry, dark brown, and smelled faintly of woodsmoke - but he didn’t recall asking for a reagent like this.

As if reading his thoughts, she snorted and popped one into her mouth. “Food. How long has it been since you last ate?”

Zakiriel frowned up at the ceiling. He’d definitely grabbed a fruit on the way to the healers’ house that morning, but after that…

His eyes drifted to the far window, where the outside world was tinged late afternoon amber. Unhelpfully, his stomach chose that very moment to voice its neglect.

“As I suspected,” Galaran said flatly. “Eat. What still needs to be done?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do anything,” he protested, but then saw the traces of anger in her tight jaw and a brief, resentful glare aimed at the meeting house, and understood. She hadn’t come for a mere check-in.

He shoved an obedient handful of seeds into his mouth and pointed to a nearby basket of flowers, knowing she wouldn’t need any further explanation. As expected, she retrieved a mortar and pestle from his supply shelf and began crushing the flowers with quite a bit more force than she needed.

Galaran really made the best reagent pastes, though, especially post-argument. The occasional cracked mortar was an acceptable cost.

When he’d made his way through a reasonable amount of the seeds, he set aside the pouch and gently prompted her, “Again?”

She grunted out a confirmation in time with a savage grind of the pestle.

“What happened?”

For a while, he thought she wouldn’t answer - sometimes, oddly, she didn’t wish to share her troubles - but then she sighed and met his eyes.

“Soon there will be a trade-meet, and Father wants me to speak for the Ran. Preparation,” she drawled, unenthused. “But he doesn’t like what I want to say. Why force me to speak if I must use his words?”

Zakiriel sympathized with a hum. She’d previously explained to him the various ways in which the Gaia clans interacted, and these large-scale trading events seemed to be among the more pleasant ones.

“Must you use his words?” he asked. If he’d understood correctly, then by virtue of asking her to speak for the clan - an act that was very significant in their hierarchy, indicating some sort of stewardship - Varran would be giving up his own right to do so.

She shot him a wry smile. “You’re listening well. That’s right - I couldn’t be punished for saying what I want. But it’s more like…”

Her tail swished restlessly across the rushes while she concentrated. Zakiriel didn’t think she was even aware of its alignment to her moods, but he found it indescribably endearing all the same; the mighty tigress, the hunter in the dark, could have her stoicism betrayed by an errant limb - and often did.

“Tradition,” she decided. “Since I have not yet succeeded him, it is expected that I speak his wishes.”

Seeing the mild confusion on his face, she continued, “Trade-meets are not only for material things. We trade knowledge, territory - kin, when they wish; the leaders announce what their clans are seeking and what they can offer.”

“Ah.” Zakiriel could relate, partially. Haven operated on a loose bartering system similar to what she’d described, but - being a single island with a single community - his experience was contained to market days in the town square.

“So, then, why doesn’t he like your words?”

Galaran paused her crushing and let the mortar rest on her knee. “Tradition,” she said again, more bitterly this time. “I think the clans should meet more often and share information instead of hoarding it for trade. For all of our benefit.”

She leaned forward, speaking with such conviction that Zakiriel suspected this was the very argument she’d presented to her father. “Our patrols are effective. We see what happens within Ran territory. But what if we could see our neighbors’ territories, too, and they could see ours? Our vision, together, could go so much farther. We could warn each other of dangers.”

Long-distance communication. The Floating Isle’s relatively flat geography allowed Haven to utilize towers and beacon fires, the same as the humans did, but he didn’t think that would ever work in the forest. Visibility issues aside, the concept required everyone in a signal chain to be unified in purpose.

“But Elder Varran doesn’t put much stock in cooperation,” he guessed, and Galaran agreed with a rudely illustrative gesture.

“That is not how things are done. The clans have always lived apart,” she quoted, exaggerating her father’s severity to an unflattering degree. “He told me to be content with our alliance with the Av; that it should be ‘enough for me.’”

She made a sour face, wordlessly conveying her stance on the matter.

“I told him that the humans are such a threat to us because they’re always making new things. Why shouldn’t the clans do the same? But he had already decided, so nothing I said swayed him.”

Zakiriel nodded grimly. “Indeed. He refused me again this morning.”

That made five meetings, now, in which Varran had avoided any discussion of ‘Liquid Gold.’ At first, he’d thought the clan leader might be hiding something, but lately he wondered if it was just some sort of odd principle - that since Zakiriel had asked disrespectfully the first time, Varran was determined not to reply, even if the answer was benign.

With a loud groan, Galaran fell back onto the rushes. He hastily retrieved the mortar before it could spill.

“You’re just trying to help!” she proclaimed to the ceiling. “We’re just trying to help! Why can’t he stop being stubborn for just one day?”

Despite his identical exasperation on the subject, Zakiriel couldn’t stop the tiny, amused exhale that escaped him. Galaran possessed an uncommonly resilient will and one of the most level temperaments he’d ever seen; that was to say, the apple had not fallen very far at all from the tree.

He thought it prudent to keep that to himself, however.

“If it helps at all,” he said instead, “my people are also resistant to progress. Haven’s council is infamous for its six-month deliberations.”

This, as he’d hoped, earned him a surprised laugh. Galaran lifted her head from the floor to ask incredulously, “Six moons?”

Zakiriel thought back to the most recent example, in which the council of eight supposedly qualified representatives had worked themselves into knots deciding whether or not to designate new sheep grazing fields.

“It is truly incredible the lengths some will go to avoid any change whatsoever,” he deadpanned, then proceeded to describe the tedious process by which he and the other like-minded townsfolk had explained to the council that a higher number of sheep would directly equate to a higher number of Featherlings, an outcome that both factions had desired from the start.

Galaran listened attentively to the story, her frame wracked in turns by laughter and indignation at the - in hindsight, ridiculous - circumstances. When she finally sat up, he was relieved to see no remaining hints of tension in her features.

“It does help,” she said, wiping mirthful tears from the corners of her eyes. “To know that, elsewhere, others also fight to move forward…it’s comforting. I feel less alone.”

“You’re not alone,” he insisted. “There are surely others in the forest who think like you do - who can clearly see a path to something greater.”

At this, she gave him a warm, secret smile and said, “There is at least one.” Any reply Zakiriel might have given died in his throat, so constricted had it unexpectedly become. The afternoon light had tinged her hair with fire and set her eyes glittering, just like when he’d first met her - but back then, he never could have imagined her capable of an expression so soft, or of a voice so fond.

While he was casting about for any sort of coherent response before she judged him dull-witted, a high whine and a brief fizzling issued from one of the clay vessels on his desk.

All eyes snapped instantly toward the sound; Zakiriel could scarcely believe that, in the whirlwind of Galaran’s arrival, he’d actually forgotten to monitor this batch of solutions. What if he’d missed a stage of the reaction? What if, in their unusual jostling, the reagents had combined improperly?

He quickly strung up his mirror, hoisting it onto a wooden hook he’d set into the ceiling, and angled it to reflect the inside of the vessel. Galaran leaned in to gauge the results just as intently as he did - this could, after all, finally be the color they sought.

The mirror showed a dark green surface, uneven and oily, with a froth of bubbles ringing the outside. Zakiriel let out a disappointed breath; like all the others so far, this combination of reagents hadn’t produced ‘Liquid Gold,’ nor anything remotely similar.

“Again,” Galaran said, dismayed.

He shrugged and lowered the mirror to the desktop. “Such is the nature of experimentation. I think this one bears repeating, though.”

The other two solutions hadn’t produced any audible reactions, but that didn’t mean much; anything could have happened inside the vessels while unobserved. Resigned, he began scraping new reagents onto a glossy leaf for transfer.

“Zakiriel.”

Galaran covered the top of the leaf with her hand, gently prying it from his grasp. “You have walked with the sun; rest with it now.”

He relinquished it with little complaint. The constant failure itched under his skin, yes - he could feel the answer to this riddle so close, yet unattainable - but she was right. Exhaustion would only beget more mistakes.

“I will repeat it in the morning,” he acquiesced with a weary smile.

---

His days in the village thus passed in perseverant routine; he methodically tested his way through the healers’ storehouse, whittling down the monstrous list of possible combinations one at a time.

None had yet created a color that could be described as ‘golden’ - though he had stumbled upon a potent numbing agent derived from a common type of bark, almost as powerful as the ones he could make in Haven, and now had finer control over pain management for victims of the Withering.

Zakiriel had extensive experience with this kind of research. It could take months or it could take years, and the longer one sustained a demanding work schedule, the higher a toll it exacted on one’s body and mind. Aches, fatigue, doubt, insomnia; while he could treat some symptoms locally, many of the medicinal plants he was familiar with simply didn’t grow in the forest.

He could spend time hunting down similar effects, like the happy accident with the tree bark, but that would take time from his hunt for ‘Liquid Gold’ - time he wasn’t willing to lose.

In lieu of novel chemical solutions, he’d turned to more traditional ones. Warm water was his first choice, as it could ease both tension and stress, but the village had no easy access to it. Its main water supply was a river that wound around its eastern edge, hauled up in buckets throughout the day; small containers, like cooking pots and his own alchemical vessels, were heated with individual fires, but he’d never seen any larger bathing tubs like the ones back home.

Granted, the Floating Isle was flat compared to Gaia, and the stone cottages in Haven sat directly on the ground rather than raised up on posts. It would be quite the task just hauling enough water for a bath up a stilt house’s plank stairs, not to mention the inherent flammability of wood construction.

Some of the villagers had suggested repurposing a giant stew pot and utilizing one of the public cooking fires, but that was obviously out of the question. The Ran were much less modest than his own people - to call it shocking was, he felt, a criminal understatement, and he’d only recently become comfortable enough to traverse the village during its common washing hours.

Luckily his doctor’s sensibilities protected him from the worst of the shock, but suffice it to say that, in Haven, being seen without one’s full dressing ensemble by non-family could be considered a scandal. Here, as far as he could tell, any clothing outside the loosest possible definition of ‘undergarments’ was not just optional, but often foregone entirely.

He had staunchly resisted all suggestions that he adopt their lighter style of dress, even under constant threat of heat stroke. Galaran - the main source of these suggestions - found his opposition pointless, and had said as much, but nevertheless helped him find alternate solutions.

In fact, it was her idea to visit a particular bend in the village’s river that was warmer than the others; it wasn’t fire-hot, she’d explained, but its curve was wide enough that the outer waters flowed much slower, retaining more of the sun’s heat.

That was good enough for Zakiriel. He’d chosen to visit in the late afternoon when the water would hopefully be warmest, and it did not disappoint. Its calm, sluggish current let him float without a care; before long, its restful embrace had unwound the knots in his shoulders, and the low, persistent pounding behind his eyes faded out.

There was really nothing like full submersion. He’d grown accustomed to the village’s cloth-and-bucket washing method, and it did the job just fine, but that element of relaxation was always missing. Besides, now he could thoroughly clean his wings without worrying about wasting water or someone else’s time; it was surprisingly difficult, he’d found, to explain the requirements of feather maintenance to one without them.

When he’d soaked long enough, he waded back to waist-height water and scooped up a handful of sand, humming idly while he scrubbed it up his arms and into the crook of his neck. The late day sun - what was becoming his favorite time here - reflected off the river’s surface like shards of glass; the bubbling rush of water nearly drowned out far-off songbirds and insects, relegating them to a rhythmic buzz beneath the current.

It was so strange; if anyone had asked him, before, if the great forest could be peaceful, he would have responded unequivocally in the negative. As it was, with shafts of warm light peppering his torso and clear waters running through his fingers, he couldn’t even imagine that viewpoint anymore.

“Why did you come out here alone?”

Galaran spoke quietly, but it still jarred Zakiriel like a snapped harp string - and the undignified, dissonant shout that tore out his throat was much the same.

“Be calm, Zakiriel. Have you forgotten what I told you of Gaia’s dangers?”

She was standing behind him in the river, having somehow snuck up on him through the water; a quick peek told him that she’d even placed her clothing and gear next to his on the bank, neatly folded to match.

He pressed a hand over his heart and took a few deep breaths.

I’d notice anything dangerous, he’d wanted to say, but the recent gains he’d perceived in his situational awareness seemed suddenly inadequate. Or was it that the villagers had been announcing their presences for his benefit?

Proficiency in doubt, Zakiriel chose not to answer her and instead pivoted to his second greatest immediate concern.

“Have you forgotten what I said about boundaries?” he retorted, holding onto at least enough decorum to keep his voice from cracking. Not that it mattered; she could surely see the dark blush that stained his face and entire upper torso.

It was the tiniest solace to know that she thought nothing of his nudity - that she considered it normal, even casual, for friends to bathe together. The tiniest solace.

“Of course,” Galaran replied simply, like her motivations were obvious. “That is why I’m behind you.”

Ah.

So the fault had been in the delivery, not the reception. Zakiriel had indeed put much emphasis on the seeing part of modesty - but perhaps not enough on the being.

“Since we are both here,” she chirped, seemingly taking his silence for acceptance, “let me clean your wings for you. How is it done?”

A second string on his mental harp broke away with a discordant twang.

“No, I - that, ah -” In Haven society, a state of light undress was reserved for one’s extended family and friends, and a breach of this magnitude was embarrassing at worst. Caring for another’s wings, however, was a deeply intimate custom practiced only between lovers and immediate family members; not even a cousin or a lifelong friend would ask.

He stuttered out this explanation - or at least something close - in choked intervals. Even more surprising than her suggestion, though, was that he wanted to allow it.

Zakiriel had always been comfortable with light affection, as were most Featherlings. Hugging, hand-holding, emotional and verbal openness - these were all easy for him, but closer intimacy didn’t come naturally. His father and brother had fled the Isle early on, only the latter to occasionally reappear, and his mother kept her thoughts tightly guarded; it hadn’t provided the best environment for social development beyond cultural expectation.

This had never bothered him growing up - everyone bore peculiarities from their childhoods, after all - but now…now he stood before that locked gate and, for the first time, wished it open.

“Mm, I understand,” Galaran said, presumably having pieced together his ramblings. “This is something for only your closest ones?”

Distrusting the strength and quality of his voice, Zakiriel merely nodded.

“Well!” She laughed and slapped his shoulder, just as he’d seen her do with her siblings countless times. “It is good, then, that you’re part of our Ran family now!”

The air fled his lungs in a wheeze.

“Did I not tell you this on your first day?” Galaran reached up to put a hand on top of his head; she must have been stretching due to their height difference, he realized, because the act brought her right up to his back.

“I spoke for you,” she said, her breath tickling along his neck. “And so you are with me, and I am with you, for as long as you remain.”

While he still didn’t completely understand the distinction, he felt that her presence between his wings, holding her warm shape close to his skin, probably exemplified it.

“O-oh,” he stammered. Eloquent.

He coughed into his fist, subtly shuffling forward until he couldn’t feel her body heat so acutely, and tried again, “I mean, ah, you can wash my wings. If you’d like.”

Trying not to turn around too far, Zakiriel flared one of his wings and separated the flight feathers, scrubbing between them so she could see the process. He was careful to show the delicacy required to clean both the feathers and the thin skin beneath without damaging them.

After the short demonstration, he faced forward again and - hesitantly, self-consciously - spread both his wings to their full extent. Not being able to see her reactions was absolutely maddening so far, but if he turned and was forced to confront their bare proximity, it would be magnitudes worse.

Galaran must have sensed his anxiety, because her first touch was whisper-light against the center of his back - like a leaf meeting water, rippling shivers across his skin from its tiny point of contact. She flattened her palm against him by degrees, moving at the same gradual speed his tense muscles loosened.

Acclimation, he realized; she was slowly acclimating him to her touch, as if she knew, somehow, that no one had ever done this for him before. It wasn’t the hardest conclusion to reach given his behavior, but her consideration still brought a private, lopsided smile to his face.

He’d expected her to start the cleaning process after he was totally relaxed, but she didn’t; her hand remained still, fluctuating slightly in pressure like she was reluctant to move it.

Could she be nervous, too? Zakiriel tried to recall the rules of group bathing among the Ran - he thought he’d heard someone mention a caveat concerning unbonded pairs, but he might have just conflated that with his own people’s customs.

“Beautiful,” Galaran murmured, and his thoughts screeched to a halt.

In a subconscious bid to determine her intention, Zakiriel glanced over his shoulder. Only at the very last second did he remember the nuances of their situation and snap his head to the front - but in that brief second, he caught a flash of reddened cheeks and startled eyes, as if she hadn’t expected herself to say that, either.

“Your - your wings,” she clarified, stepping backward so quickly that the water churned around them. “Up close like this, they are…beautiful.”

Zakiriel swallowed a lump in his throat and faintly replied, “Thank you.”

Neither spoke again for several moments, their heavy silence punctuated only by the occasional drop of water falling from their bodies to rejoin the river.

He was painfully aware that his heated flush had returned, darkening his skin from forehead to sternum; not only that, but he had unfurled his wings, so - along with the flush - she had an uninterrupted view of his entire backside that the clear water’s surface distorted only slightly below his waist.

Just as this mortifying thought arose, Galaran abruptly stated, “I will start cleaning now.”

“Please,” he concurred.

At first her movements were stilted and imprecise, hindered by the renewed tension in his back; but as the minutes passed, distancing them from the sting of social awkwardness, so too did their hands and muscles, respectively, relax.

Galaran emulated his instructions to the letter, treating his wings so gently that he barely felt it at times. She left each section pristine and aligned before moving to the next, seemingly unconcerned with how long the task might take, cradling every feather like it was precious to her.

Meanwhile, Zakiriel busied himself by scrubbing the rest of his torso with sand, and then by working all of the oil from his hair; and then, when he finally ran out of places to wash, he just stared blankly ahead, feeling as formless as the river itself.

His experience on the subject was woefully limited in every regard save the academic, but racing heartbeats, short breaths, and obsessive thoughts were not symptoms one would classically associate with friendship, were they?

No, he answered himself. No, they were not.

And that meant -

He was in -

It was so supremely difficult to even think about it while she stood behind him, naked, presently caressing his feathers like they were married. Heavens above, why had he judged this a good idea?

“That’s - that’s enough.” His throat felt packed with river sand, grinding his voice down to coarse grains. “You did well.”

In response, Galaran snatched her hands away like she’d burned them - like she’d only just noticed, after a long while, that they were too close to an open flame.

He wasn’t so frayed that he missed her uncharacteristic silence and harsh breathing, but when he started to turn, to ask what was wrong, she stopped him with a firm, “Don’t.”

She delivered the command with finality, but below it he heard the thickness of emotion - that, and the unmistakable tremble of fear.

This jerked him fully back to the present. “Galaran -”

She cut him off, speaking in a colorless monotone, “It is nearly dark. We should return to the village.” Zakiriel, at a complete loss for words, remained locked in a half-turn as he tried to determine what was happening. She was clearly upset, but he couldn’t fathom why. Had he said something wrong? Had he overstepped somehow?

Propriety compelled him to apologize for whatever transgression had occurred, but when he finally gathered the courage to look behind him, the river was empty. Not a single ripple, other than the ones he’d just created, disturbed its surface.

---

Zakiriel had never subscribed to the human vision of hell, a place where wicked souls languished in agony after death for, he assumed, the rest of measurable time.

From his vantage point, the whole idea looked like a transparent attempt to divest oneself of guilt - to shirk the moral responsibilities of the present off to some nebulous future point that the living could barely conceptualize.

As a coping tool, he supposed it made sense - humans had a lot of collective shirking to do - but his rational mind found the whole thing simplistic and self-indulgent.

His irrational mind, though…

If there was ever an idea that could encompass ceaseless, eternal suffering, it must be hell - and hell could unquestionably define this.

Galaran hadn’t spoken to him in over a week. They’d certainly exchanged words in that time, and their relationship probably looked unchanged to an outsider - she’d even taken it upon herself to teach him self-defense - but she hadn’t really spoken with him since the river. Any attempts on his part to address it were soundly rebuffed, no matter how gentle his initiation.

From this, he’d eventually gathered that what she wanted was not an apology, but a reset of sorts. She wished to forget that evening all together.

It didn’t take any great deductive power to figure out why, either; her upcoming bond with the leader of another clan had been the talk of the village since he’d arrived. The Ran were set to formally ally with the Av through this bond, which meant the two clans would then freely share resources and aid one another in conflicts.

Once he’d overcome the sour bile of rejection, he could see why someone who was essentially engaged might have acted the way she did; why, out of fidelity, she might not want to dwell on an unexpectedly intimate moment with a friend.

But the thing was, despite its ubiquity in the clan’s gossip and its apparent imminence, her bond to Avderren had never felt real to Zakiriel - or rather, it had never felt significant, even though it should have. In hindsight, after much reflection, that was probably because Galaran hadn’t ever said it to him personally. Not once. Not in all their hours and hours of discussion on everything else under the sun, or even in their mutual pursuit of ‘Liquid Gold,’ had she mentioned her betrothal.

That was the part that bothered him, the part that he spent his nights restlessly contemplating - he couldn’t understand why she wasn’t more excited about such a happy event in her life. In his culture, a union of marriage meant a new beginning with one’s chosen partner, and the Gaian practice of ‘bonding’ sounded very similar.

The only conclusion that made sense to him was that it might not be a happy event; that it might simply be another ill-fitting mold into which she was desperately squeezing herself for the sake of the clan. And if that was true, then - like all of the other molds - it was likely crafted by her father’s hand.

It was with these smoldering coals of injustice in his chest that he sought out Sairan. She might have been the most vexing person on the planet, managing to dethrone even Kazach in impishness, but she was also the only Ran he’d met who dared to buck tradition. Not only would she know more, she’d care.

Zakiriel found her just outside the village, sunbathing on a boulder beneath an open patch of canopy. She’d taken her tiger form for the nap, which was, he theorized, the only reason he could approach in silence instead of a rain of heckling.

She opened one slitted golden eye - which managed to evoke amusement despite its bestial shape - and waited for him to speak, budging not an inch from her luxurious pose on the heated rock.

“I need to ask you something,” he said without preamble, adding curtly when she still didn’t move, “something that requires a response.”

A sound like far-off thunder rumbled from the tiger’s throat, warping and coalescing into a woman’s laughter as Sairan resumed her humanoid shape. She now sat on the edge of the boulder, one leg crossed over the other, looking down at him with those same mocking eyes.

“So mean, little bird. Where’s all that respect you shower on everyone else?”

Honestly, he didn’t know, either. At some point, he’d stopped feeling the need to try; out of all the frustrating people he’d known - and he had met plenty - it had been her who’d found the limit of his courtesy. A master irritant among journeymen, perhaps.

Or perhaps it had been around the point she’d started calling him little bird. Who could really know?

“I give it to those who show it,” he said flatly.

Sairan hummed and kicked her heel against the side of the boulder. “Well, I suppose that’s fair, then,” she lilted, tossing the grievance aside as easily as a gnawed bone. “So, what problem do you have that even Gala can’t solve? Are you lost, perchance? Homesick? Lovesick?”

Each consecutive suggestion grew more flippant, and Zakiriel put up a determined fight not to flinch at the last one - but it seemed tight-lipped avoidance was just as much of a confirmation, if not more.

“No way,” she whispered, gripping the boulder’s edge in suspense. “Really?”

He held out as long as he could against her focused suspicion, hoping she’d change her mind and move on, but in the end accepted this as wishful thinking. Much like a snapping turtle, Sairan didn’t ever release a bite.

“Yes,” he groaned, shoulders slumping.

Her entire demeanor sharpened from apathy to enthrallment; she eagerly patted the spot next to her on the boulder and, with a drawn-out sigh of resignation, Zakiriel flew up to occupy it.

“How long? Does she know? Tell me she knows,” Sairan gushed in a rapid deluge of interest. “No? That’s fine. What’s your plan, then? I can help -”

“Stop,” he interjected, both arms outstretched like he could physically dam the flood. Somehow, it worked.

“She doesn’t know,” he continued more quietly, “and I don’t intend to tell her.”

Sairan just stared hard at him for a few moments, eyes narrow, lips downturned and slightly parted like he was a puzzle she couldn’t solve.

Finally she heaved a perplexed, “Why not?”

“Why n - what do you mean, ‘why not’?” he challenged with utmost indignation, dimly aware that she had somehow, again, lured him into her juvenile arena. “She’s getting married - bonded - ugh, same thing!”

Zakiriel threw up his hands helplessly. “She has promised herself to someone else. What point is there in burdening her?”

“Burdening!” Sairan chortled, enjoying the punchline to a joke he hadn’t told. “My sister loves nothing more than a good burden.”

“But, no, you’re right,” she continued lightly, “Gala would never walk away from her promises to the Av. That wouldn’t be very dutiful, or loyal, or whatever.”

Drawing one leg up to the boulder’s edge, Sairan rested her cheek on her bent knee and peered over at Zakiriel. “Is that what you wanted to ask me about?”

He returned her gaze dubiously, wondering if his confidence in her support had been misplaced. But, well, he’d already come this far, right? In for a penny, as the humans said.

“Yes, it is.” He laced his fingers together in his lap to keep from fidgeting. “This bonding - how was it decided?”

She smirked, eyes flicking from his face to his hands and back again. “By Avderren and my father, in the meeting house, with no others present. Probably with a lot of smoke and chest pounding - you know, typical clan leader stuff.”

Her head tilted a few more mischievous degrees to the side. “But if you’re asking whether or not Gala wanted it…”

Zakiriel, thanks to his brother, had many years of practice in enduring dramatic pauses, but this one really pushed the limit.

“Nope,” Sairan said with a self-satisfied grin. “Avderren is a blowhard and everyone knows it. He likes her because of what she represents: the glory of the legendary Ran clan. She’d like him to jump off a cliff.”

“But he also has a lot of land and kin, so.” She ended her thought with a shrug.

“So Galaran feels she needs to keep this promise,” Zakiriel guessed, and Sairan smiled in agreement. He pursed his lips.

He’d already known, for a long time now, that she struggled to maintain the balance between her responsibilities and her individuality. It was a line they both walked - a hardship on which they often commiserated. But he hadn’t realized just how far her duty had asked her to surpass the bounds of her comfort.

“She doesn’t want to head the clan, either, just so you know,” Sairan added.

He lifted his head.

“Yeah. Gala only stepped up because I abdicated.” She made a rude gesture that, unbeknownst to her, her sister often mimicked in reference to their father. “But she never wanted to be a leader. You know who does?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, stating vigorously, “Jae! He’s been a perfect fit since he could talk, but he and Gala are so damn proper -” she ground the words out between her teeth, “- that they never thought to switch places! It would go against tradition. We can’t have that.”

“Wait,” Zakiriel said, frowning. “If there’s such an easy solution, why haven’t you proposed it?”

Sairan looked back at him like he was an idiot; she did it often enough that he recognized the minute changes in her expression. “Who says I haven’t? I’m the rebel, remember? Anything I say is the opposite of what’s right.”

So deep was his familiarity with her various styles of derision, he noticed the slightest twitch in her cheek as she spoke. Perhaps she wasn’t as comfortable in her outcast role as she’d have everyone believe.

“Listen, little bird.”

She averted her eyes - a first, if he recalled correctly - and her voice took on a quality that could almost be described as honest. “You have this life, and then you return to the mother.”

This referenced the Ran clan’s beliefs on the afterlife; that the creatures of Gaia lived, died, and then their bodies nourished the living, perpetuating an endless cycle of regrowth.

“But it can only be called yours if you live as you wish. Otherwise, you have given it away.”

The emotions weighing down her words were complicated, layered; before he could ask after it, she folded back into her tiger’s body and leapt into the brush.

Like sister, like sister, he thought dryly. Both preferred to deliver their vulnerability in packets, then disappear before any consequence could set in.

Still, she’d given him what he came for. His theory was correct; Galaran didn’t want to go through with this engagement, and her actions spoke what her words could not.

But…

Was it right for him to intervene? She was acting on social compulsions older than memory itself. The drive to prosper in adverse conditions; the preservative urge to provide for one’s group - were these not the very instincts which had led the humans to force the Featherlings from terrestrial lands?

Who was he, an outsider with an incomplete picture of their customs, to advise her to forsake them?

The midday sun warmed his wings, and what radiance it had imbued in the boulder warmed his legs; he laid back against the flat stone and closed his eyes, thinking that perhaps Sairan had been on to something here, after all.

---

Each day, he rose well before dawn. Previously he’d gone straight to the healer’s house, but now he headed first to the village outskirts, to the ring of packed earth that Ran youths used for combat training.

For two hours hence, Galaran beat the principles of self-defense into his flesh, giving the increased human sightings in the forest as her motivation. Zakiriel suspected there was more to it, though, because the diligence she showed in the training ring went far beyond a conscientious guardian’s precaution.

“No,” she said, throwing him down into the dirt from a shoulder hold. “This is not the interception I taught you. Again.”

He pushed himself up onto an elbow, wincing at the strain it put on the limb. Earlier in this pursuit, young Ran fighters would be shouting jeers and encouragement from the sidelines at this point; he guessed that, after a whole week of watching him hit the ground in every imaginable fashion, the novelty had worn off.

Now it was usually just the two of them here, dancing around one another in the heavy morning mist. At the center of the ring, the fog gathered so densely around its perimeter that the far-off village turned to dark, blurry shapes; all noise arrived muffled and dim, as if filtered through a quilt that thickened with distance.

“Surely that one was closer, though?” Zakiriel suggested hopefully, standing and dusting off his knees. He’d have to wash his clothes again - the loose pants and simple tunic he wore beneath his outer robe - but he’d long resigned himself to frequent laundering in this cloth-hostile forest.

Galaran watched him rise with an unreadable expression. “There is no ‘closer’ in battle. You catch your opponent or they catch you.”

Her mask of stoicism was harder than ever these days, but he thought he saw a spark of mirth in her eyes. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, though, and its absence made his heart ache; before the river, this was something they could have indeed laughed about.

“Again,” she repeated.

Zakiriel once more took the defensive posture she’d taught him for disabling an opponent at close range. He squared his shoulders, planted his feet firmly apart, and angled his body to better redirect her momentum - but when it came time to announce his readiness, he let the stance drop with a dispirited sigh.

“What is it?” she asked, easing up on her own aggressive bearing. “An injury?”

He clenched his fists at his sides. They still had almost two hours before the morning mist cleared and they’d be visible from the village; if he was going to choose bravery, it was now or never.

“Galaran,” he began, taking a step toward her.

She took an equidistant step back, glancing in alarm at the indistinct gray blotches of stilt houses. “Zakiriel - don’t.”

“No one can hear us. No one can see us.”

He put his hands up in surrender and proceeded another step. “Please, just talk to me. Do you truly wish to be bonded?”

Fog swirled around their feet as they moved at a slow pace toward the outer edge of the ring, the one farthest from the village. She looked wildly to either side and for a moment he thought, having failed to dissuade him this time, she might simply run.

But instead Galaran stood her ground, bracing herself as if for real combat.

“You have lived with us for three moons,” she said, frustration simmering in her measured tone. She recited the words like a script, like she’d anticipated this conversation might happen.

“I know all you have seen and learned, Zakiriel. You know our rules now, our history, but there is still so much about us you don’t understand -”

“I spoke with your sister,” Zakiriel interrupted forcefully. “She said you have never wanted this. Any of it.”

Galaran froze as if struck by lightning, her perfect mask shattered in a booming instant, exposing the fear, rage, and sorrow which pulsed underneath. There was even a hint of betrayal, as if Sairan had broken some sort of accord in her abnormal honesty.

“So, no, I don’t understand.” He couldn’t keep the fervor back anymore; not when she looked so wretchedly broken. “What could possibly be worth submitting yourself to a life of unwanted, undeserved despair? How could anyone ask that of you? How could you ask it of yourself?”

He stopped his advance at the end of his speech, leaving the two of them scarcely an arm’s length apart, displacing the fog between with heavy breaths.

“You and Sai both, you -”

Galaran shook her head in utter disbelief, asserting hoarsely, “This is not about want! It is not about what I deserve!”

She thumped the center of her chest with an open hand. “I take this mantle because I can carry it. They -” she jabbed the index finger of that same hand toward the village’s vague outline, “- they are the ones who deserve, who want, and I can provide. I am capable. Nothing else matters.”

With more defiance than he thought he could muster, he threw back, “Not even your own voice?”

“This is my duty!” Her anguished snarl echoed off the nearby trees; she’d closed the little space remaining between them to grab his tunic and tug him sharply down to her level.

Those furious, shimmering golden eyes filled his vision; shock numbed the bite of his collar digging into his neck. For a single breath, he bore witness to every excruciating detail of her internal conflict as it played on her face - in the quiver of a lip, in the iron set of her jaw, in the trail of an angry tear that burned out before it could fall.

He saw it all; and when she noticed this, her expression changed.

Zakiriel thought she’d go for a push when she tightened her grip - to propel him backward, away from her innermost truths - but instead she pulled him farther down, not relenting until he was on his back in the dirt and she crouched above.

It happened in an instant, faster than his eye could track; and before he could even protest the manhandling, he felt a thrumming whoosh of air zip past them overhead.

Galaran followed the movement with her fangs bared, her ears flat, her legs coiled to launch at a moment’s notice - from her protective position, he realized. She was covering his body with her own.

The flat yellow eyes of a predator stared at them from the treeline. Fog and brush obscured most of its shape, revealing only glimpses of a sleek black coat and the glint of dark claws as it stalked back and forth, evaluating.

But Zakiriel wasn’t concerned with their attacker. He’d seen enough of the forest by now; this was just an opportunist drawn to their raised voices. As expected, the creature slunk off into darkness the second it judged its prey too bothersome for another attempt.

No, he was watching her, mutely astonished at how quickly she’d detected the ambush, put aside her emotions - personally, he was still struggling to escape the tail end of a righteous pique - and acted to protect him. If the beast’s arc had skewed just a bit lower, she would have taken the heavy blow it had meant for him.

But…that was just her, though, wasn’t it? That was Galaran. She’d always be the shield that took the sword, interposed between danger and her loved ones, even if some of herself chipped away in the strike.

Zakiriel - flat on his back, covered in dirt, sweat, and his savior - chuckled at his own foolishness. He could no more challenge her ideals than he could alter a hurricane’s course; forces of nature simply could not be halted by mortal hands, and to try was to embrace futility.

Illustrious heavens, this must be what it’s like for Kazach, he realized with more than a little ironic self-deprecation.

“Why do you laugh?” Galaran demanded, shifting her intense scrutiny from the treeline to him. “This was not comedic. You have the awareness of a slug.”

Not comedic, so she claimed, but a tentative smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Perhaps she’d also noticed how patently ridiculous they both looked at the moment, all stern and soiled and drained of zeal.

He pounced on that bit of levity, replying with dramatic inflection, “Well, then, I must thank you for rescuing this lowly slug.”

She fought a silent war to keep hold of her anger, her brows slanting to an absurd degree, but that persistent smile wobbled her lips the whole time. When a tiny puff of air escaped them, it was enough to crack the dam. Zakiriel’s answering grin seemed to destroy it entirely.

Her head slumped forward and she belted out wave after wave of incredulous laughter so genuine that he couldn’t help but join in; their bodies shook with it - with a pervasive, ice-melting relief that cleared the tension in the air.

When the infectious fit had subsided, Galaran climbed to her feet and offered him a hand up. She did it casually, but he recognized it for what it was: reconciliation, the first friendly contact she’d initiated since the river.

He took it with a depth of gratitude that threatened to overwhelm him.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out when they were both upright. “I’m sorry, Galaran. I shouldn’t have pushed so far.”

She briefly shut her eyes, exhaling a long breath. “No. You only wished for my happiness, and I was hurtful in return.”

“We each walk our own paths, Zakiriel,” she intoned, and he could hear now that her sorrow was tempered with acceptance, her longing with discipline. Perhaps it had always been so.

“We do indeed,” he said, sealing the unspoken pact between them. If she wanted his understanding, he couldn’t give it; but empathy he could, in droves. If it meant she could live in peace, he’d grant her all the grace she needed.

And if that meant a mutual non-acknowledgement of the ache he saw deep within her - the very same she must see in him - then so be it.

She’d turned her face upward after her hidden plea. Whether it was to give him space to think or because she dreaded the outcome, he couldn’t tell.

“There is still time before the fog lifts,” she said. “Will you take me to the skies?”

Baffled by the sudden diversion, Zakiriel could only echo, “You’d like me to…take you flying?”

She let out a single, breathless laugh that was neither gleeful nor bitter.

“I want to see the world as you see it. Your ‘freedom’ of a different kind.”

While I still can, said the tight creasing at the corners of her eyes.

Slow realization broke over him like dawnlight. Freedom; it was how he’d described the act of flight to her, and how she’d likewise defined her own transformations. She wanted to drink it in as long and as deeply as she could, before…

Before.

“Then I will show it to you,” he softly agreed.

Part 3: Galaran

Neither spoke a word as she led him down a well-worn trail; the thick fog still surrounded them on all sides, filling the spaces between the trees, muffling the skitter and peal of forest creatures.

Galaran’s heart sat heavy in her chest. Her lifetime of cultivated restraint, the protective wall she’d thought unbreakable, had finally fallen - and to him, no less; the one person, above all others, that she’d fervently hoped would never see this weakness.

Zakiriel was too pure for Gaia. She’d known it from her first glimpse of that bright smile and those trusting eyes; reaffirmed it each time he stood tirelessly against bias and prejudice, even at the cost of his own health, even if he had no chance of success.

But there was no fairness in the forest; none expected it and none could guarantee it. There was only survival, the fickle flame which both nourished and charred those who grasped for it.

Trying to impose a scale of justice on that chaos…it would never balance.

Hopefully he understood that, now.

The trees opened to a rocky hill face, out of which roared the village river’s mighty headwaters. Since the hill itself bore little vegetation other than moss, the mist was much thinner here, gathering mostly in the waterfall’s basin and providing an unobstructed view of the lightening sky.

Galaran stopped at the edge of the basin, drawn to its far side where birds of paradise flowers bloomed vivid reds and blues. Her best memories had occurred here, under the falls - adventure, discovery, the fond embrace of her mother - and now she intended to make another one; a memory she could keep hidden and treasured, and that couldn’t be taken.

She turned to gauge Zakiriel’s reaction, pleased to find him sufficiently awed.

“I’m not sure I can fly through a waterfall,” he said, flashing her a coy smirk.

Good to know he was comfortable enough to display his strange humor, at least. With a put-upon smile, she pointed upward.

It was easy to miss because of the break in the canopy, but one of the trees overlooking the basin was much, much taller than the others, with a trunk that, once distinguished from its fellows, soundly dwarfed the hill in width.

“This is Our Grandfather,” she explained, craning her neck to view its full height. “He has always watched the clan. We grow together.”

At his questioning stare, she squinted back. “Obviously he isn’t really my ancestor, Zakiriel.” “Oh. Yes. Obviously.” Chagrined, he clasped his hands behind his back. “Is that where you wish to fly? To see your…grandfather?”

“Yes. None have seen his upper boughs; we will be the first.”

Zakiriel seemed intrigued by this; rather than the achievement, though, Galaran would bet anything he was considering all the unknown plant species that might live up there.

She snickered at the thought. Relentlessly endearing, this man.

“I’ll have to, ah…”

He mimicked the act of holding someone in his arms, adding an apologetic shrug at the end.

“That’s fine,” she said, then positioned herself so he could pick her up. The Featherlings’ code of conduct put the oddest barriers around touching others; he should know by now that her clan held no such taboos.

Taboos of that kind, anyway.

Her mouth compressed into an uneven line as she remembered their evening at the river, where she’d consciously disobeyed a rule for the first time; all were free to bathe together, true, but she’d left out the part where unbonded, unrelated youths weren’t supposed to do so alone.

But when she’d seen him there, a lithe white heron in the shallows, his azure hair unbound…well, rules hadn’t meant much to her in that moment.

Absorbed in memory, she didn’t notice the hands behind her knees and lower back - and when they lifted her off the ground, she made a shrill, ragged sound closer to a squeal than a shriek.

Zakiriel stumbled but didn’t drop her, fanning his wings out for balance.

“Are you all right?” he asked, bewildered, checking her over for injury.

“Yes,” she spat defensively.

Galaran didn’t even remember the last time someone had carried her; it must have been her mother, surely, but she couldn’t call up a single instance. She’d imagined a scenario akin to standing beside another person, but a bit closer - not much different from her usual perspective.

She was wrong.

Zakiriel’s arms cradled her more delicately than a bed of furs; he had to hold her close to his chest to keep a secure grip, and so his strong heartbeat thundered right next to her ear. She could even hear him breathing.

“Galaran,” he prodded, and the reverberations of her own name shivered down her spine. “Are you completely sure you want to do this?”

She tilted her head up at him, disgruntled by how very tall and sturdy he seemed, and how slight she felt in comparison. Was he really so much larger than her? When had that happened? Had it always been so?

“Are you sure you can carry me?” she grumbled more petulantly than intended.

But Zakiriel just smiled back at her, not affronted in the least. “Don’t worry. I may not be a fighter, but I’ve hauled my fair share of crops and livestock.”

He winked. “Hold on tight, now.”

In her periphery, his wings spread and started beating in a slow, shallow rhythm that increased gradually in speed and strength. It sounded different from here, though - the wingbeats were heftier, denser, and she could feel the air changing beneath the arches they created.

Then, with a powerful thrust, he was airborne. They were airborne.

It felt like her stomach dropped out through her feet, left behind on the ground as they bolted upward - yet somehow, from there, it continued to perform nauseating flips. Sound dulled in her ears, thickened, and then released with a startling popping sensation; at some point, she’d clung to the front of his tunic like a cub in its first thunderstorm.

When Zakiriel cleared the main canopy, he leveled off his ascent and kept his wings spread nearly flat. It seemed to her that he was riding the air currents, now, instead of creating his own.

He looked down at her, exhilaration plain in his face, his long braid whipping in the wind. The morning was still dim, barely tinting the black sky gray; it was like his blue eyes held the true sky, the entire azure vista, and this pretender they hurtled through could only steal it back at midday.

Through her novel distress and her many, many physical discomforts, the thought consumed her that this was how he was supposed to look.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” he enthused, gliding in smooth circles over the treetops - oblivious, apparently, to the gauntlet she’d just endured.

But, so compelling was his joy, she simply nodded. It even made her stomach feel a little better.

“Are you ready to go higher?”

Galaran swallowed hard. Grandfather’s trunk still extended farther than she could take in without getting dizzy, but she nevertheless replied, “Yes.”

He squeezed lightly with the hand that supported her back, prompting her to meet his eyes. “Don’t push yourself, all right? We can return.”

“I’m fine!” she insisted, to which he glanced at the front of his tunic, where all ten of her claws remained pierced through the fabric.

She retracted them one by one, grimacing at the tiny holes they left behind, and held onto him in a more normal, less destructive way.

“I’ll be fine,” she amended. “We’re already so close.”

Zakiriel peered up the massive trunk as if measuring it. “So we are. Make sure to breathe slowly, then, and tell me if you need to stop.”

“Oh, and don’t look down,” he tacked on as an afterthought. “I’ve read that it makes terrestrial creatures sick sometimes.”

Galaran’s eyes went as wide as full moons.

She locked her neck in place so that she could only see ahead, across his torso and left shoulder, into empty gray-black void - and nowhere else.

Zakiriel began a gentle, steady climb around Grandfather’s trunk, pausing to check on her with every full revolution. She was really, honestly fine now, having shaken the nausea, but privately enjoyed his undivided concern nonetheless.

The trunk grew lighter in hue as they ascended, from a deep, saturated brown near its base to a washed out reddish tan. Wind erosion, Zakiriel told her, along with regular sun bleaching. Such things happened to every tree that breached the canopy, he said, and to most of the ones on the Floating Isle.

He alighted on an upper branch just as the sun added its first warm tones to an increasingly blue sky, setting Galaran gently down near the point where it joined with the trunk.

“Are you all right?” she wondered.

The last leg of their flight hadn’t been easy on him; the wind was stronger - not unbearably so, but taxing for an already strained endurance - and she’d noticed a slight tremble in his arms toward the end.

Zakiriel stood with one arm braced against the trunk, resting his forehead on it and sucking in deep lungfuls of air.

“I’m fine!” he wheezed, clearly mocking her, and fell to a fit of laughter at his own jest. Galaran hummed smugly as it devolved into coughing.

When he’d paid enough for his crimes, she reached over to deliver a hearty thump to his back that loosened the knots in his chest.

“All right, perhaps that - perhaps I underestimated this task,” he admitted, voice still somewhat rough, and came to sit beside her. “Featherlings carry one another on occasion, if one is ill or otherwise can’t fly. I didn’t think it would be so different.”

She sniffed, rather satisfied that her dense musculature had at least given him more trouble than a Featherling would. “Maybe you should haul heavier crops.”

Another hoarse laugh escaped him, trailing off in a groan.

“Still, we made it,” he said, brightening. “Look.”

Galaran followed his gaze out over the canopy, to the pale mist and morning birds that crowned it, to the burgeoning golden sunrise at its distant horizon.

The sheer immensity stole her breath. She had only ever measured the forest in landmark stones, thinking the span between them vast, but what few she could see from here were as pebbles in a field of grass; and those great winding rivers she had once called endless were nothing but lengths of branching twine, swallowed whole by the totality that was Gaia -

“Breathe,” Zakiriel reminded her.

She squeezed shut her eyes and did just that; in its secure, finite container, her mind gathered by fractions to a state of equilibrium.

“I must apologize,” he said. “I was so eager to show you the sky, but neglected to consider that it might be…overwhelming.”

“How do you live here? It’s too big,” she proclaimed, exasperated, and heard him quietly chuckle.

The wind changed direction, blowing his scent her way; it was mundane to her now, part of her mental repository of safe things, but it hit her more strongly than usual with her eyes closed.

Sitting in the open, speaking of home, laughing together…

Hadn’t this…happened before?

There it was again - that vague memory tied to this scent, but once more it dissipated when she tried to grab hold of it.

She opened her eyes as if that might help her see it better, but no trace of the phantom memory remained; she saw only Zakiriel, framed by Grandfather’s ancient, flaring boughs.

No - not only Zakiriel.

She saw the one person who’d ever seen her back; the man who’d cared enough to tug her from the moorings of fate; the one who’d eagerly remained after she resisted.

And yet you turn him away.

Was this really the correct path?

“Feeling better?” he prompted, shifting to face her on the branch.

If you had only been born to the forest, she thought miserably.

“Yes,” she said, but - just like in the training ring - he saw through her like her skin was woven reeds, catching every unintended drop of feeling that welled out between the stalks.

Still he chose to push himself closer.

“Well, then,” he began. By those words alone she knew he was about to say something meant to cheer her up. “What did you think of the skies?”

Zakiriel held his arms out to his sides as if showcasing the whole thing, the entire sky, his domain, and she didn’t even try to fight the charmed smile that overtook her.

How did he always know exactly what would catch her off guard?

Her heart throbbed raw at the confluence of grief and ardor, each force vying to be the one that would burst it; and then one did.

“I want to see them again.”

The words tumbled from her mouth in a helpless, urgent confession. Her hands shook as she pushed herself closer to him, as she swept her eyes meaningfully up to his face; if he was so good at reading her, then let him read this.

Where before he’d hesitated, it now took him just a single stuttered breath to reach for her across the gap -

“I see your righteous quest is proceeding apace,” came a ruthlessly scathing voice from elsewhere in the canopy.

Zakiriel’s seeking hand stopped dead in the air.

Galaran spun to face the source, alarmed that she hadn’t heard anyone approaching, enraged that someone had trespassed on their private moment. Her skin was already half-fur when her eyes fell upon the human - no, the Featherling? - who had spoken.

A pair of wings adorned his back, but they didn’t have any feathers; they were membranous and black as night, a bat’s wings, translucent against the sky. Dark hair hung loosely down his back and around a pale, drawn face.

A winged creature. She’d hunt him like a bird in these branches.

The man grinned wickedly like she’d spoken the thought aloud.

“Kazach.”

Zakiriel’s voice sounded as bloodless as his skin looked; so many warring emotions tugged at his mouth that it merely quivered. From her point of view, this did not seem to be a welcome visitation.

But she recognized the name - Kazach, Zakiriel’s estranged older brother whom he spoke of in hushed, regretful tones - and so remained in her two-legged form. The man didn’t seem to be a threat, for now, but she’d chew through his neck if he tried to harm them.

She made sure to think that last part as loudly as she could, earning a narrow glare from his red eyes.

“How did you find me?” Zakiriel asked quietly.

Kazach flapped closer to them, perching just a short distance away from and above his brother. “I looked,” he drawled. “Your wings are hard to miss, you know, in all this green.”

“I’ve been looking for days, though. Poking my head into these little holes in the forest.” He rolled his eyes toward the clearing below. “I had so many theories on what happened to you, dear brother.”

“Eaten by beasts, captured by humans, impaled on a tree branch -” he raised one finger for each item glibly listed, then his brow for the finale, “- but never did I think to see you cavorting with a beastman while Haven burns.”

“Burns?” Zakiriel stood in an instant. “What do you mean? Was there a fire?”

Kazach grinned - having received the response he’d sought, Galaran would guess. The man reminded her of Sai, but colder; he was like the faceless ones, delighting in the confusion and fear they sowed.

I will show you a beast, darkling, she directed his way. This time he contained his reaction to a brief, irritated glance.

“Several!” he replied. “Humans set most of them while capturing your friends and neighbors. Though some, I imagine, could be accidental; such unfortunate mishaps occur while one is fleeing for one’s life.”

The taunting quality of his voice alone made her bristle - but Zakiriel looked to be in shock. She could spit at this scrawny little bat later.

“How could humans reach the Floating Isle?” she demanded, taking up the slack.

Kazach turned his amused gaze to her. “Oh? You don’t believe me.”

Swinging one long arm toward Haven, he invited, “Why don’t you see for yourself, then?”

This woke Zakiriel from his stupor. He gave Galaran a firm nod, which she returned, and then propelled himself in the direction his brother had indicated; she followed at once, climbing nimbly up through Grandfather’s branches to gain the very top of his canopy.

The Floating Isle looked much the same as it always did when her head and shoulders broke through the leaves. It hovered a set distance above Gaia, partially obscured by the cloud-like formations that perpetually surrounded it, its near edge just beginning to glitter in the emerging sunlight.

She could see no invading armies, no ominous columns of smoke - though, off its flattest side, she did spot a small ovular shape that was darker than the geography around it.

“They call it an airship,” Kazach said, landing lightly beside her. “It can carry humans through the skies just as well as wings could. Maybe even better.”

Zakiriel took up her other side, hovering above the treetop and covering his mouth in mute horror.

“But why?” Galaran pressed. “Featherlings are peaceful. Why would the humans try so hard to reach them?”

“Why?” Kazach echoed derisively. “Think about it, girl. They’ve been crawling all over your precious forest, too; what could they possibly seek in both places that warrants such a show of force?”

Zakiriel turned his head sharply toward them.

“A cure,” he said hollowly. “They suffer from the Withering.”

Kazach smirked, looking far too pleased for the dire circumstance. “Exactly right.”

“We must go to Haven’s aid, Brother.”

She knew Zakiriel would say it before he’d even opened his mouth - there was no possible future where he didn’t try everything he could to avert this crisis, especially if it involved the Withering - but it still drove a needle of ice through her chest. The Isle was much farther away than Grandfather was tall, and Zakiriel’s shoulders still sagged from the exhaustion of their flight.

He could not take her with him.

Zakiriel met her eyes with the same bleak knowledge, pleading wordlessly for her blessing; and how could she not give it? If her own people were under attack, she’d do the same without a second thought.

Bitter acid coated her tongue, but still she told him, “Go.”

Zakiriel let out the breath he’d held - but whether it was in relief or regret, she didn’t know. He exchanged a hard look with Kazach, who retreated a surprisingly respectful distance away, and approached her.

At an arm’s length, he paused, then finished the motion which tragedy had earlier severed; he reached just a hand across the gap, waiting for her to choose the manner of its reception.

Without hesitating, she grasped his forearm tightly. If they could not part as lovers, they would part as fellow warriors - comrades bound by strife.

He returned the gesture, showing with his reverent motion that he knew its significance.

“Be brave, Zakiriel.” She intoned the words she’d bestowed on other Ran warriors in countless battles, but this time they lacked their customary intent. She did not wish for him to seek glory or honorable death on the battlefield - far from it.

His eyes softened. In a break from tradition, he covered her hand with his unused one and replied, “Be safe, Galaran.”

Instant, hot tears blurred her sight; she blinked them away, heartened that he seemed to be doing the same.

In a voice thickened with emotion, with more personal concern than he had any right to bear, he murmured, “Can you descend without my aid?”

For some reason, this was what broke the seal on her tears. Humans threatened his home, his people were facing unknowable agonies - and yet he selflessly worried not for himself, but for her.

She nodded, incapable of coherent speech, vigorously scrubbing at her eyes with her free hand. When they were finally clear, she sought his again to complete the ritual.

“We will meet again,” she barely choked out.

Zakiriel’s fingers clenched around her hand.

“We will meet again,” he declared.

Before she could change her mind, Galaran let go and thrust him away, releasing him like a songbird into open air - their entwined arms separated, and with a final, remorseful look, Zakiriel turned his back.

#this part ended up SO much longer than i thought it would be #i need to .... be more realistic about word count costing lmao #it was still fun to develop all that romantic tension though!#mega writes

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bluerosefox · 5 months ago

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Selina's New Kittens

Once again. A new DPxDC idea/prompt.

(Deaged! Danny, Dan, Ellie, and Jazz!)

Enjoy my random ideas.

Look.

Selina....

Selina wasn't expecting this when she decided to have some fun and do what she does best.

She just meant to sweet talk her way into Master's gala/party. Flirt and get info, maybe some blackmail. Steal away the rare cat themed artifact he had recently gotten (and also steal away his actual cat, such a lovely little diva it is too). then she was going to disappear into the night like always.

So...

Selina casted her eyes into the mirror of her car and could see the tiny children she had rescued from Master's hidden basement lab. All but one was asleep, the oldest out of them, although she seemed to be losing that fight from the way her head was falling forward, eyes closing but would jerk herself back awake when she realized she was falling asleep.

Curled up as hard and as much as they could towards the little redhead was three dark haired children, Selina mused that they'd fit right in with Bruce and his little bats/birds.

Two were near identical boys, though one seemed to be much paler than the other and if she remembered right one had red eyes and the other had blue, and the last one of the sleeping kids was a tiny toddler, a girl she heard was named 'Ellie' from the others.

Selina took note that the red head, Jazz, had finally fallen asleep a few minutes later. With a deep breath as she drove further and further away from that... that insane Fruitloop (she overheard the two boys call him that as they ran to her car) Master's place, she blindly reached for her phone and pressed a single digit on the screen, knowing it will connect to her car and call up the only person she can trust to help her with this.

"Selina." came the gravely voice after a single ring, sounds like she caught him on patrol but he seemed to be in a spot where he was okay to say her actual name over coms or she caught him before his night shift started.

"Hello Darling, I need your help with some kittens I found and to help me... Put away their terrible old owner."

#danny phantom #danny fenton #crossover #dp x dc #blue rambles #danny phantom dc #writing ideas #random idea #dpxdc #deaged danny #deaged dan #deaged danielle #deaged jazz #Selina found the deaged Fentons in Vlad's lab basement #she was there to just steal some cat artifact her intel told her he had #she wasn't expecting the children. nor to see them with collars that apparently kept them 'in check' if they used their powers #thankfully Vlad was focused on keeping their ghost powers under his control. He was too blinded to think of stopping mundane ways to escape #aka Selina lockpicking the collars and getting the kids out of the basement without powers/abilities #PERSONAL Headcanon for this AU. Good Fenton parents that took in both Dan and Ellie after good reveal. Still bad Vlad.#Vlad got MEGA jealous at the 'perfect family' and set up something that destroyed the Fenton portal. Got Jack and Maddie killed.#and got the kids deaged. AND the explosion sent them to the DCverse.#Vlad decided to begin anew in the DCverse. started using his powers to gain money again and put collars on the kids to keep them 'in check'#He's going to be in MEGA trouble when Selina brings attention to him.#Cause Bruce isn't going to happy.

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muffinlance · 2 months ago

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Me, squinting at story doc: Oh it's going to be a 14 pt font kind of day, isn't it

#next Blindsiding Badgermoles is progressing!#if by progressing you mean I've accepted that I'm writing a full fifth of this story as one mega chapter #if by accepted you're picturing a crab in a pot who's realized its spindly little legs are useless for climbing metal

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riceballoon · 2 years ago

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quick doodle, congratulations to ogata for his reincarnation from a war to a sports team! hope this guy's just as funny as his war criminal counterpart

#golden kamuy #dogsred #ogata hyakunosuke #golden kamuy spoilers #it would be so funny if no.39 has the same insufferable personality as ogata with absolutely none of the trauma #i find it endearing that noda loves his characters so much that he'll keep drawing and writing them in any universe #my art #love how nonchalantly he appears too. no wink to the audience just standing there mega pixellated like a ghost. did i just see that or what

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frownyalfred · 1 year ago

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a what-if scenario, as proposed by @lurkinglurkerwholurks and developed by myself, @audreycritter and lurker over on discord.

The original what-if: You know those delightful scenarios where Bruce is so pressed or scared or in danger that he yells for Superman and Clark POOF appears? Take alllllllllll of those, all that fear and pain and desperation...What would be required in that moment for Bruce to yell Clark’s name instead of Superman?

He’s so so so careful. Would it be an extreme amount of those emotions, like Jason’s death? Or is it something he specifically needs Clark for and needs him NOW? Like how much would that scare the living snot out of Clark to hear?

What if: Bruce finds Lois close to death -- maybe a few seconds away from dying, and it's a sure thing. Her heart is still beating, but she doesn't have long.

It’s kind of like a scene in a movie, where something happens that’s so big, so quietly awful, everything slows down and the rules don’t matter anymore. Internally, Bruce would go really still and hyperfocus to figure out how to fix this, but he’s not stupid.

Bruce sees Lois and knows. He clears the comms, kneels down next to her, and calls for Clark -- all in less than five seconds. Because there's no one else to make those snap judgements right now other than him -- or even knows why they need to be made.

Clark hearing his name shouted like that would make his entire world go staticky with panic. Because hearing Superman’s name shouted like that by Bruce Wayne has always meant the end of the world, and somehow this is so much worse.

He’d hesitate for a second because surely it’s a mistake? Why would Bruce call him that on open comms? Why is Bruce's heart suddenly pounding in his chest?

Bruce calls him Clark for two reasons: 1) Because he's about to give Clark the worst news of his life and 2) to remind him of his humanity. To remind him he's Clark at his core, because what he's about to see will shake those very foundations.

There’s nothing they can do. No medevac, Clark can’t take her anywhere. She will die, and it’s a certain thing. Lois just needs to see Clark. She needs to be able to say goodbye.

Bruce is both their friends and that’s what makes it worse. The weight of that grief -- grief for Clark, but also Lois because she is his friend too. He loves her, too, in a completely different way. And now he’s watching another person he loves die in front of him and he can’t stop it.

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serpentface · 2 months ago

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WARDI TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

emense [ɛmɛnse] (eh-mehn-say)

Has meaning close to 'beloved' or 'darling'. "Ya emense" (meaning 'my beloved'/'my darling') is often contracted "y'mense".

bubuch [bubuk] (boo-bookh)

Somewhat of a nonsense word, basically ‘big-big’. Tends to either be used for small children or flirtatiously between adults (kind in between 'baby' and 'big boy' in functionality, though without gendered implications of the latter). Sometimes instead used as a form of intense condescension.

ya mache mes [ja mɑke mes] (yah mah-kay mace)

Functionally means "my other face", using the figurative word for face describing a concept of fundamental nature rather than anatomy. Very intense term of endearment, expresses the recipient as a core part of one's identity. Kind of equivalent to 'my other half' but not exclusively romantic.

ya tsitsima [ja ͡tsi͡tsimə] (yah tsee-tsee-muh)

Means "my blood". This term is used more broadly to denote familial relations, and is more of a term of endearment when used outside of actual biological relationship (calling your sister 'my blood' is just an intense way of saying 'my [relative]', calling a non-relative 'my blood' is VERY pointedly affectionate).

ya ungande [ja ungɑnde] (yah oon-gahn-day)

Often contracted to y'ungande, dead literally means "my liver" as in the organ. Ungande alone is also used as a food-based term of endearment, similar to 'honey' except instead with delicious organ meat.

anuje [ɑnudʒe] (ah-noo-jay)

Food based term of endearment, referring to a tree sap that is the most commonly used form of sweetener. Functionally identical to 'honey' in usage.

anu tlansekoma [ɑnu tlɑnsekoʊmə] (ah-noo tlahn-say-koh-muh)

This one actually means 'honey' (dead literally 'bee sweet'). Less common than 'anuje' as a term of endearment due to general cultural preference for anuje as a sweetener and the relative rarity of beekeeping.

inyagit [injəgit] (een-yah-geet)

Diminutive form of 'sun'. 'Ya inya' (my sun) occurs as well, but is less common.

y'mit agai [j'mit ɑgaɪ] (yuh-meet ah-gai)

Contraction of 'ya amit agai', 'my blue moon'. This specification is more common than a general 'my moon(s)' and is fairly loaded, given this particular moon is the site of the afterlife for the most honored dead. The phrase both suggests a sort of celestial beauty and a sense of being honored and finding rest in the recipient. This is a VERY intense and almost exclusively romantic term of endearment.

coutomara [koʊtoʊmɑrə] (koh-to-mahr-uh)

Means 'handsome' or 'beautiful', implies masculine attractiveness. (Dead literally closer to 'strong face'/'strong featured').

jaimara [dʒaɪmɑrə] (jaim-mahr-uh)

Means 'pretty' or 'beautiful', implies feminine attractiveness (dead literally close to 'beautiful face'/'beautifully featured').

katsuy [kɑtsui] [kaht-soo'ee]

Sexually charged description of physical attractiveness, basically calling someone 'sexy'.

ya katsuymen [ja kɑtsuimɛn] (yah koht-soo'ee-mehn)

Related and also sexually charged, close in meaning to 'my desire'.

at akmatse yachouy [ɑt ɑkmɑtse jɑtʃɔɪ] (aht ahk-mat-say yah-choi )

Sexually explicit term of endearment. The dead literal translation is "one who makes me flower". The word "flower" here is not as euphemistic in context and is rather the nicest sounding possible way to say "makes me cum (HARD)". Not considered vulgar, rather cloyingly romantic if anything.

gan(ne) ama [gɑn(e) ɑmə] (gah(-nay) ahm-uh)

Means 'bull'. When used affectionately, implies masculine strength. Usually used in conjunction with an adjective (ie 'handsome bull') or more teasingly gannit ama (little/baby bull))

jaimeti [dʒaɪmɛti] (jai-meh-tee)

Means 'gazelle' (the name for the animal itself is close in meaning to 'beautiful horn'), heavily associated with grace and beauty. Also tends to be used with adjectives ('lovely gazelle' 'handsome gazelle' etc) or with a diminutive.

ansiba [ɑnsibɑ] (ahn-see-bah) or ansibit [ɑnsibit] (ahn-see-beet)

Means 'duck' and 'duckling' respectively, specifically refers to the animal and implies cuteness. Ansibit is a very common term of endearment for children.

"Wannaukoma such datse anmo" [wɑnaʊkoʊmə suk dɑtse ɑnmoʊ] (wahn-now-koh-muh sookh daht-say ahn-moh)

Means 'an ant could swallow you', implies cuteness (ie the recipient is so small and tiny an Ant could devour them whole). Usually used on children, occasionally used on adult women (in a way that feels intensely patronizing to many). 'Datse' (you) may be replaced by the recipients surname or honorific in the rare case that someone would dare calling someone this without being on first name basis with them.

wannaukomit [wɑnaʊkoʊmit] (wahn-now-koh-meet)

Means 'little ant', a term of endearment that borders on insulting even to babies.

OTHER:

-it [it] (eet)

This is a diminutive modifier, which can be added to a name or other word/term of endearment to denote affection (can also be condescending). It lacks internal meaning in everyday use and is closer to the English -y or -ie (billy johnny rosie susie puppy kitty ducky etc).

hippe [hipɛ] (heep-peh) (some dialects drop the h sound entirely)

Means 'small' or 'little', can be spoken with other words/names as an affectionate diminutive.

Other epithets-

Various epithets used in the language are not exclusively used as terms of endearment, but can be contextually. Most commonly, this will be the -machen epithet of the recipients zodiac birthsign (particularly those considered auspicious). Someone with the lion birthsign could be respectfully and/or affectionately called 'odomachen', or VERY affectionately called 'ya odo' ('my lion'). There's also a good variety of poetic epithets that have worked their way into common language as affectionate compliments/descriptors- ie ganatoche (dead literally 'cow-eye', more prettily 'ox-eyed') is a complimentary descriptor for brown eyes, anaemaitsa (dead literally 'river-haired', more prettily 'flowing-haired') compliments wavy hair.

Given name basis-

In Wardi culture, full names are spoken with the family name preceding the given name. When respectfully speaking to a stranger, peer, or authority figure, you refer to them by their family name, title, and/or an honorific. Being on an accepted given name basis with someone is generally indicative of closeness and affection.

datse [dɑtse] (dah-tsay)

This is the word for "you". Similarly to the use of a given name, actually referring to someone as 'you' (rather than a surname, title, or honorific in place of the pronoun) expresses familiarity and intimacy.

#FUCK I LEFT A HUGE ERROR IN THERE OVERNIGHT . Okay #Even longer Wardi insult/vulgarity post coming someday #I can't actually put a lot of the linguistic Nuance in the writing because it doesn't 'translate' well in english. Especially the avoidance #of 'you' pronouns between unfamiliar company. Translating it ranges from mildly clunky to borderline unreadable #(Ie if you're asking a stranger's name in Wardi you'd use an honorific that is roughly equivalent to sir/ma'am if you're being #deferential or 'mister/miss' if not. 'What is mister's name?' sounds weird as fuck in english)#I could just include the in-universe honorifics instead which would avoid that but I'm really trying to avoid loading the text with #constructed language where it's not really necessary. I mean I'm not writing this to be a mega-approachable mass appeal story but #having to memorize a bunch of constructed terms can be a pain in the ass as a reader #(like there's still a lot in there but it's mostly 'untranslatable' words or very specific concepts)#And ultimately just saying 'you' and dropping the nuance of how 'you' is insulting when not used in close company is more efficient #I do have the last name/first name basis distinction in there textually though. A lot of the characters refer to each other #exclusively by surname

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raineandsky · 1 month ago

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#137

tw: mentions of death

“You might consider yourself lucky, [Hero],” the supervillain snaps coolly, “being here, still alive. You are only alive because I let you—because you are much more fun to slowly squeeze the life from, until you’re begging me to end it all, and we will have plenty of time for that.”

With one last cold glare and a swish of his coat, the supervillain leaves the hero in the dungeon. The hero would be inclined to call it a prison, or even a cage, but the walls are damp and there’s bloodied chains sitting in one corner, so in their mind this counts very much as a dungeon.

They settle against the cool stone as comfortably as they can manage, which frankly isn’t comfortable at all. They close their eyes, a sigh escaping their lips. They’re prepared to face whatever agonies are doubtlessly ready for them ahead. Waiting for said agonies will be boring, that’s all.

“You too, huh?”

The hero opens their eyes to glance across the dungeon, to the other side of the darkness. They can only just make out the outline of a figure sulking in the other corner, but they recognise the voice all the same.

“Fancy seeing you here,” the hero says with a short laugh. “What did you do?”

The villain practically growls. “I’m not entertaining you.”

“It’s not entertainment; I’m just curious.”

There’s a second of silence, and the hero thinks they might get an answer before the villain simply says, “You first.”

“Fucked up.” The hero shrugs, though they can’t tell if the villain can see it or not. “Did something not particularly heroic.”

The villain shifts a little, chains clanking together with the movement. “Huh.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I figured it must be something bad.” The villain makes a noise that might be a laugh or a scoff. “[Supervillain] doesn’t get super serious with just anyone.”

“Must’ve been pretty serious for you to end up down here, then,” the hero comments with a huff.

The villain raises an hand to their face, and the hero gets a glimpse of the line of chain trailing from their wrist.

“Oh, it’s whatever. I also fucked up. Did something…” The villain grapples for a word awkwardly. “Not villainous.”

The hero barks a laugh that seems to make the villain jump, if the sudden clank of metal is anything to go by, but they can’t help it. A newfound anti-hero and a good-hearted villain sharing a supervillain’s dungeon. What a pair they make.

“You’ve peaked my curiosity,” the hero says brightly. “Please, continue.”

Like a broken record, “You first.”

“Ah, y’know, the usual.” The hero doesn’t really want to say it out loud. “I, uh… I killed someone.”

“Oh.” The silence following that is uncomfortably long, until, thankfully, the villain adds, “Yeah, you’re right, that’s not very heroic.”

The hero nods, though they’re not sure if the villain can see it. “I didn’t mean to. It was another villain. I don’t know who—they had red hair and glasses.”

“Oh,” the villain repeats, a little more strained this time. “Yeah, that’ll do it. They’re one of [Supervillain]’s favourites. Or were, I suppose.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Eh.” The villain waves a hand at them nonchalantly. “I didn’t really like them, honestly. They were always showing me up in front of [Supervillain], but I think that’s why he liked them. I wasn’t as willing to throw my comrades under the bus for attention.”

They clear their throat awkwardly, and the hero takes the hint. “What about you, then?” they ask shortly. “What did you do?”

The villain sighs, the puff of warm air catching in the one strip of sun lighting the place. “Well, quite the opposite.” A cough of a laugh jolts them slightly, like they weren’t expecting it. “I stopped [Supervillain] from killing someone, and they got away.”

The hero sits on that for a moment. “That’s very noble of you,” they offer eventually.

“Oh, don’t you start.” The villain tsks in annoyance. “I already have [Supervillain] calling me soft for it.”

“I can’t blame him. I mean… are we sure I’m the hero and you’re the villain here?”

The villain laughs like the idea is ludicrous, and the hero laughs too because it is, but then a silence falls over them and the hero knows that they’re both thinking the same thing.

“You know,” the villain starts slowly, “I’ve never really liked being here.”

The hero snorts humorously. “I can’t say I’m a big fan of grotty dungeons either.”

“Not here, you moron,” the villain snaps. “I mean here, with the villains. As one of them.”

“Oh, cheers to that. The agency has too many rules.”

“This hellhole doesn’t have enough.”

“Well,” the hero says brightly, “I’m sensing something big is happening here.”

The villain hums thoughtfully. “Can we maybe talk about it outside of the dank dungeon?”

“Oh, I thought you’d never ask.” The hero’s mind is already running through plans, scenarios, ways of escape. It’s always easier with a teammate, anyway. “Let’s get the hell out of here and start our new lives.”

#creative writing #writblr #writers on tumblr #writing #writing community #heroes and villains #hero x villain #tw mention of death #hello friends i am SO sorry im so late the christmas break has been a nightmare #its a long ass story but ill summarise lmao #start the holiday season playing the Good Host for 12 hours a day for 4 days straight. was obviously knackered after that as an introvert #and on the last day of my christmas break my sister goes into hospital #this story has been in the works for several weeks cause i just never got to it lmao #so super sorry!! ive ended up mega busy but ill try get some more stuff done if i can soon <3

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retrobee · 2 months ago

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fic link!

#Hidden Agendas AU #fanart #been enjoying the wily characterization a LOT #its so rare people write him as anything other than an unsympathetic villain #but im rambling!!#mega man #art #rockman #megaman #ruby spears mega man #ruby spears #proto man #protoman #rs mega man #albert wily #dr wily #rs wily

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toriyaki · 7 months ago

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My Limbus OC, Darwin. A member of the LCCB whose life's dream is to write her own book on all the monsters and beasties she's encountered while on the job.

Unfortunately, due to lack of funding, Darwin's journal entries are done with a Company Issued Ballpoint Pen™ inside a Company Issued Composition Notebook™.

Darwin's abno entries will be tagged "Darwin's Notes" on my blog :3c (Keep in mind, I originally made these notes and guides for my friends who recently got into Limbus. They are by no means a meta guide, and are only based off my own personal experiences with these abnos as well as the tactics I personally found to be effective when dealing with them. Don't cancel me for any mistakes I made pls thanks ;w;)

#limbus company #project moon #oc #Darwin's Notes #drenched gossypium #wayward passenger #ardor blossom moth #abnormality #I hope you enjoy these notes as much as I did making them!#let Darwin know which abnormalities you're having trouble with and she might write you a little entry to help you out #pls remember that these aren't like mega meta guides by any means tho

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mechawaka · 10 months ago

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To Reach for the Sun, Part 1

A commission for @golden-feline. This is an original series set in their world and depicting their characters, and all names have been changed per request for public posting.

Genre: High Fantasy / Romance

Rating: T

Words: 9k

[ Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ]

Part 1: Galaran

Evening settled over the Gaia Forest. The sun cut slanted beams through gaps in its canopy, diffusing hazy orange into the humid dark below. Songbirds ceased their entreaties; rodents hunkered in burrows; all things vulnerable became as quiet and still as the trees themselves, for night was the hunter’s domain.

Galaran walked the cusp of this transition, following the light as it receded along the Ran clan’s border. This time of year, she expected little trouble from her patrols; the mad seasonal rush of mating and birthing had ended, and human poachers generally avoided the deep forest during its hotter moons.

Nevertheless, she remained alert. Desperate predators - or another clan’s hunters, grown bold - could always push into Ran territory, and it was her responsibility as the clan’s next leader to shield her people from such threats. To that end, she monitored the border trails for signs of crossing, checked landmark stones for tampering, and tested vine tension on hidden net traps, all with unwavering focus.

Just as she passed a scenting tree, though, something else mingled with the marks of her kin - not a sharp scent, like the claim of a rival, but soft. Delicate. Out of place. It tugged vaguely at her memory, but ended in nothing but frayed rope.

Where would she have even encountered it before? Nothing in the forest smelled like this, not even humans, and no creature of Gaia would dare flaunt their presence so close to a clan’s border.

That is, she contemplated, unless they lacked the knowledge to avoid it.

Intrigued, Galaran shifted into her other body - that of the sleek white tigress, much better suited for tracking. Her tanned skin melded into protective fur, her lithe frame expanded with muscle and sinew; she pitched forward onto strong paws rather than nimble hands.

Thus empowered, she dove into the dense undergrowth. The forest brightened at once in her new eyes, all the hazards that vexed the two-legged doing nothing to obstruct her pursuit.

With the tiger’s keen senses, she determined that the odd scent originated from two creatures, not one, and that they seemed incapable of masking their location. Even at a moderate distance, she could hear branches shift and brush crackle in a way unique to the untrained.

Humans, then, and young ones at that.

But it was exceedingly rare for humans to come so far undetected, and they must have done something to alter their scents. Was it some new method to infiltrate clan borders?

She flattened her body to the ground as she neared her prey, ears back and fangs bared. Humans and their damned tricks. Well, this one wouldn’t work. They’d have to be more clever than that to steal from the Ran.

Just when she’d coiled herself for an ambush, a strained cry echoed through the forest. It came from the same direction as her targets, but didn’t sound like any human she’d ever heard. In fact, it more closely matched the timid quality of the scent trail.

Galaran released the tension in her back legs. As she crept around the base of a massive tree, her eyes confirmed it; there, huddled together amidst mossy roots, lay two small creatures. And indeed they were no denizens of Gaia, nor even of the human lands, judging by the feathery white wings that sprouted from their backs.

Galaran flicked her eyes upward. Though it was usually concealed by the canopy, the Floating Isle hung like a perpetual second moon over the forest, casting its long shadow across it during each day’s course. The ones who lived upon it, the winged Featherlings, rarely descended; Galaran herself had only heard tales of them, but never seen one.

Coincidentally, there was a break in the leaves above, and the isle’s void-black silhouette interrupted the starry sky. Had these two juveniles fallen from their home somehow? According to the stories, they would not leave it voluntarily.

She returned to her two-legged body - the tiger, for all its strength, could not speak - and approached the children carefully, like she would any wounded animal. Sudden movement would only make them run.

“Hello,” she called softly, putting her hands up when they flinched away. “It’s all right, I want to help you.”

The children clung more tightly to each other, pushing back into the moss as if they might escape into it, but made no move to flee. They merely stared back at her with wide, cloud-white eyes, shivering silently. Now that she was closer, Galaran noticed that their flowing garments were torn, their fair skin marred with scrapes; white feathers littered the ground around the tree, and one of their wings bent at an unnatural angle.

“My name is Galaran,” she tried again, even quieter. “I live near here. Did you fall from above?”

One of the children looked upward at the Floating Isle and her eyes began to water. Though they both had the same pale green-hued hair, this one wore it longer, braided over one shoulder, and it flopped around as she vehemently nodded.

“Yes,” she said in a small, miserable voice thick from crying. “You really - you won’t hurt us?”

Galaran smiled gently to reassure them, but her thoughts did not match. This was a question born of inexperience; what predator would speak truthfully to its prey were its intentions harmful?

Luckily she had found them, and not one of the less scrupulous forest dwellers.

“I won’t hurt you,” she promised, crouching next to them to appear less threatening. “What are your names?”

They both looked up at their distant home, then to the surrounding forest, dark save for faint shafts of moonlight, and then to one another. In the way of siblings, they seemed to pass some judgment wordlessly between them.

“I am Imariel,” said the one with the braid, pressing a hand to her sternum and then to her companion’s arm. “This is my brother Mahir.”

“We didn’t fall,” Mahir asserted. As it happened, his was the injured wing; he held it gingerly spread like it couldn’t fold inward. “We flew. These stupid trees are too big.”

Siblings, indeed, Galaran thought with an amused huff. “So you meant to come to Gaia? Why?”

“Liquid Gold!” they both answered at once, jarringly offset and much too loud for comfort.

Galaran made a slicing motion with one hand, her clan’s signal for silence, and the children seemed to understand its intent; they clamped their mouths shut as she scanned the area, turning her ears to those shadows too deep for her eyes.

She detected nothing amiss, but in the Gaia Forest, stillness was itself worrisome. They had been here too long, in too much light, making too much noise.

“What do you know of the forest?” she asked the children quietly, monitoring the spaces between trees. “Do your people tell tales of the shape-shifters?”

They didn’t reply right away, and when she glanced back at them, they were both frowning uncomfortably. Galaran couldn’t fault them for that, she supposed; the stories she’d been told about Featherlings weren’t very flattering, either.

“Mother says it’s dangerous,” Imariel finally said. “Everything wants to hurt you, especially the, uh…”

“The beastmen,” Mahir finished for her, oblivious to her hesitation. “They look like people, but they turn into animals and eat you. But you don’t seem like you’ll eat us, Miss Galaran.”

And you don’t seem like a craven sheep.

“Thank you,” Galaran said, forcing a smile. It was pointless to hold such biases against the young. “We are weretigers, not beastmen. And we do not ‘turn into’ animals, we simply have two shapes. Both are our true selves.”

By their questioning stares, she guessed that the concept of duality might be too complex for them at the moment.

“I can look like this, or I can look like a tiger,” she simplified. This seemed to get across better, because Imariel’s eyes brightened as if she’d just received a gift.

“But there are other shape-shifters in the forest that do want to eat you,” Galaran said gravely before either child could interject. “They can see your memories and change their faces to resemble those you trust. I want to take you somewhere safe from them. All right?”

They nodded and helped each other to stand, though their legs still shook; whether it was from residual fear or fatigue, Galaran couldn’t tell, but neither was in a fit state to walk.

“I’m going to, hm, ’turn into’ a tiger. When I do, climb onto my back and hold tight.”

Though some of her clansmen bore one another into battle in such a way, she had never personally carried a rider. Such a thing was, according to her father, below the dignity of the clan’s leadership.

But exceptions could always be made. Galaran certainly didn’t sense any mortal blows to her dignity as she took her tiger shape and crouched low to let the children ascend.

Imariel eagerly went first, getting a bit distracted by Galaran’s white-and-gold fur before Mahir reminded her that he needed her help to climb; unlike his sister, he couldn’t make use of his wings for balance. He gritted his teeth all the way up as the exertion strained his wound.

When they were both situated, Galaran loped off down a game trail. It was shockingly easy to carry them; she’d expected at least a slight burden on her spine, but they barely registered at all. Wild hens felt like this, too, when she brought them back to the village by the dozen, and she wondered if all winged creatures had traded a strong body for their mastery of the skies.

Galaran slipped back across the Ran border, making for a cave system she knew to be empty this season. The old bear matriarch who wintered there wouldn’t mind the occupation, she wagered, especially if it was used to shelter cubs.

Deserted though it was, she made a loop of its entrance and tunnels before settling in the main chamber. The children watched in rapt fascination as she folded back into her two-legged body, perhaps finding the process just as mysterious as Galaran found their ability to fly. However, though they looked positively full to bursting with questions, she bade them assist her with building a fire and laying a mat of leaves before speaking.

Finally, when all sat comfortably and a pleasant warmth filled the chamber, she gave them a silent nod of permission.

“What does it feel like? Does it hurt?” Imariel immediately asked, reaching over to pat Galaran’s shoulder, mouth agape as if she thought the skin might still feel like fur.

Mahir poked at her catlike ears and swishing tail. “Can you make these go away too?”

Galaran, knelt before them with her waterskin and a bit of moss, endured the contact with a practiced patience. For all their prodding, they were much gentler than the mischievous young of her clan, who gleefully sunk their claws into any nearby legs.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said, using the wet moss to blot at the children’s various cuts and abrasions. They allowed it without complaint, as if accustomed to similar treatment.

“It feels like…”

Shifting between bodies was so mundane among her people that she’d never considered how it felt before. For some of her kin the transformation took effort, but for her it had always been simply innate, like chewing or breathing.

She thought for a moment, then gave her best approximation. “It feels like stretching. It is refreshing. Freeing.”

Imariel stretched her arms high above her head, humming curiously.

“And no, I can’t change this body any more,” Galaran said, pulling a length of twine from her belt.

Mahir seemed rather disappointed by this, but soon turned to yelping as Galaran straightened his wing and bound a stick to it in a makeshift brace.

“That hurts!” he whined, recoiling, but then looked surprised when he could properly fold in the wing again. He tested the motion several times for confirmation, even though each instance made him grimace.

“Sorry,” she murmured, frowning at the unfamiliar structures. Being a lifelong warrior, she held no fine knowledge of medicine; all she’d learned was how to keep a broken bone still until it could be treated by a healer.

But Mahir’s wingbone didn’t look broken, just…bent. She was pretty sure her own bones couldn’t do that; perhaps this was a benefit of their being so light?

Galaran glanced toward the cave entrance. The village was far from here, and the children were much too exhausted for an extended ride - nevermind the night time dangers of the forest, besides.

“I can take you to a healer in the morning,” she said, hoping they’d actually be able to help. Even if they could, it would require getting the children into the village, first.

Outsiders generally needed to prove their value before the clan would welcome them, but she’d seen this waived before to shelter the injured. Moreover, there were no rules specifically concerning Featherlings, rare as they were, and her father wasn’t such a staunch traditionalist that he’d turn away two lost children.

Probably.

She sighed. It was a problem for the morrow.

“Now, what is this Liquid Gold?” she asked, settling next to the fire. It had to be something unfathomably precious to make these baby birds jump from their nest.

“It’s an herb that grows here in the great forest,” Imariel replied animatedly. “It can cure any illness!”

At Galaran’s confusion, her own face fell somewhat. “You don’t know of it?”

Mahir added, “Our mother is sick. Lots of other people are, too, and no one can fix it, so we’re going to fix it.”

He shrugged, winced when it jostled his wings, and then carefully folded them up again. “We - ow - we couldn’t find the portal, so we had to jump.”

The portal. Galaran had heard this story, too, of a strange place in the forest that could transport one instantly to the Floating Isle. Many generations’ youths had spent their idle hours searching for it in vain - for it was only a story, after all.

Still, dire circumstances could make even the most impossible solutions seem appealing, and she knew well the despair that incurable sickness could bring.

“Describe this herb,” she said, propping her elbow up on one knee and resting her chin on her fist. She couldn’t name many plants, especially medicinal ones, but could recognize most by form or function.

The children looked at each other, each expecting the other to answer. When neither did, their expressions grew rather sheepish.

“Um. Uncle Zak never said what it looked like, did he?” Imariel asked nervously, to which Mahir merely shook his head. She laced her fingers together in her lap. “Well, I suppose it must be yellow…”

Galaran blinked several times, too shocked to comment. The greenest leaves are eaten first, said her elders. Those most unacquainted with danger were most prone to meeting it. These younglings had truly left the safety of their isle without even the shadow of a plan?

“We use many yellow flowers in our medicines,” she replied carefully. “But none of them can cure any illness. If something could, we would need nothing else.”

Imariel sighed, shoulders drooping, like she’d been expecting that answer.

“Maybe you just haven’t found it yet,” Mahir offered, undeterred.

Galaran hesitated. The Gaia clans did possess different knowledge on various subjects, true, but it was, more often than not, willingly traded amongst them. And even though the clans’ territories were spread widely apart, there was no corner of the forest her people hadn’t prowled. She seriously doubted that such a miraculous herb could escape everyone’s notice - or remain a secret if discovered.

Gently, so as not to dampen their hope, she agreed, “Maybe. Why don’t you ask our healers about it tomorrow?”

This seemed to appease the children, who perked up at once. Given their past impulsivity, Galaran thought it best to conceal the most likely outcome - that the herb was nothing but a legend, much like the portal. There was no sense in crushing their spirits while they were already injured; the harsh truth could, and would, come later.

She pulled the remainder of her last hunt - boar meat, smoked and dried - from her ration satchel and laid it out to warm by the fire. “For now, why don’t you tell me about your home?”

Part 2: Zakiriel

None left the Floating Isle.

There was no mandate against it, of course; no one could be punished for simply wishing to leave. But custom often outweighed law, and it was customary to consider the departed as voluntary exiles - no longer denizens of the isle.

The Featherlings of Haven did this not out of cruelty, they claimed, but practicality; the terrestrial lands were hostile, treacherous places full of beasts and killers, and the departed would surely meet their ends there.

Zakiriel, as he stared into the swirling currents of mist that surrounded his home, thought this precept more than a trifle reductive. It was accepted as common wisdom in his community, yet there were several printed accounts of the human nations to the west and the shape-shifters in the great forest below.

One needed simply to peruse the archives to read them. And such firsthand reports could have only been written by a Featherling who’d left and returned, no?

Alas, most of his people would rather embrace isolationism. To them, Haven was secure and prosperous, and they need not expand their literal or figurative horizons beyond it.

Well. Those attitudes had led him here, to the edge of the isle, in the dead of night, wrapped up like a thief and ready to brave the dreaded world.

He never should have read them the scroll. Why in all the illustrious heavens had he read them the scroll? He’d known exactly how desperate they were for a cure, had thought that maybe an old story could calm their anxiety…

Foolishness. He’d been so focused on Anahel’s care that he’d neglected the mental wellbeing of her children, and now they were gone.

Exiled.

They didn’t even know the meaning of the word, and yet the people would condemn them to it, deaf to their plight.

Zakiriel breathed in deeply, expelling frustration in his exhale. This would work; this had to work. He’d always been a strong flier. If he could find them in the great forest and bring them back before dawn, then no one would even know they’d been missing.

All would be right. All would be well.

He gripped the leather strap of his shoulder-sling bag, took a step back, and -

“And here I thought you’d come to see me.”

The voice came from behind him, languid and low, and Zakiriel didn’t need to turn around to know who’d spoken.

“Kazach,” he acknowledged, pivoting on his heel for propriety’s sake. Rudeness toward one’s family - even if said family found the concept of empathy challenging - was rarely excusable. “I did not know you were visiting.”

The man in question scoffed, hopping down from the rock on which he’d previously reclined. His dark hair and leathery black wings blended almost completely into the night, making pale skin and narrowed red eyes stand out by contrast.

“Aye, and you’d better be thankful I am,” he spat, gesturing to the isle’s rim with his chin. “There I was, dropping in for a lovely little chat with my favorite brother, just to catch him in the act of throwing his damn life away for a couple of reckless brats.”

Zakiriel pursed his lips. Apparently, his past lectures on the ethical dubiosity of eavesdropping on people’s thoughts hadn’t quite sunk in yet - but, in the interest of time and camaraderie, he let it pass without comment. Instead he cleared his throat and promptly upped his mental wards against intrusion.

“I’d hardly call the rescue of two innocent souls ‘throwing my life away,’” he replied evenly. “And besides, Imariel and Mahir acted on my counsel, intended or not. It is my responsibility to bring them home.”

Kazach shook his head incredulously. “Your responsibility is to the people of the isle. How do you think they’ll fare against the Withering without your aid?”

He looked down upon the undulating black sea of the great forest’s canopy, translucent through the mist. “They’re dead - eaten by beasts or beastmen. It’s not worth it.”

As always, Zakiriel had been expecting his brother to return sincerity with cold pessimism. It was his lifelong trial to break upon that unforgiving shore again and again, yet he’d continue for as long as he drew breath; someday, Kaz would discover his capacity to care for others. It may be more deeply buried than the average person’s, but it was surely there.

“The Withering will consume its hosts whether I am present or not,” he answered patiently. “At least, if I can recover the twins, Anahel may pass with the comfort that her children are safe.”

“Oh, please. I know you; you just want to satisfy your guilt.”

Zakiriel drew himself up indignantly. Pessimism he could stomach - regularly stomached - but barbed insults?

To his credit, Kazach had at least enough grace to look regretful.

“All right. Listen.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Those fledglings would have found that scroll with or without your help. The archive was their next logical step. You said it yourself: they were desperate for a cure.”

Zakiriel’s reply came out rather more icily than he’d intended, “I didn’t say that, Kazach. I thought it. Privately.”

“Regardless,” Kazach continued, throwing up one hand dismissively. “You didn’t force them to jump off the isle. In fact, no one in their right mind would even consider it. This -” he waved at the precipice, “- is simply nature taking its course. You needn’t share that fate.”

Zakiriel closed his eyes. On matters of life’s sanctity, they’d never agreed; he could call up countless instances of them standing in this same place, having a permutation of this same argument. Over the years, through experience, he’d learned which hills to defend and which to abandon - and this particular hill required urgency.

“You’re right,” he said after a moment of reflection. “It’s too dangerous to search the forest at night. If something were to befall me, Haven would be all the worse for it.”

When he opened his eyes again, Kazach was smiling. Of course he was; nothing made the man happier than compliance. Indeed, in the next few moments, he felt the invasive tendrils of his brother’s magic withdrawing from his mind.

“Good.” Kazach looked toward the warm, distant light of Haven proper. “The roads should be empty by now. How about a late dinner?”

Zakiriel folded his arms inside his wide sleeves. “Not tonight. I’ll stand watch here until morning.”

In response to his brother’s skepticism, he added, “I only wish to see if the twins fly back up on their own. If not, I’ll consider the matter settled.”

Kazach tilted his head like a barnyard cat taking a rabbit’s measure. “Will you?”

A beat passed in tense silence, neither man willing to give an inch, and then Kazach relented with a laugh too easy for his sharp smile.

“Very well, then. We’ll meet tomorrow evening instead.”

Zakiriel nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Lying did not come naturally to him; lying to someone close to him, even less so.

But fortune favored him tonight. Kazach seemed to trust the ruse, disappearing into the night sky without further questioning.

It was only after a full minute of stillness that Zakiriel let out a relieved breath. Hopefully, by the time Kaz came back, it would no longer be a ruse; he’d have long returned with the twins, safe and sound.

Thus resolved, he spread his wings, read the air currents that fluttered through his white feathers, and jumped.

---

Poets often likened the great forest to a body of water, comparing its windblown canopy to the western oceans’ volatile waves. Until this moment, Zakiriel had lauded such poems; from their distant perspective, the great forest truly did appear to be a rippling emerald surface, quite similar to any lake upon the isle.

It was, perhaps, too easy a comparison to internalize. Zakiriel had scarcely cleared Haven’s rocky bulk when the illusion shattered around him; the canopy’s uniform blanket, with proximity, separated into individual trees and gradients of blended earthy hues. He’d logically known that it would - that green became leaf, became branch, became trunk, became soil - but the reality stunned him.

Before the humans drove them skyward, his people had once inhabited seaside cliffs. Had his ancestors looked upon dark waters the same way, rationalizing their unknown depths?

A lucky updraft allowed him precious seconds to clear his head and refocus.

If he were a juvenile with underdeveloped wings, where might he choose to land? The winds beneath the isle were deceptively fierce, so he’d likely want to leave them at once to avoid being buffeted about. Flying straight down would be risky, though, since a strong current could propel him toward the forest at dangerous speeds.

But Imariel and Mahir hadn’t yet learned the perils of the skies - and they’d always been bolder than their peers, requiring Zakiriel’s medical aid rather frequently. Even worse, they’d reached the age where children pushed the bounds of their abilities, striving to recreate the aerial feats that adult Featherlings could perform - and because of this, it was a period more commonly referred to as their falling season.

He spotted a break in the canopy almost directly beneath the isle, past those treacherously invisible winds, and feared he knew which path the twins had chosen.

Grimly, he approached it, and found himself floating above a bottomless void. What had seemed a natural passage from afar now resembled a hungry mouth ringed in grasping hands; Zakiriel couldn’t even make out the undergrowth from here, let alone the ground - but he often gathered herbs in the dark. He knew how to traverse dense foliage safely, albeit slowly.

The night’s arrival seemed to accelerate with his descent; the sun had barely dipped behind the far-off mountains when he’d jumped, but its lingering twilight faded at an alarming rate as he sank beneath the treetops. Looking up, he could see the faint dividing line of light in the air, like someone had painted it with luminescent ink, separating day from night. How strange, he thought, that such a barrier should only be visible from below.

He unhooked a bronze lantern from his belt and sparked its wick, illuminating the massive tree trunks that surrounded him on all sides, and used its glow to navigate a path downward. Despite his experience, the twisting branches still caught in his hair, snagged in his clothing, clawed at his skin, and he shuddered to think what the children must have endured.

When his boots finally hit the forest floor, a blanket of wet leaves muted the landing. An upward view now showed a nearly complete darkness, as if swathes of stars had extinguished while his back was turned and only a thin oval of twinkling skyscape above his head remained.

Zakiriel swallowed hard. It was just the canopy, he reassured himself. It was just the forest’s canopy from the opposite side, and the stars still existed beyond it.

He lifted his lantern to expand its radius, finding that he’d landed at the base of a tree so ancient that its root system had overtaken several of its adjacent fellows, forming a sort of uneven clearing. The area outside it was a wall of entwining green, broken rarely by narrow game trails - and even those looked tenuous, like the forest could snap shut the gaps at its leisure.

He took an involuntary step back from it, disquieted by such congestion, and froze. Right next to his foot lay a tiny white feather, much too short to be one of his own, limply draped over a root.

A breath stuttered in his throat; he whirled, casting wild, blocky shadows around the clearing with swaying lantern-light, to see dozens of feathers scattered around the tree’s base in a similar fashion. Crucially, though, he couldn’t find any traces of blood, and this calmed his racing heart somewhat.

So the twins had utilized this direct route into the forest, met misfortune in the winds, and then landed here. But what had become of them after?

Zakiriel walked the clearing’s perimeter and found a trail wider than the rest. He knew very little about tracking, but he did know about foraging - and the plants along this trail, while foreign in appearance, had obviously been disturbed in comparison to others in the vicinity. Recently, too; their broken leaf nodes hadn’t yet closed over.

It was good enough for him. He folded his wings close to his back and ducked into the trail, holding the lantern as high as he could.

The ground was covered in a patchwork of dirt, moss, and leaves, struck through with rotting logs and roots that arched like snakes. More than once he tripped over a rock camouflaged by leaves, or slid down an incline on a dislodged bit of moss.

Heavy, stagnant air further belabored his progress, sitting thick in his lungs; and though the forest abounded with unfamiliar sounds, they came across tinny in his ears without the isle’s perpetual undercurrent of wind.

Never mind the beasts, he thought dryly. The forest might claim him through geography alone before a hungry nose ever caught his scent.

But…now that he thought of it, wasn’t it odd that no beasts had yet accosted him? Not that he wanted them to - after all, he had only his lantern’s fire to deter an attack - but his research had suggested an intense local hostility.

Zakiriel paused on the trail. Were the lesser hunters so wary of his flame that they’d vacated the area entirely?

Or had something greater driven them away?

A droplet of cold sweat ran down his neck; suddenly, it seemed that the trees pressed inward, that the night itself pushed against his dome of light - that a hundred unblinking eyes waited just beyond the lantern’s reach. If he listened closely enough, he even thought he could hear movement farther down the trail, belonging to -

“Ow! This one’s got thorns!”

“Quiet, Mahir!”

- the twins?

Both were whispering, but in the forest’s relative silence they may as well have been screaming. Zakiriel scrambled toward the sounds, filled with relief and dread both, ready to grab the children and quit this terrible place before anything monstrous could leap from the darkness.

To his great dismay, however, Imariel and Mahir did not greet him with equal excitement when he breached the treeline; in fact, they did scream, throwing down handfuls of red berries and sprinting away into a rocky cave.

Zakiriel, at a loss for words, held out his hands and inspected himself. He was quite disheveled, yes, and covered in a fair amount of dirt, but surely he was still distinguishable from a woodland beast?

He lifted his eyes just in time to see his fears actualized.

A gigantic white tiger hung in a mid-leap arc as it emerged from the underbrush, its fierce yellow eyes trained on his throat. Zakiriel tried to raise his arms, to protect his face, but the creature closed on him faster than he could translate intent to action.

In numb panic, he could only register the attack as a series of impacts: first as a giant paw collided with his chest; next as his back hit the ground; and finally as his head followed suit, bouncing off loose earth with a yielding but dizzying thud.

His ears rang; his vision swam. The tiger loomed over him, its weight a crushing pressure on his sternum. Its bared fangs glistened in the asymmetric orange light of his discarded lantern; a low growl issued from its parted jaws, rumbling in his bones.

Only now, as it lowered its head for the fatal bite, could Zakiriel process his imminent demise.

Ah. This is it, then.

This was the danger he’d expected - the danger for which he’d thought himself so well prepared. But now three lives would end in obscurity, in quick succession, with ruthless efficiency.

He shut his eyes and let his body go limp. Maybe, maybe, if the beast thought him dead, then he could run back into the forest, lure it away from the cave, and give the twins time to run.

But as his thoughts raced along such lines, there came no puncturing fangs. A moment passed, then two, then three, and still the tiger waited.

Zakiriel was just contemplating his options when the weight on his chest receded - not completely, but enough for him to draw a stuttering breath. He cautiously opened his eyes, and -

And the tiger had vanished.

In its place was a young woman who looked just as surprised as he felt. She had him pinned by the shoulder with one arm, the other raised as if to strike, with muscular thighs caging either side of his torso. From her overhead position, her hair - soft and layered above her neck, then bound into two symmetrical queues below - hung down and brushed his cheeks; dazedly he realized that, without the lantern’s warm cast, it must be a pale blonde, like sun-bleached stalks of late autumn wheat.

For the second time, Zakiriel struggled to make sense of this sudden change. He swiveled his head to the left, then to the right, wondering if perhaps she had shielded him from the tiger and it was still in the vicinity - but the forest, save for their small pocket of firelight, was silent. Empty.

He turned back to the woman, noticed the gold glint of her eyes and the white-furred ears atop her head, and realized his mistake. She and the tiger were but two expressions of a single deadly creature; one, above all other possibilities, he’d hoped to never encounter.

Beastmen, his people called them - denizens of the great forest who could shift between animal and man like Zakiriel might change his clothing. But the stories depicted them as hungry cutthroat predators, and this one had hesitated.

He focused again on the young woman’s posture, at the fierceness that had morphed to curiosity, and his own fear melted away to mirror it. Perhaps the stories, like so many other aspects of the isle’s common wisdom, were more than a trifle reductive.

Part 3: Galaran

Galaran stared down at the strange man in mute bewilderment. Another Featherling? She’d been so sure he was a shifter, come in disguise to claim an easy meal - but even at risk of death, his form held. The man merely laid there, waiting for the killing blow like an exhausted deer.

No, not quite, she thought; even a deer would have tried to run.

She reshaped her body, confident that this man didn’t pose an immediate threat, but kept her hold on him. Just because he was a fellow Featherling didn’t mean his intentions were good.

But…he certainly didn’t look nefarious. His long azure hair, initially braided in a similar manner to Imariel’s, had come undone in the struggle and now fanned wildly around his head and shoulders; his eyes, blue as the midday sky, peered up at her without a trace of suspicion.

The strongest evidence laid in his scent. He and the children carried similar currents of foreign grass, trees, and soil, marking them as kin of the same land. A shifter could never mimic that which didn’t exist in the forest.

Conclusion reached, Galaran stood, and after a moment of thought extended a hand down to him as well. Would he take it, though it had nearly killed him?

Annoyingly, he took it without reservation and climbed laboriously to his feet. She observed in further disbelief as he gave her an easy, grateful nod and began to dust himself off. He even turned his eyes away, shaking the dirt from his wings like a songbird bathing in rain.

So he, like the children, had decided to trust her after a single brief interaction. Galaran wondered what sort of idyllic living conditions must exist on the Floating Isle to produce such naivete. Did any Featherling possess even a shred of survival instinct?

“Sorry,” she said, breaking the extended quiet. “I thought you were something else.”

The man looked up from his task wearing an altogether too friendly smile.

“Ah, well, no harm done,” he replied lightly, following it with an unconvincing roll of his shoulder. The stiffness in the act told her that there might have indeed been some harm done.

He glanced past her into the cave’s mouth. “You’re protecting the twins, then? Are they all right? Were they injured in the fall?”

Galaran cocked her head to one side, unsure how to answer such instant familiarity.

Seeming to misunderstand her pause, the man quickly added, “Oh, forgive me. My name is Zakiriel. I’m a doctor from Haven -” he pointed upward like his origin wasn’t obvious, “- and I’m looking for the children that ran into your cave, there. May I come in?”

She quirked an eyebrow at the assumption. “Galaran. Yes, they were injured, but not severely. Put that out and follow me,” she said, indicating his light source.

Zakiriel retrieved his strange torch and obeyed, shrouding the cave’s exterior once more in safe, inconspicuous darkness.

A beat later he awkwardly inquired, “But how will we see?”

Galaran, already a few steps away, turned her head to frown at him. “You can’t?”

At first she thought that Featherlings might simply take time in adjusting to light’s sudden absence - but when Zakiriel continued to just stand there, shaking his head at a spot vaguely to her left, she realized that he couldn’t see anything.

“Oh,” she said, waving one hand in front of his face. No reaction. “Stay close, then.”

“Right,” he answered, and promptly tripped over a rock in his haste to comply.

Galaran caught him by the arm, patiently guided his hand to a pouch on her belt, and didn’t speak aloud her amazement that he’d managed to survive this long.

Past several bends - enough to mask the firelight from outside - they arrived in the main chamber, where Mahir and Imariel were attempting to hide in a shadowed alcove. Several wingtips poked clumsily out from it, moving around as the children, presumably, tried to improve their concealment.

“You can come out. It’s safe,” Galaran said, exhaling a puff of laughter. She waved Zakiriel inside but stayed posted by the exit herself, just in case any of his pursuers hadn’t yet given up the chase.

Two heads of pale green hair poked around the alcove’s corner, sniffling and teary-eyed, but didn’t yet approach. It was only when Zakiriel softly called their names that they broke from cover and practically launched themselves toward him, clinging to his robes like prickly vines.

“Uncle Zak!” Imariel wailed, her voice muffled by fabric. “I’m sorry! I thought it would be easy but it was so hard, and the wind was so strong, and the trees are so tall -”

Her voice trailed off into blubbering as Zakiriel gently smoothed down her hair; she slumped against him like all the rigors of the day had finally drained her.

With his other hand, Zakiriel reached for Mahir’s injured wing. Galaran noted that Mahir didn’t flinch away from it this time, unlike when she’d tied on the brace - and then her eyes widened as it started glowing.

An ice-blue light radiated from Zakiriel’s hand to the wing, flowing like water over the wounded section. When the light faded away, Mahir spread the wing to its full extent without any of his previous complaints.

Galaran had no idea Featherlings could do magic - that was a human talent, she’d thought, used solely to advance their warfare. She supposed it only made sense that there would be beneficial magic in the world, as well; maybe it signified this doctor title Zakiriel had mentioned outside.

Mahir, with his head ducked in shame, said, “Thanks, Uncle Zak. Sorry we thought you were a monster.”

At this, Zakiriel - who had still been inspecting the outstretched wing - dropped it at once. “You thought I was a - heavens, why would you think so?”

“W - well,” Mahir stammered, “Miss Galaran said that there are monsters here that can look like people you know, so…”

Zakiriel glanced at Galaran in alarm, and she confirmed it with a curt nod. He nodded back repeatedly like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Then,” he began slowly, “how did you know I wasn’t one of them?”

Galaran shrugged. “You didn’t fight back.”

He waited, perhaps expecting more of an explanation, and prompted when none came, “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” she said, leaning against the chamber’s inner wall and crossing her arms. “The faceless ones break before I have them by the neck.”

Zakiriel raised his brows, replied with a concerned, high-pitched hum, and swiftly turned his attention back to the children. “Well! Let’s get you two home, then.”

He was met with an immediate, simultaneous shout of, “No!” from both of them, so intense that he pulled away.

Galaran put a finger to her lips and gestured to the exit passage.

“No,” Imariel, renewed in defiance, repeated more quietly. She detached herself from Zakiriel’s robe and stepped back to make her argument, wobbling only a little. “We can’t leave without Liquid Gold. You said it was down here.”

Mahir joined his sister, though their stern solidarity was undermined somewhat by his attempts to untie the wooden brace from his wing; when he reached for it, his body moved, and when his body moved, his wing went with it, locking him in a repetitive and frustrated cycle.

Catch-your-tail, Galaran thought with a nostalgic smile. It seemed that children’s antics, at least, bridged the divide between cultures.

“If we don’t - ah -” Mahir made another swipe at his wing, missing yet again, “- if we don’t bring it back, Mother won’t ever get better, right?”

Zakiriel mercifully plucked the twine on the brace, sending it and the stick clattering to the cave floor. His perpetual cheer had faded to resignation.

“Right,” he answered softly, holding Mahir by the shoulders to help him stabilize.

From their earlier conversations, Galaran had gathered that their mother’s illness was persistent and grueling; the way the children spoke, it was clear they had no real concept of death, but she recognized the described afflictions of one whose end drew near.

“We haven’t even searched for a day,” Imariel complained. “We can’t give up yet!”

Zakiriel hesitated for a long moment.

“Imariel. Mahir. What I read to you - the scroll from the archive,” he said haltingly, and both children nodded. “It was the only account, among dozens of shelves, that mentioned this curative, and even then its details were so sparse. I…”

He exhaled deeply and closed his eyes.

Galaran pitied the man. The children regarded him with such radiant hope, and all he had in answer was the rotten task of dousing it. The sooner the better, though - ignorance had led them to danger, and it would only continue to do so if left uncorrected.

“So how about I look for it instead?” Zakiriel suggested brightly, grinning like it was the most natural idea in the world.

Galaran stared at him, too incredulous to hush the children’s answering exclamations. This - this overeager river reed, liable to wash away in a drizzle, was going to stay here?

She pressed two knuckles to the bridge of her nose. No, surely not; he was just indulging the children’s whims to get them back to the Floating Isle.

“Really? Do you know where to look?” Mahir practically bounced in his exuberance. “Miss Galaran said her healers could help!”

“Our healers might be able to help,” she quickly corrected.

Zakiriel made a grand show of considering the question. “Well, I don’t know where exactly to look, but I work with the isle’s plants every day. I’m sure I could narrow down a possible location with time and study.”

Mahir nodded sagely along with the act, entirely taken in by it.

“And,” Zakiriel continued, “don’t you think your mother would miss you?”

Imariel cast her eyes downward. “She would.”

“Is it not better, then, for me to stay, and for the two of you to return to Haven?”

The siblings shared a conflicted look, clearly reluctant to abandon their mission. They held a debate through subtle expressions; though no words were exchanged, the negotiations appeared quite heated via gesture alone.

Finally Imariel, the apparent victor, turned back and gravely stipulated, “You have to promise you’ll find the Liquid Gold. Okay?”

Zakiriel held a hand over his heart. “Mari, I promise I will do my very best to find it.”

Mahir, visibly pouting, kicked his former brace stick across the floor in defeat. “Oh, fine. Let’s go.”

It was sort of endearing, actually, that these three foreigners - who had very recently witnessed Gaia’s brutality - looked to be planning their departure for the middle of the night. Perhaps they thought their encounters to be abnormal, the product of misfortune rather than their own inexperience; or perhaps, since Galaran had aided them, they had a deceptively generous view of the forest’s inhabitants.

Regardless.

“Wait until morning,” she advised. “Regain your strength.”

The other reason, she kept to herself: might alone could not prevail against unfavorable conditions.

In her clan, this was one of several basic facts of survival. A mother leopard forced to move her young in the dark must accept a measure of loss. She is strong, but her cubs are many; she is alert, but she cannot defend every angle.

Luckily, Zakiriel accepted her initial reasoning.

He herded the children toward the back of the chamber and helped them heap moss and leaves into a pile. Though he weathered several complaints over its texture and crudeness, fatigue finally caught up with them; soon they were nestled like eggs into the improvised bed, soundly asleep.

Galaran fed a few more branches into the small central fire, then motioned for Zakiriel to follow her into the exit passage. They stood with their backs to opposite walls, close enough to see into the main chamber but far enough to speak in confidence.

“All right, tell me,” she said, dropping all the softness and euphemism she’d employed for the children’s benefit. “What is ‘Liquid Gold’? Do you really think it’s here in the forest?”

Zakiriel breathed a tired laugh. “Liquid Gold is a substance mentioned once in our historical records. For reference -” he indicated the cave’s interior, “- the archive’s contents could fill this place thrice over, at least. And only one person, in one instance, ever documented its existence. But…”

He steepled his fingers. “If the record was in the archive, then it was verified at some point. Someone had enough evidence to convince an archivist to include it. So, to answer your question: I think it’s a plant, and I think it might grow in the forest.”

“Hm,” Galaran acknowledged, digesting his lengthy reply. “As I told Imariel, we use many ‘yellow’ plants in our medicines, but none can cure every illness.”

Zakiriel’s fatigue instantly sharpened to interest. “So your people have knowledge of herbology? That is most fortunate. You see, I don’t think the original plant is necessarily yellow; the substance was presumably named Liquid Gold for a reason, and there are many natural derivatives that, when combined in a solution, change their hues quite dramatically -”

“Wait. Wait.” Galaran waved one hand as if clearing away smoke. She hadn’t recognized many of his words, but he was conveying a certain intent. “Do you actually mean to return to Gaia?”

“Gaia? Is that the great forest’s name?” He gazed outside with fresh wonder for a few seconds, then shook his head and refocused on her. “Ah, apologies. I do indeed. Why wouldn’t I, after giving my word?”

Galaran had found herself speechless in the face of these Featherlings’ actions several times now, but this one outsized the others by far.

“You - you -”

He patiently waited while she struggled to gather a response.

“You plan to risk your life a second time for the honor of your word?”

Zakiriel’s eyes slightly widened. “Oh! No, no, you misunderstand. I only gave my word because I planned to return.”

At her sustained disbelief, he cleared his throat and continued more seriously, “I’m aware of the dangers, believe me, but the twins…well, they acted recklessly, but they weren’t wrong. Haven isn’t doing enough to treat the Withering.”

The Withering. The name alone made Galaran shiver. “Is that what ails their mother?”

Zakiriel averted his eyes and dipped his chin once, tightly. “Her and many more. Mahir spoke the truth; there is no cure. Once contracted, the disease invariably claims its victim. They waste away to nothing. It consumes them whole.”

He glared down at his hands as he spoke, as if blaming them for the problem. “And neither magic nor medicine can do anything but ease their passing.”

Galaran listened with cold, mounting unease to the description. “When you say it ‘consumes,’ do you mean it makes them frail? So weak they can barely stand?”

“Yes, exactly,” he said, startled. “Why? Have you seen it?”

She glanced back into the main chamber to make sure the children were still sleeping; they didn’t need to hear this.

“I think so,” she said, near-whispering to ensure their privacy. “It is a new killer. The first one to fall was ten seasons ago - one of our elders. He was a fearless, proven warrior. Death could not take him.”

Her fists clenched in indignation. “Over a single moon’s gaining, he slowed until he could no longer lift his head to receive water. We thought it a single tragedy, but then those who had cared for him began to slow as well. They died, all of them.”

Zakiriel hummed darkly. “Those do sound like the same symptoms, and the manner of spreading is quite similar.”

“But we assumed it had come from the humans. They bring so much sickness with them,” Galaran said with an agitated flick of her tail. “How could they have brought it to the Floating Isle?”

“They could not have,” he agreed, putting a thoughtful hand to his chin. “No human has set foot on the isle in centuries. Perhaps it is transmitted via wind? There are species of trees and fungi that reach Haven in such a fashion…”

He shook his head again; Galaran now recognized it as a sign he’d drifted away mentally and wished to return.

“That - that isn’t important,” he said quickly. “The salient point is that both of our peoples are suffering from it with no recourse. All the more reason to search in earnest for ‘Liquid Gold.’”

She snorted, intending to dissuade him, but a new idea buzzed to life in her mind. Conspiratorially, she probed, “The children said you were a healer; is this true?”

“A doctor, yes,” he confirmed, raising an eyebrow like he questioned its relevance.

Ah, so that was what it meant. She smiled in satisfaction as all the threads came together. “Then, if you’re determined to stay, why not take shelter with my clan?”

He raised his brows skeptically, but seemed intrigued nonetheless. “Your clan would readily welcome an outsider?”

“Not readily,” Galaran hedged, thinking of her father’s past intolerance, “but the Ran value those who are useful, and skilled healers are rare. I think the clan head would see worth in your knowledge.”

Zakiriel spent a few moments in silent deliberation.

“It would be better than wandering Gaia until you are eaten by a wolf,” she said flatly to hasten him along. “Or a bear. Or a serpent -”

“All right, all right, I understand,” he interjected, his face a bit paler than before. “I’ll meet with your clan head. Assuming they won’t kill me if I fail to impress…?”

She hesitated in answering. Such a thing wasn’t customary, and she’d only seen it applied to deceitful humans, but she supposed it wasn’t impossible.

“I must say that this reaction is not inspiring confidence.”

“You won’t be killed,” she told him decisively. “But since there are no clan laws about Featherlings, I’ll make no pledges otherwise.”

After a brief pause, she amended, “I’ll make one pledge. If my father denies you shelter with our clan, I will see you safely to another.” “Your father?” he spluttered nervously, but then managed to compose himself. “That, ah - that sounds agreeable to me. Thank you.”

“Thank me after you prove yourself,” she threw back. “Elder Varran is not easy to please, but I think you will succeed. Your cause is just.”

He beamed at her in the same fond way he had with the children. Such familiarity unsettled her, as it had during their initial meeting, and she still couldn’t really explain why; caution was so fundamental to her worldview that his lack of it was simply…baffling.

“You should -” go away right now, her mind supplied, but she firmly rejected that option, “- sleep. While you can. Tomorrow’s journey will be long.”

“Ah. You’re probably right,” Zakiriel said amicably, then started toward the central chamber. At its threshold, he turned to her with his hands clasped behind his back. “Goodnight, then.”

His continued presence after speaking probably meant he expected a response, Galaran thought, but she hadn’t the faintest idea what it should be.

“Goodbye,” she tried.

She’d heard humans say that before, and it was pretty close to the word he had used - but his stiff smile told her it was probably wrong. He inhaled as if to respond, but then simply nodded awkwardly and strode away.

Odd. She’d have to ask about that.

Gradually, silence - almost pure, save for the faint crackle of their fire - settled over the cave, and she finally felt secure again. If anything approached, she’d hear it, and the winding passage shielded her from an ambush.

Reassured, she relaxed against the wall, letting some of the day’s tension drain from her body. Tomorrow’s journey would be long, indeed, and taxing in more ways than one. She could only hope that her father didn’t awaken feeling particularly obstinate.

Her head fell back against the wall, then lolled to one side to observe the sleeping Featherlings. Lacking any proper bedding, Zakiriel had curled one of his wings underneath his body and the other atop it; his deep blue hair flowed over one shoulder and pooled by his side, sleek despite the trials it had met, framing an elegant face smoothed by slumber.

In some areas of the forest where the canopy was thinner, where sunlight nourished a lush undergrowth, there grew a colorful flower prized for its beauty. Its vibrant petals resembled the head of a long-necked crane reaching skyward, its leaves suggested wings arched in flight - and its stem snapped under any but the lightest touches.

Long ago, her mother had told her those flowers were called birds of paradise, and Galaran thought she knew, now, how they’d acquired their name.

#mega writes #it is SO fun to interpret other peoples OCs #like thank you for inviting me to your house and letting me play dolls with you #also worldbuilding. it's like drugs to me #img free to use from pexels

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tworedplants · 2 years ago

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#megaman #mega man #protoman #proto man #comic #my art #this was meant to be a three page comic but i do not have the patience #and again i am posting things with words without knowing if my writing is any good

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jawllines · 2 years ago

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But how could she voice this? Nobody else had made her request it explicitly, so she really wasn’t sure what to request. Any version of her saying it just sounds more and more pathetic, to speak the words aloud would be embarrassing.

“You want me to stay?” Harry offered, after some time, and she was grateful for it as she nodded, “Just in the room?”

Her face feels warm as her eyes glance over to the other side of her bed, “It’s. . .it’s a big bed,” she told him, swallowing thickly, “You can lay down if you're tired.”

Harry’s lips quirk into a tiny, halfway smile, and Y/N had seen that look enough to know some form of a taunt typically follows it, “Oh I see,” he began, lifting himself up onto her bed and crawling over her body to get to the side she offered, “Was this a ploy to get me into your bed? You could have just asked, Sweetheart, but I would have asked for dinner first.”

Y/N finds out a secret and Harry finds a rat

part 1

part 2

iii.

Y/N has never been so embarrassed.

The hike was her idea; granted, she’s not a big hiker to begin with, and she hardly believes the sneakers she wore were meant for more than casual ambling in a park — but she thought it could be fun. After being cooped up in her flat for a little over a week, she was desperate just to breathe in the fresh air and feel the sun on her skin. It was one thing to be locked away when the weather was bitter and uninhabitable, but it was finally getting warmer, and whispers of Spring were carried in the wind. An open window could only preclude her feelings of claustrophobia for so long before she needed to go outside.

Since Harry could typically get Thomas to agree to things she’d never thought he might agree to before, he was the one she asked. However, due to the recent attempted kidnapping, even he seemed reluctant to the proposal and Y/N had imagined her plans had fallen through before they’d even truly been constructed. At least she did until Harry sent her a message a little past midnight the following night, with a link that directed her to a trail’s website. Would this be okay? His message read, and Y/N grinned so hard her cheeks were sore as she replied with “Yes!” ten times.

Y/N is not one who would find joy in exerting herself but she was filled to the brim and gushing with an eagerness she hasn’t felt since being a child, the night before visiting a zoo. She did not for a second consider how sore she’d probably be, especially from the number of hills this trail included along the side of what wasn’t big enough to be a mountain but was certainly large enough to give the illusion. All she could focus on was the thought of the wind kissing her face and the sound of morning birds singing. Aching muscles be damned, she could just take a hot bath when they got back, and maybe she could persuade Harry to massage her feet if it was that bad.

By the time Y/N woke up Friday morning, Harry was already in her kitchen preparing breakfast but that was hardly shocking. It was her second time witnessing him outside of a pressed suit and she couldn’t say that she was disappointed; Harry looked awfully cute in his hiking clothes. A hoodie that swallowed him up, athletic shorts pulled over black leggings, and a pair of bright red shoes that she could not imagine him plucking out of a store. A beanie was nestled over his head, but he had a hair clip locked around the edge of it, almost like he had it on standby in case he got too warm.

He turned to face her, smiling warmly as he flipped a pancake, “I didn’t know if you had a water bottle, so I brought an extra one,” he greeted her, “And I bought some of those warm packs you activate by shaking in case it’s chillier than we anticipated.”

“We need to get a stroller for your kitties so they can come too,” Y/N told him, as she hiked herself up on the barstool beside the counter, Harry working on the side adjacent to her. She rested her face against her fist, watching him putter around putting together the meal. There was something imminently gratifying about putting a man to work in her kitchen while she swung her legs and waited patiently to be fed, so she reveled in that feeling while he answered.

“I actually do have a stroller,” he told her, “But since this is our first time, I thought it would be better to see the trail before bringing them.”

With a sigh, Y/N agreed. Harry has brought them over three times since the first and Y/N enjoyed every second of it – he’d explained to her that as long as she doesn’t mind, he’ll bring them over often. This way he gets to spend extra time with them while he’s working and Y/N gets her animal fill as they meander throughout her flat, making it their second home. He’s even left them there overnight once, when he would be returning the following morning but wasn’t necessarily going home (their schedules make no sense to her, not even a little, and she wondered when the hell they ever slept), and Y/N really liked that. She woke up to Gremlin at her feet and Goose nestled against her breast beneath the blankets (and if she hadn’t been so sure that moving would stir them both, she would have taken a picture to send to him).

They ate breakfast and Y/N pulled on an outfit she hoped would be multifunctional no matter what weather they would face or how much exerting herself would make her sweat. Even the walk to the parking garage lifts her with excitement, happy to finally be leaving the flat.

“You’re awful chipper,” Harry remarked, following close behind her, his fingers looped around his keys, “Normally for this early in the morning, you’ve grumbled about something by now.”

Y/N rolled her eyes, “Of course I’m chipper,” she walked around to the passenger seat of the car, “I’m free for a little while! You forget that I’m fucking stuck in there until someone breaks me out, while you can come and go as you see fit, really.” She smiled at the thought of the sun hitting her face, “It’s going to be so nice today too – I can’t wait.”

“Mm, it is going to be nice,” he agreed mildly, “I’ll keep you out for as long as I can, yeah? But I’m sure Thomas will be blowing my phone up.” He smiled gently, “Things are still. . .fresh.”

Y/N buckled herself in, brows dipped, “Hm? Did you guys not catch the guy? I thought you did and that’s the only reason I’m being uncaged.”

“We did,” Harry’s lips straightened out, a dubious glint flickered past his gaze before he snuffs it out, “For the most part.”

“For the most part?” She repeated with a small sigh – she wasn’t in the mood for twenty questions, she just wanted him to be straightforward.

Harry hummed, “Yes, they found the “mugger” – it was his son,” Y/N’s brows raised, “Both have been dealt with appropriately for now but of course, everyone is still concerned that this wasn’t just an isolated incident. Things are going to be. . .a little tighter lately, so I was surprised Thomas agreed to this in the first place, but I did push pretty hard.”

She smiled and nudged his shoulder, “That’s why I like you,” she told him, “Dunno’ what you’re doing to bewitch him but keep doing it, I like doing things.”

The day had started out so well; Y/N isn’t sure how Harry had found this trail but it was pretty. It started out as a gravel patch of parking lot with a big wooden sign that read Green Haven Trail in big, bold letters, and to the left of it, a small brick building housing a restroom. It had rained last night, so the air smelled of moist earth and morning dew, and it’s a scent that she believes she normally takes for granted. Right now she isn’t though – right now she feels it slip through her nares, down to her lungs. She was more than pleased that it isn’t humid or else each breath would feel wet, and her skin would feel sticky, and she thinks that would have made her sad. Her first time out of the flat in how long, only to be accosted by unpleasant weather? Surely, she’d just lock herself in her room at that point.

Most of the trail was paved but there were clear sections deeper in, where people had broken off from the designated path and wore down the grass and foliage to create a new route. If she couldn’t see where this off-path trail led, then she wouldn’t have suggested they go near it, but she could make out that it guided them to a mini waterfall from a creak. And after the rain, she knew it would be overflowing and beautiful, so she suggested they go toward it with the best pleading gaze she could give him (though it certainly wasn’t necessary – she believes Harry is a man of strong will typically, but if she asks him for something he typically gives in pretty easy).

For a moment he seemed hesitant but eventually agreed, so they went toward it, and Y/N marveled at the rocks, the surfaces altering from smooth to rough and jagged, how the water toppled over them dropping down into the large well of the creek. If the weather was just a little warmer she would suggest sticking her feet in but it was still a little too brisk for it. So she made a mental note of this place for mid-June when the hike would undoubtedly be miserable in the summer heat, but the best part of it would be sinking their feet into this well of cold water and kicking them as they cooled down and ate a snack. Y/N assumed she would be with Harry again because. . .well, she usually is with him, isn’t she?

They stayed there for a while for a short break, since they’d been walking for about thirty minutes uphill at that point. Y/N’s legs were already tired and she was in the middle of trying to find an excuse for them to turn around and start making their way back before she was really tired – but there was no need. No, why would she need a reason for them to turn around when she unwittingly gives them one?

They had to trek down a small hill to get within closer visual distance of the waterfall and search the creek with their gazes for any potential fish or tadpoles swimming around in the greenish water. Going downhill to get there, meant going uphill to return, and while it wasn’t steep there was a decent-sized slope. Several jutted pieces of stone and rock and root should have made it a relatively easy way back up. Yet somehow, when Y/N tries to balance the sole of her shoe against the curve of a rock, she loses her footing. Her body rocks face first into the dirt, and she knocks her knee against a stone and cuts up her palm from the tree root she’d been gripping onto. Before she could tumble all the way down to the creek, Harry placed his hands on her to keep her steady, one at her hip and the other between her shoulder blades, “Holy shit!” He cried out, his voice echoing in the empty woods, “Are you alright?”

So now, they definitely had to turn back, because Y/N had dirt smudged on her face, a few leaves in her hair (though Harry did pluck those out for her while they walked), her knee was sore, and her palm was cut up. Y/N doesn’t cry but she wants to, not just because her knee aches, or her hand throbs, or the dirt makes her face feel gross and grimy. All of that she could deal with well enough.

What she couldn’t deal with, was the fact that she fell in the first place, in front of Harry of all people. How embarrassing – god, she couldn’t stop thinking about it but she wanted to wipe it from her brain entirely and pretend it never happened. But Harry is Harry, there is no way that he would ever let this go without making a sly comment about it every now and then. Especially once she’s all patched up and he knew for sure she was okay.

She kept replaying the moment in her head: the squawky sound that left her mouth, how dumb she must have looked as she scrambled to stop herself only for Harry to be the one to halt her movement. He probably thought she looked like an idiot – no, she knows he did because why wouldn’t he? If it had happened to anyone but her, Y/N would have found some humor in it, and maybe she was just a bad person but there were compilations of people falling on the internet for a reason.

Under different circumstances, Y/N would avoid the bathroom at all costs because it seemed like a staff infection waiting to happen but she tried to get into this one, only to find it locked. So not only did she embarrass herself in front of Harry, she had to sit in the car for forty minutes, uncomfortable, her knee aching and her face dirty. At the realization, she felt like she really could cry then, but the only thing that stopped her was the potential for further embarrassment.

“It could have been worse,” Harry tried to soothe her once they were back in the car, “Had I not been there to save your life, you could be in the creek right now.”

“Shut up, or I’ll shove you in a creek,” she grumbled, brows furrowed at him, “Didn’t you promise to return me unscathed? This is coming out of your paycheck.” He only chuckles at her.

The drive home was uneventful, and so was the walk up to her flat. As soon as they get through the doors, Harry directs her to the bathroom and says he’d be in there in a moment with a first aid kit, and Y/N has no fight left to argue. She went in, avoided looking at her face, and plopped down right on the toilet seat, waiting patiently for him. Harry appeared, looking a little too cute out of his leggings, now only in shorts that rode up pretty high on his thigh. He’s got nice legs – Y/N’s been thinking about them often lately.

First, he tends to her palm, flipping it over and pouting at the sight of it, “Your poor hand,” he muttered sympathetically, caressing the flesh just below her thumb, “Does it hurt?”

Y/N is unsure if he’s mocking her with how sweet his voice was, but she doesn’t fuss over it – honestly, she kind of likes it, “Yeah, a little.” She replied and he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“Poor thing,” he reached inside the kit, “We’ll get you sorted.”

After he cleaned it, then slathered it in the antibiotic ointment, and wrapped it up with gauze and a bandage, he got a washcloth wet. It took her a second to realize what he was about to do, until he was suddenly closer to her face than she expected, tenderly swiping away at the dirt smudged over her face. Y/N has trouble keeping her breathing even then.

This is the closest she and Harry had been since the night they kissed, and she couldn’t keep her brain from conjuring memories of it. Especially when his lips were looking particularly soft today, and slick from whatever chapstick he was using, almost like they were begging for another mouth to press against them. The gentle curve of his cupid’s bow and the pout of his mouth supplicates for her lips to trap it between them. To relive last week, how eagerly he’d kissed her, how his hands had slid to her waist, how he squeezed her –

Honestly, Y/N couldn’t stop thinking about it. She was skilled at acting indifferent to things like this and she’s certain Harry didn’t notice it was dawdling within her thoughts because he would have brought it up – but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. Every day, a few times a day, Y/N is suddenly accosted with a slew of images, all of which involve Harry's puckered mouth.

Because she’d like to do it again – she wanted to do it again, but there was no way to just ask for it, was there? Not without being weird about it. At least that night they had been drinking, and if they really wanted to they could blame it on liquid loosening prior inhibitions. If Y/N was asking for it completely sober, then there was no turning back from that – then it was something they had to talk about and that’s difficult. Not to mention, she shouldn’t be canoodling with her bodyguards anyway. The time with Niall was a one-off, and she’d never had the urge or desire to do it again (well, maybe once or twice, but that was neither here nor there) – but she wanted it again with Harry. Honestly, she thinks she wants more than just the kiss with Harry.

And they hadn’t even really discussed the first one yet! Why would they tack on a second kiss?

With Niall, it was much easier; she sucked him off, and he came in her mouth, they laughed about it and then tried to finish the movie they were watching before both of them promptly fell asleep. When they woke up there was no awkward tension lingering in the air, she swatted him with a pillow so that he would get off the couch and go with her to a new cookie place as he’d promised. Life settled back in as normal, Y/N barely remembered what his cum tasted like after eating an iced sugar cookie, and that was that.

But with Harry, the whole night persists in her memories. How he admitted to being jealous thinking about her with Niall, and how he wants to be her favorite guard. The taste of his tongue and the impression of his mouth pushed against hers. How he pressed his thumb into her chin and pulled her lips open wider for himself, how heady the feeling was, the caress of his fingers on her hips, her wrists, her jaw. Her cheeks warm when she thinks about crawling into his lap, how she felt him hard beneath her before he pulled away – before he stopped it from going any further.

Y/N couldn’t help but wonder just how far it would have gone had he not withdrawn from her.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Harry murmured, and only then does Y/N realize that she’d been staring directly at him as he still carefully wiped away the dirt, “I’m getting shy.”

Brows pinching toward each other, Y/N frowns at him, “You’re like three centimeters from my face, where the hell else am I supposed to look?” She praises herself for willing the words so quickly from her mouth, instead of floundering how she wanted to when she’d been caught gawking (Harry always teased her that she reverted to her extreme “brat-ish tendencies” once cornered and she continuously proved him right).

Harry has a knowing smile that Y/N wants to flick off his face like he could read her mind through each of her pores. He always kind of had that look on him though, that would suggest he knew what Y/N was thinking and feeling before maybe even she did. It annoyed her more than anything.

“You’re being rather rude to someone who saved a clumsy little thing like you from drowning in a creek.” He murmured, standing up from the spot he’d been kneeling before her and tossing the wet cloth into the sink with a wet slap. He holds one finger out to her, a silent command to stay put, and Y/N finds herself listening to him until he returns with a bottle of water. With that in one hand, he pulled open her medicine cabinet and retrieved the paracetamol, popping the cap open and shaking two into his palm, “You need to take these or your knee is going to be sore. Say ahhh,” he held them in his fingers, hovering them over her mouth.

She scoffed, “My knee is already sore. Give me that, you dick,” she clasps her hands around his, swiping the pills and pushing them past her lips before grabbing for the bottle of water.

“There you go,” he ignored her insult, “That’s a good girl – y’know, you’re a brat, but you listen well when you want to. Kind of like a fussy cat.”

A flush of warmth ran from her face, down her throat, and across her chest – the praise, no matter how backhanded, was still praise and Y/N felt her veins twinkle with it. Harry doesn’t seem to notice how it affects her, and if he does, then he is kind enough not to be a pest for once and keep it to himself. He held out his hand for her to take, helping her lift off the seat, “You aren’t limping, which is good, but we’ll still ice it. If you show up to your parent’s house with a bruised knee and scratched-up hand, I’m sure it wouldn’t be appreciated.”

The reminder makes her grimace – she’d almost forgotten about that. Adam was the first to tell her about it weeks and weeks ago, and then her father reminded her just last week, yet she let it slip her mind again. Willfully she lets it slip from her mind, neglecting the thought – it was always a little awkward meeting with everyone. When she was little, they would coo over her and how cute she was which she had enjoyed at the time, but she had long since passed the age of being cooed at because she was in a pretty dress. And when she was little, she could fuck off and play pretend somewhere with her cousins or by herself and nobody questioned anything because she was like 7 years old and barely knew how to divide numbers.

Y/N longs for the solace of being little and not needing to be socially present during family events; life was much easier when she could check out and nobody cared.

“Are you going with me?” Y/N inquired as she followed him out of the bathroom, tugging down the zipper of her jacket and wiggling it off her arms.

“Hm?”

“To the family thing,” she dropped the jacket in her hamper, leaving her in a sports bra but she thinks nothing of it while she waits for his response, “Were you the one going with me?”

Harry pauses, if only for a brief second, and Y/N sees a look she’s never seen before flicker through his face before he’s smiling again, “Aw, cute! You want me to be there with you?”

She did, for some reason, she felt like it would be better with him there. Adam and Niall always get pulled off at things like this, but Y/N felt like Harry might stay by her side for it. She had nothing to base this feeling on beyond just knowing it in her gut.

And when she doesn’t grumble or call him an asshole for teasing her, Harry must realize she’s serious, because the gleam in his eyes softens to one that is gentle and pitying, “It won’t be me accompanying you, though I would love to,” he told her, “I’m wanted elsewhere that day.”

She frowned at him, already feeling the whine bubble in her chest before he could finish his sentence, “Just tell them that you don’t want to do that and you want to do this instead.”

“As much as the princess’s word is considered –”

“Eat shit.”

“ – I believe that request would be denied. Thomas wants me for a more delicate and potentially violent matter, so that’s where I’ll be.” He sighed, thumbing over his eyebrow, “Though you do manage to be delicate and violent as well, maybe I could ask for a trade.”

Y/N flipped him off before plopping down on the couch, watching as he began to kick off his shoes at the doorway now that they were settling inside. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if the reason Harry wasn’t going was more than him being needed elsewhere but she couldn’t come up with good enough logic to back the claim. Unless he was the Harry from her childhood, and he was desperately trying to avoid a situation where that fact may be found out, but even that doesn’t seem like his speed. He was much too casual and unconcerned for her to think he’d go to that level just to keep up some weird little secret.

That doesn’t mean she’s a hundred percent convinced, but she just dwells on it a little less.

“It’ll be okay, you know,” Harry says after a while, as he’s opening up her windows, pulling the curtains open to let sunlight pour into her room; it glitters off her coffee table and places a glare over her tv, and the sweet chirp of birds still singing early in the morning fills her flat (along with the sound of cars driving below them but the morning traffic had slowed considerably by that point), “Just a few hours of family shit, and then you’ll be done. Can come home and take a shower and relax afterward.” Y/N follows him around the room as he goes to her other window, “It won’t be so bad. Maybe you’ll even have a little fun.”

She doesn’t have it in her to fight him, “Yeah, maybe,” she offered quietly in return, leaning her head back and letting her eyes flutter closed, trying to ignore the throbbing in her knee, “It just feels weird to see them is all, and having nothing to show for the years that have passed since I’ve seen them last. Like. . .I dunno, I have to sit and listen to everyone else and their successes and I’m happy for them but I can’t help but. . .wish that I had something too. But all I’ve got is attempted kidnappings and a hobby that I haven’t perfected when I’ve got nothing but time to perfect it.” Y/N puffs a mirthless laugh.

“Self-depreciation doesn’t look good on you,” he clicks his tongue to the roof of his mouth and he sounds closer than he was before but she keeps her eyes shut, “Why don’t you start selling your art?”

That does make her peek an eye at him, “Listen, I know I’m having a little pity party, but I don’t need you being mean and adding to it.”

“I’m not being mean,” he retrieved a package of frozen vegetables from her freezer before he made his way to sit down beside her, body turned so he faced her directly, “I’m giving you an idea. Your art is good, and all the comments people have made on it in class tell you how cute the things you draw are. So yeah, maybe they wouldn’t sell in some smarmy art gallery, but they would definitely make a cute sticker on a water bottle or a laptop case. And what’d you get your degree in, wasn’t it business related? Marketing?” Y/N’s face pinches up.

“So?”

“So put two and two together, Darling, you’re smart,” he told her, “You make cute stickers and you have some understanding of marketing – start selling them online!”

It. . .wasn’t the worst idea she’s ever heard. The people in the class had called her drawings cute, even the instructor had told her they were charming in a cutesy way. If other people liked them – if Harry really thought that other people would like them enough to stick them somewhere they had to look often – that would give her something to do, wouldn’t it? Something to focus on. . .something that could entirely be her own, and didn’t have to be a question of her safety, with no worry about getting her from point A to point B, and her name wouldn’t be out there. She could do it all under a different name! Loads of Etsy shops and the like don’t have the artist’s real name at all.

It could just be her own little thing, and if it didn’t work, she could scrap the idea and pretend it never happened. But it was something. . .it could be hers.

“Hm.” That is all she replied, despite the cogs clicking and turning in her brain.

Harry sighed, plopping down in the space beside her, “I reckon you just like being difficult,” he told her, stretching one long leg out so it was sitting beneath the table, “Hm? I think you like trying to rile me up.”

“Maybe.”

. . .

Y/N has been having nightmares.

As a child, she used to get them a lot. Sometimes they could be vivid; feel as real as a memory and Y/N would have trouble separating what was real and what was a dream. It was an unfortunate byproduct of a burdened subconscious, or at least that’s what the child psychologist told Thomas. And he then took a far more strict and tender approach to isolate her from the world of her parent’s work, which Y/N never really understood. Why wait until a child begins to show emotional distress before keeping them from something potentially emotionally distressing?

They come and go, depending on the current state and status of her life. Times of stress brought them prolonged and heavy, bogging down her brain like waterlogged branches in a typically dry terrain. A monsoon of shadowy figures, hushed low voices, and crimson puddles. Trying to close her eyes but they’re being held open, trying to move through dense air with gelatinous limbs, trying to scream but her voice just barely leaves her throat. It’s nothing but frustration bubbling to her boil through her veins in the worst way, and when she finally does wake up, it lingers for a few minutes as she acclimates to being conscious.

Once she has one, she’ll have them almost nightly until the problem is addressed or they eventually wither away. She doesn’t bring them up much – Niall and Adam know about them, but Thomas isn’t aware, though she doesn’t think he’d actually care. And she isn’t sure if her parents were even aware of her first round of them when they had concerned the nannies and guards enough to report them to Thomas. If they did know, they never brought it up.

So she guesses it made sense that nobody alerted Harry to their existence if they were to ever occur while he was there.

They had started happening two weeks ago, shortly after the attempted kidnapping. It was scary, though it didn’t get very far, knowing that someone could find her location so easily was worrisome for future endeavors. And had this guy been more tactful and maybe a touch more forceful, then the situation could have gone horrendously bad – she could have been in a lot of trouble, and when her mind starts wandering to what could have been waiting for her. . .it’s awful.

For the most part, they had been pretty tame. Y/N wakes up disoriented and groggy around 4 AM, she wanders out to the living room to find whoever was there that night, and if they were awake she’d make them both tea and stay up for a while. Niall was there the first night, and when she suddenly appeared in front of him with her hand stretched out, holding a mug to him, he gave her a knowing look, “Hm? Nightmare?” She nodded, and he made room for her on the couch, moving his computer, his iPad, or whatever he had brought over to keep himself busy for the night, “Do you want to talk about it?” She shook her head, “Fine, then you’re g’na have to listen to me rant about this fucking series I’m watching because. . . .”

Adam asks fewer questions and most of the time is asleep when she wanders out but when her door clicks open he’s pulled from his sleep with a snort, “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm,” he would hum, “Go back to bed then, I’m not ready to socialize.”

“I’ll just be up for a little, you can stay asleep,” she’d assure him, but she didn’t want to be alone, so she would make her tea and then sit on her feather blue recliner (that she was surprised he isn’t inhabiting) with her phone. Adam would say he’d stay up with her but make no move to change his position, so he always ended up back to sleep anyway.

Bill and Martha were usually asleep too when she wandered out, but they were never ones for much conversation anyway. They would open their eyes, see she is in no imminent danger, then go right back to bed and that was that (nothing and nobody could make her feel more like a little kid than those two, and Thomas when she does see him). She would putter around her kitchen quietly, but take her tea into her room, wrapped up in her blankets and clicking through Youtube videos on her telly, comforted by the knowledge she isn’t alone in the flat.

Some days there is nobody there with her at night, maybe an extra guard lingering outside the building, but no one inhabits her living room. Those nights Y/N is suddenly confronted with the harsh reminder that she lives in a constant state of fear, gnawing at her lip, jumping at every creak or click that echoed against the walls. It makes her feel like an idiot so she doesn’t bring it up to anybody, that on a regular night being alone can be weird, but on a night she’s had a bad dream it could be weird and long. It was stupid and made her feel like a child.

Tonight, for whatever reason, the dream was a lot rougher than it had been. While the prior nightmares were more nondescript things and hazy situations that she could just tell were bad but did not have comprehensible images of – this was much more lucid. Every touch felt like a burn against her skin, the hand cupped over her mouth and squeezed her nose shut stealing her breath away, the heart racing panic struck her fast, and her fingertips felt numb. She was thrashing, her throat sore from screaming, she needed help – she needed it right then, but there was nobody there. She was alone, she’s always been alone, she’s never safe, never, never, never –

“Y/N!”

Her eyes split open, the beat of her heart pounding through her chest and ringing through her ears, and her trembling hands stay still at her sides. It took her a few silent, panicked moments before she realized she’d been woken up from a dream, staring at the figure who slowly, but surely, becomes Harry through her bleary gaze. Almost instantaneously relief floods through her, and icy spikes that dotted her vessels are now replaced with warmth, melting them. Y/N isn’t sure if the comfort is brought by the fact that she knows she’s awake so much as it is brought by seeing Harry – he usually showed up in her dream, and dream her was always reassured by his presence. His face usually meant whatever was plaguing her was finished – whatever shadowy, dark figure digging their nails into her arm dissipated.

It was not until Harry spoke her name again that Y/N finally realized she’d been dreaming but she was awake now. Her eyes burn and her cheeks are wet – she’d been crying? Her bones feel stiff and creaky as she pushes herself from the mattress, pressing her knuckles against her eyes to try and rub the sleep from them. “You were having a bad dream?” Harry’s voice is low, his tone gentle, like he was creeping up on a resting bear and was worried to startle it.

Y/N nodded wordlessly. The most he gets from her is a small hum as she tries to organize herself and her thoughts; she isn’t used to someone being here as she wakes up, staring at her warily, so she tries to force herself to speed it up. She didn’t want to worry him. And now that she thinks about it, when was the last time he’d spent the night here? He probably didn’t even know she had dreams like this to begin with.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Harry pressed carefully, and there was a small thud of four feet landing on the bed. She looked over to see Goose pad over to her, rubbing up against her torso and finding a spot in her lap before a low rumble of purrs overcame her.

“What time is it?” Y/N inquired.

Harry looks at his watch, “2 AM.”

“Too late to talk about it,” she murmured, though she still felt shaken up. Her hands tremble as she smoothes them down Goose’s back, searching for more comfort in the soft fur, a wobbly rise and fall of each breath from her chest, “Was I being loud?”

Harry gave her a small, empathetic smile, “Just a little,” he told her, “We could hear you,” it took her a second to realize we meant him and the cats, “And Goose was sitting outside of your door. At first I thought maybe you were awake, talking on the phone or something but you started yelling for help.”

Grimacing, she frowns, at the image of Harry clambering to get up and burst through her door, overwrought with worry and his adrenalin spiking. His job – the whole reason he is here – is to keep her safe. So how horrifying is it to hear that one objective may be compromised in the middle of the night, on a floor way too high for someone to have snuck through a window? “I’m sorry, that was – that’s probably scary.”

“Yeah, it definitely wasn’t my favorite experience,” he agreed, “But I’m glad I could wake you up from it.” She scratched between Goose’s ears, feeling warm that the cat was concerned enough to sit outside her door once she heard her. She’s sure Gremlin is still blissfully sleeping wherever he was originally. “Well, I’ll let you go back to sleep. Call me if you need anything.”

Y/N had thought that she was feeling better – she was awake, and she knew she was awake, so there was no reason for the same rimy panic that had been suffocating her to return at the mention of Harry leaving. Nor was there a reason for her to reach out and grab his wrist before he could get too far, a pitiful refusal pulled from her lips that feel sore and dry, she’s sure from her own teeth. Harry was safe – he couldn’t leave this soon after she’d woken up, she still needed a little bit – still wanted to be near him, and to hear him talk or even just sit silently at his side.

“You want me to stay?” Harry offered, after some time, and she was grateful for it as she nodded, “Just in the room?”

Her face feels warm as her eyes glance over to the other side of her bed, “It’s. . .it’s a big bed,” she told him, swallowing thickly, “You can lay down if you're tired.”

“Fuck off,” she grumbled, but it held little spite to it. Y/N wiggles back down beneath her covers, and Goose – disturbed but never grouchy – walks to the side, waits for Y/N to find a position she’s content in, and then returns. Y/N lays on her side so Goose tucks herself along her belly as she likes to, curling her face into her paws. Gremlin, who must have finally roused from his own blissful slumber, appeared on the bed at Harry’s feet before taking a seat, his tail undulating behind himself, waiting patiently for Harry to snuggle beneath the blankets.

“Had I known you slept on a cloud every night, I would have asked for this sooner,” Harry said quietly, breaking through the silence of the room, only previously broken by the whirring of her fan above them, “It smells good in here too.”

Y/N watches him closely, as his head is against her pillow. Nobody else has ever laid in her bed before, and Y/N only ever sleeps on the left side of it, so she’s sure the right feels just as it did when she bought it. It’s weird to see someone there – but it only feels natural that it would be Harry, for whatever reason. Among the cotton, rosy pink duvet cover, in a long sleeve undershirt, his body having disappeared up to his shoulders snuggled beneath the comforter. He looks cute, especially when he turns to face her, and gives her a big closed-mouth smile that she told him in the past made him look like a pleased frog.

“You’re comfortable?” Y/N inquired and once Harry nodded, she finally closed her eyes again, “That’s good.”

Some time passes. Y/N is unsure how long, but she’s almost certain that she’s fallen asleep until Harry's voice, syrupy and smooth as it always is, slithers into her ear, “I know you don’t want to talk about it and that’s fine,” he murmured, “But I just want you to know, I would never let anything or anyone hurt you. Never.” .

She falls asleep easily then.

. . .

Y/N used to have nightmares when she was younger, Harry had vague memories of that.

“I had a nightmare that a bad guy tried to kill me again,” she told him casually one day when they were on the swings, like it was the most normal conversation in the world, “It really sucked. They were super mean.”

“Did you get away?” Harry remembered being concerned, even as a child. Y/N was younger than him, not by much, but enough that he’d felt a sense of responsibility for her. Harry hated his bad dreams, so he empathized with her plight. Whenever he had a bad dream, his mum usually came into his room and comforted him, but Y/N told him once that her mum didn’t like being woken up in the middle of the night for something not urgent. If she had a bad dream and woke up scared but the sun wasn’t out, she would hug her teddy tight and will herself back to sleep – that’s what she had told him, at least.

With a shrug of her small shoulders, she kicked her legs back and forth in smooth glides, “Dunno’, I woke up before he could.”

He was concerned then and he was concerned now.

When Y/N offered him the spot next to her, Harry didn’t hesitate for even a moment. If she was scared enough to stuff away that prideful, bratty side of her to request it, then Harry wouldn’t make her second guess herself. Instead, he tried to make it as normal as possible, with a small tease as he crawled in beside her. He’d resigned himself to the idea of staying awake until he knew for sure she was fast asleep. It took ten minutes or so, but eventually, her measured, even breaths and sleepy sighs lull him into his own slumber.

Harry wakes two or three hours later, warm. Warmer than he had been when he fell asleep, which he wouldn’t have questioned if not for how icy cold Y/N typically kept her room. For a brief moment, he thinks that maybe her fan shut off and he made the conscious decision to get up and turn it back on for her, but when he moves, he feels a weight on his arm that stopped him. A weight that is different from that of Goose or Gremlin.

Once he opened his eyes, Harry found that Y/N was snuggled up against him.

It wasn’t in a sweet, movie-like way as things like this typically went in stories and movies. It was in a very Y/N-like way though – her left leg thrown across his hip, her body flush against him, her face halfway jammed in his chest and her arm stretched over his neck; she’s about one sleepy shuffle away from smothering him with her bicep if she moved just right. Harry thinks it’s very telling that she does not sleep with someone often because she had somehow rolled herself all the way over to his side when there had been a good distance between them to start.

Carefully, he began to reshape her, moving her arm from over his throat. Harry had been making a conscious effort to be gentle so she stayed asleep, but a small grumble lifted into the air around them that sounds close to “Stop it.” but when Harry says her name, there is no response. Instead, she wiggles her shoulders, her arm finding a place around his waist instead, and scooted closer.

Tch, he rolled his eyes but he could feel a fond smile pulling at his cheeks, She’s even a brat in her sleep.

Harry lets himself enjoy it for a little while. The warmth of Y/N pressed to his side, the peach-scented lotion still permeating from her skin, the feel of each rise and fall from her chest as she took a breath. His insides feel cotton-soft and melty, he traces circles in the center of her back and waits patiently for her to fall deeper into her head. Once she does, he tries again to carefully remove her from the glued position she’d been in, because while he likes being cuddled close to her, he knew she would be mortified if she woke up.

This time she goes easily, letting him lie her arm at her side before sliding his hand beneath her thigh, attentively guiding it off of his hip. Y/N stretches, and turned away from him, her arms sliding around a pillow and hugging her face against it. What a cuddly little thing, Harry thinks, she’s probably searching for something (or someone) to put her arms around the whole night. It makes his heart twist in his chest, a weird mix between an ache and a yearning for her. He wondered if these bad dreams would disappear if she always had someone there to cuddle to her body, like an oversized stuffy.

The idea of it has a pout forming on his lips. Y/N, in the time he’s known her, is driven heavily by physical affection that she is not receiving often. She may grouse when Adam touches her shoulder when he reaches over her head to get in the cabinet, but she leans into his hand. If Niall is around, chances are Y/N is touching him in some way, either with her legs across his lap, or their hips side by side (which. . .Harry has no right to feel an ugly twinge in his chest any time he sees it but that doesn’t stop it from happening). Martha wasn’t the soft type, but Harry had walked in on Y/N leaning against the pillow Martha held to her body while they watched the telly. When Harry had come to her room in a panic, just to see for himself that she was okay (after Otto’s botched kidnapping attempt), she melted against his knuckles that he couldn’t help but stroke against her cheeks.

Harry had met her parents several times – they were. . .kind as they could be, with what they do, but they were not the nurturing type. They were cool and distant, and even though Harry knows they love their daughter, and talk sweetly, they just didn’t seem like the type to cuddle and coddle. And instead of growing an aversion to touch, she grew too long for it, even in small doses, even from her bodyguards. Where else could she get it? Harry is certain if she went out with her friends she would be touchy and clingy, flopped over them in some way, shape, or form.

Gremlin moves relatively little with the change in positions, and Goose lets out an annoyed huff before following Y/N’s body, snuggling up against her back. It was almost disgustingly cute how much Goose enjoyed her girl time with Y/N; even though she was the less fickle of the two, she really didn’t warm up that easily to people but with Y/N, it only took a couple of days before she was sleeping in her lap. Harry thinks that not only are cats a good judge of character, but they seek out people who need healing, like little furry psychotherapists that say nothing but do plenty. Where he would normally be a bit jealous, he was glad that Goose had chosen Y/N to snuggle with and love on her.

Harry sighs to himself. It’s only a matter of time before Y/N realizes that she’s been right all along about knowing him, he was just holding his breath and waiting for it. In his head, when he’d started this, the idea of keeping it all a secret from her seemed easier. There would be no need to go into the details of why he left, to relive any of it, to divulge what he had done, or to break his promise to Thomas, to his father, to her father. He could go on with her like they were two strangers and his past didn’t matter. And Harry doesn’t know why it is so important to him that she didn’t think the sweet boy he was turned into the man he is today; it felt as though it broke the mirage of normalcy his childhood had there for a little while. If the image Y/N held in her head of him was altered, it would pull at his stomach and tug around his heart. The boy she knew was good, not a drop of blood on his hands – the man she knew now had hands covered in the murk and filth of gang politics, rivalries and wars, drugs and guns.

To keep the two mutually exclusive brought him more comfort.

But Y/N is perceptive and she recognized him almost immediately. As smart as she was, and as sneaky as she could be, he had a feeling deep in his gut that she would be seeking answers at her parent’s house. It would be easier if Harry wasn’t there too, so she wouldn’t have to sneak around him to do it. And if she finds out. . .well, Harry has accepted that it might happen and he could only hope that she isn’t too angry with him. In the grand scheme, it has changed very little of their dynamic. Harry is a completely different person than he was when he left this place – when he left her.

His biggest regret, looking back at it, was leaving her alone. Even before this title, when they were just kids playing, he always kind of felt like her unofficial bodyguard. Or even just a companion for her – she didn’t have many other friends, and for whatever reason, both of their parents (or more so his parents and Thomas) thought it was a fine idea to just have them play with one another. Harry thinks it would have been a one-time thing when his father was first getting heavily involved with them, however from what he had heard at the time, Y/N had requested him.

Or maybe requested was a strong word. He supposes the better way of phrasing it was when Harry's father told him that the little friend he made the week prior asked, “Where is Harry? Is he coming to play?” Which was a request enough for Thomas to invite him to a park that day. They saw each other pretty much weekly after that, depending on what was happening or the state of affairs the organization was in. Actually, Harry doesn’t even think Y/N remembers that much – he had a slightly bigger involvement in her life than he thinks she realizes. But when he speaks to Y/N about her childhood (or more, when she brings up a random anecdote), he finds that she doesn’t recall quite a few things about it. Like her brain had packed it away in storage boxes and stuffed it up in the attic – he’d once read that memory loss was an intrinsic, almost instinctual survival skill. Anything she deemed emotionally traumatic, she may have just conveniently booted from her head, and that. . .well, that might have been most of her years as a kid.

If he knows anything about her, he knew that she would be upset with him initially but he could only hope she moved past it. Harry would have loved to go with her to her family event, even if she found out with him there, then they could at least discuss it immediately or on the car ride home instead of her stewing over it. But Thomas and Garrison had pulled him aside for different matters – the ones he had described as much more violent than a dinner with a ton of members in a gang, surprisingly.

There might be a mole. That’s what Garrison had told him privately, that he didn’t trust Otto was in this alone; that nobody just knows where Y/N’s location is, barely anyone knows where she lives and this was an outlet mall 40-ish minutes away. It was just too convenient that Otto would know where she was without there being someone to tell him or some way of knowing. So everyone was under a microscope: Adam, Niall, Martha, Bill, and even some of the new people – Kai, Charlie, Betty, Rebecca. Harry understood why all of these people were on the list, but –

“Why not me?” He inquired, brows dipped, “I appreciate that I’m not, but I don’t understand why exactly.”

“You’ve been around since she was a kid,” he’d reminded Harry like he didn’t know, “There will always be a little more trust between us with you than the others. We know you wouldn’t let anything happen to her and you wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize your family.”

So while Y/N was with her family, he would be preoccupied snooping in places he probably doesn’t belong. It feels wrong to spy on the other bodyguards like this, and even the newbies; he feels guilt trickle through his chest when he is flicking through files of them. But he knew it had to be done. . .that Y/N’s safety was the top priority, even if it meant potentially betraying the trust of his colleagues.

He’s worried about what he might find. He’s worried about how Y/N would react if it was anyone close to her.

Worry soaks his brain, weighs it heavy, and drags his eyelids closed so he would stop watching the back of her sleeping head. He needed to sleep – maybe he should have kept her tucked against his side, cozy and warm because he’s sure he could have fallen right back to sleep then. He already knew he would spend at least ten more minutes contemplating what the next few weeks could bring them. The last time he’d had a little bit of trouble falling back asleep in her flat was after they kissed.

That kiss. . .Harry’s cheeks feel hot thinking about it. He could still feel her against his mouth if he focused hard enough; the taste of her tongue, how soft her lips were, the way she felt in his lap. He could also remember how embarrassing he’d been coming into her room saying he was jealous, which is the only part of the night he wants to forget. They probably needed to talk about it – when he’s speaking, and Y/N’s staring at his mouth, he feels like he should bring it up, but the words always stick to the back of his throat like honey.

It was inappropriate, Harry shouldn’t have agreed to do it but Y/N was so cute asking him and he’s human, after all. She wanted to kiss and Harry loved kisses and how could he deny her of such a simple pleasure in life? Especially when she said she didn’t get to do it often? It would have been criminal for him to refuse her! And Harry may participate heavily in unlawful, corrupt things, but he was no bloody monster – his job (in part) was to make Y/N happy, and if a kiss was what did that then so be it.

(At least this is what he convinces himself.)

Thinking about it either does two things for him: makes him hard, or gives him soft, twinkling feelings in his stomach. Thankfully, tonight it was the latter, so he revels in the sentiment and finds himself drowsy once again (he’d worked himself up enough that he felt wide awake which would not do – they still had a few hours to sleep and he wanted to make use of it). There is comfort in knowing that if Y/N starts to have her nightmares again, he’s right beside her – he wondered if he’d ever be able to be at her flat without wanting to be next to her.

What he said before she fell asleep, he meant – he wouldn’t let anyone or anything hurt her, and that includes a shitty dream.

. . .

The gathering comes quicker than Y/N would have liked, but she figured it was better than the worry of it lingering like a gloomy cloud over her. Y/N had woken up that morning with a sort of weird relief tied into her anxiety; a premature peace was brought on by the fact the day was here and she was one step closer to getting it over with. No matter how unpleasant she would find it, most of these people were family, and if not family, then held a deep-seated, often fear-induced respect for her parents. It wasn’t like anyone would be blatantly mean to her or quiz her too hard on what she was doing, why she was doing it, where she was doing it, because. . .well, wouldn’t that make them look a touch suspicious? These sorts of questions would only be acceptable from her grandparents and that’s if they could talk about something other than how hard it is to use the bathroom the older they get.

Y/N kept reminding herself of this in the hours leading up to the party and it made her feel much better. They were doing this because her grandparents were coming in from Dublin, where they had settled after passing the torch to her parents (neither was from Ireland, but both were drawn to the lush green hills and a seemingly endless supply of Guinness which is all they could wish for in their old age). Everyone would be much more intrigued by them than they would be by her – she felt silly for getting so worked up over going. Was it not a little self-absorbed to think everyone would want to know what she was doing? Who gave a shit about what was going on with her besides a handful of other people?

She had told this line of thinking to Niall who would be accompanying her to the party. “That’s awfully pessimistic but if that’s what makes you feel better then yeah, they’ll probably be focused on what your grandparents are chatting about. They’ve got some brutal fucking stories, but your Nan is so cute, you don’t expect her to be telling them.”

It’s true; her Nan wears bright-colored cardigans and keeps her hair styled neatly in feather white curls. She knits, sews, and bakes cookies. When she was in town while Y/N was a child, she would take her (bodyguard-less, because “If something goes wrong, I’ll take care of it,”) to feed ducks in the park, or to pick out yarn for a blanket. Very normal, Nan-like things, so you really wouldn’t have guessed that she used to shoot people’s feet if they betrayed the family.

The weather was much warmer today so Y/N wore a dress – her mum and Nan liked her in dresses, and though Y/N had a love-hate relationship with the garment, she’d like to make them both happy. A light blue, patchwork material that came just above her knees, with loose puffy short sleeves and a square neckline. Niall gave her a mocking gasp when she walked out in it, “I was half expecting to see you in sweats and a tank top, I never see you all dressed up.”

“Because I’ve been on house arrest, dick,” she retorted, pulling her socks over her feet.

With a snort, he pulled his phone out, “Harry’s g’na be so fucking jealous he didn’t see you in a dress.”

“Huh?” Y/N slid her left foot into her shoe (the mary jane like shoe but was lacking the buckle that really made it a mary jane), “Why would he care?”

“Because you look cute and he’s a sucker for you looking cute,” Niall says it like it’s obvious, confusion reworking his face into a confused frown, “He coos over like every cute thing you do.”

“He’s just teasing.”

A scoff leaves him, “Whatever you say – now smile for the camera.”

Y/N smiled nice, big, and pretty, her head tilted dramatically and her middle finger stuck out toward him. It is the opposite of a deterrent for the blonde, who chortles as he takes rapid-fire pictures from varying angles, muttering something about, “See how you like it when this one goes to your Nan.” After the pictures are taken, she stands and smacks his arm lightheartedly. She wondered if Niall had actually sent it to Harry and her suspicions were confirmed just as soon as they got in the car to leave.

I can’t believe you’ve had such a cute dress and never told me or Goose, you know how much she loves dresses. She’s going to be so hurt.

The memory of Goose rolling around in a few of her dresses (and other various items of clothing but mostly her dresses) when Y/N was going through her closet (in a fit of pure boredom), plants itself into her brain. It makes her smile, even though she knew she’d be removing remnants of tortoiseshell fur off the fabric; she just wanted to scent her and all of her things. Harry told her Goose was in the midst of trying to adopt her but the paperwork is hard for a cat so it’d been taking some time.

Rolling her eyes, she let her thumbs dart around the keyboard.

Don’t use the cat as an excuse, pervert

The drive isn’t as awful and damning as she thought it might feel; it’s about 30 or so minutes out from where she stays depending on what traffic is like and Niall is on some soapbox about a drama he’s currently watching. She watches as the cityscape changes to suburbia, and from suburbia closer to the countryside. Not the house on stilts beside a river and a boat beside the car countryside, but the smarmy, affluent kind – where it wasn’t really countryside, but there were acres upon acres of land to own. The trees they pass are a blur of brown branches speckling with green as they shift to Spring, and bushes that never lost their green, to begin with.

Anxiety still bubbles in her belly but more from the prospect of seeing people she hasn’t seen in a while, than it was from being worried they’d ask how she was doing. Because she realized she could A. Always lie, and B. Harry did give her a good idea the other week about opening some form of online shop. She’d started laying the groundwork for it down, so she could at the very least talk out of her ass about what she was doing. That was if anybody asked – she wouldn’t just bring it up on her own.

Y/N finds that she just needs to tap into that part of herself she uses with her friends when she is able to go out with them. The part of her that completely erases any possibility that she has a life outside of what they were doing at that moment; narrowly avoiding questions that probe too deeply into her day-to-day, steering the conversations toward the person she was talking to and their life. Everyone likes to talk about themselves if you show you’re willing to listen, Y/N found that out relatively quickly.

Her parents’ house, much like them, is gaudy and extravagant and too big. It’s a pretty place, but she just doesn’t necessarily see the need for columns lining the stairs leading up to the house, or the large brass lion knocker on the front door. The chandelier in the foyer when you first enter is about a thousand crystals that cast glittering shadows along the slate grey walls. From the foyer, directly in front of the door is a bifurcated staircase, and beneath either set of stairs splitting off from the main row, there was an entryway to the kitchen and a sitting area, both just on the side of too big. She could already see people moving around in the kitchen and could tell that most people were in the backyard where the majority of this would be taking place.

This wasn’t the house she grew up in so there was no personal attachment to the walls, the floors, or the doorways. She doesn’t stop to linger around a spot on the wall she remembered being measured against when she was little, nor does she see little mirages of a small her running around the halls in a moment of nostalgia. Y/N walks through the foyer, her shoes clicking against the hardwood as she makes her way to the backyard.

There were a lot of people to greet and she was feeling overwhelmed, but nobody noticed (nor seemed to care) about her arrival. It made it easy to slink around, seeking out her grandma who she knew would be sitting beneath one of the tarps they had set up shielding away the blinding son. She was in the middle of speaking to a group of people, so Y/N was going to stand and wait patiently off to the side, but her eyes flickered over, a smile broke out over her face, and she waved her closer, “Is that who I think it is?” Y/N lowered to hug her, “God, you’re looking like an adult! Where the hell is your grandfather, someone call the lazy sod over.”

It was easy with her like it always was. Y/N spoke to her for a while, and hugged her granddad when he made his way over, (“Is your hair longer? Looks longer – you know, your mother had long hair when she first met your dad, like down to her bum, it was ridiculous! We used to beg her to get it cut, we thought it’d get trapped in a door.”). She spoke to them both briefly, and they told her they wanted to plan a trip where she came to Ireland for a visit, and she agreed immediately. Her Nan cooed and doted over her for a moment, pinching her cheek and murmuring something about her needing to sleep more, “I can tell you’re tired, you get that same look your dad gets. Why aren’t you sleeping? Is your mattress comfortable?”

Y/N thinks, if her life was slightly different, these questions might annoy her but she revels in them. No matter how old you get, it’s nice to have someone worry over you a bit; to not see Y/N often but to know when she looks tired, to want to know why she isn’t sleeping, to wonder if it is her mattress. This is the kind of normal worry, about her sleeping habits, or how she’s eating, or if she’s happy – not about rivals and strangers to her that feel contempt for her parents but somehow translate that to hurting her.

“We’ll talk later,” her Nan promised her, swatting her bum and giving her a small push, “Go mingle with your family, they’re missing you. And find your parents, tell them to stop working and come pamper me, I haven’t seen either of them for more than ten minutes.”

She listens (her grandma is not someone you ignore orders from) and mingles. Y/N feels increasingly stupider for being so worried because really, nobody cares what she’s doing now, they mostly want to chat and reminisce over memories from years ago. She’s happy to listen, to laugh, to avoid any segues that might lead to delving into her life or opening a door where that might be a topic. Even if it was, she wondered if everyone just knew not to interrogate her – everyone is too worried about upsetting her parents to dig too deep into her shit. For all they know she could be doing under-the-cuff shit for them that nobody but she knew about (she isn’t but she could definitely could be – they aren’t above doing shifty things like that).

Eventually, she did find her parents and it was. . .as it always was. They almost seemed like they were mid-meeting, which she hadn’t known, but all talked among themselves and the several people sitting beneath the stone gazebo (besides the pond they had built, with fish swimming around in it and a small waterfall because of course they had that) once she appeared, “Hi,” she greets unceremoniously, “Nan says stop working and go dote over her.”

“Of course she did,” her mom smiled brightly, “Come here and hug me – where’d you get this dress? I love it, I’d be wearing that if I was just a few years younger.”

“Try a decade,” her father teased, reaching over to squeeze her arm, “How’s my girl, huh? You all,” he turned to the others, “Go ahead and socialize, we’ll spend some time with our daughter.”

They talk for a while, they’re the only ones inquiring about her life, and what she’s doing, and as she speaks it only then settles in her brain that they’ve got no clue. Y/N always imagines Thomas being puppeteer’d by her parents, doing as they say, but she forgets that for the most part, they do give him a fair amount of autonomy. Only relatively big notions (like her going to university) are discussed as a group. They do know that she’s being confined to her flat and they at least have the decency to appear like they feel bad.

“Once things settle,” her mum had patted her knee, “Things will be better, and you’ll be able to go out more. There’s. . .something going on right now, it’s better to air on the side of caution. Especially after what happened.”

“Yeah, I get it,” she doesn’t. . .she tries her best to though, from their perspective, “Figure it out quick though, I want to go loiter at a mall or something soon.”

She did end up telling them about her plan with art – after she told them about the art classes, which they seemed only vaguely aware of. Y/N went into it, about the cutesy drawings, about an online store, and they nod and say things like, “That sounds nice, Honey,” which is precisely what she expected. Something gentle, slightly dismissive, like they’re listening to a 12-year-old get overly enthused about her hobby. It was nice to talk about it with someone other than Harry though, even if she was certain they were only half listening.

Her mother is the one to bring Harry up, sipping from her glass of wine, “Hm? He’s your newest guard is he not? How’s it going?”

“It’s good,” she shrugged her shoulders, “He’s nice,” I kissed him the other week, “And he’s got two really cute cats that he brings over,” he slept in my bed the other night because I’m having horrible nightmares – do I look tired to you? Nan says I look tired, that’s probably why, “Yeah, it’s fine. Has he said anything?”

Her father cleared his throat, “From what Thomas has said, he does well at all aspects of his job,” he gave a tight-lipped smile, and there’s. . .a look there, in his face, that caught Y/N’s attention, “Which is always good to hear, when we’re trusting someone with you.”

“He does kind of remind me of someone,” her lips move before she can really think it through, bringing it up, but her dad’s disposition had changed ever so slightly – something that Y/N wouldn’t have noticed had she not been trying to read them the entire conversation, “I used to spend time with someone when I was little, who was named Harry. He just disappeared one day though.”

As soon as her mother opened her mouth to respond, her father cut her off, with a smooth, almost immediate precision, “Hm, I think I remember him,” he reached for his drink from the table, “But he and his family moved quite a while ago, I believe. There was a company in Australia I believe, that wanted to hire him. That is if I’m remembering correctly.”

Y/N thinks if her father had answered any other way, or even just slightly differently, she wouldn’t have questioned it. Maybe she would have finally given up, and let it go because even if she did know Harry from when she was younger he clearly didn’t want her to remember him for a reason. If she had anything else to do with her time, she probably wouldn’t have even cared that much to bring it up past asking Harry if she knew him from somewhere.

But it was weird how he’d answered her. It was too fast – and how do you think you remember somebody, but go on to explain they moved to Australia? Plus, from what Y/N has gathered through bits and pieces she hears from her guards and from what she remembered when she was little, people don’t just stop working for her parents. They don’t just go on their merry way unless they are exiled, and even then, the offense would have to be pretty minor to come out unscathed.

Once you’re in this world, you’re in it. There’s no dipping a toe in and deciding it’s too cold; the only option is to sink into it, down to the shoulders, and embrace it when the water lapping at your neck is finally warmer than the air blowing around above it.

“Ohh, okay,” she plays nice and dumb, smiling gently, “Well that settles that then. I was just wondering.”

The tension that had risen in his shoulders loosened, and he relaxed back in his chair, “Tell us more about this business you’d like to start – I know someone who specializes in marketing for start-ups and. . .”

It’s brushed under the rug because of course it is, and Y/N keeps chatting with them a healthy amount before excusing herself to the restroom. This is when her parents make their move to visit with her Nan (“What a joy it is to dote on your mother-in-law,” her mother sighed, grabbing her wine), so they split ways. Y/N does have to piss, that much is true, but she’ll also be taking a detour to the library, where the photo albums were kept. Nobody questions where she’s going or why she’s going there, but she does manage to narrowly avoid Thomas who would have definitely not trusted her when she told him she wasn’t doing anything to rouse suspicion.

The library, in comparison to the rest of the house, is actually one of the smaller rooms. She wondered if it was actually small or if the towering bookcases made it appear more compact than it was. On either side of the room, the walls were bookshelf-beside-bookshelf, filled to the brim with different novels, titles, hardbacks, and paperbacks (she doesn’t even think her parents are that into reading). Adjacent to the door, the wall is a window that reminded her of Edward’s room in Twilight, only this one was composed of bulletproof, thick glass and had large curtains that could be drawn if it was night. In the center of the room was a small couch, a coffee table, and a lamp (which has a very limited purpose when there’s a huge light fixture hanging from the ceiling that lights up the entire room as soon as it’s flicked on).

It takes her a moment to skim over different bindings until she finds the odd, large bindings of the photobooks. They aren’t labeled but she remembered that her mother, in all her perfectionist glory, had them color coded by years. Y/N knew that vibrant purples, blues, and greens were from a period starting with her birth so that’s where she starts. She pulled out all of them, bundled them in her arms, and went to the couch. Vaguely does Y/N remember a time when she was always posing for pictures whether she wanted to or not, and while it wasn’t necessarily either of her parents taking the picture – someone was. Thomas, any bodyguard, her Nan, uncles, aunts, and cousins if they were all together. So there are plenty of pictures to sift through, almost an annoying amount. She thinks she’ll be in here for hours.

Three photo albums in, she begins to lose hope. What was she even looking for? Some proof that Harry existed when she was little? Who was to say anyone had even taken a picture of them together in the first place? And for her parents to keep it, when one of them at the very least, was not interested in her knowing that he had existed in her life before a few months ago when he’d entered her flat, following close behind Niall? It was unlikely.

She nibbles at her thumbnail, heaving a sigh and almost irately flipping through pages now when she sees it.

When she sees him.

If Y/N had looked through it any quicker she would have missed it. A picture at the park, two children stood beside the obnoxiously bright blue tunnel slides: one of them was her, in a frilly pink sundress that had large yellow flowers printed all over the front, and jelly shoes she has a vague memory of regretting because the mulch from the ground kept scratching her. She had a big, front toothless grin, her head over-exaggerated in its tilt and one of her hands were held up like she was waving. Her arm was wrapped around a boy, just a little taller than her, who had awful cargo shorts you could only get away with wearing at 9 and a green shirt with a FIFA logo. His hair was brown, cut short, his eyes were light, she could tell, and he had two dimples just as she remembered. Looking at this photo, she knew for sure.

It was him.

That fucking liar.

She carefully slides the delicate paper from the plastic sheet and presses it off to the side, before continuing to flip through. One picture would be enough, she knew, but she wanted to build an arsenal of proof. He could try to explain away one picture, but not several. Not when she could tell the structure of his face, the way one side of his mouth has always pulled up higher when he smiled, the crinkles beside his eye when he grins.

Y/N is conflicted, about whether to be happy or upset or whatever she was feeling. She was happy that she had been right this whole time. She was irritated because he’d been lying to her and her dad just lied straight to her face, but she wondered for what reason it was important that she didn’t know. And she was confused, because. . .well, where the fuck had he gone? From at least four of the photo albums, she finds around five photos from each of them, up until she was around 10.

She’d worried a sore into the inside of her bottom lip biting at it with fretted teeth, and her forehead ached from the deep furrow she’d had the entire time she flicked through the albums. Y/N was ready to go home, but she knew she’d have to stay for a while longer.

Just as she was sliding the pictures into her purse, zipping it closed, the door of the library opened. She tenses until she realizes it’s Niall, who squints his eyes, “What are you doing in here?”

“Hiding and going down memory lane.” She dismisses him quickly, collecting the albums and walking them back to where she’d found them, “Have they started serving food yet? I’m fucking starving.”

“Watch your mouth, your Nan could be around any corner. She’s quiet on her feet,” he playfully scolded her, not probing any further into her reasonings for being in here, “That’s why I came to get you, the caterers finally have everything set up and I knew you’d fuss if I ate without you.”

She scoffed, “Thanks, and for the record, I don’t fuss, I hit.”

He pouted his mouth, rubbing his arm where she’d swatted him earlier, “Don’t I know it.”

. . .

Y/N loses her nerve.

For a while, she was riled up and ready for an argument (though she doubts Harry would actually argue with her); Harry was supposed to come to see her that night, so she had very little time to mentally prepare. But from that little time she did get, she’d prepared to let him walk in, sit down, then slam the pictures down on the table in front of him and demand answers. Like why he lied before, why her father lied today, and why he left in the first place. Does it matter? No, not necessarily, and she doesn’t think it would change how anything is right now, but at the end of the day, Y/N is nosy and confused and wants to know why everyone else is in on this and not her. Just like everything else in her life, she is kept in the dark, and she’d just been praising Harry for being the only one who ever kept her in the know, telling her more than anyone else.

And she thinks if it had been anyone else, she probably would have. If she had looked through those albums and seen a photo of Niall with her, she would have immediately thrown it at him and asked him what the fuck it was about.

Yet as soon as she saw Harry, who smiled brightly at her as he walked in, holding two strawberry shakes with a big grin on his face. . .she just couldn’t.

“I brought you a treat,” he told her, kicking the door shut with his foot, “It’s a celebration shake. Do you feel relieved having done it and gotten it over with?”

It almost felt silly, to think about doing it how she had planned. To show him the photos, like an I told you so! I’m right, you’re wrong, I did know you – it felt like a petulant way to approach the subject. And if there was a good reason that they didn’t want her to know. . .if there was any reason at all, really, why should she have to force his hand in telling her? To shove proof in his face, catch him off guard, guilt him into telling her. . .it just didn’t feel right. She wanted to know, and part of her felt she deserved to know, but maybe not like this.

She cleared her throat, and smiled gently, “Yeah,” she told him, “It wasn’t too bad.”

“See! I told you it’d be just fine,” he handed her the shake, “I’ll admit, I am jealous Niall got to go with you in that dress. It was adorable – you look so pretty when you’re all dressed up. Well, you’re pretty always, actually, but I do love dresses.”

Y/N feels her face warm, mouth pulled into a frown, “Don’t tease me,” she grumbled, pulling the straw of the shake between her lips, but she moves her legs out of the way for him to sit with her on the couch.

“I’m not teasing,” he defended himself, “Really, I think you’re pretty in whatever you feel comfortable in.”

Y/N nudged him with her foot, and let the words, I knew you when I was little, I have pictures – fizzle out in her throat. She wants to know – so badly does she want to know, but she just can’t give a reason why she would need to know. And she guesses part of her is a little scared that it might change things between them. There were a lot of things Y/N wanted but that wasn’t one of them; she’d like to keep getting closer to him, to keep looking at him and feeling safe, for that bubble of warmth and comfort to arise in her belly every time he stepped through the door.

She liked how things were now, so maybe she was okay not knowing. Not yet, at least. . .for a little while.

“Where’s your head at, hm?” Harry hums low, sweet, and soft; he’s in the usual attire, though the white button-up was loosened by a few buttons and the cuff links were undone. His suit pants were navy blue today, and he treated them with little care, his foot pulled up onto the couch, rolling the leg of the trousers up. He is turned to face her, the hand on his phone lowering so she had his full attention, “You seem far away.”

“Nowhere,” she lies easily, “I’m just sleepy.”

Harry gives her a smile – it’s gentle but still big, and she’s suddenly acutely aware of how her heart races when she witnesses it, dimples and all, “Liarrr,” he sing-songs, but uses his free hand to squeeze her calf over the pajama pants she’s wearing, “You can tell me when you’re ready if you want to talk about it,” his voice sinks into her muscles, melts them, “I’ll wait for you. Until then, I reckon we should watch that show. . .the new one with the zombies everyone is talking about?” He would have a good reason, right? Harry wouldn’t just lie to her. . .Harry doesn’t just lie.

Y/N nodded, her lips twitching up, “So you finally admit you want to see it,” she puffed a laugh from her chest, “After so vehemently denying that you’re interested in zombie shows at all!”

“To be fair, a lot of them can be shit!” He whined, “But I’ve seen a lot of good reviews, and I heard it’s about some mind-controlling fungus which is a slight deviation from other versions of the story. And legally, you can’t be mean to me because I’m so sweet and brought you a shake.”

She grabbed the remote, “You’re whiny.”

“I reckon I deserve to be the whiny one sometimes, you get to be 24/7.” He retorted and Y/N gasped, mouth falling open.

“I am not whiny!”

“Oh? Was that a whine I just heard?” When she huffs at him and starts turning her body away from him, he chuckles low, stopping her from twisting her body completely by laying a hand on her bicep, “C’mon, c’mon, I’m kidding.” He scoots to the other end of the couch, “Here, do you want to stretch out? I’m sure your feet must hurt after being in those shoes all day.”

Her response is to kick her feet up without hesitation, but she wiggles down so that they lay in his lap, “Will you rub them?” Because if he’s going to lie to her about knowing her and then suddenly return to her life as her bodyguard, she thinks she deserves a foot rub out of it at the very, absolute least.

“Ah,” he places one of her throw pillows in his lap, before delicately laying her foot on top of it, “You just want me here to dote on you.”

She nodded her head, “Correct.”

“Brat,” he digs his thumb into the sole of her foot anyway, just above her heel, “Get the show started or I’ll start tickling.”

Because it’s easy with Harry – it’s always been easy with Harry and that’s what she liked.

Why make it difficult?

Why bring it up?

. . .

The days go on as normal; eventually, they lessen their stringent rules on where she can and cannot go. It’s only a little bit, but she and Harry can finally return to their art classes, where Y/N found the excuse for their absence was they had taken a trip to Spain (she lies about how amazing the rooftop tour of Santiago de Compostela Cathedral is beautiful knowing full well she didn’t even know you could get tours on the rooftop). They returned just in time for a color theory lesson that goes from a fun grade school color wheel to something that melted her brain. By the end of it, it had turned into something so complex, even Harry seemed genuinely astonished by how deep into it they went.

“We’ll have to practice later,” he promised, “‘cos I’m going to forget everything she said after the first hour.”

Y/N goes to a brunch with her Nan, who – albeit reluctantly – lets Harry attend. Thomas was still hyper-aware of any possible danger (as he always is) and thought it would be dangerous for not only Y/N but her Nan (who has made plenty of enemies in her day) to be alone out and about together. Harry offered to sit at a separate table once he noticed her Nan’s displeasure but she waved the idea away, “Why should you be punished because I disagree with how they’re doing things? You’ll sit with us.”

If Y/N looked back on it, she thinks that Grandma always had a problem with how they raised Y/N. Very, very, very vaguely she has an indistinct and fuzzy memory of her scolding Y/N’s father, “This is no life to live,” she told him, “To force her in this house! To not even let her attend school? She needs friends outside of her cousins and a life. I didn’t raise you to be so stupid.” And Y/N thinks, relatively close to that, she’d been enrolled in a private school (though she moved around quite a bit following that).

It was nice to spend time with her, and she thinks – even without trying – Harry had managed to woo her Nan in about five minutes. If she let herself indulge, even just for a second, it was like having her boyfriend meet her family but she wipes the thought away as soon as it arises.

Because she’s been having a lot of thoughts like that; she’d begun labeling them her “senseless, delusional” moments where she even for a second considered having feelings for Harry. They started out infrequently, only every so often (especially when he did something particularly sweet) but with time they grew more recurrent. It seemed, like some sort of sick twist, that they came on stronger once she realized that she knew him from when they were little.

Which, Y/N thinks if she were more emotionally sound, the opposite would have occurred. She should be put off and repelled, but instead, she finds herself feeling more and more fond.

Now she notices things that she hadn’t before. All the little idiosyncrasies of hers that he remembered from childhood: how she liked jelly candies and her favorite flavors, the board games she used to play, the stuffies she always liked, the way she hated the sound of nails on a holographic picture, how she thinks the sandwich just tastes better when it’s cut diagonally. They were things that, for whatever reason, she never questioned why he knew before but now that she thought about it, it would be incredibly odd had he known them without knowing her.

And over time she just realizes that he brings the kind of comfort that only a childhood friend could bring. Familiarity, a tender warmth, the idea that someone still likes you even as you’ve grown and changed into the person you are today. Fundamentally, their relationship was always somewhat forced she guesses – their parents (or his parents and Thomas) probably arranged the first play date. And Thomas definitely arranged for him to be her bodyguard. They were compelled to be in the same space together, but enjoying their time with each other. . .that was them. Harry laughing at her jokes, the feeling that fizzles in her veins when his cheeks get pink, how excited she is to see him when it’s his night with her, the borderline domestic relationship she’s developed with his cats – all of that wasn’t arranged.

They were friends, Y/N truly believed that. They had been forever now, she guesses, if the decade-long gap in between was dissolved.

Y/N thumbs through the photos when she’s in her room at night, gnawing at her bottom lip, a zoetrope of memories flickering through her brain. Some things she recalls, some things she doesn’t, and she recalls feelings more than she does conversations or scenarios. She was always happy, she knew that, and she always felt like a normal kid with him. She could tell him things and they could play and things were good and normal.

She found herself wanting to kiss him more every day, which is a bit of a problem. They still hadn’t spoken about the first, logically they should do that before having a second, but the want for it itches beneath her skin. Y/N’s certain he had caught her staring at his mouth several times, probably more than she would like to admit, but he had never really brought it up before.

Until a random Thursday, at least, when she’d spent most of the day drawing and perfecting different sketches for the first round of stickers (she does a lot of random original cutesy drawings, then some that involve different tv shows and movies – people like to buy cute versions of characters they like, Y/N knows that because she does it all the time). Harry started talking about. . .something, Y/N couldn’t remember, but what she did remember was how his mouth went from forming around the word “apples” to smirking.

“You stare at my mouth an awful lot,” he taunted her, and Y/N. . .she was feeling more sensitive that day; less fiery than she usually was, so she tilted her head down and murmured an apology, “No, wait,” he clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth, “I was only kidding, Sweetheart, you don’t need to apologize for anything.”

When she hummed and made no move to look back at him, she felt careful fingers on her chin, guiding her face toward him, “C’mon, Darling, don’t hide. It’s okay! You can look at my mouth all you want, lord knows I’m always looking at yours.”

Her face feels hot and she swallows thickly, “You’re looking at mine?”

“Mhm,” he hesitated for a moment, before the pad of his thumb grazed over her bottom lip, “More than I’d like to admit.”

“We could always,” she spoke against his petting thumb, “We could kiss again then if you want.”

He leaned in, moments from smearing his mouth against hers, but there was a knock at the door.

The pizza they ordered had come.

That was the closest they’d been to kissing again, but once Harry went to answer the door and sign for the food the moment had left them. Y/N is flustered, warm in her face, and has zero nerve to return where they had left off so she nudges him with her foot when he sits back beside her and calls him a wimp when he fusses over it. Things go back to normal – the same as they usually were.

(It was only later that night when she was alone in her bed when she felt inconceivably horny, did she remember that her period was coming. The weeks leading up to it always left her insatiable, sensitive in both her feelings and touch, and if she snuck her hand between her thighs to the thought of kissing him again, well that’s her own problem.)

The nightmares start to fade too, which is nice, though that means Harry spends less time in her room. He’d made a habit of sleeping beside her, or at least laying down near her until she fell asleep, and she’d always wake up the next morning alone. Though without fail, as soon as a dream seemed to sour, Harry was there at her side to wake her from it, always attentive, squeezing the shoulder he’d just been shaking, “S’just a dream, baby, you’re okay.” He’d calm her down, “Go back to bed.”

“Thank you, nightmare killer,” she would murmur, tongue feeling heavy in her mouth, and Harry would laugh, and she’d fall back asleep.

Things were nice, starting to feel a little normal again with the additive closeness she felt with Harry despite knowing what she did. She was starting to feel comfortable again, and not stuck inside all of the time, and she felt like she was getting somewhere with her drawings, growing closer and closer to being able to open her shop.

And then, one night, Harry is waking her up frantically.

Harry is not a frantic person – he is usually calm, collected, and measured. Y/N has never truly seen him in action but she’s sure he makes decisions with precision and tact that typically comes from years of experience, though she doesn’t think he’s been at this that long. He’s levelheaded and respectful and acts well under pressure – that makes him deadly.

So to see him urging her awake, moving quickly, telling her to, “Get up, we need to leave.” Makes her adrenalin spike and panic drip from her ears.

“What?” She was still foggy, disoriented – what time was it? Her clock says it’s three in the morning.

“We need to go,” he is reaching beneath her bed, dragging out a bag – her “Go” bag, is what she always called it, something Thomas had instructed her to make even when she was little. It was a duffel of clothes, toiletries, and things that would take too long to grab in the event she needed to leave an area quickly. She’d only ever had to grab it once before when she was younger, but she couldn’t remember why. Though now that she thinks about it, it seemed like it might have been close to the time that Harry had disappeared.

She doesn’t check her go bag often, beyond replacing the toiletries that may have lived past their shelf date, so she was also surprised to see Harry pull a gun from it. A gasp leaves her mouth, she’s still moving too slowly, trying to catch up with what’s happening as he’s fitting it into the holster, “Wait, what? What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

He’s zipping the bag up, “Bill was fired –”

“What?”

“- and it got ugly, he shot at Martha. There’s reason to believe he’s on his way here.”

“But why –”

“There’s no time to explain everything,” he threw the duffle over his shoulder, “We need to leave.”

Her head is spinning, she knows she’s probably annoying him, but she can’t help but search for something to say, for a question to ask, to try and understand what was happening, if she was dreaming or not, if this was another nightmare, “What –”

This time Harry cuts her off by taking her face in his hands – he was still gentle, but she could sense the urgency, “I will explain as soon as we’re safe, I promise you, baby, but right now we need to leave okay? Get your phone but turn off the location. We’ll go down the back stairwell to the parking garage.” She still seems hesitant, confused, but Harry runs a thumb over her cheek, “Do you trust me?”

And she does. . .she trusts him implicity, more than she should, probably.

“Yes.”

“Good,” he replied quickly, “Come on.”

#WRITING #WOOOOO #YAHTZEEEE #OKAY #I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE IT :D #THIS IS A MEGA SLOW BURN IM SO SORRY #I DIDNT EXPECT IT TO BE #BUT YOU KNOW #EEEEEK #OKAY I HOPE YOU ENJOY #IT WAS FUN TO WRITE!#LOVE YOUUUU #WOOOOOOO

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