#cw: copious amounts of violence; trauma; trauma mention

[trippinsorrows]

looking through your eyes + eighteen

authors note: this one gets pretty heavy and violent at points. please read the cw/tw's carefully in order to make the best informed decision regarding your mental ability to handle such heavy topics.

cw/tw: angst, violence, torture (gore), (light) fluff, ptsd episode, character being triggered, and references to childhood sexual assault

song inspo: ‘looking through your eyes’ by leann rimes

masterlist + story playlist

words: 10k

Solana knows Roman well.

She knew to start off the letter the way she did, asking for him to be open minded, because she knew exactly what his answer would be. 

No.

It’s the same answer he still has even after her logical explanation. It’s a selfish thing. He’s a selfish bastard at heart because despite her being vulnerable about her mental state and making a solid point, he still wants and plans to say no. 

Still plans come and take her home in a week.

And while he has his reasoning, believing that she can continue her healing outside of some mental facility, it’s also for his own good. He just wants her home. He wants to not have the house be so quiet and empty. To not have to be reminded of her absence in everything from the lack of the aroma of her delicious cooking to Dulce yelping and whimpering whenever he walks in the door home from work without Solana beside him.

He just misses her, and he wants her home. 

He understands where she’s coming from and agrees she could benefit from continuing to talk to someone, to definitely stay on medication. 

But, those things can continue without her being away from home.

There’s also the matter of safety. Yes, Roman went above and beyond what was probably necessary to ensure she has a copious amount of protection, but that’s still not as safe as her being with him.

And he’s almost certain that the facility she’s talking about is the same one Stratus mentioned to him. The place that’s an hour away.

That’s too fucking far.

From their home, Roman can make it to the hospital in ten minutes, if need be. 

Solana being an hour away from him just isn’t a fucking option.

He needs her…..she needs to be close to him.

He’ll just have to help her understand that. 

But, all of that is easy. 

What’s not easy is the other major takeaway from her letter.

I love you, Ro.

In all of his thinking, perhaps overthinking, regarding his thoughts and feelings about his wife, never did it really occur to him that she could feel the same. He knew she cared about him. She’s said as such to him before. But, for whatever reason, he never allowed himself to imagine that she could love him.

And that she could love him without expecting anything in return. Because she believes him incapable of loving her because of his own trauma, and that’s not entirely wrong. 

He does love her.

Fuck, he loves the living shit out of her.

But, he can’t act on it.

Even with this unexpected twist. Her loving him, which fucks with his head too. The why of it. 

There’s not a lot to love, if he’s being honest.

He protects her. Keeps her safe. Gives her that safe space. Beyond that, there’s not really anything else. 

Her standards must be so low. 

Regardless, Roman can’t allow this new piece of information to change or impact his decision.

He can’t openly reciprocate her feelings.

Even….even if he sure as hell feels the same. It’s too risky. Too dangerous. 

He just can’t.

Roman may love her, but he can never tell her he loves her.

It just has to be this way.

________

Ryan Alexander

Tyler Hawkins

Two men whose lives have been intertwined in various ways in the almost 60 years they’ve walked this earth. It started with a meeting in college, both men playing for the same baseball team, having a few of the same classes together, even pledging to the same fraternity. 

They would end up in the same graduating class and go on to open up their own private security company that offered protective services for upscale clientele. Celebrities, athletes, even politicians.

But…..for the right amount of money, they could do more than just protect lives.

They could take them too. 

The company easily and quickly made its name  known through the right or maybe wrong places. Information falling in the lap of parties who were less interested in safety and more interested in murder.

It’s how Xavier Miller got in touch with them. How Solana’s father hired them to take out his wife and daughter after learning of her plan to run away and steal his children away from him, more his son than anything. He really didn’t give a shit about Solana.

Never did. 

It was why when the hit failed to take out both Nina and Solana, Xavier was able to negotiate so that instead of paying the remaining debt due after the deposit. He got them to agree to slash it in half, leaving him owing 250k. The problem was as it always has been though. Xavier lacks vision, lacks long-term vision. He didn’t think about how finances could change for the negative between the time he made the deal and when payment would be due.

Because when that day arrived, he lacked the sufficient funds. But while Xavier may lack good financial and investment knowledge, he makes up for it in craftiness. 

He formed a new deal. One that truly gave all three men a win-win. Xavier’s debt would be cleared, and Ryan and Alexander would be able to enjoy indulging in one of their favorite sexual pastimes. A privilege they can usually only pursue when traveling overseas where child sex slavery runs a lot more rampant and unregulated. 

By luck though, they got their fill domestically in the form of an innocent, 12 year-old little girl. 

A virgin. 

Xavier’s daughter.

Solana Miller

Now known as Solana Reigns, the wife of the infamous Roman Reigns. The same man who Ryan and Tyler have no idea has been behind the absolute hell they’ve been through in the past almost two weeks. Kidnapped in the middle of the night, subjected to an unauthorized but ultimately approved (by Roman) beating by Jimmy and Jey before they were reunited with Xavier’s ain’t shit ass who had also received a long overdue beating from both Roman and the twins.

That beating, however, was nothing compared to the beginning stages of their demise, a version and level of hell only few experience, but something these fuckers have front seats for. 

Roman is methodical with his torture, and this might be the most determined he’s ever been to maximize pain. 

He’s going to ensure they only take their last breath when he feels it’s time, when he’s exhausted any and all ways to extend their life in order to extend their suffering.

And while many would think it started with the beatings, that’s far too simple, too easy. And Roman is neither of those things. He’s calculated and borderline sadistic when the occasion calls for it, and there’s not been a more deserving occasion for him to act on his dark, evil impulses than this. 

So, it was only fitting that all three men, the rapists and the son of a bitch who organized it all, know exactly what it’s like to experience what they put Solana through. 

And that’s exactly what Roman organized. Having all three men dumped and left defenseless in a maximum security prison. Whatever happened, fucking happened. 

And judging by the battered, stunned, borderline traumatized expressions on their cut, brusied faces, exactly what Roman wanted them to experience is precisely what they fucking got. 

For almost two weeks straight.

Jimmy and Jey toss the three men down on the ground before Roman before moving to stand behind him on either side. 

“Ya’ll like fucking little girls, don’t you?” Jimmy sneers, Roman not even needing to look at his cousin to know he’s livid. “So what’s the big fuckin’ deal?”

“Don’t like it when your assess the ones on the receiving end, huh?” Jey taunts. Fitting. 

But, now…..now it’s time for the real pain to begin. Roman lifts his hand to signify his desire from silence. The twins go quiet almost immediately. 

The Tribal Chief turns up his nose as Ryan spits up blood onto the concrete floor. Granted, it won’t make much of a difference. When Roman is done with them, the room will be bathed red. 

He steps forward. 

“August 7th, 2005 and September 8th, 2007.” Roman shrugs and asks the men, “what’s significant about these dates?” When he doesn’t receive an answer, he takes his gun and aims it for Tyler, emptying the bullet into his knee. The man howls in pain and begins to cry. Roman scowls. Pathetic bitch. “I aksed a fucking question.” 

He gaps,, forcing out through closed eyes. “I–I don’t know.” 

Roman crouches down in front of them, ignoring the stench of piss and perspiration emanating off their pathetic bodies. “August 7th, 2005. A mother and daughter were attacked. Stabbed. Mother died trying to protect her daughter. Daughter survived. She was ten-years-old.” Roman looks away at the adjacent wall, jaw clenching a bit as he recalls the next part. “”September 8th, 2007. Two men break into the house and spend hours gang raping a child in her own fucking bedroom before beating her half to death and leaving her for dead.” Dead fucking silence. “She was 12-years-old.” He turns his empty, stoic gaze back onto them. “Sound fucking familiar now?” 

“You carried out the rape,” he gestures to the set of crying rapists and then a numb looking Xavier. “And you arranged it.” Roman shrugs, rolling his big shoulders. “Seemed only fucking fair you three got a taste of what you put her through.” He then chuckles. “Now, I am a fair man. A fair Tribal Chief.” In a matter of seconds though, his disposition completely shifts, changes into something cold, heartless. “But, you don’t get that. You don’t get that fairness. You don’t fucking deserve it. You tortured her. You made her life a living fucking hell.” 

“But you know where you really fucked up?” He reaches his arm out, pointing toward the sledgehammer, one of the twins placing it in his hand. Roman stands up and kicks Tyler backwards, hesitating not a second as he brings it down to his knees, one by one, effectively and immediately shattering both. “You did it to my wife.” Roman taunts over the sound of the man crying. He then moves to Ryan, aware of the knee he already shot, sticking with one to avoid too much blood. Can’t have the bitch bleeding out just yet. “That twelve year-old girl was my wife.” When he gets to Xaveir, he exerts a special amount of energy to strengthen the impact of his blow as he demolishes the older man’s knees. “That ten year old-girl was my wife!” 

Roman tosses the sledgehammer to the side as someone has the audacity to utter out a pained, “p–please.” 

That infuriates Roman more than what should be humanly possible. “Please?” He sees the word came from Tyler. Snarling, Roman jumps over the man, raining a blow so heavy that it breaks his nose, the sickening crack sounding through the air. “Is that what she said when you fucking held her down and raped her!” 

The thought alone results in Roman continuing to punch the man until his fist is painted red and Tyler is clearly on the verge of losing consciousness. 

Standing back up, he huffs, speaking to the rapists, “17 years. She’s suffered for seventeen years because of you.” He points to a barely there Xavier. “And 29 years because of you.” Roman’s  upper lip curls a bit as he swears, “if I could torture you all for that long, I fucking would, but I can’t, so days will have to suffice.”

He’s filled with another level of rage when the cries and pleads for mercy intensify. “Shut up!” He then forcefully demands of the twins, “bring him in!”

Jey, he thinks, disappears for a few minutes only to return with an also bruised, battered Wes. Roman scoffs with disgust as Xavier looks horrified at the presence and sight of his son.

He coughs out, ribs probably broken or at least fractured. And if they’re not, Roman will make sure they are before the end of the night. “Pl—please don’t do—”

Roman has heard enough. This piece of shit has the fucking audacity to beg and plead for the life of his son but couldn’t even protect his own fucking daughter?

Fuck that.

Fury fills and controls the Head of the Table as he yanks up a barely conscious Wes and throws him against the brick wall, the impact loud enough for the sound of his shoulder popping to fill the room. Roman then grabs the sledgehammer again and rains it down on not only his knees but his hands as well, effectively smashing them, resulting in grotesque hairline fracture, bones protruding from his skin.. 

Xavier cries out and begs Roman to stop, which only fuels his tirade even more. Drives him to continue his brutal assault. Roman slams his fist onto Wes’s face, breaking his jaw before Roman squeezes the fucking life out of Wes’s neck and slams him again against that same brick wall. 

And without second thought, as Wes fights to remain conscious, face almost unrecognizable at this point, Roman reaches for his eye, using his middle and index finger to gouge out his eyeballs one by one, ignoring the horrified screams of both father and son. 

Xavier is full on sobbing but practically screams when Wes body drops to the ground like a ragdoll, and Roman tosses the bloody eyeballs toward Xavier. 

“Waterboard him!” Roman directs to the twins who don’t hesitate to drag a crying Wes out of the room by his limp arm, most likely broken in the midst of Roman’s vicious beating. Breathing uneven, Roman flips his hair back that had come out of his bun and turns his attention back on the three older men. 

“I’m going to make you all suffer the same fucking way you made her suffer,” he vows, every intention on maximixing pain in a way he’s never done before. “You’ll be wishing for something as fucking nice as hell when I’m done with you.”

________

Roman has just finished skinning a patch out of Ryan’s abdomen, the chunk of skin joining that of Tyler and Xavier’s slab of skin and other dismembered body parts. 

Wes is up next on the list.

The fucker strapped to the chair has gone unconscious, but his pulse is still relatively strong, so Roman continues. He’s done this too many times to be deterred by someone tapping out.

Tossing the bloodied knife and saw to the side of the room with the rest of the blood stained tools of torture, he grabs the drill and starts to navigate which drill bit to use when the door opens.

Right away, he’s tempted to use the object in hand on whoever was stupid enough to interrupt him.

Roman turns to see none other than his aggravating ass cousin holding a phone. Of course. Attention back to the task at hand, he bites out, “I told you not to fucking bother me. Whoever it is, I’m busy.”

Jey is about as moved by Roman’s tone as he is by the bloody, gory scene before him. Indifferent but still eager to leave, he instead provides the additional information that he knows will absolutely snatch Roman’s attention.

“It’s Bautista.” Sure enough, Jey can see his cousin’s big shoulders go still. “He—”

Roman stands up, tossing the drill to the side and quickly removing the gloves that are caked in blood, skin, and other anatomical matter. He stalks toward Jey, issuing his harsh demand,“give me the phone.”

Jey does as such, sucking his teeth when some of the blood flicks on him. “Man, that’s nasty as hell.”

Roman doesn’t comment, just walks out the room for privacy and demands to the man on the other end, “what happened?”

Bautista doesn’t hesitate and is quick with an easy response. “She wants to talk to you, sir.”

There’s only a slight decrease in concern levels that Roman experiences in hearing that Solana wants to speak to him versus Bautista having to inform him that something has happened. She’s conscious. That’s good. “Put her on.”

Bautista doesn’t say anything, but Roman hears what sounds like slight movement and hushed voices. It’s followed up with a quiet sniffle and even quieter, “hey….” Another sniffle as her volume increases ever so slightly. “I’m sorry, it’s—it’s so late.”

Roman has no idea what time it is nor does he care what time it is. He just wants to know why she’s crying and who he has to kill. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

She takes a shaky breath and follows it up with an even shakier answer, weighed down with the heavy emotions she’s clearly struggling with at this moment. “We—we—we talked about my…my rape in therapy today, and I’ve never—I’ve never actually spoken about it to anyone, and I thought—I thought I was fine, but now…..”

His chest suddenly tightens. “Are you thinking about—”

“No.” Her answer is the firmest he’s heard in the conversation so far. Serious and solid. “Not that. I just—I can’t sleep because now I’m thinking about….about it, and I just….I wanted to hear your voice, and I’m sorry—you were probably asleep.”

No. No, he wasn’t. Far from it. And even if he was, it wouldn’t matter.

She comes first. 

No matter what.

“I’m gonna come see you.”

“No.” The sniffling resumes as does her tendency to try to make herself as less of a ‘problem’ as she can, no matter how many times Roman tries to explain she never has and never will be anything of the sort. “I’ll–I’ll be okay.”

Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, he’s not taking the risk because Roman cannot physically handle hearing her crying, hearing her so upset and not be able to do anything about it.

“I’m coming, Solana. Give me a half hour, okay?” He’d head there straight away right now, but the idea of coming to her after spending house torturing men, blood, bone, and other unidentifiable matter splattered all over him, is the last thing she needs. “I’ll be there.”

There’s another delay, and he’d bet any money it’s her trying to hold back the tears as best she can. “Oh–kay.”

He swallows, asking, “can you put Bautista back on the phone?”

Again, more shifting on the other end. “Hello?”

“Don’t take your fucking eyes off her.” Roman’s tone is hardened and leveled. “I’ll be there shortly.” He doesn’t wait for a response, doesn’t need to provide instructions on how to make sure his wife is kept safe.

Bautista already knows what the fucking deal is.

Roman can’t get cleaned and showered fast enough, ridding his body of all of the telltale signs that he’d spent the majority of the day torturing his wife’s family and rapists. She doesn’t need to know that. 

He’s impatient for the drive that feels much longer than the twenty minutes it actually is. A large part of that being that he just wants to get to Solana. 

She’d called him. She’d reached out to him.

The same thing he wishes she had done that night. Something he still feels strangely about but will learn to sort through later. Not now. 

Now his focus is on just making sure she’s alright.

That she’s safe.

Roman walks in with purpose, uninterested in Bautista’s short briefing, which is essentially more or less him just confirming that Solana hasn’t been left alone, another guard watching her as Bautista escorted Roman into the premises that’s otherwise locked down given it’s almost midnight.

Not that he gives a fuck.

Roman finds Solana sitting on her bed, legs pulled up to her chest. But, the minute her teary eyes land on him, she’s moving up from said bed, rushing over to him. Naturally, Roman catches her, holding her as she silently cries into his chest.

He’s gonna rip that fucking therapist a new one. 

“I’m sorry—” Roman hates hearing her apologize. He hates seeing her upset, but the fact that she’s apologizing for feeling the way she does is a different layer of irritation. It reminds him of how she used to be. Makes him realize just how much and deep this regression has been. “I just—I don’t want to be alone tonight.” 

He’s just about to once again remind her that she has nothing to be sorry about when her last statement snatches his attention. Alarms him a bit. “Solana….I need you to be honest with me—”

And she must know where he’s headed, because she pulls back, holding his gaze as she shakes her head. “I don’t want to hurt myself. I promise. I just….I just don’t want to be by myself.” 

It makes sense, and he believes her. Somewhat. There’s still that part of him that’s skeptical. He’s not sure if that part will ever go away either.

Solana swallows and licks her lips, asking in that tentative voice, “will—will you stay with me tonight?”

It’s an easy answer. Something he already decided the minute he heard her crying on the other end of the phone.

“Yes.” She looks so massively relieved by that one word. “But not here.” And before the confusion fully sets in, he clarifies, “I’m taking you home.”

As expected, she looks surprised and torn, “Roman, I—”

“You get released in three days, Sol. I’ll bring you back tomorrow afternoon, but tonight, you need to be home. You don’t need to be here.” Roman isn’t a fucking professional, but he knows his wife. Knows that what she’s looking for is the feeling of security. There’s no more secure place than with him in their home. And even with Dulce.

Solana seems to be on the same page, nodding and offering no further protest. “Oh–okay.”

As she’s barely allowed any personal items, it takes less than twenty minutes for her to be ready to go, Roman directing Bautista to handle any issues that arise regarding her departure.

Roman is sure Stratus or even Gail will have issues with his decision. He’s also 100% sure that he doesn’t give a flying fuck. 

Solana needs to get away. 

She needs to be home.

She needs to be with him. 

And, he’s proven correct, because the minute she walks into the house, she’s looking over at Roman, asking, “where is she?”

“Our room.”

Solana can’t seem to move up the stairs fast enough, Roman behind her, partially eager to see this long awaited reunion. He’s not sure who will be happier: Solana or her puppy. 

It’s about a tie though, because the minute Solana moves over to the side of the bed where Dulce is sleeping and gets on her knees, carefully petting the puppy, Dulce’s head snaps up.

And instantly, she jumps at Solana. 

They’re both crying, Solana holding onto Dulce who is a mixture of whimpers, licks, and that tail of hers excitedly wagging. 

Solana says something in her to Spanish, something Roman can’t make out, but he doesn’t need to make it out. It’s obviously something moving. 

Something healing almost. 

Solana looks up at him, laughing and crying as Dulce tries to lick her face. Her voice cracks a bit as she says to him, “thank you.” 

Roman nods, that same, warm, unfamiliar emotion building up. Fucking feelings.

Nodding, he says nothing, watching as she continues to hold onto and cuddle with Dulce. 

Yeah…..

Definitely the right decision.

________

Roman lifts his eyes from the phone that he just put on Do Not Disturb to set his gaze on Solana. Out of the shower, she’s wearing only one of his shirts. Nothing else. He can tell by the way the cotton almost outlines her nipples. 

Placing the phone to the side, he’s slightly taken back when she moves onto his lap. “I—” Her eyes drop downward, her hands grasping at his shirt. “I need a distraction.” He’s confused, but it’s only temporary as she trails off with the specific distraction she’s looking for. “Can we….”

He doesn’t need to hear more. Roman understands just what she’s asking for.

And his answer is simple.

“Solana, I don’t think…..” He has to phrase it correctly, word it so that it doesn’t sound like he is rejecting her. He is, but it can’t come across as just that. “You’re not—”

“I feel dirty,” she interrupts, eyes closing, mouth moving around as she does her best to balance emotion with verbalization. “I—I don’t want to feel that. I want—I want to feel you. I only ever want to feel you.” Solana opens her eyes, pleading almost. “Please.”

Something is telling him to tell her no, to find a way to decline without hurting her feelings or making her feel rejected, because that’s the last thing he wants. 

But, it feels almost impossible. She’s upset. He doesn’t want her to feel the way she’s feeling, and if she believes being intimate tonight will help her, then he’ll give her that. 

Roman nods and gently taps her hip, partially surprised when she moves off his lap, taking his hand as she lays back on the bed, pulling him on top of her. 

Roman’s lips hover over hers as she breathes, “I just want to feel you.”

It’s taking a painful amount of self-control on Roman’s part to refrain from taking here right here and now. Because while he’s mentally conflicted, there’s no denying the hardness that’s growing in his pants by the minute as she lifts her thigh and grazes it against his hip. There’s no properly explaining how much he’s missed this.

He kisses her, tentatively almost, letting her take the lead as she moves her arms around his neck, tugging him closer. Roman’s hand goes to palm her breast through her shirt which makes her breathe against his mouth.

He shuts his eyes for a minute. He’d almost forgotten the sweet sounds she makes, fodder for his growing desire. He moves his mouth to her neck, sucking on the spot he’s learned makes her writhe under him, her nails scraping down his taut back. 

And then, the shift.

Roman feels it only seconds before she acts on it, the way she starts to tense underneath him, the growing unsteady pattern of her breathing, the fear. But before he can pull away, she’s pushing him away, letting out a ‘no’ that comes from a different place, a different time. It comes from her trauma.

Her push is strong, but it’s not enough to get him completely off of her. Roman does that much all on his own, watching as she sits up in the bed and covers her face.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes into her hands. “I—I’m sorry.” Her shoulders tremble as the apologies melt into the bleeding of emotions she tried to mask away with intimacy. “I’m sorry—” Solana falling into a full out crying session, the third or fourth time she’s done as much tonight, is more than enough for Roman to motion her over to him.

“Come here.” 

He’s at least grateful she lets him pull her onto his chest, letting her cry on him as he lays them back in the bed, his protective arms around her. For a second, he berates himself for taking her from the hospital. If they were still there, he’d wake up whoever the fuck he needed to wake up to give her that medicine she was prescribed for moments like this.

Moments where she just needs more.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, crying subdued a bit. But Roman is unsure what he dislikes more: the fact that she’s so upset or the fact that she thinks she needs to apologize for being so upset.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” is all he says. His hand is on the small of her back, moving in comforting circles. “Nothing at all, okay?”

She doesn’t say anything, just continues to cry into him, Roman wishing he could do more to settle her. It kills him to see her so upset. 

A few minutes later, her tears having almost entirely subsided, she murmurs, “I’m sorry we couldn’t….”

He takes a deep breath, willing his voice to remain calm. “Solana, I told you before I don’t need that from you—”

“But, I wanted to. I just…..”

“It’s okay.” He cuts her off, kissing the top of her head. “I never expected that from you tonight anyway.”

He already knew she wasn’t in the mental space for it, but he didn’t want her to feel rejected either, so he went along with it. There’s a bit of regret, maybe more than a bit, but Roman also knows he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Still is. 

“Rest.” He instructs, grateful when she simply nods against him, tucking herself closer into his body. And he watches her closely and intently, an infinite amount of pleasure rising within him when he feels the steady rise and fall of her body, confirmation that she’s finally drifted off into sleep.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep with her. He would actually prefer to stay up and watch her, but the weight of the day, mentally and physically, takes its unavoidable toll. And not too long after she succumbs to sleep, he does the same.

________

“Daddy.”

Roman’s eyes shoot open at the both familiar and unfamiliar voice. Looking down, he sees Solana sleeping peacefully on top of him, her hand atop his chest. But to his right, he finds sad eyes, tear stained cheeks, and a deep frown. 

Naturally, he frowns a bit as well. He hates seeing any of this family upset. “Bad dream?” 

She nods, holding onto the teddy bear in her arms. He’d gotten it for her a couple years back while he was away on business, and it’s become her comfort animal ever since. 

Roman is careful in prying Solana’s arm off him, grateful when the extent of her stirring is simply her turning over on the other side. Over the years, she’s gotten better with not being as easily disturbed or woken up.

And he’s especially thankful for that in this moment.

Moving the blankets down and off, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and rolls his shoulders. She shifts the bear in her arm to one side and reaches up for him to pick her up. “Come here.” Roman does as such, pulling her up as he stands from the bed. 

She lays her head on his shoulder while  he quietly walks them out the room, cracking the door behind him. Roman takes her downstairs into the living room and hits the lamp on the side table before grabbing the remote off the coffee table. 

Sitting down, she adjusts herself in his lap, holding onto her stuffy while he loads up the animated show with the creepy blue looking thing that kids apparently love, his included. 

Especially the twin on his lap. It’s like her comfort show.

“You wanna pick the episode?” It’s a preference. 

She nods and accepts the remote from him, selecting the same episode she’s watched the last 10+ times this has occurred. She almost always starts with this same episode, like she has to or else she can’t watch it.

A repeat and increasing thing, he’s noticing. 

As the opening credits roll around, Roman gently rubs her back, asking, “you wanna talk about it?”

She keeps her focus on the TV while shaking her head no. An expected answer given the fact that she never really likes to talk in general, but as Roman thinks about the increase in how often this is happening, he’s starting to wonder if it’s past the point where she gets a choice in the matter.

For the past few months, every so often, or more often now, he’ll be awoken in the middle of the night by his youngest daughter. Upset and clearly crying, she’ll ask him to sit with her, to stay with her until she falls asleep again. Though at some point, the addition of letting her watch an episode or two of her show seemed to aid in not only calming her down but eventually lulling her back to sleep.

And every time Roman tries to get out of her just what these bad dreams are, she remains quiet, forcing him to wreck his brain over what could be bothering her so much.

The unknown of it all is starting to mess with him.

He can’t help her if he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“Sissy?”

Both Roman and the daughter on his lap look over to see her twin rubbing her sleeping eyes as she walks over and climbs onto the sofa, the two adjusting so they’re both seated on top of him. “Did you have the bad dreams again?”

At that, Roman’s brow furrows. Did she talk about them with her sister?

He asks as such. 

“Do you know what they’re about?” Roman and Solana suspected that she’d confided in her sister, her true confidant, but they also didn’t want to risk putting a rift between the sisters by making one feel like she has to ‘snitch’ on the other.

However, an unspoken communication of some sort is exchanged between the twins. The quieter of the two reluctantly nodding as the outspoken one shares, “sissy has bad thoughts…..”

Roman takes the remote and turns down the volume versus pausing as he notices she’s still trying to watch. To some extent. And it’s clearly helping to calm her, so he won’t deprive her of that. But, he does have to ask, “what kind of bad thoughts?”

That could be and mean so many things. And if the situation was different, he wouldn’t be too concerned. The level and standard for ‘bad’ that he has compared to his kids is vastly different. But given how upset his daughter has been getting, there’s gotta be something more severe to the ‘bad’ this time. 

His twin, in more than just looks and demeanor, seems to hesitate for a second, Roman ready to encourage her that it’s okay to be honest with him. He needs that honesty at this point. “She—she has scary thoughts about something happening to you and mama. And—and bad dreams that something’s gonna happen to you when you go on your trips.”

Roman does his best to hide his surprise. And his concern. He wasn’t expecting that. Turning to the youngest of the two, he asks, “is that true?”

She looks down, tightening her hold on her bear as she nods slowly.

Roman closes his eyes and takes a second to gather himself. Comfort now. Process later. It’s become a bit of a routine for him.

Needing both of their attention, he takes the remote again to hit pause. 

“Girls….” Roman has to remind himself to keep it simple and at a level they can understand. “I’m never going to let anything happen to your mom. Or to you. Or to your brother. And nothing is especially going to happen to me.” Seeing the emotion especially present in his youngest, he kisses her temple. “I’m always going to come back home to you guys, okay?”

And that’s a promise.

Come hell or high water, nothing could separate him from his family. 

Especially his kids. 

“Told you, sissy.” She then smiles a little, adding on with a toothy grin. “Daddy’s like a superhero.”

Roman chuckles. Far from it. But whatever helps them. 

Taking over the duty of being the parent, showing that while she has many of her father’s interests and some of his temperament, she also has her mother’s caring nature, she asks, reaching for her little sister’s hand. “Wanna try to go back to sleep? You can sleep in my bed.”

The offer to not have to sleep alone as well as having some one on one time with him seems to be enough to be enough to coax her back  to bed. He watches as the girls climb off his lap, the oldest taking the youngest hand, as she also handles the parting words, “goodnight, daddy.”

He offers a small smile. Their bond is something special. “Night, girls.” Hands still locked, they walk away, heading back up the stairs. “Love you.” He calls out after them. 

An almost synchronized response is what he’s met with. “Love you too, daddy.” 

It brings that warmth back to him, Roman blowing out a deep breath when it’s just him and the paused screen on the TV. He takes a couple minutes to sit on the weight of the conversation. 

He doesn’t like knowing that his daughter is struggling with thoughts. Hates that they haunt her in the form of dreams. He knows better than anyone how difficult that can be. How exhausting.

So does Solana.

Thoughts of his wife and wanting to get back to her before she notices his absence and wakes up, Roman shuts off the TV and starts heading upstairs.

Walking back into their bedroom, he’s only partially surprised to find Solana awake, sitting up against the headboard, their son on her chest for one of his nightly feedings. 

She gives him a sad, knowing smile. “Another bad dream?” 

Roman nods and goes to sit back in the bed next to her. “Found out what they’re about.”

Solana’s eyes widen a bit. “She told you?”

He shakes his head. “The other one did.” He frowns a bit, sharing, “she’s having thoughts and dreams of something happening to us. Me especially.” 

Solana’s frown is deep and concerned. Valid. “What? Where—Where did that come from?”

“Don’t know.” Roman answers. He’d have loved to been able to ask more questions, but it’s also the middle of the night and just getting some kind of answer is a huge win in and of itself. “But, I wanna schedule an appointment with her pediatrician. If something else is going on with her, we need to know.”

Roman has an idea of what it could be, now starting to put different pieces together. Her particular way of doing things, rituals of sorts, thoughts she can’t control. But, he wants to be sure.

“Of course,” Solana agrees. “I’ll call in the morning.”

Good. 

Roman chuckles after looking over at the clock on the nightstand. 3:59am. He glances at Solana, “and you really wanna do this all over again?”

He’s still partially stuck on the fact that even with three kids, Solana is still wanting more. 

The thought alone brings out a heavy sigh just from tonight’s events.

All three of their kids up and in need of something in the middle of the night like he and his wife don’t have work in the morning.

He can’t even really picture an additional child—or two–added into the mix. 

Solana, however, only smiles, rocking gently to help soothe their son. “Only with you, papi.” A beat. “Only with you.”

________

“No!”

Roman is awakened by movement and volume. Both of which effectively deter and distract him from yet another strange dream, a fantasy of some sort.

Or…..something more. 

Regardless, he has neither the time nor energy—nor desire—to think about that. Not with the woman violently stirring beside him. A nightmare. It’s obvious Solana is in the middle of a nightmare.

“No….” Twisting against the mattress, Roman sees the light sheen of sweat on her forehead. He frowns. How long has she been in the middle of this nightmare? “Get off me….”

At that, he stills a bit. With Solana’s extensive trauma, it’s pretty impossible to know just what specific traumatizing incident haunts her dreams and interrupts her sleep. But this….this one is pretty obvious. 

And it guts him.

He moves his hands to her shoulders. “Baby, wake up.”

She starts crying, and Roman isn’t quite sure how much worse and useless he can feel. “No. Please—please. You’re hurting me.”

There’s a heaviness in his chest as Roman deepens his voice and shakes her a little harder. “Solana, wake up.”

It seems the more he says it, the more she writhes and cries, trapped in the throes of trauma. Roman doesn’t want to be physical with her, doesn’t want to exacerbate an already difficult situation, but he can’t just sit here and watch her suffer. 

He moves his hands to her arms, restricting her just enough, raising his volume yet again. “Solana, it’s just a nightmare. Wake up.” He’s not entirely certain if it’s his escalation or just the natural progression, but she shoots up, eyes opening for the briefest second before slamming shut. 

And then, the climax.

Roman is taken back when she starts pushing and shoving him, but that surprise is easily weighed down with sympathy when she starts talking again. 

“Get off of me!” She cries, never once letting up on him.

He takes it all, her fists really of no consequence to him as he continues to try to break her from this torment. “Solana, please—”

“No!” She’s the one with the increased volume, Roman biting back a hiss as a sharp almost burning pain throbs in his shoulder, the area where he was shot. But, it’s irrelevant. His focus is on Solana and nothing else. 

“Baby, it’s me.” He’s no longer restraining her, letting her let it out on him as much as she needs to. Whatever she needs in this moment, he’ll give it to her. He’s not sure what else to do besides that, to be honest.

But, it’s when Roman manages to cup her face, again, repeating the hopefully calming, settling words, “it’s me” that seems to help break through to her. Blinking, wet eyes open, filled with fear. He studies her, watching her focus on him, as the fear starts to diminish. Replaced with recognition. “R–Roman?”

He nods, his own concern settling seeing her anxiety lessen. “Yes. It’s just me.”

She releases a shaky, emotional breath, clearly coming to grips with what just occurred. But, her gaze settling on his shoulder seems to bring back that previous level of horror. “Oh my god, I—I hurt you.” She slaps her hand over her mouth, shaking her head. “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

He looks down, realizing she must have ripped his stitches when she was hitting him, blood trickling down his skin. Roman is entirely unbothered. “Solana, I’m fine.”

She doesn’t seem to be hearing him, too focused on the unintentional thing she caused. “I hurt you…..” 

He lowers her hands from her face, kissing her inner palms. “Baby, it’s fine.” 

“I–I’m sorry. I–She closes her eyes, taking deep breaths, asking him in an unexpected calmer voice. “I—I need to stitch it back up for you.”

Roman shakes his head. “I can do th—”

But, she cuts him off, sounding a little bit more stable and a lot more desperate. “Roman, please?” 

Not wanting to risk upsetting her again, he shakes his head, allowing her to take the lead as she grabs his hand and guides him into their bathroom. Roman sits on the toilet and watches her silently move around, gathering the medical kit and other needed supplies. 

His eyes don’t leave her as she works carefully and tediously to stitch him back up, Roman partially thankful her focus is on something else versus the horrific memories that seemed to have been tormenting her the past couple hours. 

He wants to say something, do something to help her feel better, to especially rip away the guilt evident in her eyes at ‘hurting’ him.

Solana may be the only person on this earth capable of doing as such, but it could never be physically. 

Ever.

“I’m not crazy. I—I promise.” Her voice is shaky, unsteady by understandable emotion as she finishes up, starting to put the supplies back. “I just—I don’t know—”

Roman takes her hands in his. “Sol, I know you’re not crazy.” Feeling an unfamiliar sense of openness and vulnerability, he asks her, “do you know why I was able to help you with your panic attack that night?” Her eyes are lit with confusion as she shakes her head no. Roman’s jaw clenches. He’s never once told a soul what he’s about to share with her. “It’s because I used to have them.” 

Her reaction is exactly what he would expect from anyone to hear such words coming from him. 

“Wh—what?” 

Roman’s eyes divert to the wall beside her as he powers through the discomfort. “It was….it was after my family was killed. I’d have nightmares about it and wake up freaking the fuck out.” Just like her. “That’s when they’d happen.”

“But, I couldn’t tell anyone, because they were already questioning if I would be fit to lead.” He scoffs, “I had to be perfect. I couldn’t let anyone know how fucked up I really was from what happened.” 

He can only imagine that the softness in her voice matches the expression on her face. “Roman….” 

“But, I couldn’t keep dealing with the shit either, so I found this book at my school’s library about mental health and whatnot, and it had a section on panic attacks and how to cope with them. So, I studied and learned them. It’s been fine since then. Haven’t had one in years.” Though that similar budding feeling of panic that used to be present before they’d occur is something Roman’s noticed having versions of for almost the past two weeks.

Since he found out Solana tried to kill herself. 

She lifts her hand to his face, and he closes his eyes. He can feel it. Can sense it. Her sympathy or maybe something different. Maybe empathy. Regardless, he doesn’t want or need it. The point was to not bring attention to his fucked up past but rather help her reduce some of her self-judgment. 

He stands up, forcing her hand to fall down as he instead cups her face, looking and speaking directly at her. “You’re not crazy.” Far from it. And he needs her to know that. “You just….you need help.” His voice shifts into something softer. “And I’m going to make sure you get it.”

Her gaze also shifts. Something both hopeful and sad. “I–I can go?”

Roman only hesitates for a second. “Yes.” 

The answer he gives her is in no way indicative of how he feels about it. He still hates it. Hates the idea of her not coming home for good in three days and instead going to yet another treatment facility. This one longer and farther away.

But, if there’s anything the past few hours have taught him, have shown him, it’s that Dr. Stratus and Gail were right. 

And so was Solana. 

She’s not ready to come home. 

She needs more help.

And he can’t, won’t, be selfish. Won’t be too consumed by his own want and desire to have her back with him. Not when it directly contrasts what she needs. 

And what she needs is continued professional help. 

So, that’s exactly what she’s going to get. 

“I’ll talk to Stratus about what we need to do.” And that’s more so in regards to location solely, so Roman can get a head start on working on safety precautions for her. He’ll keep Bautista with her. That seems to be a good fit. 

Solana, however, is bubbling with emotion again. From a different source. For a different reason. 

She pushes herself into his chest, Roman easily dropping his hands to her waist, kissing the top of her head. “Thank you.” It’s as he holds her, her face buried into his chest that she murmurs those three, sacred, terrifying words. “I love you.”

He closes his eyes. 

It’s one thing to read it but something entirely different to actually hear her say it. 

He doesn’t know how to respond, how to react, what to say. 

Even if does feel the same way. 

So, he says nothing. 

________

“You took her out of the hospital.”

“Sure fucking did.”

Roman has never been so unbothered while sitting in Dr. Stratus office as she paces across, visibly and audibly stressed the fuck out by what occurred. 

After agreeing to let her continue treatment at the other facility, Solana was finally able to get some sleep. Roman as well. Not a ton, of course, because he woke up to her spot in bed next to him vacant. Dulce missing as well.

And if not for the note left for him that read ‘fixing us breakfast <3’, he might have even panicked a bit. Just a smidgen. Of course she would spend time doing something for them rather than herself. It’s such a Solana thing.

Regardless, he enjoyed breakfast with her but hated to see the saddened expression on her face as she said goodbye to her puppy, Dulce’s ears dropping and the whimpering returning as she also picked up on the pending separation.

She’s also felt and been impacted by Solana’s absence. 

But, it’s a necessary absence. 

Solana needs help. 

And it’s that, that oh-so important reminder, Roman keeps repeating to himself as this blonde bitch continues to berate him like he’s a fucking child. 

“Who the hell are you to make that decision?” She continues, pointing at him. “You do not get to remove my patient from my care without speaking to me!”

“I did what I had to do for my wife. She needed to get the fuck out of here.” Roman is a man who doesn’t believe in explaining himself, but given the situation, he makes a small exception. For Solana. Only for her. “But, if you don’t lower your fucking voice, you won’t have to worry about her, or anyone else, being your patient because the dead can’t be fucking psychiatrists.”

Dr. Stratus closes her eyes and shakes her head. “At the very least, you could have just texted me what was going on.”

“Keeping you briefed wasn’t my priority.” At all. “Keeping my wife alive was.”

She opens her eyes, asking, “was she suicidal?”

“She said no.” Roman still isn’t entirely sure he believed her. She could have been telling the truth, but she also could have been lying for a lot of different reasons. Still, that’s not something he feels the need to share. “She said she talked about her rape earlier that day in therapy and was having….flashbacks.”

“Flooding,” Dr. Stratus informs. “It’s when a survivor experiences intrusive thoughts, images, and flashbacks of their trauma.” She then looks at him, almost surprised, “she called you?”

Roman nods. “Said the coping shit wasn’t working.”

The doctor plops back down into her seat, saying more to herself than anything. “Well, I suppose that’s a good sign. That she reached out to you versus….other things.” That’s exactly how Roman feels. “Regardless, in the future, at least let me know what’s going on. I would have told you to give her the Hydroxyzine. We could have seen if it’s helpful.”

Roman doesn’t disagree with her there. The thought of one of her medications potentially being helpful definitely crossed his mind. But, he’s not about to tell this woman that.

He’s got other things he needs to discuss.

“The facility you were telling me about….” Roman looks away, not eager to have this conversation but knowing he needs to. For Solana. “Tell me more.”

________

A loud, guttural, almost animalistic growl leaves Samantha’s mouth at the same time the glass plate is tossed against the wall, shattering and spilling into tiny little pieces all across her kitchen floor.

Not that it makes a difference.

Punching the fridge, she ignores the throbbing in her fist and ineffectively tries to manage her nerves, dissuading the burning urge within to scream. It’s been less than 24hrs since she regained the ability to speak, her jaw finally healed enough and no longer wired shut.

But, now she’s left with nothing but pent up emotion all directed toward one person.

Solana

That fat bitch ruined everything. She stole Roman from her. The man who she’s been with since she was a fucking teenager. The man she always imagined would be her husband and father of her children, who would make her his Queen of the Bloodline, but none of that will happen now.

It won’t happen because of that slashed face whore.

Because Roman chose her over him.

Which brings up unfamiliar feelings towards her former lover.

Roman is an asshole. Always has been. As long as she’s known him, he’s been a dick, so his cruel behavior at times toward her never really bothered her. That’s just his personality. She never took it personally. 

Not until now, at least.

Because now, it’s not just his wife she’s mad at, it’s Roman too.

Granted, her fury toward the troll is significantly worse.

She’d kill the bitch if she could.

“Rough day?”

Samantha nearly jumps across the room at the sound of another person’s voice. She instead is braced against the refrigerator as she lands eyes on the last person she expected to find in her place.

“Seth?”

It takes another second for her to register that it truly is the once friend of her former lover. He sits on her sofa wearing at least three different types of animal print that are all outlined in some kind of bling, hair looking as unkempt as his mental health. 

She’s sly in trying to move closer to the knife set on the counter.

Seth, however, is as perceptive as he is insane. She stills when he casually pulls out a gun. “Ah ah. I just want to talk to you. That’s all.” He makes a face, playing with the gun.“Word on the street is that you got dumped.”

Samantha’s eyes narrow a bit. How does Seth freakin Rollins of all people know about her ‘breakup’ with Roman? Only those close to Roman would know that, and there’s no way anyone close to Roman would be speaking to Seth……

Right?

“Who—”

“You’ll find out about the members of this little crusade once you agree,” he explains, placing the gun on the sofa beside him, casually viewing his nails that are painted a hideous green. Like the color of slime from Nickelodeon back in the day. “Can’t risk snitches, of course.”

More interested than anything, Samantha asks, “what are you talking about?”

“Oh, that’s right.” He giggles, standing up and pulling a flask out of what seems like nowhere. “We’re gonna kill Roman Reigns.” Seth takes a swig as Samantha’s eyes widen, before he adds on, as if he forgot. “And his wife, Sadie.”

“Solana?”

Seth shrugs “Yeah, she can get killed too. Why not?”

Samantha finally laughs, crossing her arms. “You’re even crazier than I realized. You can’t just kill, Roman.” It’s damn near impossible. Does he not know the mountain of bodies that have tried and failed at the very same thing he’s suggesting? “And there’s no way in hell he’ll let you get even close enough to kill that bitch wife of his.”

“Oh, that’s a lot easier than you think.” Seth takes the flask to his mouth again, voice teasing yet malicious. “The Bloodline is full of traitors.”

Samantha goes quiet, wondering how much of this is madness and just how much is true. It seems too asinine to be true. 

But, there’s also the fact that the only way Seth could have known about Roman leaving her was if someone within the Bloodline told him, which would most definitely make them a traitor. And even that feels almost impossible. Roman’s family is notoriously loyal. Who would want to betray him?

The plural form of the word ‘traitor’ is also something that catches her attention. 

Could there be more than one traitor?

Seth meanwhile seems to be in a sense of imaginative blood lust, practically squealing, “the infamous Roman Empire is going to be coming to a gloriously bloody, gory end, and we’re trying to see who all want to be a part of our little murderous, traitorous gang.” 

Again, she’s caught off guard, realizing just now he’s clearly referring to more than himself. “Gang?”

Seth tilts his head, pouting as he says almost mysteriously, “we both know your former lover has no shortage of enemies.”

That is dangerously true, but what’s even more dangerous is this suicide mission Seth is proposing.

“How is this supposed to be any different from any other time people have tried to kill Roman?” As much as she would love to see Solana’s life drain from her ugly ass face, Samantha would rather not lose her life in the process. 

Seth is way too excited to answer. “Because this time, the call is coming from inside the house.” Her eyes widen. “With a little….Nightmare help as well.”

There’s so much to process in that one bombshell of a sentence. “Someone in the Bloodline is orchestrating this?” Not to mention whatever role the Nightmare Factory is playing. That’s just salt on an open, gushing wound. 

This type of betrayal is bound to crush Roman.

Samanth smiles. 

Oh, revenge is so so sweet. 

“I’ll join, but on one condition.” Seth’s brow lifts, a sign he’s ready to hear out her caveat. “That I get to stab and kill that bitch Solana myself. I get to be the one to take her from Roman.”

At the vision alone, Seth’s mad smile grows followed by that crazy ass laugh. “Oh, this just keeps getting better and better.” He claps his hands together, nodding. “You got yourself a deal, curly.”

Samantha nods, pleased with the arrangement. 

Whoever previously took the knife to Roman’s little wife, causing all those ugly ass scars, failed to get the job done. 

Samantha won’t. 

She does have another question, shrugging. “So who all is a part of this shit anyway?”

She’s especially curious about who the traitor is.

Or traitors. 

Of course, it’s just more mental edging with the self-proclaimed visionary. “You’ll get to meet the gang soon enough, but we’ve got one more person to recruit.” Samantha’s curiosity is evident, prompted by Seth casually tossing the flask up and down with a wicked gleam in his empty eyes. “Can’t take down Roman Reigns without inviting his good ole’ pal Brock Lesnar to join in on the fun, now can we?”

[eternalstrigoii]

Unfettered -- I

A revamp-sequel to Caged Borra (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) x Forest Dark Fey Reader; Maleficent x Diaval; Conall x Jungle Dark Fey; General Percival x Shrike; Philip x Aurora; King John is Everyone’s Dad (reprise)

               “No, no, no! Please, please, please!”

Your flesh burned. Your flesh had been burning for weeks. Your blood was like molasses baked to fired stone on the floor of your cage. The thick, iron band around your neck welled more to the surface. Your senses should have been dulled to it, but they weren’t. Iron cuffs around your wrists kept you locked in place while white-faced iron men forcibly extended your broken wings.

The pain ricocheted through you. The queen watched impassively as you screamed. One snap. Your wing muscles violently recoiled. Two snaps in a different place. No, no, no, not more breaking, they already hurt so much!

“Don’t forget the little ones.” Her voice was cold.

Tears ran down your face. Dripped to sizzle on the oven-hot floor. You couldn’t move anymore, your pain was so great. Still, they pulled your wing taut, and something was jabbed through the bars. Once. Twice. Harder. The fragile little bones between muscles and membranes broke without a sound, and you were crying. You didn’t even struggle. What could you do? Where could you go? Ingrith had you. She would kill you.

And he was right.

       You awoke with a gasp, startled right out of sleep. A bonfire still roared beyond the confines of your nest, and you crawled toward it habitually.

Some part of you still expected to find your father sitting by it when you emerged, drinking herb water from stone cups long after Udo and the fledglings had gone to bed.

But you were not in the nest, or in its forest; you were on the moors, and Ini was the one awake, pouring over the roughly drawn diagrams you’d all put together during dinner. Ulstead, the Midlands, Perceforest. The end of their borders were the end of your guaranteed safety, as though your safety was guaranteed anyway.

“Where is he?” you asked, and you hated that it was the first thing out of your mouth.

“Patrolling.” She was so casual about it, as though they hadn’t tried to kill him just a handful of weeks ago. “He still doesn’t trust them.”

“He shouldn’t.”

You were trembling, not that you realized. You crawled over a log and rested your half-limp wings against it, as though the warmth of the fire would be all it took to erase the panic from your chest, the excruciating phantom pains that lingered still.

“You sleep worse than he does,” she commented, barely looking up. “And he’s been to war.”

He wasn’t tortured, you wanted to reply, but you didn’t. You had nightmares about that, too – violent nightmares where they made him watch. You knew he’d fight, you knew he’d do everything in his power to keep you safe, and that would be why they killed him in front of you – why the queen would’ve had you unbound so you could hold him in your arms while he choked on his own blood with an iron bolt in his heart.

Oh, skies, you shook. Now the tears were inevitable. You were like a child, waking up sobbing at the first thought of violence against you – as though it could be undone.

Papers rustled as Ini put them aside, tucked carefully away from the fire. She came to join you, wrapped her arms and her wings around you. “Oh, Cassia…”

“I need him,” you whispered, and for once, it wasn’t Borra in your thoughts. You needed Conall to guide you. To be there, to soothe you, to press his head with yours and smile softly and sing to you like your mother had when she was alive and the sob that ripped out of you was guttural and wild and it made Ini press you close against her like a child, her palm flat against your cheek as she rocked you, tucked close into her side.

What’s the matter? Papa didn’t kiss it better? Your brother used to sneer when your emotions overtook you, and your father never hesitated to sweep in, gather you on his hip and remove you from the situation completely. I would rather you know you can depend on me than let you struggle when you shouldn’t.

He had been so close to you when he died. Nearly there. Over the trees and across the river. You never wanted them to find you, they would’ve been killed, but that didn’t ease your pain when you thought about how close to him you were – how nearly you’d been able to see him, see them both. Tell them goodbye.

“He was looking for you,” Ini murmured into your hair, “the night she plunged into the sea. He never stopped looking for you, Cas. Neither did Borra.”

That was exactly what shouldn’t have been said. You screamed into your forearms like a fresh-set scab had been ripped off an infected wound. You hadn’t done much crying in Ulstead. Now, free of suspicion, home with your family where you belonged, grief consumed you.

So close and so far and so near but no longer.

Your crying woke Shrike. You heard her grumble, her nest rustle. She padded out to join you both near the fire, put her strong wings around you. “Calm.” She rubbed firm circles into your back. “What is it, another nightmare?”

“Another memory,” Ini replied, squeezing your arms. “It’s hard not to have Conall to turn to when we need him.”

You never thought anything could be worse than the queen’s guard snapping your hollow bones again and again. Not the pain in your immobile wings afterward, the pieces of bone embedded in your muscle, the severed tendons poorly healed, or the fact that you could no longer fly on your own.

But awakening with the child version of you still alive and seeking the comfort of your now-dead father, that was worse.

That was so much worse.

You wished you’d died there, in the castle. You wished the only thing that had been left for them to find was your body, if Ingrith hadn’t destroyed it first. They broke you so thoroughly that you would never be repaired and that still hadn’t been enough, and you wished that if they hadn’t, that you had been able to die fighting.

Grief consumed you.

Shrike had plumage like your mother. Tired as she was, grumpy as she could be, she was the one who took you back to bed and laid down beside you. She folded you in her wings, drew yours close to you, and groomed spots of them gently.

“There’s snow in the mountains,” she sang to you in her rough, pleasant voice, though you never thought any of you would remember these songs or their words. Not after years of waiting for war, burying the peace of your childhood under preparation. “High up in the mountains, there’s snow in the mountains and rain down below. We’ll go to the mountains, high up in the mountains, we’ll go to the mountains and I’ll show you the snow.”

You missed them.

You missed your mother. Your father, most of all. Your brother, killed in battle (you were told after you’d recovered enough to handle the news, which you still hadn’t handled). You missed the child version of yourself, how sure she was that her freedom was a good thing – if you were bound to nothing, nothing would ever be lost.

You cried until you slept.

                The clash and clang of armor did nothing but rattle your nerves. Skies and stars, Borra was ferocious. He showed no mercy to the king’s-men-in-training who’d arrived to serve on the royal guard; it was as much his training with bronze armor as it was theirs, not that it evened his advantage. Philip was just as easily overwhelmed, though you could see the intent in his face – the desire to prove his strength to a man he hardly knew.

King John took his breakfast with you, on the balcony just outside the dining hall, where you could overlook where they staged battle in one of the enclosed courtyards. Your herb water – tea – remained untouched despite your request for it.

“Here,” he placed a buttered roll on a wooden plate and passed it toward you. “Take some of the jam. It’s fig!”

You were tired and your head throbbed from your eyes to your forehead, but you smiled at the old man. “Thank you.”

“How are you feeling?” the once and maybe still-ruling king could be socially tone deaf, but he did his best not to tread too harshly on your unhealed wounds. So to speak.

You lifted your wings. They did that much for you now, but they didn’t fold properly. One of them barely folded at all after having been spread to let the bones set. “They’re half immobile, but they’ll do.” The violation of your soul remained unhealed.

“I’ve sought reparations on your behalf, you know.” His attention wasn’t even on them anymore. He had single-minded focus as he set another pastry – this one filled with fresh blueberries and drizzled with still-warm cream, something you couldn’t resist even if you wanted to – onto your plate. You took it from him, and took a large bite while he spoke. “That little creature in the sewers—”

“Lickspittle,” you clarified. “The pixie-made-gnome.” You knew nothing of their culture, but the intimacy of having your wings removed and being forced into servitude didn’t fail you. “Ingrith stole his wings, also.”

He wasn’t expecting you to be as empathetic as you were. You were no fool, you knew the woman hadn’t forced his hand in the atrocities he’d taken part in, but you still had to bite back tears at the recollection of someone’s hand on your face, lifting your head when you were too weak to do it yourself. Water at your lips. Someone refused to let you die even when the woman called you an animal to your face; despite the primal fear that gripped you whenever a human man looked at you now.

Human men who weren’t Philip and John, though that had been a difficult transition by itself.

“He’s going before the tribunal.” John was still quite proud of himself for that, and you wouldn’t be lying to say you also were. He was a good man, a good king. Just. But not always as aware as he should be. “He’s not the only one.”

Borra would be happy about that. Justice for your people. Justice for your fallen, even those who hailed from the moors.

You, on the other hand? No tribunal would erase the shots that took your father’s life. No measure of justice would give you back the full use of your wings or the peace in your heart. You saw the way Maleficent held herself, she who had once been wingless, and you wished you had the strength to do the same.

He ducked his head, tried to hold your eyes. “Is that alright?”

“Of course,” you replied. “I hope you weren’t planning on opposition.”

“Not from you,” he admitted, and took your buttered roll to add a generous amount of fig jam. “Not toward the tribunal, at least. I haven’t a clue how old you are, but you every time I look at you, I swear you’ve gotten thinner.”

It was the opposite, and it made you smile. You knew you’d been fed just enough to keep you alive and nothing more. Hunger was never strong enough to overcome your physical pain, and the scars that covered you like one of the young queen’s dressing gowns kept that on display. When you returned to your people, you ate like a wild animal. You made yourself sick for days. Despite the symbolic regular serving of goat while you resided in the palace, it took you weeks to feel full again.

“My father would’ve liked you.” You squeezed his hand and ate that one too. Then, at last, you had some tea, and the warmth of it gave you pause enough to rest the ceramic cup against your temple for relief.

“I would’ve liked him, based on the child he raised.” John squeezed your hand in return.

Your smile became more genuine, even as you heard several men go backward at the same time. Maybe because of it.

Borra was kind to you. Gentle in ways he had never been before. When you woke this morning, and Shrike had already gone, he was beside you, preening your wings since you still couldn’t do it by yourself. He hadn’t hesitated, when he saw your fixed gaze, to join you in your nest and fit his body against yours so that you could soak in the warmth of him. Your favorite places to kiss were the hollow of his throat and the space just above the gap between his wings. You loved to fit your body against him in return; wrap your arms around him when he slept and hold his head against your chest. Nearly took out your face on his horns more times than you could count, but that didn't rob you of the pleasure of it.

“Cassia,” John’s voice was a bit more grave. You felt better, though, letting yourself linger on pleasant thoughts. The throbbing in your face from your midnight cry had subsided some. “I need you to be there, at the tribunal.”

You stared at him. You knew what he was asking, but it refused to process. Metaphorically speaking, you’d mentally stalled out several weeks into your capture; you hadn’t processed the fact that your people had gone to war, that you’d collectively agreed to leave the nest on a whoever-desired trial basis, or that Borra was in love with you. (Though putting the thought to words filled you with inexplicable pleasure.)

“I know what I ask is far more cruel to you than I have ever desired to be, but there will be significant opposition to measures of reparation. The nobility and the gentry, in particular, need to be convinced.”

Phantom weight rested on your chest.

“John,” you began, though you didn’t know where you’d end. You recalled phantom whispers. Men daring each other to touch you while you burned with iron fever. Nudges at your hands becoming the jab of a weapon through the bars, making you startle and recoil and cry out. There were little wounds along your sides, adding to the count of your scars; from the tips of pole-axes, from the points of spears. You recalled, suddenly, with painful vividness, someone drawing a line down your hip with a sword.

You pulled away from him without warning. Your wings beat, but generated no wind. The phantom weight on your chest had become a tightness, and your heart pounded like the thunder of hooves.

You relived your ordeal regularly. He couldn’t ask you to do it for an audience.

But you are, some nagging little voice whispered, so why not?

You had to grip the stone railing for support. You faced the courtyard – Philip and the young men, and some part of you not hazed with anguish saw the concern written plainly on the prince’s face.

Borra didn’t miss a beat. The moment they faltered, he was there on the other side. Your cheek rested nicely in his covered palm, and you leaned into the heat of his touch.

Delirious with fever and delirious with pain. Being dragged out in a collar without regards to your broken wings, dropped in a bath of ice. You fought. It hurt, you hurt, it did nothing to soothe your wounds. But you were held down until you shook while someone scrubbed the molasses-blood from the bottom of your cage.

“Look at me.” He spoke only to you, his thumb brushing across the apple of your cheek. “Cas.”

You did. It took you a moment to find your lungs.

You lived in a constant state of exhaustion, now. It was different when you needed to physically heal; then, you slept at will. Now, your thoughts were invaded by paralyzing fear and the aftermath left you thoroughly drained. You could’ve climbed over the barrier and into his arms.

“I will need you at the tribunal, also,” John said to him. “They need to know what’s been done to the moor-folk.”

He watched your face until your breathing calmed, and then he shifted back on his heels to see him, his free hand coming to rest over yours on the railing as though out of habit. “Tell them yourself.”

“Absolute rule can only extend so far.” John was…good and kind and patient and you suddenly hated that about him. “This isn’t Stefan’s Perceforest. I won’t have my people cowering in fear while my children beg them to understand.”

That much, they had to mutually agree on. There would never be peace if the humans remained afraid. They were right to fear you – to fear him. He’d asked only once about what you’d dreamt, and your response (they looked at you like wolves approaching their wounded kill; you knew their faces so well that it scared you. That they’d torn pieces from your clothes with their weapons in the process of drawing blood, clipped your feathers just to hear you cry out in pain at the touch) created a dangerous fury that you had yet to see subside. You told him nothing of the ice baths, of lying there, drenched and shaking, while your body burned (though Ini had said, in passing, that you were lucky to have avoided infection; with the state you were in when Aurora found you, it would’ve been your end).

“I’ll go,” you managed.

Borra scowled.

“You’ll need to talk to them like you would if you went before our council. I want to be there.”

“The both of you are our best hope for justice,” John pressed. “Peace can’t be maintained if we sweep what’s happened under the rug.”

Aurora got to him, you realized. Aurora, or Borra got to Philip and Philip got to him. But it wasn’t planned; he didn’t want you to do this. Nearly as badly as you did.

You laid your head against him. It was so much, all the time. If it could bring everyone peace, if it could avenge your fallen and secure a future, then you might as well become complacent with it.

“I’ll go,” you repeated, more quietly. Just to him. “But will you request me an audience with Maleficent before I do?”

He shifted his hand to your back. You hated that there was a railing between you, but the affirmation of the gesture wasn’t lost. You thanked him quietly into the bronze plating over his rerebrace.

“That’s enough for today,” Philip said in the courtyard below. You thought if he could’ve scaled the wall to join you, he would’ve.

Borra tried to meet your eyes. He wanted to be told when you were ready to leave, and you didn’t know if you were. You had been since John dared ask of you what he had, and yet…

“What do you want of me, at the tribunal?” Would it be like going before your own council? Proposing ideas in hopes of agreement?

“I want you to tell them what happened to you. Though, be prepared….you will have resistance.”

You felt his growl through his chest plate. Resistance to what? They could no more deny your scars than you could.

You laid your head on him. “They won’t believe I got them there,” you told him.

He must’ve stared at John for confirmation. John also must’ve nodded, because all of a sudden, he scaled the railing and joined you on the other side. “You’re asking us to offer ourselves like a sacrifice?”

You rested your hand on his chest.

“No.” The gravity never left John’s voice after that. “You’ll be protected. No harm will come to you as long as we rule this land. I’ve promised before, and I will again. I ask you to persuade them with the truth, nothing more.”

“Persuade them,” he half-spit.

You felt for a bare spot on his shoulder or his arm where you could touch.

“Calls for peace instead of calls for war.”

“Calls for justice instead of erasure,” John replied. “They’ll give you peace, but it won’t be wholehearted. I want ill-placed hatred eradicated from my kingdom.” Your feathers prickled like he might’ve been looking at you, and you hated to think that you –listless, iron-fevered, wounded you who John had decided to nursemaid when Aurora found you – were the reason the human king so abruptly became someone even Borra could reason with. “I’ll not have fey avoiding Ulstead out of fear, nor will Aurora in the other kingdoms.”

“And you think jailing a fey will change that? You’ll give them what they want.”

“I said nothing about Lickspittle being the only one to go before us. As it stands, trying Ingrith would be little more than symbolic, but we do have the surviving members of the queen’s guard as well as—”

“Don’t,” you managed. Do not rip the ground out from under us all.

“General Percival,” John finished anyway.

The human Shrike was fond of. Fond of, though you knew in your heart of hearts that she would never choose him over your people, and that if John decided to sacrifice him to the tribunal, that would be the choice she would never make.

You knew Borra knew that also, and you knew that he felt the choice, or lack thereof, was her responsibility and her responsibility alone. But you still ached for her, and you kept your back to John for long enough that Borra’s arm ensnared your waist.

“I don’t trust kings.” That went without saying; your people never had one and never would. Aurora could merge the kingdoms all she liked, but even while you lived on the moors, you were not moor-folk. “Ones who spare their servants nothing, even less.”

“What else would you have me do?”

You were aware, at least in part, of approaching steps. Philip, perhaps. Maybe Aurora.

But it was so much, all the time, and you pressed your head against him so your horns curled against the side of his neck. “Can you take me home?” you whispered. “Please?”

Hold yourself accountable, was the thing unsaid. You were willfully ignorant to your wife, you had to have been. You knew the shrew you married and sympathy can only go so far.

There was some quiet movement behind you, and the tension in Borra’s posture softened just a bit when you felt a cloth parcel press into your hand.

You looked up. Philip wrapped nearly half of the blueberry pastries you liked in ornamental paper and bound them in one of the crisp, gold napkins. You held the parcel by its knot and your traitor eyes dampened.

“Get some rest.” His touch on your back was gentle – so gentle that you almost didn’t realize his fingers had begun to brush one of your exposed scars. “You don’t have to decide now. And, whatever you do, the crown will back you.”

It was in your best interest to leave before you started crying again. You still hated it, for how weak you felt and how frequently it happened, not that it could’ve been helped. You were tired. You never slept well. The past haunted you, the future frightened you, and nearly all measures of your solace stood with you on the balcony.

You tucked your wings in as best as they would go to shield them against Borra’s self-made windstorm.

                You never had a dreamless sleep. Not since you joined him on the moors.

Tonight’s was, by far, the worst.

Because she’d taken your wings.

She’d taken your wings and sawed off your horns and bound you in iron like a puppet on a string. She made you hurt him, drive iron into his skin over and over until dark blood ran from between his lips. Even as you screamed, even as you cried, you had no control over your body. Your iron chains guided your hands even as you begged for her to stop, stop, please, you’re killing him, stop!

“STOP!”

And you were in his arms, pulled flush against his chest. Your cheeks were wet and your breath ragged. He was silent at first, his hand against the back of your neck keeping your head against him.

“Shh.” The point of his thumb-talon brushed your skin. “You’re safe now.”

You put your hands on his chest. You intended to go before the tribunal and do what? Put into words that you could never sleep? That the constant state of terror you felt twisted even the happiest parts of your waking life into nightmares that plagued your every sleep? You could see it so clearly, the dark blood rising to his lips, that you had to pull your head away and make sure it hadn’t happened.

“Do you want tea?” He searched your face. Even he looked tired, and guilt swept you away like a tidal wave. You tried to draw yourself into a ball, but he pulled you back against him, his arms secure, his grip tight enough to remind you that he would not let you shoulder your burdens alone.

“I keep dreaming that she kills you,” you whispered. “Or that she makes me do it.”

“She’s gone.” His touch traveled to your jaw, his fingers framed your ear so you could lay the weight of your head in his palm. “She’ll never hurt you again.”

And yet she did. Even now, even as a goat or an eaten-goat or wherever in skies she ended up, Ingrith tormented you, and that horrible, awful little part of you that begged for relief whispered how unfair it was.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured.

He brought your head back to his shoulder, curled his wing around you. The other lay beneath you, you realized, and you felt guilty about that too. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Your lips brushed his skin. Even before this, he slept poorly; he had always been prepared to protect you from attack, though that was the collective-you rather than the individual-you he tended now. You kissed the point of his pulse, one of your hands moving from his chest to the back of his neck.

He made a small sound of approval. You imagined his eyes were half-closed like yours. You imagined what raged inside of him was just as turbulent as your own personal storm.

You didn’t plan to do what you did, kiss a gentle path from his pulse to his lips, but you did. His mouth quirked against yours, and when you kissed him, it didn’t feel like you were kissing him anymore – not the broken, turbulent, uncertain you that he’d been holding. All of that fury and all of that pain had to become something different. They needed an outlet, and the best place for you to be was right where you were.

So you kissed him. Hard.

You clung to him, your arms around his neck, your fingers in his hair. You needed him. Your lover, your protector, your friend. You needed him buried to the hilt inside you where he was safe – you needed to be on top of him, riding him, so if an arrow came from outside, it wasn’t him that was struck.

“Mm, Cas.” He put his hands on your sides. He started to withdraw.

You tried to pull him closer, fighting to get him settled between your legs.

But he was stronger than you. He pushed you on your back and held you there while he panted, his lips flush and eyes blown and his body so very inviting even though, for some reason, he didn’t lower to meet you.

“Not like this,” he whispered, but the raggedness of his breath betrayed how badly he wanted to under any other circumstance.

“Yes, like this,” you whispered back. “Please, Borra.”

He dropped his head back, and you thought he might groan. How long had he been waiting to hear his name in your mouth like that?

You guided his hands. You wanted him to touch you, but he pulled away to sit back on his knees.

“Skies and stars, Cas.”

You were beneath him. You raised your hips, and he pinned you down suddenly like he was seizing an awaited prey. It drove your hips firmly into the down, and you tried to work them against him.

Until he started to withdraw fully. Like he would leave.

“Wait.” You grabbed for him. “Wait, no, I’ll stop—”

“I won’t take you like this,” his voice was so fierce, you hardly considered how badly he must’ve wanted you. “Crying out in your sleep--”

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t.” He grabbed your hands just as quickly as you thought he might grab his armor. But he didn’t redress. He’d settled there, with you, before you’d gone to sleep. The radiant warmth of his body against yours made you feel safe; you didn’t know if you’d be able to get back to sleep without him.

For a long, tense moment, neither of you moved.

“Lie down,” he murmured, and you obediently did.

He stared at you for a moment, the rawness of his amber eyes unspeakable. He loved you, and he wanted you, and as badly as he wanted to indulge those impulses, when he laid down, it was with his head against your chest and his horns deliberately canted away from your face.

“When you’re ready, Cas.” His cheek rested against the hollow of your collarbone, and your hand that wasn’t settled against his back began lightly, absently, stroking the base of his horns. “I’ve waited for you this long.”

“Why?” you whispered.

“Because I love you,” he said, and there was no shame in it. It was so casual, so plain, like he’d said it out loud a thousand times before. It hit you in the chest full force, and you flattened your palm just below his horns, pressing him against you.

“Sometimes I feel like you’re all I have,” you replied. You stroked back his hair, your fingers lingering at the decorative cracks in his skin. This wasn’t the intimacy you’d abruptly planned on – it was much deeper, all that much harder to deal with.

He was silent for a moment. You didn’t want to risk breaking contact to see if it was because he was thinking or because he enjoyed being touched, so you just kept touching. Your fingers wandered from his temple into his hair, gathered it back behind his leafed ear. Your thumb brushed its shell, and he made a small sound of pleasure.

“Do you like that?” you murmured. You certainly liked touching him. His warmth, his weight, settled against your chest. Even without being wrapped around you like a protective outer skeleton, he still made you feel warm and soft and loved and safe.

“I tried to kill him after they found you.”

Your fingers paused. It didn’t surprise you, not really, but…he upheld peace.

“That hobgoblin, Lickspittle.” He nearly spit his name. “He swore to me he had nothing to do with it. I didn’t believe him. He helped her. He helped her kill our family. Poached and slaughtered the moor-folk. Little beast would’ve done anything to protect himself.”

“Why didn’t you?” You’d switched your attention, holding his head to your chest while you toyed lightly with the downy feathers where his wings met his back.

They flexed gently at the joints, something yours could only do roughly now. You stroked them in earnest for it, pressed your face into his hair and breathed him in.

“Because they nearly killed you.” His voice was dark, even soft. “When I smelled your flesh and your blood, I knew how easy it would be to destroy him and every man in the king’s guard. How easy, how satisfying.”

You could imagine him doing it. Snapping Lickspittle’s neck like a dry twig. The men he’d kill despite their armor. Whole halls draped with bodies like toppled statuary.

“I could’ve avenged you without losing you. But I felt that if I did, I would.” He shifted a bit, moving closer. His head was tucked into your neck and his body sagged more comfortably against yours, less of him out of the nest than in it. You tried to ignore the way his hands felt on your sides, the light skim of his talons through your well-groomed plumage. “You were so broken, lying in that bed. It took everything in my power not to take you home.”

Home.

If you’d awoken in your bed…would it have been better, or worse? Here, you weren’t as haunted by memories, though that didn’t stop them from seizing you at every opportunity. You could imagine waking in the soft white of the healer’s nest, but in that imagined alternate world, he was with you. Just as he had been in Ulstead. Touching you more softly than you ever thought he would, helping you mend your broken wings.

“When you awoke…when you cried out, and I saw how horribly they’d violated you, having you in my arms was all that tethered me.” His hands rested on your sides. Your back. You pressed yourself closer, your shifting wings making the twigs beneath you rustle. “There isn’t a moment when I don’t hate them for what they’ve done to you.”

“I love you,” you whispered. A reminder, an expression of gratitude, a promise all rolled into one.

“And I love you. If I slaughtered every man in that palace and returned to you with their blood on my hands, would you have loved me then?”

Yes, you thought with a certainty that frightened you. Yes, you would’ve, because it wouldn’t be the first life he took. That didn’t stop him from touching you like you were sacred; from combing out your plumage and pressing feather-soft kisses to your skin.

“I could no more hold it against you than you could hold my flight against me.” We all make mistakes, is what you meant – and you didn’t think you’d ever called it that before. The decision you made to leave the nest that night was impulsive. Stupid. A mistake, just as plucking that poacher from the river had been.

“You didn’t mean to get carried off.” It wouldn’t be the same.

“And you’ve never taken a life when you weren’t absolutely certain it would save one. I trust you, Borra.” Far more than you trusted yourself, at times.

He kissed your collarbone and then your throat, one kiss at the hollow and one at either point of your pulse. You held his hair and bit back the swell of your emotions.

“If you decide to go, I’ll stand beside you.”

You were never in doubt, but you still gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze. “We stand together. We fight together.” You’d been treated to Ini’s rendition of the battle cry that led them into war before, and you let his certainty balm your wounds.

“And we will show them no mercy,” he agreed, giving the hollow of your throat one more kiss.

                       You saw her since she and her raven-mate last offered care, but from afar.

Maleficent was, truly, a beautiful woman. As lovely of a forest fey as all the rest of you. Lips like berries, skin like birch, eyes like springtime, hair the color of wet bark.

Shrike told you they described her differently in the human villages. Lips like fresh-spilled blood, skin like death, eyes cold and green with envy, horns like the devil itself.

It didn’t surprise you. Even before, it never would’ve, but, now, it saddened you also; Maleficent was a strange name for one of you. You were named for an herb, like so many others; your father for the wolves, for when he had been a warrior he had been just as brave and just as fierce. It was said she was named for malice and magnificence, though only the latter was fitting.

Especially when she met you at your bonfire and took you in her arms like you had known one another all your lives. She was dear to your father, and that made her dear to you as truly as you were held in the reverse.

“You look better,” Diaval spoke first. His black eyes were keen and kind, and you smiled at him in return.

“Physically, the scars will fade.” Truly, you wanted to sound more optimistic about your plight than you felt, as though Maleficent didn’t know the sadness in your voice. As though she would’ve released you easily had you not sought to meet her eyes. “I’d like a private audience with you, if that’s alright.”

Diaval bowed his head graciously and left to join your kinsmen nearer to the fire.

You struggled to find the words that, frankly, you hoped had already been spoken. Especially while doing your best to keep the appearance of lifted spirits.

“Borra told me things were…difficult.”

The extent of difficult, you would’ve liked to know, but you released your breath in a full-bodied sigh and nodded. “I have something to ask of you that I’m not sure you can do. It’s alright if you can’t; I wanted to exhaust my options.”

How anyone could think her malicious, you didn’t know. Her concern for you was as gentle as it was obvious, you who were bound to her by the blood of your long-hailed ancestors.

“Can you take this fear away?”

No, her eyes said, though, blessedly, she didn’t respond as quickly.

“If I am to go before the tribunal on behalf of our people, I cannot be grounded by it as I’ve been. These visions, whether they’re memories or dreams…they engulf me.” You meant to say that you couldn’t very well go before innumerable humans clutching Borra’s hand like you were his child. You couldn’t very well be publicly coddled by the king. “It’s as real when I remember as it was when it happened.”

She did her best to keep her expression even, though you saw the briefest flicker of a downturn in her lips. She took your hand in hers – just one, but then between both, and held you there.

“I understand,” she breathed, and you recalled, suddenly, that of course she would. Stefan’s Perceforest – she who had been wingless at the hands of someone she trusted, someone she loved. There was no use in quantifying either of your pain; though it came from different sources, it ran just as bottomless.

She understood, but her grip tightened. You squeezed her hand in return, between both of yours. Your traitor eyes welled, and you forced yourself to breathe in deeply and release it slowly. “I needed to exhaust my options.”

“How are your wings?” she asked.

You shook your head. They were manageable. The pain was gone, now, save for the phantom pains that gripped you in the midst of violent panic. They didn’t work, and you were increasingly certain that they never would again, but they were there, and they were yours, and it was not as though the rest of you wasn’t just as broken.

“Stay with us,” you offered. “Tonight. Help us prepare.”

She nodded. Of all the things you’d asked, it was the only one she could do.

Before you could withdraw, she bid you pause with a gentle tug upon your hands. She could not erase your fear, but when she raised her hand to brush her fingers along your temple, the comfort she conjured nearly brought you to tears.

You were but a little girl, curled tight in your early nest-bed. The forest was still black with pre-dawn, but your mother came from the jungles. She wove the streaks of gold in your hair and in your dark, owly feathers. She felt the call of dawn song even when she nested with you and your father, and you remembered – all too well now, all too suddenly – the sound of her voice as she sang out into the void. Into the nothingness. She welcomed morning in a world so dark that it seemed it would never come, for your forest still existed in a cave, and until the light hit the entrances just so, there was only blackness. Not even the kiss of the moon.

Your mother spoke a language she had been stolen from you before you learned. She practiced traditions that seemed to die as abruptly as she did. You knew the sound of her shifting, the donning of her dress, the sound of her breath as she inhaled the petrichor and the cold and belted out into the morning words to a song that you would never know. She called to your ancestors, she called to their sons, it seemed she woke everyone in the entire cavern with her song.

Your father rose behind her, only minutes after. Her wings were as bright as his were dark; the colors streaked through her long, black hair painted rainbows over his shoulder when he held her close. His song was not the same, but he sang to her anyway. “Love bright as the dawn is golden, love sweet as the cherry tree. Only in the ground would it be colder; morning’s brought my love to me.”

You listened to them every morning, to your own approximation of dawn-song. You heard the jungle people echo it from somewhere far away, the pleasant rise and fall of melody within the forest. You never knew if the tundra and the desert joined them, but you’d always imagined that if they didn’t, they must’ve heard.

You wondered, now, what it meant to them. If it meant anything at all.

You brought her hands over your heart. For the first time in an age, you felt like you could truly breathe. You could taste the scent of home on the air, taste the perfume of your mother’s fruit concoctions, the sour-ripe kiwi stinging the back of your tongue. You felt like they were just within reach, slow to slip back out of it. Gone, but nearby.

“Thank you.”

She touched your face, and you brought your head close to hers even if that wasn’t what she initiated. She deserved to know the ways of her own people, and you bunted your horns with hers gently.

For once, the lightness stayed.

Despite the polarity of their differences, Diaval elected to sit nearest Borra, with space between them for the both of you to interrupt. They both looked up when you approached; Diaval’s sparkling eyes landed on his mate, and yours… You watched the tension leave Borra on his breath when he saw you.

When you sat, you bunted with him too. And then kissed him, just because you could.

You almost didn’t notice his hands lift until you felt the weight against your chest and your hand lifted to brush over the etched face of a pendant all too familiar to you.

Your father’s.

Your face changed, though you weren’t stolen-breathless. You searched his face, your fingers lingering on the smooth-worn blue stone that your mother made long ago, when you were still growing inside her.

Borra breathed you in. His fingers lingered at the back of your neck only to withdraw when he stood. When he addressed the assembled others.

“Our fight is not yet over.”

They beat their chests as they had in the cavernous meeting hall. That part of you that Maleficent brought back to the surface straightened you, brought you to your full attention.

“The humans have given us peace, now we seek justice.”

The severity of every phrase was punctuated by their exclamation. You were no longer watching from the sidelines, you realized much too soon; this was your fight, your war, your turn to be the warrior.

“They say they will repay every life they’ve taken--”

Again.

“Every wound they’ve caused.”

Again. If you hadn’t loved him before, you wouldn’t have been able to deny yourself then. Borra was a warrior, he lived to defend your people and all you stood for. He fought for those who could not fight for themselves, and you felt your own dawn-song budding in your heart.

“They bring us to a battle of a different sort and encourage us to win. We still have human enemies in Ulstead and the other kingdoms, and this will never stop.”

Maleficent was restless. She didn’t know him like you did.

“Our tides have changed. We hold the upper hand. The palace is ours, the kingdom is ours, and one day we will move beyond it. One day, we will take back the jungles, the deserts, the forests, the plains--”

You saw the excitement in the eyes of your collective’s fledglings. The very thought of freedom without boundary was so foreign to them – so foreign even to you that you dared not dwell on the thought for you knew the anxiety it would cause.

“Today, we claim these kingdoms for our own. No human will subjugate us. No kingdom holds us as their slave. For every life they take, we claim a dozen more.”

“Does he know what a tribunal means?” Diaval asked Maleficent quietly.

“Today, we look their worm nobility in the eyes and demand retribution. There will be no peace without justice.”

You knew that scared them. You understood why. But it was the first time in so long that your people assembled like this; even the children beat their chests.

He turned to you, then, the movement of his wings as fluid over the red-needled earth before the bonfire as they were on the weathered stone of the meeting cove. He held out his hand to you, and the part of you that Maleficent conjured was the part of you that had begun to trust him without question.

You accepted it. You stood.

One of your elders stood, also. They came to join you as Borra gathered back your hair.

You looked to him, knowing that your eyes betrayed you.

“Cassia Born-of-Conall, the blood of the Phoenix is inside you. From one of our most decorated warriors comes she who is too strong to die.”

They rallied for you. No one opposed. You didn’t understand – that was one way to see it, surely, but you were no warrior. Certainly not one as decorated as your father, though your elder began to paint his marks upon your shoulder.

“It was you the king sought to lead us into battle, and you the council backs as its head.”

What?

They planned this, then. Every last one of them. He didn’t just call Maleficent for you as you requested, he planned to drive your fear away himself if she could not.

Your stomach sunk. Truly, you were terrified. But not once did you oppose. You reasoned with yourself that it was not something your people did; you had been chosen, and therefore it was your duty, but that was not the whole truth and, of that, you were painfully aware.

Having Borra beside you made you feel strong. With his fingers in your hair, the paint drying on your collarbone, your father’s pendant on your chest, you could almost believe that the phoenix-blood that lived inside you all was responsible for your not-dying. You could almost believe that it was a combination of strength and stubbornness – like it would’ve been for him – and not raw luck.

You could almost believe that you would walk into the tribunal in the morning and feel no fear.

They welcomed you without being prompted. The rhythmic foot-stomping, chest-beating, guttural cries drew the air into your lungs. You tipped your head back, let him release your gold-tinged braids.

And you flared your broken wings.

For the first time since you’d taken to the skies on them, you knew how beautiful they were. Even crooked, even if the left one was canted a bit, they flexed enough to hold steady, and the veins of gold and dark, blue-green hues that tinged certain feathers caught the firelight.

If only for the time being, you could entertain the thought that your iron scars were as well-earned as his regardless of whether or not any of yours truly were. You could believe that someone who spent their life avoiding conflict, avoiding casualty only to become one, could be a worthwhile warrior.

You had to – because, in the palace of Ulstead, a man in a crisp, red formal coat entered the tribunal hall.

Lord Azarias was not well known to Queen Ingrith, and he considered that his greatest shame. Had he known the queen would prove to be so vital of an ally, he might’ve done more to secure the Midlands’ annexation despite the influx of similar merchants to his field. But, that was no matter now – for all he knew, King John had all the iron in the kingdom sealed away in an oubliette.

All of the iron save for the bolt he placed in the hollow well along the seam of his allotted seat.