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utterlyazriel · 9 months ago

Text

whom the shadows sing for— (and the thief's echoing hymn)

a/n: it's time for some more ✨trauma✨ time to learn ur own backstory tehe <3 feel free to let me know what you think or any future... predictions... you think might be coming...

word count: 3.3k

synopsis: Azriel leaves for Velaris. You reflect on old choices and everything that you lead you to where you are now— and realise it's been awhile since you had anyone to miss. fem!reader, mulan-esque au

—CHAPTER THREE :: COMPANIONS

There's a girl screaming in the middle of camp.

Anguish, a pure guttural agony, litters her voice. She's shrieking, screaming herself hoarse, tortured cries piercing the air as a piece of her identity is ripped from her forcibly. The scream that you know only follows a wing clipping.

Fear rolls through your body, seizing every nerve til your limbs lock up. Your stomach lurches, nausea swimming and threatening to choke up your throat. The screams dive beneath your very skin and make a home there, unbidden.

The screaming isn't stopping and you acutely notice that you're crying because of it, big fat tears rolling down your face as though you're the one in pain, unable to quieten her suffering, because... because...

Because the girl is you.

The girl is you and they had found out somehow and they had come, they had held you down and taken the knife between your wings and starting slicing through muscle and sinew and it fucking hurts, it hurts so much—

A ragged gasp rips from your throat at the slice down your back.

You wake you with a violent twitch.

Your dagger is in your hand in an instant, stored beneath your pillow, always within reach. The cool leather beneath it is a comfort as your senses search blindly for any threat. The rabbiting sound of your heart looms in your ears and you keenly strain your ears to try listen over it.

A threat? An intruder? You're looking for anything hidden in the darkness, while your senses are still swamped by your nightmare. The effects of it are melting away too slowly. Your breath comes too fast.

Shadows loom. You're not sure what is fear is still lingering from the dream and what is real instinct, kicking in to protect yourself.

Worse is, your suspicions are not at all unwarranted.

Around you, the space is still. Dead air trapped within your shelter.

Outside, the howl of the Mother's Kiss sounds again, the rattling wind against the windows somehow grounding you into your home. You're in your home. You're not out in the middle of camp, not held onto that horrid stained piece of earth where all the clippings take place.

You're tucked away in your space, hidden beneath your secret still.

Your chest heaves rapidly, dregs of panic still running through your system. You force yourself to inhale slowly, blinking slowly and letting your eyes adjust to the night. It's still dark.

It's nighttime and you've had a night terror and you're still safe, still just like any other male in the camp.

Behind you, you give your wings a little shiver, just to check.

Still there, still working in every capacity. The relief that pours through you soothes like a balm, heady and overwhelming. You release a shaky breath and curl your knees up to your chest, wings cocooning around yourself.

The nightmares, this nightmare, has been unrelenting for as many years as you can remember. Well, since...

Since twenty six years ago, when you had made a very difficult choice.

Perhaps the only time you'll ever be thankful for being a bastard in this camps is when it had granted you the privacy to make such a choice. Nobody cares if a bastard child dies, male or otherwise.

It had made you dispensable and therefore, unnoticeable.

Nobody noticed when one more begging child, one more hungry face, went missing. And certainly nobody paid any mind when one more turned up again — hair cut down to the scalp, bleeding in places from the shoddy cut, and a gritty determination in their eyes.

No, in fact, the only time people started noticing you was when you started tasting the mixture of blood and dirt, knocked down in a fight you knew you had no chance of winning.

You had started it. Pushed your way into the group of boys and shoved one, hard. Fought back as best you could with half formed fists that quickly got pushed into the mud and held there as the boy you shoved wailed on you, hit after hit after hit.

By the time he had been pulled off you, your mouth was a river of blood and your face ached in a way you had never felt before.

The very bone of your skull felt bruised. Your nose was definitely broken. You wanted to cry but even scrunching your face up hurt too much. It was impossible to think anything beyond pure pain.

The group of boys were sneering as they left you in a crumpled heap on the ground, kicking mud in your direction and hissing the word bastard.

But not one mention of you being anything other than that.

Just a bastard. No slighted comment at being a female, at not being worthy of a fight for that reason.

In the Illyrian Mountains, being a bastard gave you very little in the manner of food, things, and choices. If you managed to survive past childhood, that is.

If you could scrape around for food to fill a belly that never seemed to stop growling and manage not succumb to icy embrace of the winter in the mountains, there was very little waiting for you. Even less so, if you weren't a male.

Males, at the very least, could fight for a sliver of something better.

And wasn't that just the Illyrian way? If you can fight, if you can beat and claw your way to the top, it's worth something. It's the only way to gain respect. To earn it, even when you came from nothing.

For you? Living past childhood would mean getting your greatest love torn from you.

You had seen half a dozen clippings before the age of eight. It was said that other camps littered throughout Illyria tended to be more gracious. Did it in private. Healers on hand. No excessive force.

But you'd believe that when you saw it — clippings were brutal.

Females having experienced their first blood were dragged out into the middle of camp, some kicking and screaming, others a ghostly quiet. Everybody watched and nobody stepped in, no matter the pleas.

You, no older than eight years old, had stared at the bloody patch left on the ground til your vision had blurred. It was crimson, mixing with the dirt of the earth. Beneath it was this horrid scorched brown colour.

Old blood.

The final straw for you had been Adesi— Lord Mylind's own daughter. You're not sure when or why some part of your had become convinced that she might be spared. That because her father held rank and could bend certain rules, that she might escape the fate you so feared for yourself.

She hadn't. Lord Mylind had done the clipping himself.

And she hadn't cried or fussed. There hadn't been a struggle, just this soft weeping as she kept her eyes on the ground, every pained sound that passed her lips lined with a bitter resignation of knowing this was always coming.

It had stoked a simmering ember within you — a furiously upset flame that burned hotter and hotter, til you were trembling with the force of it. Forced to watch yet another girl stripped of her freedom. Polished up for breeding stock.

If Adesi wouldn't be spared, neither would you. The future, you could see, was growing impossibly bleaker and would continue down that path if nothing radical appeared to change its course.

You had cut your hair that same very night.

It was a shit job. Trying to get it as short as you could manage without a mirror or proper tools to do so proved incredibly difficult. The lack of proper shelter didn't help either.

Bandages you were stock-piling for Mother knows what were used to bind your chest. Then you spent the rest of the night time scouring the mountain-side for those bitter herbs on the mere hope that the rumour that they would keep you from bleeding held an inkling of truth.

The next day had been the day you got into your very first fight.

The first of many. Lord Mylind didn't take kindly to bastards, especially when you paled in comparison to the size of the other novices. You had been refused to be allowed to join training the first time you had tried, his cold eyes narrowed with a cruel curl of his upper lip.

But you had, perhaps, what no one else did.

No other way forward. No other choice.

Every part of you that yearned to keep your beautiful wings, to keep your freedom, your autonomy, was channeled into your intense drive. You would not be so easily dissuaded.

You trained day and night, working up weak muscles til they hardened beneath your skin. Without proper training, it was nowhere near as efficient as it could've been. There was no-one there to soothe the aches of your growing pains, nor the sores that came with hitting the ground time and time again as you honed the balance and fluidity of your body.

A season passed. Your drive did not falter— not when half a dozen more females got clipped in that same period. A wedge drove itself between your ribs, attempting to crack open your chest; a heavy guilt at what they experienced... what you could not yet prevent.

It pushed you to train harder than before.

It took seven whole months of solitary training before Lord Mylind reluctantly allowed you to join the ranks— forced to when you disarmed and wiped the floor with Brudam in the ring to prove yourself.

By that time, the list of clipped females had climbed to nearly fifty. You kept track of every single one, forty-eight notches carved into your soul for every person you failed to protect from a terrible fate.

It killed you having to bide your time.

To train alongside the males of the camp who detested you as they did any such bastard. To hear their uncaring jeers of the clippings as they flaunted their own wings proudly. There was no shortage of things to stoke the fire within you, fury burning through every cell in your body. There was no distraction from the ultimate goal.

But between Lord Mylind's abysmal training, geared specifically at you, the purposeful way other warriors wouldn't hesitate to kick you while you were down, and having nobody else in your corner, you had no other choice.

Routines formed. Train. Eat. Train. Scrounge for ingredients, for knowledge, anything on healing tonics. Fail miserably at making anything. Chew the bitter herbs. Train. Sleep. Wake. Train.

Loneliness became a familiar companion.

Every creak in the dark was a potential threat that came looking to see if they could knock the unwelcome bastard out of the ranks. You learned to not just how to duel, but how to brawl and win. To fight dirty. To come out as unscathed as possible.

Your first bleed did eventually come, bitter leaves be damned.

They had done a decent job. They had given you a few crucial years to establish yourself as a worthy fighter, not to be messed with, and enough time to build the shelter you now called home.

It had been a saving grace. If you had been out and exposed, if any of the males in town came sniffing for a fight and felt entitled enough to challenge you, the lie that kept you safe would've come tumbling down like a house of cards.

All those years turned to ash. Wasted. For nothing.

And the only thing that terrified you more than that was... what you were certain they would inflict upon you if they ever found out.

In some of your worst nightmares, they do much worse than just clip you. They take them from you— saw them from your back, splintering bone and tearing muscle, not caring if you cry or scream — not caring if you die.

Around you, your wings give a shiver as if they could feel the ghost of pain that still lurked from your nightmare. You curl them up tighter around you. A blanket of softness, of warmth, finally breaks the chill on your skin.

Routine was easy. Your terror was manageable based on the familiarity of your life. The fact that you had nobody to lean on meant everything, every pillar of comfort, of tough love, of the extra push when you needed it, came from within.

Slipping away from training to deal with the excruciating agony of your cycle was a necessity, even if it pained you to do so. Avoidance of the Blood Rite was born from that too. It was too great a risk— too much time spent that you couldn't ever be sure wouldn't overlap with your cycle.

Besides, you already had the biggest target on your back — the label of bastard giving you more than your fair share of enemies.

They would hunt you down on the first night. That you had no doubt about. The killing would be slow and merciless. To you, the Blood Rite was just another brand of nightmares.

All this dread had become second-nature, stitched into the fabric of your angry and miserable life which seemed to exist against all odds. You were cursed with an ambition that would not let you rest. A compassion that drove you to keep training, to help others more than just yourself.

You were singular. A lone ranger who relied on nothing but your own instincts to keep getting you through the day.

You were solitary. You were lonely.

And yet, within the last month, something else had barrelling into your life and altered its course.

A Shadowsinger.

A Shadowsinger with hazel eyes that dance with mirth and a rueful smile that comes out far too easily for the battle-hardened soldier you know him to be. He's a conundrum. A mentor and a damn hard-ass when it came to training but also someone you could trust.

Calling him a friend felt too close.

A tenative ally, perhaps. A companion, even.

And the fact you can trust him — the fact that you do trust him — is perhaps the biggest change of them all.

All of your routines have been suddenly altered.

Because now, unlike ever before, there's someone there in the morning. Someone to notice your absences. To come looking when it takes longer to drag yourself out of fitful sleep. To comment on the circles under your eyes and roll back the punches accordingly.

He brings the things you need, a sudden plentiful stash of ingredients you wouldn't have dreamed of affording. The good stuff that makes a difference in the potency of a healing tonic. In turn, your feeble attempts at concocting have begun to produce far more useful results.

He brings food too.

No point in all this training if you look like your bones will snap. He had said, almost dismissively as he summoned the abundance of food from within that pocket in the shadow realm. You had been too startled by that alone to question how much he had brought with him.

A fucking feast. Enough food to last you at least half the year, if you stretched it.

Some withered, bitter part of you had shriveled up when you saw it. Your mouth watered and your stomach ached and yet still, you couldn't help how you snapped at him.

I don't want your pity.

Azriel had leveled you with a stare, his shadows roaming about his shoulders like wisps of smoke. He tilted his head to the side an inch, as if trying to pick apart the reasoning for you being so standoffish.

It's not a handout. It's part of our deal. Like I said, there's no point training you if you're starving all the while.

You bristled as his tone, even if there wasn't a hint of condescension to it. It was strong and sure.

When you still hadn't moved, Azriel had spoken once more. It's okay. To eat. I understand that generosity is not something you are familiar with but not eating will not help any of them. Getting stronger will.

He had spoken as if he knew that exact reservation on your mind — the sheer unfairness of having a platter served up to gorge yourself sick on, when so many others... So many others had nothing.

Eat. Azriel had murmured, turning for the door. He had paused just like he had on that first ever night, one scarred hand on the door. Please.

A particularly loud whirl of the Mother's Kiss outside shakes you from the memory.

You blink hard. Your wings twitch and curl in even closer as you realise you've been looking at the door. Looking at where he had stood all those nights ago.

That conversation had been in the first week of knowing Azriel. Back when you were still so wary it was impossible to not raise your hackles when he came knocking at your door, no matter how friendly he had seemed. Friendly, but not harmless you knew.

It took time to stop being constantly on guard around him. But if your lack of trust and general frostiness bothered Azriel, he never let you know.

And now... now you've known him for nearly a month.

A month of routine with him in it. With sparring in the morning, tiring yet rewarding drills beneath the winter sun, and quiet conversations in the evenings, his hazel eyes competing with the crackling fire with how they set your heart ablaze. A month of companionship.

A month, the first month in years, not spent entirely alone.

In the cool night air, knees pulled to your chest, something tugs at your throat at the knowledge he won't be back in the morning.

Last night, after an evening spent in comfortable company where you finally heard him laugh for the first time ever and nearly melted at the sound, he had told you he would be returning to Velaris.

Temporarily, he added on hastily at the flash of surprise in your eyes.

Business with the High Lord. Reports and assessments to deliver. I's to dot and t's to cross.

He assured you he would be back in a day or two, certainly no more than three. He had left ample food and generous tonic ingredients, with all the assurances to continue practicing during the evening.

With no Azriel, you had no reason to avoid training with the rest of camp.

Maybe that was why this particular nightmare had plagued you tonight. Something curdled up in your gut at the thought of returning to your old routine— another part relishes in how you will get to stand your ground as a better, hardier warrior now. To prove yourself worthy of the specialty training you were receiving.

You huff out a small sigh in the dark.

There's no telling what time it is. You force yourself to sit back, easing back into your bed gently til you're lying back under the makeshift duvet you have. It's moth-eaten and seen better days. You snuggle beneath it anyway.

It's been a long time since you've missed anyone, you think forlornly.

The thought surprises you. Staring at the ceiling, your brows furrow and you close your eyes but the truth of it rings clear throughout your very being. Undeniable.

The Shadowsinger has somehow wiggled into your life, burrowed into your routine and has begun to mean something to you. And when he's gone, you... miss him.

Your eyes flash back open, glaring up at the ceiling, and you huff as if that will change that fact.

Rolling over, you pull the duvet in closer, your arms tucking into your chest snugly. Your bed is a bit too small for someone with wings and they ache because of it. Sleep trickles back into your system, dragging your lids down.

As you fall into sleep, some part of you realises, faintly, that you haven't had anyone to miss in a long, long, time.

This time when you dream, it’s of hazel eyes.

[NEXT PART: FRIENDS]

—

tags below!

@strangerstilinski @janebirkln @itsswritten @mischiefmanagers @hnyclover @waytoomanyteenagefeels @idkitsem @illyrianbitch @jeweline16 @fightmedraco @iamjimintrash @maeandering @spideytingley @aneekapaneeka @cassianswh0reeee @viciane @astarlitsoul @mybestfriendmademe @archiveofcravings @reputaytionn-13 @bionic-donut @chessebookgirl @itseightbeats @littleblackcatinwonderland @twsssmlmaa

#i hope that even tho there's no interactions this chapter u still enjoy it!!! well there is but they're all in the past #just think.... at some point all this horrible backstory... is gonna have to come out #im vibrating in my seat thinking about writing the scene where he figures it out #GAWSH im so excited for it!!#azriel #azriel x reader #azriel x you #azriel shadowsinger #azriel shadowsinger x reader #azriel shadowsinger x you #azriel acotar #azriel fic #azriel fanfiction #acotar fanfiction #acotar #azriel fanfic

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