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exactlyenoughglitter · 4 years ago

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Glastonbury

Pairings: Avallac’h/Ciri/Eredin Warnings: NSFW, elves, reality manipulation + unreliable narrator AO3 Link

The bells are ringing.

‘Galahad?’

Sometime in the night, the rain had stopped. Instead, a thick white fog had rolled out across the marshland. In such fog sounds travel far.

Where am I? the girl wonders. Everywhere. Nowhere.

Ciri treads along the soggy ground, unable to find her way either to the Roman road or the chapel. For there must be a chapel at Glastonbury – a chapel, where they toll the bells at dawn, midday, and sundown.

Why would anyone toll the bells at night?

Somewhere high above a wolf moon hangs above the marshes – glowing eerie red.

‘Galahad?’

She bounds against the echo of her own voice. The witcher-girl leans against a crooked tree, her warm breath melding with the fog. It is damp. The darkness rustles – everywhere, nowhere. There is a strange smell in the air... something putrefying and sickly sweet, or...

... apple blossoms?

She blinks.

Water touches her boots. Mist rises above the lake.

Faintly, Ciri mouths names; they belong to those she has given away to the cold, wet fog – a fog beyond which there is nothing more.

In the eldritch glow of the moon the mist swirls, milky white, like in a witch’s cauldron. She looks around for a boat. There is no boat. No unicorn. There is only the mist and the bells. And she cannot find the way.

Morgana said it depends on who seeks what the mists show. As man sees reality thus it becomes.

Looking down, the girl gasps.

The restless lake water slides underneath her boots like a fine dance floor. Her entire form freezes in incomprehension before a niggling thought occurs to her: people in this world say that fairies can walk on water. Fairies and unicorns. Finally forcing her foot to move, despite a quaint sense of foreboding that overcomes her, Ciri exhales like she has held her breath for an eternity; the dark swirling ground under her feet holds. It holds! With that, however, a tremendous gushing resounds in her ears and she realises that the lake water is pushing further in-land; the marshlands here flood periodically.

‘Ciri?’

It echoes in her mind quietly but clearly – like the ringing of icicles.

Through the mists, across the waters, the witcher-girl runs in the night until the echo of bells becomes more distinct and the putrid-sweet smell of apple blossoms strengthens. Until mussel shells crunch under her feet, until she finds herself on an alley of trees that are closing in on the entrance of the chapel under a bright red moon. Her mind though, is made up.

With the name of the knight on her lips and the images of the witcher and the sorceress in her head, she draws her sword. And bare hazel and alder branches crackle mournfully, giving way under her blade. Their remains rip at her clothes, but she cares not. She notices naught and can say naught, for her lungs are full of the smell of rot and the lake water clings to her footsteps like a smelly, dark ooze.

Yet in the mists, across the threshold to somewhere, Ciri’s voice dies a white death in her throat.

In the cold stone chapel under the Spiral Hill of Ynys Gwydrin, a knight lies in his soft white cloak, his skin snow white and his lips bright red as summer apples. You would think a kiss might wake him, but the ashen-haired girl knows it does not. She knows. She knows too that his lips taste of wine and not the blood of Christ, but it does not matter.

They stay like this before the altar while the bells ring in the fog – somewhere, everywhere, nowhere.

It’s because of that cup! It’s that stupid Grail, this stupid land and these stupid priests, and these stupid people who believe them. There is no justice, no salvation, and no grace given in the universe!

‘For once you understand, little butterfly.’

The soft, lambent hair on the back of her neck can barely rise, touched as if by the breath of a ghoul, before strong fingers crawl across her scalp and her scream pierces the air under stone-vaulted ceilings. He steps unceremoniously across the corpse of the knight, pushing her stooping form in front of him into the bright shaft of moonlight illuminating the altar. If not for the height from where his arm draws her upward, she would kiss her teeth against the stone.

She twists, grinds her teeth against the pain. The putrid aroma of sweet apple blossoms overwhelms her and she looks: at the height of her eyes, a locket of rubies glows on his chest.

A heart – everyone has a heart.

She reaches for a weapon.

Even corpses.

Yet in the looking glass image of enchanted gemstones a different world altogether unravels in a torrent of liquid fire, inside which the sword of the witcher-girl – the blade that does not discriminate – submerges back into the Lake.

‘Did I not tell you,’ the elf says, tightening his grip around her face, around her neck, at which her own arms shoot up, ‘we would meet again.’

Ciri’s heart races in her constricting throat to the fading echo of bells in the night in which small, even teeth smile at her before the altar stone of Ynys Gwydrin – the faeries’ glass castle, the Spiral Hill.

It depends on who seeks what the mists show.

Fey light plays in his green eyes, stirring its poison, making it drip on her lips as he watches from above – with indifferent curiosity – over her struggles. Red, red across his shoulders, red around his neck, red on his... red, red, red... Air rushes back into her lungs, sweeter than ever somehow despite the rot of the hunter in it.

She stumbles. For a moment it goes dark in front of Ciri’s eyes as the whistling in her ears grows to an unbearable level, but oblivion does not take her. That would be too graceful in a graceless universe. Instead, she feels the contours of the warrior’s arm brush hers, dragging slowly around her, back again. She shudders at the strange, new sensation his touch, now benevolently bestowed, instils and tries to move – only to have a solid thigh restrict her. It makes her realise. It makes her flush. Ciri opens her eyes.

Eredin Bréacc Glas is observing her over the edge of an elegant golden kylix.

The Grail...

She watches how the elf dips the chalice against his lips, how the prominent Adam’s apple in his neck jounces once, twice; she watches how the penetrating eyes of the Sparrowhawk close briefly in what looks like genuine bliss. He drinks. She cannot tear her eyes away from him even if she still tastes the faint notes of wine off of Galahad’s lips on hers. She is expecting for whatever is meant to happen to happen.

It never happens.

Her hopes never happen.

Only a grim, mocking smile visits the elf’s glistening lips. ‘Your turn, butterfly.’

‘What did you do to him?’ she growls. ‘Why don’t you die? Die! Why don’t you, damn you!?’

‘Do not talk nonsense. Drink.’

He pushes the kylix under her chin and some of its content sloshes onto her breast. Suddenly, Ciri notices herself: she is in an elaborate deep cut dress of dark red – finer even than what she had worn in the world of the elves – adorned with jewels. Royal is too soft a word for it. With horror she realises that she does not remember how she got to be this way.

‘Drink,’ he repeats.

And Ciri almost screams for the second time: refusing to confront the predatory gaze in front of her she witnesses instead how a faint smile spreads on Galahad’s blue lips. The knight’s lifeless eyes, previously full of inexplicable peace, stay glued on the ashen-haired girl while the blackening, algal waters of the lake begin to swallow him. With bubbling, as in a witch’s cauldron, the lake draws the Grail knight into its fathomless embrace.

‘Is our hospitality too good for you?’ the elf asks. She almost does not hear. She is trying to get away from the water.

Eredin lifts his hand, knowing she will not do anything to rebuke him, and stills her like one would a frightened animal. She almost does not notice. Almost. He traces a meandering line from Ciri’s jawline to her breastbone, to sternum, to the exposed curve of the girl’s chest where he lets his fingers toy with the lace trimming. Slowly, Ciri returns to the elf.

‘What more could you possibly want?’

With a rough movement the elf plunges his hand underneath the expensive fabric, his large palm spreading over the rounded out curve of the girl’s breast. She wonders if he likes it better this way. She wonders why she asks herself something like this. She will not escape his watchful gaze as he pursues the heavy intake of breath, the way her eyes fill with panic, desire, shame. The way she shifts away from her nightmare onto the altar stone – onto the ancient sacrificial stone of the Druids – unable to really do more than part her knees before his large form and allow him everything anyway.

Eredin knows. And she knows that he knows.

Ciri shuts her eyes and thinks, desperately, of a place – but all places are as one place and only place. Here is her place, the only place, and elsewhere there is nothing but fog, nothing but water which washes up against her bare calves, cold as the phantasmal hunter’s scornful laughter against the side of her inflamed neck. Cold as the frost left in the wake of the Sparrowhawk’s lips closing over the girl’s heated pulse, claiming the rapid thrills of her heart.

She moans. Cool metal touches her lips. She accepts.

She drinks and knows at once it is blood and not wine that coats her tongue, before tasting the precious nectar again when Eredin claims her mouth, washing away all false sacraments of humanity.

‘You belong to us.’

It echoes inside her skull like the ringing of icicles.

‘Turn around,’ the elf orders, placing the chalice in-between her shaking hands. ‘He wants to watch your face.’

Freezing stone greets her belly where his hand pushes down on the small of her back, leaning her small form over under the strange moonlight that shines from nowhere. Her mind fixates on his words and she looks curiously. By a fireplace that opens in-between the statues of two mother-of-pearl unicorns Ciri thinks she sees the Alder King lounging in a tall chair, legs spread wide apart. The darkness is rustling around itself, making it difficult to recognise things for what they are, but the girl remembers.

Eredin dips his fingers in the kylix in front of her nose. Some of it lands on her brow.

Ciri feels what these fingers do: how one firm hand traces up and down the back of her thighs, spreading her open until the fabric of the royal dress must tear, while the other dives in-between her legs; how a pair of demanding lips suck onto the side of her neck as her small frame is being subjected to a series of trembling pulsations at the merciless pace of his fingers over her clit; how she sounds like – how wet! – absolutely laving at the presence of the predator, at the feel of his solid weight against her rear.

‘What a prized prey you are, Zireael,’ he breathes.

Her eyes open and close against her will. She feels her lithe form being pried open for sensations, but her mind does not entirely comprehend everything. Firelight soaks the light hair of the Old King with its glow and in a daze she watches how a shadowy shape of a giant python winds its way around his broad shoulders, lazing about his neck in a slow, perpetual movement. The elf looks entirely undisturbed, perhaps even unaware. Something in her clamours to warn Auberon, to speak out in time – this time – against the danger in order to avert the course of such Fate as has already run its course.

Has it... run its course?

The girl hears cloth and leather rustling behind her. The red in the chalice, in the fires, in her – it joins in filling up her pupils with the desire pushing upon her from the mists. In a short moment her stomach floods with writhing warmth at the weight of Eredin’s cock in-between her buttocks. She doesn’t want to think, she wants... she wants. And bucks against one of his powerful thighs leaning on the stone beside her hip as he grinds himself lazily against her. The slap, when it comes, tears a genuine cry from her throat. It firms her up. Again! It disperses all traitorous thoughts in her head. Except one: she discovers she wishes to be embraced as suffocatingly as the elf who wishes to look at Ciri’s face as she is taken by his rival.

He can hear me, Ciri thinks. He can hear me whining like a bitch in heat for somebody young and strong, somebody who would steal away all from him – his throne, his power, that child...

The mild chuckle that reaches her ears pours over the girl like cold water over a stray kitten – unsurprising, and yet absolutely petrifying. The fair-haired elf by the fireplace cocks his head slightly to the side; it is not the Old King who wants to look at her so. Why how could it be? The flame-kissed aquamarines glow rather, like icicles.

Ciri is really quite comically shocked.

A furious blush dyes her cheeks. Quickly averting her eyes, the girl’s breath nevertheless hitches in her throat, because unexpectedly she finds herself staring into an abyss opening up below in the depths of swirling black water. It is everywhere: bare, pathless, infinite. Starless. Shrouded in the mists. It is impossible to find one’s way in such a place.

Where am I?

She makes out a slow procession of shadows, curving like old bones as they tread their way toward eternity in the bowels of the lake. There are people she knows there; people she has killed and people she has loved.

‘You are where you belong, Loc’hlaith.’

Avallac’h’s voice rings familiar this time, and somewhere – perhaps only deep within this mirror realm – a seagull’s shriek carries through the thick white mists. Is it welcoming her? Or is the borrowed time leased with its life simply running out?

It is the elf from her nightmares who yanks Ciri out of the sorcerous whirlpool of illusions, though. By a leather noose, formed, it seems, of Eredin’s own belt. Simultaneously, the girl feels him withdraw his fingers from in-between her buttocks.

Like a mare. He will take me like a disobedient mare.

‘Drink,’ he says shortly. ‘Trust me when I say it’s for your own good, little butterfly.’

‘Go on,’ she hears in her head. ‘You know what the right thing to do is, don’t you, Zireael? I may wonder why others must die for your selfishness, but in the end, the choice is always yours.’

As she lifts the sacred chalice to her lips for the second time under the eyes of elves, Ciri almost does not feel how the dark-haired one sinks forward and inside her. Almost. She is shielded, she later realises, by the bright aquamarines burning into hers, feeling like a blissful caress against their dark brother’s bruising attentions.

Red trickles down from the side of her mouth at the first languid thrust. Her back arches, but Eredin keeps it incurved. Neither are his fluent fingers leaving her unattended, slipping ever so often inside her sopping entrance, but it is altogether more difficult this way around. And she cannot look away from the other one – from the fair one she had offered herself willingly to. As he pushes forward for the second time Ciri senses a strange spell snap around her and squirms, finally allowed to fall entirely back inside her body, into the hungering depravity of sensation.

‘Such funny thoughts guide you, Swallow,’ Crevan says quietly.

He has stood up, approaches, and Ciri shudders, feeling the commander move deeper inside of her and covering her small form entirely with his for a moment.

‘Behave,’ he whispers, drawing his lips along her ear. ‘And we shall reward you.’

As he pulls away and focuses on his own pleasure, Ciri faintly wishes to clench her eyes at the discomfort but can only groan softly. The surface underneath her is cool and smooth. The air smells differently too – of formalin. Through a haze of pleasure she glances up and sees Avallac’h standing over them, looking at her quite calmly.

‘Where am I?’

‘Does it really make a difference?’ the dark-haired elf threads his free hand softly through her hair. ‘Crevan designs such things on the fly. Or, “as Fate chooses”.’

Though sarcastic, for a moment he sounds almost like he could be pitying her. Almost. But instead of a heart in his chest, the King of the Wild Hunt carries a locket of precious stones.

She swallows. ‘It makes a difference to me.’

The girl’s head feels increasingly like full of cotton wool – like something or someone is calling to her from beyond the haze – and her eyes dart around wildly as she supports herself on her elbows. What had looked like a small stone chapel shrouded in the mists on an island of priests, in a world of the Knights of the Round Table, seems so no longer.

‘Has anything ever been as it first appeared?’

Crevan crouches before her. At first, he lifts his hand, curling his long fingers as if to stroke the girl’s cheek, but decides against it in the end and reaches for the golden chalice instead.

‘Do you like my magic, luned?’ he asks.

Ciri recoils: snakes crawl off the kylix and around Crevan’s forearms where they wind in an infinite green spiral, eating themselves. Aen Saevherne smiles gently, smelling what’s inside the chalice, and pours it away. For some reason his move makes her irrationally worried. As if it was all an illusion and a trick. As if Galahad had really died for nothing.

She also realises that the Sage is reading her like an open book.

‘Is this how you must be handled?’ Avallac’h looks at her from close up. ‘Like he thinks.’ He nods toward the other elf and Ciri hears a quiet chuckle among sounds of the flesh she is too ashamed to admit make her heady with want, even as her swallow heart rips in her throat with fear. ‘With a leash and a stick and a carrot?’

Ciri wonders how Avallac’h can stand this – to so calmly look upon her, who bears the eyes of his Lara, while she is like this.

Go ahead, look! Look and may you choke on it! Both of you.

A myriad of emotions seems to flash behind the sorcerer’s bright, pale eyes. He puts his palm under her chin, drags his thumb slowly across her lower lip. Then he stands up.

‘I wish I had met your ancestor who put this burden on you,’ he says, easing aside the robe under his belt. ‘In fact, I wish I had met him much like this.’

Ciri feels the touch of his hard flesh against her cheek. She looks up at him. She doesn’t... but the elf caresses her head insistently, looking at her reassuringly, and soon Ciri understands why people subject themselves to this. He feeds her his cock slowly and suddenly she feels so very small. And embraced on all sides – suffocatingly.

Avallac’h’s head falls back.

‘Beautiful.’

It passes in a flurry from then on.

He fucks into her mouth in a manner that does not allow her – not once – to interrupt the nestling of the weight of his flesh in her throat. What he has done to make it possible she does not know, but it does not hurt as much as she expects. He talks to her, too. She groans around him repeatedly, enjoying the caresses of his hands in her hair and along her bulging neck, and is tempted to simply close her eyes and yield entirely to the tight fullness, the pleasure in her belly. But he wants her to keep her eyes on him and the straining belt around her neck guarantees it in its own way. Thus, she behaves, and while taking both of them at once discovers that there is something comfortable in having something put in your mouth; right before Crevan’s hands tighten in her ashen hair and he leaves copious amounts of creamy cum under her tongue, on her lips, dribbling down her chin – he wipes it with his cock – and streaking against her rosy cheeks.

Avallac’h kisses her before she has swallowed, and she swallows. Drinking in him, as she has drank from the cup of god. And he laughs softly in-between rapid breaths as she writhes through her own orgasm, deaf and blind to the world.

‘Do you have anything at all in this laboratory, Crevan,’ she hears a familiar voice uttering once the buzzing in her head has subsided, ‘which does not scour the living daylights out of you, nor turn you into a mindless sycophant? To drink, I mean.’

‘Of course,’ the Sage replies lightly. ‘Many things. Who would I be if I did not know how to obtain and create things of which even you might not have heard of?’

The girl does not understand how Eredin responds, but she hears the Sage of the Alder Elves snort – quite good-naturedly.

Exactly so Ciri’s eyes flicker open, the press of the metal table against her cheek considerably warmer than usual from the presence of her own person on it. Avallac’h is beside her, cleaning his hands inside a small purple cloth. Noticing her staring, he offers Ciri a clean one for her own use, but the girl can do nothing but stare.

A crimson mage light hangs high above in the darkness, glowing with strange fey light as if it was the hour of wolf’s moon. Small milky-white mist is rolling out of several cucurbits at the edge of her line of sight. She smells formalin and apple blossoms. Fresh, sweet blossoms.

‘There is vodka in the disinfectants cabinet,’ the sorcerer says offhandedly to his collaborator, his attention entirely preoccupied by the girl whose emerald eyes have never looked quite as big and beautiful as in that very moment.

Perhaps it is the misty wetness of them that so makes them resemble infinitely deep and green lakes upon which white fog spreads like on top of a witch’s cauldron.

‘My darling girl,’ the elf coos fondly, taking her in his arms without much effort and seating them both where it feels more comfortable. ‘Did we frighten you?’

For a time that drags on into the infinite Ciri wonders if she has forgotten how to speak.

‘You are blushing,’ Crevan notes with a smile, caressing her face, her cheeks and scar, unbothered by the ugliness. Touching slightly upon her swollen lips. ‘That’s very good. Very healthy.’

Silently, Eredin appears by their side, swooping out of the darkness with a sought-after bottle in one hand and two glasses in another, one of them filled.

‘A drink for the Lady,’ he says with a small bow to Ciri.

Avallac’h accepts the glass for the girl, since Ciri sits on his lap as if frozen like a small marble doll in the most glorious ruined red dress. The commander shrugs and pours himself one, downs it, and flops down on a crimson couch.

‘Is this –’ she begins, too silently even for herself to hear. ‘Is this all about power for you?’

‘Of course it is about power, Zireael. Everything is. Even love.’ The elven sorcerer looks at her thoughtfully. ‘Though humans often like to mistake one for the other – and more often, I think, power for love – what you witnessed here, on your own skin, were different kinds of power and how power can be wielded. I am sure if you think about it a little longer you will also come up with some answers for the most important question of all – why is power wielded as it is? I will gladly answer all of your questions in this regard once you do so.’

‘You may think you can be more than you are because of your exceptional ancestry,’ Eredin’s voice cuts in from the couch. ‘But you are what you are, my butterfly. Do not ever mistake yourself as more to any of us.’

She doesn’t see Crevan’s almost imperceptible annoyance. Her thoughts flood with the Sparrowhawk’s rasping voice by her ear moments before he had spilled himself across her back. It is too real to be a dream. It is too close to skin. Too present... as if she is back in those moments again and again...

‘A dh’oine whore, whose little life cannot sustain much more than the one thing you know so little how to care for. Yet you crave it all the same, like a natural. You want life put inside of you. You want the Young King not the Old King. Fortunate little butterfly – you will never have to live long with the after-effects of all these beautifully intense first experiences.’

Avallac’h is scrutinizing her closely.

Her fingers are clutching painfully at the front of his robes, she realises. It seems she has nestled closer to him unconsciously in the middle of her thoughts. She can tell the elf likes it, though his expression betrays little.

‘Do you know what will happen now, Ciri?’ Crevan asks her quietly.

She looks into his clear aquamarines.

‘Now we will make a child with you,’ he whispers against her lips. ‘A beautiful fairy child who will make you and me very happy.’

He begins to lift her but she puts her hands on his chest, clinging to that shred of long-forgotten love that she has seen in his eyes – something that has twisted and snapped too many times to be quite right again.

‘But I am not –’

‘I know you are not,’ he cuts her off. ‘That is alright. My blood is very good too, you see. And those genes in you which truly matter will be more than enough.’

‘Please. Please, Avallac'h!'

‘Please?’ he looks at her kindly, at her hands clutching his bigger one. ‘What is it, Ciri? This is good, very-very good. It is good you came here to us of your own free will. I will be patient with you; gentle. Kiss you... here? Or do you wish me to put you on that table, over there,’ he nods with his head into the darkness from whence they came. ‘I don’t want to do that, luned. It will hurt us both very much this way and you and I have been hurt enough, don’t you think?’

He strokes her hands.

‘Can we not wait? Do we have to – right now...’

‘Right now is a very good time.’

‘Right here, with him –’

‘Who?’

She blinks and looks around. There is no one else.

Where am I? Everywhere. Nowhere.

The fair elf lord kisses her hand, his laughter ringing like icicles or tiny bells. A locket of rubies glows on his chest.

A heart. Everyone has a heart.

‘Oh, Ciri, you are so very adorable,’ his hands lift her easily as he positions himself at her entrance. ‘You’ll soon forget all about him. Now, relax.’

Ciri awakes.

Mist swims before her eyes.

Somewhere, in the mists, the bells of Glastonbury are ringing.

#civadin #cirillach #ciredin #ciri #avallac'h #eredin #cirilla fiona elen riannon #crevan espane aep caomhan macha #eredin breacc glas #aen elle #the witcher #wiedzmin #the witcher fanfiction #the witcher 3 #arthuriana #sorry not sorry

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dontmindmyshadowhunting · 3 years ago

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The London Shadow Market - Centurions on a mission (Fan Fic)

This is a one-shot Tynush fan fic.

London Shadow Market. Centurions Tiberius Blackthorn and Anush Joshi are on mission for the Scholomance, tied to the First Heir, and Ty gets a bit overprotective.

It's a bit angsty and though there is mention of sex, there is no sex scene/smut.

Big thanks to @amchara who beta-read the fic (and notably helped with her thorough knowledge of London) and who also sparked the idea, since we discussed how there could never be enough of overprotective Blackthorns fic.

****

It was long past midnight and the London Shadow Market’s lights were fading one after the other. Fenwick was wrapping up for the night, muttering about what an awful evening it had been. Only a dozen customers buying baubles. Overpriced, but still. Long gone were the days where he could earn in an evening what now took him a month to scrounge. The new Inquisitor, Diego Rosales, was knowledgeable, relentless, and incorruptible. It didn’t help that the new Unseelie King also frowned on his barely-to-not-legal-at-all side businesses. The most profitable ones, as it happened. He still had the favour of the Seelie Queen, but even she, in her eagerness to make peace with King Kieran, was not as frequent a client as she used to be.

So, when he heard the bell ring announcing that a customer had just crossed the threshold of his magically enhanced oversized tent, Fenwick immediately perked up. His cheerful mood was of short duration.

Two dark-haired figures had stepped into his dimly lit tent, one at least a head taller than the other, but both with a graceful warrior stance that betrayed what they were despite the obscurity.

Shadowhunters. And not any kind. The worst kind if you asked him. Those who knew much more about the Fair Folk than the fey had ever cared to reveal. They even kept secrets from the other Nephilim. That’s how world-altering their knowledge was. Centurions. And they were in their black uniforms, their silvery pins gleaming in the light of the candles scattered around the tent, not even bothering to conceal their identity.

Fenwick was torn between bolting out – on the off chance that he managed to outrun them – to lay low in one of his numerous hideouts (for a few decades at least) and standing his ground, trying to weasel his way out of this uncomfortable situation. What made up his decision was the weariness that gripped him at the mere idea of running. The centuries he had strolled around the Earth made him feel like an overstretched rubber band.

“Well met, Sons of the Angel!” He said, forcing a cheerful tone.

“Well, met,�� the smaller, wheatish-skinned one answered. He had a warm, lyrical voice. As he took a few steps forward inside the tent, Fenwick tried very hard not to flinch. Up close, he had a very handsome face, high cheekbones framing his narrow and delicate nose. Strong thick eyebrows made a perfect arc over his big almond-shaped brown eyes. His bright yet calm demeanour compelled you to trust him. But Fenwick knew better.

The taller one didn’t greet him. He was already strolling lazily around the tent, scanning the shelves. He was standing with his back to Fenwick, so that all that Fenwick could see of him was black hair and a dark uniform, a circle of thorns etched across the back of his jacket.

“What brings you to my humble shop?”

The question had been directed at the politest of the two, but he didn’t seem to hear, entirely focused on stealing covert glances at his fellow Centurion. His expression was wistful, almost reverent.

Fenwick considered it. He knew how lonely they got sometimes, hidden between harsh grounds and cold stones in the Carpathian Mountains. Some were known to suffer depression, if not mental illness. He used to interact frequently with them, in the past, until the Scholomance was closed in 1872, with the signing of the First Accords. He sold them information, and sometimes a good time.

“You are in luck, Centurions. I have several pretty mermaids who have just joined Fenwick’s lair. At least two of them have a kink for strong Nephilim such as yourselves.” After all, King Kieran had started a trend… “We also have the usual nixies, pixies, goblins, hobgoblins, brownies, and even a djinn for those who have more… particular tastes. Everything happens on Seelie territory and is strictly legal of course. I have the paperwork.”

The light brown skinned Centurion looked like he was trying very hard not to burst out laughing. He coughed a little to hide it before swiftly saying, “Nothing of the sort.”

“We heard you were selling. We are buying.” The taller one spoke for the first time. He had a deep voice, with a rich timber to it. As he glanced over his shoulder, the candles’ light played along his face, revealing his striking features. Fenwick stifled a gasp. His merchant’s mind was already calculating what he could earn with such a possession. Faerie lords – even princes – would pay handsomely – a fortune – to enjoy the boy’s company.

“What is it that you care to acquire from old Fenwick?” he said in a honey voice. “Certainly not a love potion. Someone who looks like you must never be in need of it.” The Centurion’s expression remained impassive, yet Fenwick thought he saw a shadow flicker across his eyes. “Your pretty face is so much like a faerie’s. I almost took you for one of our kind.”

The other Centurion cleared his throat loudly, and when he had caught Fenwick’s attention, shot him a glare, his deep brown eyes cold as ice. A warning. Fenwick knew in that instant that if he ever wanted to get his hands on the pretty Nephilim, he would have to go through his companion first.

“What we want…” he said in a clipped tone, “cannot be touched, tasted, or inhaled.”

“Information, then,” Fenwick replied automatically upon hearing the code. A chill went up his spine. Did they know? Only one way to find out. “And what type of information do you seek?”

“You know exactly which one. Please do not waste any more precious minutes of our mortal lives. Name your price.”

Fenwick told him. The Centurion approached Fenwick’s counter and, without a word, retrieved a pouch from inside his jacket - Fenwick recognized it as fey craftsmanship of the finest sort and, though it did not bear the Unseelie Court’s sigil, had most certainly come from it - and started counting bills. His curiosity got the better of him.

“What do you want with the First Heir?” He blurted. “I didn’t know it was the Scholomance’s job to look for him. Other Nephilim – if not as skilled – have already been assigned to the task.”

“We have the money. Our business with him is our own,” he replied dismissively.

Fenwick glanced at the other tall Centurion, who had remained silent during the exchange. He had retrieved a crystal orb from one of the shelves and was turning it over in his long pale fingers.

“Careful with that! It’s fragile! And expensive. If you break it, you pay it.”

“Twenty-one,” he replied.

“Pray tell?”

“The number of laws you have broken with the content of these shelves. I am not talking about the items you keep in your back store.”

“Tiberius,” his companion warned, before forcing a smile to Fenwick’s benefit. “Here’s the money. Give us the information and we’ll be on our way.”

Fenwick’s gaze zeroed on the bills spread over his counter. He did the usual checks, doing as best as he could to hide his excitement.

“Okay,” he drawled, when they had come out to be the real deal. He gave them the First Heir’s address. The Centurion’s lips twitched but his face remained otherwise blank. He acknowledged with a stiff nod and whirled around.

“I can give you one more information. Free of charge.”

The Centurion paused and glanced over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised in question.

“The First Heir. He has power beyond your wildest imagination. Even mighty warriors such as yourselves will have a hard time capturing him. But he has a family that he loves dearly and would be willing to die for. If you take his little sister hostage, you can obtain whatever you want from him.”

Fenwick startled at the sound of glass shattering. He glanced over to find that the tall, silent, Nephilim – Tiberius, his companion had called him – had closed his long fingers on the orb, with apparently enough pressure and force that it had broken into multiple shards. He was now watching with remote interest as blood escaped from his clenched fist and started running like crimson strings over his knuckles and wrist. He didn’t look the least bit concerned by the sight.

“Hey! You will pay for this!” Fenwick said, taking consolation in the fact that, as expensive as the item was, they probably had the money.

“That’s funny,” Tiberius said in a tone that suggested it wasn’t at all. “I was about to say the exact same thing.”

He hadn’t seen him coming, but from one moment to the next, the Nephilim was in Fenwick’s face, a dagger pressed against the fey’s throat.

Fenwick thought he looked more animal than human as he cocked his head, his gray eyes feral. “Earlier you said that I look like a fey. Well, there is at least one trait that I share with the Fair Folk. I. Don’t. Lie. So, trust me when I tell you this. If you so much as harm a hair on that little girl’s head, my pretty face will be the last thing you’ll ever see. The same goes for any other member of her family. I will hunt you down, scour each one of your rabbit holes and I don’t care if it takes every single second I have left of my mortal life.”

“Tiberius,” the other Centurion crooned. “Tiberius. We are done here. Let’s go home.” Fenwick realized with a jolt of surprise that he had moved soundlessly to rest his hand on Tiberius’ shoulder and was rubbing it, tracing small circles around the joint. It was such an intimate gesture that Fenwick wondered if he had misread earlier when he had thought to witness unrequited love.

Tiberius blinked a few times, then started whispering urgently under his breath. Fenwick couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. It sounded like random words. The Centurion finally narrowed his gaze at Fenwick and mouthed “I don’t lie” one last time before he whirled and both Nephilim disappeared in a blur of dark fabric, out of the tent and into the night, as swiftly as they had come. Fenwick, frozen in terror, hoped with all his immortal’s heart that all of it had only been a bad dream.

***

Anush exhaled the cold and moist London air, his breath coming in frosty white puffs, as he drew an Iratze on the back of Ty’s hand. It had become so frequent lately that he sometimes caught himself wishing Centurions were allowed to be parabatai so that his runes were more effective, but discarded the idea as soon as it crossed his mind. He would not have been allowed to feel the way he did about Ty. And parabatai definitely did not do the things they did.

“I can’t believe he lived during the time of Berlioz. Do you think he met him? If so, I would have a thousand more questions to ask him.”

Ty didn’t answer. He was lost in thought, stroking his heron-shaped pendant with his free hand, his face pale as the moon tilted upwards toward the night sky as if he was counting the stars.

“Hey,’ Anush said softly. “It was the wrong address. So that’s one more snitch to strike off our list.”

“He had the right country, though. That’s a first. They’re closing in.”

“That’s okay, Ty. We will be one step ahead, as always.”

Anush had probably not been convincing enough, as Ty suddenly tensed, his breathing coming in short, shallow gasps, and his hand, still resting in Anush’s palm, started shaking. Anush closed his fingers around Ty’s and murmured soothing words that he knew his fellow Centurion liked, as he gently rubbed his shoulder with his free hand. “Whisper, glass, twin, secret, stars, cloud, castle, crystal, Christopher…”

Ty’s shoulders relaxed slightly. He closed his eyes and took a deep shuddering breath.

“Hey,” Anush whispered. “It’s going to be fine. We will do double shifts. Starting tomorrow. Who needs sleep anyway?”

Ty sighed, relief plain on his marble face. His eyelashes fanned out over his sharp cheekbones and Anush resisted the urge to kiss them. “Thank you. For sticking with me through all this. I know it’s not easy.”

“I didn’t have better plans anyway,” Anush shrugged it off.

Ty opened his eyes and turned his sharp gaze on Anush, still not looking him in the eye but somewhere around his chin. Close enough.

“You know what I mean.”

He knew exactly what Ty meant. The reasons for Ty’s obsession with the First Heir was a subject they never broached. But it was there, like a third presence in their relationship. If you could call what they had a relationship. It was, for Anush at least. He would go to hell and back for Ty, and so would Ty for him. But that didn’t mean he loved him. That’s just how loyal and selfless Ty was.

Anush would always remember the day Ty and him had volunteered to handle the top secret missions tied to the First Heir. Ty had adamantly refused Anush’s involvement, but of course, it was not entirely up to him. Anush was very stubborn. They had both sat in Jia Penhallow’s office and she had asked Ty to leave them alone afterwards. She had looked into Anush’s eyes and had spoken to him earnestly. “These are very dangerous missions, Anush. The most dangerous missions we currently have at the Scholomance. You are a brilliant Centurion, but are you sure you want to do this? I know Tiberius has… personal reasons for volunteering, but what about you?” He had swallowed hard. “Anywhere Tiberius goes, I go.” Her dark eyes had softened. “Anush. Have you really thought this through? I know how much you care about Tiberius but… has he told you why he has chosen to do this?” “I am not Tiberius-smart, but I am not stupid,” he had replied. “The First Heir. He’s in love with him.” The deep sadness and understanding in her eyes had almost made him cry and he had dug his nails into his palms, his jaw working as he withheld tears. “It doesn’t matter,’ he had said through clenched teeth. “Whatever happens, I will be there for him. In any capacity I can.” And it was plain from her expression that she knew he was not only talking about their missions for the Scholomance.

As he now looked into Tiberius’ gray eyes, at his beautiful features that were nothing compared to his gentle and unique heart, Anush felt a deep rush of love mixed with longing. Ty would never be his. He already belonged to someone else. But Anush would give Tiberius any part of him that he wanted.

He took a deep breath before he answered.

“I do. I am not giving you a choice anyway. You’re stuck with me.” Always.

Ty looked down, as if he couldn’t bear the weight of Anush’s gaze on him.

“I didn’t thank you for… earlier. I almost lost it back there.”

“Don’t mention it,” Anush replied. “That’s what I am here for. At least he took your threat seriously.”

“As he should.”

Ty was still playing with the pendant tied around his neck. Anush brought his free hand on top of Ty’s, intertwining their fingers.

“I love your hands,” he whispered to Ty. “I wouldn’t want them to get soiled.” He tiptoed to bring his lips closer to Ty’s ear, almost brushing. “Especially now that I have experienced their full potential.”

Ty turned his face away but not before Anush saw his cheeks flush and the corner of his mouth quirk. Anush loved how he was still shy about these things.

He looked at the dark cobbled street before them.

“Fenwick’s minions must already be on their way.”

Ty cocked his head. “Coming from the west. They’re a mile or two ahead of us. Judging by their pace, they should be upon us in about five minutes.”

Anush nodded. Ty sometimes knew things – as if he had an invisible spy everywhere they went – and Anush had stopped questioning it. If Ty had wanted to share, he would have. Anush would not press him.

“Tactic?”

“Split. Confuse. Divide and conquer.”

“Good. I need the exercise. You take north by the river, I take south and we meet up west?”

Ty nodded, already veering in the opposite direction, two swords drawn.

“Meet you at Blackthorn Hall,” Anush cried out to him, as he started walking backwards. “First one there gets the biggest room.”

“Dream on,” he thought he heard Ty reply. He tried to catch one last glimpse of him for good luck but he had already been swallowed by the night.

***

Tiberius got there first. But he let Anush pick his favourite bedroom. All bedrooms in Blackthorn Hall were decorated with different themes, that one had a landscape - the view from the LA Institute’s rooftop, Ty had explained - painted over an entire wall, opposite the huge canopy bed. Anush found it quite soothing.

“Fenwick sent an army,” he said as he drew several Iratzes on Ty’s back. He whistled. “You must have scared the shit out of him.” They had managed to get rid of the last of Fenwick’s minions by drowning them in the Thames. Ty had a few fey allies lurking underneath the surface. Creatures he had helped escape from captivity.

When he was finished, Tiberius rose from the bed and Anush watched as he stored the bandages and gauze in a small cabinet in a corner of the room. He was naked from the waist up and Anush’s gaze lingered on his fellow Centurion’s lean and muscular back, a canvas way too beautiful for black Runes and faded scars that were now so familiar he could draw them from memory. His dark curls were still wet from the dive into the river.

Anush crossed his arms behind his head and settled comfortably against the headboard.

“Ty?”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck me.”

Tiberius stilled, his bare shoulders hunched.

“What, now?”

“Yes now. I want you.”

Ty slowly closed the cabinet’s door and turned to look at Anush, his gray eyes unreadable.

“Anush… My brother Julian is here. His bedroom is a few meters down the corridor.“

“So? It’s not as if he doesn’t know what we are up to. You're so lucky he’s smart and open-minded. The coolest. I wish my parents were the same. If they knew the things we did, they would probably drag me to Naraka themselves.”

“Anush…” Ty said softly. “You know it wouldn’t make any difference if you were a girl… I would say the same thing.”

“We won’t make any noise!”

Tiberius raised a dark eyebrow. Anush let out a deep sigh.

“Yeah, I know. It’s not my fault if you turn into this beast I barely recognize under the bed sheets.”

“I don’t hear you complaining.”

“Oh the noises I make are definitely not me complaining. Mister Hyde can have a ride anytime.”

Ty gave him one of his rare wicked smiles… The ones that always got Anush’s heart rate into high gear. He put his shirt back on and moved soundlessly to the door.

“Ty,” Anush called.

Tiberius paused, his hand on the doorknob.

“Yeah?”

“Stay for the night. No noisy and sweaty sex. Just…lie down next to me.”

“Anush,” Ty breathed, his look apologetic. And Anush braced himself for what would come next. The blow to his chest. Because he already knew what Ty would say. “Anush. You know I can’t sleep that way.”

“Yeah, no problem, I understand. Raziel knows we definitely need the rest.” Anush tried to reply in a light tone but the pitch of his voice rose awkwardly at the end. “It’s okay. Good night Ty.”

“Good night, Anush.”

#the wicked powers #the dark artifices #tsc fan fiction #tda fanfiction #the secrets of blackthorn hall #kit herondale and ty blackthorn #kit herondale #kit herongraystairs #tiberius blackthorn #ty blackthorn #anush joshi #kitty fic #kitty fanfiction #kitty tda #cassandra clare fan fiction #cassandraclare #the shadowhunters chronicles icons #the shadowhunters chronicles #shadowhunters

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eternalstrigoii · 5 years ago

Text

Salt of the Sea - I

Part of the U.W. ‘verse Borra (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) x Desert Warrior Dark Fey Reader; Maleficent x Diaval; Shrike x General Percival; Philip x Aurora; King John adopted everyone

A great battle warred in the courtyards of Ulstead.

Iron armor fended off fey wing, though gouged deeply from talon-claws. Those fighting were not unarmed this time – you wore a chest plate made of bronze over one of the spider-silk shirts Queen Aurora had woven for you. It was equally resistant to penetration, and for that, you were grateful.

Because Percival was a terrible shot.

King John’s – or, rather, Queen Aurora and Prince Philip’s – royal guard trained with your people on as frequent of an occasion as time allowed. They were nothing like you; they relied too heavily on their weapons and their armor. They had yet to learn to move like limbs of the same beast.

You and Borra did not have that problem.

You had fought for so long with him at your back that he knew when to hold out his hand so you could hook your arm through his and splay your massive wings. You threw your weight over his back, slamming your bare feet into the iron shields of the men that sought to overtake you. He righted immediately, blocking the sweep of Percival’s shield.

Aurora watched intently from one of the palace’s grand balconies with a child in either arm.

Your new, bronze gauntlets deflected blows much better than the leather ones. You hadn’t noticed the deep gash someone’s sword had cut when you’d crossed them before you the last time you play-fought. You’d felt the bite of iron on your skin and smiled with far too many teeth, but, still, John insisted upon the upgrade. (It delighted you far too much to watch the blood drain from their faces.)

One sword deflected from them, then another; your fist connected with someone’s face, and the whole three guardsmen training with you took a collective step backward. You pursued them anyway, kicking the dazed center one’s shield.

You heard the sizzle of iron in contact with Borra’s skin, and you knew he’d disarmed Percival again. He held the tip of Percival’s blade under his chin with a wild, wicked smile before tossing it down in the loose stone just as Philip had nearly a year before.

“You need to trust them,” he said, much more patiently than you’d thought he would. “If you don’t trust your men, you’ll die in battle.”

“He doesn’t have that problem with his faerie wife,” the man whose nose you’d broken said, and you smelled the flush that immediately took hold of Percival’s skin.

“Then Shrike will fight with you next time.” He turned, his eyes skimming over you before lifting to the others, “Next time, there will be more of us and more of you. You’ll learn to fight together.”

“Ain’t she about ready to pop?” one of the swordsmen asked.

You were a warrior, trained nearly from birth. The swell of your belly didn’t slow you down, not even when the child inside started to squirm and writhe – just as he did then, like he knew he’d been acknowledged.

“Not until harvest,” you replied, with no lacking measure of irritation.

Aurora, particularly, worried for you, though John and Philip had never seen a warrior of your caliber continue to fight. Your child was strong, this time; there was no poison in the water that fell in the moors’ peaks where you’d relocated. To be closer to Maleficent, you’d joked.

Borra rested his hand on your belly at one of your child’s favorite kicking spots, and their persistent movement made you sigh with theatrical exasperation. You dropped your head against his shoulder. “They’re trying to fight their way out.”

“Borra’s child already has an appetite for war,’ Percival joked.

He grinned so largely that the sun glinted off his sharp teeth, and the swell of pleasure in your heart became a tidal wave. “They can’t wait to meet you,” he murmured in your ear, then pressed a kiss to the apple of your cheekbone.

“They’re hungry,” you replied, deadpan-teasing. “So am I.”

“Come dine with us!” Aurora called from the balcony. You were starting to suspect some of Maleficent’s magic was rubbing off on her, the way she listened in.

You sighed fondly, your eyes still locked with Borra’s.

He grinned and tilted back his head. The sun glinted off the gold freckles in his skin and summoned your fingers to trace their path from his temple to his jaw. “Is that an order, daughter of Maleficent?”

“It’s a please,” she replied.

“Goat and turnips?” Percival asked, drawing the sharpness of your gaze.

He grinned. He’d eaten with you enough to know what sort of habits you’d fallen into. But, yes – goat, turnips and agave were your child’s favorite things (although with the variety of food in the palace, you truly could’ve fixated upon anything). It was in your best interest, and the best interest of your people, to decline lest you find a new and even less appealing vegetable to enjoy.

Shrike already had words for you about the turnips.

“Come.” He grinned at the both of you. “There’s a region in the East that’s already grown large pumpkins. Have you ever had one before?”

You’d found that, sometimes, they called things you were familiar with something different – like roast duck and herbed fish. You shrugged, and pretended not to notice Aurora’s retreat into the palace to join you.

“Must it be inside?” you asked.

“Nah, we’ll move the party out onto the veranda.”

You gave him another frustrated look. He knew you had no idea what in stars he was saying, and he did this only to you. He was kind to Shrike and too afraid of Borra (not that Borra didn’t laugh at your response from time to time).

“The balcony,” he clarified. “The one next to the dining hall.”

You growled at him just because you could, and it did nothing to faze him.

His men followed, one limping, one still holding his bloody nose.

“They aren’t wrong.” Borra kissed your jaw, his hands remaining in the cradle he’d made under your belly. “We’ve fought hard for them. You deserve peace as much as the rest of us.”

“I won’t be shelved because I’m carrying our child. I’m not Aurora.” Not fragile and delicate like she was. Your skin was like stone, and you wore stronger armor now – armor with bands that adjusted so even your growing child was safe.

“I haven’t asked you to be.” He kissed you again. “Just be careful. Hm? I love you.” Yet another kiss to your lips made them quirk with a smile. You kissed him in return. “You’re always at my side, Suren. That will never change.”

“If I don’t fight with you, Aurora will start making flower crowns and expecting me to wear them,” you said with exceptional gravity, as though it was the worst possible punishment you could think of. “She’ll have her pixies tailor gowns for me.”

He gave you a playful little growl. “Spider-silk wedding dress. Crown of roses in your hair.”

You swatted his armored shoulder. “You’re not supposed to like it!”

He had no reason to gather you into his arms, but he did, and you had half a mind to put on an act and pretend to be his damsel princess. You linked your fingers behind his neck and fluttered your wings with false helplessness, and fresh, warm laughter bubbled from him. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I am careful.”

He quirked a brow.

“I promise.”

There was no changing the way he felt. You knew what manner of man you loved well before he lobbied for Maleficent – before you heard the fury in his voice when he told the others of the council that she’d been shot, that humans would find her, that if Conall hadn’t found her, she would be dead.

You hadn’t trusted her then. Almost none of you had. But Borra was right, and he always was – she was what would save you. She had saved you all. And the child she raised brought justice with your peace.

You let him carry you to the veranda (a word you thought with an internal sneer), the great, pale balcony choked with white rose-vines leftover from the young queen’s wedding. Some of the flower sprites borne from it had to have contained the spirits of your people, though that hardly mattered when it came to the endurance of your dying race.

“Truthfully,” he pressed, sitting on the ledge with his massive wings draped over the many blooms. “How do you feel?”

Truthfully? You were growing more and more certain that your child would not wait until harvest. You’d been awoken overnight by their shifting, as though they were already trying to stretch their under-developed wings. How stifling your body must’ve been to them; you doubted they’d know the womb of the earth from which you’d come.

“I feel,” you righted yourself somewhat to gently bunt horns with him, “like you have no reason to worry. I know you will anyway, but I promise – they’re strong. They’re healthy, and they love you as much as I do.”

“And you?” the softness in his gaze when he brushed his fingers over your neck was unfair, he knew what his eyes did to you.

“I’m heavy, Borra. I’m always hungry, and I’m unused to being tired. As far as suffering goes, I’m not far gone.”

“I’m glad.” Aurora joined you on the balcony, then, with her little boys on either of her sides. The young princes were rapidly approaching their first birthdays, and you knew it was only a matter of time before your people started trying to convince her to celebrate on the moors with them and her mother.

She spent much too much time among humans these days.

“I have something to ask of you, if it wouldn’t be too much.” She’d prefaced many things in the last year that way, by handing you your favorite baby (the one you’d first held and given your blessing, though you loved his brother much the same) and preparing an unnecessary speech.

Borra claimed the other child without being asked, as though you and two more weren’t draped across his lap.

“I’d like you to be there, at the christening.” She twirled and twisted her fingers as though toying with invisible rings. You thought she had the nerve to look up at you, but, this time it wasn’t the case. “Maleficent and Diaval won’t be the only magical beings there, but they would be the only…” Dark fey. Dark fey, as though she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “Not-little ones. People will be afraid.”

“And you think we’ll make them any less?” you responded.

She glanced at you, and you nearly crawled out of your skin. The gentle innocence in her eyes was a lie; her eyes flickered down to the swell of your belly before rising back to your face, and she had the nerve to bite at the skin of her lower lip as though she had shame in giving herself away.

“You’re their godparents. And defender of the moors. You lead your people—”

“On a council,” you replied, damn near asking her out loud why Shrike and Percival weren’t their token interspecies romance.

“And I love you. You’re my family. All of you are. I’m not asking the others not to come, but out of everyone who will, I’d like you both to be there.”

But especially you, with the child inside of you disarming the terrified nobility. A symbol of peace and prosperity, the first of your kind born outside the cradle of isolation in centuries.

You owed her, you supposed. You didn’t, but every time she asked for something, that little part of you cropped back up. She’d done the right thing, and you were grateful, and though you should be insulted, you weren’t, because you were fond of her and her children and her silly young husband and her father-in-law, and, especially, her mother.

You looked to Borra. Let it be his call.

The baby in his arms could stand, now, which surprised you considering how rarely he was put down. He’d grabbed hold of one of Borra’s horns and stood on two feet in the safety of your mate’s curled wing. “When is it?”

“Tomorrow, hopefully. It’s….” Aurora’s hesitation melted away with a laugh. “It needed to be perfect.” Because it wouldn’t be like hers. King John of Ulstead was no King Stefan, whose exploits you’d been told in detail long after Diaval had begun to trust you, and though you had still hardly known Maleficent then, you’d taken wing to join her in her perch high in the peaks and embraced her as though she was your sister. You had known you hadn’t needed to, but you had, and something like a distant friendship formed afterward. You had grown, in some way, at least mildly fond of one another, primarily connected by your men as you were.

He met your eyes, and you gave a falsely-irritated sigh. “Couldn’t convince them to bring it to the moors?”

“No,” she said, and the obvious frustration in her voice satisfied your suspicion. The people of Ulstead still did not want you there, and for that reason alone, you quirked your head in approval.

“We’ll be there,” Borra replied.

“Good, I’m glad!” John exclaimed, leading the procession of food onto the balcony’s newly-set table. There were wooden plates and cutlery, though he must’ve known you wouldn’t use hardly any of it. “How is the armor we’ve designed working?”

You took your cue to gather the children and separate from your place on his lap, though you’d committed to not being ornamental. Aurora took hers back one at a time, lingering beside you as Borra closed the space between them.

“I’m not a fan of the plating.” They were all business again, strategy fresh in their minds. “We have to fly with it on. The way it’s designed now is too heavy. There’s too much stress on the joints.”

“You have to have something,” John pressed. About that, he wasn’t wrong.

“Yes, but they’re muscular. The bones are hollow. We need them to move a certain way, and if you reinforce plating with too much banding -- if you plate over whole sections of the wing at all—”

Philip joined you and his wife, pressing a kiss to Aurora’s temple. He was listening, just as you were, though his attention made up for the lapse in yours when one of the many servants got to work assembling a platter of a thick orange squash.

“Pumpkin,” you said to yourself, tasting the word on your tongue.

You never would’ve called it that, but humans were strange creatures.

You awoke again that night with a jolt, startling at the force of your fledgling’s thrashing.

Borra’s arm tightened around you gently. He’d taken to holding you in the cradle of his wing, folded around your body like a blanket as though you’d ever want for warmth at his side. You shifted your hips, sighing in frustration when the movement didn’t cease.

You weren’t at all surprised to find him awake beside you. He always was quick to rouse, even without the potential for attack on the horizon.

“He’s restless,” you whispered.

Still, he watched you with an excess of caution. When you stood to stretch, he was slow to fully withdraw his wing from around your body. You fanned yours, beat them in the air, rolled your neck, and wandered the nest with equal restlessness.

Maybe your child did yearn for freedom as you had.

“Calm down,” you whispered to them, your hands running over the curve of your belly time and time again. “Let me rest. You’ll be here in no time, and then you can keep me up all night.”

All your movement worried him. It worried you, too, though you said nothing of it. As sacred and necessary every child was to rebuilding your people, the elders said the process would be uncomfortable. It required patience and resolve, commitment to your undertaking. There was little difference between pregnancy and the preparation for war.

But they’d said nothing about the little monster never sitting still. Maybe that was your fault. Maybe you’d given them an agave flower too many.

“Suren.” His voice was low as he shifted, drawing his great wings in.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’ve been like this almost every night.”

You felt like there was a weight between your hips. You’d felt it every night for nearly the last week – your child made you painfully aware of its presence. You’d thought, the first handful of times, their arrival might come with little warning.

He rose, intending to join you – to stop you from pacing, perhaps, though you thought you might completely lose your mind if you did. Though, almost as soon as he rose, you saw something in the distance.

Not a meteor, for it didn’t travel. Not a bonfire, for it wasn’t fixed. A strange glow bobbed along the other side of the moors – high above the ruined castle and the village still preserved. The people who still lived within it.

And you were torn back to Ulstead, to the explosion of red bombs. Men you’d known your whole life crumbling around you, reduced to nothing. Vaporized. Most of them didn’t have the time to scream.

It wasn’t the first time either of you were stolen by those vivid dreams, memories replayed in the darkness of your closed eyes. Iron nets. The fire of crossbows. Bolts, bullets, and arrows. The sting of pain at a shield’s contact, the bite of a sword into your leather, the hiss as a blade made contact with your skin. Sometimes you didn’t even have to be asleep.

But Borra interrupted them, with your face in his hands. He drew you back as though breaking a spell. His flared wings met yours, and his voice was gentle. “It’s alright. It’s over. It’s alright now.”

You hated that he understood. You hated that he shared it all with you, though some part of you was also grateful. The burns iron left on his skin, the mark on his arm where Percival pierced. It was all so much, and you had the nerve to bring a child into this world – a world where even you still felt hatred for what you most feared.

“It’s alright.” His forehead rested against yours, your horns practically one. “Come back to bed.”

“There was a fire,” you whispered, “over the wall of thorns.”

He drew you close to him. You almost thought it wouldn’t be there when his wings folded back, but, no – there it was, lingering above the wall of thorns.

A torch.

You felt him stiffen. You knew what he wanted to do, and yet he looked to you for your approval first.

“Go,” you whispered. “But take her with you.”

He kissed you, sudden and firm. You pretended not to feel its gravity as he ran, as he launched himself from your nest on his powerful wings.

You pretended you didn’t feel as though you’d been shelved, though that was exactly how you did.

You scrubbed the tired from your eyes and stared into the breakfast fire.

The thick, juicy flesh of some large animal made your stomach growl. It was nearly done. Percival brought it with his arrival at dawn, and all the moors called out to him in welcome.

They woke you, curled in your mate’s wing. He had gone with Maleficent in the night, and they claimed to have found nothing (though you were still waiting to ambush Diaval to make sure).

“How do you feel?” Shrike slung her legs over one of the large, fallen logs that had begun to serve as perch for your people when the earth was too damp to be comfortable.

“Almost too heavy to fly,” you responded. “They keep me up at night.”

“It’ll come soon enough.” She ripped a generous portion of meat from the bone and offered it to you.

“I hate being taken care of.”

“Good, I’m the last person you want taking care of you.”

You conceded and took the meat from her, and she responded by pressing a hand to your belly. “Percy tells me you’ve got quite an appetite for war.”

The kicking started. You growled quietly, though you definitely preferred it when they moved to when they were silent. They. He. Whatever it was. Whatever it turned out to be, it was yours, and you loved it, no matter how tired and frustrated it left you.

“We’ll celebrate you next, little thing.” She drummed her talons lightly on the spot in response. “Once we’re done with Aurora.”

You couldn’t hide the face you pulled. Lovely, more celebrations.

“You’re bearing the first child born outside the nest in centuries. If you didn’t want fanfare, you should’ve taken them home.”

Percival rescued you from telling her that you believed that option to be fast-fading, though you weren’t particularly pleased with how. “King John sends his regards.” He set down a thick parcel of nesting cloth – blankets, they called them, and several thick, warm furs.

As difficult as you were about their fussing, you didn’t extend the same to the king. John was a good man, and surprisingly fond of you all despite what you’d done to his kingdom, his people, and his wife. He was the first human you’d allowed to touch your belly (besides Aurora, as though she could be stopped), and the first of his many gifts had been a set of mutilated (“altered”) shirts that fit comfortably over your growing belly when your leather chest-plate grew too tight. They laced behind the neck and left plenty of room for your wings. You wore them often, especially in Ulstead.

You still remembered his delight when your fledgling learned to squirm. It was as though he’d never felt anything like it. He loved children, his grandsons and the young fey especially. You’d thought of the heartless shrew he’d married, and you imagined that she regarded Philip as more of an obligation than a child, and the thought hadn’t surprised you at all.

You could’ve wept for him.

“What in skies are you doing?” Ini asked, drawing your attention from the parcel of furs.

General Percival retreated back toward the fire with a small, glass container of crystals that he sprinkled over the flesh of a raw beet. “Sugared beets. They’re delicious.”

“He eats like moor-folk!” she exclaimed with open delight.

“He is moor-folk,” you reminded, still holding tightly to your gift, “He’s made an alliance.”

Still, she laughed as he took another bite, and you paused to stare at him with new gravity. “You didn’t forget what I’ve asked of you, did you?”

He practically startled, leaving the beet in his mouth to go into his satchel. “Not at all.”

Your friends watched curiously as he passed you a smaller parcel wrapped in ornamental paper, the likes of which you were exceedingly eager to open. It was the second-best part of prolonged peace, your new fascination.

“What is that?” Shrike asked, rather distastefully.

“Candy,” Percival replied, trying to give you a measure of dignity. As though its proximity to the fire hadn’t warmed it enough to be soft and linger on your tongue and your fingers.

You motioned Ini to you, the excitement in the gesture unabashed, and she came to your side. You broke off a generous piece and whispered into her ear, “John calls it Chocolate.”

She nodded, mouthing the word to herself in retreat.

“It’s candy,” Percy repeated, “made of milk, sugar, and crushed beans.”

Shrike raised her brows at you. You licked your fingers and wiped the corners of your mouth. “Beans. Sugared beans.”

You extended some to her as well, and the face she made at you when you licked the smear from your fingers was worth every royal string pulled to acquire more.

“It’s good,” Percy offered, and it was his praise alone that got her to taste some.

“You little beast!” she exclaimed after a moment. “We grew these in the trees!”

“Not like this,” Ini rose to your defense.

Had it not been for the warmth of his gaze upon you (or the fact that Percy looked up and some of the joy still drained from his face), Borra might’ve been able to join you without warning.

“No wonder it keeps you up all night,” the disapproval was plain in Shrike’s voice. “It’s good for energy.”

Borra kneaded your shoulders lightly, and you tipped your head back to feed him a piece. His mouth quirked, and the glint of challenge in his eyes when he snatched the ornamental paper from you gave you no motivation to resist.

Not yet, anyway. Not in front of them.

“What’s over there?” he spoke to Percy, removing chocolate from the equation. He gestured out beyond the peaks, toward the wall of thorns.

He frowned, and you thought he was about to be deliberately literal. “Perceforest. King Stefan’s kingdom. Aurora liberated it.”

“Are they an ally?”

He shrugged. “There hasn’t been much communication with Ulstead since Stefan’s death. Aurora handled most everything – or, so we thought.”

Your wings sagged with the anticipation of relief.

“Ingrith presumed Maleficent had control over the region. To what degree, or whether or not she did, we never found out.”

And then they didn’t.

“Then there’s a chance they might still be our enemy.”

Percy shifted toward him, as did Ini and Shrike. You were glad Udo was still assembling the children to come join you; they didn’t need to hear this, even if he deserved to.

“Suren and I saw a torch along the wall of thorns last night. Someone walked along it.”

“I don’t have plans for the city,” Percy admitted, “I can see if there may still be guard towers.”

“There was no battlement on the other side. It was as though they’d climbed.”

A flutter of distrust ran through you all, for obvious reasons. And the flutter in your belly reminded you to eat regardless.

He sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Borra rested his elbows on his knees and leaned deliberately close to him. “Tell me the odds that it was nothing.”

You watched him. You, Ini, Borra and Shrike. Though he wasn’t unshakable by any standard, Percival was careful with his response. “You know I can’t.”

“I won’t go,” Ini immediately replied. “Tonight, to Ulstead. If they know we’re leaving, they can attack.”

“If they know we’re leaving, they may anticipate some of us will stay,” Shrike responded. “We have to consider how well armed they may be.”

“Would they be so bold? To show themselves before attacking?”

“They may not have planned on being seen.”

“No one is attacking,” Percival interjected. “We can go to Perceforest if need be. Talk to them. Ask questions. For all you know, you saw a child trying to catch a glimpse of the faeries.”

You said nothing, and Borra noticed.

He wasn’t the only one.

Their eyes landed upon you, and you ate a generous strip of flesh from between your talons like carrion swallowed whole. You considered the things you wanted to leave out against the ones they deserved to know.

“Every night for the last several,” you began, “I awake with a feeling. I thought, at first, they might be coming,” as much as you hated the thought that your human companions found you fragile just for carrying a child, your hand went to the baby’s kicking-spot anyway. It comforted you to feel them move. “But they haven’t. It’s like a weight inside me. It makes us both restless. It’s like they want me to leave.”

“Who?” Ini asked.

“The baby,” you admitted.

The gravity of their collective stare – sans Percival, who rarely knew what to make of your council – nearly made you flinch.

“It’s like whatever they’re doing, the child can feel. Like the child’s telling me to leave for higher ground.” Like they anticipated another slaughter and wanted to escape themselves, with or without you. A warrior’s spirit. Their father’s sense.

Borra was the first to straighten. You hadn’t wanted to tell him how right he was – how well fear gripped you for their safety and all of yours.

“They’re not going to wait until harvest,” you told him, then. You might as well, since you were revealing all of your not-secrets at once.

His eyes locked with yours.

“I know they won’t. We’ll have to over-winter in the peaks. I won’t take them that far when the winds are shifting. They’ll still be too small.”

“When?” he asked in a low, frustrated hiss. You weren’t entirely sure if he meant when did you know or when are they coming, so you gave your best guess for both.

“When he squirms. It’s like he’s fighting to be loose. He’s strong, much stronger than either of Aurora’s children.” It wasn’t as though you’d had much practice with children of your own kind before you carried one; your war had been your child, Borra the subject of your devotion. “I’ve only suspected these last few days. He gets stronger every day, more active. I’d like to believe it’s wishful thinking, but after last night, I’m not sure.”

“Or they’re doing something,” he agreed, but the ferocity in his voice reminded you of the iron bullet he’d rolled between his fingers in the council-hall. The sizzle of flesh and the sear of his voice. He would protect you with his life, but that would never be the first resort – the first resort would be retaliation.

“I’ll go to Perceforest,” Percival said suddenly, rising before Borra could. “I’ll speak with them. And if they’re doing anything that could harm any fey,” you pretended not to notice the way his eyes lingered on you, as though reminding your mate that no harm would come to your child, “I’ll stop it.”

“You’re not going alone.” Shrike stood, and he turned to her.

“And if they are planning something?” he lowered his voice. “If, by some chance, I walk in and uncover a plot, you need to be here to lead them.” He rested his hands on her arms, let them slide down to hold the gauntlets around her wrists. “Protect your people. I’ll take the guard. It’ll be an official matter of Ulstead, with John’s seal and signature.”

She looked to Borra. He, to you.

“Go,” you said. “Better him than us.”

You hoped your tone said that his punishment would be just where yours would involve teeth and talon. You were not entirely convinced that it did.

You tilted your head back in pleasure at the feeling of cold water beading on your hot skin.

Borra knelt behind you, washing the dust from your hair. The sweat from your skin. You groomed and preened one another with increasing frequency in preparation for the child that would take both of your attention, their presence an inescapable constant.

“Are you upset?” It was the first thing you’d said since breakfast, not that Percival’s decision hadn’t left you all feeling strangely fractured. Humans operated independently; if they wanted to hold union with you all, they needed to learn to function as a unit.

He made a sound not too far from a jungle cat’s purr. “With you? No. Though no good comes from trying to spare my feelings.”

“I never want you to worry.”

He gathered your hair off your neck and pressed a kiss to his favorite biting-spot, where you were almost certain to have a lingering mark from how frequently the skin there had been pierced. “I don’t worry, I plan. You can’t tell me much that I haven’t planned for.”

Gone were the days of battle strategy held in council around the fire. The plans were all his now, your people willing to embrace peace as long as they knew there was a contingent option.

“I’m afraid,” you admitted in a whisper. “Not for them or me. For all of us. We should leave, Borra. I can’t tell you why I feel that way…” You hesitated. But he was patient, with you above any other. “I feel it. Like they’re lurking in the shadows, waiting for us to sleep. Waiting to kill them on the moors and shoot the rest of us from the sky.”

It frightened you how well you could imagine that, and you temporarily took leave of your senses toward why; humans slaughtered the moor-folk before. Ulstead ripped your people from the sky, as had countless other kingdoms. Your nerves were drawn and quartered with little sleep, and the child inside you, though dearly beloved, had the habit of literally dancing on your last measure of sanity.

“I won’t let that happen.” He pressed his horns against yours, though, for once, the gesture offered little comfort. Your fingers laced with his, and you gave his hand a desperate squeeze.

“I don’t like these odds,” you whispered. “I don’t like variables. I don’t like not knowing.”

“I know.” He held the back of your head. “Trust me. If nothing else, trust that I will never let you be taken from me.”

You wanted to protest, and he pressed horns with you a bit harder, encouraging you to sink back into the safety of his wings. “I did not fall to Ulstead’s queen, and I will not fall now. Trust me, Suren.”

You did. His certainty had always been the shore in a turbulent storm, and it was for you then, also.

“I do,” you whispered. “I always have. That doesn’t stop me from being afraid.”

He drew in a slow breath, let it warm in his lungs before it fanned your skin like the kiss of summer. “We’ve been afraid nearly every moment of our lives. That cannot stop us.”

It wouldn’t. Nothing could be stopped now; your child was strong enough that they could be torn from your dying body if need be. All your plans had been put into action, now their variables shifted. All the parts in play were slowly becoming revealed.

“Do you want to go back to the nest?” he asked, with a deliberate softness that eased your nerves.

“No.” You liked it here. You liked your little cave, the flighty little people who lived on the moors and the cast of humans who’d worked their way into your heart. To return to the nest would be to abandon your people, and that wasn’t something you would ever allow. “Fear isn’t worth our freedom.”

Not after all you’d given to secure it.

“Though you have more patience with me than you should.” You shifted onto your knees, intent upon reciprocating. You weren’t the only one preparing for the christening, though you wondered, faintly, if you should’ve also tended your armor.

“I don’t make decisions without you,” he replied, thumbs brushing your knuckles.

“You should.”

He made a sharp sound of disgust. You’d had this conversation before, but now, more than ever, did you squeeze his hands when he tried to soothe you. “I’m not their leader. They didn’t choose me.”

“We are a council of equals. You are at my side, and I’m at yours.” It’d been a long time since you saw defiance in the set of his jaw, and you couldn’t recall if you’d ever seen it directed at you. “Always.”

“And if I lead you back to war on suspicion and fear? If my hatred kills us, you’ll have only me to blame.”

He searched your eyes. You’d never come so close to speaking out loud that he was your greatest weakness. You were a warrior, and your skill in that you took immense and well-earned pride in, but you weren’t him. You would never lead them. You could separate the forest from the trees, but you could never see the way they intermingled. He assessed the danger, he planned, he gave the orders. You carried them out, and for the bulk of your life, it was sufficient.

And then Conall went and died, and peace and reason left the council on shifting sands, and you never regained your balance.

“That won’t happen,” he said, and you took solace in his certainty – if for no better reason than that he had never wronged you. “You’re not the only one entrusting your life. Your instincts never fail.”

You said nothing. You told him nothing of how you felt that they would now. Your sleeplessness, your restlessness, your peace – you feared that it dulled you. That you’d acclimated to the scent of human on your hair so well that you wouldn’t be able to tell if one was coming through the brush.

“Suren.” He took your face in his hands, and you soaked in their warmth. You basked in the press of his forehead to yours, in the way your noses touched as though the brush of your lips would be quick to follow. “I love you. For reasons I can name and ones I can’t. I hoped you knew most of them.”

A few of them, you did. Loyalty. Strength. Devotion. The fact that you had been willing to give peace a chance when you truly shouldn’t have.

“Trust yourself as you trust me. I do.”

A part of you had always thought that when Conall begged for peace, he had thought it would be Borra that would undo you. You’d known that you would’ve followed him into battle even if his plans weren’t fully formed, even if he didn’t know the odds and acted only out of vengeance. You’d assumed they had, also.

These days, you understood what Udo must’ve meant when you’d declared that you would die for him. If you did, if you gave in to your hatred and your fear, it would undo you all.

It was a strange christening.

You had never been to one, of course, but it still struck you as exceptionally odd. The chapel in which it should’ve taken place contained the still-living bodies of fallen tree-folk, whose branches had finally overtaken the roof. You saw it buckling, the green of emerging leaves splitting the roof-seam.

It was strangely appropriate against the décor of the ruthless former queen that her captive nature would, at last, fight back. Even in death.

The doors to the great hall stood open for whoever elected to come. It was a grand affair, brimming over with dancing and food. Children flitted through the rafters and scurried through the legs of earthbound adults, playing the same game at different altitudes. Udo watched them fondly with his great, snowy wings folded at his sides. Aurora was thrilled to have him, and, of his plumage, her children were equally fond.

You were restless. The current of distrust ran from you into the mortals like the scent of fired gunpowder.

Percival’s absence didn’t help.

“Ini’s got men on every turret,” Shrike whispered to Borra when she joined you. “The king’s guard is out in full.”

“They’re expecting trouble,” you agreed.

Borra’s eyes traveled to Maleficent at the dais with John and their children. His wife’s throne was gone, you realized – replaced with something else, one made from the very earth. Woven branches and blooming flower vines. No cushion. Its roots breeched the stone floor and leaves slipped between the window panes – a living, breathing throne for a young, not-wholly-mortal queen.

It was as though her gaze had been summoned. She looked to you, and Borra waited for the nod that followed. Diaval flashed you a warm, reassuring smile.

“She’s told John of last night,” the fold of his wing drew you closer. “They’re prepared.”

“I don’t like this.” Shrike shifted, the streams over her leather leg-plating rustling like willow boughs.

“Then tell him to open the windows,” was Borra’s only reply. The glass wouldn’t hurt, but it would be an inconvenience.

She did, stalking across the open floor at a clip that made even those who knew her leave her path.

Aurora had not asked you not to wear armor, and for that you were grateful; you had, as had he, as had Shrike and Ini. Udo could not be convinced, though you imagined it was mostly because even in war, he preferred to act in defense. You were her tokens, evidence of a great and ever-growing peace, and yet you openly distrusted them.

Few of them noticed. You were as grand of winged fixtures as the queen’s statues. Most of which, you noticed, were no longer there.

“What’s wrong?” Aurora joined you much later than you imagined she would, reaching for your hands. Udo still held her children, which freed her to be the young and noble queen once more.

You pretended not to notice the eyes that followed her every move, though you certainly flared your wings. Her frown withheld no disapproval.

“Perceforest climbed the wall of thorns,” Borra said, his eyes as keen as yours. Fixed on them rather than her. “They’ve been looking out over the moors at night.”

“Has anyone gone missing?” she whispered, as though poachers were the only problem.

“No. But no one has tried to make contact, either. We don’t know what they want, and we can’t safely assume.”

She wanted to reassure you. You saw it in her round, open face, the soft set of her shell-pink mouth and the gentle wetness of her doe-eyes. Instead, she squeezed both of your hands and straightened her spine, and she looked more like her mother in that moment than you’d ever seen her.

“I won’t let any harm come to you. You are my family,” another squeeze, tighter.

“The queen’s guard isn’t properly trained,” Borra replied to her, quietly. “They’ll never withstand another attack.”

“Then I won’t let there be one.” She was ambitious, and you had to give her credit – her ambition rarely failed. “Please, enjoy the party. This isn’t just a happy time for me, I want it to be for you, too.”

“You want a lot of things, Aurora,” you said. The reservation in your voice almost sounded like sorrow.

“What’s wrong?” Philip joined your group, wrapping his arms around the waist of Aurora’s frilly gown. She smiled, though you considered asking him out loud if anyone knew another phrase of greeting.

Something warm and soft wound around your ankles. Without thinking, Borra bent and lifted the last queen’s cat into his arm. The angry little creature looked up at you both, large eyes dilated…and gently cast itself against his side, purring in contentment at his warmth.

That made Aurora glow. “If you like her, you can keep her.”

“And not because she terrorizes Pinto,” Philip was quick to add. “She also terrorizes Diaval.”

You felt your mate’s gaze and intentionally didn’t meet it, though a smile overspread your mouth whether or not you wanted it there. “Is that your blessing to me, Philip? An attack-beast?”

The prince grinned. “Oh, no, there’ll be no fey blood on my hands.”

You sighed, fondly this time, and reached out to touch the little creature.

It hissed sharply and swatted at your approaching hand.

You hissed back for posterity. “Give it to Udo.” He would be patient enough to teach it manners. You couldn’t guarantee your inability to eat it if it bothered you.

“Your highnesses?” one of their footmen approached, their eyes deliberately avoiding the both of you. “It’s time.”

Aurora beamed. Philip, ever the diplomat, bowed to you both before retreating with her in tow – leaving the bastard cat tucked in the crook of your mate’s arm like it was a pleasant distraction.

“We could call it Pipistrelle,” he said to you, sidelong. “Or Parodia.”

Bat or cactus. You might add Philip to your list of people whose lives were no longer guaranteed before the night was over.

The royal horns bleated like frightened animals, and those of you already gathered in the hall flinched. Aurora reclaimed her children from your friend, giving your favorite to their father, and rejoined her parents in front of her throne.

Maleficent rested a hand on her shoulder, the love in her eyes unparalleled.

There was an official declaration. Very official, you would’ve thought if you had truly been paying attention. Beyond the open doors, you heard the clink-drag of armor – bronze rather than iron. There were no wing beats, no even rhythm to the steps. You searched the faces of the royalty, the nobility, the gentry, and the people of Ulstead, mortal and fey.

Percival staggered into the door frame, bloodied and half-limp. You wordlessly gripped the crisp leather securing Borra’s bronze gauntlet. His eyes lifted, some of the first.

Percy looked your mate in the eyes, his breathing heavy, and nodded once. His voice was low enough that only those of you who knew it knew to listen.

“Run.”

Udo’s great wings beat. He gathered the children quickly, sweeping them out through the open windows. The amusement and delight the mortals expressed at the sight of them, their rainbow of plumage taking flight, fell away as quickly as Shrike ran to join Percival in the door, shifting his weight from it to around her neck with her folded left wing.

“Percy?” Philip asked, much too late.

“The kingdom of Perceforest is in revolt,” he said, and you thought it was much too loudly. “They’ve moved against the Midlands. They seek separation from Ulstead.”

“Why?” Aurora asked, her doe-eyes widening.

Maleficent’s fingers curled around her daughter’s shoulder. Your eyes snapped to Borra, your banded wings at the ready.

“You know why,” someone in the crowd declared. “Because of them.”

He held you. Not yet. Wait until they act. Leave no doubt as to their reason.

But they had given you no doubt the first time peace was broken. You had no doubt then, though you stayed where you were, tense at his side. You could’ve ground the points off your sharp teeth.

A dark-robed man emerged from the crowd, a peasant you’d seen in the streets. You’d disliked the way he looked at the little moor-folk, and your children when they played with theirs. There was nothing you could’ve done, then, but this was a different occasion.

“It is the same reason,” the dark-robed man continued, “that no priest is willing to christen the princes. What you bring to this land is unholy.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Philip moved to stand, placing his child in his wife’s awaiting grasp.

John held up his hand. “You don’t speak for everyone when you speak, father, though your role in our community does not go without respect.”

Of course. The bloody priest. A loyalist to that puritanical monster if you’d ever considered one. This was what happened when humans allowed any charlatan peddling promises to carry on tradition.

“Does it?” the robed man lifted his head, and you could’ve swept the quiet arrogance off his face with your talons had Borra not kept hold of you. “I recall telling you when you asked me that no priest in Ulstead, Perceforest, or the Midlands would bless this unholy union. As though these foul, grunting things—”

Now it was Percy’s turn to take hold of Shrike, as though the entirety of his weight didn’t rest upon her.

“—offer us anything but strife.”

“We’ve lost many to your kind,” Borra said, and the strength of his voice reminded you, for a moment, of Conall. “People who’ve done no more than spare your children from starvation over winter.”

“Is that what you call killing peasants on the riverbank?” the dark-robed man had turned on you, and you knew he saw the violence brewing in your eyes. “They should’ve dispatched a bounty on the lot of you.”

“You killed your share in return,” you snapped.

“Suren,” Aurora interjected. “Stand down.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” you hissed, your gaze unwavering.

“I’m not giving them.” She kept her voice soft, trying her best to speak only to you. “Please. For your child and mine.”

Borra’s wings flared. Many of the villagers didn’t know of what she spoke, but the offending priest did. “Sacrilege. Your queen brings a thing of the devil into your palace!”

Your felt your fury rising. You took an involuntary step toward him, talons poised as if to call branches up from the earth.

“That’s enough,” John thundered.

You paused, as did the priest. Your mate drew closer to you, parts of his wing extending before you in defense.

“Do you think this is Stefan’s kingdom?” the good king’s voice was harder than you could ever recall having heard before. “Do you believe I, or my family, will tolerate men like you undermining the treaties we’ve made? The laws we enforce?”

Your eyes darted to where Shrike and Percival stood together. They were like you and Borra, hovering close to the other, prepared for the moment at which their action, or their flight, be necessary.

“You ask for us to bless a curse!”

Borra had to extend his wing in full to stop you. You were not Aurora’s godmother, but you were her sons’, and you’d grown to agree with Maleficent as you’d watched them grow and fatten – they were defenseless, helpless, and small.

And you would have killed anyone, man or fey, who laid a hand on her child.

“You deny your people the truth, king.” The priest was emboldened, turning to address the crowd, “There will be no christening, unless it is by the witch who raised her.”

One of the guards gripped his shoulder suddenly, jaw clenched. “I would be very careful with what you choose to say.”

“You see!” He turned on them, gesturing, “Their corruption’s reached even the lowest of the palace! No one is safe from their unholy sway.”

The ravings of a madman, you thought, not that it soothed you. Ingrith was a madman too, and that worked out just fine for her. Until you picked the meat from her goat-carcass.

“Cease, or you will be arrested,” John exclaimed. The queen’s guard began to gather, and your attention suddenly diverted to Percival.

“Where in skies is your horse?”

A great commotion arose beyond the palace walls. The priest went for one of the guards’ swords. By no means should it have been noteworthy – they should’ve been able to stop him.

But that would’ve meant he acted alone. You knew how well frightened mortals rose together.

“Run!” Aurora cried to the moor-folk, and much of the faeries did. They fled in colorful streaks just as they had from the poor girl’s wedding.

Maleficent’s eyes fell upon you. As deeply as you loathed the thought of withdrawal, you had an obligation to protect your own. She could handle it. If anyone could squash a simple peasant revolt (and how earnestly you hated that you thought those words), it would be her.

You pulled the young queen and her children with you.

The stone steps under your feet were unpleasant. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d run without the pleasure of launching soon afterward, but the palace’s halls were too narrow – especially the ascending ones. You pushed Aurora ahead of you, tearing the hem of her gown when it started to make her steps falter.

Borra was right behind you, the bronze bands around his wings not enough to shield him from fire should it come.

“Wait,” Aurora started to cry when you’d reached a wider hall, “Wait! Philip! And John! My mother!”

“They’ll follow us!” You took one of the children from her arms and pressed them close to you. “Hold tight to him, Aurora.”

You didn’t know if she’d ever flown before. Being Maleficent’s daughter, you imagined she must have, though it was hardly the time to ask.

She trembled, but obeyed.

Shrike and Percy were fast on your heels. She practically carried him up the steps, his arm around her neck and his weight on her side. She nodded to Borra quickly and cast them both over the window ledge, giving her mortal no warning.

The prince came next with Maleficent and Diaval. You breathed out relief at the sight of the raven beside his mate, the way he placed himself between her and the ascending footfalls.

“Take her,” Maleficent said to Borra, and a fraction of the pressure in your chest released. She waited until Philip was nearly up the stairs to make the thick vines grow in his wake. To buy you time.

“Go!” Philip called ahead. His shirt was torn and his sword bloodied.

“Philip!” she cried, clinging to the child in her arms.

“Go!” he spared a glance back to her and faltered. “I love you.”

Borra wrapped his arm around her, trapping her and her child against new bronze, and leapt as Aurora screamed.

“Suren!” Philip called, and you paused with your foot on the ledge. “Tell them of me.”

“Tell them yourself, Philip of Ulstead. I’ll see you again.”

And you dove.

It was as it had been the first time your wings flattened to soar above the walls of Ulstead. Your people flew in chaotic, indecipherable patterns, drawing fire so the both of you might pass unharmed. There were no bombs this time; by all intents, you and your warriors had the upper hand.

But there was peace. No one gave the order to retaliate, and so you didn’t.

“Withdraw!” Borra called to the others as you neared the river. “Withdraw! Fall in behind me!”

They did, crying the order to one another in your wake.

You flattened your wings. Picked up altitude. Once you cleared the wall, you turned. Shrike didn’t, and you didn’t blame her – he was the first wounded mortal any of you tended. It wasn’t as though you knew whether or not he would give his life for her.

A horse broke free from the palace stable. Aurora’s white one, carrying still-king John. He was not trying to cause harm to his people; he rode quickly, snatching a torch from the hand of an otherwise unarmed man.

The thorns Maleficent called began to close around the entrance to the bridge.

You waited. You had to see her. You had to know you were all coming.

John’s torch lowered.

The enchanted wood began to recoil at the touch of flame, seeking the safety of magical ground. His horse was as fast as the bridge’s recession into the moors, and you tried not to notice the proximity near to him that Ini flew, as though prepared to pick him and his horse up by the saddle and carry them across if he failed to move quickly enough.

“Maleficent!” Borra called for her, though your retreat was swift and the thorn-branches that grew along Ulstead’s banks were thick and high.

“Maleficent!” Aurora chorused, the terror in her voice plain.

Your eyes were fixed upon her as she lifted off on massive wings, the raven Diaval at her side. Philip held tight to her, so poorly armed that you thought, for a moment, that this battle had to be a joke. There was no way they hadn’t anticipated…they couldn’t have been fools enough not to suspect.

You almost didn’t see the priest notch an arrow.

“Dive!”

Her head perked.

Diaval dove.

And the iron arrow pierced the raven cleanly through.

You shrieked. Changed course. But Borra caught your arm, pulled you hard.

She dove for him, as you knew she would. As deeply as you hated it, as passionately as you yearned not to withdraw, you did. There had been enough sacrificing for a thousand lifetimes without involving those children.

She was begging, you realized once you both had cleared the walls of Ulstead and were back over the open air of the moors. Aurora was begging, crying, screaming at the top of her lungs. She’d heard you call to her mother and nothing else, heard the fury of your shriek, and must’ve thought…

“Can we make it to the nest?” you yelled over the winds.

“Not if we want everyone to live.”

Sometimes you hated how closely to your thoughts his ventured. Mortal or fey, Percival was one of you. John was one of you, and the moor-folk. There were too many of you to flee the moors. You had no other option.

You gave no protest as you circled, the moors’ sharp peaks emerging from the mist as though unveiled by magic. The weather would be kind to you tonight; they may not know you’d stayed until dawn, provided not many of you took the same route.

It was in your nest you landed with Aurora and her young. Your mate set her down in your nest-bed and joined Shrike with Percival, prying the young man’s armor off. Summoning the draping moss to grow more quickly on the chilly rocks so it might be used to staunch his bleeding. Your heart was pounding, and you held too tightly to Aurora’s son – you nearly forgot to give him over until her reaching for him reminded you.

She was pink-faced, her sobs raw and filled with terror.

And the pressure in your hips returned.

“Oh, skies,” you whispered. Not the time, offspring.

“Percy,” Shrike said, more softly than you thought she was capable. The roughness of her voice had grown warm, and you wondered, faintly, if she would be spared this fresh hell by her choice in mate.

Ini landed behind you, with King John clutching her armor for his very life. His fear was, even then, interlocked with fascination – exhilaration even, though inappropriate.

Oh, skies. The shifting got worse. You fought to remove your chest-plate before the heat of it got too stifling. That was all, you reasoned. Just the warmth. The activity was too much. You had to be mindful of them, of their presence inside you. They had no control over your temperature, their natural endurance against inclimate weather and how inhospitable a host it must’ve made you.

“Let me.” Ini joined them, leaving Aurora to the comfort of the king.

“My mother?” She asked them anyway, clutching her fledglings to her chest. “John, did you see my mother?”

“Your mother’s coming,” he replied, “Last I saw, she had Philip with her.”

“Diaval?” you managed.

The roughness of your voice drew Borra’s eyes.

And John’s. He went to you as though he was your kinsman, helped you pry away the bronze and free your banded wings. You flared them in hopes it might help you breathe, but the pressure only built. The pressure became pain, and you gripped John as he pressed a hand to your lower back like he knew the source of your discomfort.

“This may turn out to be a happy occasion yet,” he said, and you snarled openly at the half-jovial tone he managed.

“They’re coming,” Borra said, searching your eyes for confirmation.

The pressure gave way suddenly, and a pain much like the ones you’d felt before (though much, much stronger) overtook you. You knew your talons had to bite through the king’s robes, and yet he helped you to your knees.

“Tend her,” Ini said to your mate, too quickly. As though she could feel the urgency that had suddenly taken hold of you.

“Diaval!” you repeated. “He was shot!”

Aurora could’ve swooned. Damned skies, there weren’t enough of you. And how many of your men had fallen? What were your casualties? Aurora’s husband, her mother--?

“Horrible timing!” you hissed, shifting your talons to bite into the bronze at Borra’s shoulder.

He made a low sound of agreement. “We should name them after Conall.”

You listened for the beat of other wings, tried to separate the distinct pitch of the tundra and the forest, the fledglings and Udo. Skies and stars, you hoped there were no archers on the wall of thorns. You hoped the fog was thick enough. You hoped your people would run for the nest, go back into hiding, regroup and prepare all on their own.

It was to be a cause for celebration, the first child born outside the nest.

Instead, it seemed the whole of the moors echoed with your screams.

#M:MoE #Borra x Reader #Suren of the Cavernous Dark #part of the U.W. Universe #Dark Fey #Maleficent Borra #Borra Maleficent

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vulpinmusings · 4 years ago

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Letters from Buxcord #5: The Ways of the Fey

After a month of delays for various reasons, we return to Buxcord the day after the fiasco at Nollthep’s magic shop.

Samantha,

Some good news this time. My memory is still full of holes, but it’s only been a day.

I will admit I spent most of the day following the disaster at the magic shop in an existential funk. I was too shocked by losing… those memories to even start thinking about how to reverse the effect.

As evening fell, I heard Lea and Piper’s voices outside my apartment, and a desire to apologize for dragging Lea into the fiasco was enough to pull me out of my funk. I went outside and we had that conversation; Lea said it was her own choice to accompany me to Nollthep’s, and we agreed to talk about the experience in more depth later. At the moment, Lea and Piper were planning to sneak out into the bayou to investigate some strange lights that Lea had seen around one of the islands when we’d gone looking for Rocky and encountered the basilisk. Needing to do something to distract myself from my own brain, I asked if I could tag along. The girls readily agreed, citing faith in my ability to handle trouble with a level head.

That’s… I think someone would find that hilarious?

Anyhow, we made our way quickly to Bayou Boating, arriving just as it was being locked up by an employee I’d never seen before. He was a quirky individual, both looking and sounding like a hard-boiled detective from some cookie-cutter police drama or other, and he took an oddly supportive interest in our plan to sneak out a boat. He even warned us that Officer Weaver had been stationed at the docks to watch for boat thieves and offered to help us convince her to let us go out anyway. His intensity gave me deja vu.

It turned out that this man, Mr. Penn, was a poor negotiator, so we ended up relying on Lea’s charm magic (which she seems to be learning to call up on purpose) to get Weaver to look the other way for an hour. Penn invited himself into our boat, and when we pressed him for why he’s so skvetchte interested he said he just wanted some excitement in his life.

It was full night by this point, and the Bayou Boating craft aren’t equipped for nighttime use, so I conjured up a mage-light for Piper’s benefit.

When we reached the islands, Lea immediately directed Piper to land on the second one, claiming it was covered in floating lights. Nobody else, myself included, could see the lights, but we didn’t protest. Lea was the first to disembark, and she quickly started acting like things were gathering around her. I got off next and approached Lea, sensing nothing except for a brief warmth on one shoulder. I still had little to go on at this point, but from Lea’s reactions, the subconscious abilities she’s demonstrated, and the general feel of the situation, I started to suspect Faeries.

The invisible lights started nudging Lea deeper into the island, and I made to follow, warning the girl gently to keep her wits about herself but not resist too strongly unless things started looking dangerous. I warned Penn and Piper that they shouldn’t delay following after me unless they wanted to be left in darkness, but it still took them a bit to decide to disembark and catch up. Penn finally realized at that point that I was using a mage-light and not a flashlight, and let slip a comment about being in the business of magical artifacts.

I would’ve followed up on that, but I had to keep an eye on Lea in case the Fey were waiting to spirit her away.

As it turns out, that was exactly their intention, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

The invisible things took us to a clearing with a large circle of mushrooms in the middle. A very old-school marker for a Fey Way, if we were to judge by the standards of Taryn’s Fey neighbors, but still a marker I was easily able to identify. Lea heard something that made her hesitate at the edge of the ring and offer me her hand. I reached for her, but something shoved us, causing her to fall into the ring and vanish before I could grab her. Penn and Piper arrived just after, and when I explained what had happened, Penn didn’t hesitate to leap into the ring himself.

I shouldn’t judge Penn too quickly, but that seemed a strange thing to risk for someone he’d just met. In any case, he’d proven that the Fey Way wasn’t selective about transporting people. I offered to leave my mage-light with Piper if she wanted to stay behind (and reduce the number of bystanders I’d have to worry about to one), but she insisted on coming along, out of guilt for not being there for Lea during the Nollthep fiasco. So, I took her hand and we went through together.

I can’t recall if you’ve ever traveled a Fey Way, Sam. I don’t recommend it, incidentally. The Faeire Realm around Taryn has only a passing acquaintance with the concept of geographic consistency, and from what I experienced the same seems to hold true for Buxcord’s version.

The ring we’d all passed through didn’t even connect to the same point in Faerie each time it was used; Penn and Lea were nowhere to be seen. Piper and I were in some thick, dark forest lit only by a purple glow, and it was as cold as winter save for some pockets of summer heat where the light was brightest. For lack of a better plan, the two of us started walking in a random direction, hoping to encounter a Fey of some description. What we found first was a troll.

It may be obvious, but I’m not talking about the Gob-kin mythics that often squat in old gold and silver mines, but something closer to the theoretical Fey ancestors of the Gobs. Tall, tusked, long arms and thick hair. I attempted to make conversation on the slim chance that it wasn’t as brutishly violent as it looked, but at best it didn’t understand my language. It punched me and then threw a log as Piper and I tried to retreat, trapping me briefly. I retaliated with what is easily the tightest and most thorough Tangler binding I’ve pulled off since arriving in Buxcord, which gave Piper more than ample time to lift the log and for us to limp away.

Some time later, and after many failed attempts to cajole some assistance from the many eyes I felt watching us, Piper and I found Mr. Penn. Penn had made the acquaintance of a bat-faced gremlin-like thing that was acting as his guide through the realm. Penn was looking a little frustrated, as the guide had apparently been leading him in circles for a while in different zone of Faerie before bringing him to where “human-like faeries” were. After listening to the two banter for a bit I diagnosed the problem: Penn was being vague with his questions and the gremlin was responding with equally imprecise answers. I gleaned enough to learn that this realm was ruled by a King, and so I asked to be guided to said King. The gremlin agreed on the condition that each of us pay it with something we were wearing. It requested my robe in particular. I should have argued more, offered something easier to replace, but I was feeling overly cautious. For one thing, Faeries can be fickle and temperamental things, difficult to negotiate with without causing offense. For the other, I was still reeling from Nollthep’s messing with my memory and hurting from the troll encounter.

So, I’m going to have find myself a new robe and put in several days, if not weeks, of work embroidering my protection runes into it.

The gremlin at least kept it word once it had my robe, Piper’s jacket, and Penn’s shoes. It brought us to a fog bank and instructed us to enter it, and then scampered. We entered the fog and found ourselves standing before a food-laden table with chairs in a field surrounded by stone gates. Lea was approaching from one of the gates in the company of a gnome-like Faerie, and she was glad to see us.

Lea had arrived in a spring-themed part of the Faerie realm, with wispy voices welcoming her home. As she’d wandered about, memories she had long repressed due to her guardians not believing her tales of growing up in Faerie started to return. Those memories gave her a better understanding of her magic, but they seemed to have come at the cost of some memories of her life after leaving or returning to the mortal realm. It’s still unclear whether Lea is a natural-born Faerie called a Leanan Sidhe or a human girl who had been taken and raised as a Sidhe.

All of a sudden, the King himself appeared in the largest chair at the table and asked why we hadn’t partaken of the food. I told him that I was aware of the dangers of eating Faerie-made food without establishing the full implications of doing so first. The King commended me for my wisdom, and the commented that that was surprising coming from someone “of the Chain.”

I can only assume he was referring to the Tau’rin Chain. If he was, that opens up a lot of questions and some possibilities. The Fey Ways have never been adequately explored; it’s far too chaotic and vast a dimension for anything not native to do so. Still, I’d always assumed that the Fey Ways of Taryn were just a part of our universe, a separate dimension but still contained fully within the same boundaries as the “mortal” plane. But this King of a Faerie realm linked to another universe is, apparently, aware of the Tau’rin Chain. Could there be passage between different Faeries? It seems too far-fetched to assume that all Faeries are a single space, linking the multiverse together.

The King’s surprise at my knowledge implies to me that if he speaks truly about knowing of the Chain, he may not be aware of the whole of it, or simply doesn’t know enough about the history of Taryn’s Fey Ways in particular. Still, there’s a potential way home; even if I can’t get to Taryn directly or to any universe in the Chain that I’m personally familiar with via this Faerie, I at least know how to navigate the tears once I’m in the Chain.

Enough speculation. I need to finish this story, as Samantha would insist.

The King declared that he had a policy of not allowing his subjects to leave the realm, aside from a not-insignificant list of exceptions such as going out to acquire human children. I kept my mouth shut until Lea made her opinion known; I wasn’t about to force her to leave and continue to associate with me if she didn’t want to. Once Lea opted to try and convince the King to let her return, though, I started looking for options. I didn’t get far before the King decided to play nice and offer a deal: Lea would be permitted to leave Faerie if the rest of us – me, Penn, and Piper – all agreed to enter the King’s service as guards, in essence, to catch and return any Faerie who was in the human realm without permission and to guard the entrances from forces the King wanted kept out. He hinted that both Penn and Piper had existing connections to those antagonist forces already. Something for me to look into later. With greater care than I approached the Nollthep issue, of course.

Piper was quick to agree simply for Lea’s sake, and I don’t know what was going through Penn’s mind before he also agreed. For myself, I saw it as just another job, and something up my usual alley: resolve trouble and maintain an orderly peace. It’s supposed to a life-long commitment, but if the King is able to reach out to Taryn then my efforts to return home won’t create any conflicts. And if it turns out that he can’t reach Taryn, then he won’t be able to punish me for breaking…

Dangerous thought?

No, that wouldn’t be a violation of the contract, so long as I intend to honor it.

So, I have a regular client now, and Lea gets to not live in Faerie forever.

I’ll gladly take the win.

-Ash

#MOTW #Vulpin plays

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highermagic · 6 years ago

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There is art for this fic! Done by @plaguebruises, in this tag.

Synopsis:

Will uses his magic to assist the FBI with missing persons/serial killers, as one of the only people who can navigate to and from the aether, where the Fey live, and communicate with them directly.

When Abigail Hobbs is abducted by her father as the pressure grew on the Shrike, Will is enlisted to try and find her. Once in the aether, because of the dark nature of Hobbs, he is directed towards a creature he has never met before.

Hannibal is charming, and dangerous, as most Fey are. Will has had years to hone the art of making deals with his kind, but he’s about to learn that Hannibal is in a league all his own.

Excerpt:

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep…"

Will remembers reading that poem when he was in high school, wondering if the famous Mister Frost was a navigator like him, if he frequented the aether as Will does, if he, too, met with the dwellers within it. If they frightened him, or they traded stories for the world to know who and what they are.

The forest of the aether consists of three parts. One is welcoming, brightly-lit, with flowers of moon and starlight, that reach up into gentle hands and are tended by the happier, spritely faeries within. There are places where it touches the mortal plane, sprouts wings and creates faerie rings and temples where humans can go for communion and aid. The second is darker, lit with technicolor hues of blue and teal, and while there is light to see by, it can strain the eyes and one runs the risk of becoming lost.

The third place…Will has never ventured there. He knows better.

He follows the white road into the forest, smiles when the trees bow down to him like he is a welcome traveler. He reaches out and brushes his fingers across gold-tipped leaves, laughs as they curl around him like the hands of children enticing him to play. Behind him, his stag follows, head bowed and breaths blustering, hoofbeats silent.

The road fades from brilliant snow to off-yellow daffodils, arching up towards him like kittens and puppies asking to be petted. The life essence of a mortal brings great power to them. As Will walks, he leaves dandelions and buttercups, that sprout up with his passing.

Then, his stag passes, trampling them down and turning them black. It's a defensive measure and one Will took great care to cultivate. He can't run the risk of anything following him home.

#fey!hannibal #highermagic spells #magic user!will #hannigram #hannibal fic #hannigram fic #intentions far from honorable #plaguebruises #maydei #hanni-bunny-lecter

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words-writ-in-starlight · 6 years ago

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ooh ooh alleirat but fae? faerie courts, changelings and curses and blood oaths that burn in your veins like chains of silver

Hey listen…I’m in a lot of pain today and I was supposed to do this as headcanons and I super did not do that. Also this is mostly the prequel to a longer story about Brenneth’s quest to win them their freedom. Sorry dude, I just kinda got In My Feelings about this.

Their names aren’t Brenneth and Crispin yet. But Brenneth and Crispin walk into the woods, ten years old, on a dare, with their coats inside out and crowns of rowan on their heads, while their classmates clap and chant at the treeline–a skipping game with consequences. In roses red and briars green, a little girl in white was seen; went through the forest all alone, she’s never, ever coming home. The children laugh, at first, teasing as Crispin’s red hair vanishes. Then there’s the real calling, the shouts into the dark trees and the thin tremor of voices that won’t admit they’re scared.

Then there’s sunset, and the police, and no sign of either of them–except the rowan crowns, lying one beside another at the foot of an oak tree at the heart of the forest. Children taken by the Folk, they murmur together, and walk away.

Seven days later, it’s the full moon and the autumn equinox, and a woman of twenty is found unconscious on the edge of the trees, dressed in a fine shirt the deep orange-red of live embers and black trousers and a leather doublet out of an old story, embossed with oak leaves. Her black curls are braided away from her face with a tender hand, and she lies on thick, soft chamomile with a scent so strong that the teenage girls who find her nearly fall asleep beside her. The police are called again, to hover uncertainly around the sleeping figure until her eyes flicker open and she springs to her feet with the speed and grace of a startled cat. An officer steps forward, hands out to calm her, and she closes with him so swiftly that he understands, watching her eyes glitter in the moonlight, how his ancestors must have felt when the Hunt rode by, with horns and bells ringing.

“Where is he?” she demands, catching the cop by his collar and shoving him against a tree with a strength that dazes him.

“Where is who?” he gasps, breathless. She looks fierce and wild and hungry and beautiful in her rage, and for a terrible moment the world gasps, airless in love with her, and the police and the teenagers and the gawkers all remember, suddenly, the stories that are told about humans who live long years with the Folk and come back just slightly too real for reality to bear.

“Crispin,” the woman says, and shakes him with the careless ease of a cat shaking a mouse in her teeth. “Where is he? He’s a singer, with red hair–mortal, like me. Why isn’t he here?”

The officer shakes his head, wordless, and says, “Who are you, ma’am?”

“I’m–Brenneth. Ghadafi,” she says, setting him slowly down and stumbling back with a look of dawning horror in her black eyes. “He–he didn’t come. He lied to me, he didn’t come. He said he freed us both, and he–”

She presses a hand to her mouth and sinks to her knees on the chamomile, and the police look at each other over her head, and finally one of them says, “You had better call the Ghadafis and tell them we found their daughter.”

Brenneth’s parents arrive just in time to watch a police officer tackle her to the ground to keep her from running back into the trees. Their daughter, who was ten years old seven days ago, looks right through them like they’re strangers, or ghosts, and refuses to leave the forest line until the sun rises. They call her Brenda and she doesn’t answer them, and she snarls like a wild thing when her mother tries to take down her hair, but she lets them take her home, and Brenneth plans. For four years, she doesn’t do anything else.

Everyone in their little town knows Brenneth, after a while–the un-changeling, the human girl who disappeared and came back something…else. It has been much longer for Brenneth than for the rest of them, longer than seven days, longer than ten years, and she never smiles, never thanks anyone, never takes any of the precautions everyone else does. She walks barefoot in the forest, and leaves iron and steel at home, and lingers over vernal pools and fairy rings longingly. She’s too old and too young and too other and everyone who meets her is afraid of her–is afraid of what those unnaturally steady black eyes could ask them to do, and get a response.

Four years later, to the day, Brenneth walks to the oak in the heart of the forest and drives a steel cooking knife into the trunk to the hilt, and then she stands back and waits for the consequences.

“You have hurt the wood,” says a slow, lilting voice–a singer’s voice, smooth and articulate and with just a thread of warning.

Brenneth turns. Somehow, this seems right–seems like she should have known how this would be, who would come when she came to the end of her patience and hurt the Folk in order to find a door, who would be guarding this forest that swallowed her heart whole. The being behind her looks fey and perfect in the moonlight, utterly and breakingly unlike anything that walks on asphalt under street lamps and among cars, unlike anything that wears a crown of rowan and an inside-out LL Bean coat, with waist-length coiling hair the perfect brilliant copper of a polished penny and dressed all in beautiful white. The bones of his face are almost the same as when he lied to her, but sharper and colder.

This, then, Brenneth thinks, reaching out thoughtlessly to touch the ground-glass jaw with her fingertips, is what happens when a mortal swears life and soul to the Folk in return for another person’s freedom. He’s not one of them, not quite. He’s still as far from humanity as a wolf is from a sled dog.

Crispin stops her hand by catching her wrist before she can touch his face. His fingers are as cold as ice.

“Crispin,” Brenneth says, as if his grip isn’t pressing the bones of her arm together to the point of pain. She’ll see the bruise later and wonder where she got it, press her thumb into the shadowed purple-blue and yelp in surprise at the pain. “I found you.”

He blinks at her, and his eyes are wrong–the whites are gone, consumed whole by the honey of his irises and large, flashing pupils. This is what proves to her that he’s real. If he were an illusion, he would be perfectly himself, and perfectly hers, and he’s neither, not anymore. For a moment, she wonders if he even recognizes her.

Crispin reaches out with his other hand, and the cold fingers touch her hair, her cheek, trace the lines of her nose and her cheekbone and her brow, until his palm settles against her jaw, his thumb on her lips, and she looks back fearlessly.

“Why did you come back?” Crispin asks.

“Why did you lie to me?” Brenneth replies, just as calm.

He blinks again, more slowly, and says, “I…had to save you. They were determined to keep one of us. I had to save you. Why did you come back?”

“I’ve been looking for you,” Brenneth says, ignoring him, and the hand on her face is beginning to shake, an utterly human fit of tremors. “I looked everywhere. All the right places. If I’d found anything, I wouldn’t have come, but you weren’t there.” She takes a step, expecting him to hold her in place, but instead he falls back, as if she’s dangerous, his hands falling away from her arm and her face. She takes another step, then another, and Crispin retreats from her until his back hits the wall. “I knew that if I hurt the forest, someone would come to punish me–I just didn’t expect that it would be you.”

Crispin’s strange, honey-gold eyes are glittering and wet in the moonlight when she stops, and he whispers, “You shouldn’t have come. You shouldn’t have–I have to punish you. You used steel on the tree. Why did you do that?”

“You’re right,” Brenneth says mercilessly. “You do have to punish me. Because you made a fool’s bargain for my freedom, when I didn’t even want it. So.” She steps back and holds out her wrists, held together like she’s waiting for shackles. “I propose a trade. You do your duty to the Folk and the forest, and instead of killing me, or striking me blind, or stitching my lips shut with gold, you take me back.”

“As a slave,” Crispin says dully, like someone watching his life’s work unravel.

“I’m going to do it right this time,” Brenneth says. “Both of us will be free.”

“I can’t go back to the mortal world.”

“Neither could I. Take my offer, or kill me, faerie.”

Crispin stares at her with those inhuman eyes, in that face more perfect than it is human, and Brenneth looks back and smiles for the first time in four years.

“Trust me,” she says. “I’ve never lied to you.”

Crispin smiles faintly, lips twisting like he’s about to cry, at that, and closes his cold hands around her wrists.

#worldwalker #brenneth #crispin #the white wolf #ask meme #headcanon meme #i don't know what this is #it's sort of like the darkest part of the forest by way of reverse tam lin #it's just 'brenneth is fucked up about things and also crispin makes bad and high handed life choices'#torei was sort of like brenneth's patron while brenneth was in the nevernever before #and she was the one who proposed that crispin be the one bound to guard the forest after he stayed #so that he could be close to brenneth and maybe see her sometimes #torei and krei are as close to kind as faeries get #crispin is beloved of the fair folk for his beauty and his voice and his clever mind #brenneth is beloved for the mercilessness of her human heart #um....yeah idk i like this au a lot but also my brain is...crackly #and not functional #i love being asked about alleirat though so that's why you (unfortunately) are getting the product of my crackly brain here #queue deeper than the sea of stars #aethersea #asked and answered

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feywildatheart · 7 years ago

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Saram-Devon,

Elyn told me I should write to you about my new bow, and of course she’s right (although I daresay she’d do better at it than I; she understands magic and its workings a far sight better than I do).

Have you heard Ren singing the Ballad of Perrick Starstriker? We happened upon them singing it one day while we were on Nosirion-1, but I can’t know if it’s something that they do often enough that you might have happened upon them at it as well. And in any case, I recall they were singing it in Halfling, when we did, so perhaps you might not know, even if you had heard it.

Perrick is a heroine, a legend amongst halflings. I grew up on my mothers’ knees, hearing them trading tales of her stepping out into the cosmos, singing her ballad with them, jumping from rock to branch in the forests of the Feywild and pretending to be her. And, well, Honion is a halfling planet, and of course HASAI in turn is staffed by many of my kind, so I suppose it should only make sense that they’ve grown up hearing the same tales I have, idolizing her the same way I did. It only makes sense that, when they set out to craft and enchant a magical bow, they’d take their inspiration from her. And yet, finding it felt like being given an unexpected breath of air while drowning in a tempest of the unfamiliar and unwelcoming. We had a very difficult, and several times very frightening, fight through HASAI and into the Hall of Voices, and finding this bow felt like a lifeline thrown to me, a reminder of home and family, of gentler times and kinder places and the people who love me, and whom I love in return. That was at least as much of a boon as its enchantment is.

It is powerfully enchanted, though I think you’ll need to turn to someone else for more of the details about that, for I haven’t yet had the opportunity to use many of the abilities the scientists crafted into it. But it’s lovely, too — I’ll attach a picture of it, so you can see, and if you’d like me to pass on any questions about its enchantments to the scientists who crafted it, know that I would be more than happy to.

I’m glad that Elyn suggested I write to you, for I’ve been meaning to for a while, only I’ve been trying to get my thoughts in order before committing them to a letter. But I suppose you will just have to have my thoughts as they are, jumbled and messy, and probably far more true to life, and to me, for being that way.

We were on Veled Kerverion recently, and while we were there Pika took it upon herself to find a tutor for me in manners and etiquette. It ended up not being quite so terrifying as I expected — I was expecting a second Pika, I suppose, but the woman was as kind and patient as you could hope a teacher would be, and when we’d done, she asked me if I had any questions for her. I didn’t have any for myself, but I thought— well, you asked me for advice not that long ago, and I did my best to give you some that I thought would be helpful, but I’m far from knowledgeable about these sorts of things, as I think we all know. And here I had an expert at hand, willing to answer me whatever I liked, and so I asked her the same questions you asked me, that day on the observation tower.

And so, here are the answers she gave me, as best as my memory can recall them: She said that being as gracious as much as you can is never a bad way to go, and that if you’re polite and you’re trying to be kind and respectful, that people will give you quite a bit of leeway. She recommended listening and paying attention, and finding a confidante who knows the rules that you don’t, who can give you advice and answer your questions. (I hardly think I count for that, I’m afraid. Sometimes I feel I’m only half an adult. My moms taught me how to navigate the rings of the Feywild, and how not to offer grave insult to a member of the fey court, but for those who don’t fall within those rather narrow categories, I feel as much at sea as you do. Still — should you find yourself in the Feywild someday, or conversing with a faerie queen, I’m your girl.)

She also said what I think you already know, which is that you’ll learn the rules of a place through exposure and time. She said that if you’re willing to wait and to participate even when it’s perhaps uncomfortable or even terrifying, that you’ll eventually start to learn and internalize the rules the same way that those around you once had to do, and that what once seemed impossible to figure out will start to sem more and more natural.

Now— that was her advice, and I can’t say I know enough on the matter to speak otherwise. And if what you want is to fit in, then I daresay her advice will likely hold you in good stead. But I will say, from one outsider to another — there can be merit in letting others change to accommodate who you are, just as much as you change for them.

You are wonderful just as you are, Devon. You are clever and talented and brave, and you’ve gained the affection of the three of us by being who you are, not by being who we expect you to be — whatever that might be. And anyone who’s worth anything will want that from you, and for you. Let others meet you halfway, and work to teach you what you need to know just as much as you work to learn it. I know the Yeruses made you think that you owe something to the people who help you in exchange for that aid, but you don’t. There’s a difference between expressing gratitude and feeling as though your very existence places you in debt to those around you. You are not difficult to be around, Devon, and the pleasure of your company is your own reward.

Learn the rules of a place, if it will make you happier and make things easier. But let yourself be strange, too. You’ll be surprised the number of people who will accept it without missing a beat. You’ll be surprised how people can value it.

There, now I’ve probably given you advice that will appall both my teachers. But I stand by it, and I like you as you are too much to see you try to shave pieces of yourself off to try to fit someone else’s mold. The truth is, some of us might do better at camouflaging it than others, but we’re all strange in our own way. There’s no harm in it, and no shame in it.

She’s not wrong, though, about finding a confidante you can trust. You know I — and Elyn and Pika, of course — am always happy to hear from you, and whatever thoughts might be weighing on your mind, and to offer what advice and suggestions we can. But we are a very long way away, at the moment, and don’t always reliably have LICD signal. I would hate to find out that you needed our guidance in a moment where we were unable to provide it in a timely manner. So I think it’s worth reminding you of what I hope you already know, which is that Lorraine is your ally, and can be that confidante, if you’re willing to trust her.

I can’t claim to know what you’re going through. I’ve never experienced its like, and can only imagine how I might feel in your place. I hope that my worries for you are in vain, and that the struggles you were facing in adjusting to your new circumstances have been relegated to the past, if only because it’s my fondest wish that you might know what it’s like to have a guardian who cares for you, and who will fight and advocate for you, and who you care for in return. But there’s no shame in it, if things are still strange or awkward or uncomfortable.

I’ve been thinking a little, lately, about how there’s no word in any of the languages I know that’s like Asar, acknowledging someone who has taken responsibility for you. Sylvan has its own names for parents, and a great deal more of them than Common does. Did I ever tell you much about my moms? I call them cyllaneth, which in Sylvan means ‘the mother that carried me’, and darnaneth, which means ‘the mother that waited for me’, and there’s no equivalent to either name in Common. Common doesn’t name or acknowledge the different types of mothers one can have, and so they aren’t valued in the way that they are in Sylvan, for their own strengths and their own contributions.

I don’t know that I have a point here, exactly. I’m not like Pika’s tutor, knowledgeable and serene in that knowledge, and confident in my ability to dole out advice to others. I hardly even know what I’m doing myself, half the time. But when you have been raised to think of a mother as one kind of thing, I think perhaps it can be helpful to know that those definitions are not universal, and that mothers can be many sorts of things, and that there can be many different ways to be a mother. A mother can be someone who carries you in their body, next to their heart, and births you into the world. A mother can be someone who doesn’t, who waits for you to come, who watches you grow within another’s body and protects you both. A mother can be someone whose only connection to you is through genetic material she donated to someone who proved to be unworthy of that gift, but who still was willing to fight for your freedom and your happiness, when she learned you were being ill-treated. A mother can be someone who is willing to give you up, even though she wants desperately to welcome you into her family, if that’s what would give you the greatest chance of finding happiness.

Love is a gift, not an obligation, and you don’t owe Lorraine anything for what she’s done for you, or how she cares about you. You don’t owe her your labor, and you don’t owe her your affection. If the only sort of mothering your language acknowledges is that of a mother who carries you and raises you, who loves you and who you love in return, then it’s easy to think you might be expected to play-act that relationship, even when your mother is someone you’ve only just met, and don’t know at all. If I have any advice to give you, it’s that — there are as many ways to be a mother as there are mothers themselves, and you don’t need to try to force your relationship into someone else’s mold, to fit someone else’s idea of what it ought to be. There’s value in it just as it is, for what it is. It doesn’t need to be anything other than what it is, and you don’t need to be anything other than who you are, either.

I don’t know if any of this will help you. I don’t know if any of it is useful at all. But I hope it is. I hope you’re making a place for yourself on Nosirion-1. I hope you’re happier than you were. I hope you know how many people care for you, and would move the stars themselves to see to it that you are.

If you need anything at all, we are only a LICD-message away. Squirt sends you lots of licks.

Love,

Maliah

#in character

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darklingandy · 8 years ago

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Spirits of the Earth and Air

Chapter Twenty-Two: Afternoon Planning

A half-empty McDonald’s parking lot. An impatient October wind. A pixie riding it swooped low over the parked cars to join a crowd of fey lurking around the windows of the restaurant. It landed, tried to shoved its way to the window between two trolls with their noses pressed to the glass, and was swatted away. Buzzing angrily, it swerved to sit on a slide in the playpen, but the elf already sitting there gnashed its teeth. The pixie spat back. With no place to settle, it vaulted the playpen fence and zipped towards the front doors. Several human customers were exiting the McDonalds, carrying food and drinks, and the pixie, cackling madly, flew straight at them.

The pixie upended a cup. A large coke tipped over and went down a girl’s front. She let out a shriek at the cold.

On the other side of the glass panes, Hiccup saw the whole interaction and grimaced. The pixie caught sight of his expression and looked ashamed of itself for a half a second. It buzzed away.

“Ugh, these are all just drawings.” Astrid, sitting across from Hiccup and Jack, was the only one with her back to the windows. “This is so not helpful.” She took an annoyed bite out of her burger.

The three of them were crowded into the least visible — to humans — corner of the McDonalds. Hiccup and Jack had smooshed into the booth half of the table. Hiccup was nursing a hot coffee between his thin hands. Jack had shadows under his eyes; he’d ridden in Astrid’s car again and the metal was starting to get to him, the iron-poisoning making him look pale and tired.

They each had a different notebook in front of them and were slowly coming through the pages, searching for anything that might help them, but so far the notebooks had been unyeilding. Hiccup scraped a hand down his face, then winced as his fingers dig into the bruise that he’d forgotten about. His faint hiss of pain drew Jack’s attention.

“Sorry,” Hiccup muttered, peering at Jack through his fingers.

Jack tugged his hand down. “Hey, let me see your face.”

“What? No. Why?”

“I’m not exactly an expert,” said Jack, “but I’m still one of the aos si.” He raised his hand to Hiccup face and—

dark 2am hallway, Stoick looming in the shadows, a snap-fast fist coming at him

—Hiccup flinched away, sucking in a breath.

Jack frowned and lowered his hand. “Are you okay?” His hand was still wrapped around his Hiccup’s wrist, his fingers cool against Hiccup’s skin. Hiccup focused on the feeling to bring himself back into the moment.

Across the table, Astrid stared at him in concern. “Hiccup? Are you okay?”

His face heated up with shame. “Fine,” he muttered. He didn’t look at either of them.

“Hiccup,” said Jack in a low, calm voice, “I’m going to touch your face.”

Hiccup’s muscles tensed up and he tried to force them to relax again. “Fine,” he gritted out.

Jack’s fingertips were cool on his bruise, the touch light and careful. A thumb against his jaw, three fingers along his cheekbone, a pinky on his forehead, brushing in a long slow motion, and a weird feeling bloomed under Hiccup’s skin; both cold and hot, it tingled a bit, and then faded. Jack pulled away. “Better.”

Hiccup touched his face. It wasn’t tender anymore, just a little sore. “What did you do?” he blurted out, staring at Jack.

Jack smiled. “Helped, I hope,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve never done but healing magic, but…”

Even Astrid could see a difference. “What just happened?” she said with interest, leaning across the table to peer at Hiccup. “Your face looks better.”

Jack gave Hiccup a grin that said he was very pleased with himself, still sitting too close.

Hiccup’s entire face felt hot. “Faery magick, apparently,” he muttered. He bent back over the pages in front of him.

Hiccup’s mother had been the type of person to date her notebooks, luckily, and they began their search for answers in the earliest sketchbooks and notebooks.

Hiccup studied each page, each sketch and doodle, each cramped note, with slow and hungry amazement. It was all so similar to the way he’d kept his own sketchbooks; she looped her S’s the same way he did, the lines of hands curved the same way. But he could see subtle differences; the dots of her i’s were stabs, she’d drawn eyes with more softness to them.

Valka clearly hadn’t had the same reserve with the fey that Hiccup had. She’d drawn them up close and personal; they were sketched in all sorts of familiar poses, their expressions telling, like she’d known them personally.

In particular, sketches of a fey girl with feathers growing in her hair repeated through the pages. Valka had known her: there were several sketches of the girl sitting in rooms that Hiccup recognized from his own house. Here she was sitting in an armchair in their living room. Here she was hovering in the kitchen.

As they combed further through the dry pages, their hands growing stained with pencil graphite smudges, little notes and bits of writing began to appear next to drawings. Things like:

to find something lost: stick a pin in the sofa

lavender under the pillow helps with bad dreams

…and other such odd little spells littered the pages. Hiccup folded down the corners of the pages to keep track of them, thinking they might come in useful someday.

For a while, there was only silence in their corner, broken only by pages being flipped over and occasional excited murmuring.

“…trolls under bridges…no that doesn’t help…”

“…whoa, kelpies are a thing…”

“…haha, she drew that obnoxious little sprite from the library, I hate that little bugger…”

In a surge of energy, Jack surged forward and smacked his hand on the table. Hiccup jumped, which made Astrid jump and stare around wildly.

“Found something!” Jack declared. He spun around the sketchbook in his hand — very creased and covered in graphite smudges — so that Hiccup could read it right side up. “It's a spell.”

It was a page full of cramped writing, with a paragraph and list of ingredients like a recipe. It was messy. The top read ‘serum to give The Sight!!!’ and Valka had scrawled, ‘try to give to Stoick?’ Hiccup wondered why she never had given it to Stoick, then caught sight of the date in the corner: October 22. This had been written one week before she’d disappeared. No wonder why.

“Well this is something, but maybe we can try it,” Hiccup said. “You think we should try it on—”

“—Astrid?” Jack finished. His gaze slid towards her, eyes glittering. The line of his mouth went tense; things he didn’t feel allowed to ask building up in his lungs. Hiccup could tell. Jack wanted to ask. “Do you think she…?” he began.

“Astrid? She’ll jump on it.” Before Jack could react, Hiccup slid the sketchbook across the table toward her.

She was already staring at them — at him, rather — waiting impatiently, and she caught it before it could slide over the edge. “What’s this?”

“An idea.”

At the sight of the title, her eyes widened. She latched on, fingers curling over the edges of the cover. Her lips moved silently as she scanned it. She cleared her throat. “You think we could? Eyebright, mugwort, mushroom from a faery ring — how are we going to get all this stuff?”

“Those are just plants,” said Hiccup. He leaned forward too, excited at the possibility. “I don’t know about the mushroom—”

“We can ask one of them.” Jack pointed out the window toward the group of fair folk who were clustered out there watching them. “I bet one of them would do it.”

“What? No,” Hiccup protested. “Why would they?”

“After what happened in the court? We’re a little bit famous. And they don’t like Pitch.”

Hiccup’s gaze cut sideways at the windows, watching the fey from the corners of his eyes. He chewed on his lip. “I don’t know…”

“What’d he say?” Astrid demanded. She was starting to work out when Jack was talking based solely on Hiccup’s behavior. She still kept staring into space around Hiccup, only sometimes looking in the right place for Jack.

“He thinks I should ask one of the fair folk that’s been following us.”

Astrid’s back went rigid. “There are faeries following us?!” She turned around in her chair as if she could spot them with their eyeballs pressed up against the glass, noses smushed. Some of the folk saw her and actually did that: made faces at her, stuck out their tongues. But her eyes swept right past them and she spun back around to Hiccup.

“Yeah, seems like there are always are.” Hiccup propped his chin against his palm with a weary sigh. He glared at the rude folk.

Jack leaned toward Hiccup and touched his sleeve. “You don’t have to talk to them. I’ll do it,” he offered in a low voice.

Hiccup nodded. “That would… be better. Thanks.”

Without another word, Jack slid out from the booth and went outside. He pushed open the double glass doors and half the fey immediately scattered, vanishing so fast that Hiccup couldn’t see where they’d gone.

Jack stepped outside. The rushing wind tossed his hair; it was cold but that never bothered him. Folk scattered before him; even after word of his rebellion must have spread, he was still bound to Pitch and brought fear of his master wherever he went. Other folk knew he could be a danger to him.

Half the folk stayed, eying him warily. A pointy-eared elf sitting on the brick wall, legs dangling, gnashed its teeth at him. “What do you want?” it hissed.

Jack drew himself up to his full height and glared at the elf. “I’m here as an emissary of The Sighted One,” Jack said. A murmur went through the small group of folk; a few of the smaller ones bowed in awe.

“Then you must know,” said a pixie, cunning gleaming in its eyes, “if the rumors are true. Is he going to free us?”

Jack’s stomach flipped over, but he ignored it. “He asks a favor. We are working on something. Something that will help,” he added. It wasn’t a lie, not technically. He didn’t say who it would help. “But we need something from Faerie. Will one of you go on an errand?”

There was silence. The folk shifted awkwardly and avoided his eyes. Finally, a small fey boy only a few feet tall stepped forward. “I will go on this quest,” he said grandly, bowing. “What does The Sighted One require?”

Jack stifled a giggle. “Only a mushroom from the edge of a faerie ring.”

A pixie squealed. “He is working a spell then!”

“Yeah,” said Jack. “Sure.”

The fey boy bowed again. “It will be done.” And then — zip! — he was gone in a whoosh of air.

Back inside, Astrid was still combing through the spell. “What’s a witchstone?” she said. “It says to pass all the herbs through one before adding them.”

On the bench beside Hiccup, Toothless perked his ears up. “Mreo?” he asked, raising his head. In one fluid motion, he unfurled himself and leapt onto the table.

Hiccup ignored him. “I don’t know.” He drummed his fingers on the table, restless. “Let’s just worry about the other stuff first.”

“Mer!” Toothless turned an anxious circle on top of the sketchbook pages with the spell, confusing Astrid a great deal as the paper crinkled up, and then paced over to Hiccup and placed a paw on his face. “Meeerrr!” he said again, more urgently.

“What.” Hiccup stared flatly into his cat’s yellow-green eyes. “If you’re hungry steal some of Astrid’s food.”

Toothless swatted him on the nose. “Mooow!” He snagged a french fry off Astrid’s food tray, then turned and leapt off the table. Still carrying his single, soggy french fry, he darted out the glass front doors just as Jack was coming in. Toothless let out an impatient growl and Jack stood back, holding the door open for the cat as he trotted off, tail waving.

“Where’s he going in a hurry?” Jack slid back inside and a gust of wind clanged the door shut behind him. The blast of cold disturbed an old man two tables over, who straightened his newspaper with a grumble and disappeared behind it.

“I don’t know,” said Hiccup. “Out, I guess. I don’t really know anything about him anymore.”

Jack frowned at that, but said nothing. He snagged Astrid’s McFlurry and slid back into his seat beside Hiccup, licking the spoon.

“Jack’s back,” Hiccup said, somewhat unnecessarily, since she was carefully watching him speak to thin air.

She just shook her head. “Okay,” she began, with the air of a woman coming up with a plan. She had her phone out on the table next to the notebook and was googling with one hand. “Obviously the powdered egg shell won’t be too hard, we have eggs at my house… faery tears, Jack can supply those, I’m assuming…”

Jack looked disgruntled but didn’t deny it.

She went on. “It’ll be hard to find a four leaf clover but we might be able to…and rainwater…where are we going to get rainwater? It rained four days ago.”

“Do you know anyone who has an empty pool?” Hiccup suggested.

“No,” said Astrid. “We have a birdbath in the garden, though, maybe there’s still some in there. We’ll have to check. The rest of this is just, like, spices and stuff. I think we have most of it in the kitchen. And that’s it. Except for the witchstone, we can probably get all this. It has to be applied at either dawn or dusk. If we’re quick, we could have it done by tonight and I could start seeing the fey.”

"I don't know," said Hiccup, doubtful. "What will that do?"

Astrid leaned forward until her feathered blonde bangs fell over one eye. "Hiccup, it's all we've got." She gazed at him, earnest and intent. "I mean, what else are we gonna do? It's not like we have any better ideas."

Astrid and Jack both stared at him, watching, waiting. Hiccup looked back and forth between them. He took a deep breath. "Okay," he said.

Their grins lit up their faces.

"Yes!" Astrid pulled the page toward her to read. "Okay, I think we probably already have the celery seed and orris root…and maybe the eyebright. And mugwort? That's a spice right?"

"I have no idea."

"If it's a spice, we have it."

"Why?"

“Hiccup.” Astrid grabbed him by the shoulders to stare into his eyes. “Ask yourself, are my parents the type of people to have an elaborate spice collection just for appearances? The answer is yes. Yes they are.”

He raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. Do you also have four leaf clovers in your magical spice collection? Because I doubt it."

"No. So we'll have to find one.” Thoughtful, she chewed on the end of her straw. “Where's a good place to look? Tam Lin Park has a lot of grass, let's check there."

Jack interjected. "Did she say Tam Lin Park?" he asked in mild interest. "That's…huh."

"So, to the park, then my house to start brewing."

"Yes," said Hiccup, with the feeling of agreeing to something ominous.

"Great!" She smacked the table in excitement. "We have a plan!"

“That’s it?” echoed Hiccup. Astrid looked at him; he stared back. He turned and looked at Jack. Jack looked back at him, and shrugged. “Great,” he said. “So we have a plan. Let’s go.”

Jack grinned and shoved oreo ice cream into his mouth. “This stuff’s better than I thought.”

Astrid looked around in confusion. “Where’d I leave my McFlurry?”

“Jack has it.”

“Make him give it back!” Astrid swore. “That little—” next chapter >>

#soteaa #hijack #fanfic #frostcup #my writing #spirits of the earth and air

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t3clis · 7 years ago

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KDM 1.5 Campaign - Part 12

Hunt Phase

Quarry is L2 Flower Knight, so it will be a long hunt.

First to reveal an event is Dario. Basic hunt event, roll 30: Rotten Faces. Everyone treads on disgusting rotten faces. Dario rolls 10, so gets a Skull basic resource. The others roll 7,6,6, passing the rotten faces without harm.

Second event revealer is Karl, who falls in a Pit (26): his roll is 2, so he gets a Broken Leg Severe Injury (-1 Permanent Movement). So far, so good.

Third event is Cinzia, who reveals a Dead Warrior (guys, we found Percival!). Nestore is the only one with 3 Understanding, so he investigates (2), getting Black Guard Style Secret Fighting Art! Not a lot useful, since he’s Possessed and has no swords. Too bad, the SFA is very nice.

Next event revealer is Nestore (49), who reveals Pus Fields (wow guys, way to get lost in disgusting stuff!). We choose to carefully tread through them, so nothing happens, but we have to roll again on the Hunt Event Table. We get (82) Consuming Grass, so we have to find the straggler, who happens to be Karl (where are you going with a broken leg, idiot?). He rolls 1, which meant that he has to die. Since he’s going to die, it‘s time to use the no-brainer lifetime reroll. New roll is 4, which is still low, but enough to save him: just his Stone Noses get archived. That’s good, they are entirely replaceable.

We finally manage to get to the Forest Gate. Basic roll is 3, so we make everyone get a bleeding token and -1 Strength to be welcomed through the gate. After all, The Forest Wants What It Wants. All get +3 Insanity, +1 Understanding.

Now, we are treading the Abyssal Woods. Karl reveals Woolly Root, rolling 10 and being able to consume, he gets -1 Accuracy, +1 Evasion tokens. I begin suspecting that Karl is an idiot who wanders around through lava pulls and puts everything in its fucking pie hole.

Nestore goes on, revealing Sudden Life. Fortunately, the guys just get 1 damage to the Head, bypassing armor.

Now we reach the Faerie Ring, the showdown begins!

Showdown Phase - Flower Knight L2

Here we are, our first L2. A quick disclaimer: I am sure I cheated on this one, because mid-showdown my wife went away to fetch kids from Kindergarten, then I had to stow everything away quickly because my 3 years old was back (he put up a small showdown using Karl and the Flower Knight, though). I reconstructed from notes, but it’s likely that this time some HLs were redrawn, AI was not in the correct order, and blood tokens were lost somewhere. That aside, I have very few pictures of the showdown, so it will be a quick recount of what happened. Also, we rolled so low.

Turn 1

First AI is Disarm. FK makes Cinzia Bloom inside the Faerie Ring (+1 Luck token on Cinzia, but since she has -10 it doesn’t really count. Attack at Speed 3 (1, 6, 10), so 2 Damage to Head and Legs, and Disarm.

Cinzia uses a movement to get her King Spear back, then she attacks (10, 3), hitting Retreating Feint (a Parry HL). Wound roll is 4, which usually would wound, but since Parry only lets critical hits pass, nothing happened. As a reaction, FK sidesteps three spaces.

Dario attacks with Cat Gut Bow (I wanted to use Claw Head Arrow, but I rolled two dice, so I was forced to go with that) (6,10), and hits Flowering Bustle. Wound roll is 4, so a failure. Reflex action is not applicable.

Karl goes fetching Flower Patches (5), he gets +1 Luck token and an Osseous Bloom.

Nestore moves inside the Faerie Ring and blocks.

Turn 2

Legendary AI Nature Reflection is drawn, targeting Nestore (2,3,7), one single hit which gets Blocked.

Cinzia moves and attacks (9,3), hitting its Fey Hilt (WR 3), failing to wound.

Nestore stays in place and blocks.

Dario finally uses Claw Head Arrow (1) and misses once again. I don’t know if the problem is the arrow (it was built at LY1 and used every showdown, it always missed) or the bow user (5 hunts, 2 Bow proficiencies): probably it’s both.

Karl continues his stroll, picking flowers and being generally happy. Another +1 Luck token and a Lantern Bloom.

Turn 3

AI is Invitation, targeting Nestore (8, 8, 7): one hit gets Blocked and the other two are Dodged (thanks to Hyper-Sensitivity disorder). Rawhide rolls are 7, 1, so the net cost is just 1 survival. Not too shabby.

Dario uses Cat’s Eye Circlet (CEC). Cinzia attacks (7, 2), hitting Fey Breeches (WR 7, success), discarding Glissade AI card.

Nestore Blocks and moves in a better position, Karl draws near (treading at 4 Movement).

Turn 4

Time for a Vain Flourish, targeting Nestore (7, 6). One hit is blocked, the other is dodged (Rawhide roll is 4, survival is not recovered).

Cinzia uses Rawhide Headband to sort next AIs.

Nestore gets in position to tank and blocks again. Dario attacks with accurate Cat Gut Bow (2), missing. Good job.

Karl is finally drawing close.

Turn 5

Stinging Breeze, Nestore is target (4, 7). A single hit which gets blocked. Flower Knight is finally in position to be hit while standing outside the Fairy Ring.

Dario uses CEC again, Nestore moves and Blocks. Karl attacks from Blind Spot (6, a close hit), hitting Fey Sabatons. Wound roll is 7, which results in a Critical Wound, discarding Hypervigilance mood.

Cinzia moves, using Rawhide Headband again.

Turn 6

Bladed Kick, targeting Nestore (7, 4): a single hit which gets Blocked.

Dario uses accurate Cat Gut Bow (2), missing. Cinzia attacks (9, 3), hitting Writhing Flora (WR 10). Since her Luck is -9 though, no critical is scored. I have no record of which AI is discarded at this point.

Nestore blocks, while Karl attacks (6) and misses.

Turn 7

AI is Salute, so surprisingly Cinzia gets targeted. Attack roll is (2, 5, 10), so two hits, both to Body. Cinzia dodges one, the other hits for 2 damage. Since no injury was inflicted by the attack, Cinzia gets 2 Brain Damage more.

Nestore moves and uses Rawhide Headband, Karl moves out, Dario uses Cat’s Eye Circlet and Cinzia tries to attack (5,2), missing. Nestore gets 1 Bleeding Token because he exited the Fairy Ring.

Turn 8

Now FK performs Majestic Onslaught (that’s one of the three AI I really fear from FK). First, Dario Blooms in the Fairy Ring (adding damage to FK), then Dario is targeted (2, 5, 10), two hits (Head and Body). Head gets dodged, Body hits for 2 damage, knocking Dario down.

Cinzia moves and attacks from blind spot (2, 6), hitting Glowing Eyes (WR 1, failure), then dashes away (1 Bleeding token). Nestore moves and blocks. Karl gets repositioned, because movement 4. We left Dario on the ground, since he’s not risking getting targeted by next AI.

Turn 9

AI is Stinging Breeze, targeting Nestore (2,5), nothing happens.

Karl attacks (8), hitting Furious Riposte. He rolls 2, failing to crit, so he triggers Basic Action against him (4,4,9), two hits to body, one to Waist for three damage each. Hit to Waist is dodged, two hits to Body cause two Serious Injuries (10, 8), a Broken Rib and then Karl is Bowled Over. Broken Rib is -1 permanent Speed (since you get to roll one dice at least, not that bad), then he gets 1 Bleeding token.

Nestore attacks with his shield (4,7), hitting another Furious Riposte (WR 1), getting attacked with basic action (4,9,10), the two hits are dodged (Rawhide roll recovers both).

Cinzia exits the Fairy Ring (1 Bleeding Token) and attacks from distance, hitting Fey Breastplate and Retreating Feint (WR 1, 2, both failures, the FK retreats three spaces towards the center of the Ring).

Dario stands up, exits the Ring getting 1 Bleeding Token, then Bandages himself. After this, he encourages Karl, who dashes away.

Turn 10

Appel, targeting Nestore (1, 6). The single hit is dodged (Rawhide does not recover this one).

Nestore Blocks. Dario attacks with accurate bow (6), hitting its Delicate Knee Joint (WR 10, critical), discarding Glissade and making all survivors recover 1 Survival.

Cinzia uses Rawhide Headband, Karl attacks (9), hitting Hypnoting Reflection (WR 2, failure because of Parry), and getting 2 Insanity as a Reflex reaction.

Turn 11

Salute, targeting Nestore (10, 10). One hit is blocked, the other is dodged (Rawhide roll 6, recovered Survival). Since nothing causes injury levels, Nestore gets pierced by its gaze, 2 Brain Damage.

Karl attacks (1) and misses, Cinzia attacks (4, 8), hits Armored Back and fails to wound. Nestore blocks and moves out, getting another Bleeding Token. Dario sorts HLs with CEC.

Turn 12

Another Stinging Breeze, targeting Nestore (10, 8), again another block and dodge (rawhide roll 8, recovered). Cinzia attacks (7, 10), hitting Delicate Shoulder Joint (WR 1) and Fey Helm Wings (WR 3), failing to wound.

Karl attacks from back (6), hitting Hypnotic Deflection (8), causing a Critical that wounds for Vain Flourish and triggers a Breakthrough (roll of 3, 1 Survival and +1 Luck token).

Nestore moves to be targeted next and blocks, Dario bandages Nestore.

Turn 13

Next AI is invitation, target Nestore (8,7,6). One hit is blocked, one is dodged (Rawhide roll does not recover, so 0 survival to dodge the second time), one hit to Arms passes. Nestore gets also Knockback 7 and a -1 Strength token.

Exactly now, the game has to be stopped because children arrived. I did my best to recover from here, but I continued this showdown the next day, alone.

Now, only HL left is the trap, so we prepare to trigger it. Everyone moves back and a Rawhide Headband is used, then Nestore goes to trigger the trap (hits Restless Roots). Everybody gets dragged towards the Fairy Ring, but thanks to the movement, nobody enters. FK goes to the center of the ring and Nestore is bloomed there, with a +1 Luck token. Basic Action against Nestore is (4,1,7), so 1 hit to Arms, causing 2 Damage which Knock Nestore Down. Karl encourages Nestore to stand, turn has ended.

Turn 14

AI is Appel, targeting Nestore (4,10). One hit to Arms, which would cause a Severe Injury, so I use the lifetime reroll to reroll location, which is Legs. Damage is soaked, Nestore gets -1 Luck token. Collision with Dario is triggered.

Karl attacks (7), hitting Fey Breeches (WR 1, failure), then encourages Dario and dashes away (1 Bleeding token).

Dario uses CEC, moves and encourages Nestore. Cinzia attacks (9,4) hitting Fey Hilt (WR 10, but no critical because of the 9 -1 Luck tokens), discarding Stinging Breeze. After this, she dashes out of the way (getting Bleeding token).

Nestore moves in place and blocks again.

Turn 15

Majestic Onslaught, targeting Nestore. Karl is bloomed inside, attack vs Nestore is (6,4,4), which is a single hit that is easily blocked.

Karl dashs, attacks (10) hitting Retreating Feint (WR 4) and causing a critical wound (Nature Reflection is discarded) and causing another Breakthrough (8, + Survival and + Luck again). After this, Karl moves away.

Nestore attacks (5,6), missing twice and moving away (Bleeding token).

Dario bandages Karl. Cinzia moves and attacks (9,9), hitting Flowering Bundle (6, Bladed Kick discarded) and Delicate Knee Joint (8, Disarm is discarded).

Turn 16

Ok, this turn hurted a lot. Another Majestic Onslaught, blooming Nestore and targeting him. Attack is 4,5,4, all misses. So, the FK shrieks angrily, causing 6 brain damage to Cinzia (Brain Trauma: Lunacy, gets the Hoarder disorder), 7 to Dario (Brain Trauma: Memory loss: -2 Weapon Proficiency. Great. Now he’s at 0 again), 6 to Nestore (Another Memory loss, so Nestore loses his single proficiency with shields) and 1 brain damage to Karl.

Now, Dario uses CEC. Karl attacks (3), missing.

Nestore attacks from Blind Spot (7,10), attacking its Armored Back (WR 10, Stinging Breeze is discarded) and Retreating Feint (WR 9, critical to discard Salute and trigger Breaktrough. Roll is 3, so +1 luck token and knocked down at edge of the Fairy Ring.

Cinzia just moves and sorts AI through Rawhide Headband.

Turn 17

AI is Appel, targeting Cinzia (4, 8): two hits to Arms and Body (knocked down), then Cinzia gets Knockback 7 and -1 Luck token (no problem, she’s back at -10).

Karl attacks again (10), hitting Furious Riposte (6, critical), discarding Invitation and triggering Breakthrough (roll is 9, so +1 Luck and +1 Survival). Karl dashes away (1 bleeding token) and encourages Cinzia.

Cinzia moves and sorts AI with Rawhide Headband. Dario does the same with CEC on Hit Locations.

Nestore attacks with shield (7,5), hitting Delicate Shoulder Joint and wounding with a critical which discards Majestic Onslaught, gives FK -1 Accuracy token, gives a free block to Nestore and +1 Survival, drawing a Lantern Bloom flower resource.

Turn 18

Appel targets Nestore (3,9), the hit is blocked.

Dario attacks with the accurate bow (7), hitting Fey Sabatons (4, wound), discarding Appel. Now the monster is down to its Basic Action.

Karl attacks and misses, Cinzia does the same. Karl dashes in position (bleeding token), Nestore does the same and blocks.

Turn 19

Basic Action, targeting Nestore (6,3,4): due to -1 Accuracy tokens, these rolls are all misses.

Dario uses CEC. Karl dashes and moves, attacking blind spot (7). This results in a hit to Fey Helm Wings, causing a critical which nets one Sighing Bloom and kills the Flower Knight.

Everyone gets 1 Hunt XP (Karl ages, getting Club as weapon type and gaining Trascended Masochist Fighting Art).

Dario and Nestore get 1 weapon proficiency, getting back to 1 point. Man, that guy sucks with bows.

Resource draw is Love Juice, 2 Monster Hides, ???, 3 Osseous Blooms, Warbling Bloom, 2 Lantern Blooms.

Also, we get a Flower Knight Badge, we trigger Sense Memory next Settlement Phase and add Petal Spiral to Innovation deck.

The hunt was unlucky, but bountiful. Time to go back and put these resources to good use!

#kdm #flower knight

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dontmindmyshadowhunting · 3 years ago

Text

Dru meets Ash (Fan Fic)

This is Chap 6 of “Welcome to Faerieland”, a sequel to my Kitty Fan Fic "To never being parted" although it can be read as a standalone story.

Dru meets Ash (again, although she doesn’t know they have already met) in this Chapter.

AO3 Link here.

*****

Jaime and Dru landed a little away from a clearing where a revel was being held. Jaime hastily slipped the Eternidad back into his pocket. He would give it back to Cristina eventually, but in the meantime, he knew she had no trouble being escorted in and out of the Unseelie Court whenever she wanted to. Perks of being the King’s girlfriend.

Jaime and Dru had both dressed in faerie clothes, in order to blend in. Dru was wearing a long azur blue dress that brought out the color of her eyes. It fell just above her ankles, revealing high-heeled boots (conveniently hiding a few daggers). An upturned collar and long sleeves covered the marks on her neck and arms, though the low-cut neckline would inescapably draw anyone’s attention to her cleavage. Her dark brown hair was efficiently pulled into an elegant bun. Where Jaime and Dru’s skin showed, both had covered their marks with concealer.

As they walked toward the revel, and the music grew louder, Dru turned to Jaime. “I have to go find a friend of Nene’s. She may help us locate Ty and Kit. It’s better if I go alone, she knows the Blackthorns very well but she’s a bit wary around other Shadowhunters. Don’t stay too far, though. And of course, I don’t need to tell you not to drink or eat anything.”

“No, you don’t,” Jaime answered a little harshly. Blackthorns knew a great deal about the Fair Folk, but so did the Rosales, he wanted to remind her.

When they had finally joined the party, Dru waved at a faerie woman with blue hair and purple eyes who was standing next to a tent, in deep conversation with a kelpie, and left Jaime to stand awkwardly at the edge of the forest.

He had not been there five minutes when a fey swooped in to offer some refreshments.

“No, thanks,” he replied immediately, lifting one of his hands reflexively to prevent the fey from coming any closer.

“Are you certain? Mundanes are particularly fond of this one,” he said, pointing to a blue drink, “it makes you look younger. Not that you need it, of course.”

“Huh. Is there a drink that makes you grow like two years older, without altering your appearance?” The faerie stared at him aghast. Jaime couldn’t blame him. “Never mind, very stupid question,” Jaime mumbled.

Dru appeared then, her eyes glowing in excitement. She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the forest.

“So... any information on where we could find your brother and Kit?”

“Have you ever been to a revel before?” She replied, ignoring his question.

“Hum. No, but Cristina told me a bit about them…”

“Come over here,” she said as she drew him further into the forest. She stopped in front of a tree, put both her hands on his chest and pushed him against the trunk. His back hit the wood with a loud thump but it was mostly drowned by the sound of his heart beating in his chest.

Her gaze was intense, dark eyelashes batting seductively over her blue-green eyes. Jaime swallowed.

“Er- Dru, what are you doing? Aren’t we supposed to go hunting for Ty and Kit?”

“Relaaax. What happens in Faerie stays in Faerie, doesn’t it?”

She bit her lower lip and he gasped.

“God, Dru, those lips…” Jaime choked. His thoughts were becoming more and more incoherent.

“Can I… kiss you?” she asked.

“God, yes. Please.” Jaime slumped against the tree trunk, feeling all the tension leave his body at once.

Dru closed her eyes and he did the same. As she pressed her full lips against his, he could feel blood burning through his veins like wildfire. Yes, yes, finally. He could be struck by lightning - he probably would - he didn’t care. He would die a happy man.

She bit his lower lip and he could taste his own blood, but he didn’t mind. Feisty little Dru. He brought his hands on either side of her face to cup her cheeks, but instead of soft skin he felt a very light... stubble. He pulled away immediately and found himself staring into a pair of bright blue eyes, the colour of a summer sky. Kit Herondale was smiling at him, his grin as mischievous as ever but somehow it looked wrong. All wrong.

“What does your heart truly desire, little Shadowhunter?” he said, cocking his head, and it was not his voice, but a woman’s voice.

From one moment to another, Kit’s blond hair and blue eyes were replaced by a faerie woman with gray fine hair drifting around a pale face, her skin smooth and ageless. He was staring at a leanansidhe. He cursed himself. What a fool he had been.

He stepped back, feeling sick, and hit something hard behind him. He was about to turn when he was dealt with a blow on the head. His sight blurred and he barely had the time to blink before he fell into unconsciousness.

****

As she was talking to Nene’s friend, Dru saw Jaime disappear into the forest with a faerie. What the hell was he thinking? They weren’t here to have fun.

She thanked her contact, who unfortunately didn’t have any information, and moved to where Jaime had vanished inside the forest.

The tree trunks were spaced, but their branches leafy and close enough that it was difficult to see beyond a few feet. She cursed Jaime silently as she got deeper inside the woods, the sounds of the revel now receding and being replaced by the sounds of nocturnal animals and insects. She thought about all the horror movies that warned you from doing just that.

If it wasn’t for her years of Shadowhunter training she wouldn’t have heard the soft footfalls behind her. She stepped further into the forest until she was at an advantageous position for a fight and whirled to face her stalker. It was a very tall faerie knight dressed in elegant velvety clothes. Probably gentry and part of the King’s guard. He smiled at her and she kept herself from shivering from the coldness of his grin.

“What are you doing here all alone, little girl?”

He probably thought she was a helpless mundane with the Sight. Admittedly, she didn’t look like the Shadowhunter women type, with her curvy figure.

“Minding my own business. As you should.”

“Do you know there are dangerous creatures lurking in these woods?”

“I definitely do. And let me tell you a secret…” She cupped her hand around her mouth and spoke in a stage whisper. “I am the scariest one of them.”

The faerie knight laughed.

“I am Ruadhan Fairburn. I used to be one of the best knights of King Kieran’s guard, and I have met him personally once. I am also acquainted with Gwyn ap Nudd, of the Wild Hunt. You certainly don’t frighten me.”

Oh, no. He did have a reputation as one of the realm’s best fighters, before King Kieran had suggested he retire, probably due to his attitude.

She mimed checking her watch (although she wasn’t wearing any). “Oooh, so it’s already time for a bit of name-dropping? Sorry, none of these ring a bell.”

No need to tell him she had seen Gwyn cry in front of Love actually a week before, on Friday’s movie night, and that she affectionately called King Kieran Kiki.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. When I am done with you, my name will be printed in your memory.”

“Hmmm. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll pass.” She started running her hand through her hair casually, intending to pull out her hair stick made with adamas. It was a gift from Jem who had it made by Sister Emilia.

The faerie’s expression turned furious. “I am not really giving you a choice,” he said in a clipped tone.

An audible sigh had them both whip their head toward the general direction of the sound.

A few feet away, up a large tree, a boy - or rather a young man judging by his frame and the length of his long limbs - was lounging on the thickest branch. He was reading, holding his book high, so Dru could not see his face, only white blond hair tucked behind pointy ears. He was dressed in stunning finery, all black, his collar turned up. He was wearing dark silk gloves and his long fingers were splayed across the cover of his book. He was most certainly part of the gentry, or even royal blood, Dru thought.

“You heard the lady,” he said in a bored voice, and Dru could not help but startle at the sound. It was a beautiful, lyrical voice. “She is not interested. Now, move along. Go hump a tree or something.”

“Excuse me?” the faerie knight spluttered, his delicate features set in a mask of shock. “Do you know who I am?”

“I don’t know who you are, but I know what you are, and that’s enough to convince me not to develop our budding relationship any further,” he answered, turning a page.

The knight started to advance on him, but the blond faerie didn’t even lift his nose from his book. With a flick of his hand, he had the faerie knight hauled away like a puppet, as if a giant invisible hand had grabbed him from behind.

“Don’t move any closer. What did I just say about me not wanting to develop our relationship further? Have you never been taught how to take no for an answer?”

The faerie knight was seething but he backed away, walking in reverse, before he whirled and disappeared inside the deep forest.

“Thanks, I guess.” Dru said, relaxing her stance. “Although we could have avoided the drama. I had the situation quite in hand before you intervened. I could have knocked him out before he had the chance to spell out the word asshole.”

The faerie laughed, and it was a beautiful chime sound.

“Ladies shouldn't have to dirty their hands,” he said, as if she had not just uttered the word “asshole”, disqualifying her as such.

“What century do you live in?” she asked, shaking her head. “Anyway, I am a Shadowhunter, dirtying my hands is part of the job description.”

She saw his whole body suddenly tense. Slowly, he brought the book down, just enough to reveal a pair of green eyes under delicate blond eyebrows. As soon as he caught sight of her, his eyes widened in surprise and he let the book fall on the ground, the resulting thump muffled by the grass.

In a single swift and elegant motion, he had jumped from his tree and was standing a few feet away, facing her.

Up close, she could see his eyes were a clear emerald green. It made her think of grass fields glowing under the spring sun. His features were sharp and ethereal, his white blond hair tousled as if they had caught wind. Physically, he was the opposite of Jaime, all pale white and thin silvery curls where Jaime had brown golden skin and dark thick hair. They both had a lean figure and a debonair manner, but where Jaime was almost gangly, the faerie was all graceful moves and regal stance.

He is absolutely gorgeous, Dru admitted reluctantly. And he was watching her as if he knew all the secrets of her heart, as if he had always known her and was merely returning to her after leaving for a short while.

Although she was almost certain she had never met him, something about him struck her as oddly familiar. She was idly wondering whether her mind had conjured up one of the princes of her books. Maybe, he was the product of her own fantasy and he would disappear from one blink to another… But no, she had not been the only one to see him. Get a grip, she told herself.

“It’s you,” he breathed.

Dru tried to regain her composure. She straightened up as she answered. “It’s definitely me.” She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

“Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night,” he whispered in a daze.

By the Angel, his voice. Everything about him ensnared your senses, enticed you to love and worship him. But Dru knew better than to let herself be fooled by men’s - especially faerie men’s - spells and enchantments.

She swallowed and answered in her most detached voice. “Shakespeare. Romeo meets Juliet. Act I Scene 5. Already bringing out the heavy artillery, I see. Do you always quote other people’s work to make yourself interesting? Or do you actually have a personality?”

The strange prince was taken aback for a second. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face. He was breathtaking when he smiled.

“Oush,” he replied, miming a sword stabbing through his chest. “That went straight through my heart.”

“This line may work its spell on the naive and gullible girls you usually manage to sweep off their feet, but it definitely doesn’t work on me.” Dru sniffed.

The fey cocked his head, as if he was inspecting a strange wild animal.

“You assume that I am trying to seduce you?”

She rolled her eyes and whirled, avoiding to stare at him for too long. He was quite intimidating. And she needed to find Jaime.

“Don’t be a jerk, in addition to being a cliché,” she said without a backward glance, as she walked away. She could hear the sound of his laugh behind her, echoing in the forest like ringing bells.

****

Tagging @gabtapia sorry I’ve been so busy lately but I am definitely back now with more chapters.

#cassandraclare #cassandra clare fan fiction #the wicked powers #the dark artifices #jaime rosales #drusilla blackthorn #ash morgenstern #ash and dru #dru and ash #ash x dru #dru x ash #tda fanfiction #tsc fanfiction #the shadowhunters chronicles icons #the shadowhunter chronicles

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