#cr fanfiction

[psychicdamaged]

im cooking

[katia-dreamer]

Percival is different. Like a piece that doesn’t quite fit into his surroundings, jagged edges against a smooth surface.

An arrow weighted wrong.

His white hair, his eyes that can be cold and detached but are full of the kind of fire that burns so bright it almost scalds.  His hair is shaggy and scraggly, and his body appears worn thin by whatever he suffered in his cell.

Percy looks up at her across the campfire, his spectacles flashing white. 

Who was this man who talked like a noble? Who waved about a ridiculous name and had shadows under his eyes that seemed to leech into his very skin? Who was this man who had given her his every cent? She can almost still feel the weight of the coins pressed into her palm, cold and hard.

Percival shifts, pulling his coat tighter around him. “You are studying me very intently.”

Vex bristles at his words. “Can you blame me for being curious?”

“Do you not pick up strangers from jail often?”

“No.”

“What will you do with me now that you have me?” he asks.

She tilts her head, considering, and then says, “You’ll have to wait and see.”

He laughs and almost jumps at the sound, as though he was unused to hearing it. “I suppose I shall.”

He is different, but she could eventually grow fond of it.

And that’s dangerous.

Vex doesn’t make any more conversation that night.

-

also available on A03

[belleflowerwrites]

Chapter 6: The Darringtons make a strong impression at Netherfield. And as Vax’s health continues to improve, Vex sees new facets of Miss Keyleth Hayward and Lord de Rolo. A teaser 👀

“Well, not everyone can truly be accomplished, as I’m sure you’ll agree, Lord de Rolo. That’s why you have your list.” “A list?” Vex asked skeptically. “Oh, certainly,” Miss Darrington said with an air of feigned indifference. At this, she put her abandoned embroidery aside, and she got up to strut around the room under the guise of stretching. “‘Accomplished’ is a term thrown around for any young woman these days. The viscount has his own list of qualities that make a young woman truly accomplished.” He has a list that determines a young lady’s eligibility? Good lord. Aristocratic men really know no shame. At this, Vex stuck a finger in her place in her book and sat up taller in her seat. “How fascinating. Pray tell, what requirements are these?”

Summary:

After fleeing her restrictive upbringing in Syngorn, Vex’ahlia Taylor had no intention of re-entering the ranks of high society. That is, until a young, single woman, Miss Keyleth Hayward, takes up residence in Netherfield Park. Alongside her is the mysterious, sullen Lord Percival de Rolo. As Vex'ahlia learns more about the tragedies that have befallen the de Rolo family and she gets to know the lord himself, she must determine if her first impressions are all they seem.

[fearnesbells]

new imodna fic just dropped! :D

look i don't write kidfic but the conversation with liliana in episode 89 got to me in a way i cannot even describe. "would you end my life? and stop that child from being born?"

all of us are going forward; none of us are going back || imodna || 5k+

“Do you ever think that we’re going to lose it?” Laudna asks, finally, her voice that kind of deep gravel it becomes when she’s fallen deep inside herself. “Lose this?” Imogen asks, looking around them, as the first drops of rain begin to fall outside. She swallows. Weighs the truth against the lie. “All the time.” “Delilah always comes back,” Laudna murmurs, biting out the name like it’s poison. “It was fine when it was me, and me alone. When I wasn’t—I hated when she could get to you, when you were vulnerable, but at least you—you are extraordinarily capable. You’ve beaten her once, you could beat her again.” Her eyes fall to meet Imogen’s, and Imogen understands what she will say next. It makes her body go cold. “They’re only children,” she whispers. “They’re our children.”

ao3 link

playlist link

[sldlovescartoons]

Summary: Essek has been exploring his personality since he's gone into semi-hiding. Including his feminine side, which spiral into him orchestrating a feast of sorts while The Nein and company are vacationing in Rumplcusp with the help of Jester, Yasha, and Veth. Fluffy fun. R&R!

Dark elf societies are highly matriarchal and thusly built many of it’s standards and customs around what Essek understands to be the more stereotypically feminine. Long hair, lots of jewelry and accessorizing, makeup were pretty standard unless you were poor. In a drow culture to be powerful is to be at least slightly feminine. So of course, from the time he started forming his own ideas, which is to say very young, he’d been rather prone to embracing his masculinity. He refused to wear the dresses gifted to him by suitors from other dens (very gender neutral gowns, normally), he cut his hair short as soon as he thought he could get away with it, he never had more than two piercings in each ear. His mother once said he looked like a poor harlot, but she also said it made him seem very threatening so it was more of a backhanded compliment than anything else. It was just one way for him to rebel, he’d been realizing. The one head of short hair in a court of long hair in complex styles, it’s like he was symbolically waving a flag that screamed ‘I’m a giant heretic’.

Point being, since his decision to go on the run and all the reflection that comes with it, Essek has been indulging his feminine side. He’s been growing his hair out, he’s been crafting and learning to bake with Yasha, and he was even considering getting another piercing to hang some sort of statement piece representative of the Caleb or The Nein! But right now, he was planning his biggest move yet.

In Essek’s experience, one of the ways women provided was by having and commanding the best hunters to get the best food for their Den. If they were of a particularly feminine sort, they might run the kitchen alongside the head chef and likely had a few recipes only they know. He wanted to play with this particular providing instinct, but he had no hunters or hunting abilities, and the only chefs he had ready access to were the cats in the tower. So, the drow went to get advice from one of his best friends, hoping that she might help him figure something out to help him while they were all vacationing together on Rumblecusp. 

“Awh, you want to make Caleb a nice meal like a cute little house wife, that’s so sweet! I don’t think the cats know how cook anything that we’d catch here, but I’m sure we can use the kitchen in the towers to do something super awesome, we can ask Yasha for help, she’s like, super knowledgeable about weird ingredients, Essek. She’d maybe help hunt, to!!!”

He regretted everything. He wanted to throw himself in a black hole, he’d made a mistake.

“I did not say- I said I wanted to indulge in providing instincts-” The dark elf felt his ears trying to flick back in agitation and was barely able to stop them as he felt his face warm. He took a deep breath. “So you’ll help me?”

“Of course! I know lots and lots of places to look, plus I could ask Artie if he knows anyplace- But, really really, we should get Yasha! This is totally her thing, you know. Don’t worry, Essek, we'll hunt down a beasty and help you make a nice tasty meal for everybody to impress your boyfriend.” The little blue tiefling wiggled, grinned, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. 

“Partner, Jester, Caleb is my partner, we aren’t in primary school.” Boyfriend just sounded so juvenile to him. He was a powerful wizard of noble blood, formally of high station, he was over 120 years old, he didn’t have boyfriends, he had partners. 

“Whatever.” Jester waved the complaint away. “Okay, be ready early in the morning tomorrow, I’ll handle everything.”

And off she went.

Well, it was too late now, this was going to happen.

###################################################################

He hated hunting, he hated it so much. He hated it when his father took Verin and him out on a hunt as a rite of passage for male drow, and he hated it now, but at least he had help and at least it was over now. They even had a decent haul of ingredients to work with! Thankfully on their last Aeor trip Caleb taught him how to perform The Amber Vault, so they were able to pack up any meat they gathered while it was fresh. They’d managed to gather some fruits and veggies, and now they just had to get into the kitchen and practice. Experimentation and iteration were a lot more in his comfort zone, so he was eager to get in the kitchen where he’d deserve it more when Yasha and Jester teased him. He’s a grown elven man, he should know how to cook more than he does, but a hunter he is not and it is frankly unfair how much he’s been made fun of today. Essek was also, frankly, excited to see what they could do with what all they caught, which was a lot. Because they didn’t know what would work and cooking a meal in this case means cooking for eleven people because Molly and Caduceus were both here and Veth brought her husband and child.

Rumblecusp was truly a wonder, it’s bizarre magical history meant they could find something from anywhere if they really wanted to, and they did. Provided nothing goes horribly wrong, he was going to provide a feast of exotic meats and fruits that would make his mother eat her fucking headdress. 

  Case and point, and the one the drow was most eager to use: They have dinosaur meat! He wasn’t familiar, but Jester called it a Stegosaurus. They’d taken the legs, a large part of the tail, and part of it’s small intestine (Yasha had insisted on that, he did not know why and it scared him). They’d also killed and vaulted a large pill bug, a bird the size of a large dog, and some strange, big mollusks they’d dived for. This had all the making of a great experiment, at the very least. 

They entered the kitchen unbothered, the others out on the beach and Caleb up in his study/lab coming up with his lesson plans for after Spring Break. But, when the lights in the kitchen magically flicked on as they entered, Veth has sitting on a countertop, one leg crossed over a knee, waiting, like a villain in dramatic stage play, effectively scaring the hell out of him, which Essek is sure was the goal. 

  “Y’all planning a fancy meal?” The halfling rose a brow in silent judgement, triggering Essek’s flight or flight reflex on account of his ‘mommy issues’.

“Were you spying on us?” Essek responded defensively, even though there was nothing to defend, because they weren’t doing anything wrong but some animal part of the drow’s mind swore they were.

“No, my kid was spying on you and told me what he saw.”

Fucksake.

  “Pffttt, don’t worry, Veth, we aren’t doing anything sneaky shady, Essek just wanted to surprise Caleb with a nice dinner for everyone. Isn’t that so sweet, we just had to help him, he’d die in the forest by himself.” Jester answered before he could respond at all. That seemed like a gross simplification of the original intent, but it did seem to be the thing that was happening now regardless.

“You weren’t planning on hoarding the goods for yourself?”

“Wh- no, I wouldn’t- No!” Essek wasn’t babbling and nobody could prove that he was. 

“Well, why didn’t you ask for my help?” Because she didn’t like him and he values remaining unshot? “I’m a former goblin and a sort of homemaker, my knowledge is invaluable here. Good thing I caught you, I’m here to help, Luc said you killed some sort of dinosaur? T-rex Steaks again?”

Yasha was put incharge of butchering the hunts, besides the Pill Bug and Mollusks, which were sealed back away quickly so they wouldn’t sour. Pill Bug was close enough to shellfish to warrant it, he knew that much. That left the rest of them to safety and taste test the scavengings as well as meal plan. The onion-type things they found were safe, but more savory tasting than a regular onion. A fruit that Jester said resembled something called a plantain made his skin tingle when they were doing the pre-tasting skin test but was fine besides that and tasted a bizarre taste between sweet and sour. All the various herbs they’d been deemed safe and identified or given an equivalent identification, but one of the two mushrooms they found were definitely poisonous and Essek was very embarrassed as someone who’s diet was so mushroom heavy most of his life that he’d somehow missed that in the initial finding. There were several fruits that they all seemed to recognize on sight and thus didn’t need to be tested for safety, but he was made to taste for meal planning purposes.

“So, what do you want to do with the Stego, Floaty?” Veth asked him, looking at him like he should have an answer, and he definitely should have one of those, shouldn’t he?

“I’m not sure- I don’t know it’s taste or texture to plan, but it should be like a Giant Lizard, should it not?” The elf was pretty sure he knew some lizard dishes. Sort of between chicken and pork, but with a slightly grainy texture. “We don’t have time to make a stock with the tail, but maybe it would roast well?”

“Maybe for the littler bit at the end of the bit you all took, but what about the rest?” The halfling said pointing to the large tail Yasha was currently skinning with her broadsword when there was a butcher’s block of carving knives right behind her. The cat that Essek recognizes as being in charge of the kitchen was having some sort of feline conniption directly behind her as the sight of a sword being at the use in his kitchen. Caleb would be hearing from the Cat Union, there was no doubt about it. 

“Oh, Oh, I know! Stego appetizers! Stego-tizers! We could chop up the good part of the tail and fry them up chicken tender style, with lots of dipping sauces.” Jester was practically vibrating with excitement at her idea, but Essek’s nose crinkled a bit at the thought.

“Stegosaurus Tenders? That sounds rather…” Don’t say childish, don’t say childish, don’t say childish- ”Undignified?” He didn’t know if that was better or worse.

“It also sounds fucking delicous, we should do it.”

“Oh, but this is Essek’s dinner…” The blue tiefling visibly deflated and Essek wanted to throw himself into the ocean. “I don’t want to step on his thing TOO much.”

“It’s fine, it’s a fine idea, we have lots of food to work with to try for more refined dishes.” He said, folding under the force of disappointing Jester like a wet paper bag. “Besides, this group is such an eclectic collection of peoples, it might be thematically appropriate for this impromptu feast to have a… variety of dishes. Both of type and refinement.” 

“Really?” The sparkle was back in her eyes, and when he nodded his consent she sprung forward and hugged him. “Thank you, Essek! I have even more fun suggestions, if you like that one, but mostly for the deserts-”

His spine definitely cracked with the hug, but he couldn’t deny her the affection. It would be like denying a cloud it’s ability to rain.

“Do we want to go ahead and do the stego-tizers as an early snack sort of thing? Since the rest could take a while and we have so much stuff here.”

“A great idea, Veth, Jester, could I trust you to make a list of sauces? You’re from money, you’re traveled, I’m sure that you could figure out some wonderful dipping sauces.” Part of running a household was effectively using and directing the staff, this was sort of like that. His mother and all his aunts of varying degrees of relation ran the den like a fine tuned machine. He gave the blue tiefling what Caleb called his ‘pretty boy smile’, hoping to convince her of this task so he can keep focus on the tasks at hand. 

“Yes, I tooottally can, I can make them match that theme thing you were talking about! Different places, different sauces! Eclectic! Yeah!” Jester’s tail lashed sound like an excited dog as she whisked herself away to start writing down her ideas.

“Okay, so now that she’s over there, what do you want to do with the rest of your haul? Yasha told me about this stuffed pillbug recipe once, do we want to do a play on that?” Veth said, absolutely locking in. She was a short, murderous angel. No wonder Caleb is so fond of her.

“Yes, I know of a few Pillbug recipes myself, in passing, so that should be very doable.” The halfling’s strangely steady presence bolstered Essek’s resolve and made is easier for him to press forward with confidence and try to stir the situation himself. “We should also have the cats bring out lots of rice, noodles, staple vegetables and the like, since most of these can’t stand on their own. Also, do you think we pull off a rice pudding with those exotic fruits?”

“We have magic, we can do anything.” Not actually an answer, but good enough!

When it was just him and Veth it was surprisingly easy to get the menu ironed out in time to start making the Stego-tenders. Well, Yasha and Veth handled the actual tenders because he found the meat slimy and gross to touch, Essek was helping Jester make dipping sauces. 

“Okay, so, this fruit here sort of reminds me of a tomato, so we are definitely making a Rumblecusp version of that one sauce that I forgot the name of that we had when we were chilling in the Dynasty. It definitely had like ketchup or something like it at the base, so yeah.” Jester rattled off, sitting a bowl and a pestle down in front of him. “While you guy were yap yap yapping, I went ahead and cooked these, you are welcome, so you just need to mash these up with some vinegar, that brown type of sugar or maybe some honey I don’t know it’s your dinner, some lemon juice, until it’s aaaallllllllll smooth. We’ll go from there, okay? I’m going to do the sweetie mustard, yell for me when you are done.”

The little blue tiefling had said so many things so fast, but he was versed enough in Jester-ese to understand the mission at hand. Improv some island ketchup while she made honey mustard. He could do this. Essek plucked the barely not steaming any longer fruit-berry-vegetable thing that they found that was pretty much a purple tomato and started dropping them in and mashing them a bit before adding another. After there seemed to be enough there for the amount of sauce they need he just started to grind away with the pestle. It reminded him of hand making ink in his youth as a part of his magic education, or any alchemy adjacent work he’d done over the years, for that matter. It was sort of soothing, if he was being really honest. He added a healthy squirt of honey, along with the vinegar and lime and soon he seemed to have some janky purple ketchup on his hands.

“Okay, now what?” Wait, he was supposed to be in charge here, he was running this kitchen. He tries again trying to sound less like a child asking their mother for assistance. “I need to know the next steps.”

“Alright, so now just grate up those.” Jester said, looking up from her stirring to point at the ginger and garlic on the counter. “And then add it in with some of the dark sugar, the soy sauce and- Oh, there’s the wine! Thank you, Gretchen, for the wine, you’re doing so good.” The mentioned cat sat a bottle of sweet xhorasian wine down on the counter as she got to it on the list. “Just a bit of those, for flavor, I think will probably get the flavor close.”

“Alright.” It didn’t take long to get the ingredients prepped and in the bowl to keep pestling until smooth-ish. Towards the end of his pestling, the blue tiefling’s unique cadence busted through into his attention.

“We should try to do a sweet and spicy sauce. The cats can get us some peppers from the back, but what fruit should we use for the sweet part?” She asked, picking up and sniffing some of their scavenged fruits as well the ones the cats had already brought out, like smelling could give her the answers that she seeked. This an opportunity to assert his authority as the kitchen head.

“I propose that we cook and mash the flesh of the fruits to see what their consistency is like and what it does to the flavor, and we can go from there.” 

“You are so smart, Essek! I will start to prep the fruits, then.” Jester said, whipping out a knife that Essek was choosing to not think about the size of. 

Alright, they were on… a track. This was going to work.

########################################################################

Essek decided he was going to bring Caleb’s late lunch to him himself. He could use a break from the kitchen (and all of Jester’s innuendo), and some food himself. Plus, the other wizard might need help with his lesson plans and grading and the ladies had already dispensed food to the others and started on the stegosaurus and bird roasts that they had planned, so he had time. In his hands was a platter of Stego Tenders (he wished he’d come up with a more refined name before that one had stuck) with four different dippings. Island Honey Mustard, Purple Xhorsauce, Green Sweet and Spicy, and some sort of thick dip Jester had made that had mushrooms and who knows what else in it. It was orange-ish, lumpy and tasted earthy but also sweet with a little zest. He didn’t know, it was ugly, but it tasted good. The Tenders themselves were a gorgeous golden brown that had taken probably too many tries to nail down if he was fully honest with himself.

“Good afternoon, Professor, would you care for a spot of lunch?” The drow half crooned as he walked up to his partner from his position hunched over papers at his lab table. His rusty red, gray streaked hair starting to escape the hastily made loose ponytail his hair was in to fall in his face. Good money would say that he was working on his lesson plans.

“Hm? Ja, yes, I would. A bit of a late lunch, but I appreciate it.” It seemed to take a second for Caleb to fully enter the moment, a testament to the degree to which he dives into his work. Blue eyes settle on the platter in his hands. 

“Fried foods? How surprising.” 

“It’s Stegosaurus tail.” Essek said with barely contained excitement at being able to serve his partner such exotic meat, gesturing at the table with the platter to hint at where it should sit. Caleb started to clear the spot.

“Dinosaur meat? My, you have been busy today, haven’t you?” Eyes gleamed at him in curiosity, asking without any words what he was up to.

“You have no idea. I think you’re going to be very pleased with dinner tonight, let's just say that much.” He sat the platter down on the cleared spot, promptly sitting himself down right after.

“Does this have anything to do with why Jester and Yasha were MIA this morning?” 

“A proper den leader uses only the best hunters.”

“But you didn’t bring Veth along?”

“You know she doesn’t like me.”

“But she does enjoy killing things.”

“Yes, and I am a thing.” The drow lets out a violent puff from his nostrils. “Anyway, as an opening prelude to the wonderful meal I’ve planned, we decided to make these Stego-Tenders, with four handmade sauces. Let’s enjoy this, shall we?”

“Ja, of course, why don’t you tell me about these sauces for the… Stego-Tenders?” Ah there was that annoying Teasing Eye Sparkle. The bastard.

“A good den head designates tasks to those most capable, Jester seemed a good fit for naming dishes.” He gave up as an explanation to a question that hadn’t been asked, but Caleb saw right through him and let out a snort of laughter that was unattractive but very endearing, because the human is just insufferable like that sometimes. “First, the Purple Xhorsauce- Jester.” The drow said in explanation at the open joy and mockery that had started to bloom across his partner’s face.

As Caleb laughed at him anyway, he plucked up a tender and dunked it in the purple sauce. The sauce turned out shinier and thinner than he’d ever imagined when he’d when he’d originally been handed those steaming island tomatoes. The sauce was such a homey color, too. He took a bite and was absolutely delighted. The crust had turned out crisp and so to his joy, Stegosaurus tail rather did taste like Giant Lizard! He found himself looking even more forward to the other dino dishes they had planned, since they’d been sort of planned around his own descriptions of lizard based dishes he’d had back in the Dynasty. The sauce also tasted remarkably like home, and so this particular bite was reminding him starkly of festival foods that he’d been considered generally too high class to have more than a handful of times. Like something you’d buy from a stand, but more refined.

“That good, Schatz?” Caleb teased, looking at his ears, which he’d been too in his head to notice were doing little happy flutters that he promptly stopped. “Don’t stop, it’s cute.”

“It’s undignified for a man of my age.” Essek grumbled, displeased that he’d lost control of his ears like a young child. Being Seen was so mortifying, really. The drow dipped the tender in the sauce and shoved it towards the other’s face. “Try it, it’s very good.” And he did.

“Oh.” Caleb said, a bit of food still in his mouth like the heathen he was, after a bit of chewing. “That is good.” 

“Of course it is, I made it, why would it be anything less than wonderful.” The drow felt like he was puffing himself up like a proud bird, but he deserved it after getting roasted by his friends all day, damnit. 

“Of course, silly of me to be surprised.” The ginger rolled his eyes before picking up his own tender and pointing towards another sauce. “What's that one? It looks familiar.”

“Oh, Jester made that one especially for you, she called it Island Honey Mustard.” Essek answered and Caleb’s eyes gleamed with a sort of subtle joy that normally happened when one of his friends did something sweet.

“Why with the Island tag?” He asked as he dipped his tender in the yellow sauce with the drow quickly behind them.

“I think to sweeten it she used both honey and some sort of island fruit juice.” It was all the answer he had until he took a bite and surely, along with meat juices, mustard and honey, a subtle fruity undertone coated his tongue. It was… unique, to say the least. “Hm.”

“That is… interesting. It tastes like a vacation home feels.” Caleb muttered with furrowed brows, like he was trying to decide if that was a good thing or not. That also would have been a nonsense sentence if he’d said it to anyone but him, but he understood well enough. The red head took another, smaller dip. Thought on it. “This one is probably my favorite.”

“Surely, you zemnians love mustard.” Caleb glared lightly but couldn’t summon up a real retort because they both knew he favored mustard and mustard seed for flavoring in his cooking. “Now, onto the next one, it’s got a bit of a kick to it.”

The other wizard reacted as dramatically to the Green Sweet and Spicy Sauce, or Swicy Sauce as Jester called it. The ginger was famously bad at handling true spice of any kind, so even getting a mouthful of the rather mild sauce made Caleb start to go red in the face whine, going into his normal theatrics. After Essek had stopped laughing at him, they moved onto the Orange Mushroom Sauce, which he’d personally loved but Caleb was rather undecided on. After sampling all the sauces they slipped easily into their typical lunch routine, as the drow asked about the lesson plans he was working on and the other wizard had started to eagerly jump into explaining how he was trying to formulate the plans for Advanced Transmutation 302. He relished in the opportunity to eat exotic junk food and ramble about academics with his partner, as he knew that his day was likely going to get chaotic when he returned to the making and serving of his feast. 

[primasveraas-writing]

Last Time- EXU Calamity

WORD COUNT: 757

Pre-canon (mostly). Mentions of major character death.

The final time Evandrin put Elias to bed, he was already sick. It was one of those rare evenings when constant coughs weren't bringing Evandrin to his knees, when he could stand without Zerxus needing to support most of his weight. Although it was Zerxus who carried Elias to his room, Evandrin tucked their son in, pushed those soft locks of red hair off his forehead, sang him to sleep in a soft, hoarse voice. Chapped lips pressed a kiss to his temple, shaking hands smoothed out the sheets, and when Elias’s door closed, Evandrin staggered to his own bedroom and practically fell onto the bed and slept and did not wake until late the next day. 

Nobody anticipated that being the last time. It was just a quiet, calm night where Evandrin had some energy, and it never occurred again. From then on, Evandrin was bedridden or asleep or too sick to see his son. Someone else put Elias to bed, and Evandrin faded from the world. 

The final time Zerxus put Elias to bed, Elias was furious with him, eyes red-rimmed and hands clenched tight into fists. Zerxus had stood there, pleading, crying, trying to convince Elias that they could enjoy one more night together before they parted. Elias screamed at him, accused him of abandonment, levied every insult a seven-year-old could muster against him until he collapsed sobbing on their sofa. The armor of the First Knight sat in a pile near the door, waiting for dawn to come and Zerxus to don it.

Zerxus didn’t have the heart to leave, even though Elias yelled at him to go away. Instead, he sank onto the floor a few feet away, not daring to move closer except for an inch at a time. Elias curled into a ball but didn’t voice any objections when Zerxus finally laid a hand on his back. 

It was late. In the time before Evandrin got sick, Elias being up so far past his bedtime would’ve been unthinkable. Now, it was unremarkable. Zerxus could count on one hand the number of times he’d slept since the funeral and Elias hadn’t been on any sort of schedule since before Evandrin died. 

But Zerxus eventually came to his senses. Even he, a terrible father, could put his son to bed. Elias squirmed against him but didn’t put up any real fight as Zerxus lifted him into his arms and lumbered down the hall. His son’s breathing was heavy, his head resting against Zerxus’s chest. With Elias held in his embrace, Zerxus pulled back the covers and lowered him down onto the matress. He pulled the blankets up to Elias’ chin and hesitated.

(Elias had long stopped tolerating Zerxus’ presence while he fell asleep. He wanted to be alone, he didn’t want Zerxus there, he didn’t need to be put to bed much less be sung to sleep. Sometimes, after the door closed between them, Zerxus would sit outside Elias’ room and listen to him cry, and ache and ache and ache.)

Elias stared at him through narrowed eyes, a frown pulling at his lips. Zerxus sat down on the bed. When Elias didn’t object, he stayed. Zerxus croaked out a few strains of Elias’ favorite lullaby, one they had both learned from Evandrin, then fell silent. There was little to say- Elias had asked him not to go, to take him back to Avalir with him, and Zerxus had refused and apologized and explained himself over and over. So instead of speaking, Zerxus watched Elias’ eyes flutter closed, and the rise and fall of his chest slow. The crease between Elias’ eyebrows faded, and Zerxus knew he was asleep. 

He stayed longer than he needed to, even past the point where Elias entered a deep sleep that wouldn’t be interrupted by the motion of his father slipping from the room. Instead, Zerxus lingered and watched. 

Hundreds and hundreds of years later, Zerxus thinks he knew that would be the last time, even then. When he returned, Elias would be older, too old to be tucked in. And even if he weren’t, he already knew something had broken between them. Even before Zerxus left, he was no longer the father who could lovingly put his child to bed. That time had passed, had died with Evandrin or perhaps sometime before when the illness was tearing them all apart. 

Before he departed the room, Zerxus leaned forward and kissed Elias’ brow. He stood slowly, and stood in the doorway for a long time, staring back.

[multishipperlove]

Chapters: 2/6 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series), A Daggerheart Critmas Story (Web Series) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Bethany Blake, Cameron Blake Additional Tags: Character Death, Mentions of Cancer, Cameron Blake's A+ parenting, 5+1 Things, Iris and Ralph mentioned, Infidelity, Emotional child neglect, I took a lot of liberty with the characters backstories here, it just felt right Summary:

Bethany Blake is a lot of things. She is homecoming queen, prom queen, a straight A student, the president of the student council, and the most popular girl in school. First and foremost, however, she is her father's daughter. And as a Blake, one of the earliest lessons you can learn is when to hold your tongue and smile for the camera.

Five times Bethany learned to deal with things, and the one time she stands up for herself.

[conditionaljewel]

New fic!

>>>Showing Signs of Love<<<

We learn Laudna's gold ear cuffs are more than just beautiful pieces of jewelry as she remembers the early days of her and Imogen's relationship in loosely recounting the trauma she experienced at the hands of the Briarwoods to her and sharing the healing that she's experienced since that time, culminating in an expression of unique love languages between these two sorceresses.

This is the result of my hyperfixation on that Tiktok of the HoH Laudna and Imogen signing out the kiss scene and my brain couldn’t stop obsessing over an AU where Laudna had some form of auditory processing disorder/disability and she and Imogen pick up Sign Language throughout their adventures. Just a little thing thats purely self-serving and for absolutely no one else by myself but feel free to give it a gander if you like and if you do well hey thanks for reading!

[onlyherefortheshowmances]

For the fic I'm writing:

I'm trying to figure out winter's crest presents between the members of vox machina (and the kids) for my next chapter. I have some of them figured out exactly and a couple general ideas, but if anyone has any brilliant thoughts, let me know (message, ask box, whatever).

[whatamibutabutteredcroissant]

For Vague Angst Dialogue:

11 "They shouldn't treat you like that." with Fearne, if you please?

Prompt Ok, so, confession time... I may have been a little dumb and reblogged some prompts because I liked them, and forgot that they're for ask games. However, I cannot stop thinking about this prompt and I've been looking for a reason to get back into writing. So, thank you so much for the ask, and I hope I can do it some kind of justice! (However it may be awful kdlakjhdlajsh) This ficlet is set in the hotel room in Yios. Also, hope it's ok that I don't write the exact line into this. <3

"Can any of y'all smell burnin'?"

Fearne could, in fact, smell burning. Fearne could also feel burning. But just as she was about to leap out of bed, there was a hoarse scream, and a splash, and then in place of the fiery heat licking up her left side there was the icy shock of a cold glass of water.

"Take that, you little bastard hellspawn!" cried the tremulous voice of one Mr. Chetney Pock O'Pea.

"Chet!" squealed Fearne, shooting bolt upright and clutching a screeching, soggy and very displeased Little Mister to her chest "Why would you do that? He was just trying to make himself all nice and cozy!"

"Cozy? That creature attempts arson on a daily basis, Fearne! How long d'you think it's gonna be 'til he actually kills one of us?" Chetney questioned, his normally adoring gaze replaced with one of a very pissed-off and sleep-deprived old man.

"Rheaaahk!" retorted Mister.

"Awwww, my poor baby boy!" cooed Fearne, her attention immediately diverted "It's okay bubba, Mommy's got you, she's not gonna let the nasty little man hurt you anymore. He doesn't get to yell at you like that.". Mister draped himself over her shoulder with a foul glance at his attacker, and a few more disgruntled chatters. "There we go. All safe and snuggly". Fearne looked up from her position on the bed to see the rest of the Hells watching her, unimpressed but not sure how far to take the matter. A flash of worry crossed her mind. What if they tried to make her sleep separately from Mister? What if they tried to make her get rid of him? He was her only little piece of home, her constant throughout all of her travels and uncertainty. Without him, she would feel so vulnerable, so out of place, so-

Orym's tiny hand brushed her shoulder. "It's okay, Fearnie. I think he's learned his lesson for tonight. How about we find him some sort of heatproof blanket tomorrow? That's the joy of being in a city. They've got a fix for every problem, you know.". Fearne's jaw unclenched at her best friend's steady voice, and she was once again reminded of how grateful she was for the ever-calm and rational presence of Orym.

"Okay." she whispered, and stroked the soft (but slightly damp) fur of her beloved fire monkey.

The rest of the group made noises of agreement, and started getting comfortable again in their respective cuddle piles. Laudna wistfully stroked Pâté, before nodding at Fearne, and Imogen put a hand on Laudna's shoulder in understanding. Ashton grunted in acknowledgement before turning their back to everyone, and Letters gave a last nervous glance around the room before powering off once more. Relief and gratitude flooded into her bones at the immediate acceptance from her team.

"Sorry for throwing water at you, Fearne." said Chetney, a shadow of guilt on his wizened face.

"No, that's okay, Chet. Thanks for not letting me burn to death." replied Fearne. She laid down and offered him her arms, and drifted back to sleep with Chetney as a little spoon, Orym in the bend of her knee, Little Mister in the crook of her neck, and the knowledge that no matter the problem, her little family would always help her find a solution. Even if there was some impromptu baths, arguments and chaos along the way.

[goopyratdaughter]

flash fiction time to break the hiatus (god knows if it'll last)

[iwillbringyouruin]

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast

Characters: Caleb Widogast, Essek Thelyss, Nott | Veth Brenatto makes a short appearance, Verin Thelyss (mentioned)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, First Meetings, First Dates, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Fluff, Romantic Fluff

Summary:

Essek sets out to go tell a certain Caleb that unfortunately, his brother Verin can't come to the blind date originally set up between the two. When he gets there, something deep within him tells him he should stay.

[katia-dreamer]

Bad Idea for Perc’ahlia? - Ghost

“Percival, what are you plotting?”

“What do you mean?” He grins at her while she finishes fixing his tie.

“You have that look in your eye that always means you are up to something.”

“Oh?” 

“Percival-”

“Vex,” he stills one of her hands with his. “Do you trust me?”

Vex scrunches her nose but says, “Yes.”

Percy gives her a quick kiss on the forehead, but he notices that her frown remains. “What’s wrong?”

Vex leans forward and buries her face in Percy’s chest. “This is a bad idea, isn’t it? I haven’t seen him in so long and- oh, this is such a bad idea.”

Percy wraps his arms around his wife and holds her close. She smells like her favorite perfume. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

She looks up at him, her eyes wide with realization. “He would be so angry.”

“He would.”

He thinks Vex seriously considers it for a moment, then she says, “But Velora would be disappointed.”

“She would be,” he agrees. “Just remember that you won’t be alone. I’ll be at your side, ready to verbally dissect your father if you ask me to.”

She leans up and kisses him once. Then she says, “Thank you, darling.”

When Percy refers to Vex as Mrs. de Rolo at supper later that night, he thoroughly enjoys how Syldor’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. But his favorite part is the way Vex grins.

-

This song has been done by a few others, so hopefully, I did it justice.

Thanks, friend!

[belleflowerwrites]

Take Heart, a pride and prejudice AU

Chapter 5: Vex takes care of her sick twin at Netherfield Park and gets to know Miss Keyleth Hayward and Lord Percival de Rolo a bit better. Vex also learns about some interesting new arrivals coming to Westruun.

~

Summary:

After fleeing her restrictive upbringing in Syngorn, Vex’ahlia Taylor had no intention of re-entering the ranks of high society. That is, until a young, single woman, Miss Keyleth Hayward, takes up residence in Netherfield Park. Alongside her is the mysterious, sullen Lord Percival de Rolo. As Vex'ahlia learns more about the tragedies that have befallen the de Rolo family and she gets to know the lord himself, she must determine if her first impressions are all they seem.

[fearnesbells]

oh HIIIIIII

jackie also writes fic sometimes

when i should have said something true | beauyasha | 4k

read it on ao3!!

Summary:

She shifts slightly where she sits, and her face comes alive with a sharp wince of pain. A single tear, lit by the fire, slips down her cheek.

It’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking right at her—if you could trust that if you looked away, she’d still be there.

Which Beau can’t. So she sees it.

Beau can’t look away. Yasha can’t hide anymore. So maybe some codes and creeds can be left behind in the meantime.

*****

Every time Yasha comes back, her features are never quite like what Beau remembers.

Her eyes are impossibly gray—more gray than a feeble human mind could ever conjure up. Her jaw is sharper than memory serves, her cheekbones more carved.

The shadows seem to collect over her expression like they’re drawn there. They find dark harbor in the hollows of her face.

Beau tries her best to commit these things to memory, every time she’s around, holding every dynamic part of her as still as she can in the noise of her mind—it never quite works.

“What are you looking at?” Nott asks over her shoulder, the complete opposite of discreet. Beau shoves her away with no real force, instantly feeling her face flush. She never used to be this absentminded.

“Nothing,” she mutters gruffly. “Just thinking.”

They’re all packed close around their dying fire for the night, having just eaten, pallets and canopies set up to rest for when the moon has risen higher.

They’re not in any immediate danger, and it’s a nice feeling. A rare feeling, she realizes, nowadays.

In their peace, no one else seems to have noticed Beau’s wandering attention. Caleb is poring over one of his texts with a devouring gaze. Jester is sitting flush against Fjord on a log. Molly is flicking cards at Nott’s head, which is hovering over Beau’s shoulder.

And Yasha is sitting directly across from Beau, staring blank-eyed at the horizon, mysterious shadows playing over her face like always.

She shifts slightly where she sits, and her face comes alive with a sharp wince of pain. A single tear, lit by the fire, slips down her cheek.

It’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking right at her—if you could trust that if you looked away, she’d still be there.

Which Beau can’t. So she sees it.

Beau is a hurt person. She has made camp with other hurt people before. She knows the old dance.

Tread lightly. Handle carefully.

Keep everything held inside of you until you inevitably tear open, embarrassingly, and then gather it all up to be stitched back inside yourself by your own shaking hand.

She knows the dance, she’s done this before. When Yasha winces, she should look the other way and pretend she saw nothing. Let her hurt be hers.

“You alright?” she blurts instead, thick-headed with ale from earlier and just general, trademark Beauregard idiocy. She bites down hard on her tongue like it can take the words back.

Yasha blinks, likely unmoored from the breach of protocol. Tread lightly, handle carefully.

My hurt is mine. Your hurt is yours.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I’m fine.”

She stands up then, less gracefully than normal, and lumbers back into the woods somewhere without another word.

“I think it was something you said,” Nott says sagely, now sitting at Beau’s side, and Beau thumps her hard on the head with her staff in lieu of a reply, eyes on the spot in the trees where Yasha disappeared to.

Guilt chews at her stomach, an unrelenting thing with too many teeth. Wasn’t her business, whatever was causing Yasha pain. She should’ve just left well enough alone.

Furious with herself, she stands up too, her own anger rendering her unable to stay still.

“Going for a walk,” she bites out, and heads into the woods in the opposite direction from Yasha.

She hears chatter immediately start up when she stands, protests from Jester and a low question from Caleb and some kind of concern from Fjord, but she listens to none of it as she storms off.

Her discomfort is a somatic thing, full-bodied and weighty, infecting her whole person.

She feels heavily restless and densely stupid and tearful.

She is so fucked. How did this happen—how did she become this weak?

Everything is changing, shifting beneath her very feet, it feels like. She never believed in the gods, even when she was young, but at least she could rely on herself, lean on her own fists and staff and unwavering soul to be her guide.

Now she’s losing herself in gazes off to nowhere and becoming a sentimental fool in front of someone she respects. She doesn’t know who she is anymore. She has nothing left to rely on.

Her eyes burn as tears well in them, unbidden and unwanted, and she gnashes her teeth.

“This isn’t who I am,” she hisses, takes her staff in both hands and slams it against a boulder. She’s found herself on a clearing that looks out at the horizon, now, and it seems to whirl around her in her anger and fear and disorientation.

Her staff spins through her fingers, moves with the jerking twists of her wrist as she whales on every tree in her line of sight, her staff making the flat sound of wood on wood with every hit.

The trees become old ghosts, old enemies, thugs from alleys long ago that left her bleeding and broken.

Beauregard, what will you have to show for yourself?

“I am not weak!” she shouts at the memory, voice gone reedy with tears. “I am as I have always been—I have made something of myself—I have—”

With every assertion, she’s bringing her staff down as hard as she can on the biggest tree overlooking the cliff.

On the last word, her staff snaps.

Her eyes fly wide. The terrible, tearful anger leaves her body like she’s been hit with a spell, and she sinks to the forest floor, unable to hold herself up anymore.

This is all Beauregard, firstborn should-be son of the Lionetts, has to show for herself. Two broken pieces of wood, in her two shaking hands, the product of her own thoughtless loss of control.

A hand touches her shoulder.

“Beau.”

Startled, Beau grabs for her staff, which isn’t there. Before she can brace with her fists, though, the voice registers as familiar, and the fight goes out of her.

At the moment that she should have something to say, nothing comes. For once, her mind feels silent where it is normally packed full of noise.

Yasha sits down carefully on the ground next to Beau, leans all the way back and props herself up with her elbows before angling her body towards the monk.

This is one of the things Beau forgets. Yasha is always more angular than Beau remembers, every time.

All angles, all tuned towards the thing she cares about for the moment with the utmost precision and clarity. Right now, that thing is Beau.

It is intoxicating to be the central, geometrical point on which all of Yasha’s angles focus. It’s making Beau’s head spin.

“This is a nice spot,” she says casually, as if mentioning the weather. She speaks as if there aren’t wet tear tracks on Beau’s face and fresh wounds on all the trees around them.

Beau’s throat tightens. Yasha is honoring the code, the same code that Beau so stupidly stepped all over before.

“I am sorry about earlier,” she continues quietly.

Or maybe not.

She says nothing further, though, just sits there, huge and unmoving and silent. A mountain of a person. Beau, by contrast, feels something like a pebble. Eroded and ground down into a smooth shell of her jagged old self.

In the core of her, though, the grain of sand around which the layers of stone form, she feels a truth ebbing, stringing itself together into words. She locks her gaze on the moonlit horizon like it can save her from herself.

“I’m sorry, too,” she responds, just as quiet. It feels clunky when she says it. She hasn’t apologized to anyone in longer than she’d care to admit.

“No,” Yasha says. Beau flinches at the harshness in her tone, especially when no other words follow it, and she pulls her knees up to her chest in a sort of unconscious defense. “I mean—no. Do not be sorry, not for what you said. No.”

Beau chances a look away from the horizon and finds bright silver eyes, twin moons staring at her. Yasha’s gaze is almost too much to bear with its intensity, but not painful. Never painful. Beau just can’t help but feel laid bare before it, a sensation she is unused to. It cuts right to the core of her pebble self.

The always-falterless gaze falters for a moment, though, and flickers with that same pain from before.

This time, with clear intention, Yasha holds Beau’s eyes, and she does not run.

Beau does not understand Yasha. She cannot remember her features when she is away for too long. There are things she will never know—that none of them will—about the barbarian that sits at her side.

But right now, overlooking the tree line, Beau understands that Yasha is asking her for help as much as she is able to. And Beau will give it to her. Beau will give her anything that she needs. She wants to give her everything.

“What’s wrong?” Beau whispers, and with the slightest movement, Yasha’s eyes look down to her chest, to her ribs. Even in the shadows, Beau can see how her chest isn’t rising and falling as it should, how her breath is stuttering on its way out and in.

“Aw, gods,” Beau huffs, maybe a little tactlessly. “Why didn’t you tell Jester? She loves to heal. Fucking thrives off it.”

Yasha doesn’t answer. Beau didn’t entirely expect her to.

“Sit up,” she commands. This is familiar. This she can do. “I have some bandages on me, some salve. I can make something to hold your ribs so you don’t pop a fuckin’ lung later.”

“Do you need my shirt off?”

The question is phrased in the same tone, flat and businesslike, but when Beau looks up Yasha is smirking a little bit.

“Asshole,” she mutters through a grin, and lobs the salve at Yasha to catch before she remembers that it probably isn’t a good idea to make the woman with the busted ribs try and reach for anything when Yasha winces at the catch. “Sorry,” she tacks on as an afterthought. Casual apologies. She’s getting this. “You were right before, though. Strip.”

Yasha’s smirk grows, and she arches an eyebrow. “Mm. All right.”

“Not like—I’m not—”

Beauregard Lionett, the monk who eats pussy for breakfast, does not stutter like this. Good gods above.

“Just take your shirt off,” she mumbles, blushing hard. “Apply the salve where it hurts worst. I’ll bandage you up.”

Yasha starts to pull at the hem of her shirt, and as Beau is rifling through her belt for the pouch she hears the familiar sound of a hiss of pain forced through teeth.

Once the bandages are in hand, Beau gets to her feet and brushes her knuckles lightly at Yasha’s elbow as a notification of her presence.

“Don’t kill yourself,” she admonishes, gently as her abrasive voice is able, and once Yasha relaxes her tensed body Beau is able to slip the shirt the rest of the way off.

Her pale skin is spotted with burns, sliced through with scars, mottled over with bruises from the day. An especially ugly one purples and darkens at the edge of the wrapping around her chest.

“Do they feel broken?” Beau asks quietly, kneeling carefully at Yasha’s side, folding the shirt beside her. She ghosts her fingertips over the worst of the bruising, and Yasha hisses again.

“I don’t know,” she responds.

“I’ll wrap it for tonight. Then tomorrow, you’re talking to Jester first thing before we get moving, soon as she can cast again. I’ll march you to her tent myself.”

Yasha smiles slightly over at her. It’s something Beau prides herself on, being able to tell when the other woman is smiling.

Nott likes to go on and on about how she can’t tell, whine about how the barbarian never cracks a grin, but Beau knows the secret. You can’t look at the mouth; you’ve got to watch the eyes.

When Yasha smiles, her eyes dance.

“Okay,” she acquiesces now, and her eyes set to dancing.

Something light and warm settles in Beau’s chest at that. She gets to work, then, unrolling the bandages and twisting them tightly around Yasha’s midsection, careful to wrap firmly, but with gentle hands. Allowing some flexion for later healing is important, she remembers.

“The last time I did this, the other person was unconscious, and we were in the back of a moving cart,” she tells Yasha without thinking. She doesn’t expect any response, but after a beat Yasha nudges her with her shoulder.

“Hey!” Beau yelps, since the movement messed up her wrapping and she has to go back and fix it. She scowls (without any real anger) up at Yasha, who is looking at her with an open and curious expression.

“What happened?” she asks, brow quirked.

Beau grins, a little surprised at the interest. “We were running away from some bootleggers in town once—we’d been taking their barrels from their stock and reselling them before they could, and they were pissed—and Tori decided it would be a good idea to jump from the bridge onto a cart below as an escape plan.”

“Tori?”

Beau feels her mouth twist, and is grateful for the fact that Yasha can’t see her expression now.

“An ex-girlfriend,” she says simply. She’s cutting a lot out. My first girlfriend, actually. She’s dead now, probably, but I’ll never really know. I look for her in every city I’m in.

“Ah.”

“She was a lot smarter than me, if you can believe it,” Beau jokes, concentrating intently on the wrapping.

“Smarter than you?”

Beau looks up. She’s smirking again.

“If your ribs weren’t fucking broken, I’d punch you right now,” Beau mumbles, smiling back. “Anyway. She jumped, I jumped after her. She landed hard in the back of this guy’s cart, and I landed on top of her and felt something kind of… I felt bone break under me. And then I sat up, right, all in a panic—” she sits back on her heels for a minute and tries to do an impression of her blind, young fear—“and I notice that she’s out cold. She had hit her head on something when she landed. We scared the shit out of the horse leading the cart, so it took off sprinting over the cobblestones. I had to set her ribs while all this was happening.”

“Did it work?” Yasha asks.

“Yeah, yeah, it worked,” Beau replies, nodding. “She was fine.”

“What happened? With her?”

“We got thrown in jail and I never saw her again,” Beau says shortly, and ties off the bandage. “I think I’m done. How does it feel?”

“Secure,” Yasha says with a nod. “I… thank you. You did not have to do that.”

“Yeah, I did,” Beau says offhandedly, shrugs. “No big.”

“I’m also sorry. About Tori.”

Beau nods. This time, she swallows hard as she stands up. “Yeah. Me too.”

She offers Yasha a hand to stand up, which she takes graciously, even though she does most of the actual work of standing up on her own. She takes a few steps, a few deep breaths, and her winces aren’t quite as piercing this time.

Her skin glows under the moon.

“Thank you,” she says again. “This was very good of you to do. You did not have to do it,” she repeats. She’s standing a few feet ahead of Beau, with her back turned to her.

“Gods, Yasha, stop saying—”

“What you saw at the fire was not because of… of this, though,” she continues, gesturing to Beau’s careful wrapping. “I was not thinking about this. Or it was not what made me cry.”

Beau stands there, hands useless at her sides. Her tongue feels overlarge and clumsy in her mouth, so she does not speak.

“Zuala died on this day.”

The silence returns, grows, until it has yawned too wide for too long—Yasha will not volunteer more without urging, and Beau cannot make her voice work to ask the question that will have her continue.

When Yasha finally cuts her moon-gaze back on Beau, it is filled with the unfamiliar shine of tears while also holding a painfully familiar yearning.

It’s the same look as before. When the need for help becomes so basal, so desperate, that it can’t be vocalized. When all you can do is look and hope that the other person can see.

Beau holds her gaze as she walks over to her, closer to the lip of the bluff, and bravely, stupidly, she takes the hand of the mountain at her side.

“Tell me,” she says, feeling scars under the skin she rubs a thumb over. This is not the prompting question she meant to ask. This is something else. This is permission, trust, given with the whole of herself.

Yasha looks at their joined hands, and a few tears that have been gathering in her eyes slip free to the shadows of her cheeks.

“She was my wife,” she says softly. “Zuala.”

A name, spoken as a prayer.

“Zuala,” Beau echoes. It isn’t cold, but a chill freezes its way over the back of her neck at speaking the name aloud.

“We were children together,” Yasha murmurs. “Both rescued from death by the clan. We trained side by side, took sacraments together, were sent into battle at each other’s side.”

A memory of Tori’s smile, aimed at Beau from across a tavern, rumbles in a low flash across her mind like heat lightning at Yasha’s words.

“She was calculated. And strong. And far braver than I ever was or can ever hope to be. We got married, in defiance of the Dolorav ways, and because of me, we were caught,” Yasha continues. Her words are becoming heavier as she goes on. “We went back. I wanted—the woman who raised me, I thought—I wanted her blessing,” she says, listless. “Stupid. Ill-calculated. Zuala knew it, too, but she followed me despite.”

“They killed her?”

“Yes.” That one word seems to hold what feels like all the pain in the realms. “So I killed them all.”

Without meaning to, Beau grasps at Yasha’s hand tighter. She has this unfounded fear that the woman will be sucked into the earth below them with all of this weight she carries.

“How many years has she been gone?”

“Too many. Not enough.”

Beau swallows.

“Grief is not good,” Yasha says inelegantly. “It has made me do bad things in her absence. So when this day comes, I do not just remember her. I remember what I have done—the terrible crimes I have committed—in her name.” Her massive, mountainous shoulders begin to quake. “Beau, she would be so ashamed of me.”

Beau stifles the instant no that rises in response. Who is she, to decide someone’s guilt? She knows that a dark past gnashes at your heels like an enormous direwolf. Some empty denial will do nothing to dull the sharpness of its teeth.

Instead of speaking, then, she moves so that she can stand facing Yasha, and takes her other hand in her own unoccupied one.

Owls warble in the trees.

“Everything is changing,” she tells her, quiet. “Including me. I’ve been trying like hell to pretend I’m not, but maybe I should let myself change.”

“I like you as you are,” Yasha says strongly, and the moment is still achingly serious but that makes Beau smile a little.

“I’m trying to say that nothing is permanent. For better, for worse, yeah? If you want to change for the better, to be someone that Zuala would be proud of, you can. Maybe you already are. It feels like you change every time I see you.”

Those eyes, again. Right to the core of her.

Yasha leans down, and touches her forehead to Beau’s.

It would be easy to close the gap—to fall into the heat of kissing her hard and melt away all of this heaviness—which is why Beau thinks she doesn’t do it.

She wants to do this right, for once in her goddamned life.

So she holds Yasha’s eyes, inches from her own, and just rests her forehead against the other woman’s, holds her hands in hers.

“You broke your staff,” Yasha whispers. Her breath is cold, like fog.

“Yeah,” Beau says roughly, and closes her eyes to stem the flow of memory that comes with all her old anger, the same old anger that snapped her staff in two. Tori’s face goes across her mind again, followed by the incensed features of her father.

The Lionett name and legacy is really just historical, ancestral anger, corked in a barrel of Lionett ale.

“What happened?”

“Grief is not good,” Beau murmurs, parroting Yasha’s turn of phrase with a humorless smile. “I’ve also done things I’m not proud of. And many people are ashamed of me.”

“Things are changing,” Yasha responds. “Someone wise told me that everything is.”

She steps away from the moment, slowly, like she’s giving Beau time to adjust to the loss, and picks up the two halves of the staff. They look tiny in her hands.

“Step back,” she commands, the power returned to her voice. It is objectively incredibly hot.

She stands closer to the edge of the cliff, stares into the clouds that cling to the edge of the moon. She slams the two pieces of the staff together, and a bolt of impossible lightning finds the barbarian’s body like it’s been called there.

White heat, white light, the pure sense of ozone that makes Beau’s teeth hot in her jaw, and when it fades Yasha holds out Beau’s staff, re-fused into one weapon.

“How in the seven hells—”

“I change every time you see me, you said,” Yasha tells her with the beginning of a smile. “Didn’t want to leave you without something new.”

Beau takes the staff with awe, but her ears catch on part of Yasha’s sentence.

“So you’re leaving again?”

“I must,” she says, not without regret. “It is part of the changing. Part of my atonement.” She must see the shift in Beau’s posture. “But I will not leave tonight.”

She takes Beau’s free hand again, and leftover lighting seems to crackle between them.

“Head back?” Beau asks, clearing her throat.

Yasha nods, and keeps holding her hand as they make their way up the outcropping back to the rest of the Nein.

My hurt is mine. My hurt is also yours.

A new code. A new creed.

Everything is changing, including the woman at Beau’s side, but they have torn themselves open in front of one another and trusted the other to stitch them back up.

Beau trusts now that if she looks away, Yasha will still be there when her glance returns. Often, the barbarian is looking right back.

Beauregard, what will you have to show for yourself?

Her father’s old words, spoken to her in that jail cell so long ago, rise into her mind again, always there no matter what she does, but they are quieter than they were before.

I have made something of myself, Beau thinks again, without the rage and desperation of earlier. She looks around the fire to her friends and feels a similar warmth in her chest, cranes her neck to see the full moon and thinks of dancing eyes.

I have made something of myself.

I am making something new.

[sldlovescartoons]

Decided to link the Ao3 if this one too lol

Essek visits Caleb and get a surprise dinner. He has feeling about it.