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catsafari25 · 1 year ago

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A/N: Hello again, and with this I think (?) I may have succeeded in writing enough bionicle fic to get it out of my system (unless another plot bunny hits me like a cannonball, but... eh, we'll see) and thus, here is the companion piece to the Vakama & Roodaka oneshot.

This time, exploring the scene where Vakama entered the Great Temple, from his side of things! This was also partially inspired by the scene in Challenge of the Hordika where Nokama is almost physically repulsed in trying to enter the Great Temple :)

In the tunnels beneath the temple, Vakama must stoop.

At first he shuffles, mutated arm tucked against him and his sole hand brushing only briefly along the floor to steady himself, but the passages are dark and deep and lined with creatures which seek out the weak. The eyes that watch him are not hungry. They keep their bellies too full for that.

In the end, it is easier quicker to drop to all fours, to share the weight between claw and tool that feet alone cannot. His altered form folds into the new stance with frightening familiarity. It's comfortable.

Natural.

The crown of his mask grazes the tunnel's ceiling, but only in passing. His gait is sure. Well. Surer than the ungainly slouch it had been before.

It was said – back when Matoran were awake to say such things – that even the strongest swimmers of Ga-Metru would hesitate before plunging into the depths of the protodermis sea. Not because the creatures there had any fondness for the taste of Matoran. In truth, it was thought that the rahi actively disliked the flavour. No, it was because the way Matoran swam was indistinguishable from the rahi's usual prey. Only when they had sunk tooth and jaw into their meal would they realise their mistake.

It was an annoying, if harmless mistake for the rahi.

Matoran couldn't say the same.

Vakama's early crawl through the passage had been like that of a Matoran swimmer: functional, but slow and indiscernible from wounded prey. Creatures drag themselves down into these depths to die, in hopes that they will be devoured only when they are too far gone to feel it. The eyes are patient. They will wait to see if this newcomer is similarly inclined.

And so when Vakama drops to his haunches, the eyes blink. Reassess. He moves less like the hunted and more like the hunter now, more predator than prey, and the eyes – and teeth – keep their distance after that.

The path Vakama stalks through was once a protodermis pipe, made obsolete even before the cataclysm. Newer conduits had been built, more efficient, more resilient, and this one had been disconnected but never dismantled. When he reaches its origin, it takes some effort – and his blazer claw – to break the seal across the hatchway, but when he does, one of the temple's protodermis purification chambers looms above him.

The room beyond is quiet.

Unmarked.

He doesn't realise he's stopped until the chittering of his audience draws closer. The snarl he throws back echoes off the pipe's walls, and the eyes retreat, but do not leave.

Vakama curls his hand around the lip of the hatch, and then falters.

Something is wrong.

It's not a pain, because the feeling does not hurt as it ought, but something is undeniably, fundamentally wrong. It causes his breath to catch, his hand to flinch, and it would be so easy, so easy, to turn and walk away, only...

Only he came here for a reason.

The wrongness flares, amplified for a moment, and then he pulls himself up. The eyes watch, but do not follow. Do they feel it too? Can even such base creatures sense the innate malice the temple exudes?

He clambers out of the purification chamber – empty and abandoned now – and stumbles upon his landing. He catches himself, but does not rise back to his feet.

Wrong.

This is wrong.

And at the edge of the wrongness there is a strange sort of terror. It dreads the same way the fire fears the sea, the same way the prey fears the predator; it is the meeting of two primally antithetical forces where only one can survive. It whispers turn back through his mind.

He moves into the next room.

It's one he knows well. Light filters down from the rot-stained windows, centering – as it had the day he'd first seen it – on the suva, and casting long sentinel shadows of the columns standing to attention around it. A crack mars the suva, its stone dome now split cleanly in two from the quakes, and – drawn by some desire he cannot identify (instinct, curiosity... nostalgia?) – he approaches.

It seems so small now. Even bowed and altered in his Hordika form, he looms over the Ta-Metru symbol he'd once had to stretch to reach.

Unbidden, his hand moves to the niche where once he'd placed a Toa Stone – where once he had though himself chosen, duty-bound, destiny-gifted – and falters a breath from the stone.

The wrongness spikes.

Screams.

And with a twist of something he will not call horror, he understands it is not originating from himself.

But from the temple.

It is repulsion. It's alienation. It's recognising him, but as other, as rahi.

It's disgust that a monster would dare enter its sanctuary.

In the Ta-Metru carving, stone once polished to the point of fragmented reflection, he sees a glimmer of his own face. Neither Toa nor Matoran. Nothing blessed by Mata Nui.

Vakama recoils.

And then a wave of his own disgust, propelled by that fury that runs so close to the surface now, rolls through him. If you didn't want us as the Toa, you should've stopped Makuta from choosing us, he thinks, and digs his claws into the stonework.

The wrongness sings.

But he knows it for what it is now, and his morphed, clawed hand gorges scars through the carving. The stone is soft. Its makers had never imagined someone would take a blade to it.

There comes a tapping from across the room, echoing brazenly off the ancient stone walls, and Vakama retreats instinctively into the shadows. A Rahaga enters.

Norik?

No, this Rahaga's armour is more akin to a Po-Matoran than a Ta-Matoran's, the colour of dust and stone. Vakama tries to recall the Rahaga's name – and then dismisses the attempt.

It won't matter, in the end.

The Rahaga walks as he always has, stooped and slow, but clearly unhindered by the temple. He passes by the suva and runs one gnarled hand across the stonework, his movements marred by curiosity rather than reverence.

The rage arrives a fully-formed creation. It drowns out the wrongness, floods the apprehension, and he is moving before he's decided that this is the path he wants.

It is not pain, for it does not hurt as it ought.

But it does still hurt.

Whatever the Rahaga might once have been, they are old and weak now. Four are captured before Vakama's rage has a chance to cool, but the ire is no less dangerous when it does.

(That's the thing about Ta-Metru; it's not a place of fire so much as it is of magma. And magma doesn't extinguish with the cold; it sets. It moors itself into place, an unmovable, burning force.)

The rage settles, solidifies around his heart and lungs and carves a home between his breaths.

(Magma is not fire. It does not leap blindly from one source to the next. Instead it advances. Slowly. Steadily. It finds a channel, a destination, and it engulfs all in its path until it reaches it.)

He finds the last two remaining Rahaga, pathetically ignorant to their brothers' fates and still scavenging the temple for answers. He hears the way Norik appraises his sister's translation, relief clear in his voice that they are one step further on this wild rahi chase. Relief, surely, that the Rahaga are one step closer to regaining their Toa form.

(And Vakama's anger has found its destination.)

He does not descend on the Rahaga's leader the way he has the others. No. Norik will know what's coming for him first. He gets to fear. Vakama waits until Gaaki has gone, until Norik is alone, and then he circles. The wrongness thrums in his veins, weighing him down and labouring his breaths. It doesn't matter. Let Norik hear his approach.

Norik doesn't try to run. Vakama will give him that much. (A wise choice. Vakama intends for this encounter to last, but if Norik runs, Vakama cannot be sure he won't chase.) Instead, the malformed once-Toa calls out and actually tries to approach him. Stupid. Doesn't he know that he won't win any fight, transformed as he is? As both of them are? No, instead, he tries to talk. As if they are equals, as if Norik has done anything to deserve his respect rather than his scorn. As if he has earned the temple's forgiveness for his trespassing.

Even when Vakama raises the fate of Norik's fellow Rahaga, Norik attempts to sway him with the illusion of reason, talking of duty and unity, as if he's not using the other Toa Hordika to chase after a rahi myth for his own desires. As if their roles are in any way comparable, both Toa of Fire once, both leaders, it's true, but Vakama hasn't forgone his duty to chase after selfish needs.

And it stops now.

Vakama circles closer, and Norik is still talking, unease in his voice, but not fear. Still searching for the right words to turn Vakama to his bidding as he has the other Toa Hordika. Ever the voice of two-faced logic.

Why won't he just shut up?

Does Norik think him to be as gullible as the others? As quick to desert his duty as them?

And Vakama knows he wants – needs – to shake that assurance, that arrogance out of Norik. Needs to see that facade of self-righteous wisdom crumble into the terror of his situation.

The growl begins deep in his chest and, unleashed, it becomes a roar. He rears out of the darkness, into the weak sphere of light surrounding Norik – and there, there he finally sees true fear fill the old fool's eyes.

Something slams into Vakama and he reels, his roar cut short. His hand reaches automatically, defensively, to his mask. He finds only water there. It clings to him, imbued with some sort of power – he can feel something other in it – but otherwise impotent.

"Leave my brother alone," Gaaki snarls. She stands in the doorway, small and hopelessly overpowered, but her shoulders are tensed with a stubborness Vakama recognises. Already, her spinner is powering up for another shot.

Well. Two can play at that game.

Vakama's rhotuka fires into motion, but the water has seeped into the mechanism, and dowses the fire before it has a chance to catch. He gives it a withering look, before turning the expression onto Gaaki. "Very clever."

Another water spinner hits him, but this time he is braced for it and all it does is wash harmlessly off him.

"Is that all you have?" he asks. His blazer claw splutters, but the claws on his hand flex. After all, there's more than one way to defang a muaka...

Gaaki steps back. Good. She knows she's outmatched. "It's a devastating attack underwater," she offers, and her words are strong but there is a cracked edge to them.

"Then you'd better start finding a puddle," Vakama growls, "before my claws find you," and he drops into a run, feet pounding and fangs bared and that ever-present wrongness humming about him.

She doesn't flee. Just like Norik, she stands her ground, gnarled fingers wrapped tight around her staff. Her eyes are hard, but he sees the way her hands shake.

How long will her resolve last, Vakama wonders. Before or after the claws find their mark?

He never finds out.

He's knocked off his feet before he reaches her, and when he hits the ground, ropes of energy pin him to the earth, like a water-bound rahi caught in a net.

What–

Norik.

He'd forgotten Norik.

He thrashes against the restraints, but they hold strong – for now. His blazer claw splutters again, but it does nothing to the energy that binds him.

He stills as he hears footsteps approach.

The two Rahaga hobble into his line of sight. Gaaki is breathing hard, as if only now is she allowing herself to feel the fear. "You left that late, Norik," she says, and even the breath that follows sounds more like a shaken wheeze than a nervous laugh. "Almost too late."

"I only had the one shot. I couldn't afford to miss," Norik replies. "He's got our brothers. Gaaki, go find–"

"I'm not leaving you alone with him," she retorts. "I only went for a moment before, and look what would have happened if I hadn't returned."

Vakama tilts his head as well as the energy net will allow. He grins at the Rahaga, anger curdling it into a sneer. "Yes, Gaaki, you're very good bait, congratulations." He shifts his gaze to Norik. "But you've always been so good at getting others to do your dirty work, haven't you, Norik?"

Norik doesn't even have the decency of guilt. Instead, he simply looks tired. "Whatever you think you know–"

"I know the truth! You don't care about the Matoran, you only care about yourselves!" He strains against the ropes, and although they do not break, there's a little more give in them than before. He slumps back to the ground, breathing hard. "You might have the other Toa fooled. You might even have the temple fooled, but not me," he growls, and the temple's hatred presses down on him, straining his last words.

Gaaki places a frail hand on her brother's arm. "Norik," she says, and there is such unbearable sorrow in her voice. "He looks in pain."

"It's not my doing," Norik assures her softly. "My snare spinner only binds."

Vakama snarls. "I don't need pity from the likes of you. I know what you are."

"We're allies, Vakama," Norik says, in that insufferably reasonable way of his. "Friends."

"You're frauds," Vakama snaps. He twists against his restraints. They slacken, just a touch. "Liars. You don't deserve to walk these floors."

And the Rahaga stand there, unburdened by the temple's hate, strangers to this land, to Metru Nui, and yet it is Vakama the temple repulses? After everything he has forgone, the life he's abandoned, the friendships he's lost, Mata Nui punishes him?

His rhotuka fires off a fire spinner, and it goes wide, cracks a wall. Norik and Gaaki stumble back, Norik preparing another snare shot, but the energy net holding Vakama snaps. Vakama lurches forward, suddenly free, and slams into Norik.

The snare spinner wraps itself around a column. It lights up the room with crackling energy.

A blast of water grazes past his shoulder, too shy of hitting Norik to commit to taking the easy shot, and Vakama reels towards Gaaki. He fires with a snarl, but hears the snare spinner coming again and ducks at the last moment.

Again his own attack misses and the shot cleaves clean through a wall. Something on the other side begins to smoulder.

Then it begins to rumble.

It's a low sound at first, as deep as the earth and just as vast. Almost like a distant growl. But then the cracks begin to spiral out across the roof, along the columns, and the room buckles.

The light flickers. The frames of the high windows above collapse.

The world becomes fragmented, filled with flickering images. Falling masonry and toppling pillars and dust – but the sounds never relent. Even in the depths of the passing darkness, the thunder continues.

And when the dust settles, so does an awful silence.

Vakama straightens, or does his best approximation of it. Fragments of cracked protodermis fall from his shoulders, his head, his back. He withdraws the hand which has somehow found itself raised above Gaaki, knocking aside the stone slab caught against his arm.

Where's Norik?

Both Hordika and Rahaga stand side by side, that quietness disturbed only by the skittering of stone shards settling. There is wrongness in his breath, his head, and it's impossible to separate where the temple's ends and his begins. But any moment now, Norik will reappear from the wreckage, bearing that ever-same holier-than-thou look, and the anger will rise anew in Vakama.

Any.

Moment.

Now.

"You've killed him," Gaaki says, and her voice breaks that terrible stillness. She draws in a half-breath that cracks into a sob. "You've... oh, Norik..."

No.

No, it was an accident. He hadn't meant to– Norik had simply been in the wrong place. It wasn't as if he'd taken a blazer claw to Norik, or hit him directly with a fire spinner. He'd only meant to... what? What had he only meant to do?

Something swings towards him and he grabs the staff before he even registers what it is.

"He's not dead," Vakama says, and maybe if he says it, he might even believe it. He snaps his gaze to Gaaki, as if her grief is bringing it to pass. "He's not. He's not as easy to kill as that. When the others– when the Toa find him, he'll be fine. Fools like him always find a way to survive."

Gaaki attempts to pull her staff free, but her strength is no match for Vakama's. He wretches it out of her grasp and tosses it aside.

"Stop that."

She doesn't listen to him, only steps back and charges up her rhotuka. The grief in her eyes fogs into hatred.

The water spinner hits him but does little more than rock him.

"Stop."

Gaaki screams, a sound of rage and anguish, and releases a volley of spinners as ineffectual as the first.

Vakama's patience – or whatever had held him in place until now – snaps. He lunges forward. His claws close around the joints of Gaaki's rhotuka and pins the mechanisms harmlessly into place, in the same manner one might pick up a baby ussal crab by the widest edge of its shell. She thrashes, but Vakama's grip holds.

"I said, stop," he snarls.

She's breathing hard, her gasps sharp-edged with agony. "You killed him," she says, voice hoarse and hateful.

His insides twist, and – Gaaki hauled by his side – he starts the ascent to where the rest of the Rahaga are trapped. He doesn't look back to the rubble. Doesn't glance for one last glimpse of Norik's resting place.

He's not dead. He's not dead he's not dead he's not

The wrongness, the hatred, has woven so deep into him, it's almost a part of him now.

Toa don't kill. Vakama can't remember who taught him that (he recalls, briefly, the flash of a gold mask, but it comes with pain – grief – and he pushes it aside before it can take root) but it gnaws at him like a trapped stone rat. Toa don't kill.

But he was never meant to be one.

And if the Great Temple – if Mata Nui – thinks a mistake was made in Vakama's destiny....

Well. That's somebody else's problem.

The Hordika that returns to Roodaka is different from the one she sent out. There's something new in his eyes... or perhaps something lost.

"How was the temple, Vakama?" she asks when it's just the two of them.

He looks to her. Beneath the anger, beneath the rahi, there's almost a haunted look to those eyes. It vanishes a moment later, but Roodaka never doubts her own eyes.

"Unwelcoming," he replies, and Roodaka smiles. She could have suggested Vakama pick the Rahaga off one by one in the chaos of Metru Nui, outside where her Visorak could have been an aid... but the temple had been too good an opportunity to miss.

"Good." She sets a hand on his shoulder. "You owe no loyalty to Mata Nui, Vakama. Not anymore."

He rolls his shoulder, but not sharp enough to dislodge Roodaka's hand.

"One thing I do not understand," she says. "What happened to the sixth Rahaga?"

The Toa growls. It is a gutteral sound, rooted deep in the chest and at home in a way it wasn't before. "You wanted a message left for the other Toa. I needed a messenger."

"Alive?"

Vakama shrugs his shoulder again, and this time she lets him roll her hand loose. "Does it matter, so long as they understand?" he growls.

No, Roodaka concedes as she surveys the remains of the Toa before her. She supposes not.

#bionicle #cat writes #lego bionicle #do i have a weakness for the hordika arc? you'll never know #(yes. look i was a well behaved 12year old kid who loved plots about characters going feral. i ate the hordika plotline up)#(and two decades later or there abouts i still have nostalgic fondness for it)#heya so how do we feel about vakama returning to the temple and finding it is repulsed by him?#a discovery that might not only confirm he wasnt chosen by mata nui but has been forsaken #and yeah this was the fic i technically titled 'damned'#but also casually thought of it as 'god called to let you know he hates you personally'#because that's definitely a normal thing to name a fic #also yes i like the idea that roodaka pushed vakama to enter the temple knowing he would feel abandoned by mata nui #and thus helps sever the 'destiny' part of the three virtues #i like the idea that just like matau had to invoke the three virtues to get vakama back #roodaka worked on severing vakamas ties to the three virtues to get him to turn his back on the others #and while she succeeded with unity and destiny #duty she could only derail or corrupt rather than sever entirely #and that (esp since duty is vakamas whole shtick) is why matau reminding him of his duty finally worked #i'll probably add this and the stasis tube au to ao3 in time #but for now it goes here

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aliatori · 8 months ago

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Thread the Needle

The Forsaken and the Forsworn | Post-Fate | Gabriel Berthelot/Jihane N'Ait | 10.5k words | Explicit

Tevnit alerts Jihane to a new presence in the pavilion. She tenses, her claws digging into the white leather padding of the perch she’s made of Jihane’s shoulder. Her narrow reptilian head darts toward the western entrance; the sunset unfolding above the tiled arch sets her fire opal scales ablaze. To mollify her while she sorts out her unexpected visitor, Jihane lifts another bloody rodent morsel to her jaws as an offering.

“Scion-Captain Berthelot, Mistress N’Ait.” Sidqi vanishes as soon as the announcement is made.

Not so unexpected, then. Jihane knew it was only a matter of time before Gabriel sought her out again. It’s why she left standing orders with her household to allow him entry.

Between her and Sea-Trader Melançon, they’ve impressed upon Gabriel the necessity of covering the Watcher’s mark in certain spaces; nudity full or partial is no cause for remark in the Enclave, but bearing another deity’s favor so openly in Rhohnas’ lands, even that of a potential Exiled ally, creates more problems than Jihane cares to solve. More a surprise than the Scion-Captain’s presence is that he appears to have heeded their concerns, particularly after the nonsense with the flagrant cup sharing between him and the Sea-Trader at the recent banquet.

He cuts a striking figure in the sunrobe Jihane gifted him. Instead of selecting a bright Trinoran hue, she made her one concession to the Watcher and her chosen with the colour palette: a dark blue-grey like a brewing storm, with elaborate white embroidery at the edges of the short sleeves and decorating the hem. Circular swirls reminiscent of waves decorate both sides of the low, open vee neckline; the swell of bare, hair-dusted chest confirms Gabriel hasn’t deigned to wear anything beneath it. Continuing her downward sweep, Jihane smiles to see the midnight blue leather sandals she sent with the sunrobe on his feet, straps crossed across the tops of them and continuing halfway up his sturdy calves. A shame he’ll have to remove them for ablutions if she chooses to take this reunion indoors.

A heady thrill quakes through her at the sight. The Scion-Captain’s obedience bodes well for Jihane’s plans both personal and political. Were she a less patient woman, she’d be tempted to take him here and now.

When she lifts her gaze from Gabriel’s feet to his eyes, his arrogant grin reminds her of the challenges ahead.

“Don’t get any wild notions about all this politicking just ‘cause of an outfit.” He sweeps ringed fingers down his body in an invitation Jihane graciously accepts. “I reckon it’s only smart not to make waves… at least when I ain’t in control of them.”

Jihane decides this doesn’t merit a response. It would only be giving him the attention he craves. Instead, she turns to Tevnit, irritation writ plain in her glittering topaz eyes. Jihane retrieves another sliver of raw flesh from the lined pouch at her waist and tosses it to Tevnit, who snaps her maw shut around it with a loud clack.

Now just outside of arm’s reach, Gabriel stops, expression shrewd as he takes in Tevnit’s presence. At least he has a sense of danger.

“What is that? Some kind of pet?”

“To call Tevnit ‘pet’ is an insult. She’s a companion, of sorts. That’s the closest Achaizarian word that translates.” The companion in question stares down Gabriel, stone-still, the prelude to deciding he’s a threat. She holds up her free hand and splays the blood-stained fingers wide in a silent command to stop. “Don’t come any closer.”

The twist of Gabriel’s lips and scrunch of his bold nose signal his displeasure. She half expects him to take a step closer to spite her, and as far as Jihane’s concerned, he’d deserve the flame or claw he’d get for his trouble. But stop he does, which sets different gears turning in Jihane’s thoughts, ones wondering what other commands Xeheia’s envoy would obey.

“She gonna take my eye out if I do?”

“If I don’t beat her to it.” More tease than threat, even if Jihane’s capable when pressed.

Still, Gabriel laughs, rich and deep. “Been told I’m altogether too whole to have been a pirate this long. It would figure a—whatever she is—would take my eye out before some navy dog or piss-drunk merchant.”

“The Empire calls them dragons, like the creatures from their myths. They’re ignorant, but they’re not entirely wrong in this case. They’re flying, scaled, sun-blooded creatures, some of whom can command flame when mature, as befitting children of Rhohnas.” Jihane strokes the pale orange webbing of Tevnit’s folded wing with a gentle finger and earns a pleased trill in response, though her attention remains on Gabriel. That makes both of them, unfortunately.

“So like shadowkraken are to Xeheia. Just.” Gabriel pauses, eyeing Tevnit with curiosity and respect that seems genuine. “Smaller.”

“Exactly, Scion-Captain.” In her pleasure, Jihane rewards Gabriel with a toothy smile. The twist of hunger in his features as he beholds her fangs rewards her in turn. “Though of course, I’ve only heard of shadowkraken second-hand, and little at that. The waters of the Umbra are far from Enclave shores.”

“Most people who see ‘em don’t live to talk about it, and those that do, well…” Gabriel tosses his head, the end of his sleek braid brushing an exposed sliver of collarbone, then laughs. “Let’s just say we’re still tight-lipped about some things. Can’t go giving all our secrets away, no matter how keen the old girl is on cozying up to the rest of the Exiled.”

“Confirmation that shadowkraken are sacred to Xeheia is more than I knew one turn ago,” Jihane says. “How would you feel about a trade?”

Gabriel shifts his weight to one leg, arms folded across his broad, generous chest. She tries not to focus on his dayrobe riding up to mid-thigh with the motion. The smug grin returns with a heated slant, one that evokes a flutter between her legs and a roar to rival Tevnit’s in her pulse.

“You and trades. This gonna be like the last trade? ‘Cause that one worked out for both of us.”

“So you presume.”

“Didn’t hear any complaints, though that could’ve been because your thighs were clamped ‘round my ears.”

So presumptive. But Jihane enjoys taming dangerous creatures, bringing them to heel. Tevnit’s solid weight on her shoulder attests to that.

She unties the pouch at her waist and tosses it across the tiled ground of the pavilion to him. He catches it, clenching it tight in his fist, that intriguing curiosity back on his face. Without waiting for permission—to Jihane’s irritation—he opens the bag, his studded eyebrows lifting.

“Not that it’s the first time I’ve been in this position, but any particulars as to why you threw a sack of offal at me?” Jihane draws back to look at Tevnit, who trains her gaze on the bag the Scion-Captain holds. Her vertical pupils have widened with interest, though her scales are lifted from her skin, a literal bristle of agitation. With a looping snatch of song, Jihane commands her to stay put, just in case she harbours any idea of flying to snatch the bag from Gabriel’s unsuspecting grasp. Ever the opportunistic girl.

“A gift. The first step in establishing trust with sunwyrms is to hand-feed them. It’s what all of Tevnit’s stewards have done to mind her in my absence when she chooses to visit. Often, devotees of Rhohnas seek out a sunwyrm to perform this with as a ritual in the wild. It’s seen as courting Rhohnas’ favour.”

“And what makes you think I need to court Rhohnas’ favour?” Gabriel touches his fingertips to the bird skull dangling from his relic. No surprise he refuses to conceal that; Sea-Trader Melançon made a wine-induced admission that it once belonged to him. “I got more than enough favour to last this lifetime, through all seven hells, and right to the next realm.” “Is that not the entire point of your diplomatic visit? To gain Rhohnas’ favour and bring that promise back to the Watcher?” Jihane holds up a single finger and forestalls the reply Gabriel opens his mouth to give. “If nothing else, I know you’re courting my favour, your creative subversions of my advice aside. I’m curious to see what judgment Tevnit—and thereby, Rhohnas—makes of you.”

A pretty flush spreads up the tanned skin of Gabriel’s chest, making it all the way to his cheeks. Good. Jihane enjoys it when a well-placed shot strikes true, even more so when it has the Scion of a deity shuffling his feet.

The moment passes quickly, and the bluster she’s quickly beginning to associate with Xeheia’s chosen devotee rises like a storm wind. “Fine. What do I have to do?”

“Take one of the slices from the feed bag and place it upon your fingers, then slowly approach Tevnit with your palm extended. Emphasis on slowly. My beloved girl, like me, doesn’t enjoy surprises.”

“And then?”

“She’ll either eat it from your palm, which means she’s accepted you as worthy, or she’ll bite off a finger or two. But not to worry—Enclave chirurgeons are without peer. You’d likely not lose them permanently.”

She watches the emotions spin on Gabriel’s face like bits of stained glass in the toy tubes they make for children, rapid and plain to see. He studies Tevnit for a long moment then gives a decisive nod.

“Alright. I’ll do it.” No hesitation.

Jihane steadies her breathing. The anticipation sets her limbs shaking. In the interest of a fair judgment, she stills her body. The way Gabriel throws himself headlong into danger to prove himself to her, to her deity? It stokes the embers of her desire into a roaring flame.

But there’s a test to be passed, first.

Gabriel, raw meat in his palm, approaches with slow, confident steps, the leather of his gifted sandals whispering against the coloured spray of tile beneath them. Wind rustles through the fronds lining the square, cutting through the stifling heat like a cool knife. He walks like a man used to peril – not flinging himself headlong, but not holding back.

Tevnit stirs as he gets closer, scales lifting further from her skin and making her seem twice again her size. Her long neck stretches to look down at Gabriel from her perch. A gurgle emanates from Tevnit’s throat along with the smell of sulfur. Not the worst reaction, but still in precarious territory.

“Careful,” Jihane says sternly, only realizing after that she’s spoken in Trinoran.

The lightning-glow of Gabriel’s gaze meets hers without a shred of fear. He returns his attention to Tevnit, palm held out, emperor and supplicant in the same moment. Wisely, he pauses until Tevnit stops her warning rumble, then carves out the last steps to get within arm’s reach with measured deliberation, bearded chin tilted in an approximation of deference.

The tension could snap bones. Jihane registers each shift of Tevnit’s weight on her shoulder, reminding herself to keep breathing. She watches Gabriel with a threefold hunger – for the man, the sacred, and the thrill. His palm doesn’t so much as quiver as he waits for Tevnit’s choice, and in that moment, she feels righteousness about her decision to seek his aid.

She only hopes Tevnit—who speaks for Rhohnas—feels the same.

All at once, Tevnit’s sleek head swoops down, dropping Jihane’s stomach to her feet along with it, a shimmering red-orange blur. But Jihane has never looked away from difficult moments and she does not look away now. Because she doesn’t, she’s treated to a marvellous sight: Gabriel’s hand remains unmaimed. Tevnit tosses the meat back in her gullet, scales smooth and flat, then lifts her head and trumpets her pleasure. There’s a sensation like someone pressing Jihane towards the ground, then airy lightness as Tevnit takes off into the fading blue of the sunset sky, flying true as an arrow to the opening of the courtyard, where she will roam the islands to her heart’s content until she comes back to Jihane.

“So did I pass,” he says, voice thick and hot, not bothering to make it a question.

Jihane closes the gap between them and takes the bag of feed from his grasp, dropping it on the ground. She replaces it with her hands, gripping his forearms and trailing her fingers up them, avoiding the lines of sacred ink. To be the first to reach for him in greeting breaks protocol. Then again, so is the slow squeeze she gives his forearms and the soft stroke of her fingertips along his skin. It borders on scandalous.

A perilous combination of rapture, lust, and yearning fills her, scorching like a desert sun. She struggles to subdue it; the casual stroke of Gabriel’s calloused thumbs along the Maw scars covering her arms doesn’t help.

He’s proving dangerous in more ways than one.Time to start balancing the scales.

“Join me for an evening meal.”

It’s not a question.

-----

Gotta hand it to the Enclave, and to Jihane in particular—Gabriel’s eaten better these past two spans than he’s eaten in a Rising. At least when he’s at the Eye, what with supplies still coming in at a trickle compared to the old days of a full fleet. Feels like no sooner than she snapped her fingers and doled out orders to her staff than a pile of vittles appeared before them.

Not that he’s of much of a mind to eye the contents.

Contrary to Luc’s ribbing back dockside at the Squall, Gabriel knows he’s thinking with his dick instead of diplomacy. At least somewhat. Thing is? He doesn’t care.

On the opposite side of the square table, Jihane dips her clawed fingers into a fancy white bowl with six-sided red figures on the outside, matching red petals floating on the surface of what Gabriel assumes to be water. A floral fragrance wafts towards him as she shakes off the perfumed excess, then neatly wipes her hands on a vibrant green cloth beside the tray. He likes the meticulousness of her. He likes it more when he gets the chance to muss it up, which he can admit he’s angling for tonight.

When she glances up at him through her long, dark eyelashes, there’s no mistaking the look in her rose-coloured eyes for anything but flirtation, and—yeah. It’s enough to get his dick twitching between his legs. Can’t decide yet what kind of omen that is. There’s some kind of game ahead. How much he can sway it remains to be seen.

“Not hungry, Scion-Captain?” Jihane asks.

Gabriel doesn’t answer, giving her a slow once-over instead. She’s dressed in all white today, a white so brilliant as to be dazzling, like the way high sun on a clear day can turn the seas beneath his ship into a gleaming expanse of fire. Unlike the short sleeves of his robe, her pleated, dressier affair is missing the sleeves… and most of the chest. He doesn’t bother to hide his leer as he admires the pillowy swell of her breasts spilling over the tops of the cups meant to hold them, twitches again thinking of burying his face in the expanse of smooth brown skin. The clear beads Gabriel’s learned denote her status sparkle where they’re woven into her long box braids, which she has pulled into a half-crown atop her head. One bare foot peeks out from where Jihane has her legs tucked beneath her. The gold lacquer on her toes matches the shade of her claws.

“Not for anything on the table right now,” he answers.

“How unfortunate for you.” Her dazzling smile does fuck all to hide the new huskiness of her voice. “My suggestion? Find a different appetite to whet. Surely you wouldn’t be so rude as to let all this go to waste.”

“Sure don’t sound like a suggestion.”

“It isn’t.”

Gabriel’s stomach, traitor that it is, betrays him with a rumble. It’s almost, almost worth it for Jihane’s laugh afterward, full lips curved in a gorgeous smile.

“I won’t have it said that I mistreat my guests. Even guests who show up with such an… interesting interpretation of how to wear a dayrobe.”

Sparrow’d made that much apparent in a catty snipe upon Gabriel’s departure, that Jihane’s gift was meant to be worn on top of different clothes, but so far, he hasn’t seen any downsides. He spots a stack of lightly charred flatbread and sets to digging in, spreading a paste made of salty Trinoran fruit with the miniature blunt knife on the tray beside it. It’s warm, delicious, and has his mouth watering even more than it already was.

Jihane doesn’t touch any of the stuff yet, which. Weird. But Gabriel likes the weight of her attention, the satisfaction in the square set of her shoulders as he starts in on a second flatbread.

“What sorts of delicacies do you enjoy at the Storm’s Eye?” Jihane asks, clawed fingers curled in a fist beneath her chin.

He swallows his current bite and then snorts. “Hmmm. Nothin’ you’d call a delicacy by your lofty standards.”

“I’ll weigh the scales on that. Answer the question.”

Her tone brooks no argument, so Gabriel begins to reply… then stops, a realization heating the back of his neck. She’s bossing him around. All but dressing him, her ‘companion’, the food, now this. And here he is, going along with it like he’s not the mortal voice of Xeheia on this plane.

“I did, didn’t I? Ain’t my fault if you don’t like the answer.”

The air between them frosts despite a fierce humidity clinging to the dusk, one which beads sweat under Gabriel’s arms and along his back. Jihane diverts her attention to the jewelry on her fingertips as though it’s the most interesting bauble in her opulent pavilion, turning them this way and that. It’s like he doesn’t even exist.

Fine. Two can play that game.

Being pissed doesn’t change the fact he’s hungry, so he keeps on eating: crispy fried balls of dough laced with seasonings, crunchy purple vegetables cut into thin strips, a savoury beige paste spread on more flatbread. Jihane finally picks out a few items for herself – the fried dough, and a few of the black and green salty fruits but whole. Between each bite she dips her hands in the cleaning water and wipes them on the cloth after. There’s a matching bowl beside Gabriel too, but he chooses to ignore it as thoroughly as Jihane ignores him.

A familiar struggle burns and tugs its way through Gabriel’s chest. Anger, yeah, and embarrassment. But it’s the kind of embarrassment that quickens his pulse as much as it heats his skin, the prelude to a fight he gets hard thinking about throwing. When he and Jihane fucked before, it was the usual sort, give or take the burns and bloodshed. Now? He’s not so sure.

Most of his experience in these games has been with Hugo, who’s always more interested in having an excuse to wreck Gabriel with his godsdamned sadistic tortures than being obeyed to the letter. Jihane, though? Disobedience is like dunking a torch in the ocean for all the good it does.

He blows air through his nose, scratches at the fresh growth of beard along his neck, then finally says, “Fish.”

Jihane turns from her throne of pillows and cushions to look at him. It’s just a look, but it’s a look. She tilts her head and raises her eyebrows ever so slightly.

“Lots and lots of fish. Fresh, fire-roasted, pickled, raw, you name it—it’s probably at the Eye. Seaweed, too. Grew it ourselves back in the Umbra and it transferred easy enough. And goats, sometimes. The tough little bastards used to be all over. We took as many of them with us as we could when we had to move.” When he sank the island at Xeheia’s behest, half mad with grief and to be sure nothing was left of the Carnage, but he ain’t getting into that story right now. "And they’re doing fine, but not enough to start slaughterin’ the seven hells out of them yet.”

The more Gabriel speaks, the more Jihane shows interest, until she’s leaning toward him across the table, a delighted smile making apples of her cheeks.

She places her hand over Gabriel’s on the table. The points of her claws kiss the pronounced veins along the back of it. “Thank you. Since I’m hopeful we’ll be allies for the foreseeable future, I want to understand you and your people, even the mundane details. As much as you’re able to divulge, of course. I understand needing to keep the mysteries sacred.” Jihane winks before releasing Gabriel’s hand, and fuck if he’s not dripping—literally—with the satisfaction of giving her what she wants.

Godsdamned inconvenient, his dick.

“What about you? There’s gotta be something you can only find here. Something special to the Enclave. Only fair for me to know.”

Jihane’s smile takes on a new brilliance, sun-bright. “I’m so glad you asked. A fresh harvest from the orchards on the far isles just arrived and brought my favourite Enclave fruit with it.” She plucks a pale blue sphere as big as Gabriel’s fist from the table, then changes her mind and rolls it to him instead.

He stops it with his palm and picks it up. It’s surprisingly heavy in his grip, and if he had smaller hands, it wouldn’t even fit in one. Gabriel gives it an experimental squeeze and finds the husk on the outside firm yet not without give. Dipping his head, he sniffs at it, but whether it’s the savoury smoke coming from the kitchens of Jihane’s estate or a lack in the fruit itself, he can’t smell anything in particular.

“Go ahead. Open it,” Jihane says. She sits up straighter on her side of the table.

Gabriel casts about for some tool or utensil and, finding nothing obvious, opts for the direct route. He tenses his biceps and bears down with his fingers, a claw-like grip on either side, pushing in and pulling apart at the same time. It resists…

Until it doesn’t.

The tension vanishes and the fruit pops apart with a wet, papery crack… and a puff of what sure as all hells looks like steam. Dark orange juice sprays across the lacquered, pale wood of the table and Gabriel’s robe, though it misses Jihane’s pristine ensemble. Glistening flesh the colour of lava fills the inside, a paler yellow membrane clinging to what looks like clusters of tiny pearls on the inside. And he wasn’t imagining things with the steam. Wisps of it drift up from the fruit, which has an intense, sweet, spiced smell now that it’s open. A brush of Gabriel’s fingers confirms the insides are warm as blood. He presses down with the pads of his thumbs and draws out more juice, thin rivulets snaking down his forearms, the liquid hot enough to raise the hair on his arms.

When he finally looks at Jihane, she’s examining her dress-like getup with irritation, though it fades as she finishes her examination. She lifts her face to lock eyes with Gabriel. Black swallows the rose gold of her irises, leaving only a thin pink ring behind.

“What is it that I’m holdin’, exactly?”

“Kliaquat. It’s a fruit that only grows here in the Enclave’s archipelago. In addition to being delicious and expensive, it’s considered sacred to Rhohnas. A testament to his duality.” After a pause, Jihane sweeps a clawed hand at him, twirling it at the wrist in a gesture even Gabriel can interpret as ‘get on with it’. “Go ahead. Enjoy.”

He studies the kliaquat in his hand. It occurs to him it could be poisonous to eat, like spinefish or bubblefish. But his gut says Jihane ain’t looking to do him in just yet. Not without her contract being signed and fulfilled, at least; Gabriel’s got a keen sense for the murderous, and while he’s sure as the Depths are dark Jihane’s gotten her hands dirty, he doesn’t think he’s a target yet.

May as well enjoy himself in the meantime.

Experimental prods confirm the juice comes from the pearls inside bursting. This is clearly a two-hand job, so Gabriel abandons half of the fruit on the table to use both. He plucks out one or two pearls afterward, squishing them between his fingers. There’s a strange satisfaction in each tepid pop. He’s sure he’s not meant to eat the outside, and having torn it in half means there’s no easy way to take a whole bite of it. That leaves scooping out the insides with his fingers.

It’s harder than it looks; most pearls dislodge easily from the faded yellow netting that holds them, but they’re crushed in the process. There’s a hard bit in the middle of each pearl. Seeds, most like. Probably edible. Only one sure way to find out. Gabriel aligns three fingers along the torn edge of the kliaquat, presses down, and digs in, aiming to shovel out a handful of the seeds without damaging too many. Iridescent orange-red juice flows down his forearms, mingling with the black gyre of tentacle exposed by his Enclave-approved robe. The spiced scent is cloying in its sweetness yet still mouth-watering; he’s never met a sweet he’s said no to. Or a spice, for that matter. And the steaming flesh of the fruit…

“Kinda like being three knuckles deep in guts. Either kind,” he observes aloud.

Jihane makes a noise Gabriel would bet his considerable purse was borne of shock, but she covers it with a pretty cough. There’s a predator’s sharpness in her demeanor when Gabriel glances her way, not unlike her little sunwyrm companion from earlier. He starts to regret—but only just, and only a part—opening the door for her budding depraved urges.

“An interesting description.” There’s a solid pause, and then Jihane asks, “Something you have a lot of experience in, I understand.”

Gabriel grins. “Don’t tell me you’re squeamish, now, or that your Sea-Trader has convinced you we all make nice and polite robbing each other on the Fourfold. The fold’s more, huh… discerning about the kinds of violence we visit these days, but some things can only end in blood.”

“Oh, don’t mistake me, Gabriel.” Huskiness returns to Jihane’s voice. “I’m… intrigued. But right now, what I want is for you to eat. So eat.”

Gabriel wrestles down his initial spiteful urge to refuse. Might have been a time he told himself he does it because he’s still hungry, because the fruit looks delicious, but he’s older and wiser—or at least less inclined to indulge his own bullshit. But the plain fact is he likes Jihane’s attention, likes basking in her pleasure when he does as she says. Besides which, he ought to save the fighting and backtalk for the fights that matter, and he’s sure there’ll be plenty as they work out this so-called political and divine alliance.

He raises his cupped palm and parts his lips, drawing the modest handful of pearls into his mouth. Gabriel rolls them around his tongue, though there are only the vaguest hints of tart sweetness so far. Pressing them against the roof of his mouth and cheeks isn’t enough to burst them, so he opts to start chewing.

Flavour erupts along his tongue, the juice as tart and spiced as mulled wine, but with a cascade of new tastes he has no words to describe. They’re sweet, too, and as suspected yield a fibrous crunch when Gabriel gets to the center of the pearls. It should be off-putting, the fruit being a shade away from hot, but when he swallows it kindles a pleasant warmth all the way to his stomach. Almost as good as belting back a slug of fine liquor.

As soon as he finishes the first handful, he digs for more. Faster this time, more careless, to the point where juice trickles over his lips and through his beard, his hands sticky and stained the colour of rust where some of it has dried. Gabriel doesn’t even mind the bitter bits of membrane stuck in the seeds from his haste. By his third and last handful, he lets out a loud, throaty groan before he even chews the pearls. It has an addictive quality; the intensity of the flavour should leave him sated, but with only the hollowed husk and the tattered remains of the webbing left in this half of kliaquat, Gabriel only thinks about the second half.

At least until he lifts his eyes and catches sight of Jihane.

There’s hunger written plain as the stars on her face, though Gabriel knows without a doubt it’s him she’s hungry for, not the fruit, no matter how good it is. Her breasts heave up and down with each deep breath she takes. Haze fogs her eyes when she manages to lock gazes with Gabriel, though it clears in a few deliberate blinks.

“I take it you enjoy the kliaquat.”

Instead of answering right away, Gabriel takes the time to lick each of the fingers on his right hand clean, drawing them into his mouth one by one, releasing them each time with an audible pop.

“Yeah,” he finally answers, “I reckon I did.”

Jihane shifts, an elbow digging into a brilliant turquoise cushion to prop her up. “Then you won’t mind sharing with me.”

“’Course not,” Gabriel says, picking up the other half from the table and extending it to her. He frowns at the smoky plumes of Jihane’s laughter.

“Not like that. You’ll feed it to me. And properly, without mess.”

Gabriel’s frown deepens. A familiar heat prickles along the back of his neck, the equally addictive combination of anger and imminent humiliation. “I ain’t one of your servants to be ordered about, set to wash your feet and fan you with leaves and hand feed you.”

Jihane shrugs a silken, coppery shoulder, the picture of indifference. “If you consider it beneath you, then you can also consider yourself dismissed. I’m a busy woman and won’t waste time arguing with you.”

There’s a moment where it feels like Gabriel’s head has been dunked in a raging river, the roar of his blood like the rush of water filling his ears. It floods his chest, neck, and cheeks. A part of him is pissed as all seven hells.

The other part knows he’s fucked six ways to the Watcher.

“Least tell me what you mean by proper,” Gabriel mutters.

Jihane thaws again, all satisfaction. “Come over here and I will.” She then crooks a clawed finger to beckon Gabriel to her side of the table.

Is this what it’s like to deal with his mercurial moods? The winds of her temper shift nearly as quick as his own. Godsdamn.

He stands, cursing under his breath as his thighs slip against one another, making him realize just how wet he is. Whatever. He knew what he was getting into when he decided to come calling at Jihane’s palatial doorstep. Mostly.

“Kneel here beside me, then I’ll show you how to eat it correctly.”

He bares his teeth in a grimace. The way she orders him about, it’s like she’s forgetting who, what he is. He bites his tongue—literally—against telling her where to shove her imperious commands. Then, a tide of lustful shame rising in him like the dark waters of Xeheia’s holy sea, he lowers himself to one knee, then the other, taking a seat on the backs of his heels. The leather of the sandals digs into his ass, his thin robe not doing much to help blunt the pressure.

“Good.” Jihane all but purrs the word, and Gabriel loves and hates how he can feel himself swell at the praise. Worse still is the traitorous twitch of his cock when she pats his bearded cheek, the tips of her claws clicking against the rings in his ears. “Very good.”

“Just…” Gabriel huffs out an impatient breath, trying hard not to lean into her touch and debase himself more than he has already. “Just get on with it.”

“This is a task that requires patience. Best if you start summoning it now,” she says, a mix of derision and delight in her tone.

Turning from him, Jihane reaches her wide, plush arms across the table to place the remaining kliaquat half on a tray Gabriel didn’t see before. It’s ostentatiously decorated like everything in the Enclave, the base polished ivory and the handles a metallic rose gold. The utensils on it are ivory accented in yellow gold and most make sense: a bowl with high sides studded with pink gems that holds the other half of the fruit, a tiny spoon with scalloped edges, and a steel knife with a carved handle that matches the tray.

The purpose of a rectangular dish lined with several golden needles eludes Gabriel. They’re more delicate pieces than he’s used to, whether from his years of sewing or the fold’s flesh-piercers or Aurele and xyr unflinching sutures.

“The most traditional way to properly eat a kliaquat is threading the seeds on a needle and eating them one or two at a time,” Jihane explains, tapping the needles with her claws. “It’s a delicate process. Use the wrong amount of pressure or pierce it in the wrong spot and the seed bursts. If you don’t use enough force, the seed slips away from the needle and escapes you entirely.”

Gabriel’s frustration mounts just listening to the explanation, let alone trying it. “Lemme guess. That’s the way you want me to feed it to you.”

“It is. And unlike you,”—her eyes sweep down, taking in the erratic pattern of dark stains on Gabriel’s robe—“I expect my clothing to remain spotless.”

There’s a definite ‘or else’ she doesn’t say aloud, so Gabriel asks, “Or else what?”

“If you’re lucky, you won’t find out. I can assure you, the consequences will be nothing you enjoy, so if you were thinking I’d inflict you with pain as punishment, think again.”

A low laugh escapes Gabriel. “Figured me out that quick, huh?” “Watching you writhe as I sank my foreteeth into your chest, as I touched you with Rhohnas’ flame… It would have given away to the most oblivious person, and I’m far from oblivious, Scion-Captain.” She studies him, an excited light shimmering in her eyes. “Are you up to the task?”

He scoffs, then swivels at the hips to pick up the bowl holding the fruit and a needle to match. “I ain’t about to let some fruit and a needle best me after all the shit I’ve done.”

“Let’s hope your skill matches your confidence.” Jihane glances at the tray Gabriel left on the table. “Most beginners—children, usually—make use of the tray at first. It saves some face when a seed inevitably gets away from them.”

“It’s like I said. I don’t need help. You’ll get your fruit without the mess you hate so much.”

Jihane smiles like a trap being sprung. “Then get to it, Gabriel.”

The bowl fits neatly in his hand, its weight solid with the kliaquat resting in it. The needle’s not a dainty piece of shit, but it still feels irritatingly thin and small in his grip for the task at hand. He hasn’t spent most of his life making his clothes and carving scrimshaw and wood for his dexterity to be bested by one godsdamned piece of fruit.

The first pearl he tries to thread on the needle bursts, leaving nothing but wilted topaz flesh clinging to the seed inside. There’s so much juice inside such a tiny pearl; dots of it fleck Gabriel’s freckled forearm and the back of his opposite hand, but thankfully, he’s far enough away from Jihane that it misses her clothing.

“You could still use the tray,” Jihane says.

“Yeah, well, in case you ain’t already noticed, I’m a stubborn asshole. I don’t need it.”

Gabriel slows down, nudging a pearl with the sharp tip of the needle. He doesn’t want it flying every which way and landing on Jihane. Embarrassing, to end the game so soon. He angles the needle downward, about where he judges the midpoint between the edge of the pearl and the seed itself, then thrusts it inward with what he thinks to be sufficient pressure and a steady hand.

The devious son of a bitch still shoots out of the bowl. Thankfully, it lands on a nearby section of tiles, bursting upon impact. His cheeks heat again, pulse quickening with his frustration and the expectant gaze of Jihane on him.

“This is the most hull-licking, bilge-pissing, barnacle-fucking, foolish bleedin’—” Gabriel says, the rest of his words swallowed in a heavy sigh. The notion of tossing the whole bowl across Jihane’s fancy courtyard seems more appealing by the heartbeat.

“Such inventive language. Swears, I assume. Not ones I’m familiar with.”

“Don’t imagine you would be. They ain’t exactly commonplace, and much of a dirty conniving bastard as your Sea-Trader is, his language is cleaner than the rest of him.” Gabriel frowns at the cracked and split husk of fruit in the bowl in his hand, needle at the ready. He reckons he’s got it this next time. “Plus, it’s a particular gift of mine.”

“I’d recommend keeping a civil tongue when you address me. The way you speak of the Sea-Trader? I wouldn’t tolerate it.”

“He gives as good as he gets, believe you me. And anyway, he ain’t here.”

Gabriel places the tip of the needle against the seed and pushes it through in a single thrust. He whoops with delight, though he’s careful to keep his hand even. He lifts it from the bowl to examine his handiwork. In the fading light, the gold of the needle looks like treasure preserved in amber where it penetrates the seed. For a moment, he thinks about popping into his mouth, but Jihane’s expectant look quashes that impulse before it truly gets underway.

“Well done. Now feed it to me, and be careful not to injure me. It will end our game along with mess.”

“Just full of demands, aren’t you? Anything else, Mistress?” Gabriel asks, using the Trinoran word he’s heard Jihane’s staff tack on the end of every sentence and before each use of her name.

Jihane’s eyebrows raise to the elegant, oiled baby hairs at her hairline. Her surprise melts into the kind of expression that makes Gabriel’s heart twist and cock throb: delight with the promise of some inventive cruelty.

“I see you’ve a gift for other parts of language too.” Her searching gaze sends a hot prickle across his skin. “Since you’re so eager to please, I can certainly give you another task.” Jihane flutters her lashes, the bold sweep of gold eye paint glittering as she does. “You can thank me for the privilege of allowing you to feed me before we begin.”

Thank her? For assigning him some tedious, ass-backward work? He opens his mouth to tell her exactly what he’s going to thank her for… and stops when Jihane reaches up and rests her sharp claw against his lips in a shushing motion.

“You’re doing so well, Scion-Captain. Don’t ruin it in a rash moment,” Jihane says, eyes hooded. “Or do. It would please me as much to send you away and deny you as it would to keep going. What happens next depends entirely on you.” She removes her hand and rests it across the curve of her belly, bronzed claws splayed against the white of her clothing, recumbent in the pile of tasseled pillows as she waits.

He hates the way his heart pounds behind his ribs, the way his inner thighs slip against each other in his arousal. Gabriel’s still got the threaded seed and needle in hand as he weathers the hot rush of emotions—fury, lust, shame, desire. He sucks in a deep lungful of air, nose flaring.

“Thank you,” he grits out, face burning, “for lettin’ me feed you.”

“Almost. You’re forgetting the word you and your clever tongue picked up.”

Watcher take him to his watery fucking grave and spare him this humiliation. Gabriel vows to redouble his arguments when they get back to the political part of their negotiating.

“Thank you, Mistress.”

She beams at him, bright as the sun and warm as she claims the fire of her god is, and he’ll be buried inland if it doesn’t feel good to be the reason for it. “Perfect. Now, let’s begin.”

Jihane parts her full lips, the tip of her pink tongue and fangs visible as she waits. Gabriel’s lungs seize for a treacherous moment, cock pulsing at the image. Still, if he’s going to do a job, he’s going to do it well. He lifts the needle to her mouth and slips it inside, the topaz pearl resting on her tongue. Jihane closes her lips around the needle and gazes up at him, rose-gold eyes swallowed by her pupils. It takes him a second to realize she’s not going to draw back herself, so Gabriel keeps an even hand and slides the needle from her mouth, now freed of its juicy seed.

He watches in silence as she works the seed around her mouth, jaw moving as she bites down and hums in pleasure. Gabriel can relate. Just looking at the kliaquat’s flesh gets him hungry all over. Seeing her enjoy herself… Now he’s got two reasons for the spit flooding his mouth.

“There’s always the chance it was beginner’s luck. Again.”

“Luck’s for the Chance and the wildcards who follow them. But sure, I’ll do it again.”

This time, it’s much easier to get one of the seeds on the needle; the trick is going for the ones held in place by the membrane, that way they don’t fly off like hatches unbattened. Gabriel lifts it straight out then offers it to Jihane, threading it through her lips like an offering, clenching as she closes her eyes and waits for the needle to withdraw. Gabriel watches her throat work as she finally swallows the seed. A bead of orange-red juice lingers at the dip in her upper lip. “Well done, well done.” The praise burns like a quarterdeck covered in tar in Gabriel’s gut, quick and dangerous. She crooks her finger at him. “Lean down.”

The beginnings of a heady fog stir in Gabriel, clouding his normal urges to fight back. Not enough to dull his curiosity, though. He’s not sure if it’s pain or pleasure awaiting him at the end of her imaginary leash, but he’s keen to find out, so he leans down, belly clenched to brace himself. Jihane grips his shoulder and uses it as leverage to close the gap, and then her mouth is on his, warm and spiced and intoxicating. She parts his lips with her tongue in a mirror of his work with the needle, bestowing on him a deep kiss that redoubles the ache between his legs. What with his hands full, he can’t grab her by the ample hips and pull her closer as he’d like. But Gabriel’s still got his mouth. He groans and kisses back—tonguing at the tips of her fangs, licking the juice from her lip as the kiss breaks, then huffing out a frustrated breath when Jihane pulls back.

“Didn’t take you for the teasing kind.” “Teasing? If I were in the mood to, hmm. How does the expression go? Play with my food,” she lets a languorous pause fill the air as she looks him up and down, “You’d know it. That was a well-earned reward. I’m sure you’ll hear many rumors about me in your time here, most of which aren’t worth the breath spent to voice them. The one where I’m accused of being overgenerous to the point of bribery when people do as I bid?” She smiles, slow and decadent. “That has some degree of truth to it.”

“Reckon I’ll be the judge on whether the reward is generous enough for the task,” Gabriel retorts, smirking. “I’m used to my ship havin’ a belly full of treasure from all across the Fourfold. And folks can get… creative with their offerings when Xeheia’s crew boards their vessels.”

Jihane tosses her head back with a throaty laugh, generous breasts and belly shaking with each peal. She shoves at Gabriel’s thigh with her foot, a teasing push lacking the force to get him truly off balance. “See, I believe this is one reason we get along so well. Both of us are used to people signing their lives away to please us. I look forward to seeing such offerings for myself when you accept my contract.”

“Who said anything about accepting your contract? I still ain’t finished my talks with the Conflagration. And it’s more than a Rising before the weather will allow passage along the straits you wanna travel. A lot could happen between now and then.”

Jihane’s amusement writes itself on her features, her smugness a mirror to Gabriel’s own. She curves her foot inward and trails the ball along the outside of his thigh, venturing upward until it's tucked beneath his gifted robe. Her toes brush the crease where his leg meets his hip. Gabriel shudders at the delicate touch, then flushes and contemplates abandoning the whole kliaquat exercise, tugging her foot a handspan higher, and demonstrating his capability to turn the tables.

It must show on his face somehow because Jihane drops her foot and gives a sultry laugh. “You will. Of that I do not doubt, Scion-Captain. Now carry on before I lose my patience.”

Right. Gabriel had the bowl and needle in a white-knuckle grip if the tension in his joints is anything to go by. “Alright, alright. Time to see if you’re as generous as you claim.”

Gabriel pierces a third seed, albeit messily; tiny droplets of juice cling to the pinch of his thumb and forefinger. He feeds it to Jihane without incident, though she doesn’t seem inclined to offer one of the aforementioned rewards since it’s imperfect. By the fourth, he’s got the hang of it again. Jihane glows with satisfaction after she swallows the mouthful of fruit.

Turns out, she’s as good as her word. The more seeds he feeds her properly, the more she rewards him. It doesn’t make the task any less godsdamned tedious by nature, but it certainly makes it leagues more enjoyable. For the price of three unruptured pearls painstakingly placed on her tongue, he earns a second; Gabriel can taste the tartness of his own efforts as Jihane licks into his mouth, slow and deliberate. Several more seeds prove the price for more kisses—except Jihane leans in and places these on his taut nipples, tonguing at flesh and metal alike through the robe and leaving new stains in her wake.

“Not fair,” Gabriel grunts, tensing his thighs together in a bid to relieve the ache between them.

“Everything is fair when it’s my home, my game, and my rules.” Aside from her swollen lips, Jihane looks pristine and unaffected. “Keep going. I’m not finished, so neither are you.”

Impatient as all seven hells, Gabriel decides he can speed this up. He eases the needle through one seed then uses the edge of the bowl to push it further down the needle, carefully making room for a second. The second pearl joins the first, and when he lifts it to Jihane’s mouth, she smiles before closing her lips around the needle. She takes her time enjoying them, though by now they must be cool; her lashes flutter, and after she swallows, she lets out a pleased little sigh.

“Very good. You’re catching on so quickly.” With a cat-like smile, Jihane leans forward and places one hand in the valley of his chest, all five tips of her ornate claws nestled together on the skin the robe exposes. She beams up at him, radiating warmth like the galley stove during a winter storm, then drags her fingers down his chest and stomach, hard enough for him to feel the promise of pain but not hard enough to rip the cloth. The way he’s kneeling means she can’t get them where Gabriel really wants them, though even the brush of them across his lap has his cock throbbing and nerves tingling. “Do that again. Three, this time.”

Watcher help him, he doesn’t think twice about questioning it. In his haste, Gabriel misjudges the spot on the first seed; it bounces out of the bowl and off the top of Jihane’s foot, rolling down a groove in the pavilion tiles. A damning drop of orange juice quivers on the top of it. She arches a thick brow at him. “What did I say about patience? That was a close call.”

That does it. Gabriel sets the bowl and needle down, earning him a deeper glare from Jihane. He takes her delicate foot in both hands, one palm against her ankle with fingers wrapped around it to steady it, the other palm against her sole; her foot’s small enough that Gabriel could cover it completely and then some, if he wanted.

Instead, he bends down, back curved, and lifts it to his mouth. Clearly, Jihane doesn’t have much of a problem with this gesture, considering she could kick his teeth in if she took sincere issue. He locks eyes with her over the top of her foot. A delicate set of golden bangles in the interlocking shapes of leaves around her ankle tinkles like windchimes.

“Sorry, Mistress,” he says, overwrought for theatrics sake. Gabriel presses his lips to the top of her foot in a chaste kiss, inhaling deep to enjoy the perfume drifting from her soft skin. He deepens the kiss, teasing at the tracery of veins beneath his lips with the tip of his tongue. A faint hint of tartness confirms he’s gotten to the offending juice. “Won’t happen again,” he says before carefully placing her foot back on its ruby-red pillow.

Jihane’s breath comes deep, breasts straining against the nacreous white fabric of her dress. “And here I discover another one of your ‘talents’: making an apology sound like insolence.”

“Given that I ain’t in the habit of making apologies at all, I can’t see why you’re complaining.”

“My only complaint is you dallying with the task I set you.”

Gabriel smirks, then picks up the bowl and needle. Only a small pocket of seeds remains in the kliaquat. Almost done.

He intends to keep his wits about him, threading seeds three at a time to hurry along the task. But Jihane keeps her gaze on his, sure and steady, stoking the fire in his belly until the molten tension threatens to overflow. She can’t hide her own impatience. Gabriel notices how she draws back first from the needle, not bothering to wait for him to do it, and how she spends less time savouring the pearls.

By the time he finishes, Gabriel’s fingers are stained again, digits a rusty, shimmering orange from all the juices. A shallow pool of kliaquat juice covers the bottom of his fancy bowl, but true to his word, not a drop has gotten on Jihane’s outfit.

Jihane sits up, tucking both legs beneath her. “Here. Let me help clean you.”

Before Gabriel can do a godsdamn thing about it, Jihane takes his free hand in her burning one and brings it to her mouth. She runs her tongue along the curve of his thumb, licking it clean of juice with slow passes. When she gets to his fingers, she takes his pointer finger into her mouth entire, sucking on it in steady pulses; Gabriel’s heart pounds in tandem with Jihane’s attentions as he imagines those same attentions on his cock. She pulls away with syrupy slowness, her long lashes a false veil of demureness over her heated gaze.

He wants to say something, anything. He’s not the kind to get rendered speechless by more gentle diversions, no matter how gorgeous the person bestowing them. Gabriel squares up, taking a deep lungful of breath and intending to give his mouth free rein.

Except Jihane curls her tongue around his middle finger, paying special attention to the calluses on the underside; the silk of her tongue against the rough skin has him shivering where he keels. She kisses her way down to the juice-stained ring, then works her tongue around every golden crevice of the signet; her fangs dig in on either side of his knuckle as she commits to the task. Gabriel moans, the sharp prick of drawn blood and the warm softness of her mouth too much for him to hold back.

He barely registers her cleaning his remaining fingers. It’s hard to focus with the roar of desire washing out almost everything else. The roar becomes a bone-shattering clap of thunder when Gabriel sees Jihane’s just as affected. There’s the tell-tale holy glow to her eyes and scars, and a thin plume of smoke escapes her nose with every exhale.

Fuck it. Gabriel abandons the bowl and chucks it to the ground. Too hard, judging by the delicate crack and wet splash. Jihane hisses a word in Trinoran that must be a swear, but that’s all she gets out before Gabriel frames her heart-shaped face in his hands and pulls it closer. He noses at the divot above Jihane’s upper lip and inhales deep, groaning as he chases the holy smoke of her breath. Jihane wraps her clawed fingers around his wrists and squeezes, but if it’s meant to discourage him, it doesn’t, especially not with a moan—and more smoke—slipping between her painted lips.

It’s a cross between unfamiliar spices—cloves, cinnamon—and the familiar smells of a ship set to the flame, wood burning and crackling as it sinks to the Depths. Gabriel presses his lips to hers and kisses her like she’s a breath of air after diving in freshwater, desperate for the taste of her, grunting and squeezing his thighs together when Jihane gasps a mouthful of smoke into his. She releases one of his wrists to place her hand at the back of his head, pushing him down to her neck and redirecting his efforts. Gabriel’s all too happy to oblige, nipping and sucking at the sensitive skin, left drenched between the thighs twice over at the sultry groan it elicits from her.

All too soon, Jihane pulls back and keeps Gabriel at a distance with a hand on his chest, her own breath coming heavy.

“Fetch me another kliaquat.” Gabriel gropes for spoken language, words temporarily stolen. “Really? We’re still on that? Ain’t I done enough by now?”

Were it not the cause of some particular suffering on his part, he’d admire the way her expression changes in an instant, cool and imperious, eyes aglow with her god’s fire. “Do not make me ask again, Gabriel.”

He heaves an irritated sigh but does as she asks. His long reach means he only has to twist his torso and lean a bit to reach the table, rolling a pale blue fruit into his palm with his fingers and bringing it to Jihane.

She plucks it from his grasp, then lifts it to eye level, considering. It looks for all the world like a gem in its setting, perched in the cage of her golden claws. Jihane glances between Gabriel and the kliaquat, her icy expression melting into an amused grin.

“This was going to be another reward, but since you’ve decided to be difficult…”

With no warning, Jihane wields her claws like knives against the firm husk of the fruit and splits it in half—right above her spotless dress.

Instinct drives Gabriel forward, lunging from his kneel to cup his hands beneath Jihane’s. Mercifully, the iridescent juice seems to have missed the white, though flecks of it decorate the tops of her breasts and cheeks. Juice from the split pearls flows from the seam in the fruit, dripping into the cup Gabriel’s made of his hands.

There’s a problem, though. There’s also juice running down Jihane’s fingers in tiny rivulets from where she’s split the fruit. He can chart the course of it plain as day – it’ll drip from her forearms to her clothing before long. Except if he moves his hand, there’s going to be a stain whether he likes it or not.

He’s still got his mouth.

Gabriel hunches and starts lapping at Jihane’s wrists and fingers, chasing every drop of juice he can find. He outlines the sharp golden curve of her claws, the deep lines of her palms, the pulse point of her wrist with his tongue, his aim speed rather than seduction. Still, he’s not fast enough. By the time he finishes with her right hand, there’s juice streaming down her left forearm, following the runnels left by the scars of the Maw.

He switches hands and licks those too. He traces the webbing of scars with his tongue, warm kliaquat juice tinting every swallow. It occurs to him too late that he's lapping at her holy mark like a shipcat at a dish of cream, that maybe it might not be welcome. But as his tongue meets the point where her pulse and her scars intersect on the inside of her wrist, Jihane moans, low and urgent. Not unwelcome, then.

Gabriel’s sucking the juice from Jihane’s jeweled claws when she tosses half of the kliaquat aside in a careless flick. His lungs seize, worried all his work will have been for nothing, but the luxurious white fabric remains clean. Deciding he’s better safe than sorry, Gabriel places his mouth to the point where his wrists meet and tilts the makeshift bowl of his hands, slurping up the remnants of the juice before it can dribble through his fingers. When he looks up through his lashes at her, she moans softly, then lifts the remaining half of the fruit to his mouth.

“Eat.”

Watcher avert her all-seeing eye, Gabriel doesn’t hesitate.

Keeping his hands cupped beneath it, Gabriel descends on the fruit with lips and tongue and teeth, driven by multiple scorching heats: Jihane’s gaze, the ache of his cock, the pounding in his chest. He sucks seeds into his mouth, popping them with his tongue, one of his several thirsts quenched by the flood of spiced juice. Gabriel stays as careful as he can, taking seeds between his teeth, licking them out of their nestled pockets.

He stays careful all the way until Jihane slides her palm beneath his robe and up his inner thigh, only coming to a stop when the heel of her hand rests against his cock. With this angle, her claws rest dangerously close to his hole, and when she starts to rub her palm back and forth against him, each pass brings a delicious prick of pain against tender skin.

It wipes the conscious thought from his mind.

He devours the kliaquat like he needs it to live, rutting his hips against Jihane’s hand at the same time. Gabriel doesn’t bother separating seed and membrane; bitter pith and vibrant seeds mingle, barely chewed, swallowed whole. Juice covers his mouth and courses through his beard and down his neck, but he doesn’t care, his world narrowed to Jihane’s hand on his dick and her gaze on him as he eats from the palm of her hand.

It’s against her hand that he comes, moaning around a mouthful of seeds, cock pulsing as she rakes her claws through the soaked hair at the apex of his thighs. He barely manages to swallow before a moan escapes him, thighs clamped around Jihane’s hand as he rides out the aftershocks.

Dizzy, breathless, it takes him several long moments to look down.

He’s finished this half of the fruit… but dark orange splatters cover the white of Jihane’s dress. The pattern puts him in the mind of wounds, of bloodshed. Shame comes hot on the heels of his peak—at eating from her hand like an animal, at failing her task, at wanting to succeed in the first place, at feeling ready for a second climax no sooner than the first ended, at wanting to ply his tongue between her legs and satisfy a different hunger.

Jihane glances down, disappointment mingling with traces of lust on her features. She shakes her head softly, then pats Gabriel’s cheek with the same hand she had between his legs; he can smell his arousal on her fingers along with a metallic hint that might be his blood. “Now thank me, Scion-Captain, for the gift of pleasure I just gave you. By name, please.”

His pride puts up a valiant fight, but what with his defenses storm-battered and hole still clenching in the aftershocks, it loses. “Thank you, Jihane.” Jihane strokes his cheekbone with her thumb, anointing him with his own release. Then she holds her hand in front of his mouth expectantly, wrist loose and fingers draped low. By the time he finishes licking it clean of the most personal kind of salt price, his cheeks are burning and he’s hard all over again from the luxurious, shameful pleasure of it all.

For a foggy moment, Gabriel’s certain she won’t hold the stains against him. But even with his wits addled, there’s finality in the lingering kiss Jihane places on his twice-stained lips.

“For a first attempt, you did well. But I did warn you there’d be consequences for failure.” She stands, bearing regal, as though her dress and skin weren’t covered in kliaquat juice. “I need to change before my next engagement now, which means our time together is at an end. But I’ll have Sidqi come by to show you out, once you’ve had time to… collect yourself.” She gives his cheek a final, condescending pat, then winks. “I’ll see you at the Conflagration two days hence.”

All Gabriel can do is watch her, stunned, as she leaves, head high and hips swaying, her bare feet padding against the tiles of the pavilion. He watches until she vanishes into the west entrance to her estate, then surveys the damage around him: slick thighs, aching cock, stained clothes, discarded fruit, broken ceramic.

Fuck him six ways through all seven hells. Jihane may have won this round. But next time, next time…

He’ll demonstrate just what sort of command being the captain of the most notorious ship in the Fourfold Seas requires.

#the forsaken and the forsworn #gabriel berthelot #jihane n'ait #I haven't come up with a portmantaeu for these two even though they're canon since we've entered the poly part of this verse #my writing #happy birthday times two Gab #you deserve the whole world #and if you've made it through 11k of service submission and food kink #kudos to you #qliatori

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