#hare ear fjord

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

ceryul and julian shared wizard notes on the voyage back from the hag's lair (he's never met such a skilled and highly specialised aerothurge and is Very Impressed)

turns out that he absolutely cannot really ask to flip through their spellbook, and it also turns out he can't read a word of it anyway (it's all in, presumably, infernal) but GOODNESS what a unique method of transcription!

[devsash]

Discovery

Westguard Keep, Howling Fjord

Ren leaned against the fortified wall as he watched the stars overhead. Some of the constellations in Northrend were different from the ones visible in Gilneas, but he was heartened to see the ones he loved well. There were the Hare and the Twins. Overhead was the Warrior poised in his eternal flight from the Scorpion, who pursued him across the heavens. The winding northern lights through the sky added a touch of mystic beauty to the night.

The Keep was silent at this time of night. The only signs of life were the patrolling guards, punctuated by the occasional scout riding in with their report.

Ren sighed as he straightened. His breath misted in the chill air as he made his way back to the stables. The warmth within was inviting as he stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind him.

Swiftfoot, the nearest colt, whickered a soft greeting at his entrance. The horse's ears pricked forward, his eyes gleaming at Ren.

The Gilnean smiled, reaching over to pat the colt's nose. "Can't sleep? What's keeping you up, boy?"

Swiftfoot whickered again, nuzzling his fingers affectionately.

Ren chuckled. "I'll get you another blanket," he said with a smile.

"Ren?" a man's voice called softly, somewhere farther inside the stables. "Is that you?"

Ren started, glancing towards it. A figure stood there, half shrouded in shadow. He stepped forward into the dim light cast by the nearby lamp. It illuminated just enough of his face that he was recognisable.

Ren sighed. "Light, Ser Darion. You gave me such a start."

The paladin grinned. "I thought I'd find you in here," he said.

"You thought right, ser." Ren stepped past him, picking up a roll of blankets for Swiftfoot.

Darion sighed. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was riding out. It was a last minute thing. They needed me to deal with a swarm of undead harassing the outpost."

Ren blinked at that. "I'm not angry with you, ser. You don't owe me any sort of explanation."

Darion nodded. "Good," he said a little awkwardly.

"So, how can I be of service, ser?" Ren opened the door to Swiftfoot's stall before stepping in. He carefully spread the blanket over the colt and patted him gently. "I assume you want something since you sought me out here."

"I do want something from you." There was an odd note in the paladin's voice.

Ren stepped out and closed the door of the stall with a soft click. He turned to face the paladin, only for a hand to sieze his wrist, yanking him against the other man's chest.

"I've told you before. You don't have to call me ser," Darion murmured huskily. "Just Darion will do."

The Gilnean frowned, nonplussed. "What are you doing?"

"You must know, Ren. All those times we spent together, all our conversations..." Darion's arm encircled Ren's waist. "The truth is, I've been drawn to you since I first clapped eyes on you in this Lightforsaken place. You've ensnared me body and soul. Your company, charm and kindness have been a balm during my service here and I want you so much."

Ren stared at the paladin. "Ser," he said at last. "I've enjoyed your friendship and having you around, but--"

Darion pressed a finger to the Gilnean's lips. "Just one night," he whispered. "Please. Let me show you what it's like to be loved."

The tips of Ren's ears turned red. He mentally kicked himself again for thoughtlessly letting that detail slip. "I've told you, Ser. I've never wanted--"

"But you've never done it before, have you?" He nuzzled into Ren's hair. "Let me be the one to change your mind."

"You don't understand." Ren leaned back, bracing a hand against the paladin's chest in an attempt to regain some distance between them. "I've never thought of you that way. Only as a friend."

"Just give me a chance." Darion's eyes were heated. "You're a man, aren't you? Of course you want this."

"No, I don't." Ren pushed the paladin away firmly, stepping back. His unease mounted as Darion closed in, pinning him against the wall.

"Stop denying yourself, Ren," the other man growled darkly, his erection pressing against Ren's stomach through the fabric of his pants. "You'll thank me for this later." He grabbed Ren's hair and jerked it downwards, his lips crashing roughly onto the Gilnean's.

Pain and terror stabbed into Ren. Barely aware of the sound of ripping cloth, he lashed out in a panic, striking Darion hard across the face.

The paladin crumpled to the ground, a hiss of pain escaping his lips. He pressed a hand to his face as blood welled up from long gashes across his cheeks. His eyes narrowed in anger before widening in horror as he stared at Ren. He raised a hand, pointing an accusing finger at the Gilnean. "You... you're one of those monsters!"

Ren's blood roared in his ears. The horses were screaming, the stench of their fear assaulting his suddenly hypersensitive nose. He glanced down at his hand. The black fur on his arm. The bright scarlet liquid dripping from his claw-tipped fingers.

A soft lupine whine of panicked distress escaped his lips. He whirled around to bolt for the door.

"Oh, no you don't!" Darion spat somewhere behind him.

Something hard crashed into the back of Ren's head, plunging his world into darkness.

[junie-bugg]

The Heartrender - Chapter Three: Flickers

Hello all!

Here’s chapter three of my Everlark fic ‘The Heartrender’, in which I inadvertently utilized the “only one bed trope” 😏💕

You can read here on Tumblr or here on AO3 (I suggest reading on AO3 because I add a poem at the beginning of each chapter that I feel fits nicely with the story.)

Rating: Explicit

Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Sexual Content

Relationship: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark

Tags: Enemies to Lovers, witch!Katniss, witch-hunter!Peeta, AU - Shipwrecked, AU - Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Explicit Sexual Content, Furs and Fires, Angst and Fluff and Smut, sexually experienced Katniss, virgin Peeta, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Loss of Virginity, Laughter During Sex, Blood and Injury, Imprisonment, Peeta has some prejudices to work out, Peeta also has an accent, Inspired by Six of Crows

Summary:

He hated her. He hated her for what she was: an abomination, a demon sent to tear at the fabric of the natural world. He hated her for making him want to laugh. He hated her for being so brazen and sensuous and everything the women of his country were never allowed to be. But mostly he hated her because he realized he didn’t hate her. Not even a little bit.

After a shipwreck has left an abducted witch and a member of the ominous Order bent on wiping out her kind stranded on the icy shores of an uninhabited land, the two must work together to survive or face tearing each other apart in the process.

Chapters: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

Chapter Three: Flickers

Night had fallen, and with it, the temperature. Peeta allowed the witch to hold his arm so she could keep his blood warm. When she retracted her hand every once in a while to readjust the pelt around her shoulders, his jaw clenched. 

He shouldn’t miss her touch. 

“Do you have any idea where we are?” she asked. 

“Near the northern border of the Permafrost. Though I don’t know how far from the capital we were before the ship sank.” 

“We’re walking to Fjordhingă then?” 

“Yes,” he replied. Fjordhingă was the trading capital of the north. It was to be the last stopping point of The Bloody Rose’s voyage before they headed west to Sjorkden. If he and the witch could make it there by foot, perhaps Peeta could talk their way onto a ship. But how would he get the witch on board? What if she ran away? The thought had been nagging him like a fly on his brow.

Even with the witch there to keep his blood pumping, he felt his limbs freezing up as the temperature continued dropping. He desperately scanned the darkening horizon, hoping to find an outcropping of rocks they could huddle under, or maybe another whaling camp. Instead, he spotted a gabled roof. 

“Oh, thank god,” he breathed and started tugging the witch along. 

“Lieutenant…” she said apprehensively. 

It wasn’t just some stray shack. It was a fishing village, with squat houses and a trading outpost, all perched on the cliffside and overlooking the ocean. One circular dirt road cleared of rock and vegetation lay at its center and clusters of small stone buildings had been constructed around it. The houses had wavy glass panes in the windows and soot-blackened chimneys, though no light shone onto the street and no smoke rose into the sky. 

An abandoned village then. 

Even better. 

Peeta hastened his pace. 

“Lieutenant, stop!” the witch yelled, tugging him back behind the village’s low border wall. “Look at the flagpole!”

Peeta’s heart sank when he saw an ominous black flag waving high above the rooftops. 

Black was for plague. No wonder the place seemed abandoned. 

Everyone had died. 

He thought they were going to move on, but the witch set her shoulders back. Her face took on a quiet focus.

“We need to be careful. We can’t just barge in. There may be corpses.” She dropped his arm and moved around him. He watched her walk to the door of the closest house and lay a palm to its wind-weathered surface before he could stop her. 

He sucked in a breath. 

She was too close. 

“Don’t!” he barked and pulled her away. 

She whipped her head around, a scowl pulling her brows together. “You’d rather we die of plague then allow me to use my god-given powers?” 

“Don’t drag god into this.”

“Oh don’t worry. I doubt we have the same one,” she retorted. “Now get out of my way.” 

He didn’t want her touching that door, but he knew what she was doing. He’d read about the practice of purification in class, but he hadn’t imagined it would smell so good. 

Pure white light emanated from within the building, flooding out in bright streams from the windows, the minuscule cracks in the stone walls, the deep hollow of the chimney. Long shadows crept along the ground, shifting in oblong patterns as the light in the house moved. The witch’s hair and clothing snapped in some enchanted breeze, pulling ebony locks and fur upwards in a cascading arc until the light faded and gravity pulled her hair back down in a glossy curtain. 

The air tingled with the sharp scent of mint. 

“I thought you could only manipulate bodies,” Peeta got out. 

“I can do a great many things you wouldn’t understand, lieutenant.” 

“Don’t call me that,” he muttered. Lieutenant was his title from the Order. It felt wrong to hear her speak it here. 

“Would you rather I call you by your name?” she asked. 

Peeta didn’t respond. 

“Didn’t think so.” She turned the brass knob and the door swung in on itself. “Welcome home, lieutenant.” 

X

By noon the next day, she had purified the entire village. 

It was a spell, an easy one, that burned away rot and disease. Each time she pressed a hand to a doorway, the windows filled with that bright celestial light, her hair rose above her head as a flame rises above a candlewick, and she burned away any trace of plague inside. Scraps of cloth that had been coughed into, drops of dried blood on the floor, corpses that had been left behind. Each house was spotless when she was done. 

They had slept in the house farthest from the others, on the far side of the village. It was small, with only a kitchen, sitting area, and one bedroom. There was a sizable stone hearth in the kitchen, plenty of split logs in a wicker basket by the back door, even some strips of salted caribou meat in the pantry. First, they had scarfed down the meat, and only after, with the salted flesh chewed and swallowed, did they think of their thirst. Peeta made a fire while the witch lugged a burnished pot outside to gather snow. They drank the warm melted water and then collapsed into bed with their clothes still on. 

It was a real bed, with a canopied frame and pillows and soft, quilted blankets. Peeta was too tired to object when the witch curled in against his chest, and once more he spent the night with his nose buried deep in her hair. 

As exhausted as he was, Peeta was a soldier. He woke early, as he always did, and found that he couldn’t fall back asleep. The pale morning light of dawn bled through the curtains. Anyone else would have rolled over and tried to catch a few more hours of shut-eye, but Peeta couldn’t. The witch’s heat against his chest was too much, like a beating, throbbing wound that refused to heal. He untangled his arm from around her and then hurried to the door, grabbing a spear in the pretense of hunting. 

Winter burned his nostrils as he took in deep lungfuls of air. He was a boy raised in the fjords of southern Sjorkden, and a man of the northern academy. He’d thought he’d seen the bitterest winters the world had to offer when ice would form between the stones of his tower dormitory and he and Yasser would have to sleep on the floor by the black iron furnace for warmth. They would go to breakfast with blue nail beds and teeth that chattered so violently sometimes it was hard to chew. But he realized those nights were nothing compared to this, a winter’s chill so sharp that it cut out a spot for you into the very landscape, made you feel as if your skin was crafted of snow, your bones pressed from ice. 

He secured the fur around his shoulders and tried to replace thoughts of piercing silver eyes with thoughts of breakfast. 

But the winds of the north were unforgiving, and the frigid bite of the air only reminded Peeta of how warm he had been with the witch. By the time he had finished hunting, having speared only one measly hare, his limbs were frozen, joints locked as if welded, lips numb under his teeth as he tried to bite the life back into them. 

He found himself anticipating coming back to the village, wanting what he so desperately fled only hours before; to tangle in bed with the witch once more, a merry fire crackling in the hearth, the warm press of her body cradled against his own, his nose buried in the hollow beneath her ear, soaking up the heady scents of jasmine and fresh rain and sunlight until he was drunk on her. 

His thoughts were peaceful until he remembered the sin of what he had been considering. 

Laying with the witch was practical. The use of her magic against the cold was necessary. There was nothing charming or romantic about having to rely on an enemy for survival. He should despise his needing her. 

She wasn’t human. She was dangerous. 

It was foolish to forget that.

X

Yasser collapsed into the seat across from Peeta, his dinner tray laden with a bowl of brown grits, boiled sausages, some mushy looking turnips, and a small cup of water. 

“Did you hear what happened to Larone?” he asked, his urgent tone cutting under the loud din of the dining compartment. 

“No,” Peeta replied, unsure if he wanted news of how Wilhelm was handling his first witcher voyage. The antics of newbies were fun to hear about at the start, but when tales of seasickness and fatigue reached the ears of experienced witchers, especially witchers on the cusp of earning their freedom, the stories were more annoying than entertaining. 

Yasser greedily stuffed a spoonful of grits into his mouth and swallowed before continuing. “Well, I’m telling you anyway. If I have to know, you have to know.” 

“Can I finish eating first?”

“No. Now eat your sausages, growing boy!” Yasser mimicked the garbled, high-pitched accent of one of the servants from the academy, Mrs. Jengon, who had doled out food in the great hall. Each and every student was a “growing boy” in her eyes. Even the ones who had finished their battle with puberty. 

Peeta frowned and took a tentative bite of sausage. 

“Alright, I’m going to try and say this with as much grace as possible,” Yasser said solemnly but then burst into peals of laughter, slamming a fist against the table so forcefully the plates rattled. “Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t think I can. Larone gave the Heartrender a little too much to chew if you know what I’m saying.” 

Peeta stilled. “He didn’t.”

Yasser cocked a thick eyebrow, his mouth crinkling around the corners. With his flaming red hair and bright green eyes gleaming under the oil lamps he looked like some kind of buff leprechaun. “He did. And now half his pisser is being packed in ice.” 

Peeta’s stomach rolled, his body instinctually clenching in phantom pain as he imagined it. He set down his fork with the sausage impaled on the end and pushed the plate away. 

“God…”

“But don’t tell anyone I told you,” Yasser added. “The commander wants to keep it under wraps. Doesn’t shine very well on him, does it? If his recruits are dumb enough to stick their cocks between witch jaws?”

Peeta didn’t tell a soul but the news still spread through the ranks like a wildfire during drought season. Yasser updated him at breakfast. Larone was in the infirmary being tended to by Dutch, the crew’s one doctor, and wouldn’t be out of recovery until the ship reached Sjorkden. Peeta felt bad for the boy, but it was his own foolishness that had gotten him into trouble, and now he’d never bed a wife or sire heirs. Larone’s power crawl was over before it had even really started. 

Peeta relieved Hans Gerholt from guarding duty that night, disgusted when he saw no one had bothered to clean the Heartrender up. Larone’s blood had splattered her face, dried, and then cracked. She looked absolutely monstrous with a red dipped chin. 

“You here for a good time too?” she said, picking up on Peeta’s discomfort. He didn’t respond, just sat down stiffly in the guard’s chair and listened to the creaking of the boat, the squeaking of rats in the walls, the soft clinking of the witch’s chains when she shifted across the cell floor. “Your little friend showed me his even littler friend. I barely bit him and it was half off.”

“Stop talking,” Peeta growled, angry at himself that he had risen to her bait. He knew she just wanted to get a rise out of him. The weeping girl was gone, replaced with one who had accepted she had nothing to lose. 

“Now your commander…” she drawled, eyes flashing in the partial darkness. “His would have taken more gnawing.” 

Peeta didn’t much care for the commander. He was old and cruel, but it was the principal of honor and his loyalties to the Order that made him rise so sharply from his chair that it tipped over. He lunged at her through the bars, pulling her up against the cold metal by her collar. “Hold your tongue, witch, or I’ll cut it out.”

She tsked quietly, hanging limply in his grip. “Did your commander ever tell you where he found me?” She saw the confusion in his eyes and clung to it. “Of course he didn’t. No pious soldier of Sjorkden would ever reveal he had been cavorting in a pleasure house.”

“You’re a whore,” Peeta whispered, almost disbelievingly, the pieces clicking into place. He released her and she fell to the ground in a weakened heap. 

On the surface, she looked the same. Wrinkled red dress, oily black hair, sunken cheeks. But now there was something alight inside of her. Heat smoldered like molten silver in her eyes. 

“You and your kind have called me many things, lieutenant. Witch. Slum scum. Unholy daughter of Krell. But I’m afraid ‘whore’ is where I draw the line. I did not choose that life, it was thrust upon me, and here I am now. Free of it.”

Peeta looked down at her. He thought the commander had put her in those iron hand caps to keep her from unleashing her powers. She could not kill if she could not curl her fingers. But now he suspected they had come from her time in Ellsworth. How long had she been wearing them? From the rust on the padlocks, he suspected a long time. “How ironic that you speak of freedom while you lounge in chains.”

“Freedom is a fickle thing, lieutenant. I may be stuck here in this cage, but I suspect you carry one wherever you go.” 

Peeta’s nostrils flared. That familiar rush of rage he experienced during combat surged through his limbs, but with nowhere to go, his head soon swam with it. “Do not pretend to know me. You’re repulsive. A perversion against nature.” 

“I am nature. You are just too brainwashed to see it.”

“Nature does not defile the earth. Or slaughter the innocent by the thousands.” 

“My people have committed no such crimes. We were healers before you forced our hands to bloodshed. I suggest you try looking upon yourselves before you go blindly doling out sentences.”  

Peeta was at a loss for words. The nerve of this girl, injuring Larone and then preaching about who the real enemy was. Coaxing out his anger and frustration when he was normally so good at hiding it. Ever since he ran away from home, he had learned the hard way that emotion in the face of an enemy was weakness. He could not afford to let her under his skin, no matter how hard she clawed away at him. He was ashamed to admit it, but he had found himself thinking about her on nights when he wasn’t on guard duty.

That stopped now. 

“Rot in hell,” he spat as he righted his chair.

“You will,” she growled.

X

The witch burned the red dress in the kitchen fireplace. The fabric steamed and curled into blackened strips, sending dark plumes of smoke up the chimney like released ghouls. Peeta didn’t have to ask her why she did it. He knew she burned the dress to try and burn away the memories of her capture, and perhaps the memories that came before. If he thought about it, the dress must have been from her time in Ellsworth. He could only imagine how a girl of her beauty would fare in the clutches of a pleasure house, the horrors unleashed upon her when the rights to her body were not her own. He wondered how she could even bear touching him. 

A man. 

A stranger. 

If burning the dress had worked, he couldn’t tell. She came to bed in a fur-lined nightgown and quietly rested her cheek on his breastbone. His cheeks burned, shame lacing itself into his stomach lining when he didn’t push her away. 

“I’ve never heard a heart song so gentle,” she murmured admiringly. She sounded surprised. 

Peeta’s chest ached. He was suddenly self-conscious of how fast he was breathing and in his fight to slow down, hadn’t asked her what she meant. 

They raided each house one by one. The people of the village were either dead or had moved on when the plague hit. They left behind dressers full of clothing, shoes, pots and pans, utensils, pottery, carving knives, firewood, axes, the occasional sword, hunting supplies, wax candles, furniture, toys, paintings, family heirlooms. All the trappings of domesticity. 

The pair took a pan here and a pair of shoes there. Peeta had found two large packs with which to stuff items in. His pack would contain a small assortment of kitchenware, food, some firewood, and the water sacks. She would carry extra clothing and furs. They planned on spending a couple of nights in the village before restarting their journey north to Fjordhingă. 

In the days they spent stocking up on provisions, the witch took over hunting duty. She didn’t hunt with spear or snare as Peeta had learned. She used her powers to crush windpipes and burst hearts. Wild dogs stopped dead in their tracks, keening over like sacks of potatoes. Birds plummeted from the sky, cold before they hit the ground. He enjoyed the bounty, feasting on a new roast every night and salting the leftovers, but with every meal, he grew warier. He had heard the stories of course, of the deathly potential that Heartrenders possessed, but seeing her in action was completely different from hearing some old tale around a campfire. Just how powerful was she? And when she determined he was no longer useful as a means of body heat or when their little truce no longer suited her, how easy would it be to kill him? A curl of her fingers or a flick of her wrist and he’d be dead. 

Maybe he’d made a mistake by letting her live. 

Every night when he watched her sleep, the voices of the masters pressed into his head, willing his fingers to close around her throat, to witness the light drain from her bulging, terror-filled eyes and have her know that he had bested her. 

Him. The seed of a pathetic, weak-willed baker. Wielder of no arcane power and with no legacy to help carve the way. Just him and his own two hands against the world. As it had always been. 

But no matter what his common sense was telling him, of how dangerous he knew her kind to be, he couldn’t do it. He would reach for her neck and then freeze, afraid to go any further. If she didn’t stir he’d stay his hand, running feather-light fingers across her pulse point, quietly admiring the way her angled features softened in sleep. But if her eyelids fluttered or her breathing changed he would retreat as if she had burned him. 

“Where were you sired?” Peeta asked one night as they ate a bird the witch had caught. The bones were small and Peeta had to be careful not to break them with his teeth. He gnawed on a piece of cartilage as he waited for her reply. 

“Excuse me?”

“I mean-” Krellian was not Peeta’s first language. He had picked it up between his boyhood and his blood christening into the Order, but he had limited knowledge of words. He learned Krellian and Narubi and Hannako from old, leather-bound textbooks and even older professors. For years he had studied all the archaic tongues they hoped he would someday snuff out, but he did not know slang or turn of phrase, and his accent was rounded in his mouth compared to the crisp consonants of a native Krellian speaker. 

She spoke as if she were tiptoeing through a flower field. 

He spoke as if he were crashing through it. 

“Where did you… grow?”

“Grow up?”

Grow up. Peeta slotted the term into his memory for future use. “Yes. Where in Krell did you grow up?”

The witch narrowed her eyes, those silvery irises glowing like moonlight from behind a cloud’s ragged border. “Why? Are you planning your next raid?”

“No, I-” He ducked his head, his cheeks burning furiously. “I’m just curious.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I won’t tell you, lieutenant,” she snarled. She threw down her uneaten bird’s wing, splattering congealed blood everywhere. “Besides, you don’t deserve to know.” Her anger was eager, ready to be unleashed upon him even in quiet, semi-companionable moments such as mealtime. She confused him. Why was she flirty and seductive when they lay in bed together but bitter and closed off when he tried having a casual conversation?

Although to be fair, he hadn’t been very open with her either. And not particularly kind.

“It was just a question.”

“A dangerous one. Go ahead and ask another. See if I’ll talk.” Her eyes glittered as if they were playing a game she knew she would win. 

Just another thing he didn’t like about the witch. How ashamed he felt when talking to her. Minor slip-ups, cracks in his armor of indifference. She had a talent for coaxing them out of him as if she were pulling secrets from a drunk man.

But he was in too deep now. Might as well try to get something out of her. 

He lowered his gaze to the fire and asked, “Then what’s your favorite color?” 

The witch blinked. She hadn’t been expecting such a mundane inquiry. She was silent for a moment, probably contemplating if giving away this piece of information would in any way compromise her. She decided a favorite color was harmless. 

“Green.” 

He pictured it. The verdant green of a forest. Lush and deep and full of secrets. 

Just like her. 

“Mine is orange,” he offered. “Soft. Like a sunset.”

She cocked a dark brow. “Not red for the blood of your enemies?”

Peeta raised the drumstick back up to his mouth, suppressing a smile. “That comes in a close second.” 

She had laughed then, a sound so joyful and clear that Peeta’s heart clenched and he stopped chewing just to hear her better. 

X

She awoke screaming one night, flailing about under the sheets and shoving him away as if he were stabbing her. He had been awake when it started, unable to quiet a storm of racing thoughts. If he hadn’t been so alert, perhaps he wouldn’t have sprung to her aid so quickly. 

“What is it?” he demanded, suspecting there was something biting her under the covers. He threw the blankets back, but there was nothing. “Huh?” he asked when he couldn’t make out her quaking mumbles. 

“Just a dream, it was just a dream,” she whispered to herself, and then she dissolved into tears. Her face glistened wetly in the moonlight and she shrank away when he reached to pull the covers back over her. 

The next night, he took some furs and slept by the fire in the kitchen, afraid she wouldn’t want him in bed with her. But when he was about to doze off, she padded through the doorway. 

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Sleeping.”

“On the floor?”

“But… you… last night… ” he stammered. 

Her face hardened as she crossed her arms self-consciously. “I’m sorry you had to see that, but I’d feel better if you stayed in the room with me.” 

“You kicked me,” he argued.

“Not on purpose,” she hissed. 

The two glared at each other, and then the tension broke. The witch softened, her shoulders sagging like a loose bowstring. “Please.”

He should have told her no. Instead, he said: “Alright.”

X

She dreamed of clients. Harsh hands and sour breath. Shackles looped around a bed frame. 

He wasn’t allowed to touch her after those dreams. Not for a long while at least, and when they would eventually come together again, he let her choose when to climb back into his arms. 

“What makes me different?” he asked quietly one night as she clutched his shirt, her tears drying over his heart.

She raised her head to meet his eyes. “Can you feel your own heartbeat?” 

He could if he focused. If he held his breath and silenced his thoughts. He nodded. 

She sounded sad, as if she were quoting somebody when she said, “If you listen close enough, you can hear that all heartbeats are different.”

It sounded like Krellian nonsense. Heartbeats sounded like heartbeats, but it was out before he thought to stop himself. “What is mine like?”

She laid her head back down and inhaled slowly through her nose, listening. “It’s gentle and steady. Like the lapping of the ocean. Ever present and soothing. I’ve never heard one quite like it.” She inhaled again, steeling herself. “It makes me feel safe. Which is ironic because it belongs to you.” 

He smiled but she couldn’t see it. Then he asked, “And what does yours sound like?” 

There was a long pause and then she said, “You can listen if you want.” She sat up in bed, pulling him along with her, and with gentle hands twined through his hair, tipped his ear to her breast. 

It was hard to concentrate. The heels of her hand on his cheeks and her fingers laced across his scalp made him feel as if she were touching him everywhere. But then he forced himself to lean into her chest, the shell of his ear pressing against her sternum, searching for the sounds of her very being. 

At first, he heard nothing, just felt the rise and fall of her breaths, but then, as if cotton had been removed from his ears, he heard the heavy beat of life. The first thud was loud like a cannon shot, but the second was quiet, like the dull closing of a door. Her heart sounded like it was limping on stilts. Hobbling along unevenly. Long step, short step. Over and over. Cautious. Afraid. So unlike the girl he’d come to know. But it was all there, hidden away deep inside of her. 

“See?” she whispered. “We’re different.” 

But they weren’t. Not really.

When she fell asleep and Peeta remained awake, he tried reaching within himself to feel his own heart again. It was like the constant beating of waves as she said, but he didn’t find it soothing. Every beat felt achingly blunt, as if his heart was slowly ripping itself apart to make more room. 

It terrified him that he didn’t know what that meant.

X

On the morning of their departure, he rose, dressed in a black tunic and pants, clasped a heavy fur cloak around his shoulders, and then sheathed a sword at his hip. He stepped outside to swing it around, getting the feel for its weight. 

The sword was heavy, made of polished steel that glinted in the cloudy morning light. Compared to the swords he had grown up with, the blade was plain. There were no holy etchings in its metal face, no onyx embedded into the hilt, and no divine blessings had been uttered over it, but he felt a fierce rush of strength all the same. Peeta was used to heavy swords and the leather-wrapped pommel felt right in his hands, as if he’d been missing a part of himself without a weapon. 

“Is that really necessary?” the witch asked, her voice carrying from inside the house and over the frostbitten yard. When he laid eyes on her, a hot jolt flooded his body as if he’d just caught himself from falling off a roof. 

She leaned against the doorframe, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, but he could tell from the way she warily focused on the blade that she was on high alert. A caribou hide nightdress brushed the tops of her dusky knees and her hair was loose and mussed on one side. The side she had pressed against his body in the night, Peeta realized. 

“What else would you have me use?” Peeta asked darkly, unsure why the witch got to use her powers whenever she wanted, but when it came to Peeta’s talents they were disapproved of. 

“You have a Heartrender with you,” she said arrogantly, pointing at herself. “You’re just going to be lugging around a sword for show and no offense but I’d rather you carry extra food.” 

“It’s not for show. This sword is to protect myself against you,” he said angrily, pointing the blade in her direction. 

She took a hurried step back as if she expected him to advance. There was a heavy, quiet moment as Peeta watched her from behind the sword’s edge. 

And then she sharply twisted her wrist. 

Peeta’s heart rate skyrocketed. 

Her voice was low, dangerous as she said: “I don’t know what your superiors told you, but a sword is no match for a Heartrender.” She began squeezing her fingers together and Peeta’s heart stuttered, his chest clenching painfully as if he were having a heart attack. Stabbing heat pulsing through every vein in his body as if his blood had turned to molten lava. He fell to his knees, dropping the sword into the hard-packed dirt with a hollow clang. 

“Stop,” he begged, clutching at his chest. His breaths came in ragged pants. He was falling apart under the pressure. “Please.” 

She tensed her hand, unsure whether or not to let up. Her eyes were frightened, but there was resolve there too, as if she had imagined this situation before and had already decided the outcome. This was her chance. She had a pack full of food and supplies. She had her enemy in her clutches. She was going to do it. He was going to die, right here, in an abandoned village where no one would think to come looking for him. Where no one would know his name. All who wandered would stay away from the black flag, and he’d be the feast for wild animals and the decay of time. 

He should have killed her when he had the chance but he had been weak and now his chances were spent. 

She squeezed tighter, her fingertips almost touching her palm. And then all of a sudden, her face crumpled. With a strangled gasp of breath, she released him. He fell to the ground in a quivering heap as his heart rate plummeted and then righted itself. 

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, trying to stem the flow of tears with her hands. She disappeared back inside the house and Peeta was left to stare shamefully at his own tears pooling in the dirt.

[treeofcups]

I'm really liking the image of Demaris just walking along with Huldah and Alphonse (and Frumpkin if he ever decides to) riding on his back. All aboard the wolfbus. (Fedelmid keeps trying to land on his ear and he keeps twitching her off)

I’m so, so happy to see this ask, because that’s the exact mental image I had when I decided Beau should have a wolf daemon.

I think that it actually takes a while for them to work up to that level of familiarity. Alphonse, of course, treats Demaris like a convenient traveling platform from day one, but Jester is kinda like that anyway, so no one really thinks anything of it. Huldah probably jumps up there because Beau and Fjord are arguing back and forth, and they’re doing that thing where you act annoying without doing something really bad, ya feel? So Huldah’s hanging onto Demaris’s back with her feet splayed out because hares are not meant to travel this way, but by the gods she is not gonna get down. Also, it’s more comfortable than riding pillion on Fjord’s horse.

Frumpkin...yeah, I could actually see him jumping up on Demaris, if only because Beau and Caleb are walking close to each other and it’s easier than walking. He doesn’t tend to go far from Caleb unless it’s absolutely necessary for spying, but for their friends both of them will make an exception. He always purrs loudly while sitting on Demaris, and it makes Caleb nervous because he can’t talk to his daemon anymore to know what it means. (It means he has friends and he cares about them).

Fedelmid, daemon to a Known Asshole, would absolutely spend a lot of time landing on Demaris’s ears and face, just because they know it’s annoying. Demaris snaps at them occasionally, not seriously, just letting them know it’s annoying. This does nothing to deter either Fedelmid or Molly.

(Rune sits on Demaris for a bit too. Turnabout is fair play, after all).

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

happy valentines day to heather and tara. with a goliath for a girlfriend, heather can be the little spoon at long last!

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

relistening to our campaign to write up the logs and i am cackling at what i entirely forgot was how Heather and Tara finally ended their campaign of Useless Lesbian Behaviour At Sea

so, heather got fully run through by one of the big nasties of the campaign the evening before this interaction. it was dramatic, it was terrifying, but like she was fine, it's fine, he just got away with a mcguffin while she was incapacited by the Big Fucking Glaive Through Her Abdomen.

we recovered from That Ordeal and had to do a lil rescue mission in the morning, and when we got back to the ship Tara just gave Heather the hugest hug and was looking her over for injuries, and

tara says: “you alright? doin’ okay? no, aha, um, no more extra holes?”

and heather. says. "nah, only the right number of holes". and then follows up with. "i mean, you're welcome t'check later... :}c"

did tara go bright red? YES. did she temporarily forget how to construct a sentence? yes. did she excuse herself to "help ceryul*. i'll, um, blow?" YES

spectacular. cannot believe i forgot that's what the heather/tara confession looked like.

*ceryul is the ship's wizard and aerothurge, who uses wind magic to fill the sails. tara, is, and i cannot stress this enough, Not A Magic User, 'i'm gonna go help ceryul, i'll......blow.' tara oh my god

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

an unfinished comic of a moment from the Ponytail Party campaign that i loved a lot. the whole story of Bells and Whispers is long, but the whole party fucked up in a snowball of violence started by Himo (the rest was pure panic)

i still wonder what would've happened if Heather hadn't confessed to it. everyone else was too scared and ashamed (or the unrepentent asshole out in the corridor). maybe we'd all be statues in her lobby.

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

working on the session 13 chronicle and oh the beach party scene is so cute <3 like REALLY bittersweet at points because it's also when gorstag leaves the party, and because it's heather and tara's last evening together, but there was so much joy in that scene. i love downtime moments like this.

snippets under the cut if you want heather/tara cuteness and dumb drunken beach shenanigans :3

(Heather and Tara discuss, after a large amount of ale, how much they're going to miss one another when Tara returns to sea.)

-

Heather reaches up to pat Tara, managing to land more on the face than on the head. No complaint from the goliath, who only pushes her cheek further into the touch. Muffled by Heather’s palm, lips against her skin, Tara murmurs, “I’d like t’see ye again. I hope I see ye again.”

Earnest, certain, and more soberly than a word she’s said so far, Heather replies, “We will.” Then she cracks a grin, jostles the goliath with her shoulder, and says, “Can get m’friend Julian to send you some messages!”

Did somebody say his name? The wizard wobbles over, smiling ear to ear, and raises his glass of something warming and delicious in toast. “Heather! My dear friends! My…my dear- my dear friend and my dear friend’s dear friend.”

Raising her own flagon, Tara greets him as, “Tall man!” which makes Julian giggle. Tall? Not compared to her! “No’ compared to me,” she admits. “An’ I got bigger boobs than’ye as well, aye.”

“You do!” he replies, nodding with great gusto as though to affirm Tara’s grand achievement in the skill of breast-having. “You do! One of you should- um, wait, hold on.” He fishes in his pack, and eventually presents to the pair the Ring of Pursuit. “One of you should have this. It’s for you.”

Heather squints at the little band. “Wh’izzit.”

With a snort, Tara raises her eyebrows at Julian. She pokes the wizard’s shoulder. “Are ye tryin’ tae marry us?” Julian’s eyes grow so large behind his glasses; his cheeks and ears flush brightest pink. That wasn’t-! Oh, he didn’t think of-! She just chortles. “No, I mean- I like it. But, bit soon?” 

“And, you’d need two rings,” Heather adds, helpfully.

-

(cute beach shenanigans)

-

Word is getting out, and the energy in Hare Ear Fjord is rising. The tavern is full of revellers, and so are the streets, and so is the beach. Buoyed up on the festive atmosphere, Julian is nigh dancing his way out of the door. “We! Should go to the beach!” he cries, giddy at the idea of a beach party that doesn’t get wrecked by a sea-spawn attack. He’s also giddy with so very much mead. “Let’s do it all again!”

So they do it all again! There are bonfires, there’s music, and dancing in the surf. Everyone is utterly smashed and utterly blissful - when Raymond passes out in the sand, everyone rushes to heap more upon him and sculpt humongous breasts and a proud, magnificent dong. “See that dagger there!*” Heather proclaims, swaying, her arm slung around Tara’s shoulders. 

“Greatsword!” hoots Julian, and they all tumble to the sand, cackling at their wit.

Captain Alice watches the festivities with a fond smile, Ceryul curled beside her dozing, their head in her lap.

(*context: there was a running Bit this session in which julian could not seem to talk about Kolton's enchanted dagger in a way that didn't prompt heather to waggle her eyebrows at him about it)

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

Ponytail Party returned to action tonight and auuuuuuu I’ve missed this campaign and everyone in it. There’s nothing like a night of puzzle solving and shaking your head at Wizard Nonsense.

(Don’t dabble in time travel, you nerds. You’ll just temporally fuck up your whole tower and leave your poor elven assistant pining and broken-hearted when she quits because you’re too obsessed with your Terrible Arcane Idea to even notice that she’s leaving.)

This particular campaign is fully magic to me - it’s just really easy to get and stay immersed and just go for a swim in the world our DM has made us. And also maybe in the wizard’s massive bathtub. We spent a lot of time in there talking to a fish.

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

Ponytail party pulled off The Most Coordinated Battle they’ve ever managed last night and it was SO GOOD

We made a plan*. We executed the plan. And we slayed a whole bulette without a scratch on half the party.

I can’t wait to write the chronicle for this session because the bulette fight was DELICIOUS and everyone’s spell flavour and the DM description was so goddamb cool

*Operation Orc In Sheep’s Clothing: Heather wildsheeps into a tasty lure that is actually six foot of half-orc whoopass, Julian ensnares the beastie on sight with his Wand of Binding and focuses all efforts on keeping it restrained if the spell drops, and Heather and the sword lads work that advantage for all it’s worth. Apart from one brief hitch and a light mauling for Lars and Kolton, it could not have been more to-the-letter. :)c

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

Magibotanist researcher Julian Summerwind, enjoying some comfortable downtime below the deck of The Frisky Ferreter with his beloved pet project, Maximilian.

Lord, I miss playing my wizard. Can’t wait for the game to return from plague hiatus! ;A; (a little more on Maximilian under the cut!)

Maximilian is a one-of-a-kind transmutational marvel and a complete accident. During an expedition researching vegepygmy reproduction to discern if they are  plant-creature hybrids or merely patterned upon the corpses they bloom from*, Julian performed a series of experimental infusions on various types of matter - he is proud father to several thriving vegepygmies and a handful of thornies as a result.

He also created Maximilian, a mystifying and delightful fluke result: all his other botanical samples suffered rapid decomposition or displayed no change at all. So what is going on? The little creature acts in no way like its carnivorous cousins, content to trundle from sunbeam to puddle, or rumble happily at scritches beneath its peach-fuzzy chin. (Julian provides these in abundance. Definitely to study the creature’s ability to vocalise without a throat or mouth to speak of, and not because it’s adorable, who’s a lovely little chap, or, hmm, i suppose you don’t have a gender because you’re an animate little fruit aren’t you, but you can forgive your silly old human for projecting and anthropomorphising, yes you can. aren’t you such a good boy, maximilian, yes.)

Julian is doing everything in his power to procrastinate on presenting his findings to the Academy. Yes, the little creature might hold the key to age-old questions on the origins of animate flora, but...having him poked and prodded and - gods forbid - maybe even dissected by his colleagues makes Julian feel rather queasy.

For now, he’s cataloguing every feature and mannerism of his creation, every change in size, every new behaviour. If he can work out how to make more of them, well, maybe then he can provide a study sample. But for now, well, he’s busy protecting divine artefacts from misuse, and nobody can really blame him for turning a research project in late under those circumstances, surely!

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

Hagslayer: A work in progress.

Our new ranger, Kolton, joined the party last session! It was his player’s first time playing D&D, and after we rescued Kolton he fast returned the favour by saving all our characters’ lives near-singlehandedly.

(Protip: don’t underestimate sea hags. They’ll fuck you right up. Yikes.)

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

Highlights from the most recent Hare Ear Fjord doodle dump!

Julian returning a giant pearl to its rightful place, Kolton (our newest party member!) making a sea hag’s head ‘talk’, and.... “Geoffrey Winstanley.”

Turns out the incompetent, braggardly noble NPC insisting on accompanying our “grand adventures” wasn’t all that he appeared to be.

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

A portrait of @1nchwyrm​‘s bug-loving druid, Heather Winterbright. Though big, uncoordinated Heather struggles to gauge her own half-orcish strength around most folk, she is gentle as can be with her creepy-crawly friends. They deserve to be treated kindly too; after all, Heather knows how it is to be feared for no good reason. But they don’t fear her even a little.

Backstory/ more about her under the cut!

- Backstory - Heather is the daughter of a noble family, though you might not know it from her coarse accent and clumsy bearing - and she doesn’t talk about her family much, anyway.

In short, Heather’s mother was young and full of rebellion against her overbearing parents and their looming pressure upon her to find a respectable suitor. She did quite the opposite, covertly embarking upon a tryst with a commoner - and an orc, to boot.

Though the relationship was conducted entirely in secret, the cover was blown by...well, Heather. The pregnancy was one thing, but a half-orc infant was scandal in the making. Heather’s mother refused to give her up, choosing disownment over being parted from her child.

Her mother loved her always, but things said in frustration can’t always be taken back. She did not have an easy childhood - her half-orc blood saw her mature and grow faster than her human peers. There were playground rhymes about her. Hairy Heather, hulking Heather, ham-hands Heather. The times she lost her patience were blamed on her orcish blood. To cut a long story short, Heather inherited a lot of baggage.

So she ran away, in the end - from her mother, pining for the life she’d given up, and from the teasing and stares of her classmates. She had always found comfort in the woods, and the woods took her in as their own without judgement. They paid her back in kind for the tenderness she had always shown to creatures others saw as ugly, or gross, or scary.

- In-game, Heather’s sort of the moral center of our party. She does not stand for unkindness - especially not to her friends, and extra especially not to the creatures of the wild. She’s very vocal about that, and if she needs to drum her point home with a shove or a warning smack with her staff so be it! (She is not easily swayed to violence, but if pushed her temper can be startlingly fierce. Heather is very much a protector - hurt what she loves and there will be a reckoning.) She really struggles to gauge her own strength - not helped at all by her -2 in Dexterity! A playful shove from Heather has been known to send a man flying into the nearby wall. One time she tried to nonlethally knock out a bullywug, and missed so badly that she smacked the one next to it over the head full-force, nearly killing it outright. It would be a very bad idea to take her into a glassware shop, basically.

Her negative experiences with being a half-orc in a primarily human society have made her very shy of large settlements and crowds of people. In a small group she’s quite an animated presence, but she shrinks if too many eyes are on her. In our first session, she needed a lot of reassurance before she dared set foot in a town - and was very surprised to discover that not everywhere is as bad as home. She’s starting to adjust, slowly but surely.

She gets on very well with Julian, our party’s wizard - the two have known one another for a while before the campaign began. Having lived so long in the woodland, she knows its flora like the back of her hand - and he, a botanist, could not have asked for a better guide. After she knocked him out when she found him taking a cutting, that is. (She’d only meant to tap him on the shoulder with her staff...) Heather’s got a romance budding with one of the NPCs aboard the boat we’re all travelling on - a Goliath woman named Tara. Heather’s never met a woman taller than she is before. Add the soft Scottish accent and her competence with a crossbow, and her muscles when she’s climbing the rigging... our druid’s just a wee bit smitten, it seems! And even better, so’s Tara. They’re currently in the middle of a Useless Gay Flirt Cycle where they awkwardly give gifts and make excuses to spend time with one another. It’s super cute.

ANYWAY, enough of me gushing about Heather. I just love our big orc friend okay, she’s just really good <3

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

a work in progress of the bug-loving heather winterbright, @1nchwyrm‘s half orc druid. (she’s deserved a solo artwork for a loooong time)

[dark-nat-ones-blessing]

I’m working on a comic of a goofy conversation between Heather and Julian, and it’s just so nice to draw Heather smiling. She’s usually either anxious or frustrated, but that lil tusky smile is so cute, help me