#having a living piece of leif around while leif is The Horrors is. maybe not an absolutely ideal situation it seems

[mantisgodsaus]

there isn't really a specific question on the ask games that fits but we want to hear you talk about what muse is/was like in selkieverse. she fascinates us based on the roughly two things you've said about her

Yes we can do this absolutely! Fair warning - There Are Things Here We Are Not Stating, mainly for spoiler reasons. Hopefully, they are excluded cleanly enough that this still flows well, but this is a long-ass thing so

Muse, though she wasn't a selkie herself, was close enough to Leif that he felt entirely safe leaving her with care of his pelt. She knew that he was a selkie pretty much from the moment that she met him - there wasn't quite as much baggage built up around the risks of having your pelt just Out And About, at the time, though a lot of selkies were a bit skittish about it, and Leif didn't really hide things.

A marriage, at least for moths, is more a contract of trust than anything else - an expression of trust, a unification of families, and so on and so forth. Somewhat more of one for selkies, with the big blaring weak spot they've got - it's a lot like showing your back to someone and just... hoping that they don't fuck you over. You welcome this particular bug into your family and you trust that they'll watch your back and help raise your children and look after your family when you're gone.

She was the usual person to keep ahold of Leif's pelt during expeditions, so as to keep it safe even when his bug body was in danger from being hurt or killed. She was trusted to keep it safe, or to use it for its transformation if the need ever presented itself - it was more shared between them than anything else during the later stages of their life together, and that meant that she was very, very familiar with how it felt.

Leif died in Snakemouth after having given her his pelt for safekeeping. Just to make sure he had an anchor. Just to make sure he didn't go too deep. Just to make sure that, if something happened, she would know he was okay from the heartbeat of his pelt - or, that if it went cold, she would know to stop, and get out while she still could.

She felt his death in the pelt wrapped around her shoulders. The aftereffects of the venom coursing through his veins, reflected in his pelt, giving the warning she needed to order a repeat. She felt his death throes reflected in the very literal piece of himself still trusted with her all the way out, and all the way home.

She sat at home after submitting the report that declared his death, a dead pelt still settled around her shoulders, standing over the shells of their eggs, knowing that the larvae were in the Ant Nursery where she couldn't know if they were all right or if her whole family had been killed where she couldn't even see, and she felt the shudder of a body restarting as the cordyceps settled into his husk.

Muse knew, for absolute certain, that he died. She felt his death throes. She felt his heart stop on her back. She also knew, for an absolute fact, that he was alive after that, even if she didn't know how or in what form. She knew this, and she could feel the dull pulse of his cordyceps self starting to take over his body in his skin, and she could feel the sealskin starting to change under her fingertips, and she was deadly, deadly afraid of looking away- of taking it off, or simply ceasing to pay attention for slightly too long, and returning to find it dead and vacant again. To that end, she just... didn't take it off.

She didn't take it off, in fact, for several years. Past the point where people thought she was in shock and morning and long into the point that people thought that her husband's death had broken something irreparable in her. She continued to wear it long after her children had emerged from the ant nursery, and long after they had begun to grow into fully-fledged selkies of their own, and long after they had the context to know about It All.

She got into arguments about it. As far as anyone else knew, she was dragging her dead husband's equally dead pelt around 24/7, and once her kids were old enough to understand that whole situation, there was a certain awareness of "hey, this is maybe a bit fucking bizarre to do, don't really like that". It was, in particular, a recurring argument with the son that would eventually become known as Grandpa, as he was of the firm opinion that it was Fucking Weird to walk around with a loved one's dead pelt twenty years after said loved one's death, and that she shouldn't Do That.

Unfortunately for him, this was not an argument he was going to win. Muse, being as stubborn as a bull and with no particular regard to what the neighbours thought, had been doubling down on this particular argument for twenty-eight years already. She had chosen to see this through, and no one could really convince her otherwise, though many of her children would try.

As such, she would remain "that weird lady carrying around her dead husband's pelt and skulking around doing who-knows-what since there's no damn way her husband's life insurance and her dispatch salary from the explorer's association would account for the care and feeding of eight kids plus herself without at least a few jobs in-between and no one knows what the hell she does for a living". The argument, however, would continue.

It would continue, in fact, until after Grandpa had had kids of her own, when Muze was fairly young. The old argument got brought up again, Muse refused to entertain the idea of maybe not being seen as The Local Weirdo, she went off to her room with the usual pelt. She sat, alone, in her room, thinking about the whole Situation. She put on the pelt.

This time, specifically, she chose to put it on in such a way to attempt to shift into Leif's selkie form. It had been years with barely any chance in it, after all. Though she had initially feared disrupting whatever delicate balance was keeping him alive, it had been stable for long enough that she was pretty sure that wearing it wouldn't disrupt something, and she... wanted the assurance, really, that she wasn't going mad. That her choices were based on truth - and that he was still out there, somewhere, even if dead-and-resurructed.

It... worked. With some caveats.

At this point, Leif was entirely merged with the cordyceps components, entirely hosted on crystal hardware, and the mirror that his pelt offered to his body was one where the bone marrow, connective tissue, and structure had entirely been eaten away by now, and the vast majority of the flesh was now composed of cordyceps tendrils that were a whole lot more obvious when they were puppeting around a skin suit with an internal skeleton, and not a relatively rigid exoskeleton.

No one could really deny that her old paramour was alive enough to animate a pelt. Unfortunately, no one could deny that whatever the fuck had happened to him, it had warped his selkie form beyond anything that anyone had really expected to be possible, and absolutely no one wanted to learn what the fuck his body looked like back in Snakemouth, or what form he was alive in, and no one really wanted to touch the pelt that had offered a form like that.

In particular, no one really wanted to see that particular pelt anywhere that someone might try to put it on after that whole fiasco, and no one was particularly fond of the idea of continuing to let Grandma Muse walk around with the living pelt of whatever her partner had become.

After a great deal of arguing, she accepted the compromise of hanging it over the mantelpiece, where she could keep an eye on it even without physically wearing it. She would then proceed to relocate herself to the living room for most of the rest of her days, if only to make absolutely certain that that faint, dull hum beneath the skin was still active- that he was still alive out there, somewhere, in whatever form.

Against all odds, she would live to see his awakening. Unfortunately, she would not live to see him actually return to his family - just to see the tell-tale shudder of a pelt growing active again, as miles below, Leif stirred from his slumber.

Her family are currently engaged in Trying Very Hard Not To Think About The Whole Situation. They are fairly certain that whatever the pelt belongs to, it's still in Snakemouth Den. They are fairly certain that Leif's relation to the family is through it, though theories are more "he's the kid of whatever-it-is and a different moth" than assuming that he Is In Fact Todd's Great-Grandfather.

No one really wants to take the pelt down from the mantelpiece at the moment, and absolutely no one wants to explain the whole Situation to Leif unless they have a better idea of what he's inherited from his other parent, but there's also enough shit going on with them in general that it might just never get brought up until someone directly mentions it.

Leif is currently under the impression that Muse remarried to a selkie because the whole "being a selkie" thing wasn't terribly relevant to the way that his current cordyceps took up residence and after that whole Situation he was not especially eager to delve into previously repressed memories.

Predictably, this whole setup goes Terribly when poked at, especially as Leif's pelt is a whole lot more autonomous than your average selkie pelt, being more than a century old by now and belonging to a fungus who is very much set up in a way where his disconnected individual body parts can act autonomously on remnants of whatever priorities are/were in the main control system.

It is still hung over the mantelpiece.

[avas-inner-demons-are-babies]

With You Till The End

Ship: Ava X Noi

Summary: Ava has been dealing with some deeply-rooted fears lately, and it’s taking a toll on her sleeping habits. Luckily, Noi is here to save the day...or, night. 

A/N: Hey, babies first MID fic! X3 We’re kicking off with the first fic I ever completely finished for this series. Gotta appreciate a pair of flustered and clueless dummies in love, eh? Fair warning, this was little over 8 pages on a google doc, so its...longer, I think I can say? Regardless, I hope you guys enjoy!

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“We’re leaving today.”

Crash

  “...what?”

Ava’s voice comes out as barely more than a breath, feeling as though she’s just been full-force punched in the stomach. Something inside her twists sharply and tightens. No way. She couldn’t have heard that right-

  “We have to leave.” Rhys’ voice repeats behind her, sounding almost...annoyed. Annoyed? Why would he be annoyed? What had she done wrong?

  “But-” She presses the heels of her hands into her already watering eyes. The words she’s looking for drift aimlessly in her head. Everything sounds like she’s hearing it from underwater, the violent rhythm of her heart becoming crashing waves that shake her to her core. “-but the magic crisis...and I thought...thought-”

  “You thought we’d sit around here any longer than we absolutely had to? Please,” It’s Leif’s voice now. Through clouded eyes, she can see him leering at her, “the crisis is over. There’s nothing else for us here.”

  “As Leif said.” Asch now. “I have a kingdom to return to. There’s no point in toying around here any longer.”

  “I-” Her throat seems to constrict to the point where she can hardly breath. She’s taking in air too hard, too fast. The world in her peripheral seems to darken. At first, she wonders if she’s going to faint again. But it isn’t a trick of the mind- around them, the world honestly and truly disappears, leaving them all stranded in an open and black void. And yet, they don’t react. The boys...her boys. They only stand there, staring at her. Under the pressure of their combined gaze, she fumbles, “Can’t you just...please, I don’t…….Pierce?”

The heavy frame of the somber man shifts towards her slightly, but he doesn’t even grace her with a glance. 

  “...Noi…?”

He, at least, looks at her. But she almost immediately wishes he hadn’t, because all she finds in his eyes is pity. 

  “Don’t make this harder than it has to be Princess Ava.” Rhys once again takes over, watching her with an eyebrow raised, “You didn’t actually think we would stay here forever did you? We do have our own lives to return to.”

  “Please...I’m sorry, but please- please don’t go!” She cries out.

But her words fall on deaf ears. Already they’ve turned away, taking their first steps deeper into the empty expanse. Beginning to leave her. Beginning to disappear forever.

  “No-! Wait!” She tries to call out to them. Tries to convince them to turn back. But all of a sudden, she can’t. It’s as if all the air has been sucked from her lungs. All that she can force out is a desperate heaving as she sprints after them, screaming muted pleas. “I don’t want to be alone again!”

Running in a swimming pool. That’s what Ava is reminded of as she’s putting all of her force into growing even a step closer to their receding figures. Her feet slip against the ground as if there is no friction at all. In fact, she realizes, she not only isn’t moving forward; in actuality, she’s being dragged back. A cold, unbreakable force seems to wrap itself around her entire body. It draws her farther and farther into the now rippling floor, and panic seems to emanate from her very soul, warping the air around her. Still, she can’t seem to tear hear eyes away from the small specks in the distance that were once her only company- no, her only friends. In her distress, it takes her a moment to hear the sound of someone calling her name. 

  “Ava..? Ava. Ava!” It seems to echo from every direction of the inky blackness. She sucks in a breath to beg for help, but the quicksand beast has already swallowed her up to her ears. The voice calls again, its alarm seeming to mimic her own, “Ava! Ava wake up!”

Another moment passes and then...she does. 

Ava wakes up to her dark, October night-chilled room, opening her eyes to find the familiar white ceiling staring back at her. Through instinct alone she sucks in a rapid breath of the stale air. Her fingers ache, and, upon realizing that she has been clawing deep into the mattress, she relaxes them, embracing the pins and needles that shoot along their tips as the blood flow returns. Something tickles down along her cheeks, and it doesn’t take her long to work out that it's the same hot and salty tears she’d been shedding in her dream. Not dream. Nightmare. A single hiccup escapes her before she can regain control over her emotions. And when she finally does, she pushes herself up with nothing more than a sigh. 

  “Another one. This is happening way too often to be healthy.” 

  “...Ava?”

A gentle voice falling out from the space beside her causes Ava to jump and gasp. She turns her head towards a silhouetted figure next to her, rose pink eyes squinting as her vision adjusts to the lightless room. Eventually, she’s able to make out a figure whose general presence allows her a wave of reassurance. She breathes out softly.

  “Oh, it’s you Noi.”

As she says it, the curtains are drifted apart by a draft, and for just a brief moment a bit of moonlight is able to creep in and catch on the Daemos’ horns. They light up into a faint, watery orange glow; one that remains for several beats even after the light is gone, dimming like a dying ember.  Still sifting through the haze of sleep, Ava finds herself spacing out, staring at them with consideration.

Noi, with his enhanced vision in the dark, takes full notice of her line of focus, and feels his face heat up in the way that has become so familiar to him as of late. 

  “U-uhm...Princess Ava? Are you alright?”

  “Hm? Oh! I-I uh-!” Blinking and snapping back to reality, the ravenette, in realizing what she’d done, suddenly becomes invested in a loose piece of fuzz, “S-sorry. I’m okay.”

  “But-”

  “Really Noi, I’m fine!” She flinches as she cuts him off. As if that wasn’t the most telling reaction ever. Still, she tries to show him a reassuring grin, hoping to throw him off the subject, “Hey uh, not to be rude, but why are you even in my room? Were you watching me sleep or something?

The throws in a small chuckle for effect at the end, but from what facial features she can make out- and the poorly muffled gasp that escapes him- she’d pretty much hit the mark. Part of her says she should be angry, but beneath the cover of darkness she really can’t help but to give in to the small twitch at the edge of her lips. She’d be lying if she said that she doesn't appreciate the boys checking in on her. 

  “I’m sorry!” Noi squeaks out nervously, “I didn’t mean to go against your orders, I just like to-to make sure you’re alright sometimes, and I just h-happened to be in here when you started talking in while you were sleeping, and-and at first I was just going to leave, but then…” Here, his flow of words seems to begin failing him. Ava tilts her head in a silent encouragement. After a few seconds, he continues, albeit much more composed than before, “...then you started crying. I didn’t really know what to do...the tee-vee mentor says that humans cry when they are sad, and I don’t...I didn’t want you to be sad. I thought maybe if I woke you up…”

As Noi trails off for a final time, Ava feels something in her chest wrench. He’d been worried about her. He’s still worried. 

  “Of course he is. He’s Noi. He worries more than all of the others combined it seems.”

And yet she can’t seem to find anything to say that might help ease his fretting. How do you explain a nightmare to someone who believes that dreams themselves are merely a source of magic? And even more so than that, how could she possibly admit what said nightmare was about? She won’t do it. She won’t tell him something that would certainly either drive him away or guilt him into staying. It just wouldn’t be fair. And yet, isn’t it even more unfair to leave him wondering? To look him in the eyes and lie after he was so kind?

Ava just doesn’t know. 

And as an unintentional result of her inner conflict, she ends up just sitting there, silent and unreadable. Once again, she’d spaced out staring at Noi. The poor daemos fidgets under her silent scrutiny, watching as- unnoticed by Ava- her brows furrow together in deep thought. He immediately assumes that she’s going to kill him, and currently she’s only deciding on how. Why else would she seem so conflicted? But to his slowly settled confusion, she never says a word. Never even responds. Now it's his turn to frown.

  “Do you...want me to leave?” He asks timidly. 

The mild echo of her passed horror is enough to shock her out of her struck-stupid state. Panic strikes like a hot iron, and her hand jerks forward on the bed sheet, not quite making a grab for his wrist, but landing very close to where his own lies. A far to loudly yelped “No!” escapes her before she can quiet it. Her own voice seems to bounce violently off the walls of the room. Before it even fades, her cheeks flare up, and she wishes she could just curl up and pass out right then.

  “N-no.” She repeats in a much weaker tone, “Please don’t...I mean, y-you don’t have to. If-If you want to y-you can of course!” Her own nervous laugh here makes her wince,”Bu-but uhm, I was just-I mean-ugh, sorry. I was just thinking about...things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Dammit! Why would I say that?” 

  “Oh, uh-uh...well it was uhm…” She gives an unconvincing cough, buying herself a few precious moments to concoct a lead-away. “You said earlier that you heard me talking in my sleep right?”

  “Hm, oh yeah?”

  “W-what did you hear me say?”

Perfect. That should be enough to keep him nearby for a little while. Tension eases from her body as he seems to settle back again into his place next to her. And perhaps her mind and the night is playing tricks on her, but Ava could swear that he’d come back just a little bit closer than he had been before. At the very least, she now is much more aware of the mere foots length of distance between them. 

  “Well…” He starts, facing down at the bed with careful thoughtfulness, “I really couldn’t make out much. A lot of what I heard was just you yelling the same few words over and over again.”

  “And those words were..?”

Now his eyes come to her, gleaming with worry.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “That was most of it. No and please wait. And you...you said the others’ names a couple of times, but a lot of the time you were calling out for me. At first you just sounded really scared. But then you started crying and I felt really sad for some reason. So that’s why I…”

  “...why you woke me up.”

He nods. Both human and daemos seem to slip into a momentary loss of words as an air of unspoken emotions surrounds them. Noi never once releases Ava’s gaze, causing any sense of proper thought she might have had fizzle out like a sparkler dipped in water. He clearly wants an explanation. Even more so, he deserves one. But she still can’t bring herself to answer his unspoken question. Would he judge her? Surely not...surely empathetic Noi would at least feign understanding.

Wouldn’t he?

  “I’m sorry.” She ends up whispering lamely. 

She fully expects him to try and leave again. And she’s sure that, despite her fears, she’ll let him go this time. Forcing him to stay again would only be cruel- especially considering he doesn’t even know why he’s here now.

What she certainly doesn’t expect is the feeling of his warm and gentle hand coming to lay atop her own. As he links their fingers together, Ava can imagine her face being the physical portrayal of an error screen, and she gives a mild squeak. 

  “I don’t like it when you cry Ava.”

Whether it was his intention or not, with that one sentence he manages to completely shatter the emotional dam.

A hard lump forms in Ava’s throat that becomes impossible to swallow away, and it gives way to the hiccups that begin bubbling their way to the surface. Those same tears from before- which had sat poised at the corners of her eyes for some time now- now spill over in fast-falling drops. They trace paths down her cheeks and paint her lips with their salty taste. Before she can even comprehend what she’s done, Ava has fallen those few meager inches forward into Noi, who uses one hand to brace himself up against the mattress as her weight nearly pushes him down. Her arms latch around his neck, and she buries her face into his shoulder. Suddenly, all of her previous terror and sadness and grief is escaping her in heavy sobs. For a few seconds, he’s startled and tense. But then he shifts their combined weight so that- following through with an instinct he never would have guessed he had- he can return her embrace. With one hand, he rubs comforting circles into her back as she gathers her breath for an admission. 

  “You all were leaving me.” She says finally, “You-hic- you didn’t even look back. You s-hic-aid there was nothing for you h-hic-hi-ere. Like I didn’t-hic-didn’t mean anything to you, and I just…” She pauses through a series of shuddering breaths, “I’m just so scared of being alone again.”

The soothing motion on her back quick halt as she feels him twitch beneath her. Ever so quietly, so far under his breath, he mutters something almost angrily. Something she can’t make out through her whimpers and sore-throated coughs. He moves slowly beneath her, not pushing her away, but instead trying to bring her in closer. And through a bit of shuffling on both of their parts, they eventually end up fitted together like two slightly awkward puzzle pieces. Curled up against Noi, with her head tucked carefully beneath his chin, Ava wraps her arms around her stomach to make it easier for him to envelop her in a strong and protective grasp. To anyone who might have seen them, they would have found him cradling her, almost like one would a child. She- although still sniffling- is now more preoccupied with being overwhelmed by the rapid beating of her own heart and the dizzying heat that spreads over her face than any fear that still simmered within her. It doesn’t stop her from gripping tightly to his shirt; although at this point, neither of them could move away if they wanted to. Not that that’s the case by any means. 

Pressing her cheek to his chest, she can feel his own uneven rhythm.

  “You won’t be.” He murmurs determinedly into her ear, awakening goosebumps across her skin, “I promise. I’ll never leave you for as long as I live.”

  “But...what about Daemos? Don’t you have to go back soon?” She asks warily.

  “You are more important to me than any position on Daemos.”

A small part of Ava wants to warn against believing him. But being wrapped up the way she is; hearing the way he speaks that promise-as though he’s swearing this to himself as much as he is her- she can’t help but trust that sort of finality. A powerful, electric sort of feeling blossoms in her chest and spreads across her body, and it takes her a moment to recognize it as love. Pure, unfiltered love. It encompasses every inch of her, inside and out, causing her heart to swell. It overtakes her. It controls her. 

It controls her as she slowly pulls her head back to gaze up into Noi’s amber-lit eyes. Controls her as her fingers unclutch from his shirt and splay out across his pounding chest. Controls her as her hands snake back up around his neck, just as they had been before. Except now, there is no sadness. No fear. No tears. Just love, pushing her on as she tries to bring his face down towards her own. 

And she isn’t the only one it’s driving. 

As Noi gives and brings their foreheads together, he’s nearly shaking with emotion. He’d never felt this much...well, anything before. For anyone. The entire realm of feeling had just flown past any possible expectations he could have had. One of his hands comes up to gingerly...so, so gingerly trace down her cheek and across her jaw, before coming down to cup her chin. There it lingers, holding her like one might hold a priceless artifact that they’re afraid to break. Meaning drifts between them just as the moon’s rays drift in the space before Earth- in a confident, dancing sort of way.

  “Ava…” Noi breathes shakily.

Nose to nose now, they both close their eyes in anticipation. 

  “Thank you.”

The words hardly have a breath’s moment to fall from Ava’s lips before she presses them to Noi’s. 

She starts off patiently, giving him plenty of time to move away if he were ever going to. But he doesn’t, which is the best sort of sign she could ever hope to receive. That is until he takes it upon himself to deepen the kiss; or caress, although the human definition of that term is also needed at the moment, so perhaps kiss will do. With the hand under her chin, Noi’s thumb continues to brush against and caress Ava’s skin. The one that had been resting on her back now pushes them more tightly together. If life were a movie, then this would be the scene where small fireworks erupt into the air behind them. 

It has to have only lasted a few seconds, but when Ava falls away the surging feeling in her stomach certainly doesn’t. So close now, she can make out the mystified expression on his face when their eyes open. Briefly, she feels utterly ashamed for letting her emotions get the better of her, and she wishes she could just curl back up into his arms and die. Her eyes drop from his face and fixate on the small line of light sneaking into the room from beneath the curtains. It’s the unique yellow-grey that comes with the first hints of sunrise. Dawn will be here soon enough. 

She figures she should say something...anything really. Her attention flickers back to him, only to find that he still stares at her with the same wonder-struck expression. 

  “Noi?” He jerks to attention as she tentatively calls out to him. She recognizes that he’d been lost in his own thoughts, “I’m sorry, I- EEP!”

Instead of finishing her apology, Ava instead ends up giving a startled yelp. Noi, now snapped out of whatever trance he’d been in, has suddenly thrown himself backwards into Ava’s pile of pillows, taking Ava, still held tightly in his arms, down with him. Her eye’s squeeze shut as they fall the short distance into the feathery mess, and when she opens them again the first thing she sees is his beaming expression. Before she can even raise a question, she’s cut off by a sudden onslaught of nuzzles from her most beloved carrot-top, who proceeds to laugh boyishly to himself. Beneath the shower of affection, Ava can feel doubt get high-kicked from her soul and is immediately replaced with a happy sense of amused confusion. Soon, she finds herself unable to fight back her own wave of bubbly giggles. 

  “N-Noi!” She chirps between bouts of laughter. After a moment, she’s able to bring his violent snuggling to a pause by once again pressing their foreheads together. Nose scrunched and smiling, she asks, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not sure!” He twitters back, not at all deterred by this fact, “I’m just really happy!”

Ava has to admit that she too is in a pretty fantastic mood at this point. All of her previous frights are impossible to recall when right here, right now, she has Noi. Noi, whose uncontainable joy is coaxing forth all of her favorite feelings. Noi, who even now is trying to cuddle her into oblivion. Noi, who cares for her so much that he woke her up from a nightmare despite the fact that (he believes) it could have gotten him killed- just because he couldn’t stand to see her cry. 

All the love that floods her petite frame makes her wonder how she doesn’t just burst on the spot. 

  “You know what?” She finally whispers, planting a quick peck on his cheek, “Me too.”

She feels him give a slight gasp as she steals his lips one more time, just for a moment. And in the next moment, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she’s curled up against his side, her head resting on his shoulder. When he lifts up a hand to comb through her hair, she finds herself sinking into a deep, coddled, and sleepy sort of feeling. She does try to fight it for a few minutes, but in her defense, she hasn’t slept very well tonight, and the fast-pumping adrenaline that had fueled her up until now is beginning to transform. It molds and reshapes itself into something lovely and heavy. Something that weighs down her limbs and drops her focus into a velvety haze. Tucking her chin to her chest, she manages to whisper:

  “I love you.”

The last thing she remembers is a kiss being pressed to the top of her head. Then, she allows herself to drift off to sleep under the cover of his faithful watch. 

Had she lasted just a few beats more, she might have heard his reply. 

  “I love you too Ava.”

***

(Two Hours Later)

In the earliest part of morning, Noi finds himself still lying half-awake on Ava’s bed, staring down at the sleeping human in his arms. In truth, he’d tried to sneak away not long after she’d falled asleep, simply out of fear for the others finding them in such a compromising position. However, she had been- and still was- clinging so tightly to him that he couldn’t think of a way to do so without waking her. Which was the last thing he wants to do. And, if he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t care much what the others might think of him. In his mind, all of tonight was a far greater achievement than he could ever be brought down from.

Watching her molten dark hair move in slight shifts and falls around her with every slowly rising breath, he’s filled with some feeling. The same strange new feeling he’s been experiencing for the better half of the night. Thinking in Daemos terms, he reasons that there isn’t really a proper word for it. So much more powerful than the human word ‘affection’, and yet not exactly the same as ‘love’. Although, that is certainly present as well, lingering in the background of this nameless emotion.

  “Maybe,” he ponders, “it's something I just haven’t learned yet.”

He hopes that to be the case because, he’s decided, he wants to try and understand all the strange sensations he’s been having since he arrived on Earth. They’re far too overwhelming to ignore at this point. And he fully plans to stay true to his word. He won’t leave Ava behind in the end. If that makes him an outcast to his own kind, then so be it. He’ll fight whoever he needs to, if only to stay by her side. 

Because he never wants her to feel afraid or alone. Never again.                                                     

[swipestream]

The Pulp Swordsmen: Leif Langdon

A. Merritt (1884-1943) occupied the position that J. R. R. Tolkien now has. From around 1925 through 19955-60, if you asked who was the most popular fantasy writer, A. Merritt would probably be the response.

Dwellers in the Mirage was originally serialized in six parts in the pages of Argosy magazine January 23, 1932 to February 27, 1932.

The only real piece of lit-crit I could find on Merritt is in Science Fiction Writers (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982). I picked this book up at a library book sale maybe five years ago.

E. F. Bleiler edited the book and wrote the entry on A. Merritt. He had this to say about Merritt:

“Reputations come and reputations go, but in the fields of science fiction and fantasy there is probably no other great reputation of the past that has suffered as much as that of A. Merritt. During the 1930s and 1940’s he was widely considered the greatest science fiction writer of modern times. He even had the then-unique distinction of having a magazine, A. Merritt’s Fantasy Magazine, named in his honor. All this, of course, was in the precritical days, and today Merritt is seldom ranked among the more important the more important authors of the pulp era.”

Merritt has the reputation for a lush, ornate writing. Bleiler has this to say on his style:

“Merritt, like Marie Corelli, seemed to equate descriptions of beauty with beauty, and just as Corelli would rave vulgarly about roses, roses, roses, Merritt attempted to create a brilliant picture or sensuous mood by a frequent use of words describing color and sound. The result is sometimes a shower of terms, at best conveying a sense of the subject’s alieness, at worst almost constituting a parody of late nineteenth-century traditional verse. Yet behind all these odd mannerisms, it must be admitted, was a skilled verbalist who was well aware of what he was doing. His was not a sin of ignorance. . . His hobby was the study of mythology and religions, and he delighted in mythological syncretisms–raided, obviously, from popular works. . .For the most part this material lies heavily and inappropriately on the surface verbal texture. In a sense, one must admit, Merritt was only imitating the art forms of his formative period around the turn of the century, when, as with the British art nouveau lapidaries, a surface flash of decoration might be thrown upon an otherwise bare formalized surface.”

Robert E. Howard referred to Merritt’s verbal ornamentation as “tinsel” in a letter to H. P. Lovecraft.

Bleiler does consider Dwellers in the Mirage as “the most significant of Merritt’s science fiction novels.”

I had to laugh at Bleiler. He ridicules Merritt for identifying the Uighurs of Central Asia with the Tocharians. Bleiler excoriates Merrritt for postulating a

“Nordic, Indo-European drift, bearing with it elements of Norse religion and mythology. That he took this historical nonsense seriously is show by an unsigned article that he wrote for the American Weekly, presenting the same point of view.”

Bleiler is the one who is wrong and Merritt was correct. Jean Manco had this to say in Ancestral Journeys:

“The first Indo-European move east had all the boldness that would come to characterize the steppe nomads. A group set out from the Volga-Ural region to trek some 2,000 km (1,250 miles) to the high steppe of the Altai Mountains c. 3300-3000 B.C. “

Mummies found in the Tarim basin have red and blond hair. The clothing is plaid similar to Celtic designs. DNA analysis has confirmed a western origin. The males carry Y-DNA R1a1a, the classic Indo-European signature.

You hear of Genghis Khan having red hair. That is from these east bound Indo-Europeans before history who made it as far as Kansu, China. The Uighurs moved into the Tarim Basin after the Kirghiz destroyed their Khaganate in Mongolia. They absorbed the Tocharians and are known for often European appearance.

Tocharian Migration

Dwellers in the Mirage is subdivided into “books” which corresponds with the 6 serialized portions. The novel starts with Leif Langdon and his friend Jim, a Cherokee traveling in an out of the way portion of Alaska. They hear drums and that makes Leif think of an incident a few years before in the Gobi Desert.

Leif accompanied a scientific expedition to the Gobi. Merritt appears to have based this on Roy Chapman Andrews’ expeditions to Mongolia in the 1920s. A group of Uighurs take Leif, who is described as a tall, blond throwback to his mother’s Norwegian stock to their temple. They recognize the old blood. He is given a ring and summons a tentacular monstrosity through a large yellow stone that acts as a dimensional gate. A teenage girl is sacrificed to Khalk’ru the god. Leif flees in terror from the temple and ruined city of the Uighurs.

Leif and Jim find a valley that changes in appearance as they get closer. Entering through a heavy layer of humidity, they enter a lush, fairy forest. They discover two golden pygmies (Rrrllya) staked to the ground and tortured by moving, poisonous vines. They free the pygmies and find they speak a language related to Cherokee. In fact, they are the little people of Cherokee mythology.

There is a near escape across a river from a group of red-haired women warriors on horseback. In the land of the Rrrllya, the meet Evalie, who is a normal human. The Rrrllya appear to worship her. Eager to see the broken bridge of Nansur, Leif sees a group of the Ayjir across the river. Words ensue and Leif’s personality is taken over by Dwayanu, a former Ayjir leader in the homeland of the Gobi. Flashing the kraken ring, the Rrrllya rush him and push him into the river. Escaping the giant leeches that guard the river, Leif emerges on the other bank as Dwayanu. Lur and Tibur take him to the city of Karak.

The next portion of the novel is intrigue between Dwayanu, Lur the witch-woman, Yodin the priest of Khalk’ru. Dwayanu turns the table on Yodin in a ceremony summoning Khalk’ru.

There is a plot hole I noticed. In Leif’s first encounter with Lur in escaping across the river, he yells he does not take orders from the witch-woman. Tibur the Smith also speaks to Leif/Dwayanu as if they are old enemies. Dwayanu supposedly lived before the abomination, the desertification of the Gobi. How would he know Lur or Tibur? They know of Dwayanu through prophecy and legend but are not sure if it is Dwayanu or not.

Dwayanu has a fling with Lur who is both a warrior and controls some supernatural looking powers. He is a stunning red-head who leads a band of women warriors. Before Jirel, before Red Sonya and Red Sonja, there was Lur.

I noticed this interesting passage:

“By Zarda! But it was as it was of old–enemies to slay, a city to sack, a nation to war with and a woman’s soft arms around me. I was well content!”

Now compare this passage by Robert E. Howard from “Queen of the Black Coast” (1934):

“Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content.”

Dwayanu leads an attack on the city of Sirk, which is inhabited by dissident refugees from Karak. They have had enough of human sacrifice. Merritt has a good blood and thunder sequence of the taking of the city. Evalie and Jim are in Sirk brought by a false message believed sent by Leif. Tibur the Smith gives a killing blow to Jim. Jim’s death breaks Dwayanu’s hold over Leif’s mind.

Leif settles the score with Tibur:

“I lifted my sword to slash at Tibur’s throat. I gave him no warning. It was no time for chivalry. Twice he had tried treacherously to kill me. I would make quick end. . .Before he could clench me again, my hand had swept down into the girdle and clutched the dart. I brought it up and drove it into Tibur’s throat just beneath his jaw. I jerked the haft. The opened, razor-edge flanges sliced through arteries and muscles. The bellowing laughter of Tibur changed to a hideous gurgling. His hands sought the haft, dragged at it– tore it out. And the blood spurted from Tibur’s mangled throat.”

That is about a graphic a death as ever put on paper.

Leif takes the captive Evalie back with him to Karak trying to convince her that Dwayanu is submerged in his mind and not in control. That night, Lur abducts Evalie for sacrifice to Khalk’ru.

Leif arrives with his body-guard and smashes the yellow stone portal for Khalk’ru as it tries to enter this dimension. Lur manages to kill Evalie before being taken down herself with a javelin. The novel ends with a broken Leif vowing to leave the Shadow Land despite pleas from the Rrrllya and Ayjir to rule them.

I do have to say the character of Evalie has almost no personality outside as some sort of emblem of goodness. Lur is much more interesting.

My favorite cover

This is one of the great novels of American fantasy. Avon had two paperback editions in 1944 and 1952. There was a hardback omnibus in 1952 with Face in the Abyss. Paperback Library did two printings in 1962 and 1965. One with a very cool cover. Avon again reprinted the novel starting in 1967 through 1976 with three printings.

Collier Books reprinted the novel for the last time as a mass market paperback in 1991. That is the edition I have. I think I bought it at a Half-Price Books in Cleveland in the late 1990s. I don’t remember even really reading the novel in detail but sort of scanning it. I have corrected that.

Merritt kept up with the contents of Weird Tales. He even wrote some letters to “The Eyrie.” Khalk’ru is right out of H. P. Lovecraft as the tentacle horror from another dimension who dissolves its sacrifices. A case could be made that the Nordic barbarian angle is from Robert E. Howard. Merritt would have read King Kull and Bran Mak Morn. Turlogh O’Brien came along in fall 1931. Dwellers in the Mirage was probably already written and submitted to Argosy by the time the Dalcassian axe man was in print.

Right after Dwellers in the Mirage had finished serializing in Argosy, Robert E. Howard had made a trip to the Rio Grande region of Texas in March 1932. That is when the character of Conan and the Hyborian Age came about. Coincidence?

  The Pulp Swordsmen: Leif Langdon published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames