#fictoadber

[weretoad-writer]

Denial

Fictober - Day 11 Prompt: “It’s not always like this.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: violence/blood/gore

Clean clothes, new clothes, new hair, everything trimmed, everything straight, skin scrubbed raw. He feels wrong, smells wrong. He doesn’t want to be new. A glimpsed reflection in the Temple fountain. I’m not like this. Darkness, candle light, incense in his lungs, in his hair, in his skin. It smells like burning meat. On his knees. Always on his knees. A body for hire. Selling his soul just for something to fill up the emptiness. Self scraped off like a palimpsest for them to write upon.

It’s not always like this. He sits in the wet sand, drunken and bloody and lies to a ghost. I’m not always like this. But he can’t fall asleep anymore without a lullaby of fists and booze, and shame is just so much kindling to the anger burning him empty. He finds a place for it, in a different kind of temple to a different kind of god. On his knees as his body breaks and his insides shake with the roaring of a crowd and the man towering over him thinks he’s won. They always think they’ve won. One blade severs his hamstring, the other opens his throat, and the blood feels hot and sticky on his hands. Dead for no reason. Dead because he was angry, dead because it hurts. I’m not like this. But he kills and it’s easy. He kills and it’s nothing. 

He has no skill in surgery. Ribs, he finds, are hard to break. He uses his boots. Each impact shearing away a piece of himself. I’m not like this, he tells himself, arms bloody to the elbows. He opens her chest. I’m not like this, he tells himself, with her heart in his hands. Heavy. Still warm. I’m not like this.

He hasn’t wanted to try in a long time. He’s not certain he wants to now. He doesn’t want to. But he’s not quite such a coward as to ask for something he is not willing himself to give. So he tries. And he fails. And he tries and he fails. And he fails. And he fails. Falling to pieces behind a mask whose face is as shattered and fragile as the lies he tells. I’m alright. I’m alright. I’m alright. If he says it enough maybe it will be true. He needs it to be true. I’m not like this. 

***

The robe is heavy and stifling, tangling around his ankles. His scalp scraped raw and bare. The mark between his eyes itches. A new lamb, branded and shorn. He kneels and they place their words upon his tongue, a poisoned eucharist. Selling his soul just for something to fill up the emptiness. I’m not like this. Something to hold onto. A name. Two names. A lamb with wolf’s teeth. 

The bodies are there when he closes his eyes. He’s lost track of how many times he has killed them. The warm slick of blood on his hands, on his face, soaking through his clothes. Panic. The acid burn of adrenaline. They lie at his feet. Shapes, bodies, targets, threats just a moment ago. Now they have faces. Now it’s too late. He wakes. But it isn’t that kind of nightmare. There is no waking from this. There is no going back. There is no stopping either. Not until the blood on his hands means something. I’m not like this. He wants to believe it. 

New blood on ancient stones, and he is falling to his knees, and in his hands he holds his heart, and in his hands he holds everything that matters and in his hands he holds nothing. This is what he is. Not the hands cradling his head, he is the black, grinning gash that opens his throat. He is not the touch, clumsy, pleading, the fingers brushing an empty face -- his face -- he is the streaks of blood -- his blood -- they leave behind. He is what he has done. Not why he has done it. ‘Why’ won’t bring him back.

Sunlight. A small room. Rumpled blankets piled in a corner. A coin on the dresser, flipped to heads, beside a stack of books. A convincing stage for such a poor player. There are moments, sometimes, when he almost believes it. Bits and pieces of a life. Collected. Displayed. A living shadow box for someone who doesn’t exist. I’m not like this. 

***

But it’s not always like this. A cycle of trial and error, trying and failure. Recursive. An ouroboros. But there are moments when the pattern breaks. Like a gulp of air to someone drowning, breaking the surface just often enough that they keep thrashing, keep struggling. Neither of them know how to do anything else. Moments when they get it right. Almost right. Close enough for them. Moments, however brief, when Pain cedes its place at the center of the stage, and they can step from the nameless chorus as themselves. 

[weretoad-writer]

Paranoia

Fictober - Day 2 Prompt: “Just follow me, I know the area.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: language

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It felt wrong. Eska looked down at the brightly colored tunic and felt his stomach knot. It looked like it cost more gold than he’d seen in his entire life. The fabric was soft. He hadn’t known that clothes could be soft. It made his skin crawl. He imagined he could feel the filth from his skin soaking into it. He’d only worn it for half a minute and he’d already ruined it.

“Well? How’s it fit?” The mercenary’s voice came from the other side of the door and Eska’s stomach twisted again. He gave the shirt one last self-conscious tug and let him in. 

Jespar’s face split into a grin. “That’s better! You look every inch the noble young Mysir.” Round, dark eyes that looked unnaturally large in that gaunt face regarded him warily as if uncertain whether or not they were being mocked. “I mean it! The color suits you.”

The gaudy clothes went some way towards masking the boy’s skeletal frame and his matted hair had been tucked up under a hat that was entirely too large. He still looked ridiculous. But then, that was the point. Endraleans had certain preconceptions about what Kileans looked like. Give them what they expected and with any luck they wouldn’t look past it. 

“C’mon. Follow me.”

Eska trailed him down the stairs and out of the tavern. He moved awkwardly in the new boots, like a dog whose paws had been wrapped against the cold for the first time. He missed the feel of the ground against the soles of his feet.

The street outside was bright and bustling in a way that should have made him feel at home, but instead he found himself flinching at every raised voice and sudden movement. The clothes on his back felt like they were burning into his skin. Everyone was staring at him. Except that no one was staring at him. But the feeling was still there, of eyes boring into him. Picking him apart. Imposter! Thief! 

They’re not stolen! The words crouched in his mouth, filling the space behind his teeth and back into his throat until he felt that if he didn’t blurt them out, he would choke. Each time they passed through a gate he was sure the guards would stop them. 

The buildings grew taller and finer as they climbed. The mercenary pointed out landmarks while Eska’s eyes marked alleys, handholds, trees, scaffolding, darting from one escape to the next. By the time they reached the gate above the Nobles’ Quarter, his under tunic was soaked through and clinging with sweat and he couldn’t stop shivering. 

“You alright?” Jespar gave him a quizzical look, but Eska only nodded jerkily. 

They continued to climb, rocky cliff face on one side and the mountain falling away in a dizzy drop to the other, until they rounded the last bend and the high walls of the temple loomed before them, and all at once Eska felt his blood freeze. 

How could he have been so stupid?

“I’ll introduce you as--” The mercenary was explaining something but Eska scarcely heard him. He remembered iron masks and fire and twisted bodies. He remembered a cell and chains and the bite of a lash across his back. He could smell blood and burning meat. 

The mercenary’s hand closed around his arm. “Just let me do the talking.” 

The noise the boy made was more animal than human and before Jespar could react, he had wrenched his arm free and was backing away from him, brandishing one of Jespar’s own daggers.

“Woah, woah! Take it easy!”

“D’you think I’m an idiot?” Eska’s voice was high and shaky. “You think I’m just going to let you turn me over to them?”

“What? Turn you over -- what are you talking about?”

“What’s the bounty on outcasts here? That’s what this is, right? That’s why you’re doing this? Well I’m not swinging from a fucking cross just so you can make some easy coin!”

Jespar stared at him, utterly taken aback, and suddenly it clicked. The South Realm accent.... heck, he’d even told him the port they’d sailed from. “Eska…” he put his hands up, taking half a step back, making an effort to keep his voice calm and even. “This isn’t Ostian. No one’s going to…. “purify” you or whatever they call it. There’s no bounty. Heck and even if there was, d’you really think I’d drag you all the way here to collect it? If I wanted to turn you in, I could have done it in Riverville.”

He saw him falter and pressed on gently. “We had a deal, remember? You helped me with with that job and I said I’d help you. That’s all this is. No one is going to hurt you.”

Eska took another step back, the tip of the dagger trembling like a leaf. The words made sense. They made sense and it terrified him. Every experience, every ingrained instinct screamed that he was making a mistake, but the words made sense. He couldn’t trust his own fear. He couldn’t trust his own judgement. He couldn’t trust himself. He felt like he was losing his mind. 

This wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening. This was just another nightmare. He just needed to wake up. Gods, please let him wake up! 

His back jarred against the stone cliff. What was he doing? What the fuck was he doing? The one person who’d shown him any sort of kindness and he’d just pulled a knife on him. What the fuck was wrong with him?

The dagger fell to the ground, frantic, stammered apologies tumbling after it. “Shit. Shit, I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I -- I -- Gods, I  -- Shit. ”

“Hey, take it easy...” Jespar moved a step closer, reaching out a hand to reassure him, but stopped short when the boy flinched away from it.

“It’ll go away, won’t it?” There were tears in his eyes. He stared up at him, pleading. It had been a long time since someone had looked at him like that and Jespar found himself wishing fervently that he would stop. “The fever -- If I -- If I just don’t use magic, it’ll go away. I just won’t use magic. I --”

Jespar shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. I’m sorry, truly; but unless you get it under control, it’s only going to keep getting worse.”

Eska was paralyzed. He wanted to run. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to hide. He wanted to scream. He wanted to bury his face in a near stranger’s shoulder and sob. He wanted to stop. He wanted everything to stop. He wanted--

His mind balked at the final thought, skirting the edges of a wound still too fresh and too deep to process. There was a hole in the world and it warped everything around it. An aching emptiness that threatened to swallow him. 

“Nothing is going to happen to you in there.” The mercenary’s voice was gentle and uncharacteristically earnest. He’d been kind to him. Eska wanted to trust him. What choice did he have? 

He looked up hesitantly. “You swear?”

Jespar smiled and ducked his head in a little bow. “You have my word. You’re in good hands. The best, in fact!” He scooped his dagger up from the ground and wiped it against his gambeson. “Nice lift, by the way. Do, ah…. do you need a minute?”

Eska tried to answer, but the words stuck in his throat and he simply shook his head. A minute would only give him time to think. And if he thought about what he was doing it he’d never make it. 

[weretoad-writer]

Elevator Pitch

Fictober - Day 28 Prompt: “Enough! I heard enough.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: language

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The walls of the Dust Pit dissolved around him and Eska found himself slamming down on rotten planks in a narrow, unfamiliar tunnel. He lurched to his feet, hand snatching for the phial of flashpowder in his belt. 

“Wait!” Instead of pressing his advantage, his opponent had withdrawn a step. He held up his hands. “You can hold the fireworks. I just want to talk.”

“Bullshit,” Eska snarled, holding the phial in front of him like a ward as he set his back to the wall. His eyes darted wildly, but the shadows around them were empty. “What are you stalling for?”

“I’m not. I--”

“Where the fuck are we?”

“Shaft off the Corpse Pit. This isn’t--”

“What the fuck--”

“I was about to explain.”

Eska made an emphatically sarcastic gesture of invitation. 

Sharp eyes glared at him over the mask. “I’m Tharaêl Narys. Voice of the Father.” There was a clumsy formality to the way he spoke, a deliberateness, as of words thought out and rehearsed before. “I’ve been watching you for a while now because I’m looking for someone with your set of skills. And--”

Eska gave a short bark of laughter. “Is that right?” The taunting grin was a mask that only covered his mouth. Now they were even. “What’ll it be, then? Downstairs inside or a tuppenny upr--”

“Shut up!”

There was a beat of bristling silence. 

“The point is: I want to hire you. For a mission.”

“Bad luck. I’m no mercenary.”

“You’re willing to kill for coin in front of a gawking crowd.”

The words cut deeper than they had any right to and Eska faltered, his mask momentarily slipping. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t judge.” The change of tack was hasty, awkward. “The pit fighters--”

“You made your point,” Eska cut him off, bristling after the first sting of shame. “But if I wanted to work for a bunch of lunatics who think playing dress-up in stupid costumes makes them scary, I’d have fucking stayed in Ostian!”

He saw anger flash in the other man’s eyes, the sudden shift of weight. And then...nothing. A strained exhale. 

“How’s this,” the Rhalâim bit the words out, his voice tight and controlled. “Hold the insults until you know the whole story.”

Eska stared at him. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. You didn’t spit on an offer from an order like the Rhalâta. One of their representatives would never take that to the face, swallow it, and then just keep on with the pitch. That’s what you did when you were desperate. That’s what you did when you needed someone.

And the Rhalâta sure as shit didn’t need him. He wasn’t a mercenary. He wasn’t even an accomplished fighter. He’d cut his teeth on maybe a half dozen arena fights and only survived out of sheer bloodyminded recklessness and spite. 

The Rhalâta had the coin to take their pick of the best. They didn’t need another back alley scrapper. Which meant that this job, whatever the hell it was, wasn’t for the Rhalâta. 

Slowly, deliberately, Eska slid the phial back into his belt and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. 

I’m listening. 

The tension in the narrow space changed, like a full drawn bow easing back to neutral. Still strung and nocked, but -- for the moment -- no longer straining. 

“It’s simple actually.” There was a lingering edge that he couldn’t quite keep out of his voice. “I want your help in killing someone.”

[weretoad-writer]

Breakfast

Fictober - Day 25 Prompt: “I could really eat something.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: brief language

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The morning caught them both by surprise. When the conversation had begun, slouched between the joint peaks of the bank’s roof, the stars had been bright overhead, and the next time they looked up, it was the pale grey of early morning. 

Well, shit.

The crisp scent of the night air was tinged with damp and woodsmoke, faint at first, but growing stronger. Across the skyline they could watch as, one by one, small trails of smoke began to rise into the air, mixing with the mist off the water in the South Quarter. The city was waking up.

Eska stretched, stifling a yawn. “You hungry?” 

Tharaêl’s brow knit, tugging at the still healing scar between his eyes. He wasn’t used to these sorts of questions. You didn’t eat because you were hungry. You were always hungry. You ate to stay alive. It was like asking if someone enjoyed breathing. Ultimately irrelevant. 

He knew it was less a question of what he was and more what he wanted. But he wasn’t used to being asked that either. What the fuck do you care? The kneejerk response was always on the tip of his tongue. What do you get out of it? He’d gotten…...better at biting it back, at waiting that half a heartbeat for his thoughts to catch up. He knew the answer; he even half believed it. But the instinctive bristle still remained. 

He compromised. “Why?”

Eska raised a quizzical brow, his eyes only half open. “I’m just going to start taking that as a ‘yes’.” He had pushed himself up and begun to scramble lazily up the pitch. “I’ll be right back.”

Tharaêl opened his mouth, then shut it again, glaring after him with more irritation than he felt. It was a simple bloody question. With a soft exhale, he sagged back against the roof, listening to the scrape of boots against shingle growing fainter until they disappeared. 

He tilted his head back. The sky had changed from grey to a pale blue, the clouds warming to a faded purple, tinged pink in places, but the city itself was still blanketed in the soft shadows of early morning. It would be hours yet before the sun made it over the peak where the temple sat. 

Just as he was beginning to wonder exactly how loose Eska’s definition of “right back” was, he heard footsteps on the roof once more and a moment later Eska came scrabbling over the peak. His scarf had been turned into a miniature sack and as he set it down between them, Tharaêl could see that it was overflowing with--

“What the fuck is that?”

“Alright, so I might have got a little carried away.”

“This is a week’s worth of food!”

“I was hungry, I couldn’t decide! And you wouldn’t say what you wanted.”

“You didn’t ask me that!”

Eska’s response was to pick up what looked like a sausage wrapped in some kind of flaky bread and toss it at his head. 

Tharaêl caught it reflexively, realized that he had effectively been maneuvered into taking a piece, and flipped Eska the rudest gesture he could manage with one hand. 

The offending pastry was still warm; he could smell the grease and butter and -- Damnit. Fine. With a scowl, he shoved half of whatever the fuck it was in his mouth. 

It…. was good. Better than good. It was gone. Inhaled in two mouthfuls. Not entirely intentionally.  

When he glanced up, Eska was looking at him with chipmunk round cheeks and an intolerably smug grin on his face. 

“Fuck off,” he grumbled and reached for another. 

Between the two of them, the “week’s worth” of food was gone within ten minutes. 

[weretoad-writer]

Witness

Fictober - Day 12 Prompt: “What if I don’t see it?” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: descriptions of violence, burns

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It was the Day of Proclamation. Red banners fluttered from rooftops and poles, and columns of black smoke rose into the air from all corners of the city. In the vermillion glow of sunset, one could almost imagine that the city itself was burning. 

Throughout the day animals were sacrificed at each of the city’s shrines, and their meat roasted on enormous fires. Blood soaked into the dirt and pooled on the cobbles. The whole city smelled like a slaughterhouse.

Eska and Sirius perched at the edge of a roof overlooking the square, their faces smeared with dirt like those in the crowd below. At the center of the square was a raised platform;  nine pyres surrounded it, and growing out of the center of each of them a cross, its wood dull and grey. Dry as dust. 

“Here they come.”

Sirius followed Eska’s gaze. Sure enough, the van of the procession was just rounding the corner of the high street. The march of the Purified. It began at the Temple. The prisoners -- the Purified -- were stripped naked and driven through the streets, forced to stop at each of the shrines around the city and confess their sins before a mob of people eager to prove their own purity and devotion by hurling taunts and refuse and stones. The lucky ones didn’t survive to reach the end. 

No one, it seemed, had been lucky today however. Sirius looked over the straggling line of prisoners. He counted nine. One for each cross. 

They had been herded onto the platform now and the roar of the crowd turned Sirius cold. That was what scared him, had always scared him since his father had taken him as a small child. The Temple was the Temple, they were brutal and ghoulish, but that was what they were. The people in the crowd were neighbors, friends, people you worked with, people you did business with. But they were also this. 

And how different was he, really? He was here, dirt on his face like the rest of them. Because that was what you did. You went to the festivals. You made sure you were seen to go the festivals. You had conversations with several different people at several different times just so you could, if questioned, point to them as witnesses. And if you were in the crowd, you cheered. You cheered and yelled and cursed and spat and hurled whatever you could get your hands on because if you didn’t, if the priests were unsatisfied with the zeal of their flock, they would simply take people from the crowd. 

It was impossible to make out what the prisoners were saying over the noise of the mob, though it scarcely mattered. None of it was true. Speeches given to them by the priests. Elaborate confessions of blasphemy when, for most of them, the only thing they were guilty of was being related or in proximity to someone rumored to be an Outcast. Or perhaps they were simply unlucky enough to own a piece of property that the Temple coveted.

As each confessed they were made to kneel and a priest anointed them with oil. Poured it over their heads until they were dripping with it. The Creator left nothing to chance. They would die burning, not suffocated by the smoke.

Sirius glanced sidelong at Eska. The smaller boy was watching everything with an unnerving intensity. He always watched. Sirius didn’t understand it. 

The prisoners were being mounted on the crosses. Once the fires started all eyes would be on the crosses and they could slip away--

“I’m going to get closer!”

“Eska, wait--” 

But he was already over the edge, dropping from handhold to handhold and with a soft curse, Sirius scrambled after him. He was a slower climber than Eska; by the time he reached the ground there was no sign of him. 

He pushed his way into the crowd. The tight pack of bodies making his heart race as the roar filled his ears. He hadn’t gone far when the screams started. They cut through the noise like a knife, he could feel them in his bones. He kept pushing. 

He was nearly to the platform when he found him. He stood transfixed, staring up at the nearest cross. The body upon it was no longer moving, its skin blistered and blackened, face twisted in agony. He could already smell it. 

“Eska!”

Nothing.

“Eska!” Sirius grabbed him by the shoulders and wrenched him around. He was shaking. He looked at Sirius the way he did when he woke from a nightmare, wide eyes black to the rims, only half seeing him. The dirt on his face was streaked with tears.

“What are you doing?”

“I…. I wanted to see.”

“Wanted to…. No. We’re going. Come on--”

“No!” To his consternation, Eska jerked away from him. “If I don’t see it -- I have to see it! I have to.”

“Why?”

“Because -- because….. I wasn’t there! I wasn’t there when they -- when they --  I ran. I ran and I hid and -- and -- and I could hear them. I could hear them and I still...”

“Eska...”

“I didn’t even cut them down! I just -- I just left them. I left them. Like that! They’re still fucking there. They’re still--” 

Sirius clamped a hand on the back of his neck, pulling him forehead to forehead. “Eska… I don’t -- That wasn’t your fault. None of that was your fault. You don’t need to -- to -- whatever in blazes you think you’re doing. You don’t need to do this.”

He saw his face crumple and he sagged into him with a sob. Sirius pulled him close. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

[weretoad-writer]

The Arrangement

Fictober - Day 1 Prompt: “It will be fun, trust me.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: language

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The shop was buried down an alley in the snarled warren of buildings which made up the Undercity’s Barracks, but Molly had been right; you couldn’t miss it. The smell of sulfur and embalming fluid, and something sickeningly floral filled the air the length of the narrow street. It might have been the only place in the Undercity that didn’t reak of shit and death. Eska couldn’t decide if this was worse. Above the door someone had painted a crude image of a potion bottle. There was no name. No one to read it. 

Eska paused at the threshold, scanning the area around the door out of habit. It took him several passes before he saw it. A small glyph scratched in the rotten wood of the frame. The Endralean cant glyph for ‘danger’ was nearly identical to the Nehrimese for ‘shelter’. A mistake he had only needed to make once. 

‘Danger’ could have meant a number of things, but he was near enough now to detect the mix of smoke and saltpeter amidst the sulfur. Not hard to imagine how this place had earned its reputation.

Inside the smell was overpowering. It burned his nose and made his eyes water. Fighting down the impulse to cough, he looked around. Sagging shelves lined the walls filled with bottles of every conceivable type and jars in which vague, unsettling shapes floated; dust covered glass glinted dully in the pale light of a crystal that hung from the ceiling. There were no open flames in sight. 

Teetering stacks of books, and tables covered with more books and more jars and tools filled most of the small space, and a spider’s web of string hung with herbs and leathery chains of dried animal parts stretched between swaybacked beams. The room was -- not exactly empty, not when it was packed to the gills, every surface, every inch of floor (excepting a few narrow paths) stacked with items or furniture, but of another person there was no sign. 

He took a cautious step forward. “Hello?”

There was a booming crack and Eska leapt back towards the doorway as the whole building shuddered, shaking a curtain of dust down from the boards overhead. The sound of jarring glass set his teeth on edge, but there was no flash of magic, no attack. From the floor several feet away a trap door burst open and black smoke billowed out. Eska took another step back, hands twitching towards his daggers. There was the sound of someone coughing and then a head emerged from the trap door, face and hair streaked with soot. 

When they noticed Eska, they froze. “Who the fuck are you?”

“...A customer.” It came out sounding like a question. 

They had fully emerged from the floor by this point and stood regarding him suspiciously. They were half a head taller than he was, wrapped in a stained leather apron with close cropped hair of indeterminate color and, currently, no eyebrows. 

“Gods fucking -- How many times do I need to say it? I don’t sell dust! You godsdamn upper city snobs all think oh, alchemist in the undercity, they must be a fucking dust mixer. Go and fuck off down the Silver Cloud like everyone else!”

Eska’s brows quirked in surprise and he held up his hands, “I’m not after drugs.”

He saw their face sour with distain as they looked him over again. “No? So what does the sunchild want?”

His hands tightened, nails biting into his palms. He should have been used to it by now. “An edge in a fight. Or a way out. An ‘oh shit’ option, really. Got anything like that?”

They considered this for a moment, then turned, disappearing behind a blind of hanging herbs and precariously stacked books. He heard glass clinking and several moments later they reemerged, three iron colored glass flasks in their hands. They set them down on the nearest table. “Flash powder. Break one of these on the ground and bang! bright enough to blind someone for few seconds and enough smoke for you to fuck off somehwere else. Just mind you shut your eyes first.”

He fished out his purse. “I’ll take them.”

“Fine.” A wolfish smirk twitched across their face. “That’ll be five hundred gold.”

“Five hundred? Blazes, I could get it cheaper in the bloody Noble’s Quarter!”

“Why don’t you then?”

Eska glared.  “Mad Molly said you were fair.”

At the beggar’s name their expression sharpened, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “How d’you know Molly?

“The fuck’s it matter?”

They crossed their arms.

“Fucking -- Fine. She’s helped me a couple times, alright? She’s been…. kind.”

“Kind?” They threw back their head with a bark of laughter. “Ain’t many folk can say that of our Molly.” 

They were silent a moment, considering him, and then they struck out a hand. “Let’s try this again, shall we? I’m Talis.”

“Eska.”

“Well, Eska, I’d say it’s a pleasure, but that remains to be seen. Now if you’re a friend of Mol’s, then maybe we can help each other.”

“How exactly?”

“You need potions. I need someone to test potions. In exchange for a discount, or course. Am I moving too fast for you?”

Eska stared at them in weary incredulity. “Last time I drank something without knowing what it did, I ended up trapped in some fucking nightmare prison. I’m really not--”

“Sounds like one hell of a bad trip!” Their expression brightened with impatient curiosity. “Could be... belladonna? Or maybe-- No. Later. You’ll have to tell me about it. Anyway! What d’you say?”

This wasn’t happening. He wasn’t actually ……..Gods, he was actually considering this. “Does this have anything to do with that explosion a minute ago?”

“What? No! That’s not nearly ready for human test subjects. No, this is something I’ve been working on for a while now. A protection from energy potion. It’s perfectly safe! You’ll just drink it and we test to see if it works.”

“Meaning you try to fry me with magic?”

“Exactly! It’ll be fun, trust me!”

[weretoad-writer]

Lessons

Fictober - Day 13 Prompt: “I never knew it could be this way.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: abuse

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It was evening, the desert air just beginning to cool as the shadows lengthened. The sea was at its warmest then. Eska stood in the water, rocking on the balls of his feet as small, lazy swells buffeted his chest. There was something soothing about the motion and the feel of the water against his skin. 

Drawing in a breath, he slipped below the surface. The warmth closed over him, the soft, hollow rushing sound of it filling his ears. For a moment he let himself hang there, half floating, half sinking, letting the tug of the waves push and pull him. Everything was muffled, insulated, as though the rest of the world was much farther away. It was peaceful.

As a child he’d been terrified of the water. Anything deeper than the shallowest puddle he refused to set foot in. Baths had been a point of particular contention. He’d once run away from home for two days when he was five just to avoid it. After that his mother worked out a compromise, an empty wash tub with a wash rag and bucket of water beside it, but she could not remove the source of the fear, even knowing full well what it was.

He should have been drowned at birth. Few days passed without a reminder of this. Verbal reminders for the most part.

But not always. 

When he’d been particularly sinful. When his childish defiance pushed too far. When he simply happened to be within arms reach when the mood took him. Then his father showed him what he had been spared. Showed him how merciful he had been.

He remembered the slap of water against his face and the pain as his nose was crushed against the bottom of the trough. The hard, heavy hand on the back of his neck, like a vice holding him under. The harsh, hollow roar of the water in his ears. The burn of blood and water in his nose. Drowning. Thrashing, kicking, clawing, fighting with every scrap of strength in his small body. Desperate, strangling, starving for air. Drowning. The slack unresponsiveness of his own body as his vision faded, that final conscious moment of utter helplessness. 

He’d hated the water. 

In Ostian he’d nearly drowned. Knocked off the pier while roughhousing with some of the other children. Sirius had pulled him out. Poor Sirius. Eska had nearly clawed his face off when he grabbed him. 

The second time it happened, Sirius had insisted on teaching him to swim. Eska had yet to speak a word of his life before arriving in Ostian and Sirius could not understand his resistance. To say the argument had been a mess would have been generous. Eska had been near hysterical.

He ran away. Which lasted all of -- not even a full day. The night alone was more than he could bear. He didn’t want to lose Sirius. If learning to swim was what it took, then….

He was terrified. In the beginning he would get up to his waist and have to stop because he was shaking so badly and almost too dizzy to stand. He held so tightly to Sirius, he saw the other boy wince in pain, half climbing on him sometimes, clinging like a panicked cat.

But Sirius never let him go under, never let him slip, never pushed him. Eska trusted him. And bit by bit, with Sirius’ gentle coaxing, he learned to trust himself. He learned to trust his arms and legs and the buoyancy of the air in his lungs. He was no longer passive, no longer helpless. Now when he thrashed and kicked, his body responded, the water responded. He had control over what was happening to him. He had control over his body, control over himself.

He’d never felt anything like that before, and the moment it finally sank in, he began to take to the water with a kind of defiant joy. 

The memory faded and he felt the slow pull of a swell rolling over him and in the lull between he surfaced. The evening air felt cool against his face in contrast to the warmth of the water. Above him the soft purple sky stretched to the creeping indigo of the horizon and the faint glimmer of stars. 

A wave of homesickness swept over him all at once, the burn of seawater in his eyes replaced by the sting of tears. Homesick not for a place, but for a person, for a time. He had nothing of Sirius’ to remember him by. Nothing but the small stone hanging around his throat which had never belonged to him and was made of nothing but grief and denial and wishful thinking. His own foolish desperation. But this -- this was something. This was real. This was a gift. Not one that he could touch or hold, not in the physical sense. But a gift nonetheless. Something given by one to another.  He had given him this. His smile, his voice, the safety of his hands, they were still…. here, still part of it. Inextricable. And no one could take that away. 

[weretoad-writer]

Witches’ Brew

Fictober - Day 31 Prompt: “Scared, me?” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: language

Hoooly shit guys, we made it! Thank you so so much for all the support! You guys are the best! <333

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Eska woke to the sting of sulfur in his nostrils, the sharp, choking smell momentarily overwhelming every other sense. He was vaguely aware that he was in Tallis’ shop. Somewhere. And his head felt as though it were splitting in two. The last thing he remembered was them handing him a potion phial.

“What’s this supposed to do?”

“If I told you that, it might affect your experience. I need unbiased results. We’ve been over this.”

“We’ve been over it and it’s bullshit.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“No!”

Tallis grinned. “Fine, fine. It’s to do with your eyes. I can tell you that much.”

“My eyes? Look, I know this might come as a shock, but I kind of need those!”

“It won’t damage them! Probably. Almost certainly.”

“Tallis --”

“Alright, fine, it’s a darkvision formula! If it works, it will allow you to see in the dark. Temporarily, of course, but just think of it!”

“Tallis.”

“You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”

Eska sighed. “Just…. give me the damn bottle.”

He opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. The dull glow of the crystal felt like a spike driven straight through his eyes to the back of his skull. He groaned.

“Oh, thank fuck, you’re awake,” Tallis’ voice came from somewhere nearby. “How are you feeling?”

He flinched away from the sound of their voice. “Gods, d’you have to shout?” His voice was just a croak.

“I’m not shouting,” they continued at the same headsplitting volume. Eska groaned again and tried to cover his ears.

“Sensitivity to sound. Interesting.”

“Fuck off.”

“Anything else?”

“What happened?

“Hmmm. Post-traumatic amnesia….” The sound of their pen scratching out notes felt like it was inside his skull and he gave a low growl of pain.

“As to what happened….You screamed, clutched your head and passed out. Not terribly interesting.”

“It hurts.”

“Yes, yes, I expect so. Drink this, It should help.”

Eska opened his eyes a fraction. The light still hurt, but it was almost bearable as long as he wasn’t looking straight at it. 

“Why the fuck is everything purple?”

“Purple? Fascinating.”

“Tallis, what the fuck--”

“It’s merely a side effect. It should wear off soon.”

“Should?”

Something cold and metallic was pressed against his lips and he recoiled.

“What the--”

There was a long suffering sigh. “It’s a standard tincture for pain. No surprises this time, you have my word. Now drink.”

He drank. The mixture was cool and tasted of fresh herbs and something bitter, soothing his raw throat as it slid down. 

“I think you’ll like the new flashpowder formula I’ve been working on,” Tallis added, more quietly this time, mercifully. “You know those Kilean scorpion peppers you brought me?” Even with his eyes closed, Eska could hear the grin in their voice. “Whoever breathes in that smoke is in for a nasty surprise!”

[weretoad-writer]

Impasse

Fictober - Day 8 Prompt: “Can you stay?” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: language

(this turned into literally the opposite of the prompt in some ways, but it’s still about staying?)

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In the fog they heard the Lost Ones before they saw them. The skitter of bone against hard packed earth and shale. Grey shapes against a grey landscape, wrapped in grey mist, almost impossible to see until they moved. The path ahead was crawling with them, blocking their way to the bridge. 

Eska dropped back behind the rock where they’d taken cover, the clammy chill of the stone like corpse-cold fingers against his back. Two or three, they might have managed, but there were at least a half dozen of the bastards.

He looked again. The riverbed was dry; if they could just go around…. But they were caught between the cliff face on one side and the monastery on the other.

Tharaêl appeared to have come to the same conclusion. He looked like hell. Ashen faced and feverish with dark circles under his eyes -- darker than usual. They hadn’t slept since they got there. Hadn’t eaten either, at least nothing they could keep down. They were out of water.

Eska shut his eyes. His injured arm throbbed like a second heartbeat and every slight movement sent pain jarring through his body. He felt like he was on fire, but he couldn’t stop shivering, as though the damp and chill of the fog had soaked into his bones. 

His father had been haunting him since that morning. A dour figure in his periphery for the most part. An effect of the fever, he told himself, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was the fog? That’s what scared him. More than lost ones, more than the poison in his lungs. If it could make him see things, what else could it do? If it triggered the estrangement again….

“Just take the scroll and get out of here. I’ll meet you in Duneville.” 

Tharaêl gave a low hiss of frustration. “Right. Drop the former Rhalâim into a Temple outpost. What could go wrong.” 

It was the same argument they’d been having since finding the Pyrean cube the day before.

“It’s a cave. With a handful of archivists and engineers. And you can disappear into thin fucking air. You’ll be fine.”

“I’m not the one slowing us down.”

Eska bristled. “That’s not the point!”

“It’s entirely the point! And like you said, I can disappear into thin fucking air. I can make it across the bridge, you can’t.”

“I don’t need magic to stay out of sight.”

“Right, because that’s worked so well so far.”

“Fuck you!”

“You’re seeing things for fuck’s sake!”

“I see things all the damn time! That’s why the temple hired me.”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“I’m not using the scroll! This whole fucking mess is my fault. I dragged you into it. If there’s a way out, you should be the one taking it.”

“And here I was thinking that a trip through a blasted hellscape crawling with lost ones and Sunborn would be a fucking picnic. Don’t be such an ass.”

Eska opened his mouth, then shut it again, indignant protest dying on his lips with a weak laugh. “Alright, alright. You’re right.”

An expectant pause stretched between them and Eska glanced sidelong at Tharaêl, “That I’m an ass. I’m still not using the damn scroll.”

“Fucking--” There was a strained exhale. “Fine. Then we need a distraction.”

[weretoad-writer]

Liminal

Fictober - Day 17 Prompt: “There is just something about them/her/him.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: none

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Sunchild. The name still stings, worse than his split knuckles and swollen face. Across his knees lays a blue and green tunic. Stained with use, ragged in places, but the colors still remind him of the sea. It is the most beautiful thing he has ever owned. 

There has always been something. As a child, it was his hair. Not the soft black of his mother and sister, not the brown of his father. His unruly mop of red like a stain. A blemish that signals the rot beneath. A reminder that he was not his father’s son. He had tried, in his childish way, to remedy this. A (mis)adventure with charcoal dust. An absolute, unholy mess, but he had been so proud. So pleased to show his father. Look! I’m better. I’m fixed. I’m your son now. He wasn’t been able to lie on his back for a month after that.  

He makes a cut in the hem and begins to tear. Strips as long and straight as he can manage. He does this again. And again. He goes through bandages like water these days; they will not go to waste. He takes his knife and cuts a jagged swatch. There is a gash in his shirt which will need patching.

If his red hair marked him as other, his brown eyes and copper skin were his mother’s through and through. Those pieces of him belonged. Those, but not others. In Ostian it was no different. To the Nehrimese, he would always be ‘half-breed’. To the Kileans, ‘pigskin’. He might be tolerated for those pieces of himself which marked him partly one or partly the other, tolerated but never recognized. As a whole, he did not belong anywhere. 

The clothes were a mistake. He sees that now. Worn in the same way as he’d worn rouge on a street corner, smudged into his lips and cheeks with hasty desperation. Convincing to a drunk on a dark night, but nothing more. He should have known better. He should have known better than to pretend to be something he wasn’t. He’d learned that lesson once already and Sirius had paid the price. He should have known better. But he can still fix this.

In the Temple he is ‘Pathless’. In the Noble’s quarter he is, at best, a mistake. The merchants in the Market eye him with suspicion and wonder why he doesn’t buy his goods in the Foreign Quarter. But in the Foreign Quarter he is an ‘olive skinned cut-throat’, a liar, a leech. Go back to Kile. Go back to Nehrim. 

Reaching up, he grabs a fistfull of hair, pulling it taut until his scalp aches. For an instant, a memory, half a memory: of familiar fingers brushing his hair behind his ear, casually affectionate, Sirius’ voice teasing him about how long it’s getting. He makes a cut with his knife, severing hair and memory both. 

It’s the looks that are exchanged every time he opens his mouth, his speech too foreign, too common, too coarse, it’s the plans which hinge on assumptions of abilities he does not possess, it’s the notes, the letters, the summons, the instructions, the scrolls, all written, all -- to him -- illegible,  it’s a title used not out of respect but as a bit between his teeth, it’s the parting shot of someone he thought he could trust. 

His hair comes away in handfuls. He cuts blindly, aggressively. The blade nicks his scalp, slips again, cuts again, leaving chopped, uneven patches sticky with blood. He feels like he’s cutting away part of himself and he wishes he could cut deeper.

Cheap little whore. Urchin child. Thief. Cutthroat. Refuse. Scum. He will never be anything more than this, so he will stop pretending and he will wear the words like badges. There’s a place for people like him. The words are meant to cut, but he hears them as a promise. 

People like him.

But people like him look and see a boy whose clothes are wrong, whose eyes are wrong, the way he stands and moves is wrong. He’s still wrong. Still only pieces of him fit. Sunchild.

He hangs his bloody, mangled head and stares at the ruined shirt and pile of hair in his lap. Like charcoal dust in his hair, it changes nothing. He doesn’t belong here either. 

[weretoad-writer]

Honey Trap

Fictober - Day 20 Prompt: “You could talk about it, you know?” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: brief language

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The normally familiar, insulating din of the False Dog felt different that night -- night? Shit. He had no idea anymore. Now it felt like a buzz that crept under his skin, scattering his thoughts each time he tried to gather them. 

He’d been staring into the same three-quarters full cup for an hour now. Too much had happened for one day. Too much had happened for any amount of time. His fingers twitched towards the mug, their tips just barely brushing it before retreating again. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to be able to think. But he needed to.

Someone propped themselves against the bar beside him. A little too close given how much space there was. 

“Mind if I join you?” It was a woman’s voice and Eska felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The accent was good, he had to give her that. But there was something about her diction, a crispness that caught in his ears like a broken nail snagging against cloth.

She ordered two fire whiskeys. Of course she did. Something strong and keep them coming. That was how this worked. “Name’s Ellis.”

She didn’t smell. That was the second thing he noticed. That wasn’t strictly true; she was wearing some kind of scent, the kind, no doubt, that someone of her station considered “cheap”, but still smelled better than anything anyone down here could afford. Standing as close as she was, there should have been another layer, a mix of squalor and sweat and smoke beneath the cloying floral mask. But there was nothing. 

“Eska,” he answered after a reluctant pause. But you already knew that.

She smiled and nudged the drink in his direction. “Go on, it’s on me. You look like you could do with it.”

Do I also look like an idiot?

There was too much flesh on her face. Her hair was messy, but there was a glow of health to it that made it stand out like a torch. Her skin, at least, was appropriately pale. In the smokey light it would be impossible to see the matte texture of whatever powder had been applied. 

“I’m told I’m a very good listener, you know.” Her voice dripped with sweet concern, brows arching suggestively. “I’m very good at a lot of things.”

Her dress was low cut in a way that he could only assume was meant to be enticing. And very well might have been had he been someone else, an aging war priest with a god complex, perhaps. The cloth was dirty. But dirty as though it had been spattered with mud and left to dry, not the slow aggregate that came of years of living in these conditions. Someone had even taken care to worry the hems of her sleeves and skirt, but the raggedness was sharp edged, as if each tear had happened very recently.  

Her mouth quirked in a small, coy smile as she watched him looking her over. “See something you like?”

He could kill her. He could kill her and it would not be the first person he had killed that day. He imagined thrusting his knife into her guts, imagined the smug smile falling from her face. He could kill her. But it wouldn’t touch him. She was fodder for spears as much as Eska was. 

He was angry. He was aware that he was angry. But he felt disconnected from it somehow. He would have welcomed the warmth and the energy, but he just felt… flat. 

Her smile broadened as he leaned in close, slipping an arm around her waist, and he felt her body go rigid as the tip of his blade pressed into the soft hollow below her breastbone. 

“Tell your Master,” he said, leaning even closer to whisper in her ear, “That the next one he sends will never see the sun again.”

Pulling away he flashed her a wicked, sharp-edged smile and turned to the rest of taproom. “Next round is on my friend here!” 

It was a combination of words which rarely failed to rouse enthusiasm, and in the ensuing commotion, he took his leave. She did not follow.

[weretoad-writer]

Difference Of Opinion

Fictober - Day 10 Prompt: “Listen, I can’t explain it, you’ll have to trust me.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: brief language

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Calia sat in silence, trying to calm her impatience. They should have been back in Ark by now, but Peghast and her researchers needed to examine the smaller items she and the Prophet had found before they could be taken back to the Temple. Something about the importance of ‘context’. 

She drew in a quiet breath and held it for a six count, then let it out, focusing on the flow of air, the feel of the stone beneath her, the beats of her own heart. Her breath, her heart, her body. Her self. 

It didn’t help. She could still feel it. The rush as his body had broken beneath her blade. The exhilaration. The way she’d thrilled to each scream. The powerlessness. The memory clung to her like sweat. She should have been stronger. She needed to be stronger.

Eska had been strangely quiet since the conversation with Peghast. She had no way of knowing how much he had seen. Enough, she thought. Though he hadn’t said anything at the time….

She could have made sure. A familiar whisper at the back of her mind. She could have ended him. It would have been easy. She would have enjoyed it. No questions. No sword hanging over her head. 

She thrust the thought away. She’s been so careful. And now…. She’d been through the conversation a dozen times already in her head. I can’t explain, you’ll have to trust me. But she could. And he didn’t. 

There was a slight rustle as he stirred and she glanced up sharply, heart skipping with a sudden burst of adrenaline. He glanced at her, then away, opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again. Calia braced herself.

“You didn’t have to lie about the farmer.”

Calia blinked. That was…. not what she had been expecting him to say. She was quiet for a moment, collecting herself. “What was the alternative? Telling her that we had let a criminal escape?”

“You didn’t have to tell her anything. You don’t have to cover up for me just because -- because Arantheal thinks I’m some kind of “prophet”. I know you don’t approve of letting him go.”

“I understand why you did it, I just…”

“You think we should have thrown him to the Tribunal.”

“Given the circumstances, they might have dealt leniently with him.”

“You don’t really believe that? They don’t give a shit about someone like Hallys. Hell, if Borek’s as rich as they say he is, half of them are probably in his pocket. They’d string Hallys up faster than you can spit.”

“You don’t know that. And even if it was true, it doesn’t justify what he did. That money wasn’t from Borek or some noble’s coffers, it was for the undercity. There are people there who may well die because of what he did.”

“He was trying to protect his family.”

“And their lives have more value than those in the Undercity?”

“No! But --” He broke off in frustration. “Agh, forget it.”

A sullen silence fell between them. Calia drew her knees up, resting her chin on her arms. She couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t been disappointed. The choice had seemed so clear to her, she had thought he must surely think the same. She’d been wrong.

She sighed. However misguided, he’d acted out of compassion, at least. Rough and angry and awkward, but still compassion. He’d tried to help. Perhaps they didn’t really think so differently.

“I didn’t lie because of a title,” she said, breaking the silence.

Eska looked up in surprise, a lingering wariness in his eyes as if still half bracing for some kind of barb. A feeling she was all too familiar with.

“Whatever the grandmaster’s reasons for assigning us both this mission…” She hesitated, covering her awkwardness with gravity. She wasn’t used to this. “I’m… glad.”

She saw his expression change, a flicker of disbelief and something painfully vulnerable. And then he smiled, shyly at first, but quickly spreading across his entire face. 

“Me too.”

[weretoad-writer]

The House Always Wins

Fictober - Day 22 Prompt: “We could have a chance.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: language

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“Sirius!”

He was checking snares behind the warehouses when Eska finally found him, breathless from running and bursting with excitement.

“Sirius! Did you see her?” 

“Who?”

“The ship! The Endralean!” He was practically levitating.

“You mean the only ship to make it through the blockade in months?” There was the shadow of a teasing smile beneath the weariness. “I think the whole city saw it.”

“She’s only here to offload and resupply. She’s sailing again, day after tomorrow as soon as it’s dark. At least that’s what Karim said.”

Sirius’ brow knit, uncertain why this was important.

“Sirius, she’s heading back to Enderal. This is our way out!”

He shook his head. “She’s not taking on hands. Half the bloody harbor district tried that already.”

“Who said anything about signing on? We sneak aboard tomorrow night while most of the crew is ashore getting pissed, and hide below decks. Karim said the crossing’s not much over a week’s sailing if the weather holds.”

There was silence for several heartbeats. “You’re talking about stowing away.”

“Well...yes.”

“Eska, we can’t -- It would never work. We’d be caught! And -- Gods, you’ve seen what the Temple does to folk who try to leave.”

“The hatches will still be open, it’ll be easy! And Ma’el owes me a favor. All we need is a distraction.”

“And then what? They check for stowaways. You really think they’re not going to find us when they’re loading the cargo? And even if they didn’t, where exactly are we going to find a week’s worth of food?”

“They won’t miss a few biscuits.”

“Eska!”

“We’ve been talking about leaving for years! This is our chance!”

“Yes, but not like this! We can’t just -- This is stealing.”

“How is it stealing? They’re sailing there anyway! We’re not doing any harm.”

“Right, just filching their rations.”

“We don’t need much!”

“We can’t--”

“What do you think is going to happen if we stay? You’ve seen the fires, the north sky is red every damn night. And the stories from refugees -- the towns that didn’t surrender? Coarek’s going to make an example of Ostian and I’m not waiting around to die on a fucking cross!”

“I’m not saying we wait! I’m just saying…..Blazes, I don’t know. There are other ways of doing this, that’s all.”

“What other ways? If you’ve got another way out, I’m all ears.”

Sirius opened his mouth, then shut it again in helpless consternation.

“It’s Enderal, Sirius. Karim says they don’t even have slaves there! We could have a fresh start. You could be a fisherman. And I could….. shit, I don’t know, but I could get proper work, I’m sure I could.”

“It’s not some kind of paradise. Our lives won’t magically get better just because we’re somewhere else.”

“I know that. But…. no war? no Temple? No slavers? At least we’d have a fighting chance.”

Sirius wavered. “I…….. I don’t know.”

“Come on, it’ll be an adventure!”

“That’s what I’m afraid of!” 

The response caught Eska off guard.  

“It’s only an adventure when it happens in a story,” Sirius pressed. “When it happens to you, it just hurts.”

“It would be our story, though.”

“Doesn’t mean it would be happy. Or easy. Or good.”

“Doesn’t mean it won’t.”

“Blazes, Eska, that’s doesn’t -- this isn’t a game!”

“I know! I know that. But it’s a chance, isn’t it? Maybe our only chance. We have to at least try.”

“...Maybe. I -- I don’t know.” He sighed, he looked more lost than anything, and Eska felt his excitement falter. He reached out a tentative hand, fingers brushing his arm. 

“We’ll be alright.”

Sirius glanced up, meeting his eyes with a faint smile. “You always say that.”

Eska grinned back. “Still here, aren’t we?”

There was a soft breath of a laugh. “You have me there.”

[weretoad-writer]

Doubt

Fictober - Day 21 Prompt: “Change is annoyingly difficult.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: language

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This wasn’t trying. 

Eska sat slumped with his back to the wall on the shallow pitched roof, glaring at the bottle in front of him. He couldn’t pretend there was any real, substantive difference between getting blind drunk on a roof and drinking himself under the table at the False Dog, no matter how much he might want to.

Some nights were easier. This was not one of those nights. He didn’t dare go back to the room. He was spoiling for a fight and if he went back he was afraid he’d say something stupid, just for the excuse. It wouldn’t be the first time. For either of them. 

His hands flexed and tensed, balling into fists until his nails bit into his palms. It was like an itch deep under his skin. He wanted to hit something so badly he felt like he was strangling. He wanted to fight. He wanted to lose. He wanted it to hurt.

His fingers twitched, momentarily scrabbling against his self control, and then he snatched up the bottle. What difference did it make? He was already a fucking mess. Who was he pretending for? There was no one here. 

This wasn’t trying. This wasn’t trying because he’d already failed. 

He just wanted to be numb. Just for a little while. To burn out his insides until he couldn’t see or think anymore. Something to knock him out, something to make it so that he stopped existing, even for an hour or two. He just wanted to stop. What was so terrible about that?

For what had to have been the twentieth time in as many minutes, he forced himself to set the bottle down, forced his hand to unclench from the glass, every fiber in his body screaming. He reached for the pendant at his neck, fingers clutching at the small, smoothe stone, he needed something in his hand, something to hold onto. But there was no reassurance this time, no anchoring constancy. He touched the stone and felt only repulsion, guilt. 

How could he pretend that it meant something? That he still cared? That he’d ever cared? When he replaced him the way he might change a shirt? First Dal’Varek and Sakaresh, and now…. 

Tharaêl had been right. This had never been about friendship. This had never been about helping. This had never been about him. It was about what Eska could get from him. Just like everyone else who had hurt him. It was selfish. Toxic. Poison. 

Fuck, it wasn’t even about replacing, was it? It was more mercenary than that. He was just a body to plug a hole. 

He remembered that evening at the watchtower with Dal’Varek and felt his face flush hot with shame. Sirius had barely been cold and he’d thrown himself at the mercenary like a bitch in heat. Gods, he really was pathetic. Any warm body would do.

He’d been terrified of being alone and Sirius had been there. Just there. Proximity. Convenience. That’s all it ever fucking was. That wasn’t love. That wasn’t friendship. That was a parasite. That’s what he was. A fucking parasite. And when the host died he simply moved on to the next. 

The leather cord bit into his neck as it snapped and the pendant tore away with a single, vicious tug. Just another lie he’d told himself. He raised his hand to fling it away. 

But he couldn’t. His arm hung there, frozen, his breath coming in ragged, tearful gasps. 

It was nothing. It was meaningless. It was all he had left. 

He let his hand fall to his lap and his whole body seemed to fall with it, sagging against the wall. The stone felt heavy in his palm and he tightened his fist as if afraid he’d be tempted to toss it away again. He couldn’t. He couldn’t lose it.

Did that mean he’d cared, at least a little? Did that mean some of it had been real? But there was no answer to that, only the certainty of the weight in his palm. 

[weretoad-writer]

Poison (pt 2)

Fictober - Day 30 Prompt: “I’m with you, you know that.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: language

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Tharaêl sat with his back against the door, his weapons within easy reach. An unnecessary precaution, perhaps, but the impossible had already happened once that night, and while lightning might never strike twice, fanatics had no such qualms. He wasn’t taking any chances. 

In the dark he couldn’t tell if Eska was asleep or simply lying still. He hadn’t even argued when Tharaêl pushed him towards the bed. Something was wrong. Had been ever since he found him earlier that night, standing like a sleepwalker amidst the burning buildings in the South Quarter.

“Tharaêl? Thank the sun…. ”

He didn’t know what to do with the relief in his voice, so he ignored it.

“What the fuck is going on?”

Eska just shook his head. “Fire, burned out buildings… Almost feels like home.”

He laughed and the sound made the hairs on the back of Tharaêl’s neck stand up. 

“Just needs a few crosses and --” “Stop it.” The words came out more sharply than he’d intended, and in the stuttering silence which followed, Eska looked more lost than ever. Tharaêl took a step closer; in the light from the fires, he could see that he was trembling. 

“We should see if the inn is still standing.”

What a fucking mess. The city would never survive a siege, not with the Nehrimese controlling the harbor. They were fucked. It was just a question of when.

He shifted on the cold floor, grimacing at the flare of pain in his side. Sitting had been a mistake; now that the adrenaline had worn off, every ache and injury was making itself known, and his limbs felt leaden and stiff as if he were some rusted Starling contraption. When the fuck had he become such an old man?

Tilting his head back to rest against the door, he let his eyes slip shut. He counted, it was calming: two ways out of the room, at least three out of the inn -- not counting windows. The covered walkway would likely be the smartest route, good cover and easy access to the sewer entrance behind the inn. The next nearest entrance was several streets over, rooftops could get them -- them? -- partway there. He was less familiar with this particular stretch of the sewers, but the West Channel passed close by, and that was the straightest shot out of the walls.  

He traced and retraced the paths in his head. At some point he must have slept. 

*

He woke to screaming. Tharaêl was on his feet, weapons in his hands before he was even conscious of where he was. Faint, grey light filtered through the window. Sunlight. 

He drew a breath. He was in the inn, in the upper city. The room was clear, the door still bolted. The cries were coming from the bed. Another nightmare.

Eska thrashed and whimpered, the blanket which had covered him in a pile on the floor. Tharaêl touched his shoulder; his shirt was soaked through, he could smell the sweat and adrenaline.

He shook him roughly. “Eska.” 

That was all it ever took. He wasn’t a heavy sleeper. But there was no response. The whimpers changed to cries. 

“Eska.” He shook him harder this time, but he just kept screaming. Terrified and pleading; it felt like nails scratching against metal, it set his teeth on edge and knotted his stomach. He felt the childish impulse to cover his ears. 

“Damnit, wake up.” He shook him again. Nothing. He was about to try backhanding him across the face -- he didn’t know what else to do -- when he remembered the basin of water on the dresser. He snatched it up and upended it over Eska’s head. 

The screams broke off with a spluttering cry as Eska lurched upright, gasping and gulping at the air. His eyes were wide open, but there was no recognition in them, only disoriented panic. He struggled to his feet, frantic and stumbling, eyes darting wildly but never seeming to find purchase. 

“Slow down.” Tharaêl caught his shoulder, but he jerked away with a snarl. 

“Eska -- Damnit.” He grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him against the wall, pinning him. “Slow down. You’re alright.”

That seemed to work. For a moment. He saw the startled recognition in his eyes, and then the light seemed to go out of them all at once. He looked the way he had when Tharaêl had found him the night before.

But awake, at least. 

He let go of him, eyeing him warily as if half expecting him to collapse. He didn’t. He leaned forward, one hand catching at his arm, clinging,  and Tharaêl balked, instinctively shoving him away. 

He hadn’t meant to push him hard. But that didn’t make the impact any softer. The collision made the small room rattle. 

Shit. Shit. 

That wasn’t what -- He didn’t -- Fuck. 

Eska sagged against the wall. “Sorry -- I’m sorry -- I --” He started to sob. 

Tharaêl opened his mouth, reaching for words that weren’t there anymore, and shut it again with a grimace. He watched as Eska sank to his knees, hands clamped against his mouth as if trying to keep something inside him from getting out. Stifled whimpers grated against his ears. 

And he just stood there. 

What the fuck was he supposed to do?

He cast his eyes about the room as if something there might hold an answer, but the items he could see were as useless as he was. 

With a barely suppressed growl, he sank down on the floor beside him. He didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t have words for this, so he said nothing. He just sat. Awkwardly silent. Awkwardly still. The muffled sobs grew softer as the minutes passed. Finally fading all together. 

Tharaêl cast him a cautious, sidelong glance. He looked… paralyzed. Heavy. Like something turned to stone. Tharaêl knew that feeling, and the numb, empty look in his eyes. He didn’t want to be reminded of that. He didn’t want to think about that. He wanted to grab him and shake him. Wake up. Stop it.

Without thinking he reached out; his muscles stammered, flinched, tried again. He touched his shoulder as though it were covered in thorns. Ginger, hesitant, barely making contact. 

He felt like a marionette, wooden hands slapping mindlessly against another object and he recoiled from the sensation. He pulled his hand back, bristling angrily, but Eska glanced up at him and it wasn’t quite a smile, just a flicker of warmth in his eyes, an acknowledgement. 

For several clumsy, faltering heartbeats there was silence, and then a knock sounded on the door and they both nearly came out of their skin.

“Message for the Prophet.”

“Fuck off!” Tharaêl was already on his feet.

“Grandmaster’s orders.”

“Fucking --” He turned back to Eska, “Does anyone take a piss up there without sending for you first?”

But Eska didn’t seem to hear him. His eyes were fixed on the door, every line of his body hunched and shrinking, as if he could pull his body in on itself just to hide. 

Shit.

Tharaêl slammed the bolt back and cracked the door. A few months ago that’s all it would have taken. A glare and a glimpse at his Voice’s armor to send someone scuttling away. But this wasn’t the Undercity, and his words no longer had the weight of the Rhalâta behind them. Still, the sight of him caused the messenger to take an uncertain step back. 

“I said--”

There was a touch on his arm and Tharaêl pulled back, staring in consternation as Eska stepped into the opening.

“What does he want?”

[weretoad-writer]

High Places

Fictober - Day 14 Prompt: “I can’t come back.” Fandom: Enderal Warnings: brief language

*********************************

Eska  woke slowly, reluctantly, the warmth of the dream still clinging to his senses. He reached out, fumbling, still half asleep. Sirius?

He was lying on a cold wooden floor, the blanket that had been covering him hugged against his chest. He was in the Nomad. In Ark. In Enderal. And Sirius was dead. 

Sirius was dead. The memory hit like a hammer, like a battering ram, like an avalanche. Burying him alive beneath the weight of it. 

He’d forgotten. Just for a moment, he’d forgotten. Just for a moment Sirius had been there. And it felt like losing him all over again.

He was past this. He was supposed to be past it. The forgetting, the seeing his face in a crowd, hearing his voice. He’d made himself stop. He’d stopped. It was done. It was over. Why couldn’t it be over?

For a long time he didn’t move, the heavy, lingering paralysis that usually only came with nightmares. He couldn’t let go. His thoughts clinging to the cobweb fragile memories of the dream even as they dissolved, grasping at fragments, grasping at shadows, grasping at nothing. He felt empty.

He rolled over. In the dark he could make out Tharaêl’s shadowy form, stretched out on the floor beside the bed. There was moonlight coming through the window, pale and barely there, but from the angle he guessed it couldn’t have been more than a few bells into the middle watch. He sighed. Morning was a long way off.

At last he sat up, pulling a still warm blanket around his shoulders as he got to his feet, padding barefoot to the dresser and finding the key by touch. As quietly as he could, he unbolted the door and slipped outside, casting one last look back, but Tharaêl didn’t stir. The creak of the lock as he turned the key sounded monstrously loud in the heavy silence of the inn, but no answering noises responded. 

Eska slid the key back under the door and then slipped out onto the little covered walkway. At the far end the criss-cross silhouette of scaffolding still clung to the adjacent tower, within easy reach of the walkway. By now a well worn, familiar path. It took his weight, swaying gently as he climbed.

A light breeze lent a sharper edge to the cool night air and Eska tugged the blanket tighter around his shoulders as he picked his way along the peak of the walkway’s roof, scrambling up the rough shingles that sloped to the top of the inn’s third floor where, instead of peaking, the roof flattened out, creating a platform several feet wide. Not a bad spot all things considered. 

He sank down on the edge, letting his legs hang over, huddling deeper into the blanket. He sat facing south, towards the harbor and the waters of King’s Bay and the Red Sea beyond it, the waters stretching back all the way back to Nehrim. All the way back, he could almost imagine, to the way things used to be. 

He was not sure how long he sat there before there was the creak of scaffolding and Eska glanced back to see a tall shadow moving along the walkway roof. A moment later there was a short, deliberate scuffing sound from the roof below, an alert, but also a question.

Eska shifted sideways, simultaneously making room and giving space, an answer in the same awkward, unspoken pidgin. 

“Did I wake you?” he asked as Tharaêl dropped down beside him on the battered shingles.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

There was silence for several minutes. Tharaêl shifted, drawing a knee up to his chest and resting his arms across it. Without looking at Eska, he asked, “Nightmare?” 

Eska opened his mouth, then shut it again, trying to force some lightness into his voice. “No. One of the good ones.” It wasn’t a lie. 

Another silence, heavier this time.

“Those are worse.”

Eska looked over at him and there was a kind of odd, aching relief in the acknowledgement. The instant understanding. He let out a sigh, feeling something in his chest ease a little. “Yeah.”

They sat there for a time, tracing the torchbug glow of patrols along the walls, the occasional late night patron passing in the streets below. The moon, shining through a thin layer of clouds, was starting to sink, crowning the tall, stony peak to the west. But Eska found his gaze straying always towards the south and the sea. 

No way back. For either of them. 

No way forward either. At least not one that he could see. Survival was an instinct, not a goal. Not a direction. This felt like treading water with nothing but empty ocean as far as the eye could see, and he was so tired. Gods, they were both so fucking tired. 

But what else was there? They were stranded, for the moment at least. But, for the moment at least, not entirely alone.