#anyway when its daylight on the surface she covers her eyes

[ghost-bard]

Me when i realize i have to make content for my oc/canon ship….

[books-of-the-great-leviathan]

Chapter 41- Luca

***

The air was clear and sharp as broken glass, growing ever colder the further north they flew. Each breath seared Luca's throat as he clung onto Niive's back, his muscles tight, each one of them working to keep him there and not sweep him off into empty sky. His arms burned, his legs worse, but he made himself keep hold.

He couldn't let go.

He couldn't stop now.

Coastlines skimmed below, made hazy as brushstrokes by cloud and distance. Niive flew tirelessly, her long, pointed wings scarcely seeming to move- just the ripple of her feathers as the air currents coursed over them, just the shift of her powerful muscles under Luca's hands, her neck stretched out before him, her crest flattened to her skull as she kept them on the course he set.

Night, and day, and night again.

The moons tightened to crescents above, the stars turning to daylight, then to gray, then to looming cloud, a strange, tidal landscape of them, eddying with the winds. They flew through crenelated stormheads, ghostly fortress towers hanging in midair, floating like the dead cities of cradle songs, only to be traveled to by ghosts, or holy sorts, or those lost beyond hope. In the gaps between, he caught glimpses of glittering water, and islands, so distant Luca might have covered them in the palm of his hand. At first they shone green as gemstones, then over leagues became barren, green to gray, flecked with white. The seas became darker and darker, heaving with whitecaps when the snow didn't shroud them entirely.

Was one of those islands Alkona? Luca couldn't be sure. Too long looking down and his eyes began to water from the force of the wind. It was strong enough to drown him where he clung. He pressed his face to Niive's feathers, concentrating on holding on.

Night became day became night again. This high up, the moons seemed close, like he might gather their light and drink it, rich as milk, from his cupped hands. Instead he gnawed on touga jerky and hardtack from the supplies Azare had given him, holding the rations carefully in his numb fingers lest he drop it and lose it in the clouds.

Once Niive's muscles spasmed under him, and he glanced up toward her head, eyes narrowed against the merciless wind.

"You all right?" he called.

She gave no response. He wasn't sure if she heard him or not.

She had to be exhausted. They'd been flying for days- he thought so, anyway; all he had to judge time by were his dwindling rations, his glimpses of moonslight, the day this far north nearly dark as night. Niive had barely stopped, barely moved, all her energy channeled into keeping the winds at her command, hurling them through the skies faster than any other winged thing that flew.

Luca's heart clenched. She was doing this in service of the Leviathan, he knew, but all he could think of was Sirin, was Puppy, her eyes in the sunlight as she'd kissed him, her palms flat to his chest, over his beating, living heart.

It would have been you.

When he dreamed- little scraps of dream, snagged on his mind when he snatched moments of sleep- it was of her. It was of the Leviathan, passing beneath him as he drifted in the deepwater of its consciousness. It was gray skies, and signal fires, and the pulse of wingbeats in the clouds. It was squid runs spilling sunlight through trenches far below the surface of the sea, and it was tidal waves sweeping destruction over islands, children cowering as the wave's shadow reached for them. It was of the cycle, the life that died to become life again, the dark that came before the light, the dark that came after.

Balance, the Leviathan whispered, in his voice, in his mind, blue eyes wide and bright and full of fear.

It would have been you-

As ever, the knife hilt pressed to his ribs, bruising him each time he shifted, or breathed. He wanted to fling it over Niive's side and watch it spin as it fell, but he could never quite bring himself to do so.

I want to save you.

I want to help you.

But if he couldn't? If all he could do was stop her, would he?

He'd asked himself such a question before, on faraway seas, Cereza cursed and dying belowdecks, the Great Blue spread before him and reflecting the night sky. A starry abyss. He'd clutched the ancestral Valere harpoon in his hands, and knew then that he would do anything to save his sister. Now it was not Cereza, but the skies, and the seas, and all the islands in them, and Sirin, always Sirin.

Her hands, holding his, at the end of the world.

Her net of shadows, holding him, bringing him back to the surface.

Make a choice, Luca, he thought. She did. She chose to be a monster. She chose power, over all else, over you-

He clenched his teeth. No, he told himself, cutting off his thoughts with a hard shake of his head. She had saved him. She had spared him when by all rights she could have let him drown, and bought her freedom with his death.

He had to try.

Night came, and with it: stars. They were hard here, and brilliant, not glowing but shining, like chips of whaleglass scattered in the sea. It looked like the sea, even: currents of stars, cloud skimming the sky's edges like mist off the ocean.

Luca slept. When he woke, he had to warm his face in his hands, his eyelids frozen shut so hard he thought the skin would tear if he forced them. His vision was blurred, all smears of gray and white, but when it sharpened he saw it wasn't his eyes that were confused, but the world. Snow whipped past his cheeks, fragments of ice needling at his skin as he peered over Niive's side.

Below, closer than before, the sea was iron-gray and rising in vast white-webbed swells. Sea-ice spread ahead, a great fractured expanse of pale nothing, gray and white and riven with crevasses. Icebergs stood like shipwrecks, dirty-white one moment, then translucent blue the next, glassy and spectral.

Niive skimmed lower, her wings near-silent as they parted the low clouds and descended into the haze of snow that hung low over the landscape. The sea ice spread, and spread, on and on to the horizon. Far in the distance, through the blizzard, Luca made out the looming shapes of what looked like mountains, vast ones, reaching toward the sky, but the snow coursed thicker and he lost them, swallowed up by the blizzard.

"Are we close?" he called to Niive.

She let out a fluting shriek in response.

"Can you take us lower?"

Luca felt the wind flex around him, felt the radiant cold of the sea as Niive descended with an upturn of her pointed wingtips.

He searched the sea-ice again. Dark fangs of rock jutted from its fantastically-carved surface, like teeth from a mouth, plumes of icy wind skating from their crags. The sea shifted; this low, he heard the reverberating crack and boom as the ice parted on the waves, crevasses gaping like monstrous mouths before the currents brought them crashing back together again, hard enough to shear ships in half and send them to the glowlands. Nothing else moved.

Niive dipped lower, low enough for her shadow to skim the ice, vast and wide-winged, so fast it blurred across the snow and water. Luca let out his breath between clenched teeth.

Where are you?

Where?

All at once, he saw it. In the distance, something fluttered: a ragged scrap, dark against the unrelenting black and white and deep, glacial gray of the landscape.

"Niive!" Luca called, pointing. "Over there. There! You see that? Take us there."

She veered. Luca's heart pounded in his throat as the flutter neared, as it consolidated into the shape of a ship. A mast rose from the ice; the flutter took on color, a glint of blue. A Lapidaean flag, torn to tatters by the harsh wind. Rigging, sails, and all rose from the ship's icelocked prison, frozen solid and fringed in icicles. Luca recognized it; he would have even without its flag. A Lapidaean warship. Isabella's brig.

It was tilted hard to the side, forced upward by the sea-ice that had formed around and beneath it. A gash gaped in its hull, below the waterline. Waves boomed through it, their echo amplified and made hollow by the endless arctic silence.

"It's hers." Luca shook Niive's shoulder-joint. "It's Sirin's ship. Take me down."

She tipped her head to the side as they circled, staring back at him with one golden eye. He imagined her voice, flat and deeply sardonic. You think she's waiting down there for you, Valere?

Luca stared back, undaunted. "Take me down."

She banked hard, pirouetting on one wing; Luca's stomach lurched. Niive's wingbeats thrummed against the air as she alit on the warship's bowsprit, stumbling a little, wood screeching as she curved her massive talons in deep. Luca stumbled off her neck; his muscles screamed in protest, but he managed to keep his feet, to lean against Niive's neck as she shuddered, making small keens of exhaustion and pain. Luca pressed his eyes shut, hands deep in her warm feathers, breathing deep for long moments before he lifted his face again.

Her neck was curved back on itself, her head lowered. As he looked at her, one of her eyes slid open, pupil turning on him. Her jaws were parted, and he heard the faint whistle of her breathing between the points of her teeth.

"You all right?" Luca managed. His face was numb; he hadn't realized he was so cold.

She let out a soft snarl.

He pressed his hand to her beak, then faced the deck. Waves hissed and soughed; he felt their impact in his bones. A chill coursed through him. The whole of the ship from yardarm to keel was changed, was wrong: the once-ruddy cedarwood shone pale, silvery and bleached, streaked with cracks and gouged with wounds, like some vast beast had taken claws to it. Each time the waves struck he heard the crack and grind of its ice prison, of its planks, eerie and strange in the hush.

Luca moved down the deck, walking awkwardly along its tilted surface. He bent and pressed his fingers to one of the gouges. Its edges were clean, sliced into place.

By her, he knew. Her shadows. Her power.

As he stood, wood groaned underfoot. He stumbled back as it cracked open, explosive as a gunshot, shattering the silence. Shards of wood rained belowdecks, the jagged edges of the hole brittle and crumbling.

Breathing hard, Luca brushed his hand along the railing, and it sifted away under his palm, ashy and fine.

She'd done this. The entire ship, turned dry and brittle as a husk, drained spectral by her power. He glanced back at Niive, her eyes as wide as his own.

Luca's mouth tasted bitter as he hurried down the deck, scrambling from railing to ratline to mast, pulling himself along hand over hand.

"Sirin?" he called. His voice echoed, reflected back on itself. He opened the belowdecks hatch, only to find churning seawater, the corridors flooded. "Puppy?"

He made it to the stern doors and pulled at one of them, teeth grit at the effort. Frozen hinges cracked and gave way, the door swinging wide. Grit skittered into the darkness beyond. Luca's breath steamed in the frigid air. The stateroom was all gloom and disarray, desk and chairs strewn like toys, thrown against the walls from whatever impact had wrecked the ship. The lamps were dark and crumpled, their once-bright brass flaking and corroded as if exposed to the weather for years, not days. Maps and charting equipment lay twisted and scattered. The transom windows stood broken. Wind keened past the points of glass hanging onto their frames.

Luca searched the darkness, his heartbeat in his mouth.

"Sirin?" he said.

"She's not here," Niive said, behind him. Luca turned. She stood in her human form, wings half-spread for balance. Her shoulders were hunched, her face stony. "She and the creature are both long gone."

"This ship..." Luca touched the doorframe. It crumbled under his hand. "It's like she drank it dry."

"Her power has to feed on something."

"She used to be powerless in the daytime, but at night-" He looked up at Niive. "It's balance, isn't it? Her abilities."

"Everything has its price," Niive said, hugging herself around her stomach. "She defies that price."

"If the monster finds her before we do-"

"There will no longer be a Sirin to save or stop," Niive said. "She will be unmade. Remade. Into what..."

She shrugged, her wings stirring and falling with the gesture. "I cannot say."

"I think I get the idea," Luca said quietly.

He sniffed and lifted his eyes to the bowsprit, pointing straight as a harpoon toward the horizon. "We follow them, then. We find them first. Can you...will you be all right?"

Niive nodded, but her eyes were dull with exhaustion. "I must be."

"Thank you," Luca said. He touched her pale forearm. It was frigid, even through his sealskin glove.

The ship shuddered. Luca stumbled against Niive, grabbing her shoulders; she snarled, eyes wide and scandalized.

"Let go of me, Valere," she said.

"Oh. Sorry." Luca released her. He searched the water. "Did you feel that? What in all Hells was-"

The impact came again: a vibration, not just in the ship but in the sea, too. The waves frothed, rising, no longer choppy but smoothing over into swells. One broke, and boiled, and from below: something bellowed, a bass thrum that filled the air, the ship, down to Luca's marrow. Adrenaline flared, but there was no lightning, no blue glow.

"That's not the Leviathan," he said.

Niive snarled something in witch-tongue Luca was sure was a curse. "We have to go. Now."

Water surged, and geysered. Hot steam blasted into the sky, mere meters from the gunwale. Spume spattered Luca's face, warm and viscous. An exhale, he realized. Something had just snorted a year's worth of hot snot over him.

Niive twisted, feathers bursting from her skin. Her wings sought the skies as she reared into her bird form. She screeched, and Luca threw himself toward her, hooking his arms over her neck and scrambling, ungainly, onto her back. His heel jabbed her ribs; she screeched again, in pain this time, and shot Luca a yellow-eyed glare.

"Forgive me later!" Luca yelled. "Just fly!"

She drove her wings down. The ship groaned behind them, a gunshot percussion of cracks chasing them as Niive spiraled into the sky. Luca threw a glance back as the entire deck split down its width. Something was crushing the ship from beneath; as he watched, it bowed into a V, waves crashing, spilling over the deck and swamping it, ice sundered as the entire ship was sucked down into the black water.

Niive let out a cry. Luca spun back round in time to see something swing toward them: the mainmast, felled, in their path.

"Bank left!" he yelled.

Niive swerved hard to port, tucking her wings like a sparrow as she dived under the mast, clearing it with inches to spare. A frozen line sliced past Luca's face; he ducked out of its way. Below, the ship was nearly gone, the sea white with froth. Something moved in its heart, something massive. A dark shape hurtled beneath the water, flinging itself upward.

Toward them.

The water erupted. Luca's breath felt ripped from him. Jaws gaped, massive and beaked and lined in double rows of teeth, glistening black maw and armored head, craggy as a rock formation and crusted in barnacles. The neck followed, ringed in muscle and armored like its head, and then the body: vast and broad, foreclaws ripping through the remnants of the ship like it was paper, crushing it into the surrounding ice.

Luca glimpsed scale, tough and gray-white, and shell thicker than warship armor, ridged down its length, toughened and gnarled with centuries of ingrown ice.

"Faster!" Luca roared, and the ice tortoise roared, too, heat and spume and a blast of reeking wind. Luca felt Niive catch it, propelling them upward, spiraling into the clouds on the wave of air. The air thrummed as the ice tortoise's jaws clashed shut just clear of Niive's tailfeathers, and then was gone: a shape in the clouds, and then nothing.

"Did you see that!" Luca cried. He let out a wild laugh. "Did you bloody see that-"

He looked up at Niive. Her beak was open, jaws gaping, but her eyes were shut. Luca blinked, then felt her breathing under him, fast and labored.

"Niive?" he said.

He tasted blood on the wind. He glanced down, to her side. A shard of wood jutted from her ribs, just under her wing joint. Blood pulsed forth, thick and dark, with each wingbeat.

"Niive," Luca said. "Triune-"

She quivered under his hands, then banked, descending.

"Just ride the winds," Luca murmured, stroking her feathers. "Don't strain yourself. Just ride them down."

They broke through the cloud layer. The snow seemed thicker, the sea-ice obscured through heavy mist. Luca saw what looked like a relatively flat plateau of ice as Niive headed toward it, gliding on the breeze.

They drew lower, closer. Luca drew a sharp breath. They were coming in fast, too fast. Their shadow skimmed the snow, lower, lower, the ground a blur-

Impact jarred through Luca. He tore free, flung, weightless and tumbling. He hit the ground, hard. Red cracked through his body, and he cried out, but his mouth was full of snow. His vision blurred, and it took a moment of adrenaline and shock before Luca realized he'd stopped moving. He lay in the snow, dazed, half of his face numb, the other half spattered in flakes, waiting for the pain to fade.

He pushed himself upright, spitting out his mouthful of snow. He lay in a shallow crater of it. The world was hazy around him, full of gently-falling flakes. Higher up the clouds churned, pulled and pushed, a reflection of the stormy sea, but down here the winds were lighter. A great furrow was carved in the snow, flecked with broken black feathers and tufts of down, and blood. Too much blood. The red was so bright against the stark landscape it hurt his eyes.

"Niive," he gasped, and staggered to his feet.

She lay some yards off, shivering, curled in on herself, halfway to human- a monstrous thing, mangled and strange, her feet long and scaled and taloned, one arm fringed in feathers, the skin delicate, her fingers still fused and elongated. Her face lay in a wreath of feathers, paler even than before. Her lips were near white from blood loss. She clutched her human hand to her wound. Blood pulsed through her fingers.

"Niive," Luca said. He stumbled down into the crater and knelt at her side. She stared blearily up at him. "Triune-"

He touched her shoulder, her hands. "I...I'm going to find us somewhere safe, all right? Somewhere you can rest."

He searched the desolate landscape. There. A fang of rock stood through the gathering blizzard, a dark sentinel against the sky. There was a fold of shadow at its base- if not a cave, certainly a better place to weather the blizzard than out here.

He looked back at Niive again. She was still transforming, slowly, painfully, feathers shrinking in pulses, as if it took her gathered bursts of concentration.

"Bank left?" she hissed, between pointed teeth. "I...I know how to fly, Valere..."

Luca managed a laugh. "Sorry. Habits. I once had a flying ship, did you know that?"

Her arm-wing shrank a little more, her fingers peeling apart, becoming human. Scales retracted; her feet flexed as the talons crumbled away. "That's impossible, Valere," she rasped. "Ships cannot fly."

"You've got me there. It couldn't really fly. It almost could, though. And I was working on making one that could take to the skies, truly, like a cloud gull skims those holy blue vaults. Wouldn't that be a fine thing?"

"Unnatural," Niive said.

"We live in unnatural times. Listen, I need to lift you. Is that-"

"Do what you must."

Her feathers sloughed away as he fit his arms under her and heaved her upright, against him; they lay scattered and broken in her shape, like a shed skin. Niive sagged against him. She was lighter than she looked.

Bird bones, Luca thought as she hooked her arm over his shoulder, her claws digging into his coat.

"Just hold on," he told her, but she didn't respond. He dragged her a step, his teeth grit, icy tears streaking his face. "Cereza will never forgive me if you die on my watch."

"Neither will I," Niive muttered.

Luca held on tighter.

***

It was a cave after all: a rift in the rock that belled into a cavern. One wall was natural stone, the other sea-ice dark as deepwater. It glistened like whaleglass as Luca settled Niive on the ground and struck a match, lighting the ork-oil lamp from the supplies and setting it in a niche, where it sputtered, filling the cavern with dancing shadows.

Luca tucked the pack under Niive's head, then knelt again at her side, squinting at her wound in the inadequate light.

"I'll bet you enjoyed that," she muttered.

"What?"

"Seeing an ice tortoise up close."

He mustered a smile. "Next time I'd like to get a little closer. All in the spirit of scholarly discovery, of course."

"Next time."

Luca touched her side, and she hissed. He let out his breath, then stripped off his gloves, rolling his sleeves past his elbows. "I'm no surgeon, Niive-"

"Just get on with it."

He set to work. The shard of wood had impaled her just beneath her arm, angling upward and through the muscle. Blood oozed around its base, her skin spackled rust-colored where it had begun to dry and flake. How she'd managed to keep on the wing, Luca couldn't fathom. She must have been in agony the whole time.

"Here. Have some of this." He uncapped the phial of night-drop and held to to her lips. "Just a little."

She swallowed, wrinkling her nose at the bitter taste. "Am I bleeding, Valere?"

"A bit. I'm no expert in witch guts, but if you're arranged anything like islanders are I don't think it got anything vital-"

"I bleed enough and that ceases to matter."

"Yes," Luca admitted. "That is rather the situation."

Niive settled, folding her hands over her stomach. Her face was glazed with sweat. Luca gently brushed aside a strand of hair from her cheek. Her eyes stayed on him, unblinking.

"You know," Luca said, "Once, I thought I'd never have the chance to see a witch in the flesh."

"Now you may well see one die."

"Don't be so pessimistic."

"Is it to be denial, then, Valere?" Niive's lips thinned in a tight smile. "You do rather make an art of it."

"Better than making it a chore."

"What was your ship's name, the flying one?"

"The Wasp."

"Wasps have vicious stings. Is that what you're planning, Valere, with that knife of yours?"

Luca reached in the pack and drew it out. He pushed a finger's length of blade from the sheath with his thumb, watching the glint of the lantern over the spellforged steel. "If there's any other way, no."

"And if there isn't?"

He slid the knife back with a click. "If I have to kill Sirin, you mean?"

She did mean. Her face was still, her brows drawn together. Luca drew an unsteady breath. "Then I'm death, too," he said, quietly, echoing what she'd told him long ago, under the stars of the Great Blue.

She remembered. She lowered her eyes. "Your library," she said.

"...What?"

"The hidden one. Full of Aiatar books? You and Cereza will never be able to read it on your own. I can help you. We can find the secrets together. Maybe, there, we can...find some kind of...understanding."

"I thought you didn't consort with islanders," Luca said.

"Do not grow cocky with me, Valere. I can still steal the breath from your lungs, even with half my blood fled from me."

"Time enough for that later." Luca took her hand and held it. "Get some rest."

She did, sinking into pained sleep, and some time later so did Luca. No dreams found him, nothing but empty night, and howling wind, and absence. When he jolted awake he thought for a panicked moment he'd sunk too deep into his dreams, that the darkness had infected the waking world, and then he remembered where he was.

The lantern still gave off a blue glimmer. He turned up the wick again, his muscles stiff and frozen. Even inside his fur-lined gloves his hands felt clumsy as old wood.

Something skittered in the dark.

Luca tensed, but the circle of light touched nothing but ice and rock. Niive was awake; he heard the hiss of her inhale.

"Quiet," she whispered.

"What is it?"

"I don't know, but-"

A breeze kissed the back of Luca's neck. He whirled, drawing his knife in a flash of blue steel. Too slow. A cold spearpoint pressed into Luca's throat before he could so much as strike.

He froze. The point was a shard of what looked like black glass, one edge jagged, the other slick and razor-sharp. His eyes traveled up the shaft of the spear to a pair of gloved hands. The stranger stared back, eyes glittering through the slit eyeholes of a mask, painted with spiral patterns in white. A ragged mantle swathed the stranger from hood to waist, made of thick gray-white fur; the rest was ooshka hide, worn and cracked by countless blizzards. A hooked knife made of the same black stone hung from their belt.

Luca exhaled and glanced around. More strangers stood in a semicircle around him and Niive. He counted half a dozen, each dressed in furs and masks, each with spears leveled.

The stranger spoke, the language all hisses and barbed consonants, rough and strange. Luca's heart leaped. Witch-tongue. This stranger spoke witch-tongue.

"I'm sorry, I don't-" he began.

The stranger knocked his knife from his grip. Pain shot through Luca's wrist. "Gah!" he cried. "Fine, fine, I understood that."

"He says...we must get up," Niive said. "Says...says we must...come with them."

"What? Why?"

The stranger reached for their mask and pulled it away from their face. Luca's eyes widened. The young man underneath had skin so dark it shone blue, his hair jet-black and cropped close to his skull, shaved along the sides in swirling patterns like his mask. His lips were drawn back from sharp teeth. His eyes were luminous gold.

Hawk's eyes.

Aiatar eyes.

He spoke again. Niive translated, her voice hushed and halting. "He says we must come with them so they can take us to- to her."

[usedpidemo]

Daybreak (Lee Chaeyeon)

After a rowdy night, daylight breaks.

The sun steadily looms over an empty beach. Gentle waves lower leg deep crash on the sand while a flock of seagulls roost on the branches of the coconut trees. The vastness of the falling night parts to the orange glow of the morning. Everyone’s settled inside the hotel, either passed out from drunkenness or soundly asleep in the comfort of their rooms.

As the early hours of the day pass, the sun rises high above the heavens. Before the eighth hour, the skies are clear and blue.

Light pierces through the clear door-sized window white curtains that hide your presence in one of the hotel rooms. It spares no one—not even you. Eventually it makes its way over to the bed which ultimately wakes you up from deep slumber. Disturbed, you blink rapidly while you lift a lazy arm over your eyes as cover from the permeating gleam.

On the desk next to your king sized bed is a digital alarm clock. Tilt your head to the right.

7:42 a.m.

You shouldn’t be up this early, considering how everything ended at almost three in the morning. Too late. Time to get up.

Rather than jump out of bed, you first turn to the opposite side. Next to you is one of the best idol dancers in the industry, but more importantly, your loving girlfriend. She’s fast asleep, lightly snoring, face down directly on the mattress, not on the pillow and completely naked. It’s adorable how she looks; a complete opposite from the night before when she fucked you with many pleasure contorted expressions. Without making a sound, you spin through the blankets and touch the ground with your toes, the cold surface immediately making you wince. While suppressing the lump in your throat, your feet claw for the pair of slippers close by.

Getting up from bed—screw a bathrobe and boxers, no one’s really going to spot you anyway—you walk to the sliding doors right away for a quick peek outside. More light makes its way in as you part the curtains. Sun is high, the waters are blue as the skies above, and the nearby cafes, beaches, and pools begin to teem with life.

What a beautiful day today is going to be.

It’s so bright out and so is the smile on your face. As you look behind you, Chaeyeon is still fast asleep, her bare back exposed to the light protruding through the door. Though you’d want to wake her up, she looks so comfortable sleeping that you’d rather not. So you close the blinds to block out the sunlight completely.

“Mm, put it back.” you hear a gentle voice. There’s no one else in this room but you two. Was she watching you the whole time? Your gaze immediately locks in on Chaeyeon, still in that sleeping position.

“Chae?”

She raises her head from the sheets, a partially opened eye meeting yours. “Put it back.”

Without delay you comply with what she commands. You put the blinds aside to allow the light to enter once more.

“Better?” you ask, turning back to face her.

She flashes a cute grin and nods gently, her head still glued to the mattress. “Better.”

You start to wonder if Chaeyeon was up this whole time, perhaps even awake before you were. She’s such a ball of unbound energy. The only thing stopping her from going on and on is only herself. And it’s that same liveliness from her that makes the sex so much better.

Her lower body rears itself up like a snake, showing off her bare ass. She wants to draw you to her like you did inside her last night. It’s far too early for this, yet you’re already back in bed, without a care for noise with how you jump back in to rejoin her in the blankets. You’re already hovering above her, pinning her hands down to the sheets while you peck down her back.

“Have you been up this whole time?” you whisper in her ear before following up with kisses on her temple and left cheek.

She shakes her head in denial. “Nuh uh.”

“You’re lying.” Brush some of her aside to see more of her beautiful face for yourself. Chaeyeon continues to deny your accusations with a slight chuckle.

“I just enjoyed the morning light, that’s all.”

“Really?” you raise an eyebrow and give her the side-eye. Contrasting that is a taunting smirk. You flip her light, almost feathery frame around to get a better view of her breasts and slim belly. “I think you’ve been waiting for me to get up, liar.”

“No, definitely not!” She looks into your eyes lovingly with a toothy grin, laughing heartily in between. God, she’s so lovely. There might be countless stars beyond what you know, but her eyes are the brightest in your sight.

You cup her face with your right hand while your left traces down her body. She bites her lips in anticipation, already aware of how this is going to end.

“Aahh!” Chaeyeon slams her eyes shut. Her jaw drops wide; a whine is released against your neck filled with immediate pleasure. You’ve slipped a finger between her slit, still sore from all the intense fucking mere hours ago. Still gooey with your cum and her slick, you rub her sensitive spot as she begins to lose herself under the pressure of heat building up within her.

“Babygirl is so needy and it’s still very early. How about we save this for later?” you ask her, the soft undertone in your inflection doing her no favors. She squirms beneath you, your digit still poking her nub right where it feels best.

“No, no, no, please, I can’t do this right now.” words leave her lips rushed and airy as she struggles to restrain her moans in between. “I need it so bad.”

“Come on Chae. It’s bright outside. Perfect day for a swim or a walk on the beach, don’t you think?” you reply while inserting a second finger inside her moist pussy. Chaeyeon can’t keep herself controlled much longer as you repeatedly stimulate her to a swift climax.

“No, no, no, I want to stay here—aaaahhh!” Her orgasm arrives much quicker than anticipated. A wave of her wet juices coat your two digits slipped in her as she quivers violently under you. You don’t even need to pin her down to secure her; her nails claw deep into the sheets that they nearly tear through the soft fabric.

Withdrawing your fingers from her, you laugh while Chaeyeon catches her breath. Taking your wet digits into your mouth you taste her. Delicious, perfect meal for breakfast. She’s all flustered, overwhelmed with a quick burst of euphoria, cheeks red and beads of sweat pouring down her face.

“Now let’s go. I want to catch some sun out there, babe,” you say before pushing your face slowly toward hers then kissing her on the lips.

She places a hand on the nape of your neck to pull you deeper into the liplock. Your mouths explore each other as she tries to have a sample of her slick too. As you passionately make out under the sheets, Chaeyeon catches you by surprise, overpowering you and turning you over that you’re lying down on the mattress instead. She places a hand on your bare chest, flashing you a proud smirk after pulling off her plan successfully.

You should have known she wouldn’t give in so easily. She’s that energetic.

“We’re staying here until I’m fully satisfied. Got that?” she says with newfound confidence. Oh well. It’s not like you wanted to leave the comfort of her warmth anyway.

Chaeyeon straddles herself on your lap, guiding your hands until they’re firmly placed on her slim waist. Eyes locked with yours, they sparkle with an underlying need—need to quench her lust. You never get tired of admiring her light, feather-like figure. The more you touch her, the more coveted she becomes to you. You don’t want to let go and neither does she.

She lifts her body, moving her eyes down to where your hard cock lies. Preparing to take you in, she closes her eyes while lowering herself onto you. A harmonious moan fills the room as you impale her with your entire length.

“Fuck, that feels so good.”

“Oh, fuck, you’re still so tight—”

A finger right in your face shuts you up. “Just take it all in with me.” Chaeyeon’s body surges with pleasure: eyes fully shut, nails digging into your skin, and mouth wide open, relishing the presence of your cock inside her. She throws her head back, a musical hum departing her lips.

The way she takes hold of your chest, how her hips rock up and down to receive every inch of your shaft in her has you in a suffocating chokehold. Her hands slowly trace up to your neck while you watch her mesmerizing lightweight body bounce freely. Even her breasts jiggle with each vibrant shake. Each slam on your cock sends her body spiraling quicker and quicker towards oblivion. She’s so desperate to get one off whenever the opportunity arises.

Your hands sneak their way around her arched back, reaching and grabbing a fistful of her ass. Chaeyeon cries harder in response, spewing wilder, uncontrollable moans far too loud to be heard by anyone else this early in the day. Pressing a hold on your throat she leans forward, wiggling her butt against your protruding dick to stimulate you. You gasp and choke; it’s always an intimate, private show whenever you’re alone with Chaeyeon and she wants to milk you of every drop until you’re completely dry.

“Yes! More! Fuck, give me more of that!” she says with desperate need, as if everything you had to offer wasn’t enough—which to her, it wasn’t.

Giving her cheeks firm, potent smacks with your palm you hiss tense, warm air against the groove of her neck. Her erotic, sensual moaning arouses and provokes lust from you. No longer are you an idle viewer but an active participant, meeting her halfway with deep, upward thrusts while she continues to ride you zealously. Loud slaps of skin and flesh on each other drown out the sound of the roomkeepers’ vacuum cleaner roaming the hallway. Neither of you care if they repeatedly knock on that door or ignore the Do Not Disturb sign placed on the knob there. The only thing that matters right now is satisfying the other’s libido.

Her walls choke and close in on your cock; she continues to grind on you fervently without losing momentum. But even batteries run out of energy and even more so ones that are barely charged. She grits her teeth, focusing whatever vigor she has left to push herself to reach that second climax already. You coil an arm around her neck, drawing her face close to yours. Hearing her usually soft voice fire coarse language turns you on even further—pushes you to bring her to that high she craves so dangerously.

“Fuck, I’m gonna—agh! A little more! Going to—”

And before she knows it or loosen her tongue tied lips, Chaeyeon orgasms for the second time. Right as you deliver a final thrust inside her, you push her down to meet you skin-to-skin. Dry, thirsty, silky lips crash with yours for a fervid, suffocating, but passionate kiss. In your arms she’s a complete mess, body unceasingly shaky and quivery from the violent climax. Her groan stifles under the heat of your tongue, taking in just how much you really love her.

While you make out with her through her peak you come undone, following her into the bliss on the other side. Impaling yourself as deep as you can within her walls you spurt thick, hot semen without thought. With each burst of cum you draw her closer and closer near you, craving the need of her warmth—not the heat between her legs, but her intimate presence beside you when you’ve fallen back to earth.

Hitched, deep breaths fill the air lost to the moans mere minutes ago. Chaeyeon tucks her head on the groove of your neck, having come down from her high and completely zapped of all of her liveliness. Brushing off her tangled hair, you give her one a peck on her forehead before settling down fully in bed, unwilling to move.

“So, what would you like to order from the restaurant? Breakfast?” you ask her quietly, only to be met by audible snores vibrating against your chest.

You silently chuckle then close your eyes.

The day hasn’t really started for either of you.

“How do I look?” Chaeyeon asks you, pointing her phone against the mirror of the hotel’s hallway. Somehow you managed to convince her to get her out of bed and join you outside to have some lunch. Short black crop top complemented with matching colored jacket and scarf and skinny jeans; of course she’d rock it so easily.

“Perfect,” you reply, ignoring her while she takes pictures behind you. You’re both waiting for the elevator to arrive.

“Really? Cause I don’t think it’s quite perfect to be honest.” Putting down her phone she realizes you’re not even looking in her direction and crosses her arms and pouts. She thinks you’re very insistent and annoying about going out on a hot day.

“How come?” you ask, still not willing to turn around. You’re met with silence. Maybe she’s moved on that quickly.

After a few minutes she asks you again. “Is it perfect now? Look at me.”

You comply but not without letting out a subtle groan; she’s been troublesome for you so far and it’s barely past noon—oh no. Chaeyeon’s underwear peeks through her partially opened jeans, sliding a few inches down to the floor where she stands on.

“Chae what the hell!” you immediately rush to her while she has this mischievous grin on your face, realizing her plan worked.

“Well, what do you think now?” she asks again, openly flashing her playful smirk to your displeasure.

Thinking for a moment, you suddenly pin her frame against the mirror. Quickly ducking to your knees you slip the rest of her bottoms down completely. Her slit, still sore from the fucking you gave her earlier, greets you at your level partially leaking. Your hunger suddenly gets the best of you and with a feral need, you dive in, taking her cavern with your thirsty tongue.

“Ahh! Just like that!” she whines, not even muffling her noise from possible people nearby.

You ardently slide your tongue between her legs, licking up her swollen cunt and nibbling her sensitive spots right where it hits the hardest. Immediately stricken by pleasure, Chaeyeon flails her arms around, eventually clinging both hands to your hair, gripping the back of your skull. Pushing you further to heighten the sensation, you continue to swirl deeper into her, lapping up her juices and slick freely in your mouth.

The excess of euphoria rapidly becomes too much to bear for Chaeyeon. It’s far too soon for her to be overstimulated. With the force you’re eating her you accidentally push her back against the mirror, creating cracks all over it. Her moans, essentially screams at this point, echo all over the place for anyone several floors above or below can hear. Gripping her thighs you relish the softness of her flesh, the taste of her wetness in your tongue, and the reaction her body does whenever you’re invading her.

She floods you, coats you, and showers her slick all over your face. You happily eat up every single drop with very little waste as she orgasms a third time in four hours. Residue of her cum drip down and blend with the sharp, crooked crevices of glass ruined by her ass and arched back.

“Ah, fuck, I needed that,” she says between deep breaths. Look down and there’s splashes of her juices stained on her panties and jeans. Realizing her intent, you smack your face with disappointment and frustration.

“Oh you’ve gotta be—” Chaeyeon chuckles and gloats at your late apprehension. She knows that she has won over you.

“Guess we can’t go out looking very dirty,” she says with a sing-song tone while putting her pants back on but not completely. “Back to the room we go, we’ve got no choice.”

Tilting your head to face her, you meet her cocky grin with a mirroring smirk. Then you sweep her off her feet and carry her in your arms, kissing her repeatedly on the cheek.

“I’m going to make sure you’re all cleaned up without any mess left.”

With her reassuring smile and laugh, you take Chaeyeon back to your hotel room to ruin her even more for the rest of the day.

(A/N: Some seriously gorgeous pics. The world needs more Chaeyeon. Solo debut when? Anyway, thank you for reading!)

[lady-phasma]

Zaldrītsos

(Little Dragon)

Part 2 of ?

On AO3 as "Fantastic Disaster"

Warning: 18+, NSFW

Summary: Smut, how ep 4 should have gone, and lots of High Valyrian (I can't help myself it's as hot as their hair!)

Rhaenyra didn’t look back as she walked across the dusty arena. She wanted a bath, some wine, silence, and room to think. The walk back to her chambers seemed to take an eternity. Once she was behind her closed doors she felt like she could actually breathe. Before she rang for servants and a bath she needed to collect her thoughts. 

She sat in front of the mirror and began to brush her hair. Fantasies and memories and a tumult of emotions mixed together as she raked the brush through her silver hair. Her eyes caught on her necklace in the mirror. She sighed and slammed the brush down on the dressing table. She wasn’t angry, not really, she was exasperated. Frustrated for the both of them.

The servants arrived only moments after she summoned them. One began to undress her as the other two heated water and filled the tub. Slipping one leg in, then the other, and sinking down into the tub was the most delicious thing she had felt in ages. Well, maybe not the most. She rested her head against the back of the tub and could feel his lips on hers as if he were there. Two of the servants had left, the remaining woman began to gently comb Rhaenyra’s hair. It was tangled from the wind and dust. When she was finished Rhaenyra dismissed her and sunk her entire body below the water. For a moment her hair fanned out on the surface, glinting in the evening light. When she emerged her hair clung to her shoulders and breasts. Her nipples hardened in the air, much cooler than the bath. Possibly they hardened because she thought of her uncle. 

She felt a warm tension between her legs. The same one she felt when she saw his lips part or felt his hand brush the side of her breast. The feeling was exhilarating and maddening. She didn’t want to touch herself, she wanted Daemon to. But the thought of his rough hands on her softest places guided her hand beneath the water. She bit her lower lip as she remembered that night and how he had pressed against her, how she had felt his need. The world melted away and his name was on her lips. 

* * *

Daemon carefully rested Dark Sister by the chair. He removed the leather jerkin and red tunic, tossed them onto the chair, and leaned against the mantle. He let his head hang between his shoulders, arms taught, hands gripping the stone. The fire had gone out long ago and he hadn’t let any servants in to light candles. The fading daylight seeped in around the heavy curtains of his chambers. The hair not tied up fell over his naked shoulders and shielded his face. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe. He felt a chill run down his back. 

He straightened suddenly and flung a hand out to hit anything he could. He knocked the fire irons over, the harsh clang reverberating off the stone. That was somewhat satisfying at least. The sound, the release, but not what he needed. He stalked to the foot of the bed and snatched a plain tunic from the chest. He slipped it over his head but didn’t tuck it in or tie it. He grabbed his cloak from its hook and threw it across the bed. His hands balled into fists. Everywhere he looked he thought of her. The image of her on his bed, firelight illuminating her pale skin where her gown didn’t cover her. Delicious shadows where it did. And her necklace resting just above her breasts, rising and falling with her breath. 

He wanted to break things, fight someone, drink. Anything. And nothing. Nothing could fill that space meant only for her. He poured a cup of wine anyway. He would go to her after the sun set. He tucked in his shirt and loosely tied up the laces at his throat. He honestly couldn’t imagine what she had in mind. Where did she plan to go? He trusted in her enough to know they would not return to the brothel. He didn’t want that. Not ever again with her. But to tell him to wear his cloak meant to dress as a commoner and go into King’s Landing, silver hair covered from prying eyes. 

Her silver Targaryen hair laying down her neck and back made him take another large drink of wine. He was an impatient man but had waited years for her. He would continue to wait as long as she needed if she told him there was reason to. Daemon could end his marriage somehow and swear off whoring, somehow, and wait for her. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to but as long as there was hope that she wanted him even half as much as he wanted her he would. 

* * *

Even though her hair was still damp she worked it into a loose braid and wrapped it around her head so it would hide easily under the cap he had given her last time. She pulled the rough, plain clothing over her bare skin. The fabric sent that lightning feeling from her nipples to her core as it grazed over them. Not at all like the soft under garments she was used to. That feeling settled low in Rhaenyra’s belly and tightened her chest. It was surprising, as it had been last time, that she could feel naked while clothed. She tucked in the tunic and bloused it out trying to hide the swell of her breasts. They weren’t large but they ruined the illusion. She could have bound them but there was something illicit in having them bare against this fabric. Thin as it was, coarse as it was.

She slipped on the short boots and laced them. Then she stood in front of the mirror appraising herself in the candle light. As she pulled the cap down and tucked the last bit of her hair underneath there was a soft but sure knock on her door. Just the one. She breathed deeply, exhaled, and walked to the door.

She had dismissed her guards earlier with a flimsy excuse but there was no other option. They couldn’t be there when her uncle arrived, if he decided to, even loyal guards aren’t loyal enough in this keep. She pulled the heavy door open and saw only a hooded figure, shadows made darker by the torch light. He tilted his head up and the light caught in his violet eyes. The only indication that he might be high born. 

Rhaenyra stepped back without speaking. He walked into her chambers and dropped his hood. His hair gleamed in contrast to the dark fabric of his cloak. Precisely why he had to always keep it covered. It was pulled back from his temples but the rest lay on his shoulders. She swallowed to dislodge the lump in her throat. She wanted her hands tangled in that silken silver. As he turned to face her it moved like water across his back. The lump in her throat wouldn’t budge and her mouth was a desert. 

“Iksan kesīr hae ao udrāzma,” he bowed facetiously. I’m here as you commanded.

She tried not to smile at his ridiculous gesture. She failed and looked away but not before his eyes caught hers. 

“Sȳrī…” she raised her chin and stood taller. “Sir nyke udrāzma bona mazemā nyke naejot aōha lenton.  Se mēre emā isse King’s Landing.” Well… Now I command you to take me to your room. The one you have in King’s Landing. 

* * *

Daemon didn’t let the surprise linger on his face but it flashed briefly. He didn’t know how she knew he kept a room in the city. Maybe it was a bluff and she was only guessing. Maybe she had inquired but he couldn’t imagine how without being conspicuous. These thoughts flew through his mind. He composed himself. He would call her bluff if that’s what this was. 

“Kessa, zaldrītsos,” he replied. Yes, little dragon. He did not smirk. He only turned toward their secret door and hoped that she would follow. His hands were nearly shaking as he flicked his hood back over his head. 

They made their way down the stairs, through the damp passageways, and out to the streets. He led the way but only felt the need to grab her hand once they were in the city proper. She was safe under the keep but not out here. Not really. He would never leave her unprotected again. At first he thought she would reject his hand, pull away from him, but she didn’t. Her delicate fingers tucked into his hand. They walked quickly but not fast enough to draw attention. The alleys he chose were mostly deserted this early in the evening. 

When he paused abruptly at an intersection to get his bearings Rhaenyra stumbled into his back. He felt the press of her breasts through their clothing and involuntarily squeezed her hand. She didn’t seem to react, perhaps she hadn’t noticed. He made a sharp right turn then an immediate left. Then he slowed his pace and walked casually past a few doors and a stairwell appeared on their left. He stepped aside and guided her in front of him, his hands gently on her waist. 

He dropped his hands as she began to climb the stairs. He relished the way her breeches tightened over her rear as she stepped. When they reached the landing he leaned down and whispered in her ear “Right, princess.” She huffed. The epithet was dangerous here and he knew it. Still, it delighted him to tease her. The corridor was dark but she found the door and paused. He reached around her and slid a heavy key into the lock. He pushed the door open quietly with his fingertips. She stepped in. 

* * *

Before her eyes could adjust to the dim light coming through the lone small window she was enveloped by the smell of him. His chambers in the keep didn’t smell like this. He had servants to clean and change linens and empty ashes from the fireplace. As Daemon lit a candle she began to see that the room only contained a table and two chairs, a very plain wood bed, and some cups and dishes piled next to the fireplace. Fireplace was a bit of an exaggeration. It was not much more than a hearth. He had flung his cloak over a chair and was kneeling down next to the hearth, stacking a few logs and lighting kindling. It wasn’t a particularly cold night but the walls were bare and, without the velvet and tapestries she was accustomed to, a chill radiated off the stone. 

She looked a the disheveled bed. It was the only real piece of furniture in the room. Nerves and jealously fought in her stomach. She felt a tiny bit of nausea at the thought of his whores in that bed and the reason for the smell and a twinge of panic when she realized that she would do something similar with him if she kept her resolve. In those sheets. She turned to face him and he stood. Neither moved for a heartbeat. The weight of reality had settled between them. This was the moment that she could flee in panic as he had done or she could feign bravery and dive headlong into this fantastic disaster. 

Rhaenyra stepped toward him. She was operating on pure instinct. Trying to trust both him and herself felt impossible. Doubt and insecurity lurked in the corner of her mind. His apparent calm helped her close the distance between them. The fire had begun to catch and it warmed her as she approached. The light reflected in his eyes as it must have in hers but she wondered if her eyes were as dark with need as his were. He licked his lips. If she had been waiting for something this was it. She stopped just before their bodies pressed together. She looked up at him with curiosity and awe on her face and trailed her fingers over his bottom lip. He parted his mouth slightly and his eyelids fluttered. She studied his jaw, his neck, anywhere she passed her fingertips she focused as if trying to memorize him. She grazed her fingers over his ear and into his hair. She hadn’t known she was going to make a sound until she did. It was a surprisingly deep, throaty sound coming from such a small person. She looked almost surprised.

* * *

As soon as that sound escaped her lips he swooped down and caught her up in his arms. He kissed her roughly at first. Then slowly and deeply, still holding her up wrapped in his arms. She hadn’t been able to reach his neck from her height but now he felt her fingers grip it, pulling his hair lightly. He growled into her mouth. Of all things she giggled. If he were a poetic man he might have described the flood of emotions as glass shattering at that lovely sound. His heart did shatter and he felt delicious heat spread through his body. He covered her face and neck with kisses, kissing her smiling mouth, breathing in her fading giggles. 

He carried her to the bed. She let out a delighted yelp of surprise as he dropped her, gently of course, onto the bed. He pulled the cap off her hair and pulled the pins out so that her braid slid heavily down her back. He traced his fingertips around her face and she pressed her cheek into his palm. Her eyes closed.

“My love,” he murmured. She looked up at him. Heavy-lidded with wide pupils and gently parted lips, she was perfection. He was suddenly aware of how their height misaligned and felt crude that her face was positioned where it was. He knelt in front of her to conceal that he had begun to strain against his breeches. He wanted to be in control in all situations and would do this in the order he thought best for them both. That was not what he wanted her to see next. He wanted to draw out this innocence, this rapt attention, unadulterated by fear, for as long as he could.

Daemon slid his hand down her neck and over her shoulder. He pulled her braid forward and began to untie it. He gently parted the strands and let them fall back over her shoulders. She shook her head a little and the cascading silver made him fully hard. His beautiful niece, Targaryen in every way. Dragon rider, adept enough to not need a saddle, violet eyed, silver haired, stubborn and strong. 

He let the back of his hand graze across one of her nipples, as if accidentally. She inhaled sharply. He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her closer to him so that her legs were on either side of his chest. He could feel her heat on his stomach and a sense of urgency to be rid of their clothes compelled him. He moved slowly, he wanted to guide her, make her feel comfortable, but he was struggling to keep his composure. He tugged at his own tunic hoping that she would pick up on the hint. She did. She pulled the hem of the shirt out of his pants and slid her fingers underneath. He shivered as her fingertips grazed his ribs, his chest, then his arms. He helped her pull it over his head and tossed it on the floor. She no longer looked at his face but examined his torso instead. With her eyes and her fingers. 

* * *

His scars caught the firelight, some shone almost silver, others, newer, were deep purple against his pale skin. She touched one and watched his muscles twitch, a reflex not embarrassment. She knew him well enough to know that each one probably brought him pride. She was entranced. Following instinct she leaned forward and kissed one on his chest and absently ran her fingers over his nipple. She was surprised at the sound he made. She kissed another one higher up, near is collarbone, and wrapped her small hand around his ribs. She wanted to press herself against him but wanted to kiss him all over and she couldn’t do both. 

Rhaenyra kissed up his shoulder and neck and drug her hand up his side, his armpit, his shoulder, and back into his hair. She closed her eyes and ran the nails of her other hand down his chest and across his nipple again. This time she captured that lovely sound with her mouth. She curled one hand in his hair, rested the other on his stomach, and shifted her hips forward on the edge of the bed. She had an overwhelming need for him to touch her there. Any friction at all would be nice and it didn’t have to be his hands but she couldn’t quite angle her hips to press against him. 

She felt greedy and as if she wanted everything at once. She pulled away from their kiss and cupped his face in her hands. He opened heavy eyes to look into hers. She kissed him softly on the lips then moved her hands from his face. She wanted to make sure he was paying attention. She begin to pull her tunic up, slowly, baring first her stomach, then her ribs, then the roundness of her breasts. Before she even had the shirt fully off, Daemon had slid his hands around her, covering her back almost entirely, and was placing chaste, delicate kisses over her chest and between her breasts. In fact, everywhere except her breasts. His fingers curled against her back and she arched into his mouth. That seemed to encourage him so he kissed his way to one nipple. He didn’t quite suck it as much as press his lips around it. She moaned and slid both hands into his hair. He flicked his tongue against it and her whole body jerked. He moved his mouth to her other breast and this time barely caught her nipple between his teeth. Her hands tugged at his hair and the arch of her back pressed her heat against his stomach. She tried desperately to recover that friction. 

* * *

Before she could grind against him again he pulled back from her. She looked disappointed. But Daemon didn’t give her time to consider it further. He gently took her hands from his hair and laid them on the bed beside her. He ran his own hands along her ribs down to her hips. His fingers delved under the fabric of her pants. He wondered if she was as bare beneath them as she had been beneath her tunic. He locked his eyes on hers.

“Kostagon nyke?” he asked softly. May I?

She gave him a breathless nod and started to raise her hips. He slid her breeches down and off. He didn’t stop her from wrapping her legs around him this time. He closed his eyes and exhaled. Her soft skin even better than his imaginings. He caressed her calves and thighs. His rough hands moving slowly over her. He leaned his head into the hollow of her neck and breathed deeply. She smelled better than he had imagined as well. The fingers of one hand lingered in the crease of her hip, his other rested against her lower back and the curve of her ass. He could feel the tremble in her legs and her breath in his hair as his fingers moved. 

He took his time moving over her soft hair and into her wetness. She was as silver there as he expected and the contrast was stark against the pink of her lips. He slid two fingers down, either side of her clit, and almost bit her neck in his passion. She was so wet, so soft. Her body stiffened and then relaxed as he moved his fingers through that glorious heat. He let one fingertip dip into her entrance and continue back up to work circles around her clit. At this she dug her fingers into his shoulders and gasped. He moved his mouth up her neck to her ear. 

“Sīr lōz syt nyke zaldrītsos,” his lips moved against her ear as he spoke, his fingers never stoping. So wet for me little dragon. 

She whimpered and her fingernails pressed half-moons into his skin. He kissed her jaw and her chin and as he kissed her mouth he slid one finger into her. A growl rumbled up from his chest. He slid the full length of his finger in, pulled out, and slid back in with a second.

* * *

She had never felt so full before. Her own fingers were slender and short compared to his. Then his thumb began to make circles over that bundle of nerves and she clenched tightly around his fingers. She had never fantasized it could feel this good. She rolled her hips against his hand, begging him with her body to move more, faster. She felt his lips curl in a smile. Pride? Was he pleased with her? She couldn’t hold the thought for more than a moment because she was suddenly empty. 

He brought his fingers up to his lips. Rhaenyra watched, bleary-eyed, as he first inhaled her scent and then licked his fingertips. It was terribly lewd but it made the tension in her belly coil and twist even more. She darted forward and licked his fingers and kissed him ravenously before he could move them completely out of the way. She didn’t quite understand why that ignited this feeling in her but it made her want more from him. When she had fantasized some of the thoughts had been nebulous and vague, only knowing that it would feel good but not knowing exactly what would happen. Now she knew part of it and wanted more. All of it. 

Her hands fumbled and groped over his body. She knew what she wanted but not how to take it, ask for it, or even hint at it. She blindly found his breeches while still kissing him and pressed her palm against the front laces. She inhaled sharply and momentarily pulled away from his lips. Then she rubbed her hand over his length feeling the hardness through the fabric and kissed him again. She caught his bottom lip in her teeth playfully then slid her tongue into his mouth. He groaned into her. Both of his hands were on her ass now, squeezing and releasing, kneading. 

“Uncle,” she said as she kissed him, her lips moving against his as she spoke. “Daemon, I want you. Please.” To emphasize her point she squeezed him gently. 

In a single movement he stood up, lifting her with him, hands still cupping her ass, and laid her on the bed. A giggle escaped her lips before she could stop it, worried that it might seem juvenile. Instead it made him smile as he eagerly covered her body with kisses. Some tickled her as his hair grazed her body but the next would draw a moan from her. He kissed down her belly, the creases of her hips, behind her knees, down and back up her calves. He stopped reverently at the hair between her legs and breathed and kissed her there as well. Then he continued kissing back up her arms and breasts and neck. She was blushing and grinning when he kissed her mouth. 

* * *

Daemon stepped off the bed and began untying the laces to his breeches. He toed his boots off as he did so then slid his pants down and stepped out of them. He felt her gaze on him. He was not a self-conscious man, far from it, but her gaze was different. He felt as if his soul were bared to her. He ungracefully knelt on the bed between her legs. She was a bit wide-eyed but her mouth was open and he could see her tongue flit across her lips. 

He propped himself up on one hand next to her head. Her hair fanned out around her and covered his hand. His hair swung down around their faces. She brushed some of it behind his ear and kissed his bicep. He felt huge around her. She nearly disappeared under him. He kissed her gently and then grabbed her wrist. She didn’t resist. He moved her hand down between them. He released her wrist to allow her to decide what she wanted to do next. 

He clenched his jaw when her hand wrapped around him. She stroked her fingertips along his length and inquisitively ran her thumb over the wetness at the tip. If he watched her face too closely he knew he would finish right then. And when he did glance down at her curious, adoring face he twitched in her hand. He pressed his forehead against hers. She had run her palm down his full length then up his stomach, teasingly dragging her nails over that sensitive skin next to his hip. He tried to focus and ran a hand along the inside of one of her thighs, guiding her to open her legs a bit wider so he could settle between them. She rested her hand on his lower back, placing the other on his arm by her head. He was almost startled when she spoke. 

“You know,” she began. “I didn’t know for sure that you would be silver everywhere like I am, Daemon.” Gods, his name on her lips! “I’ve seen many shades.” He tried not to visibly cringe at the reminder of where he had taken her. “But I have never seen anyone like us, in this way before. You’re beautiful.” As if to emphasize her point she brazenly slid her hand down as far as she could reach to the top of his ass. He grinned. He couldn’t wait any longer.

“Iksā gevie,” he said, cupping her face in his hand. You are beautiful.

He moved his hand between them and slid himself through her wetness, surprising her. After a couple of strokes he positioned himself at her entrance. He looked into her eyes and she nodded. He slid in so slowly he felt tortured but she inhaled sharply and her fingers dug into his skin. Soon enough he was as deep as he could be for the moment. He waited for her to relax even a little before moving. This was the most pleasure he had felt in years. His body wanted to move, to feel her pleasure around him, to seek a release but all that was secondary. He heard her exhale slowly. So he pulled back and went deeper still. 

* * *

Rhaenyra had not known what to expect after the way his fingers felt. This… this was exquisite. She breathed deeply to try to relax. She wanted this to feel good for both of them. She spread a little wider, until is was almost aching, but made room for his hips. She felt Daemon move and start to push back in, deeper, and their stomachs pressed together. She moaned and her hips moved of their own accord as she settled into the feeling. He fit perfectly. She felt pain like a dull heat but the emotion, the resolution, and the enjoyment of the moment drove it to the back of her awareness. There was physical pleasure to be sure but there were also the nearly unending details that she noticed that shortened her breath or caused her to tighten around him. His lips, the curve of his ass, the way his arm flexed as he pushed into her, the smell of him, of them… so many tiny things that were reminders that this was real, finally happening. Her Daemon was making her feel this way and she returning it to him.

She got more comfortable by resting her legs on his hips, running her hands through his hair and over his shoulders. Soon his rhythm became steady and she matched his pace with her hips. When she wasn’t panting or moaning his name she was kissing any part of him her mouth could reach. The sounds he made were so lovely. She had never heard anything so lovely in her life. He would push all the way into her and nearly hum with pleasure. 

He sped up. She felt his hand slide under her and grip her shoulder, for leverage. He was pressed in so close that her nipples grazed his chest as he moved. She knew what it felt like to reach her peak alone but she had some idea it would feel quite different with him. Just as this thought materialized she heard him force out the words as if through gritted teeth: “touch yourself.”

She thought she understood and slid her hand between them. Her wetness was sticky and hot between them. Her fingers found her clit and the first pass was more like lightning than any feeling she had ever had. It was so intense that Daemon paused because she had borne down on him hard enough to make him think something was wrong. He searched her face. When he saw her eyes close and her mouth fall open he understood.

“Good girl,” he praised near her ear. “My good girl.”

Her hand sped up as he did. Her back arched and her muscles started to tense. 

“Yes, Rhaenyra, that’s it. I want you to know how good this can feel.” He kissed her throat and pushed through her spasms. “How good we can both make you feel.”

The wave of heat began where he was inside her, joined the kindling at her fingertips, and pulsed out over her entire body. It made her arms and legs weak. Her hand floundered but Daemon’s fingers were there to take over for her so she could ride out this fire, so different than anything she had ever felt before.

* * *

He had encouraged her when he knew he was close. And if physical sensation weren’t enough to finish him, watching her orgasm definitely would. Her hand fluttered between them and he slipped his own hand down to replace hers. He kept her pace up and watched in awe as she came. He used all of his will to last through it and when her breath began to slow and the spasms subsided he moved his hand back to her shoulder. He clung to her, for life. In an instant he felt like a man drowning, as soon as he gave himself permission. 

Daemon quickened his pace and pulled her to him. He was vaguely aware of her legs wrapping more tightly around him and small but urgent heels pressing into his ass. He lost all sense of time and his entire world was nothing but her. Her. Always her. He fumbled for her flesh, tearing his hand from her should, raking it up her thigh, across her flat belly and up to her breast. Blindly in this world of her he felt it swallow him. He opened his eyes and concentrated on her face as the heat and emotion wracked his body and he thrust deeply one last time. He felt like he spilled his very soul into her. He uttered unintelligible curses mingled with her name and felt intense relief.

He sucked in a huge breath. Exhaled and looked down at her. She was smiling. An angelic smile to be sure. She petted the side of his face and he closed his eyes. This is how it was supposed to be and never could be with anyone else. 

He tried to pull away from her gently but also collapsed on the bed beside her. He was quite literally spent. In all ways, physically and emotionally. She whined a little and he felt her shift her hips and wiggle. He didn’t open his eyes. He wrapped his arms around her and scooped her to him. He pressed the length of her body into his and snuggled her back against his chest. 

“Zaldrītsos,” he murmured into her hair.

“Yes love?” she replied. 

“My darling little dragon, my perfect niece, blood of my blood,” he cooed against her. “I shall keep you here so no one can find you and you will be mine. I will never let anyone take you from me.”

“But my dear uncle,” she turned her head to glance at him, violet eyes flashing, then kissed the arm wrapped around her shoulder. Daemon smiled on the edge of sleep as he felt her nestle closer to him. “Dragons dislike captivity.”

Chapter 3

[comfy-whumpee]

Febuwhump 2: Failed Rescue Attempt

CN: dehumanisation, BBU, ‘it’ pronouns. Taglist: @neuro-whump​​, @rosesareviolentlyread​​, @whumper-in-training​​, @mylifeisonthebookshelf​, @pumpkin-spice-whump​

The training room was cold and grey, metal walls and floor without feature, door cracked to let a little daylight in. Its two occupants stood next to each other, facing each other, frozen in place.

Boo looked at Mistress Tara. She was exactly how they remembered. Her smile was thin and the scar that extended it to one side made a pinkish stripe up her cheek. She wore her usual blank tank top and loose combat trousers, muscular arms and shoulders on display. Boo was wearing their T-shirt and shorts from the house, the shelter. They hugged their midriff protectively.

“You failed your mission,” Mistress Tara said, and she sounded happy. “Come down here.”

When did Boo get higher up the building? They descended with a few steps. Mistress Tara folded her arms and says, “Both of you.”

Boo looked to the side to see a younger, sadder version of themself, a hunched and thin figure with shorn hair and a haunted, hollow stare.

It, they thought, remembering instantly.

This was who they were.

“Arms up,” came the order, and they tried to raise their arms, but their muscles felt weak and feeble. “Good,” Mistress Tara said anyway. “Brace.”

They braced, legs apart, arms defensive.

“You’re not a person. You’re a weapon.”

“I’m not a person,” It said. “I’m a weapon.”

“Avis says we’re people,” Boo said.

Mistress Tara barked her sharp, derisive laugh. “Weapons don’t talk back,” she said, and swung the first punch of the beating that would leave them bleeding and sore on the metal ground, unable to speak at all from pain.

The dream snaps a second before the first punch lands, and It jolts upright, grabbing the blanket over them and shoving it away, rolling off the surface they’re on and underneath cover in the next breath. They find something solid and hard and pull it to their chest in a two-handed grip, eyes wide and focused on the dark.

Something is there. Something is coming. Their instincts are screaming of a threat and they have to be ready. Their gaze sweeps the dim again and again as their eyes slowly adjust, recognising the muted yellow glow of the covered lamp they use as a night light.

It’s faint, but it’s enough that they can start to pick out shapes. The bed, that’s opposite them, and they know that underneath it they have filled it with their clothes and possessions to ensure there is no space to hide there. Their desk is what they’re under, the chair tucked in providing an extra angle of coverage. Beyond that is their empty bookshelf. They chose this room because it was the only one without a wardrobe. They have a chest of drawers they don’t use. The door is closed and barricaded with one of the drawers, as it is every night.

Going over these details, each one carefully proofed from intruders, is calming. Boo takes another moment, listening carefully, before crawling out from under the desk. The thing in their hand is a coat hanger, and they leave it behind, instead going to the chest of drawers and reaching underneath. They brought a stick in from the garden and sharpened it over several dinners in their room with table knives to whittle with. It’s the best thing they have for a weapon.

They listen at the door for several seconds. There is never silence in a house this old. The boiler is always creaking, or something shifts in the walls. In winters, there would likely be scuttles of mice in the attic, and in spring, bird claws will against the drains outside where they leave traces of their nests.

Tonight, the pipes are making the quiet, irregular hums that indicate it’s cold outside, and they’re working to keep the house warm enough. Roman, perpetually cold, has his radiator set high, so he’ll be the cause for most of it.

It’s not a Florence night, so there’s no screaming or running footsteps. Just quiet and the pipes.

Boo opens their door just enough to sidestep out, knowing well that it won’t make a sound. They place their feet exactly to avoid creaks, heels against the wall, one hand on the railing of the stairs for balance. The other grips the wood of their stake.

Nothing sounds unusual, looks unusual, smells unusual from the house they know. But something is wrong. They can sense it. Something is wrong. Their heart wouldn’t be beating this fast if it was nothing.

Boo edges down the stairs with their weight on the banister; too many of the steps creak to get down any other way. The hall is empty but for the plants and cabinets. The shoe rack is ordered the way Kamala keeps it. They tiptoe over to the door and test the locks, but they are all as they should be. Their fingers drift over the cold metal of the chain, but that is secure, too. Whoever it is knew to replace it.

Boo wonders who they’re coming for. It is most likely to be Florence. Tenten’s owners aren’t likely to hunt down their so-called family member. Kamala’s mistress is dead. Roman is a possibility, but less likely.

If they’re here for Florence, it’ll be someone trained by Mistress Tara, to replace the hunter she lost.

They haven’t been able to train properly since arriving here, but they know the territory. If the new weapon tries to take back any of this household, Boo doesn’t care if they’re as trapped and terrified as It was. Nobody will take back the birds of the birdhouse. Not after all the people Boo sent home to violence.

There’s a noise. They stop dead as they hear it. Something scratches at the edge of their hearing, something human-made. It’s not regular or steady, and it sounds like hands. Hands on…what?

Boo turns the corner of the hall and finds an infinitesimal light. The blinds of the kitchen are up, allowing in a faint dye of moonlight.

Boo takes another step, thumb scraping the bark of their weapon, and they lean around the corner without breathing.

They can’t identify the intruder in this dark. Tall and slim, pale, Roman or--

“Hello?”

Florence. Boo stares, as the face turns to them.

“Oh, hello Boo. Did I wake you up?”

This is the time It would say, Paris, it’s time to go home.

It hasn’t spoken those words since Agate.

They shook their head.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Florence says, their voice soft and pleasant to listen to, as all of theirs are but Boo. “I wanted food but I couldn’t find the light switch.”

Tucking their weapon away out of sight, Boo reaches around the doorway and flicks it on. Florence blinks their beautiful green eyes as the bulbs flicker on, each one a glow of light nestled in their tulip-like glass shades, a wreath on the ceiling. The Birdhouse is full of old features like that, giving away the farmhouse’s age.

“Thank you,” Florence smiles. They look down at the counter before them, where there are two slices of bread spread unevenly with jam. They glance back over at Boo. “I’ve never made my own food before,” they explain. Their tone doesn’t change, but Boo has interacted with dozens of pets. They can see the traces of embarrassment and fragile hope. “It took me a while to find everything. I wanted tea, too, but…” They shrug a shoulder, their blue robe shifting off it slightly in a way impossible to identify as accidental or deliberate. For a Romantic, it’s as good as a please.

Boo moves properly into the room and takes an eggshell-blue mug from the cupboard, the one that matches Florence’s robe with deliberate perfection. With a spoon from the drawer, they portion out the chai powder and fill the kettle.

Florence watches, expression only mild and curious, but Boo can guess that they’re trying to memorise the steps.

The water boils and is poured on. Boo stirs it, takes out the spoon, and adds milk before sliding it over the bench to be next to Florence’s plate of toast and jam.

After a pause, they take the mug, holding it in both hands like it transports them to a picture-perfect autumn evening on the cover of a lifestyle magazine. They take a sip and smile.

It can’t be as good as Roman and Tenten make it, but still, they smile.

Boo doesn’t smile back, but Florence probably doesn’t mind.

Florence goes to the table with the plate and mug, and sits with one leg crossed over the other thigh, toe pointed. Boo has seen Romantics pose like that before, trained like dancers to always keep their frame perfect. Florence never stops presenting themself. The alternative is a potential rejection.

Boo has heard Avis say that her Birdhouse specialises in complex emotional needs, which is code for pets who still love and revere their owners. She’s not quite right in the description. Boo thinks of the Birdhouse as a place for people who can’t move on. Avis, under that definition, is just as broken as the rest of them. They all know who the photo in the living room is of.

One slice of toast is gone. Florence sips their tea. “You are always thinking,” they observe, sounding a hint pleased with themselves for noticing.

Boo looks back at them. They would nod, but they don’t want to. Nothing to set up the expectation of communication.

“Do you think so much because you can’t talk?” Florence says, but it’s not a question. It’s more like they’re wondering aloud, no expectation for Boo to answer them. “Maybe you got tired of talking. Or it’s too hard to find what to say. I think that sometimes.”

Florence has been in therapy for longer than anyone else.

“Sometimes I don’t know what to say, and then I stop talking and just think about looking nice. Kamala is good though, she notices and asks me.” They smile prettily, tossing their head just enough to make their hair shimmer eye-catchingly. “She’s a good friend.”

Kamala is a good friend, and Florence is too much for a friend. Too close. Too loving. Boo knows what Avis worries about. It’s what they’d worry about too, if they were trying to make everyone better. Florence and Kamala are almost never apart, except in the night, when one is asleep and the other can’t be.

Usually it is Kamala that they hear at night, cleaning and organising, checking the cupboards over and over, and listening at the doors to make sure everyone is breathing. Florence normally sleeps through the night and much of the morning, even when they have a terror. For the first time, it occurs to Boo that there may be a reason that Florence is up tonight.

After a long span of silence, while Florence sips their tea, they put their mug down and observe, “You are thinking about me.”

Boo looks back at them.

“People are always thinking about me because I’m captivating,” Florence says with the unshakable confidence of someone who has been taught no different. “But you look at me differently. More like Miss Kaur.”

Unsure of what that means, Boo simply stands still, looking back at them.

Florence hesitates for a moment, as if they can’t express what they want to. They had to rebuild their vocabulary from scratch after training. Their buyer requested them that way. Eventually, they put together: “You have questions about me.”

It’s not far off. Boo thinks some more, looking at the mug, then at Florence’s slippers.

“You want to know why I am awake tonight,” Florence concludes. Maybe they’ve seen deeply into Boo’s intentions. Maybe they’re just looking for a reason to tell someone, the knowledge painful on its own.

Boo wants to know.

Florence sips their tea, or at least, they give the impression of delicately sipping it even when it’s nearly gone. When the mug lowers, their gaze has shifted from the area around Boo to somewhere at the back of the room against the wall. Their voice is soft. “It’s Sir’s birthday tomorrow.”

Tomorrow is tonight if the clock is anything to go by, but then, Florence still can’t read analogue clocks. They might not even know what midnight is. At least dates were drilled into them, so they could follow some part of their Sir’s schedule - but mostly, Florence has lived a life where things happen to them.

They have eaten their toast, and press one crumb with a finger until it bites into their skin and crumbles. They keep their gaze down. “He’d…be so disappointed in me. It would ruin - his whole day. If he saw me now.”

Boo thinks about the man who treated they could get hurt and they could become ugly as of identical importance. They believe this.

With a small, cute sigh, Florence looks back at them, hollow smile back on their face. “I’ll never be as beautiful as Sir made me.”

Boo can hear the forced certainty in their voice, and the thin note of fear. They understand. Sometimes you do something not because you mean it, but because you feel like the owner is watching. It’s safer. Just in case, somehow, they found you.

“I just…” Florence stops. They stare into the middle distance darkness, brow smooth and mouth expressionless. Neutral. No chance to wrinkle, they often say, although they can’t be more than twenty-five.

Boo breaks the tension in the air by moving, picking up the mug and plate. They turn on the hot tap at the sink and lather up a scouring pad.

“Oh,” Florence says with the same dull surprise. “You can do that too?”

Boo rinses and scrubs their mug in two familiar motions. The plate gets brushed of crumbs before the process repeats. When both are clean, Boo makes sure they are dried, and puts the plate back on top of the rack, and the mug on the mug tree that Roman asked for.

They celebrated his birthday a few weeks ago. None of them had birthdays, but Avis encouraged them to choose days for their own. Roman picked a winter date, which Boo had already guessed was when he was bought. Arrival day is always special, when you can remember it.

Maybe Florence could get a present tomorrow, to help them think about other things. and perhaps even realise that they deserve to be celebrated too. They could get something not to do with beauty, like a soft scarf or a poster for their room.

But Boo can’t be part of that, can’t communicate it. Can’t communicate anything, lest they give something away about who they used to be. That’s probably why Florence told them. They can’t tell anyone else.

Florence’s eyes are back on Boo. “It’s nice to sit in the quiet,” they murmur after a moment.

Boo looks down. They know they are bad company, silent and unfriendly, unsociable and resisting treatment, all those words Avis would use to describe them if they overheard the right conversation.

But Florence just smiles. “It’s nice siting with you.”

Something eases in Boo’s chest, something tight that loosens. They glance up at Florence again, and see no evidence that they’ve even noticed what they’ve said.

After another moment, they rise from their seat. “I’ll try to sleep again now. It was nice to tell someone about Sir. Thank you for listening, Boo.”

Thank you for talking, Boo thinks, but simply watches unmoving as Florence goes back to their room upstairs.

[donttouchmeimwriting]

Argo ch. 3

Friday the 13th - Friendship/Romance - Jason Voorhees/OC M/M ship

2983 words, 3rd person POV

I'm just as surprised as you are that I'm cranking these out so fast. Thanks, NaNoWriMo!

Cross-posting on FFN under PyroTheWereCat

...

...

Saturday dragged so sluggishly for Jason as he waited impatiently to visit Lijah again. He spent the day stalking the outskirts of the camp, trying to watch Lijah as he worked. He was fascinated by Lijah's effect on others; it was clearly shown that it wasn't just Jason who was compelled to change behavior simply by listening to him. The kids loved him, and he was popular with the other counselors as well. Jason caught himself daydreaming a few too many times of being one of them and being able to spend the day with Lijah out in the open like they could.

During one of these moments, Jason stared off across the surface of the lake, the sunlight sparkling across the ripples in the water. He wondered what would have happened over a decade ago if Lijah had been at the camp with him...would the other kids have been enraptured by his presence and listened to him then? Would Jason and Lijah have become friends as quickly as children as they had as adults? Or was it their personal experiences that drew them together now and they were all the better for it?

"Enjoying the view?"

Jason spun to face the speaker, relieved it was only Lijah. Lijah laughed at his reaction and looked out across the lake to see what Jason was seeing.

"It is gorgeous out here, isn't it?" he sighed, his expression dreamy, "I've worked at a few different camps over the years but I think Crystal Lake is my favorite."

Jason's heart still pounded in his chest, despite the surprise having worn off. Why was he so nervous to stand here next to Lijah like this? Did the others feel this way around him too?

"Oh, hey!" Lijah said suddenly, pointing down at the nearest dock where two campers and another counselor stood, "That's Terry and Kira over there with Julie. Kira was bullying Terry since day one of camp, saying she looked ratty and pushing her down - you know, stupid kid insults like that. Terry didn't want to be a tattletale, so she wouldn't say who was picking on her, even though we all knew. The director has a rule that we can't interfere unless the kids come forward so we were stuck for a little while. The other counselors and I came up with a detective game to make Kira realize she was doing something wrong and hurtful and she came forward on her own yesterday to admit it. She's been doing great today at making up with Terry and I think they'll be friends really soon. It's so cool what a little positive reinforcement can do."

Lijah crossed his arms over his chest and gazed proudly out at the two kids, but Jason couldn't stop staring at Lijah. What was it he was feeling right now? Impressed at his ability to handle bullies in a way that the counselors when he was a child never could, certainly, but what else? What was it about Lijah that made Jason want to throw his machete in the lake and never hurt anyone again?

"What's up?" Lijah asked, noticing Jason staring at him, "Did I say something wrong?"

Jason shook his head, but could not tear his eyes away. Lijah had his hair tied back today, pulling it off of his neck and away from his face. There was sweat around his hairline, sticking strands of hair to him in tiny swirls and lines. His freckles were more pronounced in the daylight, and his tanned skin almost glowed, even in the shade of the trees. To Jason, this view was much more appealing than the lake.

"Alrighty then," Lijah said, shrugging it off, "Anyway, I just wanted to say hi since I saw you hanging around up here, but I gotta get back to my group. I'm seeing you tonight, right?"

Jason nodded fervently, excited by every second he got to spend with Lijah. Lijah smiled broadly and waved as he set off back to the camp.

"See you later, Jase!" he called.

Jason gave a small wave back, his stomach full of butterflies. He decided he didn't care why he was feeling this way or what it was about Lijah he liked so much. He felt immeasurably and inexplicably happy for the first time in a long time and he didn't want to overthink it. After all, wasn't that what his mother wanted for him?

-------------------------------------------------

Jason returned to cabin 5 that evening a little earlier than planned. The sun had set, but the sky was still relatively light and the camp was winding down from the day. Jason looked through the bedroom window, but Lijah was not in there yet. He tested the window to see if it was unlocked, and to his luck, it was. He checked his surroundings to ensure no one would see him struggle to squeeze through the narrow opening. It was embarrassing enough that Lijah had to see it last night. The coast was clear, so Jason pushed himself into the bedroom, nearly getting stuck in the process. Once inside, he straightened up and closed the window so bugs would not get in. It struck him as he looked around that he was in Lijah's private room alone.

A little snooping couldn't hurt, right? Jason allowed his eagerness to drive his actions as he explored Lijah's room. He first looked in the dresser drawers to see what other clothes Lijah had besides his work shirts and shorts. From the brief snoop, it seemed that Lijah liked light, muted colors and pants with deep pockets. He also seemed to be a fan of chunky bracelets and wristbands, probably to camouflage and support his delicate wrists.

From there, Jason moved to the books on top of the dresser. Adventure novels, a couple college textbooks in the subjects Lijah had specified as his course of study, some notebooks, including the one Jason had used to communicate with last night, and one romance, all paperbacks that looked well used. Curious about the romance novel, Jason flipped through the pages. Mother never had these kinds of books at home, so he wasn't sure what to expect. His eyes fell upon a passage that described a kiss between the heroine and her strapping, yet emotionally manipulative love interest:

"...her cerulean orbs meeting his stormy grey ones in a passionate stare before their lips collided in a kiss so fiery, so full of desire, it would warm the hardened coals of even Wyatt's darkened heart. Charlie swooned into his massive arms, surrendering herself to his rough touch. Wyatt growled into the kiss, his stubble scratchy against her smooth face, but not unbearable. He gripped the back of her neck possessively, but Charlie knew it was part of his insecurity in that he never wanted to let her go. Funny, she thought before the intensity of the kiss forced her mind to become a blank slate of ecstasy, He won't talk about his abandonment issues, but I can feel them here in his kiss..."

Jason set the book down, frowning. Did Lijah really see himself in this Wyatt character? It didn't seem right, but it probably wasn't important. Jason turned instead to the notebooks, but they were mostly blank aside from sparse doodles, camp schedules, and Jason's shaky handwriting. He put the notebooks back where they were and opened the door to the rest of the cabin.

Across from this door was the door to the bathroom, but Jason didn't need that at the moment, so he ignored it and proceeded left down a short hallway to the living area. The hallway opened up to a tiny kitchen and dinette on the right and an ancient, faded couch with a rickety coffee table and an old antenna TV and VCR atop it. This area was not as bright and full of Lijah's personality as the bedroom was, but Jason figured that was to be expected. His own bedroom at home was a reflection of what few interests and hobbies he had. The bedroom was a sanctuary for the individual, and held a piece of their soul. At least, that's what a bedroom should be. Mother had told Jason all about the filthy, lecherous activities young people would get up to in bedrooms. Only a married couple should share a bed, she had told him. It was a sin otherwise.

Feeling slightly hungry, Jason made for the short refrigerator, needing to squat down to see its contents. A couple sandwiches wrapped in plastic occupied one shelf with a handful of apples on the lower shelf, some cans of soda on the door. Jason reached for one of each, hoping to finish them before Lijah returned to avoid accidentally showing him his face. He brought the food to the couch and sat down, his weight causing the seat to sink lower than it was meant to. He removed his mask and devoured the sandwich and apple as quickly as he could, feeling somewhat like a ravenous raccoon. He cracked open the soda can and chugged it, realizing too late that it was a bad idea to drink a carbonated beverage so fast. Bubbles surged up through his nose and he sputtered, covering his face so he did not spray soda everywhere. He coughed and gagged, but the feeling soon went away. He made a mental note to drink anything bubbly as slow as possible, but preferred the idea of never having soda again. It was too sweet for him anyway.

Finished with the meal, Jason located a small trash can at one end of the kitchen and disposed of the remains. He pulled his mask back on just as he heard the front door to the cabin open. He tensed, preparing for a fight, but it was Lijah, alone, who gave a start upon seeing Jason's towering figure in his living room.

"Oh gosh, you got me again!" he cried out, laughing nervously, "You're here early."

Jason nodded once and watched as Lijah locked up and set down the pack he was carrying near the door.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, a tiredness in his voice that worried Jason. Would he be able to stay up tonight? Did he stay up too late last night? Jason shook his head and pointed to the refrigerator, silently telling Lijah he had found the food. Lijah yawned.

"Oh, good," he said, shuffling towards the bedroom, "Sorry, I'm a little worn out from today. We can still hang out, but I might crash a little earlier than last night if that's okay."

Jason nodded and followed him. Lijah turned to the dresser and tilted his head at the stack of books.

"You checked out the romance novel?" he asked, disbelief in his voice, "Huh, didn't see that one coming. It's not very good, but it was free, so I figured why not, y'know?"

So Lijah didn't choose that book for the plot, Jason realized. That made much more sense. Lijah opened the drawers and retrieved a stack of clothes, brushing by Jason to head to the bathroom.

"You can relax in the bedroom if you want for about fifteen minutes while I shower," he said, stifling another yawn, "I'll try to get my bedtime routine done quick so we have some time together."

Jason had no problem with waiting for him to prepare for bed. He was happy just to be in the same building with him and not anxiously wonder where he was like before. Jason sat on the edge of the bed, having grabbed the notebook and pencil he'd used yesterday in preparation for the conversation he would be having tonight. He heard the shower turn on in the bathroom, and an unwelcome thought of what Lijah looked like in there sprung into Jason's mind. Startled by this, Jason shook himself. What was he thinking? His mother's warning about college aged young adults surfaced and he wondered, horrified, if these thoughts would consume his brain like the counselors he'd killed or if he could fight them and keep his head clear and pure. What would happen to him if he couldn't get rid of them?

Jason struggled with this fear until the sound of the water stopped and he heard Lijah moving around in the bathroom. He squeezed the edges of the notebook to ground himself. What would Mother say if she knew what he was thinking about? Realistically, she would probably forbid him from coming back here and have him read Bible passages until the thoughts went away. Mother knew what was best for Jason.

Lijah entered the room once he was done in the bathroom, his hair still damp and his cheeks slightly flushed from the steam. He wore a loose fitting navy blue t-shirt with an unfamiliar logo on the chest and green plaid boxers. He brought with him a wonderful, clean scent of shampoo and mint flavored toothpaste. Jason wrote on a fresh page of the notebook,

"feel better?"

Lijah hummed in agreement, stretching his arms over his head until his shoulders softly popped.

"Nothing like a hot shower to take the day off and get you ready for bed," he said, climbing up onto the mattress next to Jason, "How's your day been?"

Jason thought about it, but didn't want to be too honest that he had pretty much just been waiting all day for this meeting. He wrote,

"did alot of walking. liked what u said about the bully. ur really good with kids."

Lijah waved him off modestly.

"Aw, that wasn't just me," he replied sheepishly, "I can't take all the credit. All of us counselors worked together on that. They're a good group of people. I'm glad I got the chance to work with them."

Jason tilted his head to one side, his interest piqued by this statement. So all the counselors were good, not just Lijah? Would Jason even need to kill anyone this year, or had the nightmare of wicked counselors finally ended? He wondered what his life would become if he didn't come here to kill every summer. It would probably be much like last year, quiet and content with his mother, having everything they needed and just going day to day, living the life she built for them. But Jason knew he couldn't live that life now. He wanted his life to include his new friend, and he wasn't sure how he could do that, with Lijah going back to college at the end of the summer and moving into an apartment somewhere probably far away.

Lijah tilted his head to mirror Jason and catch his attention.

"What's on your mind, big guy?" he asked. Jason considered his next few words and decided to avoid the topic. He wrote,

"u said u had a sister rite? tell me about her?"

Lijah's entire face lit up with a huge smile and his joy was so infectious, Jason couldn't resist matching the expression.

"Phoebe!" he exclaimed, "She's the best little sister anyone could hope for. We're thirteen years apart, so I'm pretty protective of her, and it was really hard for me to go away to college and leave her behind. I call home once a week and send her letters every month of cool stuff I've learned or seen. She likes bugs and dolls and dinosaurs. Our parents won't let her see Jurassic Park though - that's a scary movie about dinosaurs - but I think she can handle it. She's a tough kid. Definitely way tougher than I was at her age. I used to get beat up in school for being, uh, different."

Jason felt a surge of protectiveness for Lijah, though he didn't know who had hurt him. How could anyone even want to hurt someone like Lijah? He curled his fingers into the bedspread, fists shaking with anger. Lijah noticed and addressed it,

"Hey, it was years ago; don't worry about it! Besides, I'm a lover, not a fighter. I'd rather solve my problems with communication than violence."

Jason nodded and forced himself to relax. What was he going to do anyway? Find the bullies and kill them even though they probably haven't been anywhere near Lijah in years? Stupid. Jason tried to explain his thoughts by writing,

"sorry bullies make me real mad. i got bullied to."

Lijah offered a sympathetic look. He moved a hand towards Jason, but rethought the action and stopped, biting his lip.

"I bet they wouldn't mess with you now though!" he said instead, trying to look at the bright side, "I bet they'd take one look at how tall and muscular you got and run away. The machete helps too."

Jason grimaced under the mask. That probably wouldn't be the only reason they ran away...Still, Lijah meant well and he couldn't blame him for trying. It was more effort than anyone had put in before, and that was worth something.

-------------------------------------------------

The conversation continued for a short while, but Lijah soon began nodding off. In one of their quiet moments, Jason looked over and saw Lijah slumped on his pillows, sound asleep. Jason sighed and took that as his cue to leave. He rose from the bed and set down the notebook on the dresser. He looked back at Lijah, bemused by his awkwardly scrunched limbs and his face pressed unflatteringly into the pillows, before turning off the light and leaving through the window to let him sleep.

It was moments like these that Jason was beginning to dislike his heightened energy levels during night time. It worked great for serial killing, but not so much for spending time with a friend. But he was beginning to have a hope and some confidence that things would work out and that he and Lijah would find some sort of rhythm together.

[halothenthehorns]

All in the Family

Chapter 65: Bagman and Crouch

Sirius found himself on all fours in a grassy meadow still blinking bright morning sun out of his eyes, and grinned at the potential for mayhem all around. With not a soul in sight.

Head still spinning like he'd just taken a bad tumble from a broom, he staggered to his feet and stumbled around for a few moments, right into someone's tent. Not his initial intention, but he shrugged and kept at it anyway, even if he would have picked a grander one to start. It's not as if this one was uninteresting.

Instead of supporting either of the current teams here, they seemed to have hung posters of the Tutshill Tornados around. The beddings were even done up in bronze and blue, and there was a Comet Two Sixty leaning against a twin bed at the ready, amusing him for a moment as he imagined whoever owned it had actually planned a pick-up game at the World Cup, he knew he would have.

After only a moment's hesitation, he raided their cupboards and found a few things to eat, before eying the bed wearily. It had been a while since they'd taken a break, and he hadn't heard the book going yet. However, he wanted to meet up with James and Remus first, explore with a bit more daylight. Maybe he'd run into everyone and they could all agree to take a nap so no one got any surprise jerk aways.

The peacock cocked his head to the side, and James mimicked the pose. The bird extended its albino plumage and James waved his arms wide. Unimpressed, the other one snapped his beak impatiently to move him along, but James' grin only widened as he once again tried to pass them by, sure there would be something of interest in the tent they were guarding.

"Hey!" looking up and around in surprise, James grimaced at Regulus marching towards him, almost literally. It always fascinated him how much this kid looked like Sirius but acted nothing like him, his best mate hadn't held himself so straight since Filch once threatened to tie a broom to his back.

"Yes?" He asked unenthusiastically, noticing the book in his hand, and turning dismissively back towards the birds.

"Need to talk to you about something."

He was glad he'd turned away now, the resemblance wasn't so uncanny when he didn't have to look at him. "When I want your opinion on my friend's, I promise you, I'm not shy in asking for it."

"Some friend," he scoffed.

James clenched his jaw, but before he could respond he went on primely, "no, that's not what I was going to say. You're probably better at hunting down the lot than I am-"

"Some Seeker," he snorted.

"But I'm going to keep this with me and crash for a few hours," he went on, somehow his voice getting more snooty by the moment. "That way, no one has to worry about not knowing when we're leaving again."

"How considerate," he rolled his eyes.

"Just thought you'd like to pass along the message," his voice sounded just a touch surley now. "I say we meet up at the Weasley's tent, once everyone's there, then we'll all be ready to keep going."

"What an excellent idea," he snarked.

He heard Regulus blow air through his nose in what was too dignified to be called a snort, but felt him still standing behind him. Temptation won out, he glanced over his shoulder and saw him chewing on the inside of his cheek as he continued to eye him. Whatever he was considering saying, he was sure he didn't want to hear it, so finally abandoned the stately tent and walked off.

"I just hope your memory isn't as shallow as your gene pool," he finally called after him. James flipped him the bird and made a quick cut through more tents.

He tried to keep eyeing everything as he walked past with curiosity, but now he just kept expecting to see Regulus out of the corner of his eye following him. Then he grimaced as he'd swear he heard Sirius' voice and turned expectantly to still see nothing. He considered circling back out of spite and trying to get back into that tent, but it didn't hold much appeal without his friends around to go through it with him.

The silence was beginning to ring in his head, he found himself pacing the same cloak propped up on sticks four times before he even realized it, and then when he finally made the conscious decision to turn deliberately left, he slammed full-face into someone.

"Sorry!" Frank said automatically, reaching out a hand to help steady him.

'Frank the tank it felt more like,' James thought to himself as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "S'alright, wasn't looking where I was going."

"You seen anyone else?" Frank asked with an uneasy smile. "I've, ah, been looking all over, this place is like a maze. Found myself in a sea of faces on tents, it was a bit spooky, but no one else besides you."

"No one you'd want to run into," he snapped.

Frank frowned at him, but James didn't want to deal with anyone else right now, certainly not the bloke who probably would have pissed himself if he'd run into Remus instead. He turned away without another word regardless and walked purposefully this time, now tapping his wand on his hip in thought. He considered throwing up some sparks, surely everyone would see it and they'd all meet up regardless and then be able to break off on their own.

Everyone, his mental voice repeated, and guilt began bubbling to the surface as he pictured it. Would it be worse if he didn't see a glimpse of Peter, or better? He'd respected his wish and stayed away, but James hadn't tried much to figure anything out since then, every time he even considered thinking about all he'd heard he just wanted to throw up again.

Shouldn't he have tried anyways though? Come around and been badgering the lot of them to hear his side again? 'Sirius hadn't,' he mentally reasoned, 'he was probably taking his cue from him.'

'And look how well that turned out,' he argued back with himself. How long had they been fighting before they made up in that future then? If this hadn't happened, how long until the four would be friends again? Long enough that the mistrust would never truly fade and that's what started all of this?

'He'd been the best mate at your wedding!' He yelled at himself. 'Surely the four of them still meant something to each other!'

"But not enough," he sighed aloud, before wincing and covering his mouth in shame.

"Prongs?"

Shaking his head and finding himself somewhere new once more, surrounded completely by moss apparently, he still called back, "Moony? That you?"

"Yeah, finally," he came jogging into sight, Alice Smith of all people trailing along behind him with a nervous yet excited smile. "Thought I heard you, we've been looking all over for anyone!"

"Oh yeah, me too," he said quickly, easily putting a smile back in place, more for Smith than anything. "I ah, ran into Longbottom and Regulus already, but, obviously they couldn't handle my charm."

"I'm so sure," Remus rolled his eyes, while James continued gesturing over his shoulder.

"Err, that way, sorry I didn't get you a map."

"A shame," she grinned, "you seem so good at those."

He smiled genuinely in surprise at how comfortable she apparently was, or at least, she didn't dart off in that same second. Remus was still studying him, so he was quick to keep going, "seen Padfoot?"

Moony clucked his tongue and gave him an obvious look. "Yes, I absolutely spotted him in the distance but didn't hail him down, instead I just kept wandering around wondering where you lot were."

"Always keep us guessing Remus," James nodded.

"I haven't heard the book yet," Alice said when the silence started to grow.

"Oh, ah, yeah," James was quick to cobble his mind back into place. "Regulus, er, found the book and said something about crashing before reading it. Said he wanted us all to meet up at the Weasley's tent when we were ready to get going again, so no one had to deal with a surprise pull away."

"How sweet," she grinned.

James scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck, and Remus shuffled his feet for a few more moments before Alice cleared her throat. "Right, well, guess I'd best go find Frank and Lily. It was, nice talking to you Remus."

"Yeah, you as well," he said quickly.

She smiled one last time and waved before taking off.

"You two find something of interest to talk about?" He asked curiously.

"Not really," he shrugged, "she mentioned she was a quarter Irish or something, but who isn't really."

"Oh, and you two seemed to be hitting it off," he smirked.

"You and Evans create enough love drama, don't go trying to start more," Remus rolled his eyes, before adding shrewdly, "and changing the subject. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Let's go find Sirius." Finally, with one of his friends back around to chat with, the voice in his head quieted down.

Lily sat with her feet hanging into the well, swinging them about and wishing the water was high enough she could dip her toes into it. She could just magic it, she supposed, but even after five years in school where that was accepted as the norm, the look on Petunia's face when it came up had her hesitating to do it casually. She knew what Sev would say if he was here at least.

She sighed as her eyes started to droop down heavily, but clung stubbornly to the sunlight keeping her warm and eyes wide open. Harry lingered in her mind once more, somehow a son she had no wish to have with Potter was less painful to think about than other thoughts that so often consumed her. What did that say about her? He was here with his friends, having a gay old time, which she was surprised to not be hearing about yet.

Quidditch had never been particularly endearing to her, but she was almost looking forward to the coming game anyways. It always seemed a topic that everyone could enjoy, and she was so tired of fighting.

The warm sun continued to beat down, causing a sheen of sweat to appear. She closed her eyes and kept soaking it in, letting it seep down to her bones. She hadn't realized she was nodding off until she jerked uncomfortably, and found herself nearly toppling down the well. Clutching painfully tight to the bricks and her wand, she swung herself carefully around and decided it really was time for a nap, she'd look for Alice and Frank later. Meandering over to the nearest cluster of tents, she hesitated for a moment before picking out a simple, smaller one. Inside was a flowered dress hanging on a hat stand and sparsely anything else but a bed. She hoped that meant this was an elder woman's tent who wouldn't mind offering Lily the bed she crashed in.

They'd finally found Padfoot examining a squashed slug, he'd greeted them enthusiastically and then dared Prongs to eat it. Now they were wandering around fighting off itchy eyes and slowing conversation. Exhaustion was setting in, but none of them seemed ready to call it quits and get some rest.

None of them said it, but when they walked into a tent with four beds at the ready, they froze.

Sirius turned to leave, trying to ignore his skin twitching in unease. What would be worse? To pretend the bed was filled with the usual snores, or be grateful it wasn't? Before he could make it out though, James cleared his throat. "Ah, actually, maybe we should-"

"I'll go kip under a tree," Sirius muttered without looking at them.

"Actually Sirius, I was going to say maybe we should talk about-"

"I want some bloody sleep Prongs!" Sirius snapped without turning around.

"I don't think I can," he whispered back.

Sirius inhaled the air still coming through the tent flap, he still didn't want to turn around. "Shall I knock you over the head then? Can't hardly whip up a sleeping draft."

"Padfoot, I mean I can't just go to sleep without thinking-"

"Right, a nice concussion charm it is," he began mock digging through his robes.

"Sirius! I mean it!"

He saw Remus out of the corner of his eye taking a few uneasy steps back, like he expected a bomb to go off between them. He turned slowly, trying to force himself not to glare at Prongs, reminding himself whose fault this was. "And what exactly is having a little powwow going to do? Help you cry yourself to sleep we're never speaking to him again?"

"I never said that-"

"And why haven't you?" His voice still sounded painfully calm. "You really haven't said much of anything, either of you. In case you've forgotten-"

"I think you're the one who's having some damage to your brain," James said a bit coldly. "I just wanted to say we've all had a chance to cool down and maybe we should go find him to talk-"

"I'm not speaking to him!" Sirius flared in disgust. "Not unless I can hex his ruddy face off! He-"

"I know perfectly well what those books say he did, to all of us," James crossed his arms to hide his shaking fists, the only sign of his anger. "And we need to talk to him about it, after five years and all we've been through, he deserves that-"

Sirius spat on the ground, turned about, and walked out.

James blinked in hurt, and surprise. That wasn't like him at all, he would have normally decked someone before just walking away.

"I'll ah, go talk to him," Remus muttered lamely.

"Right, yeah," James whispered without looking at him either. His eyes blurred with exhaustion. He didn't know who he hoped would come back through that tent anymore. He was so sick of feeling so useless, he hadn't at all stepped in and helped Remus and Sirius with their fight, and now this had somehow escalated to even worse. He didn't know what to say, he didn't want to say anything. Peter hadn't served him up to You-Know-Who...but he couldn't stop seeing the guilt on his face. Unable to deny the idea...

Sirius was no easier to track down a second time. He just caught sight of him walking as fast as he could and tried calling after him, but he either couldn't hear him or was ignored. He only just stayed in sight, and by the time Remus caught up to him panting slightly, Sirius had his face pressed miserably to an invisible barrier.

They were at a trailhead now, lanterns sitting unlit in the trees. Remus couldn't help but be mildly impressed for a moment how far he'd come so fast. He was still injured, even the shadow of the Devil's Snare was still visible on his neck, but Sirius was nothing if not resilient.

"Sirius we really should-"

Sirius' hand lashed out, he caught the collar of Remus' shirt and pulled him in for a searing kiss. Remus responded for only a moment before pulling away, "that's really not-"

"I don't want to talk," he clearly enunciated every word. Keeping a firm hold on him, he began pulling him back towards the nearest tent. Remus reluctantly let himself be dragged along, beginning to wonder if that's all this was to Sirius, another way to avoid everything for as long as he could.*

Peter hesitated over every step he took as he eased himself slowly towards the tent. He'd been doing so all day as he'd landed quite close to Remus, had watched protectively, then curiously as he came across Alice and they'd had an awkward yet cordial few moments before finding Prongs. He should have taken off then, what did it say about him he was already eavesdropping on them? Was this why he'd become a spy for You-Know-Who, it was the one thing he was good at?

He shouldn't have been listening in on them all day, it was only making him more guilty, but the smallest flair of hope kept him shuffling closer as Sirius stormed out and Remus followed. If James really, finally, wanted to talk, he was more than happy to.

With one last dragging breath to build up what little nerve he had, he changed form and poked his head around the side. Then let it out miserably as he saw he'd waited too long.

Prongs had set himself on the bed, and fallen into an uneasy sleep. His face was resting uncomfortably against the frame, his glasses skewed and about to fall to the floor with his next breath. Dancing on the spot for a few moments more he finally moved forward and took them off for him, lest they fall under the bed and they spent another memorable few moments laughing as his butt wiggled around while he dug them out.

He bit his lip to stop himself laughing at the memory, Remus hiding James' wand up his sleeve and trying to blame Sirius for it, Padfoot on the ground laughing his butt off all the same. He'd just been witness to it all, like so many times in their life. How soon until they forgot he'd been there altogether?

Should he wake him? If James finally wanted to talk he was more than happy to, his words had sounded promising, but not altogether reassuring. Like the coward he was, he hesitated. What if James just wanted to talk to the other two about keeping him out for good? Like a child, he clung to the notion that maybe, if he just gave it more time, it would work itself out?

Placing the glasses on the table, he eased himself back out without making a peep.

Regulus stretched and rolled over uncomfortably in the borrowed bed, glaring moodily at the light still around him. The fact that the sun hadn't seemed to have changed position disturbed him, as if he hadn't slept for nearly as long as his body said he had. Then he spotted something even more odd in the bed across from him.

Why Peter had decided to bed down here was a bit of a mystery, it's not as if there wasn't an abundance of other choices. He was an only child as well, it's not as if sleeping alone should really bother him. Most of the time he'd spent crammed around this lot he'd longed for the nights in his fourposter bed at home. Even if what home meant to him was now a question hovering above his life, he liked to think the little changes like his room being undisturbed by dormmates would stay the same.

Yet he couldn't resent waking up to the company either. He also understood more than anyone what it felt like to feel alone surrounded by others.

Moving about quietly so as not to disturb him, he eyed the teapot sitting ready on the stove for a moment, wondering idly what would happen if he called to Kreacher. Would he appear from his timeline, whistling while he worked? Was he even alive now to be summoned if it would work?

Storing the questions away for later, he finally threw the blankets off and set up for a small morning breakfast. He was stirring sugar into a chipped mug that had some American school logo plastered on the side and flipping idly through the blank chapters of the book when Peter awoke.

He groggily stumbled forward and muttered a sullen thanks as he spotted the second cup, sipping noisily at the still steaming liquid.

"What do you think would have happened if two others had started this?" He finally asked one of the idle questions floating through his mind.

"Eh?" Peter's watery brown eyes were still half-lidded as he began rummaging through a biscuit tin.

"I mean, if Lupin and Evans had somehow accidentally stuck their hands in that potion instead of Potter, or you even, or, me."

"Oh," Peter had to blink a few more times before it seemed he'd even caught up, seemed he wasn't a morning person. "Erm, well, I'd suppose we wouldn't strictly be hearing about some love child, except maybe if it had been Longbottom and Smith perhaps, but ah, perhaps something the same. Maybe we, would be hearing about other futures."

"You think?" Regulus asked enthusiastically. "You mean our points of view on this future, or something else entirely?"

"Like?" Peter looked intrigued at the prospect.

"Just, what we were talking about, I can't get it off my mind," Regulus shrugged. "That, the future isn't set in stone, especially not this one."

Peter slurped the last of his drink and smacked his lips for a few more moments before answering, "well I certainly hope so, but exactly what stakes are you hoping won't occur?"

Regulus spooned a few more cups of sugar into the dregs, creating a lumpy mess more than anything and began pushing that around instead. "I don't know yet, and that's been bothering me as much as anything."

Peter snorted softly. "I wish I still didn't know, take it as a blessing while you can mate."

He got up then to rummage through the rest of the cupboards, missing the surprised look he'd left behind. Were they mates now?

Lily was smiling up at a banner for The Salem Witches Institute when they finally found her.

"I've been looking all over for you guys," she said with chipper as she all but skipped over, still clutching a pamphlet for the place.

"We haven't been avoiding you, we swear," Frank grinned.

"We've been looking for you too, but when we finally found each other we nearly fell asleep over this purple fire-"

Lily laughed and waved off the rest of the apology. "So, how should we move forward? I'd feel bad summoning the book and waking up anyone else, but I don't fancy waiting for those layabouts to spend twelve hours sleeping either."

Alice was still some sleep out of her eyes while Frank explained what he'd been told about meeting up at the Weasley's camp when ready.

"Great," Lily actually clapped her hands together. "Any idea where that is?"

"Let's, ah, start that way I guess," Frank pointed in a direction he'd yet been, and she more than happily took the lead.

"Someone's a morning person," Alice smiled.

Lily smiled without remorse and began enthusiastically asking if they'd seen any other interesting sights.

"Maybe this was a bad idea," Peter muttered as he spotted James heading slowly their way.

Regulus grabbed his elbow before he could poof out of sight again, drawing the other threes attention. The five of them had been managing to chat so pleasantly that the blanket tension settling down as he spotted them couldn't go unnoticed, but he ruffled his hair instead of slowing his stride.

"Morning all," he called, doing a goofy little spin on the spot for a moment before just plopping down on the grass, only slightly farther away than would be considered casual.

"I expected the other two to be with you," Frank called with a forced neutral voice.

Peter's uneasy smile turned to a snort of mirth. "Please, if Prongs isn't around, it'll take a riot to wake them up."

"Well, they're up somewhere around here," Regulus noted, as words had appeared ages ago, he'd just been politely waiting as he'd said he would.

"I'd get started then," Potter said quietly.

Regulus wanted to protest, he'd said he'd wait until everyone got here, but Peter nodded along eagerly and the others were starting to look restless. He hesitated a moment longer, looking between Peter and Potter, the latter of whom had pulled out his wand and was transfiguring the grass at his feet to weave itself into complicated figures and looked sullen.

Glancing one last time at Peter, he decided he was missing something and took the bit of peace while he could and said, "Bagman and Crouch."

"Not Ludo Bagman?" Sirius tied his shoes up and glanced at the jersey still lying on the floor.

"Unless he had a kid," Remus grumbled, face still pressed into the pillow. It didn't matter he was technically awake, it didn't mean he wanted to get up. "Even then, I don't know what that has to do with the other name."

"Crouch, Crouch," Sirius repeated as Regulus' voice continued to filter into the tent about Harry getting his first glimpse of this place. He wasn't bothered he hadn't kept his word and waited for them to appear, his timing was actually rather fortuitous, best he started now before Sirius changed his mind and crawled back into the bed. "Haven't we heard that name already?"

Remus garbled something about him being Percy's boss, proving once more he'd been listening much better than Sirius had bothered.

Sirius began bouncing impatiently on the bed as nothing he was hearing was too interesting. The book was dragging out every detail it could of Harry walking around, meeting a muggle, building a tent. It was maddening, he wanted to hear about the cup!

"Padfoot!" Remus whined, reaching out blindly to grab him and hopefully still him.

"Come on Moony, rise and shine," Sirius grabbed his hand and began pulling on him to drag his face back from underneath the pillow. He felt a little bad when his eyes barely opened and he could only muster a pitiful glare in response. Remus usually slept the whole day after a full moon night. His sleep in particular kept getting harassed during these massive time skips. If he let him doze back off though, someone might really come looking for them, Prongs might be now.

"I know Remus," he squeezed his hand gently. "I really am sorry, I know you're tired, but let's try exploring a little more. Maybe Bagman's got a tent around here! Oh, and we could find that Muggle's house, I do love looking around those."

Harry and his friends had gone out to get water and back already by the time Moony had finally been roused from the bed, and even then he reluctantly set off again with Sirius. Slow to wake, but boundless once he got going, he did indeed drag them all along the rest of the campsite for the rest of the chapter, never staying in one place too long even when they did come across something he took an interest in.

Bagman's tent was solid gold, a yellow wasp banner flying proudly above it, but not many details inside except for an odd little book full of scribbles. It took them a while to makes heads of it, and finally concluded the letters were acronyms for different names, money placed, and statistics for the coming match. A bag of gold was stashed under the bed, and the two whistled in longing as they realized they'd been missing out, never realizing the money they could make if they started betting on their own house sports.

At least he was fun to hear about, Sirius almost pissed himself in excitement Harry got to meet the player! Hearing about Crouch wasn't nearly as fun, they almost wished he hadn't made an appearance at all he was so stuffy to listen to, let alone be around.

Mr. Roberts house was just inside the barrier on the edge of the property. It was a sweet little home, he even apparently had two kids, a boy and a girl. Remus flipped fondly through the boy's artbook while Sirius closely inspected a unicorn doll and muttered they'd gotten the details all wrong, he'd never seen a purple one.

It seemed to take ages, Remus was even fully awake by the time Arthur announced the game was about to begin. The two hardly shared an eager smile before they were teleported away.

*I’ll have the deleted lemon in a separate post

[iffeelscouldkill]

TSCOSI Week Day 1: Violet / Nature

A/N: I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO BE A WHOLE DAY LATE FOR THIS AND THEN IT TURNED OUT THAT THE WEEK STARTS ON THE 25TH! Made it with 35 minutes to spare in my timezone dfsgghshshjs

(Watch me now be late for every single other day because I spent all my time on this one fic and have nothing else written for the other days xD)

Anyway, this is Day 1, prompt: Violet/Nature! It’s set kind of ambiguously around season 2, i.e. they’re on the Iris II, but there’s no other specific references to events of season 2, so this is spoiler-free!

Enjoy!

Violet sneaked as quietly as she could through the corridors of the ship, doing her best to conceal the bundle under her arm. The seller at the market stall had been nice enough to wrap it up in extra paper for her to disguise its shape, though he’d cautioned that she should be sure to unwrap it as soon as she had the opportunity.

She just needed to avoid bumping into anyone on her way to her room who might ask what she-

“Did you get what you needed?”

“Gah!” Violet jumped and whirled around, then relaxed when she saw who it was. “Uh, sorry, Captain, I thought you were – yes, I did, thank you.”

Sana eyed the bundle under her arm with interest. “Am I allowed to know what you doubled back for?”

“It’s uh…” Violet hesitated. It wasn’t Sana she was trying to keep it a secret from – if anything, Sana was the ideal person to confide in, but she felt suddenly embarrassed, wondering if she’d misjudged her spur-of-the-moment decision. “It’s something for Thursday.”

“Oh!” Sana’s face lit up. “Violet, that’s great. I’ve bought some ingredients to make one of her favourite dishes for dinner, but she’ll definitely love your… mystery gift. And if you need any help getting her in place for the surprise, just let me know!”

Violet smiled at her. “I will, Captain. Thank you. And thanks for… telling me, as well.”

“Of course!” Sana replied, beaming and dimpling at her.

Back in the safety of her room, Violet was finally able to unwrap her purchase. Her room had a kind of desk that folded down from the wall, and Violet unfolded it so that she could set the little terracotta pot with its seedling occupant on its surface. Then she studied it.

To say that Violet was not naturally green-fingered would be an understatement; if anything, she had a flair for killing off plant life, and her friends and roommates had learned very quickly not to trust her with anything green and growing. People had a tendency to gift her with pot plants (the joys of having a flower name), and Violet had taken to lying through her teeth when asked about how they were faring. She’d once had a cactus that had survived for a record six months before dying of what was either neglect or possibly a lack of sunlight.

So the fact that Violet needed to take care of this plant until she could give it to Arkady on her birthday in a week’s time wasn’t ideal. Sana had been the one who’d told her about Arkady’s approaching birthday, explaining that it had taken her years of friendship to even pry the date out of Arkady. “She says that she hates people making a fuss,” Sana explained. “But I think it’s because she could never… do much for it, growing up. I’ve tried to make up for that where I can.” She’d given Violet a significant look at that point.

Violet also didn’t think it was a coincidence that Sana had told her this right before they were due to land and resupply near a harbour town with an extensive marketplace.

Violet had only caught sight of the little stall with its rows of pots and tiny green shoots as they were leaving the market. She’d waved the others on ahead, and then covertly made her way over to the stall to inspect the range of plants and their prices.

It was a shame that they hadn't had any fully-grown varieties, but the stallholder had assured her that it would be much more rewarding to grow and take care of from a seedling. “You don't have the bother of germinating it, but you get to watch it grow," he said. “Just make sure you water it regularly, and keep it in a semi well-lit spot.”

Violet hadn’t liked to ask what that would look like on a spaceship. She hadn’t been prepared to rehearse too much of a cover story for buying a plant. But it was only for a week, right? She could take care of one little plant for a week, and then it would be in Arkady’s expert hands.

Right.

---

Three days later, Violet was definitely panicking a little bit.

She still hadn't figured out how to get a plant the equivalent of natural daylight on a spaceship, and the seedling is definitely starting to look a little droopier than before. She watered it the other day - even though it maybe didn't really need watering - so it's definitely not drying out. Of course, there could be any number of other things wrong with it, and Violet wouldn't know, because she had only ever owned plants involuntarily and did not know how to take care of them.

Okay, Vi, don't overthink this, she instructed herself. You're a biologist - you understand living things in principle. They need shelter, they need water and nutrition. And when you're in an environment where you can't get all your nutrients naturally - say, space - you have to find artificial substitutes. After all, it wasn't like humans could get sunlight in space either, but over decades of space travel, they'd found ways to adapt. Vitamin D supplements were a staple on long-haul ships, as were Vitamin D-rich foods, as there was a limit to how much your body would absorb from pure supplements. As a state-of-the-art vessel, the Iris (one, not two) had also been equipped with sun lamps that the crew could sit under for short periods to stimulate their skin's Vitamin D production. But Violet hadn't found anything of the sort on the Iris II. Except-

Violet sat up abruptly on her bed. The Iris II’s medbay was pretty state-of-the-art compared with the Rumor (okay, her medicine cabinet in undergrad had been state-of-the-art compared to the Rumor’s medbay, but still) and she still hadn’t finished exploring all its various fittings, but she distinctly remembered that the lamp over the examination table had an ultraviolet setting.

What was more, Violet didn’t think that she’d have any trouble keeping Arkady away from the medbay for the rest of the week (since she only ever went in there under duress).

Delighted with her revelation, Violet opened the door to her room, intending to go straight to the medbay and test out the lamp – and found Arkady standing on the other side, fist raised to knock.

“Arkady!” Violet exclaimed, quickly re-angling herself so that she was blocking the view of the table with its plant occupant (and thanking every single one of her stars that she hadn’t picked up the seedling to bring with her to the medbay). “Hi!”

“Uh, hi,” said Arkady, smiling a little quizzically. “I was just coming to ask- well, it’s more like the Captain told me to come and ask-”

“Is your leg hurting again?” Violet asked, quickly catching on.

“Not- excessively,” Arkady hedged. “But uh, more than yesterday?”

“I should definitely check it over,” said Violet firmly. “And I can give you more of that Zaletenol to help with the pain for the rest of the afternoon.”

So much for easily being able to keep Arkady out of the medbay – though, at least Arkady had picked now to ask for a checkup and not after Violet had installed the plant somewhere visible. Her leg had been bothering her a lot less recently, or maybe it was just that Arkady had stopped mentioning it. Violet tried to keep a close eye on Arkady as she moved around the ship, watching for any minute signs of pain or discomfort. Unfortunately, Arkady was very good at masking injuries.

“Thanks,” Arkady said, falling into step alongside Violet as they walked towards the medbay. “Also – hi.”

“Hi yourself,” Violet said, smiling at her. Arkady’s cheeks went a little pink.

“Are you sure you didn’t just come by because you missed me?” Violet asked, because she could never resist leaning into the flirting. RJ, whenever they were within earshot of it, called their flirtation “distracting”, but Violet was more than okay with that.

Sure enough, Arkady’s blush darkened. “I… did, actually,” she said. “I was going to come by anyway after my shift ended to see if you wanted to make something in the kitchen together. Jeeter’s promised to leave it alone for the evening.”

Violet, who had been expecting a quip in return, was temporarily lost for words at Arkady’s shy honesty – not to mention the implication that she’d gone to lengths to secure the kitchen so that they could spend some time together. “I – yeah, I’d love that,” she said, knowing she was definitely blushing as well.

Arkady stopped walking, and Violet stopped too, a little puzzled. “What?”

“We’re…” Arkady gestured at the door opposite them. “We’re at the medbay, Liu.”

“-Oh!” Violet couldn’t help snorting with laughter at her own inattentiveness as she hit the door release button. Now who was the one being distracted?

Arkady’s wound was still healing, but showed some signs of swelling that suggested she hadn’t been staying off it like Violet had told her to. “You know what I’m going to say,” Violet told her as she rolled off the biodegradable plastic gloves that she’d been wearing as she gently probed the edges of Arkady’s leg wound, and dropped them into the waste basket.

Arkady rolled her eyes and leaned back on her elbows. “Keep my weight off my leg; I know, I know. It’s just- hard.”

“I get it,” Violet said sympathetically as she dug out a gel pack and squeezed it to activate the cooling crystals. It expanded and inflated slightly as it began to work, which was always equal parts unnerving and satisfying to watch. She handed the pack to Arkady, who laid it against her leg, wincing slightly as it came into contact with her skin. “Sitting around isn’t your style. But the alternative-”

“-Is worse,” Arkady finished for her. “Yeah. I believe you, I guess I just… thought I’d be able to use it again by now.”

“You can use it,” Violet told her. “But go gently. And no running. Not even small amounts.”

Arkady grimaced guiltily, and Violet hid a smile, her hunch proven correct. “I’m going to relay these instructions to the Captain as well, so that she knows what to keep an eye out for,” she said. Arkady huffed indignantly.

“I don’t need monitoring.”

“I didn’t say you did,” Violet said mildly. “But she needs to know how your recovery is progressing so that she can account for it when she gives you jobs to do.” The fact that she didn’t expect Arkady to give Sana this information of her own accord went unsaid. “You need to hold that on your leg for ten minutes,” she added.

As Arkady sat there with the cooling pack held against her thigh, Violet fiddled with the settings on the overhead lamp – making a soft noise of triumph when the lamp switched to an ultraviolet setting.

“Uh-” Arkady said as the two of them were suddenly bathed in an odd black-violet glow, the white floral designs on Violet’s green top shining with unnatural brightness. “Is that the ‘tanning bed’ setting?”

Violet laughed and switched the lamp back to its regular mode. “Sorry, I was just testing – a lot of these more state-of-the-art long-haul ships are equipped with ultraviolet lamps, to counteract Vitamin D deficiency. It can also be a useful treatment for skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis.”

“Huh,” said Arkady, sounding interested. “So, the supplements we take-”

“Don’t account for all of what you need, though if we make landing often enough on planets with a nearby star, you can generally stave off a more serious Vitamin D deficiency,” Violet finished for her.

“Generally?”

“It helps to have one of these on board, just in case,” said Violet. Then, hoping she sounded convincingly casual enough, she added,

“You must have rigged up something similar on the Rumor, right? For the plants in the greenhouse, at least. They’d need some kind of imitation of sunlight in order to grow properly.”

To Violet’s relief, Arkady immediately nodded. “Don’t ask me about the engineering ins and outs of it, but Sana was able to incorporate a couple of ultraviolet bulbs into the greenhouse’s lighting system. Pure ultraviolet light is generally not a good idea, at least long-term – the plants need a balance of ultraviolet and white light to grow properly. So we had a mixture of both.”

Violet nodded in understanding, hoping it didn’t show that she was mentally filing away that detail. “That makes sense,” she said. “I guess I never thought too hard about the practicalities of growing plants in the middle of space.”

“It’s not as hard as it sounds,” Arkady said, and Violet almost laughed. “You just have to have a few key things. Light, water, drainage, enough nutrients in the soil… Well, okay, some types of plants are more picky, but the ones we grew on the Rumor were pretty hard to kill.”

Violet snorted a little, figuring it was safe enough to offer up this one detail. “In my experience, no plant is too hard for me to kill. I’m… not particularly good at taking care of them.”

Arkady laughed, and Violet eyed her, a little bit offended. “Sorry, it’s just – you’re a biologist. But you can’t keep a houseplant alive?”

Violet smiled ruefully. “Sad but true. I guess I’d better stick to taking care of people.”

“You, uh…” Arkady looked down at the cooling pack on her leg, gently pressing down on its edges. “You’re pretty good at that one. I mean, not pretty good- well, you are, but- very. You’re very good at it.” The cooling pack was really getting flattened now. Violet smiled, and reached out to gently touch Arkady’s hand and still it.

“Thanks,” she said simply, but tried to show in her expression everything she was feeling. “Shall we go make dinner? You can take the cooling pack off now.”

---

There was still something wrong with the plant.

After managing to persuade Arkady to divulge the secrets of plant care in outer space, Violet had snuck her gift into the medbay for a few hours each day under the guise of ‘inventorying the supplies’, and sat it under the ultraviolet lamp. The rest of the time, the plant lived in her room under a regular white light.

The system had seemed to work at first - the plant visibly perked up, and Violet was now thoroughly familiar with the range of equipment and supplies in the new medbay, which was a big bonus. But now that Violet was studying the plant under the ultraviolet light again, the evening before she was due to give the plant to Arkady, she could tell something was wrong. The plant’s leaves – which had become bigger and more numerous in the short time she’d been taking care of it – were drooping more than they had been, and some of them looked yellow. Frustrated, Violet mentally ran through what Arkady had mentioned you needed to grow plants. Water; she’d watered it twice. The man at the stall had said to water the plant “regularly”, but how often was that? The soil didn’t seem dried out, at least. She’d been giving it light, and as for nutrients in the soil, well, Violet had no idea how to check for that. But it wasn't like she could do anything about the soil if it was no good; they didn't exactly have fertiliser stocked on the ship. Squinting at the plant more closely, Violet was more convinced that something was off. There were these little... bumps on the stem and the underside of the plant's leaves. Bumps that were...

...moving. Violet reared back, clapping a hand over her mouth. Insects. Her – Arkady's – plant had an insect infestation. What was she going to do?? Mentally, she cursed the stallholder for selling her a bug-infested plant. But she realised that was uncharitable. Insects were a part of nature; you couldn't avoid that. He probably hadn't known about the bugs, and it wasn't as if she'd been checking for them anyway. But she couldn't give the plant to Arkady now. What kind of a present would that be? “Happy birthday; here's a sickly, bug-infested plant. Good luck!” She hated the idea of just throwing it out, though – of having to admit failure (again) after she'd tried so hard do things right this time. And she wouldn't have a present for Arkady's birthday. Obviously plant owners dealt with insects all the time, but Violet couldn't ask Arkady about what to do without arousing suspicion and ruining the surprise. Still, which was worse - giving the game away, or letting things get worse because she had no idea how to treat an insect infestation? That was when Violet had an idea. Banking on the fact that no-one was likely to enter the medbay without her there, Violet left Arkady's plant under the UV lamp and closed the door behind her. Looking up and down the corridor, she picked a direction and speed-walked, blowing past a confused RJ, who said, “Uh-” and almost bumping into Brian. “Hey, dude, everything all right?” “Have you seen the Captain?” Violet asked him. “Think she's up in the cockpit,” he replied. “Great, thank you,” said Violet, relieved. If Sana was up in the cockpit, that meant she was with Krejjh, which was... better than her being with Arkady. Not by a lot, because Krejjh was not renowned for their subtlety, but Violet would take what she could get. Coming to a halt in front of the cockpit door, Violet had just realised that she had yet to memorise the entry code for the new ship when the door opened. “Violet!” said Sana in surprise. “Are you okay, is something wrong?” “Not exactly,” Violet admitted as Krejjh, seated at the controls, craned their head around in interest. “I uh, needed your help with something.”

Sana’s expression immediately turned interested. “Okay. Do you wanna talk in here, or...” “Uh, just somewhere-” Violet didn’t want to hurt Krejjh’s feelings by saying ‘somewhere private’, but privacy would be ideal. “-else? It’s about...” Sana’s eyes widened in comprehension. “Oh! Don’t worry, Arkady’s busy with something in the engine room at the moment.” Krejjh fully twisted their body around. “Are you avoiding First Mate Patel?” they demanded with glee. Violet cringed slightly, wishing the Captain could have been a bit more discreet. “Not... permanently, just at the moment.” “We’ll fill you in later, Krejjh,” Sana promised. “Shall we talk in the kitchen, Violet?” Violet nodded, and the two of them made their way through the still jarringly shiny and unfamiliar corridors of the Iris II until they reached the kitchen. Once inside, Sana said, “So, what can I help you with?” “Uh, so this is going to sound like a weird question,” Violet hedged. “But... when you guys were growing food and plants on Cresswin, what did you use for pesticides?” Sana blinked twice and then frowned a little. “Gotta say, I wasn’t really involved in any of the growing – I’m not very good with plants,” she admitted, and Violet almost burst out laughing at the irony. “That’s more Arkady’s domain. But I do happen to know what Campbell uses on his tomato plants, and I think he mixes...” She turned to the cupboards and began pulling out bottles: vegetable oil, baking soda, dish soap. “Depending on how much you need, you want to use twice as much oil as baking soda, and just a little bit of the dish soap,” Sana explained. “And then you want to dilute it with a couple of quarts of water. You can put it in...” She produced an empty spray bottle from yet another cupboard. “This! I was going to make a cleaning spray, but your need is greater.” “Oh God, thank you so much,” Violet said, picking up the bottles. “Did Campbell really tell you all the quantities?” She tried to think when this might have come up over moonshine. Sana smiled, one of her dimples showing. “I helped him make it once. He was having a bit of a crisis.” Violet laughed. “So, a plant, huh?” Sana asked her, her expression knowing. Violet’s shoulders sagged slightly. “I’m not very good with them either,” she said. Sana smiled at her. “Luckily for both of us, Arkady is. And she will love it,” she said, and headed for the door. “Bugs and all.” Violet put one hand over her face and groaned, but she was laughing. She unscrewed the top of the spray bottle and got to work.

---

De-contaminating the plant was harder work than Violet had bargained for. Violet supposed that most people treating their plants with bug spray weren’t so concerned with appearances, but she really wanted it to look good for Arkady. (And dead bugs were not a good gift). So after spritzing the plant carefully but thoroughly with her homemade spray and then leaving it for a couple of hours to take effect, she used a cotton swab to dust the tiny stalks and leaves and carefully remove any traces of the bugs and the spray.

By the time she was done, it was well after midnight. Violet stretched her arms over her head and breathed a sigh of relief. The plant looked okay. Not in peak health, but okay, and maybe by the morning it would have perked up fully.

Even after midnight, there was always someone awake on the ship, but that someone was usually Krejjh, Sana or Park in the cockpit, which was why Violet deemed it safe to carry the plant with her from the medbay back to her room.

She realised that had been a mistake when, after taking just a few steps away from the medbay, she rounded the corner and came face-to-face with Arkady.

“Liu!” said Arkady, her expression lighting up in a way that Violet was slowly coming to realise might actually be just for her. It quickly gave way to confusion as Arkady spotted the plant. “Oh hey, that’s – cool, where did you…? I didn’t realise you had a plant.”

Violet briefly tried to think of a way to explain away the plant, before realising it would just create more confusion and giving in to the inevitable. At least it was after midnight.

“Um, I’ve been keeping it secret because it’s… for you,” she said, proffering the plant. “I was actually planning to present it in a much nicer way, maybe with a ribbon around it? Which is my fault for carrying it openly around the ship, but I thought you’d be asleep, and you’re not and now you’ve seen me, so uh… Happy birthday!”

A dumbfounded silence greeted her words. Violet waited, breath coming quicker as she nervously started to second-guess herself. Oh god, she hates it! The leaves look really yellow under this light, I didn’t realise – or did Captain Tripathi get the date wrong? Maybe it’s not her birthday after all? “I-if you don’t like it, though, I can just-”

“No!” Arkady said, her arms shooting out to take the plant quickly. “I mean yes! It’s great! I was just trying to think when you – when did you buy this? We haven’t made any stops for a week.”

Violet nodded, feeling giddy with relief. “I bought it at a market on Rodinia,” she said. “I’ve been hiding it in the medbay pretty much since then.”

“The ultraviolet light,” Arkady said with dawning realisation. “But you – hate taking care of plants. Right? Or did you just say that to throw me off?”

“No, that was true,” Violet said ruefully. “It’s a miracle this one is still alive.”

Arkady stared down at the plant with a complicated expression, but fortunately Violet was familiar enough with Arkady’s ‘I’m-coming-to-terms-with-someone-doing-a-nice-thing-for-me’ expression not to panic this time. “It’s a bonsai tree,” she said gently, to fill the silence as Arkady processed. “Well, one of several varieties – I know bonsai is actually about how you take care of the tree, and not the variety. This one’s a Japanese maple. Captain Tripathi said you liked trees, and I thought… you can keep this one in your room and grow it yourself.”

“You got me a tree,” Arkady said softly, and Violet could detect a tiny tremor in her voice. “My own… tree.”

“I hope it wasn’t too much, I-”

“No,” Arkady interrupted her quickly. “No, Liu, it’s… perfect. Really.”

Violet knew she was blushing, and smiling so widely it was almost painful, but she couldn’t care too much about either of those things – even though they were still standing in the middle of the corridor. “Happy birthday,” she said again. “I’m really glad you like it.”

Arkady looked up at her, holding the plant pot close to her chest, almost cradling it. “How did you know it was my birthday, anyway?”

“The Captain told me,” Violet admitted. “I hope that’s okay. She said you don’t really like… fuss around your birthday, and we don’t have to do anything else for it or even mention it at all if you don’t want to, but – I think she wanted you to have something nice. And so did I.”

Arkady’s face did something complicated again, her mouth twisting into a half-smile. “She’s too perceptive for her own good,” she grumbled. “She’s cooking dinner for me, isn’t she?”

“She is,” Violet confirmed.

Arkady sighed, but it was the sigh of someone who was secretly pleased and trying to hide it. “Just so long as there’s no singing.” She lifted the plant slightly. “I’m gonna go put this in my room. Want to… come with? You can tell me all about how to take care of it.”

Violet snorted, bumping her shoulder lightly with Arkady’s as they walked towards Arkady’s room. “I can tell you about all the ways I nearly killed it before your birthday.”

“That works, too.”

[emilia3546]

Home - Nessian

Nesta is rudely awoken in the morning, but Cassian takes her somewhere she's never seen before, somewhere he hasn't shown anyone.

*****

Nesta blinked the sleep from her eyes and frowned at the almost-darkness that met her gaze,

"What are you doing? It's not even dawn yet." Cassian chuckled at her annoyance, and pulled the covers away, just managing to duck the pillow that she hurled at his head,

"I want to show you something, we've got to go now though." Nesta groaned as she rolled out of bed, glaring at him again before locking herself in the bathing room to wash up.

"What in hell requires us to be up before dawn anyway?" She shouted through the door, slipping her leathers on,

"You'll see."

 Half an hour later they were soaring through the sky, with Nesta burying her face in Cassian's chest, refusing to look, even when he announced the sunrise over the mountains. She squealed when he dived towards the ground, holding on tight,

"Cassian!" She screamed, "Slow down!"

"Sorry, sweetheart, I've got to pick up enough speed for this bit," he said, squeezing her a little tighter, relief washing over him as she seemed to relax slightly, and actually looked out when he leveled off, soaring through the belly of a mountain.

"Where are we?" She asked, finally pulling her face out of his chest enough to look at his face, his cheeks and nose red from the cold wind whipping her hair around her face, his own hair mottled with snow, a few loose strands dancing in the wind as he flew,

"North of the camp, hold on." He muttered as he banked around a corner, the daylight hitting them the moment he turned, emerging into a clearing that Nesta had never seen before, pine trees surrounding it from all sides, a frozen lake glittering in the center, the light glistening off its surface. Nesta squeezed her eyes shut as Cassian dove for the ground, only opening them again when he set her down on the frozen ground. "I used to come here as a kid, it was my little escape, where no-one could hurt me, or even find me. I haven't shown anyone yet, but I wanted you to see it." She gaped at the beauty surrounding her and squeezed his hand gently,

"It's beautiful." She could think of no other way to describe it, it was truly stunning, and she was left staring at the light flickering across the lake's surface when Cassian slipped away, returning moments later, something in hand,

"I made these, I borrowed a few of your shoes to get the size correct, 

"You made these," she breathed, reaching out to run a finger along the edge of a boot, the stitching impeccable, "Who taught you?"

"No-one, I figured it out myself, with many failed attempts. Along time ago, I had to make new ones most years until I was about sixteen, seventeen maybe."

"What are they?" The pristine boots had what appeared to be blades running along the soles,

"Ice shoes, they allow you to walk, or glide, along the ice." He gestured to lake in front of them, "Want to try?" She nodded, and sat down onto a boulder to change her shoes, watching him for a moment before stumbling towards the ice, trying to pinpoint how he moved, how she could copy his movements, but fell straight on her ass the moment she stepped on the ice. A rich chuckled made her cheeks flame red, and she struggled back to her feet, flailing her arms to keep her balance, but unable to move her feet, still watching his smooth, effortless movements, and tried once more to replicate them but slipped again, only surviving by grabbing onto him as he glided next to her.

"How?" She gasped,

"Try longer strokes, you have to move smoothly, not walk like normal." She held onto him as she tried again, losing her balance almost immediately yet again, and frowning with disgust at her own failure, "Hang on a sec," he spun around her so that he was stood in front and held out his hands, "Hold on to me." She did, and he started to move backwards slowly, pulling her with him, "Just get used to the feel of the ice, how the blades dig in, how they move." She squeezed his hands tighter as he picked up the pace a little, but kept her balance as he pulled her around the lake, grinning as she seemed to relax a little, loosening her muscles, allowing herself to glide across the ice better, until he let go. Then she immediately lost her balance, and slipped over again.

"You let go!"

"I thought you had it. Try again." She forced herself to her feet, and reached for his hands again, but she couldn't reach,

"You're too far, I can't reach."

"C'mere then." He grinned as she pushed on the ice and glided forwards a little, retreating as she neared him, keeping just out of reach, moving faster and faster until she grabbed a hold of him, squealing as he pulled her into a tight spin around him, maintaining her balance, albeit just barely until he stopped and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and chuckling at her frown,

"You prick." 

"Aww, am I better at something?"

"No, of course not, you've had 500 years of practice, that's all."

"So, I'm better, then."

"No." He chuckled, and pulled her into his side, kissing her temple as she scowled, 

"Thank you."

"What?"

"For coming, for not laughing at me."

"Why would I laugh at you?"

"Because I used to run away here to escape my problems,"

"We all run away from our problems, I could never laugh at you for finding a way to cope." She looked up to meet his eyes, "You are not pathetic, Cass, not for this, not for anything else, you could never be." She lifted her face at the same moment he dipped his, meeting his lips quickly, "And I love you." She added after he pulled away, "Now, teach me how to do this properly."

 Nesta spent the rest of the day gliding around the lake, falling more times than she cared to count, and chasing Cassian when he let go. She only stopped when the darkness began to gather and she could hardly see the lake, almost falling when she stepped back onto the frozen earth, laughing as Cassian caught her again, the sound rich and melodic, and Cassian grinned, exactly as he did every time she laughed, every time she smiled, every time he saw her truly happy. He swept her into his arms, making her laugh even harder,

"I can walk, you know."

"I know, but I want to carry you, it reminds me that you're really mine, that you chose me."

"I'll always choose you." She whispered, brushing a ghost of a kiss against his collarbone, wrapping her arms around his neck, sighing in contentment as he settled down against a boulder, setting her onto his lap, and pulling his wings around her, the sunset sending flashes of red, and orange, and pink shooting across the sky. 

She sighed again as he echoed her, kissing all along her collarbone, and working his way up her neck, holding her tight against his chest, using a wing to lift her chin, giving him access. She gripped his arm around her waist, and leaned back into him, her eyes still on the fading light as he lightly tugged on her earlobe with his teeth, before releasing her and allowing her to spin around to face him, both hands cupping the sides of his face, fingers tangling in his hair, now loose from the bun it had been in earlier, and she grinned, a sense of contentment filling her entirely.

 "I love you." He whispered, the only sound in the whole clearing, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes,

"I love you more," She whispered as he brushed them away, snuggling into his chest as the cold night air nipped at her skin, and he pulled his wings in tighter around her, shielding her from the cold, from everything. She was here, she was his, and she really, truly loved him, the way he had thought that no-one ever would, that no-one ever could, but she did, she loved him, and his heart ached with love for her. There was no-one else, there never had been, not like this, no-one else who made him whole, no other half of his soul, no-one who could make him laugh with one look, no-one who made him worry so much when they were away, no-one who made his heart sing with joy the first time he saw them every day, no-one he would rather have watching his back, beside him every day, forever.

"Marry me." He breathed, "Marry me, Nes." She stilled in his arms, and when she looked up, her eyes were brimmed with tears,

"Yes." She said, whispered, "Yes." He could have laughed with joy, but he took her face in his hands and kissed her, properly, her mouth opening to him almost instantly, and she grasped his jacked tight in her hands, pressing herself as close as possible.

 She laughed as she pulled away for a breath, "We're mates anyway. D'you want to mate or marry first, I don't know what the done thing is?"

"There's not really a 'done thing', but I want to marry you properly first, if that's ok?" She nodded and kissed him again, nesting into his chest as he held her tight against him again, his wings blocking out the cold of the night, the red undertones practically shining beneath the black, home. She was home.

Part 2

[shinidamachu]

No Place I Would Rather Be

Summary: We're a thousand miles from comfort. We have traveled land and sea. But as long as you are with me, there's no place I'd rather be. Word Count: 3.617 Genre: fluff Fandom: InuYasha Pairing: Inukag Format: oneshot AO3 Link: 🌹 Fanfic.Net Link: 🌹

Boredom was eating him alive.

Days had passed without a single lead about the jewel fragments. So much that their little group had disbanded for the time being. Sango went back to what was left of her old village. It had been a while since she last paid homage to their dead. Kirara, of course, was her loyal company — and also ride. Miroku was visiting Mushin’s Temple, as if the place hadn't been profaned enough, already. Shippo was still around, but keeping his distance due to InuYasha’s stormy mood.

The frustration of it all got him desperately wishing for some kind — any kind — of action. Something that didn’t involve sulking under a tree and watching time crawl. Every second of this idleness meant another second Naraku was out there, still breathing. Collecting the shards was a small mean to achieve a bigger, imperative ending. It gave him purpose, a sense of getting closer to his ultimate goal step by step. Waiting got them nowhere. It only granted him to be alone with his thoughts and the combination was nothing but disastrous.

Lucky for him, his private source of distraction was not too far away.

Kagome was humming a foreign tune, the same one she liked to sing whenever she was happy. Following the melody was almost mandatory. InuYasha didn’t realize what he was doing until he arrived to the other side of it, where the girl thumbed through her hair in a futile attempt to tame her hair, the lake’s surface a natural mirror at her convenience. InuYasha made his presence known before his own reflection joined hers.

“It’s no use, ya know.”

“Jerk!”

The girl glared at him and retaliated by splashing water on his direction — of which he easily dodged. InuYasha had to admit her reaction was justified, given his past tendency to be utterly unkind to her. This time, however, although his tone wasn’t devoided of casual teasing, he was being completely honest. When you spend sunrise to sunset with someone for so long, it was inevitable learning a thing or two about them. Kagome had a wild hair. Not in a bad way, but it sure had its own will. Especially in the humidity, which was definitely the case of that afternoon. To an outside viewer, the strands could pass as straight. Noticing the shy waves at the end and how they used to stand out after getting wet was a privilege for the few allowed to look closer — a privilege InuYasha cherished. She always had her hair down and he liked that she did. It was destined to be free, to go with the wind. And it had grown a hell of a lot since they first met. The half demon wondered if Kagome was aware of how much. He certainly was.

Then she got up, revealing clothes that were undoubtedly new to his eyes. It was one piece, all lime flowers and malleable fabric against her cream skin. A bit longer than what she usually cared to wear, but leaving her arms and shoulders at plain sight in compensation. The view was thrilling, until his eyes caught the yellow backpack laying by her feet, causing his grin to falter. He understood the implication behind it, even if the question had yet to pass his lips.

“What’s with the weird kimono?”

“Oh, this.” Kagome lowered her gaze, inspecting for herself. Her combative attitude swiftly turning into a cautious posture. “It’s a sundress. I’ve been meaning to ask… can you please give me a ride to the well? I’m going home.”

There it was.

Somehow, getting his suspicions confirmed did nothing to prevent the scowl from forming on his face.

“Thought the school thing were over for the summer.”

“Well, yes...”

“Then why the fuck ya going home for? We still have plenty of supplies!”

“Because I promised I’d go to the movies with Hojo and now that we’re on vacation I don’t have excuses not to go, anymore. My grandpa literally ran out of diseases I could have. And what’s the point, anyway? Jewel hunting is going through a dry spell, everyone left… and I haven’t seen my family in weeks.”

Half of what she said didn’t make any sense to him and InuYasha positively hated the half that did.

“What if something comes up? I can’t see the damn shards like you do.” He argued.

“You jump through the well and get me.” She shrugged, as if the idea was highly unlikely. InuYasha opened his mouth to list the many, many reasons her solution was flawed. She bit him to the punch. “Listen, it’s not a big deal. I’ll be back tomorrow. I bet Miroku and Sango won’t even be here yet.”

It wasn’t fair.

In general, storming off to her era was Kagome’s way of punishing him for being a massive asshole. He got that. To tell the truth, more often than not he deserved it. But InuYasha was in his best behavior — despite feeling rightfully entitled to throw a tantrum, given the circumstances — precisely because he needed her close. He needed her to stay. Picturing Kagome hanging out with someone else instead was the worst kind of self torture. Would she change her mind if he swallowed his pride long enough to say so? Would he ever get the guts to let it out? She hadn’t invited him to come along. Was this Hojo guy really that important to her? More than InuYasha was? Trying to talk her out of it was a dangerous move. He’d put his foot in his mouth, she’d put his face on the ground. That’s what they did.

Either his expression betrayed the turmoil inside or Kagome became too good at figuring him out. Whatever it was, her smile shined, reassuring and warm.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be so quick, you won’t have time to miss me.”

“Who says I’d miss ya?” He dismissed, his indifference unconvincing even to himself.

InuYasha perceived another presence approaching. Shippo. His arrival couldn’t be more providential. Kagome had a soft spot for the brat. If anyone could get her to stay, it was him.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just the runt.”

Like he had been announced, the kid emerged from the trees in a hurry, Kagome’s bow and quiver looking gigantic on his tiny hands.

“Kagome! InuYasha!”

“Shippo-chan! What’s going on?” She asked, as soon as the boy reached them.

“There are rumors of a jewel fragment, two villages to the west.” He explained, with the pomposity the information called for. “Kaede sent me.” His chin was up high, like the statement added a final hint of importance to the message. “Here,” continued the kit, offering Kagome her weapon in a formal manner.

She hesitated.

“Kagome, let’s go!” InuYasha was prepared to move at the sound of the word ‘jewel’, their earlier argument happily buried and forgotten.

“Wait! Don’t you think it’s strange? For days we had no leads, and now, just when we splitted up…”

“Yeah, well, so what if it’s a trap? It wouldn’t be the first.”

Coward that he was, Naraku resorted to the nastiests schemes in order to get what he wanted. His disgusting fingers laid on every happenstance that had ever caused them harm. What choice did InuYasha have, though? Ruse or not ruse, he had to check it. Regardless of anyone else’s help, it was his duty to get vengeance on the bastard — for Kikyo, for himself — and Kagome knew that.

She sighed and took the bow and arrows from the fox’s hold.

“Thank you so much, Shippo-chan! Now can you do me another favor?”

“Anything!”

“Go back to Kaede. Tell her InuYasha and I are on our way.”

“I’m not coming with you?” He whined, as confused as InuYasha. They never traveled without the child.

“That’s right. We don’t know how dangerous this may be. I need you to stay and if we don’t come back tomorrow by noon, get Miroku and Sango and send them to us. Can you do that for me?”

Shippo resolutely nodded .

“I won’t let you down, Kagome.”

“I know you won’t.”

And through the same path he had appeared he went. Kagome fixed a pleading glance at InuYasha.

“Can I at least change clothes before we g—”

“No time to waste.” He said, grabbing Kagome and her bag to leap towards west.

Kagome was whistling that same song again.

It took him an enormous amount of self restraint not to whistle along.

He was happy. So wonderfully happy. It was astonishing, the effect that tiny, bossy human girl had over his humor. The fact they were following the possible whereabouts of a lost jewel piece also played a role on his attitude swing, there was no denying that. But even if this turns out to be nothing at all, it would be a small price to pay in exchange of spending more time with her.

“Weren’t you mad about not coming home just now?”

His curiosity was genuine. Kagome had been angry since they left and InuYasha would be the person to know. She had two kind of anger. The one he could hear and the one he could feel. Even though she had been unusually silent, her frustration was palpable at first. Mercifully, it seemed to fade away the more ground they covered. Her one complaint was the soreness that too many hours on the same position inflicted upon the muscles, which was why they were both walking. As a rule, he was strictly opposite to anything that might slow them down, and the human pace was unbearable once you had a taste of demonic speed. Running free, with trees and people alike turning into a blur on each side of him, was an unparalleled sensation, amplified tenfold whenever Kagome was riding his back. He didn’t regret giving in, though. They weren’t far from their destination, after all. In addition, her comfort came to be a priority, despite him still being unaware as to when or how.

“Well… yeah, but… what can I do, right? Besides, I haven’t realized how much I missed this.”

Clueless, InuYasha searched their surroundings, unsuccessfully intending to spot what she could possibly be referring to.

“Whatcha talkin’ about?”

“This!” She spinned around, open arms and face to the sky, chasing daylight like a sunflower, the movement bringing her garment to life. “You. Me. An adventure. Don’t get me wrong, I love Shippo and the others, I’m glad they joined us. It just feels like we haven’t had as much quality time together as we used to, after they did.”

“Y-you miss that?”

She shook her head up and down with enthusiasm and a content smile fought its way across his lips.

“I know we could hang out in Kaede’s village, but it’s not the same as going out. O-on a trip, I mean.”

Although InuYasha couldn’t make out why her cheeks were suddenly burning red, he did see the logic her reasoning, and the feeling was mutual. There was a certain level of closeness only the road could provide. No curious eyes. No sly comments. No need to explain themselves. InuYasha had missed that as well.

He often played with the thought of stealing her away, of placate his selfish thirst for her undivided attention. Not once had he imagined Kagome would be as eager to go as he was to take her. Regardless, the timing wasn’t right. It never was. From the moment they met, they were tossed into a mission and there was hardly space for anything else. So he settled for whatever he could get until it was over.

“Why would you miss those trips? It ain’t like I was nice to ya back then.”

It didn’t make sense to him that she would. His memories were of a spoiled little girl, complaining about the bugs and her aching legs and the fact she hadn’t bathed in days. There was no escaping InuYasha’s share of responsibility on the issue. He could have made her life easier, had he bothered to. But at the beginning he saw Kagome as a potential threat he would eventually get rid off. How could he have guessed, after the many betrayals he had endured through the years, that his heart would be safe on her hands?

Kagome limited herself to a shrug.

“You are now.” She stated, as if it made up for his unexcusable former behavior. Her unconditional forgiveness amazed him, no matter how regularly she had shown it to him. “Also, it feels like old times.”

“It doesn’t unless you get kidnapped, somehow.”

“It happened once or twice!”

“Keh! Stop kidding yourself.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“No, shut up. I’m sensing a shard and it’s moving away.”

Wordlessly, InuYasha returned the backpack to her and offered her his back.

They raced at full gallop, Kagome guiding their course. The forest transitioned into arid highland, where dirt, thorns and rocky surfaces took place.

“Hey, you!” Kagome yelled at the youkai emerging in their camp of vision. Their target. Over his shoulder, the startled creature sneaked a peek at them and increased speed. Growling, InuYasha matched his rhythm. “Wait up! We won’t hurt you.”

“I’m pretty sure Imma hurt him.”

“Give the jewel fragment to us peacefully and you’ll be free to go!” She went on, his snide remarks as ignored by her as her plead was by the demon. InuYasha’s patience was wearing thin. Now that the rumors turned out to be true, his focus was entirely aimed at the task at hand.

“Are those fancy arrows of yours just for show?”

Kagome let out a deep breath. Shooting was her last ressource. She preferred to sort things out with words first. It rarely worked. Still she always tried.

“I suppose we have no choice.”

The arrow hit the creature in the calf and his groan of pain reverberated through the field. Not lethal, but enough of a nuisance to make him drop the run. InuYasha closed the distance between them within seconds. Kagome climbed off him and together they inspected their opponent.

On the floor, a possum demon hissed and exhibited his fangs at them, his ugly face twisting in agony while he pulled the arrow out. A cascate of blood immediately flowed from the wound. InuYasha was not fooled by it. Being a full youkai, he would be healed soon.

“Where is it?” InuYasha asked Kagome, not daring to leave the bastard out of his sight.

“His belly.”

“Step away, you filthy half breed!”

“Excuse me?” Kagome defied, any trace of courtesy forgotten.

“That was quite the damage she did on ya, there.” InuYasha released Tessaiga from its sheath as he approached the fallen man. “Think I can top it, though.”

“Step away, I said!”

His fear was palpable. InuYasha could feel it. See it. Smell it.

Smell it.

Faster than realization, the odor filled his lungs. It burned his nostrils, his throat. He could taste the toxic substance on his tongue. It was unbearable. And gasping for air only resulted in the pungent scent flooding him further, overwhelming his senses. A defense mechanism, he thought, his vision blurring, his knees giving in. I’m going to faint. No. No, no, no, no, no. Kagome. He had to protect Kagome.

There was a cry of his name.

And then an awful lot of darkness.

InuYasha came to abruptly, uncertain and alarmed by the new reality.

In one minute, the sun was up and he was succumbing, his consciousness leaving him to drift. In the next, he was awake and crickets sang the night’s arrival.

It was tempting to think he had dreamt the whole thing. A stupid, ridiculous, crazy ass dream. However, the lingering smell left no room for argument. It happened. The scent was weaker. Fading. But was there, overpowered by a significantly nicer aroma. A familiar one, sweet on the nose and soothing to the soul. Kagome’s.

He was lying half naked in her sleeping bag.

Sitting up, InuYasha seeked for the priestess, desperate to make sure for himself she was safe and sound.

The fragile light of her modern lantern illuminated the cavern that sheltered them. At its entrance, a girl rested — her silhouette contoured by a starry sky. 

“Kagome.”

“You’re awake!”

She rushed to him, tripping over her own eagerness. Her beautiful clothes were dirty and a bit ripped at the hem. A small scratch cut her cheek, remnants of dry blood tainting her skin.

“Are you alright? What happened?”

“I’m fine!” Kagome kneeled in front of him, a gesture he appreciated. There was no peace for him without an up close inspection of her well being. “I purified the demon after you blacked out. Turns out it was a trap. Thousands of Naraku’s second-class demons came for the shard when I took him down. I tried to purify those too, but more of them kept coming and I ran out of arrows, so I casted a barrier and—”

“You casted a barrier?”

InuYasha was beyond impressed. Barriers required great power and discipline. Even from Kaede or the monk. Kagome had apparently done it all by herself. Effortlessly. On the spot.

“To be honest, I don’t know how I did it. I just… I saw you lying there and I… anyway, the barrier purified the ones who touched it. Eventually they all died or left. How are you feeling?”

InuYasha didn’t answer the question.

“I’m sorry, Kagome, that you couldn’t rely on me.”

Guilt pulsed within him like a heartbeat. Constant and compulsory, expanding the outcomes of its work through every inch of his body.

“It’s not your fault. Your nose is too keen, of course you’d be affected the most.”

“But you got hurt!”

“In the thorns. I was careless. Don’t worry about it, it’s not even going to leave a scar.”

“It shouldn’t have even happened. I’m supposed be the one protecting you, not the other way around.”

It could have been worse. InuYasha should be grateful for that. He wasn’t. It could have been worse. And he wouldn’t be able to help her, to save her from this insignificant peril while she had already saved him in every conceivable way there was for a person to be saved.

“I’m not as helpless as I used to be, you know? I’ve grown a lot.” She had a point. InuYasha himself had told her that much, once. Kagome had faced scarier dangers than that. And she could absolutely take them. But he didn’t want her to have to. “Not to mention, it was totally worth it.”

As a proof, she exhibited a jewel fragment, glowing in the healthiest shade of pink.

“You got it!” InuYasha captured the shard, glancing at every angle of it in awe.

“Don’t act so surprised.”

Kagome went for her backpack and came back, falling on her knees again. Her hand dove in and emerged holding the glass container in which they kept the other pieces. She opened it and tilted the receiver to InuYasha, hinting for him to do the honors.

It was as if she had been waiting for him so they could do it together.

As if it was their private, sacred ritual.

He did as she wanted, mirroring her satisfied smile.

“Where’s my haori?”

“Oh! I… I put it away.” Blushing, Kagome tore her gaze from his and InuYasha followed it to a corner of the cave, where a huddle of scarlet fabric laid forgotten. “I figured you’d heal faster with that smell gone and your haori is soaked on it. Sorry.”

“D-don’t apologize, stupid. It was the right call.” To feel useful — and to occupy his brain with something other than the image of Kagome undressing him — InuYasha searched her backpack for the first aid kit, a tool from her era he was sadly too intimate with. “Now let’s take care of this cut.”

“Okay. You have to g—”

“I know what to do. I’ve seen you do it a thousand times.” Her lips parted, and InuYasha added: “Don’t act so surprised.”

He cleaned the wound with cotton, water and soap, then used a different ball of cotton to carefully apply the content of a smelly little bottle to the extension of it. Kagome hissed, but he ignored it in favor of wrapping it all up with a band-aid. To ensure it was properly stretched, he gently ran his thumb through it, allowing the touch to linger more than necessary and his stare to go from her cheek to her eyes.

Her eyes.

The most stunning maze.

Let yourself get in, you are sure to get lost.

She blinked before he could, keeping them closed and leaning into his palm, her hand lifting to cover and caress his.

It would be so easy to grip her chin. To turn her face to him. To bring her to his lips. 

So easy to steal a kiss.

Why do the easiest actions have to carry the most difficult consequences?

Clearing his throat, InuYasha transformed present into a loving memory.

“Take some rest. We leave first thing tomorrow.”

“Sounds good to me.”

On the way to claim Kagome’s prior guarding position by the entrance of the cave, InuYasha collected Tessaiga while she busied herself with getting cozy inside the sleeping bag.

“Kagome?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“InuYasha, I think we’re way past saying thank you for saving each other’s lives.”

“No, not for that. I mean, for that too, but... for coming. For staying by my side.”

“Stupid.” She mocked him, her voice lethargic as exhaustion finally caught up to her. “Where else would I be?”

A/N: this was some serious self indulgent bullshit. I regret nothing.

@inukag-week​ here is another piece of contribution. Kind of merged the Loyalty and the Instinct prompts here. Oops.

[owillofthewisps]

portraits hung in empty halls - part one

notes: fun fact i am about ten times more nervous about writing jaskier than i am about geralt, idk why! also daylights saving time is a farce and a personal attack on me, a humble woman trying to not have a destroyed sleep schedule.

rating: still teen, somehow!

pairing: geralt of rivia/female reader

word count: 3.5k

prologue

there is an odd little portrait tucked away in an alcove. at night, the canvas lies empty. most never notice it.

the Witcher does.

The sun sets, and you rise.

The silk sheet that shrouds you slips to the floor. In the dim glow of the candlelight, it glimmers like snow in the moonlight, the creamy white of it cooled to prismatic ice. You leave it puddled on the stained wood floor. You pad barefoot to the washbasin, adjusting to the lively hum of the inn, to the jolt of noise after so long without. It is never an easy transition.

The cool water trickles down your neck as you splash your face, the droplets rolling over your bare skin like an early spring rain, collecting in the dip of your navel before spilling onward. You turn to the tiny nook that shelves your clothing, your stiff joints moaning as they stretch and pop.

Rose, you think, spotting the verdant sprig of fresh mint placed carefully on the small stool. The bundle you’d pulled a leaf from yesterday had been wilting at the edges, the leaves curling in under themselves, like shy children covering their faces. You’ll have to make her something. Embroider her favorite gown, maybe, weave delicate little morning glories around the bells of her sleeves so they sway with her, as if she’s the dawn wind.

The mint tears under your teeth. It burns cold, searing away the heavy, oily coating that lays rotting on your tongue. You chew slowly, rolling the leaf through your mouth as you unfold your chemise and drape it across the stool.

Unwinding the thin golden chain looped messily around your neck and shoulders takes time. You tease at it, slip your fingers beneath the delicate, tangled thread of it. It is the daintiest tether you have ever seen, a golden, gossamer little thing, a strand of a spider’s web lit by the sun. You dump it onto the thin wood stand the washbin rests on.

Your earrings clink as you set them down next to the chain. It’s a relief to have them off, to let your lobes rest from the sharp pull of their hefty weight.

The homespun wool of your skirts rustles against the floorboards as you dress. You sweep the discarded jewelry into your palm; you dump it onto the silk sheet, watch as the gold sinks into the folds of the fabric.

You leave it all on the floor.

A few travelers tip their heads to you as you sweep down the inn’s halls. You sail past the small alcove that had so entranced Geralt last night, stepping carefully away from the shadowed niche.

Johan is waiting for you at the archway to the tavern. You’ve never thought of him as large, with his wiry frame, thin but strong, like a bowstring pulled tight, but he fills the archway. There’s still a faint hint of rot to him, something acidic tinting his strong, handsome features. You slow your pace, come to a halt before him, just shy of nose to nose, your skirts frothing over his feet like a wave breaking on the sand. The scowl knitting his brow deepens.

“If your intent is anything other than apology, save your breath.”

The flush flares into life. It spills crimson across his skin like wine, spreading wide. “Apologize?” Johan snarls. “When you’re the one who defended that mutant?”

“Did I not just say to save your breath?”

His hand flexes. You watch as his fingers curl into a fist, the knuckles gone bone white, and wait. There’s fear cut sharp into his visage, barely blanketed by the veil of anger on the surface.

“If you’ve nothing to say,” you tell him, “please move.”

That fist of his tightens again, his knuckles a ridge of mountains. The tendons in his jaw cord. “The Witcher cannot stay.”

“He paid his coin, just like the rest.”

Johan’s jaw works. “Stubborn bitch.”

“Careful,” you say, and there is crackling frost in your tone, winter come early. “I won’t tell you to save your breath again.”

He considers you, those green eyes burning incandescent, all sparking St. Elmo’s fire. Johan has often reminded you of a dog with a bone, setting his teeth into the marrow of his irritant and worrying it until he breaks it.

“Move,” you say, pleasantly enough, but with that ice still threaded through your voice. “Malinka’s expecting me.”

Johan lingers in the door frame for a moment more, a shadow of a threat, but he steps aside. You brush by him without a care; if you clip him with an elbow, well, he should have moved further. He’ll just add it to the list of wrongs you’ve done him, you think, and gods know that’s the least of your concerns.

The sounds of the tavern sweep over you. The clank of tankards, that thick hollow thud of wood against wood; the spitting crackle of the fire; chatter punctuated by uproarious laughter, rising to fill the rafters. It is a balm against you. Noise has long been something to steady yourself on.

You scan the room as you enter, and do not glimpse the Witcher’s broad shoulders. Nor do you see a hint of the bard. Your shoulders loosen, the tension melting out of them like winter yielding to spring. Malinka is behind the bar, her ebony curls flowing like a wild river to her shoulders, gleaming in the candlelight. She presses a quick kiss to your cheek as you join her.  Worried, you think. She is not alone in that.

“Ale!” Wren calls from the end of the bar.

“Coin!” you retort, sashaying over to him and leaning against the pitted wood counter. You pull a tankard from nearby, wincing as you flex your stiff fingers. They always take the longest to grow limber once more.

“Fair enough,” he laughs.

“Truly, Wren,” Annika says as she slides past with a tray of empty tankards. “Your mother would faint to hear your lack of manners. Tell me, how do the village girls stand your voice?”

“Yes, Wren, you’re lucky you’re charming when your mouth is closed,” you add.

“Beautiful and cruel, the both of you!”

You reach across the bar and pat his cheek. “Just a little,” you say with a laugh.

Annika snorts, passing you a tray. You nestle it into the crook of your hip and get to work.

The tavern only grows more lively, the gleam of light spilling from the doors cracking the darkness outside open. You whirl about, dipping around tipsy patrons, carrying plates of food high to drop them at tables.

It’s one of the busier nights, considering tomorrow is traditionally a day of rest, and you revel in the tumult, in the show of overflowing life. It keeps you light on your feet, moving until there’s sweat gleaming at the hollow of your throat. You dodge Elias’s hands with a laugh as you make your way back to the bar.

“So,” Annika says. “A Witcher, then?” Her slim hands move like water, smooth and flowing, pouring tankard after tankard between slicing off fat hunks of brown bread, still wisping steam even in the heated air of the tavern.

You sigh and duck beneath the bar to pull a few sausages from the small larder. “Yes,” you say. “Don’t you start.”

“There’s little for me to say.”

“And yet you so often say things anyway.”

She laughs. “True,” she says. “I’ve no quarrel with the Witcher, so long as he keeps his sword sheathed."

If Rose were here, that would not leave untouched - ‘which one,’ she’d say, her grin impish, her voice dropping into something sultry - but she is not, and you think you should try to keep thoughts like that from your head. At least until Geralt is gone, when there’s no danger to considering the thickness of his thighs and the knife of his golden gaze.

“I doubt he’s the one you should worry about,” you say, thinking of the way many men’s eyes had followed Geralt last night, malicious and hungry.

“Probably not.”

Someone calls to Annika from down the bar; she shoves the knife into your hand and gestures towards a loaf. You drop the sausages onto a nearby plate and start to slice the bread.

“I looked for you earlier. I didn’t think it would be so hard to locate such a pretty woman in the crowd.”

You glance up. The bard is smiling at you, his blue, blue eyes catching the light. You cast your gaze to the side, but Geralt is nowhere to be seen. Your grip on the knife’s handle loosens.

“I work nights,” you tell him, and if your smile is a little brittle, he doesn’t seem to notice. “Makes it hard to find me early. What can I get you?”

“Your name?”

“It’s a bit out of your price range, I think.”

He gasps, one hand flying to his chest. “Will you not take pity on a poor bard? How am I meant to write a song praising this inn and its lovely innkeeper?”

You arch a brow. “Why would you need my name for that, bard?”

He blinks. “Jaskier,” he tells you, and it takes you a moment to realize that he’s given you his name. “And because you are the innkeeper?”

“I’m not.”

“Are you certain?”

You stifle a laugh. “Quite,” you say, but then you take pity on him and give him your name. “Why did you think I was the innkeeper?”

“Ah,” Jaskier says. “You were...forceful, last night, not that Geralt was particularly forthcoming about it. Also the serving girl said you were.”

Betony, you think, following Jaskier’s long, nimble fingers as he gestures towards the far side of the tavern. Betony glances up just then, and from the cheeky grin she flashes, she’s unrepentant. It’s harmless enough, nothing worth even getting irritated over, so you blow her a kiss.

“I’m not,” you repeat. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m not sure you could disappoint, love,” Jaskier says.

You fumble with your knife, the tip of it sinking into the wooden board beneath the sausage with a hollow thunk.

My love, Dymitr murmurs, his lips brushing against the curving shell of your ear.

“Isn’t that what you called me this morning?” Rose chirps. She swings over the bar in a flurry of crimson skirts and wraps an arm around your waist. She still carries the chill of the night air on her skin. She presses herself against you, lets you use her as an anchor against the wave pulling you under. “Aren’t bards meant to be inventive?”

Jaskier gapes.

“Be nice, Rose,” you say.

“Rose?” Jaskier says, “Funny, I took her for a bramble.”

Rose snorts. “Be careful not to be caught on thorns, bard,” she says. She tugs at her shawl, lets it flow from her shoulders to the crook of her elbows like a waterfall. It catches against you. “You were looking for the innkeeper? What is it you want from me?”

You sink your elbow into her side. Her curse is blistering; down the counter, Wren cackles at her creativity.

“She’s not the innkeeper,” you tell Jaskier, who is looking somewhere between distraught and combative. “Rose, will you please get more bread?”

She laughs, the sound like woodfire smoke, billowing out in slow, low tones. “I suppose,” she says. Rose dips away from you, giving your waist one last squeeze, and heads towards Wren.

“Gods, do all women here worship a trickster god?” Jaskier asks. “If not, you should consider it. I imagine most would excel.”

“Probably.”

“Is there a test I have to pass to get the innkeeper’s name? If it’s a physical one, can I have a champion? Geralt would do nicely at that.”

You pull the knife free of the board and set it to the side. Someone calls for ale; you sigh and pour a tankard of it. “You can play,” you tell Jaskier. “We’ll give you coin at the end of the night in addition to any earnings you may get from the crowd. That’s why you were looking for the innkeeper, yes?”

Jaskier sets his hands on his hips, his long fingers drumming against the fine material of his clothes. “Do you just use some title other than innkeeper to confuse people?”

“Malinka’s the innkeeper,” you say, nodding towards her. She’s laughing at a nearby table, men drawn in a knot around her, an unknowing queen speaking to her court.

“Right,” Jaskier says. “You just make all the decisions.”

“She listens to me, yes, when she chooses to do so,” you tell him.  I raised her, taught her as much as I could as best I could, and she tends to honor that, you don’t say, trapping the words behind the gate of your teeth. It would only bring questions.

He chews at his bottom lip, bites the flesh pinker still.

“You’ll be paid,” you say. “No tricks, not about that. For last night, too.”

You wonder if other inns see the value in Jaskier, not just in his talent, but in his ability to reassure. There’s little doubt in your mind that his music has soothed many a ruffled feather that Geralt’s presence has caused. From the tongue on him, though, you think he’s also caused his fair share of trouble, too.

“You are a treasure despite your company of treacherous women.”

“Go play, bard, before I change my mind.”

Rose reappears as Jaskier heads towards where the fiddlers usually sit, his lute cradled against his stomach. He’s already plucking at it, discordant notes being corralled into something musical, something pretty.

“Do you think they’ll stay long?” you ask.

She lifts a shoulder in a lazily elegant shrug. “Hard to say,” she says. “I’ve had rocks speak to me more than the Witcher did.”

“Rose.”

“I know,” she tells you, cupping your cheek. Her palm is warm and callused against your skin. “It will be fine. No sense in worrying unless it’s needed.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“It’s not,” she says sharply, all thorn instead of her usual soft petals. “Do not make the mistake of thinking that I do not have fear.”

Jaskier starts to play. The music blooms to life, unfolds delicate and sweet. It seems an odd choice for the rowdy tavern, but the melody is a haunting one, one that slips beneath your skin and hooks deep.

Rose pats your cheek. “Don’t fret,” she says, an echo of last night. “Go help Betony, she’s such a distracted little thing.”

You snort, but there’s more than a measure of truth to it, so you wipe your hands free of breadcrumbs and pick up a nearby tray. Betony is half on Delythe’s lap. She’s plucking at Delythe’s thick braid, coiling it around her wrist and giggling. For her part, Del seems tolerant, the grin on her lips fondly indulgent.

“Betony,” you say.

“You’re no fun,” she says, but she gets to her feet, tugging on Delythe’s braid and pressing a kiss against her cheek. Her lip paint leaves a mark the color of a bruise, deep plum. The two of you gather empty tankards and plates, stacking them high on the tray. With Jaskier playing, everyone seems to fall into a rhythm. You duck between patrons with delicate precision. Each step is practically a dance, Betony matching you as the two of you dash around.

You can feel the night lengthening, can sense the moon tracing a path across the velvet sky. The moon always seems brighter as winter creeps forward. As if the coming snow reflects the light the moon sheds, makes it a disc of shining ice.

Elias catches you in a dance or two between servings; Wren pulls you along for a quick jig when you duck into the back room for supplies. Malinka sweeps you off your feet as well, laughing as she leads you before she twirls you into Betony’s arms. Jaskier’s music rises and falls, a piper’s call to the crowd’s mood. You let it envelop you.

Geralt appears as it grows late enough to perhaps be called early. Patrons are starting to stagger home, though there are a few gatherings tightly knit around tables, still nursing their tankards. Even with fewer present, there are still murmurs that follow the Witcher, little whispers that haunt his steps like an angry wraith. It makes your chest tighten. How quickly people turn on what they don’t understand. On what they don’t even try to understand.

He seems unbothered by it. You think again of stone, of the jutting mountain peaks, for Geralt’s face could be that of a statue’s. He has the jawline for it. Mostly, though, he has the smoothed expression of a marble bust, one just shy of human, as if the artist couldn’t quite settle on mood, caught between emotion and emptiness. It feels a false face. A shield, a barricade for humanity’s siege against his very presence to break upon.

You should leave, let one of the others serve him. You know that. Betony retired home earlier, but Malinka is just in the store room. Rose is not far, either. You should call for them. You know that. But Geralt finds you behind the bar, his amber eyes like firelight, and you stay.

The tankard clanks against the wood as you set it down in front of him. “Would you like something to eat?”

“If there’s something available.”

“I wouldn’t offer something I am unable to give.”

He pauses, the tankard halfway to his mouth, and you cannot look away from his parted lips. Your hands twist in the wool of your skirts, draw the fabric tight against your fingers. “Yes, then,” he says. His eyes flicker, and you think that is not what he wanted to say, that he has swallowed something down.

The plate is a simple one. Geralt seems a man who consumes only to continue, who does not yearn for flavor on his tongue. You keep it to a thick slice of brown bread and some salted meat. You wipe down some tankards as he eats, caught between the compulsion to stay and the whispering nerves that beg you to flee.

“What brings you here?”

Geralt pauses again, those golden eyes lifting to you. You feel heat rise in your cheeks. “I’m sorry,” you say. “It’s habit to chat with patrons.”

He grunts.

You bite at your lip and scrub harder at the tankard, twisting the old cleaning cloth around your fingers until it is cutting into your flesh, until it almost hurts.

“There’s a village to the north,” Geralt says. “It has rumors of a beast, and they have coin. This inn is the closest. The village is small.”

“And by that,” Jaskier says, sliding onto the stool next to his friend and gesturing wildly, “he means it is a hovel of a town, more a collection of houses than a village.”

“I see.”

“Luckily,” Jaskier says, leaning forward until you think he will overbalance, “that means we have found ourselves here. It is a charming inn, innkeeper-who-is-not.”

“It’s just an inn.”

“An inn with good ale and food, and most importantly, appreciative crowds.”

“It’s just an inn,” you repeat, but from the way Jaskier’s smile lights up, he can hear the laughter hiding just beneath your tongue.

Jaskier starts weaving a tale for you, his hands fluttering about as he speaks, his voice falling into a cantering cadence that lulls you into the story. Geralt eats in silence, grunting here and there as Jaskier tries to reel him into the story. The bard elbows him once, lightly, and the withering look Geralt gives him could rust a sword.

It is not long after Geralt finishes eating that the two men rise. It is truly late now, the time when nocturnal creatures begin to slink back to their burrows, the time when the starlight goes cold and strange.

“Good night,” you tell them.

Jaskier chirps something back to you, but his words are washed away by the weight of Geralt’s gaze on you. It peels at the layers of you, cuts through to the bone, until all of you is laid bare before him. Your fingers tremble.

They tremble still when you trace their path to the hallway, pulled after them like a pebble caught spinning in the tide. You catch yourself before you follow them further. From your place just beyond the door, you hear Jaskier heave a sigh.

“Geralt,” the bard says, and you’ve never heard a tone that sounds like someone putting their hands on their hips in reprimand before, “will you hurry up? The painting will be there when it’s not a time when even the gods are asleep.”

The bite of your fingernails startles you. They cut into your flesh, tiny sickle moons against the map of your palm, constellations amid the lined sky of your hand. There are footsteps, then, receding down the hall. They ring in your ears long after the men are gone.

Rose finds you sitting near the hearth, your knees tucked up against your chest.

“I’m frightened,” you tell her.

She kneels at your side, a priestess at your altar, her face turned up to you like a flower to the sun.

“I know,” she says.

She waits for sunrise with you, lets you gaze into the fire’s light in silence.

You feel it when daybreak approaches. You close your eyes and surrender to the dark, to the velvet night that lives behind your eyelids. It feels easier like this. Gods, you miss the sun.

The sun rises, and you set.

taglist: @fairytale07​ @stretchkingblog97​ @nonamejustshame​ @1950schick​ @sageandberries-png​ @peachy-aisha​ @msgeorgiarae​ @alwayshave-faith​ @bumblingandblooming 

[whattodowithace]

Title: Forbidden

Paring: Donghun (ACE) x Reader

Genre: Spice/poetic writing

Word Count: 1.5K Words

Writer: Kpopmadness (Ju)

A/N: This is a little twist I did on the Greek Mythology story of Hades and Persephone. Enjoy! 🤗 ~Ju

*For love, I will handle your sins. And for justice? For justice, I will show you mine.*

The goddess awakes in the night, the curtains fluttering softly in the night breeze. A thin sheet covering her body to shield her from the coolness the night brought.

Her eyes flutter open, not to a noise, but just a feeling, a feeling of someone watching her. He had come for her.

She sits up slowly and looks around her room, her eyes immediately landing on a figure on her balcony, hiding in the shadows. His dark eyes looming over her.

“Hello, Hades.” She whispers, knowing exactly who this man was. He had been observing her for quite some time. His eyes always on her even if a thousand people crowded the rooms.

“Please, Persephone.” Hades says, stepping toward her as he reached a gloved hand out to her. “Call me Donghun.”

~ ~ ~

*You showed me how a love like ours can turn even the darkest, coldest realm into the happiest of homes*

He saw her at a glance one day, and immediately fell in love with her. She was young and innocent, and so beautiful. Her mother was strict and determined to keep her daughter chaste and pure. A smirk formed on Donghun’s face, her mother’s efforts were valiant but not enough to stop him.

And when you love someone so deeply, wouldn’t you do anything to possess them for eternity?

And so Donghun’s plan began. His plan to have her to himself. To make her his queen, his whole life. Because darkness is always drawn to the daylight. How it lets its bright rays chase away the darkness slowly, making the world feel different and new.

Oh, but don’t be fooled. She was always drawn to him. He was a misunderstood, lonely, forgotten creature in her eyes. The way his eyes dragon shaped eyes would light up when he saw her and the way he showed her great kindness made her doubt he was really an evil person.

And when he took her away from her home? She expected it in a small way. But she never fully understood what he really wanted from her, how deep his love for her ran until she was with him in his dark world.

~ ~ ~

*Mother, you don’t understand. I made Hades run to me.*

“Do you miss home?” Donghun asked her quietly one morning as they stood on the balcony of his palace, overlooking his realm. She had been with him for some months now and hadn’t asked to go home once during that time.

She looked over at him, the morning sun highlighting his dark skin and dark eyes. She smiled, her smile sweet and soft with a hint of sadness.

“I do.” She said simply.

“Do you want to return home?” He asked, stepping a little closer to her as if there was a gravitational pull that made him do it. He just couldn’t stop himself.

She sighed and turned to face him. “Do you ever get tired of being a powerful ruler?” She asked, throwing him off guard.

“Sometimes.” He answered truthfully. “My job is taxing and lonely. But you will rule beside me someday.”

She smiled faintly at his words, letting her hand rest on top of his. Her soft skin making him let out a soft whine. He realized then no one had dared to touch him in years.

“You aren’t lonely anymore.” She whispers, making Donghun’s eyes grow wide. “You answered your own question. It gets lonely up there for me. Horribly lonely. So yes, I miss home. But only sometimes.”

Donghun stepped a little closer to her, his build much larger than hers and gaze piercing. She met his gaze evenly, her eyes gentle and sweet as she smiled up innocently at him.

“I would do anything you asked me.” He whispered, his voice low and deep. Emotions bubbling up inside him. “And only you.”

She stepped away from him fully, still smiling as she said, “I know you would.”

~ ~ ~

*Aren’t you afraid of the darkness, my dear? No, you haven’t even seen mine yet.*

“Tell me something;” She whispered to Donghun one night. The fire in the hearth the only company they had.

She moved from her chair and cupped his face in her hands gently, her scent filling Donghun’s nose and overpowering him. Her scent reminded him of a mixture of honeysuckle and rose peddles mixed to make a sweet, earthy smell.

“Am I the only one that sees past your facade?” She asked. Her thumb running down his cheek gently.

“Yes.” He answered simply. His voice barely loud enough for her to hear and more of a breath against her wrist.

“Why?” She pressed, her eyes pleading with him as tears filled them.

“Because I’m not exactly someone everyone loves.” Donghun admits. The finality of his situation having sunk in many many years ago.

“But you’re so much different than how everyone describes you.” She tells him, her hands sliding to his hair. “You’re gentle, kind, patient. You’re everything people say you aren’t. Why do you hide that?”

Donghun took her hands in his gently, resting them against his chest where his heart raged against his ribs.

“Because I want only you to see it.” He answered, his eyes searching hers for reciprocation.

He loved her desperately, and he wanted her to fall for him the same way. A demon and an angel falling into a forbidden love.

~ ~ ~

*I wanted darkness, I wanted him.*

Donghun rests his lips against the smooth skin on her neck. The sensation sending chills down his spine. His desire for her pouring into every kiss he strategically placed.

“Are you afraid of me?” He whispers against the expanse of her throat, his hands pulling her body closer to him.

“No.” She breathes out. His lips hot against her skin, any gentleness she was used to was gone. His teeth leaving marks down her neck in rough, black patches.

Donghun pulls away from her neck to look her in the eyes, a hand going to the back of her neck to keep her face closer to his as he looked down at her.

“You should be, darling.” He growled, his voice deep as his eyes roamed over her face and body.

She let out a laugh, a smirk pulling at her lips. “Hardly.”

Donghun let out a chuckle at her strong will. His chest vibrating against her making heat rise throughout her body like an ocean of fire.

“Darling, I would burn worlds for you.” He moaned.

He kissed her fiercely, violently, leaving her lips raw. When he pulled away she was breathless and his fingers were pressed so hard against her skin as if she were his lifeline.

~ ~ ~

*There is a fire in his eyes and ice in his veins. But you love him anyway.*

She pressed against his warm frame and sighed deeply. Darkness shrouding them. Which was so fitting. When you aren’t supposed to be in love with someone so dangerous, you hide it any way you can. But hiding being in love with a devil of sorts wasn’t on her mind as she ran her fingers down his arm gently.

“You mentioned I would rule with you once.” She brought out, a secret looming under the surface of her mind. Screaming to be let out.

Donghun sighed against her touch. He wanted her touch all the time. For her fingers to always be wondering his skin.

“Of course.” He said, “You will be my queen. But I’ve always been considered a demon and you an angel. It’s a big gap.”

She smiles against his shoulder, her mouth hidden from his sight before whispering, “Angels take on many different roles. And I never said I was a good one.”

~ ~ ~

*Come my love, be one with the sea. Rule with me for eternity.*

She was queen. And she did rule beside Donghun. Oh, but how you’re mistaken with this love story. It’s not Hades and Persephone. It’s Hades and his Siren. The woman that played the innocent, loving, beautiful goddess, all a beautiful mask to hide the truth. That goddess is long since dead. Replaced by a beautiful creature as ancient as the sea.

Two deadly forces joined as one. She had lured the cold, relentless king into her hands. He had given her everything she wanted, his every step making him go deeper and deeper into her deadly ocean while she sang. He fell madly in love with her every breath and word whispered to him. Keeping him where a siren best lures men. At the bottom of the ocean.

She smiled at him, her innocent facade gone dark and twisted. “Tell me, my love. Is there anything you wouldn’t give me?”

Donghun smirked at her, “Nothing, my goddess. And you?”

She kissed his lips briefly before whispering, “I would give up the sea for you.”

[velociwrangler]

server promptfest: joey/kate

SO I’M BACK ON MY MEDS AND TRYING TO CRAWL BACK ONTO THE WRITING WAGON

I did a little prompt fest in the Dead by Baelight server! I don’t think they’re really good enough to throw up on AO3 but I am  fond enough of them to share. please be prepared for their short and  rough form, as it was an exercise in low-pressure writing :)

dead by daylight, kate/m!killer, anonymity & lockers, for @obscurefrost​

this one was heeeavily inspired by @crit-afterdark​‘s gorgeous Joey art here. most of the promptfest fics were around 500 words, and this one was more like 1600 LOL. please go and gaze upon her work

Some people just don't learn. That's one of the things that keeps Kate sane in this place. That no matter what they suffer, no matter how often it turns foul, there will be people lunging for the rescue, fighting for each other. She loves them for it, these strangers. What else can you do?

The thunder of the heartbeat in her ears just won't die. The world is pulsing and red around her and Kate shoves her elbow into the splintery surface of the door, legs shaking, and closes her eyes. She's fighting to keep herself upright. Running out of time, she thinks. Running out of time, running - just leave damnit - But it stays and it stays and she's afraid of the creak of the hinges, grimacing tautly against the pain. Just a little longer, she tells herself, but it's not up to her. The heartbeat dies, abruptly. Kate grabs for the door, pushes her shoulder against it. If she can mend, if she can press her wounds together the strange fevered sickness of death's door that Legion's masked members inflict will - Too late, too little time. Her legs fold under her and she crashes to the floor, teeth grating together. The air of the basement is thick and torpid, and she feels every inch of her bruised body. If she starts to crawl up the stairs, will she find a silhouette waiting, returning to find her? She tries to swallow her cries of pain, muffling them with bitten lips, cramming the back of her fingers against her hands. No one is coming for her. She can sense them, far corners of the trial grounds, hiding or bent to their tasks. Tonight's trial had not been a forgiving one. The heartbeat suddenly blooms again and she stiffens. She doesn't want to bleed out, but that logical thought doesn't keep the surge of adrenaline and terror from happening, doesn't prevent her heart from thumping like a rabbit's against her ribs. Come on, she tells herself, trying to summon the aggressively cheerful voice she'd summon to drag herself back out on the road, to promise one more hour before a motel, let's just fucking get this over with and have a little peace and quiet, folks. And then she sees a silhouette, the soft tread of a boot. A light build, but bigger than Nea or Ace. Her vision is swimming and uncertain. "What are you doing?" she slurs, feeling a surge of affection and impatience at once. "Run. You have to run." His head cocks to one side and he comes closer. Cautious, as if his ear is perked for a killer's footstep above. "At least hide," she says. Her voice sounds far away to her own ears, sleepy and scolding. "Don't be a martyr." Closer he comes, weaving around the edge of the wall and crouching down beside her. Kate still has her medkit clutched in her hand, more from a reflexive unthinking stiffness of her fingers than from any real strength of grip. She sighs, half-laughing. "Okay, sugar," she breathes. "If you want to play hero, give me a shot?" Some people just don't learn. That's one of the things that keeps Kate sane in this place. That no matter what they suffer, no matter how often it turns foul, there will be people lunging for the rescue, fighting for each other. She loves them for it, these strangers. What else can you do? Her mind snaps back to the present. He reaches down and methodically works her fingers free of the handle. She slurs, "oh, sorry," and he pauses, then finishes. Her hand drops to the floor, fingers curling. A split second hesitation. The heartbeat is still loud and insistent in their ears. The killer must be patrolling close, determined to find her. Her unknown companion pops the medkit open and looks over its contents. "Syringe," she says dreamily, "I'll be right as rain...I dreamed of it and it gave me something nice this time, right? Instead of just air freshener." She hopes her voice is quieter than it sounds in her own ears. She seems to have lost the knack of whispering. He finds it, lifts it up, and then brushes her hair back. She sighs, feeling gloved fingers brush her throat, The briefest sting in the curve of her bared shoulder. "Now you run," she mumbles. "Or he'll find you." The man stays crouched, easy and relaxed on his haunches, waiting for her. She wishes she could see his face; she's met survivors just about this bold before, devil may care after living too long in this place, but she can't place him. "At least hide," she says. Strange moments like these in trials are odd spots of macabre fascination, always. When the urgency gives way to light-hearted fatalism, when all you have are each other. "Get in the locker." She shivers on the ground, feeling a prickling wave travel from head to toe. Whatever is in the syringe - no matter what material it mimics, no matter what shape the Fog gives it to be crudely recognizable - it's as natural and recognizable as the Fog itself. But as long as it does its job, she'll take it. "Get in the...." She reaches out and tries to grasp his pant leg. Her fingernails scrape and slip off. "Sugar," she says again, that strange giddy mix of endearment and annoyance bubbling in her veins, "stop being a dumbass." When he moves, she slumps against the ground in relief and closes her eyes. But then she feels his hands on her again, and he picks her up off the ground, cradling her against his chest. She murmurs something incoherent, confused, and then hears the locker door open: his grip shifts on her, keeping her pinned to his chest by the waist as he walks them inside. The door closes behind them. She slumps against his chest, obliging, and they are squeezed together from shoulder to hip. His legs fit between hers, the coarse fabric of his pants brushing her inner thighs, and he keeps her on her feet with the pressure of his body alone. Which is. A problem. Just until the syringe finishes, she thinks. Just until - But the syringe working moves over her in a prickling wave. Her body feels hot and tender. Whatever it's doing to her, whatever strange machinations it performs inside her body, it makes her shiver and flood with sensation, nerves on overdrive. The warm weight of his body against hers is secure, persistent. His pelvis presses the crease of her shorts against her and she shivers. A little sound escapes her, involuntary and high-pitched, and he lifts on gloved fingers. It grazes both of their mouths, they're so close, when he presses it to his lips and whispers, "shhhh." The first time he's spoken, she realizes, but it doesn't give her many clues. Still no clue as to who he is. Is he a new survivor, or will she be real embarrassed when they stagger out of the basement together? "Sorry," she tries to whisper back. It probably comes out too loud. Her face is flushed, and the cool damp air of the basement is banished by their bodies together in such a close space. His breath, soft and steady, grazes her mouth. "Sorry," she repeats, "I'm..." "Hn?" he says. Has he never used the syringe before? She tries to hold still and not rock against him, tries not to rut pleadingly against the line of his body. Her fingers curl into the loose sweatshirt around his frame and a vivid image flashes through her mind: of pushing her fingers under it, smoothing her hand across his lower stomach and dipping her fingers under the hem. It's an absurd thought, especially because the heartbeat hasn't eased. Has the killer really fixated on this one down, or is he chasing someone else? She tries to remember if a generator has gone off while she's been bleeding out. "Feels like - " she gasps, and then he presses against her, rocks his hips slowly and deliberately inward, and she realizes she's been squirming without meaning to, and her fingers in his sweatshirt having been giving weak little tugs. She moans and tries to cover her mouth, but it's hard to maneuver her hand up. He kisses her. Presses his mouth to hers to silence her and she feels a rasp of fabric. From far, far away, distant alarm bells begin to sound in the back of her head. But she's still woozy, and the effects of the syringe haven't worn off yet. If anything they've gotten worse, because neither of them are helping her calm down. He presses even closer, which she didn't think was possible, and one gloved hand rucks up her shirt and settles on her waist, flexing against her skin. "He'll find us," she protests muzzily, and he gives a huff of laughter against her lips. She's still holding onto his sweatshirt anyway, tugging and guiding his body against hers desperately. He's settled into a slow, hard rhythm, grinding against her through both of their clothes. If she could cant her hips, wrap her legs around his waist, guide him where she really wants it - she'd probably have come already. But instead it's pressure, flares of just right there yes god and then rocking away, a tease that disintegrates the last fragments of her reservations. She sinks her teeth into her lower lip and shoves both hands up under his shirt, moulding them against the lines of his back, feeling his muscles move with the rhythm of his hips even in this confined space that cramps their bodies together. "Please," she whimpers, "oh, fuck - " He lowers his head and puts his mouth on the wound that downed her, the red slash that gouges down over her shoulder and upper chest, just as the syringe kicks in and it closes. The bright, violent burst of pain as his tongue strokes over it crashes her headfirst into orgasm, even as, in this last moment, the alarm bells in the back of her head go klaxon-loud and she realizes -

[wickednerdery]

Title: The Guest Author: @wickednerdery Fandom: The Night Manager Pairing/character: Jonathan Pine/OC Rating: Teen Summary: “You go alone? At this hour?” Notes: This is something that’s been bouncing in my brain for, like, almost a year (on-and-off)…still not sure I have more than snapshots, but it finally came out onto paper just now lol!

First Chapter

Pine jolts awake, covered in sweat with tight chest and pounding heart. If he didn’t know what it was, if he’d not had them over the years, he’d have thought it a heart attack. He groans himself up, swings legs over edge of bed and puts head between. He runs through the hotels he’s worked in to himself, skipping only the Nefertiti. He repeats them over and over until some semblance of calm returns. Then Jonathan sighs. All that work on setting a routine, putting the past behind him, undone by one little incident. Hopefully it’s a blip, a singular attack, and not the return to a nightly pattern. 

With deep sigh he stands, tosses on swim trunks and hoodie. He knows he’s not going back to sleep, not after that, so he steps into trainers, grabs keycard and towel, and heads out. He takes the nearest exit, walks the grounds outside, to reach the pool. He’s still shaking slightly as he folds and sets clothing on plastic chair.

Breath is visible in the chill of the morning. The ocean hums in the distance, crickets carry on, but the daylight has yet to reach the grounds. Jonathan enjoys the privacy of it, takes in cold air until his shivers only come from the exhilaration of it. When he feels ready, feels right, Jonathan discreetly dives in.

He lets out his shock at the cold, his lingering frustrations, while still underwater. Screaming bubbles surface before he does. Looking around there’s nothing but increased birds chirping and sun finally cutting through the trees. He is still alone, blissfully, but terribly, alone. Jonathan goes under again, his back skimming the surface as he does laps until he hasn’t the air to continue the pace.

“Was the gate unlocked?” She asks with neither amusement nor upset.

Jonathan turns to find her at the other end of the pool. “Yes.” Then his face goes troubled. “I’m sorry, is it not open?”

“Apparently, it is.” Kay’s lips finally lift as she starts to walk towards his end. “I told May to lock it before bed, I should’ve checked.” So much for giving her daughter more responsibility at the hotel.

“I do apologize.” He starts to get up, out, the steam of warm body hitting cold morning rising from his skin. Muscles stutter and tense in the cold, but he presses on.

“Don’t worry about it.” She grabs a pool towel for him. “I’m sure Mrs Regan had her best morning here.” Kay tosses towel with a smile.

He catches it with confused look before following Kay’s eyes to a balcony room overlooking the pool just as its door closes. He chuckles. “I hope this doesn’t count as making trouble in your hotel, Ms Lin.”

“Oh no, Mr Ashland, this is entertainment.” She laughs. “Would you care for any coffee, Mr Ashland?”

“You may call me, Jonathan, if you wish.”

“Alright then, Jonathan. I’m Kay. Coffee, Jonathan?”

“Perhaps we can have one together?”

“I’m going for a run.” Only now does he realize her outfit, the athlesuire wear and trainers. Hair usually tightly wound is more relaxed, in ponytail. “But I can get the coffee before I go.”

“No. No, it’s fine.”

“Okay then.”

He towels hair, watching her start to go, before being unable to help himself. “You go alone? At this hour?”

“Always.” She senses his implication. “Don’t worry, the biggest risks are the early morning drivers and I've got my reflective jacket for that.”

“I could...join you?”

“Are you asking or offering?”

“Whichever offends you less.”

Kay smiles, indulges him and her own curiosity. “Tell you what, lock up for me here, get dressed, and meet me at the main desk.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Oh, god, no,” she laughs. “No, no, don’t ever call me that. I start getting “ma’am’d”, I won’t know what I’ll do with myself!” Kay’s laugh lingers even after she’s back inside.

Jonathan chuckles, makes sure the padlock is secure in place, and heads back to his room with a smile. He doesn’t bother to ask himself why he made the offer, if that’s what it was. He’s not yet willing to dwell in the possibility he’s lonely or scared after his night terror. Jonathan is not thinking on whether or not he wants to be with her or just anyone. He just knows he wants to jog with Kay and that if he lets her go alone he won’t feel right the rest of the day.

***

They run together and alone. Enjoying shared silence, each one in their own head, as they move side-by-side, in synch. Pine thinks about his troubles, if he might ever outrun them. Kay thinks about the ones coming if the men return before she can find a safe place for Ricky.

Pine stops when Kay does, panting with her down at the center of town. He straightens up, looks around, then smiles. “Coffee.”

“Coffee.” She smiles, slips in with him behind as she catches breath. “Morning Joe!”

Joseph beams. “Every time.”

“Without fail.”

“The usual?”

“Yes, also...” She turns to Jonathan, expectantly. 

“Just a medium coffee, black, please.” There’s a plethora of options on a separate counter, he’ll adjust for himself.

Kay shrugs. “You heard the man.”

“What about a treat for our favorite month?”

“No, just the coffees today.” She won’t to reward May’s shoddy chore work.

Back outside, coffees in hand, they walk the shuttered town. Jonathan scans for threats, listens for cars and dangerously important conversations...all those things he can’t stop doing nowadays. It isn’t until Kay settles onto a bench at the main bridge that he lets himself relax a touch beside her. He keeps to one end, her on the other, with enough space for ten coffees.

“Are you still keeping your reservation open-ended?” She asks, sipping the overly sweet latte she favors.

“If that’s all right.”

“Of course.”

“I am sorry about this morning.”

“Are you this apologetic naturally or is it the years of customer service?”

“A bit of both, I suppose.” He smiles into the rising sun. “How long have you run Squall’s End?”

“About five years. It was my parents, but they retired and left it to me.”

“Are they still alive?”

“Yep, just moved down to Florida. They said it was part of their American dream.” She laughs a bit. “We stay with them during most the winter, when tourist season ends here.”

“I see.”

She looks to him. “If you’re still around, I’ll find you accommodations until we return, don’t worry.”

“No, no, it’s no trouble.”

“Exactly. No trouble.”

He smiles, sips his coffee. He holds himself back until he finishes the cup. “Those men who dropped by yesterday -”

“I told you, I don’t discuss and I don’t ask.”

“Will they be back?” He presses on to the point. “Will you and your daughter be in danger if they do?”

Kay isn’t sure how to answer, isn’t sure she has the answer. She focuses on her coffee, only responding when she senses him shifting in preparation to speak again. “Men like them might threaten, intimidate, but they won’t do anything to get on police radar.”

“Are you certain of that, Kay?”

She gulps cold latte, stands with a sigh to toss cup in recycling, then looks down at him. “It’s not something you need to worry about, Jonathan. You’re my guest, not the other way around.”

He smiles up at her, she smiles back. They both know he’ll worry anyway, that he’s already worrying. He’s just that type.

**

Apparently writing the first one unleashed more so...yay? So, the new OC’s full name is Kai-Lee Lin, but goes by Kay because it’s easier. She’s Asian-American, moving to the States with her parents when very young then becoming a citizen (probably around her teens/20s). Her daughter, May, is about ten or eleven and I’m sure she’ll show up later. ...And that’s all I’m saying for now lol! 

(Gif found from Google!)

Tagging Who Might Care: @lady-crowned-with-stars @holykryptonitekitten @ultrarebelheart @chibiyanai @beccaliciooouuusss​​ @michellearel1​​ @sweetfictionalworld @lukeevansandjdmobession @lokilvrr @rizzo87 @alexakeyloveloki @wintertink @moonfaery @annievvv7 @creedslove @wadeyouwitch @cassadius @tarithenurse​ @kellatron55​ @coppercorn-and-cauldron​

[lots-of-little-pink-clouds]

The Princess Who Will Never Wake Chapter 3

Summary: Lettow finds out about Aila.

Characters: Mainly Lettow for this chapter. Lots of Aila/Lettow angst.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28724877/chapters/71200482

Notes: ... I, uh, totally didn't forget about Riga. I swear, I didn't! (Rip Riga, we hardly knew you) She's here now, so it doesn't matter!

Anyways, I thought about ending it with Lettow in the caves holding Aila's ashes, but that felt too rushed. Then I thought about ending it with someone else's POV or the aftermath of when Lettow returned to Tucson, but I figured this would work better. This particular story is about Lettow, after all.

I wanted to give him some sort of closure by physically going to Aila's tomb and then set up stuff for later, why he stayed and what not. In this case, he'll be actively looking for her killer by using his resources as Prince (which is how he discovers Julian was involved). Unfortunately, it can't be his top priority, no matter how much he wants it to be (Princes are very busy running their cities and he's also focused on maintaining his image within the Camarilla).

I hope I did it justice.

June 7th 2009

Aila's resting place was not far from the city, a two-hour drive at most. It would have been wiser to leave the next night instead of risking the sunrise. Dove would have been more than willing to accommodate him and readjust his schedule. As it was, Lettow barely managed to hide his car in a safe location and sink into the earth before daylight came. Yet despite the overwhelming urge to sleep, thoughts of I need to hurry and I hope I'm not too late and Please, please, please flitter across his mind, keeping him awake long after the sun rises.

The heat of the Arizona sands eventually lull him into a doze. Fragments of memories and turquoise-scattered dreams wake him again and again and again, their familiarity comforting and haunting.

Lettow fully wakes as soon as the sun sets, hands shaking, undead heart thumping, and so, so hungry. Rising out of the ground, he finds Riga waiting for him. She perches on the roof of his car with her head cocked judgementally.

"I apologize for leaving you behind, my friend," he says. "I was in a hurry." He grabs treats from the glove compartment and feeds his eagle companion. She accepts the peace offering, nipping at his fingers. "Now come. There is someplace I need to be."

Lettow gets back into his car and drives, Riga flying overhead as he throttles down the deserted road.

Eventually, he arrives at his destination.

Aila chose a series of caves just outside Tucson to be her resting place. It was only within the last twenty years or so that humans built a warehouse above it. The original builders evidently knew of the caverns below their investment, as they decided to capitalize on the additional storage space. Luckily, they didn't go deeper.

Lettow acquired it as soon as he became Prince, but never used it for anything. Instead, the warehouse sat abandoned, a silent tomb for its lone resident who should have remained undisturbed.

Until now.

The first thing he notices are the faint car tracks in the sand. If Lettow hadn't been looking for something, he probably wouldn't have seen it. If he'd been a night later, the tracks might have been gone entirely, covered by dust kicked up by a desert breeze. Dread pools in his gut as he gets out of his car and makes his way closer. Riga settles on the roof of the warehouse to keep watch.

The entrance to the warehouse was pried open. He jogs over and places a hand on the rusted metal door. Bent and misshapen. No claw marks though. A crowbar?

He slips inside. The moon shines through the warehouse's windows, hitting steel beams that cast long shadows across the wide, open room. He creeps along the warehouse floor to the backwall. Embedded into it are a series of doors. Lettow skips the men's and women's restrooms, the two offices, and the lounge, and stops in front of the door at the far end. Opening it, he descends into the warehouse's basement.

Lettow lets vitae pool in his mouth. He pushes past the ravenous hunger, focusing and thinking I have to keep moving, I have to find her. His Sight helps him navigate past old storage containers and further down into the dark cavernous depths of the warehouse.

He knows this path like the back of his hand. He remembers when he helped carry her coffin - more of a large crate, really, less suspicious that way - as far down into the caves as they could possibly go. He travels down it again and again in his dreams, hoping beyond hope that one day, Aila will wake at the end of them. But she never does.

Why did she leave me?

Why wasn't I enough?

Am I not worth living for?

The thoughts cling to him like a shroud and he falters. He closes his eyes, pauses, takes a deep breath to calm himself.

She's fine, he thinks. She has to be.

Lettow continues down the path, hunger gnawing at his mind and desperation in his step.

He nearly trips over the crate as he turns the next corner. A loud and hollow Thunk! echoes throughout the caves. Lettow's hands grasps the edge of the opened wooden box to regain his balance when the realization hits him.

No...

He looks into the crate.

Nothing.

Nothing except ashes.

He pushes himself backwards, falling to the ground, frantically looking around the area for something, anything to indicate she was alive.

"Aila!" he cries.

His voice is the only one he hears.

"AILA!"

Lettow crawls back towards the crate. He reaches inside with shaking hands. Gently, he scoops up some of the ashes. For a long time, he stares at them, so long that his Sight fades away, leaving him alone in the darkness.

Then, he holds them close to his chest and cries silently.

Lettow doesn't know how long he sits there. Eventually he pushes himself to his feet. He forces himself to let go, to carefully place Aila's ashes back into the crate and make his way up to the surface. He returns with a bucket from his car. Reverently, he transfers Aila's remains into it. Once he's certain he left nothing behind, he carries her out of her tomb.

Riga awaits him, flying down from the warehouse roof to perch on his shoulder. She croons and nuzzles the side of his head. Lettow reaches up and runs his fingers through her feathers.

With his eagle at his side, Lettow walks away from the warehouse and out into the desert. The moon hangs high above, illuminating his path. He climbs to the top of a sand dune and stares out over the vast expanse towards the eastern horizon.

A memory comes to him: him and Aila, wandering through a similar desert halfway across the world.

"Do you remember that time, Aila?"

He gently places the bucket onto the ground beside him. Looking out into the distance, Lettow shoves his hands into his pants pockets, the white fabric below his knees stained with Beau's dried blood.

"It feels like a lifetime ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was looking forward to eternity with you. But fate had other plans."

He swallows.

"I'm sorry," Lettow whispers. "I'm sorry I wasn't enough for you. And I'm sorry I couldn't stop this from happening. I promise you, Aila. I'll find who did this."

And then what?

What would he do once he was face-to-face with her killer?

He doesn't know.

Lettow wrenches his gaze away from the horizon. Kneeling, he scoops up some of Aila's ashes. He closes his eyes, takes a shaky breath, and lets go. The desert breeze carries her far, far away.

He hopes she'll eventually make it back to her homeland.

Once all of her ashes are gone from the bucket, Lettow returns to his car. Riga hops off his shoulder and onto the roof as he collapses into the driver's seat. Closing the door, he starts the engine.

His phone buzzes.

Lettow grabs the mobile device from the passenger's seat and checks his messages. Several missed calls and unread texts. He sighs heavily.

A Prince's job is never done.

[valkblue]

— masterlist, AO3

Chapter 3 on 12

Chapter wordcount: 5,241 Rating: General Warning: You know the drill by now, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ swearing and technobabble!

Author’s notes: Soft engineer goes yeehaw.

Tag list: @hathorik​, @pheedraws​, @the-blind-assassin-12​

Does anyone else wants to be added to the tag list? Let me know. 💙

— Chapter 3

In front of the mirror, Vivian was enjoying a pretty flattering image of herself in this Old West apparel; it was brand new, from boots to hat, all worn looking with some sort of a distress effect for which Vivian had actually paid good money. The staff didn’t always get to choose among the bespoke best of the best considering the renting was free… But if one aimed for ever so slightly better, it wasn’t anymore!

For now, Vivian regretted nothing, except maybe that she wouldn’t get to keep it all at the end of her stay. She even afforded a gun!

But considering where she intended to go, it wouldn't be just a pointless luxury. And neither would be looking a bit more weathered than as if straight out of the tailor's shop…

Filled with pride, Vivian flushed at the thought she hoped not to be the only one to think her pretty, and to make an impression on the other guests. For no reason other than to boost her self-esteem. She pulled her hair up, trying to shape them into some fancy beachy waves, same as for a western starlet, Sharon Stone in that antic 95' movie, "The Quick and the Dead"… but not as sexy. Also, less blond.

And clearly, everything else was so frickin stylish as well! Thanks so much, Design.

All the available outfits for the clients were carefully recreated with historical sewing patterns but with all the benefits of current materials. And the gray linen shirt, the vest and the pants Vivian was wearing were cut better and no doubt from much more comfortable fabric than her everyday clothes that it was borderline upsetting!

Still, she smiled to her reflection while tying a large beige and red kerchief around her neck.

This time, she chose what she would wear. No way she’d suffer dresses or puffed sleeves and flowered hats ever again!

Her first visit in the park, not too long after she started in Behavior, was on the occasion of a "team building" week-end of some sort but after a few hours — a day, maybe? — everyone had scattered around in the limits set to them during their onboard train briefing… So much for team spirit!

That being said, Vivian was fine with that; she was of the quiet kind, more observing than extroverted, and to go forth befriending new people, stuff like that, wasn’t really her strength. Even if everything had been set up to spur her on that way. Like, a Team Building week-end…

But then, it was also because she was the way she was — alone and no strings attached — that Vivian had grasped this golden opportunity to work as a coder for Delos in their now famous park. She only had a few friends all around the world, mostly online, and didn’t keep much contacts up with her family, especially her sister with whom she shared an old resentment.

It was this lack of ties that could let people believe her more focused and available than her otherwise committed colleagues.

These thoughts discarded, Vivian put her stetson on, stuffed her gloves in her gunbelt and picked her saddlebags up before leaving the dressing room to walk the hallways down to the elevator. It took her in one go all the way to the level right below the surface, from which the maglev shuttles' terminal was distributing the entirety of the park; she almost jumped out of the cabin and kept a brisk pace in the last long corridors to reach a plainer hall than the client’s terminal.

Shifting her saddlebags’s weight on her shoulder, Vivian moved across the space, ignoring the curious eyes to get to one of the shuttle’s platform. She was already getting in character, and she enjoyed it. 

Maybe a bit too much, she thought as she tipped her hat to three techs in suits and apron. She was discovering herself an unsuspected confidence that she liked very much; she giggled with pleasure as she stepped in the shuttle she was about to share with a group of techs from various departments and two guys from QA’s security, including one who gave an enormous yawn.

The shuttle carried them at high speed and stopped first at Vivian's meeting point, where she was the only one to step off.

With a peek at her pocket watch, Vivian hoped she wasn’t late, provided that she didn’t get stood up. But passing one of the many concrete pillars in the huge low lit tunnel, her worries faded; Graham didn’t let her down. He was there, waiting for her next to a freight lift, holding a beautiful chestnut horse by the bridle. At least, she wouldn’t have to walk, or rely on the train and start all the way back from Sweetwater.

"Thanks, Graham! Sorry for the trouble…"

"No problem," he answered. "You’re aiming to make a mess someplace, aren’t you?"

Vivian scoffed and buckled her saddlebags to her steed’s gear.

"No, not even! I’m just gonna visit remote corners, far from the tourists’ standard circuit."

"Mmh, good luck…" Graham replied lazily, handing her the reins. "Cry for help and shake your arms to the camera if you need us to come get you!"

She punched him lightly in the arm and he smiled, unfolding a tablet on which he confirmed Vivian and her horse’s exit in the logs.

"You’re good to go."

"Thanks, Graham."

"Yeah, yeah…"

He waved her away towards the glass lift; as she was getting ready inside, her horse still held by the reins, Graham ordered it to go up — the doors closed, and the cabin shook in its tubular frame.

"Yeehaw, babey!" he shouted, playfully.

Vivian shrugged before patting her horse’s shoulder as to calm it. It didn’t need any of that, it was actually more about alleviating her own stress by petting it. The lift slowly raised Vivian and her horse to the surface where the bright daylight was jarring. She lowered her head to look around under the brim of her hat; a great plain spread out in front of her eyes, surrounded by crisp red hills covered in tall grass and a few crooked trees like old charred bones.

The lift shook again before coming to a stop, startling the horse that jolted at the end of its reins. Vivian patted its neck and when the doors opened she steered it out; a gust of wind full of a warm earthy smell rushed a cloud of dust against the armored glass.

Gathering the reins on her horse’s neck , Vivian hoisted herself in the saddle; it wasn’t something new by any means, but the feeling of it was strange anyway — she hadn’t been on a horse for a very long while. But as they said, it was like riding a bike…

For now, she was happy just by staying in the saddle, unmoving, and took the time to put her gloves on to observe the landscape. According to the map she did her best to memorize, Las Mudas was north-west from this outpost, within a few miles. On horseback, it wouldn’t take long. And she would find the road eventually, even before reaching the town.

Vivian clicked her tongue to encourage her mount to walk, and it obeyed; she was in no real hurry but if she hoped to be in the right place at the right time to smoothly intercept the narrative of her choice, she ought to end up galloping at some point, fast!

She picked in her pocket, pulling out her watch; it was past two in the afternoon and, provided she didn’t wind up lost, she’d be there around four. Comfortably set in her saddle and stirrups, Vivan pushed the pace of her horse with another click of her tongue while the freight lift was quaking back down.

Gallop wasn’t uncomfortable, but galloping that long could quickly become so and, once she reached the dirt road meandering in the sparse vegetation all the way to Las Mudas, Vivian let her horse go back to a trot. And that gait was straight down uncomfortable but she preferred riding all the way there rather than popping up through a building access right in the middle of the town, fresh as a daisy, hands in her pockets, saddlebags on her shoulder… and without any pony.

Not fishy at all…

The truth was she didn’t had much of a choice about the available access points, really! She did what she could with what was among the closest. But it was fine by her. It would make the experience more authentic and gave her the time to check what she could have overlooked before leaving, or even think things through instead of just dive head first into trouble.

That being said, she hoped there wouldn’t be any; she wasn’t there to go on an adventure, but to hold a promise… while taking notes on her script in field conditions.

The thought that she’d remove it if it caused any issue was kinda gut wrenching but she thought it best to blame it on hunger. Vivian hadn’t had lunch yet so nervous she was, and now, she was starving.

But, at last, the shape of the town’s walls cut out on the hills gray with garrigue. Maybe she’d eat something once settled there. She had heard that the food was kinda good around these parts…

Vivian let the reins loose; only a few yards and they entered, walking, on the town’s dusty square. Even if her poor horse had done most of the work, it wasn’t the only one to be tired by this scamper; they both had a sore back and stiff legs. Getting her feet back on the ground would be an interesting experience in a few moments…

She stretched her shoulders as she was slowing down her horse, until it stopped, nose in front of the fountain. Apparently, she was better at parallel parking with a horse than with her car!

That thought made Vivian snicker as she slowly slid down her steed. As she expected, dismounting was tough; the pain surge from the sole of her feet all the way to her thighs, getting her knees to shake. She stood still for a second, taking the time to pat her horse who had already dived its big grey nose into the water of the fountain.

"Good idea, buddy,” she whispered, out of breath.

She took her canteen from her saddle horn to take a long sip from it. The water wasn’t that fresh anymore but it still did the job; Vivian felt like all the dust of the road was in her throat right now! Her steps heavy, betraying her lack of habit to ride for so long, she sat with less grace than hoped on the edge of the stone basin, beside her still drinking horse. Vivian took a hot minute to breathe and watch the scenery of Las Mudas; she could make out the colors of the house fronts under the dusty patina, feel the cool air and hear the quiet bustle of its inhabitants. Children were running after a few panicking chickens with a dog barking in excitement and wagging its tail like a whip.

Vivian removed her gloves and untied her neckerchief to wipe her face. When her horse raised its head, its mouth dripping with water on her shoulder, she chuckled and avoided its forehead coming a bit too fast in hers. Then, she plunged her hands in the water to wet her face and neck. That felt really good.

Vivian tied her neckerchief back while a plump red hen came pecking pebbles at her feet, fleeing when her horse stepped on the side; she snorted as her eyes followed the hen’s erratic dashes. Vivian enjoyed the calm ambient, the subtlety in details, but at the same time, she was recognising the work of this team, that department… Vivian grunted as she turned away from the daily life scene and leapt to her feet, startling her horse. She shouldn’t let her insider knowledge get in the way of what she came to do here, she shouldn’t "trash her own immersion" as much as she should be careful of what she was going to say, and to whom.

After this little clarification with herself, she brought her attention back to the people around her; the border between hosts and guests was finally getting a bit blurry — that guy who was scraping horse shit from his soles on the edge of the cantina’s boardwalk was just that, a man… And these kids, bickering around who would be the hunter in their next game of hide and seek, were all just kids. It was more pleasing to imagine oneself like a time traveler — she had to adapt to what was around her, not the other way around.

Her horse cut her thoughts short with a soft headbutt to her back, like a nudge to immerse herself back in and she took it to the hitching post, a few steps away; Vivian rolled the reins around the rod, searched in her saddlebag for a few coins she pocketed in her vest and walked without hurry to the cantina’s rickety tables. She pushed her holster back a little on her hip and sat on a chair. Even though she had spent the last few hours with her butt sticked to a saddle, she felt like it was the first time she was really sitting since the morning! Her shoulders stooped in relief and she stretched her legs with a grunt, propping one heel on the seat in front of her. 

"Shit…" she sighed between her teeth.

She noticed the three patrons at the closest table staring at her. When their eyes met, under the brim of her hat, they turned away, focusing back on their tumblers full of whisky and their domino game.

"What are you having, newcomer?"

Vivian almost jumped; the barkeep was standing right beside her, a dirty rag in his hands. His face was as weathered as the walls and he looked simply tired to be himself.

"Actually, I’m looking for someone," she explained.

The barkeep’s whole face wrinkled as he frowned, wincing a smile that was as embarrassed as it was embarrassing.

"What kind of someone?" he asked, cautious.

Vivian understood her mistake. It might not be the best way to break the ice to accidentally imply that she was a bounty hunter or something, as she suddenly realised. She tried to fall back:

"Someone with good knowledge of these parts to take me to Pariah without going in circles."

The barkeep couldn’t have looked more relieved had he cracked a fart, Vivian thought, her eyebrows raised in amusement.

"Oh," he said before flicking glances around. "You’re sure gonna find a great deal of good folks like that around!"

He gestured towards one of the domino players.

"Carlos, here, can take you. Hey, Carlos…"

That one turned a suspicious look towards Vivian’s table, but stood up anyway to step forward; he was the dirtiest of the three and under the brim of his own hat, his face had something alarming — maybe because of his broken nose and missing teeth. With a calm motion of her hand, she stopped him to make another step. Carlos froze, looking frankly disappointed and Vivian glared at the barkeep.

" Someone trustworthy."

Carlos grumbled and spat some black tobacco goo on the ground, through the spaces between his teeth before sitting back among his cackling friends. Vivian looked back to the barkeep who winced again awkwardly.

"D’you have that around here?" she quipped.

Far be it from her to be disparaging; she was only being playing the game… She figured out that the barkeep wasn’t a model of bravery, or honesty, and he needed to be pushed a little for her to get what she wanted. He shrugged, twisting his rag.

"Yeah, yeah," he assured her, nodding almost exaggeratedly. "Sure! There’s…"

He cleared his throat and one of his shaking hands flew from the rag to point her towards the stables — or at least what looked like it — opposing the cantina on the other side of the street.

"Thanks," she answered, almost ironically.

But he heard nothing of it, bobbing his head without adding a word before leaving for a table where a guy was calling for him loudly. Vivian stood up without haste, sparing her sore muscles useless efforts, before heading to the wooden awning. The street wasn’t very large between the cantina’s boardwalk and the stables and yet, she had time to come across enough people to wreck her immersion; two women were walking down the southern aisle, commenting almost out loud on the realism of the place. 

"Feels like the real thing!", a guy uttered as he caught up on them after having thanked a woman who had given him direction on the doorstep on her house.

The real what, exactly?!

It’s wasn’t like they were in the middle of Sweetwater, which was more or less the  park’s entry point, with all its market-tested banalities! No, this was one of these remote areas where things started to get a bit more "hairy" as Margaret said… "Epic", according to Thawal.

Basically, what the fuck were those tourists doing here, in this area of the park, if they weren’t going to forget, not even for a second, the limits of this questionable reality they were clinging onto at each step to focus on all the possibilities of where they were right now?

Vivian let out a slow sigh. She shouldn’t get angry, or judge; maybe these people lacked self-confidence — she knew all too well what a pain it could be — and were afraid to lose control; control of themselves, or the situation.

Vivian rubbed her neck under her kerchief and slowed down as she arrived in front of the stables. From there, exited a tall black guy with broad shoulders under his long duster, and with one look, he seemed to evaluate her from head to toe as he went past her, leading his horse by the bridle. He nodded to Vivian, and she nodded back. 

By the fountain where he hoisted himself in his saddle, several others came from the nearby street; she heard the guy giving orders to the troop gathering around him and they all went ahead, galloping towards the western gate, frightening the chickens away to the sides of the street, scattering their feathers as they flapped their flightless wings. A strange silence fell on the town after the riders disappeared.

Despite her being kinda bothered about "tourists", Vivian would admit that long-returning guests like that man with the duster, had an uncanny ability to blend themselves in the narratives, to make them theirs to the point of changing the entire thing sometimes. At least, until the next reset.

Vivian brushed her hair off her forehead under the brim of her hat to try to gather her thoughts, and courage, before stepping in the stables; two men had their backs turned, at the right of a bay horse’s tail, facing to talk to another Vivian couldn’t see, except for his worn hat between their heads. At the moment, he seemed more concerned about his saddle’s straps than about what the two other men were telling him on a hurried but hushed tone. Vivian couldn’t hear everything from where she was; one of them didn’t want him to leave, not now, and the other was arguing that it was exactly what "the other brother" was waiting for, that he should at least let them come with him…

The horse shifted its weight, nudging the man leaning on its croup — he and the other moved aside, clearing the line of sight to the third, someone Vivian recognised with no effort. Even dressed.

She sucked her teeth and wrinkled her nose as to hold back a laugh. But all cheerfulness vanished when the two men turned to her, almost threatening. Certainly surprised by the sudden silence, Lawrence then looked up, letting go of the straps he had just finished buckling around a Winchester scabbard.

"The fuck d’you want?" spat the one of the two with a big mustache and a split leather vest.

Vivian didn’t answer right away, and that silence prompted the other to slowly put his hand to the handle of a knife in his belt. The unspoken threat made Vivian’s heart rush. Yet, she kept her chill — way more than she imagined herself able to. So, she explained:

"The barkeep sent me here when I told him I was looking for someone trustworthy to take me to Pariah."

The one with the mustache glanced at Lawrence, himself staring at Vivian with an expression she could have qualified as grumpy or disappointed.

"I can pay, if that’s what concerns you," she added to break the silence before it settled.

Lawrence suddenly unfroze and shook his head, before checking a second time on the straps securing his rifles’ scabbard to the saddle.

"No," he grumbled. "Sorry, lady… You’ve been fed some bullshit."

He patted his horse and tugged a bit on his saddle blanket to adjust it.

"Thing is… I can’t right now."

He was playing "hard to get"! Vivian would’ve almost laughed at that. Not that she found it ridiculous or anything, on the contrary; it was nice, and unexpected!

Looking away towards a rider passing in the street near the awning, she nodded slowly, not repressing a smirk, and sliding her thumbs in her belt.

"Alright," she simply said. "Thanks anyway…"

Vivian waited for a second to pass in silence. None of them broke it until she added:

"Evenin’, gents…"

She tipped her hat; one of the men nodded as an answer and Vivian was already leaving the stables when she heard another swear a bunch, on a quiet tone. She was still repressing her smile when she reached the cantina to sit back at the same table, still available. This time again, she was more than happy to sit down.

Vivian threw a quick glance at the stables and snorted, amused. She easily guessed that he wasn’t engaged on any other narrative than his own for now but… she wouldn’t insist anyway. Maybe later? Or maybe she’d follow him and pretend to come across him somewhere along the way… Vivian had nothing outlined, really, and she didn’t want to outline anything. She, too, would improvise!

The barkeep finished to fill a glass at the nearest table and walked to Vivian’s to whom he asked:

"Something to drink, after all?"

He shook the brownish alcohol bottle he had in his hand.

"Cider, you have that?" she asked.

"Yeah, sure! I-I’ll get it now…"

And without waiting for any approval or comments, he left for the inside of the cantina. Vivian let out a long sigh; every intentions put aside, it was a nice moment to spend in the coolness and the calm of this small town between the hills. At the southern gate, the entrance of a cart pulled by a prancing donkey caught Vivian’s attention but she turned away from it as the barkeep was coming back already, holding a clay bottle and one small glass, same as for the other patrons, barely bigger than a shot.

"Did… did you find what you were looking for?" he asked, opening the bottle.

"You can say that…"

The barkeep didn’t comment and poured a glassful of dark cider, generous enough to spill all over the table — she guessed that it was a dry one but she hoped it would also be a good one. She nodded, thanking him silently, and the barkeep went back inside. A second had barely passed and a man stood up from his table to come and sit in front of Vivian who was trying her best to raise her glass without spilling more; she only acknowledged him with a curious eye while working on the careful rise of her almost-a-shot of cider.

"Heard ye're lookin’ for someone to get ya to Pariah, over there?" he jabbered with a thick accent.

Vivian didn’t answer, watching him above the back of her own hand as she was swigging a good half of her drink; his skin was tanned under his salt-and-pepper beard, his eyelids heavy and his eyes yellowish.

"Ah can take ya there,” he continued under Vivian’s scrutiny. “Less than three days!"

He nodded vigorously.

"Truth be told, ah did it on the way in awright," he completed, without taking note of Vivian’s stubborn silence. "Gimme first half now and the rest as soon as—"

He never finished his sentence, pulled out of his chair by the grip of another man who tossed him aside without a word; he almost fell over but didn’t complain, and on the now available seat settled Lawrence. The expression on his face was a subtle mix between annoyance and remorse and Vivian only raised an eyebrow while putting her glass down on the table.

"My apologies for my bad manners, before," he said, not looking her in the eye for too long. "My cousins and I… we didn’t agree on somethin’."

Vivian didn’t reply and leaned back in her chair… now that she could take her glass without spilling it everywhere.

"I take it you want to go to Pariah?"

It wasn’t really a question, and Vivian didn’t reply to it either, holding his stare. The barkeep was coming back to their table anyway, a bottle and a glass in his hands. However, he didn’t say anything as he poured the whisky in the glass he had put in front of Lawrence who asked again:

"Why is it you want to go there?"

This time, it was a real question. The barkeep had a knowing grin for Vivian before walking away; he was so proud of himself, that one!

"I… I’m supposed to meet someone," she answered, looking back at Lawrence. "Someone who… who owes me."

Vivian clenched her teeth, and her fingers on her glass; it was only half a lie, as she’d find an outpost somewhere around the town but still, she lied. And, herself, she wasn’t proud of that.

The truth was that she had planned her starting point, but not her arrival.

But the answer seemed to convince Lawrence — at least, enough for him to recline in his chair, an arm resting on the table. Without taking his eyes off Vivian, he was tapping with his fingers on the scratched, stained table, next to his glass he still hadn’t touched yet. Vivian enjoyed that detail in his bearing; she could guess that he was thinking. About what, she wasn’t sure, but she was eager to hear what he’d chose to answer.

"If I may," he started with caution. "I don’t think this is a good place for someone… someone like you…"

He waved towards her in a lazy move, still close to his glass. And Vivian wasn’t expecting such a comment. She even doubted that it was part of his standard library; so, her surprised was perfectly honest.

"I can take care of myself!" she bristled.

Again, Lawrence shook his hand and smiled a little, nodding.

"Don’t get me wrong," he tempered. "It’s just that… you might be too polite for a lot like these ones."

Vivian’s puzzlement was unending. Frowning, she heard him adding:

"I only hope you know what to expect over there. But, then again… ain’t my business! I’m goin’ there today."

He picked his glass and took it to his lips.

"And I wouldn’t mind havin’ some company, after all."

Then, he emptied his whole drink in one go. Vivian nodded, tapping with her fingers on the base of here own glass; she displayed some sort of disinterest, like she was totally not impressed while, in fact, her nervousness was starting to take over. It was so different than being in analysis, in the controlled environment of her lab, she realised that too — she was the one in his world, now…

And things wouldn’t be as easy as they looked like. Not for her, anyway. However, she managed to let no more than a few seconds pass before recovering her ability to speak:

"Perfect."

Finishing what cider remained in her glass, Vivian thought how much her own improvisations were about to be wicked awful. She put her glass back down, without a sound.

"The question is," she continued carefully. "How much do you want?"

This elicited a genuine but quiet laugh from Lawrence; he watched her for a second, still smiling. But as much as his sudden cheerful mood was catching, Vivian was wondering what was so funny in what she said.

"A whisky before we leave and somethin’ of the kind when we’re there sounds fair to me," he declared, with a look around the boardwalk of the cantina and the surroundings of the fountain behind Vivian. "It will at least take us two days to get there."

He nodded towards someone out of Vivian’s sight before adding:

"If you need supplies, now’s the right time to think about it."

Vivian agreed — aside from a can of water and a travel kit that, in all honesty, was more of a survival kit, she had nothing in her saddlebags.

"Thanks," she said, simply because she had no idea what else to say — and because she was too polite. "Mister… ?"

Lawrence lowered his head and shook his hand, lazily.

"No, no, please…" he replied, a frown on his face but without any real annoyance. "We’re in for quite a trip together, you can call me Lawrence."

Vivian nodded.

"I’m Ivy…"

It was her real nickname — one her few friends had given her and that she adopted fondly. In front of her, Lawrence leaned towards the table to hold out his hand, palm open as though he had a change of heart about payment. But Vivian got it; he was offering her to shake his hand. And a smiled appeared on his lips as she did.

"Nice meetin’ you, Ivy…"

His politeness effort didn’t slip past Vivian who, even though she appreciated it, couldn't ignore a twinging thought; should she come back in the park after this visit, he wouldn’t remember her… and this "first encounter" would become one among many that only she would remember. That, even with the help of her script.

Lawrence let go of her hand before standing up.

"I’ll be at the stables," he said. "Got some stuff to deal with before leavin’, too."

"Very well."

She observed him as he walk towards a young man, hopping up and down with anxiety and he started to talk really fast to Lawrence as he arrived. The boy was radiating so much stress and guilt that Vivian felt nervous just to look at him. She turned away to see the barkeep coming her way. Without even waiting for him to give her the prices of the drinks, Vivian dropped a few coins next to the empty glasses.

"Keep the change," she muttered as she stood up too.

"Oh, thanks!" he replied, visibly pleased, gathering the coins without waiting. "Safe travel and come back soon!"

She replied with a simple, tight smile before walking down the street to the western gate, towards what looked like a grocery store.