#perhaps fish form makes it easier but to my flesh it makes me shake

[gonzodangerfeels]

I didn't exactly (define I as the ego mind) choose to have God put Himself into me

Stay humble and fuck well.

[lunarthedragon]

Demon!Jaskier Part 2

Part 1: here

+++

He had been so many things in his past. So many iterations and forms. So many bodies and lives.

A boy with bones so fragile he needs braces to walk, but who never dies. Never dies. Never dies. His smile bringing joy to his small village.

A girl, deaf, who is shunned by her family but taken in by the sirens that cannot sway her with their songs. She is vengeance on the tide, her hands louder than her tongue.

A man filled with anger - at the world, people, himself - who sets into motion some of the most gruesome wars known to man.

A woman with thunder in her steps, mighty and heroic, wearing armor forged by poor workers and wielding a damaged sword she found lodged in her father’s ribcage.

An elf who slips along the blood-drenched fields, washed with the screams of his people, delivering mercy upon the suffering and as his tears mix with the blood.

So many lives. So many timelines. So many worlds.

Nothing ever looks the same, feels the same, but it is always him-her-they. Returning and returning, wanting to live and learn and grow in a way his brethren refuse to. 

He will be better.

+++

Sometimes, when people want to get at Geralt, they choose the cowardly method of going after his bard. They believe him to be an easier target and hope for an easy prize.

Geralt always worries, even though he never says it. Jaskier can feel it, wafting off of him as he charges into the temporary prison and sees the dead bandits-mercenaries-fools already strewn across the ground.

Over the years the Witcher has learned and accepted that Jaskier has a profound talent for getting into trouble, but also getting out of it.

Still he worries.

Even when he knows of Jaskier’s true nature.

A group of bandits abscond with him to their camp, set to bribe the Witcher.

The night has barely fallen when Jaskier runs into Geralt on his way out of the bandit camp, blood smeared over his hands and face, yet his clothes miraculously untouched.

“Are you okay?” Geralt still demands, reeking of concern.

“They tore one of the buttons out of my doublet. How do you think I am doing?” Jaskier grumbles, ignoring the concern, even though it makes him feel all warm inside. Like the shadows are stretching with a brighter sun. Like some of the darkness boils back.

It is a good warm.

He does not need worrying, though. He does not need rescuing. He has been a damsel before, but he has never been in distress. 

Still... it can be a little nice... on occasion.

+++

Jaskier tells Geralt some of his own stories.

His words have been prettied and empty for so many years, the occasional story bracketed from when “Jaskier” began and the present. 

Now, he tells Geralt anything and everything. Of worlds far beyond his own. Places hidden away unless you know where to look. History long forgotten.

Geralt pretends not to listen, but his awareness is firmly planted on Jaskier when he talks of these things. It appears these stories can even intrigue a grumpy, old Witcher.

“The monsters in your song,” Geralt suddenly cuts in one night when Jaskier is recounting his life as Damalt, a “Wastelander” from far, far away many years ago, where he hunted monsters not unlike a Witcher. “I said they didn’t exist, but...”

The Witcher looked deep in thought and it takes Jaskier a moment to realize he is talking about when they first met. “You were not incorrect,” he assures, smiling, “They do not exist... in this world. Alas, I occasionally get my histories jumbled up when high on adrenaline. Terrible habit, that.”

“It must happen often, then,” Geralt huffs. His pride is wounded. He is meant to be the monster expert, and yet...

“I often call out the wrong name in bed,” Jaskier replies with a shrug.

“That’s hardly terrible,” Geralt’s lips twist and a brow arches.

Jaskier shrugs. “Sure, unless you say it like, ‘G̸͙̅̀Ŕ̸̠̖ḥ̶̀͋h̸̘́K̸̥̇͒̐͛͋͗̏b̶̥͕̠̪͉͛̆ą̶̘͈̟̼̰̟̓̌̀̐T̶̝̠̙̍̽̈́̄̈́C̶̥̫̝͐̄͋́̏̀ḧ̶͍̟̟̠̫̎́̇̈́h̸̬̅́Á̸̬̱͎̗̓̃͂̇͊͠L̴͕̗͛̀̓̔̾̂̈́ͅ.’”

Geralt has leant back as if smacked, his eyes so wide the whites are visible all around his irises, and his mouth is hanging open.

It makes Jaskier laugh for five minutes straight.

+++

He cannot eat salt. It will not kill him, but it causes the closest thing to an allergic reaction in him that he could ever have.

It burns where it touches tongue or skin or organs or bone. He feels it deeper than the flesh, the body, and he writhes, like a black, foaming slug. It makes him screech but no one hears, air running cold until icicles form but no one shivers, a chittering vibration that sets ears bleeding but no one cares.

He cannot eat salt.

+++

The thing in the mansion is ancient. Almost as ancient as him. He can hear it long before the mansion - dilapidated, abandoned, hopeless, taken back by nature - comes into view.

Geralt doesn’t hear it. He keeps walking, looking out for the monster on the contract.

The monster is gone, if it was ever here to begin with. Dead, dead, dead. Like the air and the earth and the sea. Dead but ancient and crawling without moving.

And Geralt doesn’t hear it.

“We shouldn’t go closer,” Jaskier finally says - voice not-quite-right at the edges, like a burning photo - because Geralt knows. Knows what he is. Accepted what he is. It is fine to speak up and protect that which he holds dear. That which he cares for more than he should.

Geralt is looking at him now, confusion in his eyes, and he wishes he could put into words that they need to stay away from that mansion because the thing inside will be the Witcher’s undoing.

He can move on, find a new body, find a new life, but the flesh bodies with the fleshier souls of mortals do not have that privilege. And he quite likes this particular mortal.

“What’s wrong?” Geralt asks, voice low, stepping towards Jaskier as if to protect.

“E̴v̵e̶r̴y̷t̵h̷i̶n̴g̸,” his voice twitches around something too big and forces it back down. “It will kill you. You need to get away.”

“Is it a spirit of some kind?” Geralt asks, his face set in concern. Jaskier offers a nod. “Is it like you?” Jaskier opens his mouth to reply and it rushes out.

“Me but not - screaming where I whisper - the fly in your soup the fly on a corpse - bear trap on your leg gnaw it off gnaw it off - viscera from an eye split in half - war as bloody as birth - ”

Geralt grabs ahold of his arms and drags him away, sprinting in the opposite direction as the mansion, and Jaskier has never sensed fear on the Witcher like he does in that moment.

They don’t return to the town they came from. They never completed the contract. There was no monster to kill.

Instead, in complete silence, they make camp and Jaskier curls up tight to Geralt’s side under a thick fur. If he shakes a little, drained from a battle that never happened, Geralt doesn’t say a word and only holds him closer.

+++

Djinn are an ancient spirit as much as Jaskier is. Not horrors, but rather entities. Embodiments. Powerful and feared and unable to flee from the imprisonments of man.

They hate the things that Jaskier is. Envious of him and his brethren. They are not as ancient as he, but they possess powers long forgotten.

Jaskier should have stopped things sooner. “I can’t sleep,” Geralt had said as he fished for a djinn. Jaskier had seen the problem, seen the issue, knew the outcome, and he should have just stepped in forced a stop.

Instead, he tried to talk Geralt down. Claim a lovely cup of chamomile tea with honey and whiskey would do the trick! Perhaps a back rub to sweeten the deal? Just please get away from the water. Please.

It doesn’t work and the jug in Geralt’s hands sends Jaskier into a panic, shooting out to grab ahold of it and tugging. Geralt doesn’t let go. Just glares at him.

“Seriously, Geralt, you’re being ridiculous! This isn’t going to help you. They’ll trick you and put you to sleep for good, never to rise again. How can you not see--”

The jug opens with a “pop!” The engraved lid in Geralt’s hand, jug in Jaskier's, and he can FEEL the energies around them shift. Compress. Tug and squeeze until it is hard for him to breathe.

“Nothing happened,” Geralt growls to himself, looking around, growing more and more frustrated, but Jaskier’s attention is glued to the surface of the lake. There is a shadow there that hasn’t taken form. Watching without eyes. Laughing without lips.

A djinn’s aura is not a scream or a cry. It is a vibration. A roll of thunder and the long, belting roar of a giant.

They stare at each other, through eyes beyond this plain. Eyes that see each other for what they truly are. Wind is picking up, actual wind, the sky darkening, and with the first bolt of lightning the djinn attacks.

He screeches, unholy and enraged, as claws-talons-teeth, dig into the parts of him that go unseen. Black veins form on his body, growing and growing and growing, hands and eyes pitch black as he lashes back. A piece of him catches on a piece of them, rendering-cutting-ripping, until lightning flashes above like a scream. Like a scar.

Black oozes from his mouth with the next clash, veins surging along his face, his stomach, his legs, everywhere. His hands are grasping without moving - so many hands, too many hands - and he tears the djinn in two, flinging it away, but a bolt of lightning like a blade severs an arm. A leg. There’s a hole in his chest that bleeds black.

He hears a voice, deep and frantic in a way he isn’t used to. Terrified. He’s not meant to be terrified. Not for Jaskier. He...

“Stop!” Geralt yells out, loud as the storm, and time holds still. The djinn is still there, present, hovering, deliberating, before it pulls back and away with a thin smile despite having no lips.

Ah. Geralt has the wishes.

Isn’t that lovely?

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, sounding desperate and too close and Jaskier looks to his side to find he is laying on his back and Geralt is kneeling beside him. He looks horrified, his emotions apparently so sudden and strong he is unable to hold them in.

“Hi,” he says, black blood gurgling out with the word, smiling in such a way his dark eyes crinkle. He doesn’t think it puts Geralt at ease, though, with the way he seems to flicker. Stutter. Then lurch forward like he wants to hold Jaskier but stops himself short.

“You’re... you...” Geralt isn’t one for words, but when he does talk he doesn’t usually stutter. Jaskier doesn’t like this.

“Djinn and demons like me do not get along,” he offers. He feels tight in his skin, too much wanting to leak out. To crack more of his skin and ooze free. Fill the air. Fill the world. Fill everything.

He holds it in, but he can feel more of his body turning dark with more and more veins. The hole in his chest hurts.

“Could you pass me my arm and leg, please?” he asks kindly and, apparently too shocked to argue or question, the Witcher lurches sideways to scoop up the severed limbs. He hands them over and Jaskier takes them gratefully, before setting his arm to the bleeding stump.

It stinks, like rotten eggs, and Geralt’s nose wrinkles up but he doesn’t move away. Jaskier wonders if he’s in shock.

The limb knits back onto his body, slower than usual, but not unexpected for a wound like this. He does the same to his leg, pleased to have all four limbs back, less of himself wanting to leak out. He is still covered in black veins, though, with dark eyes.

Still, he turns to Geralt, who looks lost. He reaches out to lay a hand against Geralt’s cheek, the Witcher flinching but then pressing back into his palm. “See? I am fine. Death means very little to me,” he assures, his voice still full, like he has too many teeth-tongues-throats, but far more normal than it once was.

“You have a hole in your chest,” Geralt says lowly, seeming unable to speak much higher. Jaskier tries to think about what this must be like from Geralt’s perspective. His only friend, a demon of unknown power, changing horrifically  and having a fight with an invisible force. Then, being torn apart before his very eyes...

Yes, perhaps this response was a bit more understanding...

“It will heal,” he says, but looks down at the hole, black blood gushing from it still, coating his front and back. He hadn’t gotten that from a bolt of lightning. This was a cursed wound.

Not enough to kill something like him, but enough to be a nuisance.

“I may abandon this body,” he considers aloud, “Find a new host. This will take years to heal.”

“No,” Geralt says suddenly, moving forward and grabbing Jaskier’s shoulders. “No. Tell me how to help. This is my doing--”

“This is not your doing,” Jaskier says, head tilting.

“I should have listened.”

“You should have,” he agrees, “But this is still not your doing.”

“Just...” Geralt looks down and away, avoiding eye contact. Jaskier still tries to catch his gaze anyway. “Tell me what I can do...”

“It is a magical wound,” he begins and brings a hand up to run his knuckles over Geralt’s jaw. It is so close and vulnerable, he can’t help it. “It needs magical treatment so that I might do the rest. I sense a sorceress in Rinde, the next town over. Powerful.”

Geralt looks up, listening intently. His face is set again, under control as it usually is, and his eyes are determined. He nods. “To Rinde,” he says as he stands and carefully urges Jaskier up, too.

There is a sense of vertigo upon standing and the black veins flair, spreading then receding. He feels disoriented, deep to the core. Perhaps the cursed wound was doing more to him than he thought.

“I think...” he begins slowly as Geralt leads him towards Roach, who is far enough away not to be spooked by the fight, but close enough to still be within sight. Geralt has a firm hand on his closest arm and the other arm wrapped around Jaskier’s shoulders, trying to support him.

“I think I need to pass out, now.” And he goes down to the sound of Geralt’s worried exclamation, the world blurring until it is void. It is nothing. It is all.

+++

Definitely gonna make a part 3! Also likely to put them all together, eventually, and put them on Ao3 later! Tell me what y’all think!!

Tagged users that commented on part one: @meody90 @zoeyszone @patrycjami-chan @emthegiantnerd @onelonelyforgottenbiscuit 

[anditendshowyoudexpect]

anyone can play guitar

well, what do you know 

@aparnasworld​ i think this might be closer to what you had in mind?

🎸🎸🎸

People passing by they would stop and say

“Oh my, but that little country boy could play”

It is absolutely, definitely the most beautiful thing he has ever seen in the whole ten and a half years of his life--in fact, more beautiful in its glossy cherry red maple flesh than the version he first glimpsed on the TV screen last year, when all his attention was focused on the dexterous hands that held it, caressed it, making the most beautiful music in the world. His English wasn't very good back then and he barely made out the words but his feet moved of their own accord and his arms folded around the imaginary shape on their own, his fingers reproducing the chords and the strumming patterns. 

He has been coming here every week since that day. He knows every record in the countless boxes--the kind-hearted owner lets him listen to them in exchange for him lending a hand when the store is particularly busy. He knows every tuning fork--he was so fascinated by its appearance until Joseph explained what it was for, and then he was fascinated by the physics of it. He knows every amp, those bulky unwieldy things especially bulky and unwieldy next to his scrawny frame. And of course, he knows every guitar on the wall--it's the first place he comes to whenever he's here, it's the place where Joseph, whose patience had finally run out after a few weeks of watching him play air guitar with his tongue stuck out in concentration, suggested that perhaps the boy should take proper lessons with a proper, actual, tangible guitar. The poor man must have regretted it immediately when he saw the boy's eyes lit up and heard the question, the answer to which doomed him. "Do you play the guitar, Joseph-ajussi?" Eugene--he already wrote his name this way, happy that his original name translated so well into English--followed him around the store for days, offering his assistance in every possible task and errand, from rearranging stock on the shelves to sweeping the floors after closing, until Joseph gave in and was rewarded as a teacher because his student turned out to be an incredibly quick study. He's no Chuck Berry--yet, thinks Eugene, but he's half-decent. If only he had a guitar of his own to practice all the time and not just when he gets the chance to drop by the store. If he had a guitar of his own, it would be so much easier to remember all the tunes that keep flooding his head. Maybe he should learn to read and write sheet music after all because there's no chance he'll be able to afford even the cheapest guitar in Joseph's store anytime soon, let alone this new arrival. It is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen and it breaks his heart to know that he can never play it.

A delicate cough behind his back pulls him out of his reverie, making him jerk away his hand as it almost brushes the varnished wood. He turns his head around so fast that he can almost hear his neck vertebrae crack. Joseph stares down at him with a soft half-smile, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans.

"I was just--" Eugene clears his throat nervously. "Is that--?"

"Well, not his, of course, but the exact same model, yes," Joseph smiles openly now and walks around his petrified form to... reach out and take the precious beauty off the wall. "You want to try it?" Just like that.

Struck dumb by this irreverence, Eugene opens and closes his mouth silently like a fish.

"How m-m-much?" he squeezes out hoarsely.

"I'm not trying to sell it to you, boy!" Joseph says, incredulity evident in his voice. "Go on, try it, it's okay."

He keeps shaking his head in horror.

“How much?” he repeats. “I could damage it. I— I— I could drop it!” He imagines an ugly scratch on the perfect polished curves or—oh God!—this perfect neck broken in half, steel strings hanging limply, and his heart is about to explode. “I’d have to work for you for the rest of my life and still never be able to pay for it! I— I don’t want to, I— just show me the music box again, remember the one playing ‘Greensleeves’, I’ve been thinking, I could skip school next week, it’s almost summer anyway and we don’t get much homework, and I could help you out more when I’m not helping out Mom at the café, and I have five dollars saved, so— I made a hair pin for her in the shop class but I think it’s ugly and not good enough, not as a birthday present anyway, and she works so hard, she deserves to have something pretty and I think she’ll like it and—” 

It's the most terrifying and the most precious moment in the whole ten and a half years of his life when Joseph sighs, plugs the cord in and just places the cherry red Gibson ES-355, which is obviously, ridiculously too big for his ten-and-a-half-year-old body, in his desperately flailing arms that suddenly freeze, that suddenly feel so clumsy, so alien, as if they were not the limbs he's had since birth but some insensitive artificial appendices. The leather strap touches his neck and he flinches. Joseph's hand gently lifts his left wrist and his hands have never been sweatier. But the calloused fingertips press on the right strings in the right places. His heart has never pounded louder and faster.

He has never been happier.

(posted it on AO3 as well. oh well.)

[saizoswifey]

Night Time Is Quiet Time

{SaizoxReader}

Genre: N//SFW / Angst Word Count: 9.034 Summary: Follow Saizo on a mission from Iga and witness the hardships that shape who he is.   A/N: I have been wanting to write a series of pieces following Saizo on missions for a while now. We always see him leave and come home but never the in-between and the intense situations he must face time and time again. The events of this story are not completely in chronological order, so I hope it won’t be too difficult to follow. Thank you so much for reading and I truly hope you guys enjoy this despite it being quite a bit darker than I usually post.  Additional Content/Trigger Warnings: Mention of young girls death(not shown), Blood, Blood mention, Death, Murder, Gore, N//SFW, Vaginal penetration, Unprotected sex  AO3: Read Here

_________________________

     Alone. He had found her there, alone—the young girl inside. Stashed like she was a mere sack of kitchen scraps, her bruised body carelessly tossed in a rocky crevice that lay inside of a shallow cave, hidden by a thickly wooded area. Her limbs still, twisted and bent in that unnatural way reserved only for the dead. There was much blood. But his eyes, sharp and unwavering in the face of death after all these years, were concentrated now on a particular spot. A smearing of red on her lips that stretched to her pale cheek. Spidering out the right side as if a Higanbana had sprouted from her stilled blue mouth. Morbidly fitting considering they were near a river, he thought.

     A sudden palpitation from her chest had dark understanding pulling at his features and he withdrew a short blade to end the last of her suffering. Saizo brought it to her flesh; just as pale, slicing just as easily under the sharpness, as silken tofu. Simple, clean.

     Now that she was at rest he reached into one of his many hidden pockets to retrieve a small wooden top. He held it between his thumb and forefinger for a moment, inspecting it one last time. It wasn’t very large or ornate. Stripes of alternating red and blue had begun to fade with wear from its surface. It was carved from relatively light wood and there were obvious nicks he could both see and feel cut into the surface. Proof the child had used it well.

     Lowering himself onto one knee he placed it to the inside of her small palm with a delicate nature. Something inside of him stirred as he felt her cold hand pressed in his own, and he took a few moments to let that chill seep into him. A form of penance, perhaps. He could choke out some form of apology, but words were never more useless than at a time like this. It would only serve to drape another dark layer of senselessness onto the already haunting scene, and it damn sure wouldn’t make him feel any better.

     He removed her hairpin; a small sakura blossom that would never again see another spring. Then he left.

_____

     This day started as many did for Saizo. Following a sleepless night where he counted your breaths and poked an index finger, ever so gently, into various places while you slept to see just how much of a reaction he could elicit without actually waking you. A kiss as light and fleeting as an early winter snowflake on your cheek.

     He left the room you shared while he could still see his breath billowing and dissipating in the pale moonlight. Though, he wasn’t cold. In fact, the days had become increasingly warm as of late. A good and bad thing for shinobi. People stayed inside at night when it was cold. People hurried home when it was chilly. Now that the temperatures were rising you could find the streets filled with children and drunks longer and later into the evening. A greater chance he could be spotted.

     He made good time in his travel despite the mountainous terrain. The soil and grass beneath his feet gradually began to soak in the warmth of the day, the heat creeping up his limbs like a root draws water. When the sun was at its highest and there were signs he was approaching the river he sat on a large moss-covered rock and quickly ate a piece of dried fish. When he looked to the trees he saw Utsusemi among the gathering of crows, and she flew to perch herself on his shoulder. He didn’t say anything to her, just held a bit of fish for her to peck at and then stroked a finger over her feathers for a while in comfortable silence.

     Normally he hated traveling so far for a mission, but it had been a while since he’d done anything for the village and even he could only keep them off his ass for so long. He stretched the ache in his legs underneath the sunlight, but only for a moment, knowing it was foolish to remain on the ground or in one place for too long.

     The dried fish finished and his familiar flapping her black wings, making herself hidden in the distant branches once more, Saizo took to the trees knowing it would be the most opportune way to remain undetected now that he was so close to the village. As he made his way he often thought of you, the way you looked before he left. Peaceful, hair strewn about the bedding in that sleepily careless fashion. The taste of your dango, but more often than not, the taste of you. And the following weeks he would curse for keeping you apart.

_____

     “How many.”

     “Four, that we are aware of.”

     “That’s not very many…” Saizo cast his eyes to the side with a slight huff of annoyance.

     “One is more than enough, I should think,” the lord barked in reply, obviously unamused with Saizo’s lack of concern regarding the situation at hand. He snapped a fan open, fluttering his wrist back and forth in order to cool his fat face.

     There was warm tea poured into an ornate cup and set in front of Saizo. He did not drink.

     “Excuse me milord, but, the number has grown to nine presently,” a retainer corrected from the side of the room.

     “And you’re sure they didn’t simply elope with some young lovers from this village or the next,” Saizo inquired, face fallen back to that serious, unreadable mask.

     “Of course not. But that does not mean my suspicions are misguided, either.” His voice had picked up a haughty tone, and Saizo imagined how fulfilling it would be to reach out across the tatami between them and twist his neck to silence.

     “I’m simply making sure my time is not wasted on an impasse to discovering some village girl died in the woods gathering nuts.”

     The retainer cleared his throat to announce himself once more. “What milord means to inform you of, is, while the reported missing did contain some of marrying age, a few were of the…younger variety, as well.”

     Children. When Kiyohiro had dropped down from the eaves like a harbinger bat hailing from cave pain-in-the-ass, he had told him the mission involved missing women. That he’d been paid to sniff out the perpetrators and when they were uncovered…to do what the Lord Assassin does best. So this fat faced lord could get his daughter married off without interruption. And that would be just fine with Saizo. The minds of women and the men who would take them were easy enough to figure out. But children…that was not discussed.

     “Are you up to the task?” The Lord asked. However, his tone made it clear it was not a question but a challenge to Saizo’s skill, and a scowl deepened the lines in his face as he watched the tea in front of Saizo grow cold and untouched.

     “It’s going to cost you extra,” Saizo replied.

     The Lord slammed his fan down in anger. “Iga already agreed to and accepted our payment for this!”

     Saizo smirked, unflinching where he sat on the tatami. “By all means, try your luck with someone else and risk your daughter's marriage squashed under your own greedy heel when her intended finds out you can’t even control criminal activity in your own village. They’ve told you who I am. My reputation?” Saizo stood up from the floor, not bothering to be dismissed. “I am Iga, as far as you’re concerned. And I say it’s going to cost you more.”

_____

     He has a room just below, instead, Saizo lay with his back to the cold hard roof of the inn. His arms are stretched up above him, reaching for the moonlight that illuminates his widespread fingers, but the outline of his arm seems to wave and blur. Flex, fist, flex, fist—he opens and closes while inspecting them with narrowing eyes. The backdrop of glittering stars dotting the wash of dark blue sky makes the rest of the world feel hundreds of miles away. If only that were true. Even when the drunken footsteps and the giggles echoing from the mouths of dark alleys fades away, when he no longer smells the fragrant wafts of vegetables and spices cooked over flame, when all else has gone silent; there is still the wind. It shakes the leaves though he can no longer hear their rustle, curling around him like smoke, inculpatory and condemning whispers snaking along every knotting whorl. Reminding him.

     If his fists clenched any tighter he’d draw blood. And in the end, the will to avoid any more of that coppery stench wins out and sees him unfurl his fingers from his roughened palm one by one. And then all he can manage is a self-deprecating laugh, but even that doesn’t come out right. His jaw is too clenched, his throat is too tight and dry, his chest too heavy. The thin air pushes out with a strangled sound, like the whisper of the dead. Drawn out and haunting. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say it was the precursor to a sob. A lifeless wheeze, which makes him want to laugh all the more, but squeezing water out of rocks felt easier than getting his lungs to produce air enough for that right now.

     Two days, maybe three. His fever would alleviate, his minor wounds would mend enough. Two days, and he could be back to the Saizo that people waited for. Until then, he’d lay here and submit to the spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning.…

_____

     He stepped through the noren and there was not a soul in sight to greet him. Empty tables and dusty streams of sunlight bursting from gaps in the wood and windows to illuminate barren tables of the restaurant. Had he been anyone else, the old boards beneath his feet would have creaked out his presence. But this was Saizo. Iga’s best ninja. And when he walked the world heard silence.

     Still, perhaps on intuition alone, an old woman poked her head from the meager kitchen like a mushroom pops from the forest floor, a sour look on her wrinkled face as she sized him up.

     “Sake?” She asked.

     “Food.”

     “I don’t have much, but-“

     “Dango.” Saizo sat down.

     “Just as well, the rice has gone cold anyway. No customers to keep it warm for these days.”

     Saizo heard a rustling in the kitchen when she disappeared, and a moment later she came shuffling over with a plate full of skewers and a cup of hot tea.

     “About that-“

     The old woman held up a hand to stop him. “I know, I know…can’t pay?”

     “I have money,” Saizo corrected, pulling a handsome pouch from his pocket as proof.

     She sat down across from him, and Saizo looked in her milky eyes as she inspected the contents, a mixture of awe and disgust forming from her wrinkles.

     “Awful lot of money for a mere traveling merchant…” She clicked her tongue incredulously.

     “As I was saying,” Saizo ignored her and continued, “why are there no customers?”

     The old woman sighed, her hunched back lifting and sinking with the labor of the breath. “Lots of women turning up missing around here. Some little ones, too…Oh, I hate to think of it.” Her face hardened. “Lords not doing anything about it, either. No matter how much we complain or beg. He’s got his family locked safe in his castle, why should he care what happens to us peasants, hm?” She sighed. “I’m not far from the village out here, but even so, people don’t want to make the trip with the way things are right now. Can’t say I blame ‘em.”

     “Hm.” Saizo finished chewing and picked up a second skewer. They weren’t as good as his Little Lady’s. They weren’t really good at all. But they were something, even if that something was only a reminder that he had something to look forward to when he got home.

     They sat together in silence for a moment.

     “How much do I owe you?” Saizo asked.

     “Don’t bother, just finish your food and go. I had my suspicions when you first walked in…I may be old but I’m not a fool. You’re no ordinary traveler, and I have no need of your blood money,” she pushed his coin back towards him as she said so.

     Prideful idiot. Old woman or not, he wasn’t about to force someone to take his money. Especially not for shit dango. Saizo smiled politely. “Have it your way.”

     “And don’t come back,” she stood up from the table to take her leave, “I’ve had enough of your kind and seen enough bloodshed for a hundred lifetimes. I’ve had enough of the war and fighting you bring.”

     Saizo chuckled fondly. And when the old woman questioned in offense, he took a calm breath to explain. “It’s just that you sound a lot like someone I know.”

     “Hmph. No ordinary someone,” the old woman saw through him. “And you still continue to kill, despite how she feels?”

     “Mn,” Saizo took his time chewing the last of the dango, letting the skewer fall onto the plate with the rest. “I get paid to kill,” he admitted, waving the coin pouch as a reminder before tucking it back into his pocket. The corners of his mouth lifted to a sinister grin, a dangerous glint in his sharp eyes. He was a raging fire in a field of dry straw. The face of a killer. “And a lot of men deserve to die.”

_____

     “Genji!” She smiled as she called his name. The afternoon sun had not yet washed over Saizo’s face before her voice greeted his first step onto the street.

     Pinpricks. That’s what he felt as she waved to him from the front of her family’s Inn, where he was keeping a bed for the duration of his mission. Pinpricks of nostalgia, something eerie? He wasn’t quite sure. Because so much reminded him of you. And the way, so, so long ago, your tiny mouth split your cheeks in a grin so blindingly bright he had forgotten all about the cherry blossoms above your heads and the warm, salty sorrow of that day. He wished he could have known you while you were like this. Skinny little limbs peeking out from a pink kimono you were still growing into. Surrounded by friends, maybe he would have been one of them? Could he have been?

     Playing in the streets and occasionally blowing warm breaths on your tiny cupped hands to stave off the winter chill that still lingered in the air. But it was better this way. Just like this girl smiling before him, eyes wide and innocent and glimmering the way they did for the purely good. Better his Little Lady spent most of her childhood in the light. Before his shadow bled over her path and crept up to her feet. It was better this way because death was with him, always. Whether or not he was the one to call it. Hanging like a sharp naked blade over his outstretched neck.  

     “Staying out of the woods today, hm?”

     “Like I promised!” She replied proudly, practically skipping up to his side and nearly crashing into a woman and her produce in the process.

     Saizo tilted his head with a small smile. Her name was Miki, and she had become a familiar annoyance in his life here.

     Of course, he couldn’t mention this out loud. Or the way her darting up and over was just like a koi fish in a pond, mouth open wide as it surges through the water for a mosquito thrashing on the glassy surface. But would that make him the mosquito, then? He felt more like a field mouse to an owl with the way she gripped her tiny claws into his sleeve.

     He keeps his placid smile and pinches his brows above his nose facetiously. “Good. Perhaps you’re really not as dumb as you look, then.”

     “Hey! You-“

     Saizo’s hand ruffling her hair cut her off, and the kinako mochi he offered her next kept that silence. For a brief moment, anyway. With her right cheek puffed full of mochi she gave him as stern a look as she could muster, chewing the gripes, then turning her attention back to her friends and the crude circle they had fashioned in the street out of twigs, like a ring.

     “Argh…You really messed my hair,” she whispered to Saizo with a grumble, struggling to right her sakura pin she must have spent a great deal of the morning placing.

     It was not lost on Saizo the way her big brown eyes then, flustered as her fingers on her scalp, darted to her friend from across the twigs. A boy with a cheeky grin that reminded him so much of Sasuke. A boy around her age; which meant that while she was looking at him, his focus was still fixed on the ground, preoccupied with whether or not his wooden top would knock his friends outside of their makeshift ring. Not quite yet, little lady, he thought lightly. And one day soon, this will be quite the opposite. An amused chuckle handsomely danced up Saizo’s chest while he watched them, unnoticed by anyone but himself. When she still continued to fuss at her head, he deftly reached over and righted her pin for her with a sigh.

     “Aren’t you turning into quite the fussy little lady. Careful now, most boys don’t like a girl who’s so prissy,” Saizo teased, using his elbow to lightly nudge her towards the boy. So she knew that he knew.

     “Genjiiii,” she sulked, drawing out the last of his name with a quiet and annoyed huff befitting to a chagrin child in the face of his nettling.

     She used all of her strength to push his arm away, and Saizo mused at just how little of that strength there was, if there was any, despite how tough she acted. She couldn’t knock over a reed in a windstorm, he smirked, and if he wanted to he could counter her push with two fingers alone. But he was Genji; the gentle traveling peddler of medicinal herbs. Not Saizo, the Lord Assassin. So he pretended she had strength, let her knock his arm away playfully, and laughed again as she righted herself. Amused by how easily she flustered and how honest her feelings were showing. Pink dusting her cheeks which sat doughy on her face. So obvious. Yet the boys continued to wind and toss their tops, laughing and cheering and oblivious.

     “Not quite an apple yet.”

     “What are you saying now?” Miki groaned in confusion.

     No, not an apple. That was reserved for the inhuman shade only one person could achieve. “Strawberry,” Saizo decided.

     “What are you talking about strawberries for?”

     “Who knows?” Saizo smirked, poking at her cheek with his finger.

     “Cut it out!” Her little hands slapped to her face with lightning speed and she turned away, but a hint of a giggle she was unable to keep down burst like a bubble into the air. 

     “Hm, fine then. And I was just going to tell you there were crumbs on your face…”

     “What?! Where?”

     Mortified, she swiped her flattened palms against her mouth until Saizo, finally ready to show mercy, stopped laughing to reassure her. Another girl, already passing the boys in height, noticed the commotion and took slow dainty steps over to the circle to watch with the others.

     Clink-tink-tink. The tops knocked against each other in staccato. Three at once continued to dance together among the snapped twigs with their few spared leaves still attached and saluting proudly, like a banner flag of the zealous childhood. One top began to slow, then another, and in the end, one spun just a hair longer than the others and its owner cheered in delectation, scooping it up from his feet while his friends pat his back in shared victory.

     “Were you good at kenkagoma too, Genji? I bet you played a lot.”

     Saizo hadn’t even realized he had been watching so intently, and her voice startled him out of his reverie. The sky above was as brilliant and bright in cascading hues, as blue as the outstretched wing of a kingfisher, and the sun was high enough to begin to draw shadows from feet. Couples walked towards shops together. A cart carrying bolts of cloth rolled by, pulled by sweaty hands and wheels creaking over any rock larger than an umeboshi in its path.

     Men with sweat beading their brows and canes clutched in ghost-white knuckles carried bundles of straw on their backs and firewood to their homes to counter against the last string of winter nights. Women with rouge-painted faces ogled and crooned over various items, schmoozing merchants to haggle a price. A normal, boring, plain, village. Plain as any other.

     Saizo watched daily life in an unremarkable place happen all around him, hating the fact that he could never see it as such. If anyone knew just how often and easily even the thinnest veil of innocence can disguise the tainted and decaying within, it was Saizo as Genji. He’d watch this same scene play out before him time and time again. All his life. Faces contorting with their grasp for power. Voices once a source of warmth and acceptance turning to cold steel against your skin. Secrets collected and tucked away in provocative darkness. And what are we but a collection of our secrets? Slowly mounting over time, scattered and buried or used as a platform for deceptions.

     This place would be no different. And he was exhausted, having to be the one to lift that dark shroud knowing what lay underneath. A sea of reflective stares like mirrors against a black ink, numerous and glinting as the water-polished stones of a riverbed catching in the moonlight. Eventually, all secrets are revealed. They come wriggling, breaking through even the toughest earth like worms in the rain. And the rain always comes. No one knows that better than Saizo.

     There’s a tug on the sleeve of his kimono. “Hey, are you listening?”

     “Hm?”

     “I saaid, did you play kenka-goma when you were little, too?”

     Saizo does his best to lighten his voice, but there’s no mistaking the extra weight now pressing on his features. “Afraid I’ve never played, no,” he answers honestly, forcing a friendly smile from his pressed lips.

     “Never?! You are so weird, Genji…”

     “If you say so,” he says. You have no idea, he thinks.

     “Try it! You can use mine.”

     Miki presented her wooden top to him as if it was some grand antique heirloom in her hands. Knicks and all. In a circle she showed him how to twist the rope around the base in a tight coil, whipping her hand out from her torso in a tossing motion to demonstrate before handing it to him.

     “Here, look, once you have it wound like that you just make sure you hold the end of the rope here. Got it? Okay, then you just toss it. But make sure you hold on to the rope, okay? That’s important. And toss it like I showed you. Kinda like when you skip a rock in the water. But easier, my cousin can’t ever skip rocks in the water when we go down to the river but she beats me all the time with tops. It’s pretty easy. Wait, you have skipped rocks on water before, right?”

     “Do you want me to toss this thing or are you going to insist on talking about rocks?” Saizo replied flatly.

     “Whoops! Okay, I’m ready,” she replied, taking a step back to watch with wide eyes.

     A few others release their tops onto the dirt along with Saizo, but it’s clear as a toy launched by an adult that his is spinning much faster.

     Tink-tink-clink-tink. One top collides with Saizo’s, sending it careening towards the barrier of sticks where it topples over on impact. Two more continue their dance around, and its almost hypnotic the way they glide over and around little pebbles, wobbling and jutting back and forth as they weave trails. Another top slows, stutters and falls to its side in defeat before being scooped up and rewound for another go. Tink. The last two tops come together once again, and the boys are making fists of excitement and leaning in further and further. Some get on their knees for an even closer look.

     The last top falls and Saizo’s keeps on spinning and spinning round. She has a grasp on his sleeve still, Saizo notices, and she too is transfixed by the sound and the swerving. All of them hold their breath, anxious to see just how long it can keep going. A few are young enough to suspend belief, dreaming of a world now where this top just keeps on spinning forever and ever, rolling and bouncing for eternity over great mountains and frozen lakes translucent enough you can see the fish scatter from its path in fear. Some whisper in wonder to each other that this has to be the longest a top has ever spun in the history of history.

     Saizo watches with a blank stare, the red and blue painted lines of the wooden top. It moves so fast that the colors appear to expand and mix together, blurring to distort the once obvious line where one ends and another begins.

     There’s another excited tug on his sleeve, and he lets himself be honest that it isn’t bothersome. That maybe, if he were ever allowed to live as people did, he might then be willing to admit he wouldn’t hate the idea of a daughter—or children—at all. There was a time when Saizo could separate his feelings from the attachments people made to Genji. It was simply a game, and he was always the one holding the rope in the end. It was clear, once, where his emotions and actions as Genji ended and where Saizo began, and he could remove himself from it all when a mission ended. When he removed his mask. It was as simple as that to be free.

     Not anymore, however. Like the colors on the top, he felt the line between Saizo and Genji blurring more and more. Could he say there was a line at all? Spinning, spinning, spinning. Red and Blue. Right and Wrong. Clean and Tainted. Light and Shadow. Unlike the toys in the ring, it seemed his life was always picking up speed. Faster and faster it swirled still, causing his ideals and past and present and everything he is to converge and bleed into one another. He’s waist deep in the hazy, murky aftermath, and he cant even tell who he is anymore. Sorting fact from fiction now would be like trying to put water back into the river once it's flowed into the ocean. Impossible.

     A chilly breeze coasts through the street as they watch the top finally fall. There’s a wave of awe and exhausted gasps when it happens, everyone gulping air to compensate for holding their breath. It doesn’t last long before the electric buzz around the circle dies down and another round of tops begins again.

     It’s already much later than he would like it to be. Utsusemi caws obnoxiously in the distance, no doubt annoyed by the time he’s wasted. Damn bird. It’s shrill enough to command his attention, but he doesn’t get more than a few steps down the street before he feels a tug. He doesn’t have to turn around to know who it is. So he doesn’t.

     “What?”

     “Are you leaving again?”

     “For a bit.”

     “For work stuff again?”

     “Unless you know of a way these herbs will pick and deliver themselves.”

     “Can I go?”

     “No.”

     “And you’ll be back?”

     “Yep.”

     “When?”

     “When I’m back.”

     “You were really good at kenka-goma. I knew it. I knew you would be.”

     Saizo turned on his heel now to face her, a look of comical exasperation as he removed her clutched hand from his person like you’d remove a mouse from the clutches of an alleycat. “Is that what we felt was so important to say to me, then? I really need to be going.”

     “Mmhm. Well…also, I want you to take this.” Her voice is shy, a mousy wisp blown fast over the syllables.

     Standing there, she holds her arm out to him. A wooden top with red and blue stripes creates a divide between two lingering hands, and Saizo forgets to conceal his true shock for a moment as he accepts it. His eyes round in surprise but he recovers quickly, his cutting features melding into an incredulous expression.

     “And what, exactly, am I to do with this?”

     “Whatever you want. It’s yours now, keep it.”

     Saizo wanted to say several things. First and foremost, that he had no need or want of a child’s toy. Particularly one that was being actively used by said child up until a crows shit ago. However, the reply forefront on his tongue was, “Why?”

     “You said you didn’t have one as a kid… I dunno, I felt sad… I thought maybe now, if you have one, you can play with it.”

     “Uh-huh.”

     “And you can play with me.”

     Not gonna happen…

     “Plus, this way you don’t forget about me when you use it,” she continued, rocking on the balls of her feet a bit like it would help the words come out.

     “……”

     “Plus! I wanted a new one anyway, and now mom and dad will have to get me one.”

     A smile grows on Saizo’s face and he tucks the top away in his pocket. “You know, pretending to give someone a gift just so you can get a better gift is not only selfish, but rude.” Saizo clicks his tongue in disapproval. “And worst of all, it’s not very clever. Spilling your plans when I can just reveal your tricks to your parents…I guess I take back what I said earlier. You really are as dumb as you look.”

     “Wait! Then give it back!” She reaches for him, laughing, but he dodges before she can even finish her sentence.

     Saizo is already several feet ahead of her now, having weaved through the crowd of foot traffic surrounding them. “Grabby and greedy, too.”

     “Come onnn, give it back!” She chases him down the road, always just shy of grasping his kimono before he darts in another direction, leaving her panting in the dust.

     Saizo pops up on the other side of her, sending her jumping at the sudden shock of his voice. “Trying to take something you’ve already given… Tsk. That’s called stealing, you know. I’ll have to add that to the list as well, right under prissy. Perhaps I’ll pick up a pen and some paper while I’m out? At this rate, I’m going to need it if I have to remember all of these horrible things I’m going to tell your parents.”

     And as suddenly as he appeared, he’s headed up the road again. This time, she doesn’t try to follow him as he walks.

     “Don’t forget, I’m helping cook dinner tonight! It’s going to be reeeally good, so you better be back before dark!” Miki shouts to his back.

     Saizo glances back at her briefly, one last acknowledgment before continuing down the street.

     “Promise!” She calls. And his figure gets smaller and smaller. He doesn’t turn around or wave, but somehow she knows he heard her. Until he disappears from her view, she stands there in the street and watches him walk away.

_____

     This is what he hated the most. It had taken half a day longer than he anticipated to find the place, and now he was stuck crawling under the foundation like a filthy rat in order to hear information on their hideaway. The footsteps creaking in the wood above his head shift the boards and send sprinklings of musty scented soil straight into his face. This was the type of work for a lesser shinobi, laying among the mouse droppings and beetles in the dank darkness. He was going to have quite a few words when he got back to Iga.

     Above him, the men continued to talk. Saizo was just about to make his way out when something caught his ear.

     “So they caught another one?”

     “Yeah, found her out in the woods near the village yesterday.”

     Saizo’s throat cinches despite himself. In the darkness, his eyes narrow. It couldn’t be…she wouldn’t be that fucking stupid. And yet, every instinct wringing his insides of held emotions like an old rag, told him otherwise.  

     “Another young one?”

     “I heard she was a bit of a fighter, though.”

      “Those never last long with the boss…”

     They begin to make their way out, and Saizo draws his short blade. When the first one steps out, he slices through both heels in a flash, severing the flesh and taught muscle and sending the man’s body falling forward into the dirt with a thud.

     “What the fuck was that?!” One of the others yells, steps frozen in the entryway as he watches his comrade writhe and scream in pain. Blood pouring from his heels into the dirt to create a dark crimson mud.  

     From beneath the veranda, Saizo appears with inhuman speed, as if the laws of gravity suspend for one man, shaking the dirt from his silver hair and tugging his clothing back into place.

     Three more of you, hm?

     They’ve drawn their blades, but Saizo simply stretches the kink in his neck and takes a step towards them.

     “You bastard…” One plants his foot, sword pointed.

     Saizo’s face remains an emotionless wall. I don’t even need my katana for you. The cowards don’t get a single swing in before Saizo feels the resistance of steel hitting vital organs. They drop at his feet, blood pooling and leaking into the cracks of the floor, dripping down to where he lay just moments before. He flicks his blade through the air and watches the blood spatter onto their lifeless backs before tucking it away once more.

     The one in the dirt is still wailing. Saizo grabs the old chipped blade of one of the dead men and slowly proceeds out towards the field. His foot crushes down onto the man's sternum hard enough for a crack, and in the middle of the plea, Saizo dives the worn blade down for a killing blow.

_____

     It just had to be the damned rain.

     Saizo perched himself on a sturdy branch, looking up at the darkening sky. The rain would stop soon, but not soon enough. His thumb flicks, a pleasant and familiar click sounds in the darkness as his blade is released from behind his back. Their little operation has been found, nestled amidst tall cedars and mountain flowers, and the rain won’t stop him this time.

     The cold drops beat down harder now, masking his steps and pecking at his exposed skin. The chill each drop brings soaks right to his core, he can feel it in his bones but he suppresses the shiver. It’s not as terrible as his irritation, like needles under his flesh, pricking away at him in the darkness.

     He doesn’t bother to conceal himself. And when he kicks the door down an arson of wooden splinters surges forward into the dimly lit hut. Sword whipping a tight whoosh through the air and splitting several droplets of rain from the leaking roof in the process. They’re sleeping on the floor, some propped up against the wall. Some still awake but clearly drunk. There are many, but not near enough.

     Lightning cracks through the sky and illuminates his figure, making him look every bit as death himself. Some scream. No, no, he thinks with a grin, I’m just his messenger. But it’s every bit as frightening, he’s sure, as the hazy blue flashes crackle and spark through the clouds appearing behind his dark frame in the doorway.

     There’s a flash of red. With swift, practiced movements Saizo’s sword makes a path through every mans throat within striking range, collecting heads and spraying blood like crimson rain across the room. Dotting the horrified faces of the men now stirring at the sound of their companions choking on their own blood.

     In the chaos his eyes scan and asses from wall to wall. The fever is clouding his mind and weighing his lids but he pushes through, already taking stock of their weapons and headcount. Pathetic. He feels the weight of his blade in his hand, runs a thumb along the woven pattern as he’s done a thousand times prior, and flicks his wrist into position. When he spins now he leaves a path of limbs in his wake. Legs, arms, hands, they all sail down to the floor like petals in a spring breeze.

     To his left a blade swings with the intention to cut him, but Saizo catches the wrist with his left hand, using his force to twist until bone and tendon pop and the blade falls with a heavy clatter.

     Then—

     “Hng…” Saizo chokes on his own gasp, his body freezing in the moment.

     Shit. Shit. The rain really had taken more of a toll than he’d anticipated. He’s sluggish, and a wakizashi now presses firmly into his right side. Threatening to dig in deeper. Everything is slow, drowned in the sound of heavy rain pelting the roof. He cocks his chin up. Clenches his teeth to gnash the coppery liquid swirling on his tongue and seeping out between his teeth. From the corner of the ceiling, a dark shadow swoops down to Saizo’s aid, using its talons to claw his attackers' eyes with a fierce caw. Utsusemi.

     Saizo removes the blade from his flesh, an iniquitous smile now pulling the corners of his mouth. It’s been a while since an opponent has landed a blow. He thinks back to his days in Iga and his master’s blades, thrown with unforgiving speed and precision, and how it stung like fire when they found their target in him. He was too feverish to feel the hot sting now.

     Focus, he hisses at himself. Breathe, listen, recalculate, think…His stance widens, the ball of his back foot planted firmly into the ground, ready to spring himself forward. Another flash of lightning. Saizo’s underhanded swing splits the stomach of the man in front of him before the tip lodges into the side of the man on his left. He kicks the body off his sword, sending it careening into a wall and using that momentum to spin just in time to slash diagonally across the man approaching behind him. The last one. Saizo watches his opponents hands and the sword they were holding fall as he drops to his knees and collapses lifeless onto the floor in a thick pool of blood.

     Is that my own heartbeat, so loud? The fever makes him dizzy, the stench makes it worse. Tripping over a random severed arm he takes a rest against the wall which groans at the mercy of the wind.

A navy cloth is pulled from his pocket, and in silence, Saizo stands in a thick layer of cooling blood. He wipes his blade, as silver as his hair and glinting in the rare swatches of white-hot lightning. There’s a cave entrance not far up ahead, and while tucking his katana behind his back Saizo makes his way towards it. He’s not a person who’s ever relied on hope. But if he was, he’d hope he was wrong about what he would find inside.

_____

     The cold moon floats high above the trees, spreading ethereal blue into the translucent waters of the river at Saizo’s feet. Reeds dance in the night wind and lily pads as large as his head bob up and back in a mutual dance with the current. When he bends down to gather water in his cupped hands he winces, favoring his side only slightly when the wound he harbors screams in protest of his movement.

     “What.” Saizo’s voice cuts sharply through the quiet.

     From the shadows a figure appears, dropping down from a hidden branch to land silently in the grass below. Kiyohiro says nothing, he just stares.

     “If you don’t mind, I’d like to wash this shit off,” Saizo turns his back from the other shinobi and continues to splash icy water up his arms and torso. He’ll never be rid of the smell, and his skin prickles until numb with each chilling rinse, but he continues to wash until he can no longer feel a coating of sticky copper layered upon his skin and armor.

     Hm, the money, is it? Saizo had caught the unmistakable lump of coin tucked in Kiyohiro’s chest, heard the faintest clink when he jumped down from the tree. My hefty sum for a job well done. In his own pocket Saizo retrieved an item, taking a look at it one last time before tossing it into the dirt at Kiyohiro’s feet.

     “Give it to her family,” he says curtly. He needn’t say more than that for his subordinate to understand.

     After all…the idiot must have gotten nabbed while looking for him when he hadn’t made it back for dinner, he thinks, sinking down to sit at the riverbed.

     Kiyohiro picks up the hairpin, looking as if he was trying to put together some semblance of words but the sentences weren’t clicking.

     Don’t…Saizo shoots him a severe look. A string of silence followed as Kiyohiro swallows the bits of chopped, confused pity.  

     “There’s another inn not far from here,” Kiyohiro says, eyes glancing in a flash to the wound still weeping on Saizo’s side, “I’ll arrange a room for you.”

     He bows, then disappears back into the trees.

     Saizo sinks back into the plush grass, happy to have some silence for the first time in days.

_____

     Brilliant golden hues highlights shadows cast down by the branches of the tree Saizo sat resting under. He’d been zipping from trunk to trunk, pressing fingertips into soil indents, checking snapped twigs and scouting for hints of heavy foot traffic that could be signs of criminal activity. Signs that could point him in the direction of the disappearances and the answers to who was behind them. And now he was resting. The key word here being was. And when he popped one lazy eye open he saw the tiny foot shuffles he had been hearing in the leaves belonged to…tiny feet. A young girl attached to them.

     “What’cha doin out here?” She asked, peering down at him.

     “Isn’t that what I should be asking you?” Saizo opened his eyes wide in faux astonishment, ever the innocent Genji.

     “I live around here.”

     “In the woods?” Saizo replied, incredulous.

     She shook her head. “No, in the village nearby.”

     “If you live there then you must know young girls like yourself have been going missing, no? And that it’s dangerous?”

     “Are you a bad guy?” She took a hesitant step back.

     Saizo sighed. If all the girls in the village were this dumb, it’s no wonder they were dropping off left and right. Still, he should correct her.

     “I am a merchant. I was out here gathering herbs. As an adult. For my work. So what brought you out here?”

     She pointed up to the branch above him, Utsusemi’s wings flapping at the attention. “I followed it here, I was trying to feed it,” she admitted, unfolding her hand to reveal a wriggling worm dotted in soil.

     Saizo shot his familiar a sharp look, only to get an apologetic caw from the animal. “You won’t get her attention with that just yet.” Dipping into his pocket he pulled a chunk of dried fish until his familiar perched herself on his arm for a nibble.

     “Whoa!” She exclaimed with pure delight.

     “You can stroke her feathers if you want, but if she takes one of those little wormy smelling fingers off don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

     Cautiously, her hand reached out and pet the bird with slow, soft strokes. A beaming grin of elation grew on her face as she did so, for Utsusemi didn’t seem to mind one bit.

     “My parents own the Inn in town, you don’t have to sleep under a tree.”

     Wasn’t planning on it. “Do they? Well, that’s very kind of you. I suppose I could use a few nights rest in a bed, if you have a room to spare.”

     “Yep! I’ll take you there. My name’s Miki!”

     “Pleasure to meet you, Miki. I’m Genji.”

_____

     “Still waiting up for me, hm?” There’s no one around to hear the words he speaks from the rooftop. It’s closer to sunrise than anything, yet the lantern in your room is still burning its lambent orange welcome beacon.

     He’s checked himself so many times it’s to the point of being neurotic, terrified some blood stain has gone unchecked somewhere. Dropping down from the eaves, he creeps silently into his room and slides the door closed behind him. Just as he suspected, you were asleep. A hand and leg jutting haphazardly out from the nest of blankets. There was nothing in this life quite as enticing as those glimpses of soft flesh in the cool night air. Saizo hadn’t made it but a few feet towards you when his eyes were pulled elsewhere. A spot in the corner of the room that had his stomach harden and face fall flat. On the floor near the desk, a spinning top lay wound in its stark white rope.

    “Saizo…?!” You sat up drowsily.

     “Woke you, did I?”

     “No, I was up waiting.”

     “Liar,” Saizo smiles, dropping down to cup your face in his hands. He’d never be tired of the way your glassy eyes shined brightly for him. The image reflected back in them who he wanted to be, the warmest most tender version of himself.

     He knew you must be exhausted. His thumb sweeps where dark circles form under your eyes. But now that you’re awake there’s no way he can let you fall back asleep. Not just yet. He sighs inwardly, knowing he’s not much different than a selfish child vying for attention. His body calls for your healing warmth, so he deftly slips his fingers into your robe to seek it out for himself.

     There’s a mutual moan when his lips envelop yours for a deep kiss. If his soul can be soothed in any single way, it is in this. Your loving hands fixing themselves in his hair, pulling his clothing away from his body and dragging him to join you beneath the sheets. Your want of him only spurs his desires. He can’t control his hands, or the desperate way he stimulates your mouth and sucks on the tip of your sweet tongue.

     “I missed you so much,” the wet hot confession is a murmur into his bottom lip the first break for air.

     He never wants to see you cry. But when he pulls back just slightly and catches a tear fall from the corner of your eye, he thinks in these moments it might just be alright. Silly little thing. Don’t you know you’re his home, the guiding light on his dark path? He’ll always find his way back to you.

     “I need to feel more of you,” he admits.

     Emotion and dread well up like a wad of heavy cloth in his throat. His worst fears causing his hands to shake. Your face no longer rosy and smiling and warm, but still and pale and cold to the touch. It flashes in his minds eye, distorting you into a dead corpse in his arms. On your mouth a familiar spidering of red clamoring for purchase on the cheeks he once kissed pink. Saizo shakes the vision from his mind and feels for your heart.

     Thump-thump-thump. It’s there. Thump-thump. The beat quickens under his fingertips. The image melts like snow in spring. But he knows he’ll never shake the anxiety that as easy as it is for him to reach out and feel the proof you are alive and well, it could just as easily be taken away from him.

     “Wha…Saizo?” Your hands find the bandage over his side.

     “Mn. It’s nothing.”

     “Are you sure? It looks serious…What if it reopens?”

     He tries to kiss your worries away, swiping at your bottom lip with his tongue when he does so. “Is that your way of saying you’re willing to do all the work, little lady?” He teases.

     You nod, not even sparing the beat of a heart to think about it. “I don’t care, I just want to be close to you.”

     “Well then,” he switches you both, positioning you over his lap while he lays with his back to the floor, “show me just how much you missed me.”

     He’s hard and ready as he’s ever been, feeling your wet heat pressing against his bare length, and in an effort to distract himself he plays with the soft skin of your thighs and breasts when you begin to grind back and forth. It’s more than he can bear.

     “Put it in yourself,” he instructs. I want to see.

     “Okay…”

     You guide his twitching cock to your entrance, but as the tip presses in Saizo roughly pinches your nipples between his fingertips, his smirk making it clear he gets a rise out of your yelp and the way you buck up in shock.

     “Sahh-Saizo!”

     “Hm? Don’t let me distract you. Go on, now, naughty girl. Help me fill you up.”

     You’re tight, and warm, melting his very existence as you willingly press him inside of you. The feeling a gift he’s not sure he will ever deserve.

     “Ahh…” you still halfway down, struggling to fit him all right away.

     “Mmn, that’s it, s-slowly,” he whispers his guidance.

     Normally, he would have played with you much longer before penetrating you. He enjoyed getting you nice and wet, toying with you and teasing you. Building up your desperation until you were practically begging for him to fuck you. But he couldn’t wait, it’s been so long. So he runs the tips of his fingers over his tongue and with calculated swirls and practiced pressure he stimulates your clit until your thighs loosen their grip, opening and pleading to accept him all the way down to the base.

     “You like that, don’t you.” It isn’t a question. He can feel how wet you are, quivering above him as he slows his movements down, pressing just a bit harder to really stimulate your nerves.

     “Oh, Saizo...”

     He grabs each of your hands, lacing his fingers with yours and supporting you, watching your breasts bounce and your torso roll and the mesmerizing way your hips fuck him as you please.

     Every moan and whimper, every rock of your hips as you use him to bring yourself pleasure, is a bandage on his damaged heart and soul. Being close to you in shared vulnerability like this makes him feel whole again. And when you press him deep inside of your walls he can’t help but let his moans out, either. Nor does he bother to conceal the fervent heat blossoming on his cheeks in a plain declaration of just how badly he wants to fuck you. Hard.

     “Again,” he grips your hips to drive himself inside of you.

     “Saizo, hahh…s-saizo,” you whine, sweet and desperate.

     “Again, louder.” More, more…

     You scream his name just as he sits up, curling his fingers into your hair and manipulating the angle to expose the crescent of your neck. Where his lips find purchase to tease your prickling skin and the lobe of your cute ears. It’s here he can envelop himself in that honeyed scent he’s missed so much. His eyes practically roll back in his head at the scent of you.

     There’s no self-doubt, no anxiety, no icy chill in his bones or memories and regrets driving needles into his heart, stinging with every beat. He is healed now, by your touch. Your shared warmth. When you hold him tight. The way your voice vibrates and quivers as he bounces you mercilessly onto his cock, taking everything you have to give and more. Selfish, I know, but I need you…he thinks. And the way you squirm when he finally releases inside of you, filling you with his newfound hopes and dreams for days to come.

     Fluttering kisses on your heaving chest as he lays you down beside him, unwilling to pull out of you just yet. He feels your dainty fingers draw lazy circles into his back, wet with perspiration. And he captures your arm to draw your wrist to his lips. Committing to memory the feel of your strong pulse under his kiss.

     “No rest yet, little lady. We have a lot of days to make up for.”

_____

     The afternoon sun covers Saizo like a blanket where he lazily naps on the veranda, drunk on the warmth that sends him into peaceful reverie.

     “Hm, that’s odd,” he hears you mumble, light steps leaving the room to where he lay.

     “Mn.” He doesn’t bother opening his eyes.

     “Have you seen it?”

     “Seen what, exactly?”

     “Sasuke and I went into town while you were away and saw they were selling those spinning tops. I was supposed to show him how to play today, but now I can’t find it. I swore I left it right by the desk. You didn’t see one anywhere, did you?”

     Saizo rolls over, resting his head on his arm with a peaceful yawn that signifies the conversation is over. “Nope. No idea.”

[datauthorress]

Our Final Hour [ Chapter 3: Questions and Answers ]

Pairing: Albert Wesker x Original Female Character (Shelby Hartford)

Rating: Explicit

Summary: A gamer from another universe gets sent to the world of Resident Evil, to the volcano where Albert Wesker was killed. To her horror, the madman survives and the two fall into each other's lives, as much as they didn't want to.

Notes: This chapter is kind of boring, more of a filler than anything else. No warnings, besides Wesker being a dick.

Shelby woke to the sound of the motel door opening, and she groggily opened her eyes, blinking to get the sleep out of them. She saw just blurs for a moment, before her vision cleared and she turned her attention upwards, as Wesker closed the door and locked it behind him.

“Hello, sleeping beauty. You were out for quite some time.” the blond spoke, walking around her bed to place the few bags he had on the little table in the corner.

“What time is it?” she asked, sitting up slowly and rubbing her eyes from sleep.

“1 in the afternoon.” he replied, searching through the bags. He pulled out a bag of McDonald's and also had a four tier tray with only two large cups in it. He brought over the bag and handed it to her, as well as the cup. “I was not sure what you liked, so I got you hamburgers and fish sandwiches. I can guarantee you are starving.”

“Thanks.” she yawned quietly and took a sip of the liquid, tasting the bitter taste of black coffee. She normally liked sugar in her coffee, but black wasn't bad. She set the cup down on the night stand next to her, and pulled out a hamburger, unwrapping it to eat.

“We'll be changing our appearances today. I got you red hair dye, and myself black. There's no need for contacts for either of us, since I can change my eye color.”

“You.....what?” she asked, her mouth full of hamburger.

“My body has accepted the virus inside me. No longer will I be held down by a serum every day, and such the serum won't affect my abilities. This means I have complete control over the virus inside me, as well as Uroborus.”

Shelby suddenly began choking on her food as the older man said that. She coughed and hacked, finally able to swallow down the food in her mouth. The blond turned his head to look at her, arching a curious eyebrow.

“I-I'm good....” she coughed, quickly taking a sip of her coffee.

Wesker went back to rummaging through the bags, and Shelby felt her chest tighten. If he was infected AND bonded with both the prototype virus he first injected himself with, and the Uroborus virus....then that might've been the reason he survived a fucking lava pit. This made her nervous. What if he turned his back on her? He could kill her with just a flick of his wrist.

But he didn't seem malicious towards her. She couldn't really describe what this really was. Was she even a prisoner? A hostage?

She took the next half hour to think and eat. When Shelby was done eating, Wesker called her into the bathroom and she sighed, getting up and going into the bathroom. She was wearing just a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top....and no bra.

I don't think he would.....he's a guy for fuck's sake. But he hasn't tried anything so far....and it's been a day. She thought, shaking her head before she entered the bathroom, and glanced at the chair Wesker had set up for her, in front of the sink.

“Sit.” he said.

Shelby didn't bother protesting and sat down in the chair that was placed in front of the mirror. She was quiet as he laid a medium-sized towel across her shoulders, his bare hands just barely brushing against her pale flesh. She quietly thought to herself as he mixed the bleach together and slipped on a pair of plastic gloves. Once the substance was mixed up, he poured a considerate amount into his hand and began to soak her locks in the wet substance.

Shelby felt goosebumps form on her flesh from the contact. Her head was incredibly sensitive and it was an easy way to get her to calm down or fall asleep. Wesker's hands were insanely warm to the touch and she had a hunch that was from the mixture of viruses in his system.

“This will be easier than expected, since your hair is rather short.” the blond spoke, smoothing her bangs away from her forehead as he got them coated in the substance.

Shelby didn't speak for a moment, only tilting her head when she was told to. It wasn't until he was halfway done with her hair that she began to get curious, and finally spoke up. “Why am I here?”

Wesker paused, and his covered eyes seemed to glance down at her since he had tilted his chin down a bit. “A rather interesting question. Why are you here?”

“Don't be so cryptic.” she muttered. “Am I a hostage?”

“No.”

“A prisoner?”

“No.”

“Then why am I here?”

“You already know the answer to that question.” he replied.

Shelby rolled her eyes, shaking her head slightly. “What do you want?”

“However do you mean?”

“Just answer the question.”

“What do I want?” he repeated the question, thoughtfully. “More or less, to find that organization that wants myself, and you.”

“Any idea why they would want me?”

“I haven't the slightest clue. Perhaps because you appeared in a volcano and have no idea where you came from.”

Yeah, and it happened to be the same volcano that you supposedly died in. Shelby thought with a scoff.

“Why did you appear in the heart of a volcano, girl?” Wesker's voice broke through her thoughts.

“How should I know?” she sighed. “My memory is fuzzy....I don't remember much except I know who you are, and what you've done.”

“It seems to be rather suspicious that you know who I am, but not where you came from.” he said, running his hands through her locks once more before he pulled his hands away. “1 hour. I will set a timer.”

Shelby got out of the chair and went back into the other room, sitting on her bed. She watched as the blond cleaned up the mess from the bleach kit, and put the remaining items into a small zip lock bag. She remained quiet for the briefest of moments before she spoke again. “What's going to happen?”

“Do you always ask this many questions?”

Her stomach churned.

His question, or comment made her rethink her actions. He sounded quite annoyed with her questions, and it made her insecurities bubble up to the surface. She always had been a bit sensitive to the way people thought about her, or when she had heard them whisper about her behind her back. She once had a friend who pretended to be her friend for an entire year, and had spoken about her behind her back the whole time, causing Shelby's massive distrust in strangers.

Wesker was no stranger, but he didn't know her, and she didn't know him personally, only who he was through a television screen.

Nonetheless, his comment made her go quiet and she went to her notebook.

Once the timer went off, Wesker called for her to come into the bathroom and she did so without speaking. She was quiet the entire time her hair was rinsed, and the silence was absolutely deafening. But she couldn't bring herself to speak up. It was only when they were putting the red dye in that he finally broke the silence.

“You're awfully quiet. Is something wrong?”

Yeah, you're an asshole who doesn't care about anyone else's feelings but your own. Shelby thought, but refused to speak up.

Wesker didn't ask her again. He remained quiet as well, working on her hair until it was coated in the red dye and put a timer on for thirty minutes. She went out to the other room while he worked on his own hair, and it wasn't moments after that he called for her.

“I'm afraid I need your assistance.”

“Fine.” she said, walking into the bathroom and searching for the plastic gloves. “Is there another pair of gloves?”

“I have them on right now.” he spoke. “I'm afraid there's no spare pair.”

Shelby sighed in irritation. Her hands would be fine, but dye was a bitch to wash off. “Just sit down and don't move.”

To her surprise, the blond didn't argue and sat down in the chair. She came up from behind him and squirted some of the dye into her hands, and began to scrub the substance into the blond-turning-black locks. It was going to be odd seeing Wesker with black hair. Now all he needed to do was grow a beard and nobody would recognize him.

She felt his gaze on her when her fingers remained a bit close to his forehead. She swallowed the lump in her throat and had to resist the urge to dig her thumbs into his eyes.

That red, cat-like gaze unnerved her.

A while later, Wesker came out of the bathroom, hair completed. She blinked and he arched an eyebrow at her. “It just looks odd. Blond suits you better.” she said.

“Hm.” was all he said and walked to his bed, cleaning up the mess from the dye kits.

Shelby finished writing down her thoughts in her notebook and closed it, snapping the pen into the binding and tossing the notebook onto her backpack on the floor. She heard the older man shuffling around as he cleaned up, and her hazel gaze slowly maneuvered around the room, and then stopped.

There was a gun sitting on the end table next to the chair by the window.

Shelby side-eyed the older man, and when she realized he wasn't looking, she turned her gaze back to the gun. The safety was on, but she knew how to use a gun, so she could easily turn the safety off without making a fool of herself. She glanced to Wesker again, and she stood up when he turned towards her slightly.

“Something the matter?” he asked.

Shelby didn't speak. She bolted. The fingers of her good hand wrapped around the gun and she picked it up, her index finger resting on the trigger (of course, after she took the safety off). Her body turned towards Wesker, and she saw the slightly surprised expression on his face, before it softened to a calmer one.

“And what do you plan to do with that?” he questioned, arching an eyebrow.

“I don't know yet. But I feel safer with it.” Shelby replied.

“You won't pull the trigger.”

“Try me.”

Wesker went quiet for a moment, before he spoke again. “You wouldn't survive on your own.”

“I have, and I will. I don't need protection.”

“You do seem perfectly capable of defending yourself.” he commented. “However, this is not a mere thief we are dealing with.”

“I know. But I also know that you're equally as dangerous as the people after us. Who's to say you won't just kill me after this is over.”

“I have no intention of killing you, girl.”

“Shelby. Not girl. But again, you don't care about anything except yourself.”

“You happen to know an awful lot about me for someone who lost their memories.” he said.

Wesker began to approach her, and Shelby swore she saw a flash of red from behind those sunglasses. It unnerved her to no end, even though he wasn't supposed to exist.

“Stay back.” she warned.

“Are you afraid of me?”

“No. Don't come any closer. I'll shoot you.”

“If you are so informational about me, you know that a bullet won't hurt me. It will only annoy me further than I already am.”

Shelby paused, considering his words. A bullet wouldn't hurt him, but he could hurt her if he wanted to. Hell, he already did. A broken arm and part of her shoulder gone. She was snapped out of her thoughts when she felt hot, calloused fingers curl around her wrist in a firm grip. She froze upon feeling suffocated, and remained frozen when his free hand slid up her left shoulder, fingers curling around the back of her neck and brushing against the short hairs there.

Wesker was too close and it made her anxiety rise to dangerous levels.

“You're trembling.” he spoke softly, yet in such a tone that made her realize she was shaking.

“No.” she said quietly.

“Perhaps you're afraid of me, but you're too prideful to admit it.” he said, and she could feel his breath hot against her earlobe.

Her fingers trembled. They loosened the hold they had on the gun. Her fear grew.

“Are you afraid of me?”

“No....I'm afraid of what you can do.” she admitted.

“Is that so?” he asked. “And what do you believe I can do?”

Shelby is quiet for a moment. She's not sure how to respond. She doesn't want to tell the truth, not yet.

“I don't know.” she murmured.

Wesker released her, taking the gun from her grasp. Shelby finally turns away from him, now actually noticing her trembling.

“I would suggest you sleep. We'll be leaving at midnight.”

Shelby closes her eyes, and exhales shakily. She wasn't sure if she could sleep after that.

[interrogatormentors]

Event Six: Golden Infidel

After perigees of trial and error, Eridan finally felt he’d gotten a handle on Head Admin duties. The stress never decreased, and more often than not Eridan found himself reaching for a drink at the end of the day to take the edge off, but having someone at the end of the worknight to talk to helped more than Eridan cared to admit. No matter the time, no matter what far reaches of space the Reichenbach found itself in, TA responded to each of Eridan’s various messages. Eridan had to wonder if TA actually liked talking to him, or if the capital-H-Helmsman was just bored. God, the idea that he may actually have stumbled onto the Imperial Helmsman, a veritable wiggler-tale creature, terrified Eridan to no end.

Still, he’d take support wherever he could get it, and right now he had bigger fish to fry. As Head Admin, he took responsibility for organizing any and all docking requests, maintenance queues, and inventory logging. The task weighing down his shoulders at the moment took the form of a simple email in his account which had exploded into a lurid, glittery graphic whose symbol seared itself into his eyelids.

“By decree of Her Imperial Condescension, Empress of the Alternian Empire, your ship is formally ordered to attend mandatory Fleet Inspection event. Ships of the invited will go through rigorous examination, while crews are encouraged to mingle aboard the HBC Condescension. Coordinates attached. This message designed and approved by the Department of Imperial Public Affairs.”

A computer generated tyrian-pink lipstick kiss signed the bottom of the invite or order or whatever this abomination of color actually was, along with the sign of the Empress herself. Eridan had tried to find an explanation for the sudden Fleet inspection as he scurried over the entire Reichenbach getting everything in order, and found none. Whisperings of rebellion crawled through the empire, but none of the rumors possessed any substance. They never mentioned names, and no descriptions of a certain secret heiress ever reached Eridan. Despite their tempestuous parting, Eridan couldn’t bring himself to look forward to Feferi’s inevitable culling once she finally surfaced.

Rebellions didn’t matter. Trolls didn’t matter. Only the health and safety of the Reichenbach mattered, and Eridan finally managed to get everything in its proper place by the time of the inspection. Even with the stress of the event, perhaps he could even make some connections aboard the HBC Condescension to make his life easier.

Two hours into the event, and Eridan had spoken to approximately two trolls, who spoke to him more out of a respect to his caste than to his actual position. This fact insulted him more than anything, considering how much time he’d spent taming his hair back and moisturizing. “So you weren’t expectin’ an inspection either, huh?”

The teal next to him wrinkled her nose. “You can say that. My bet’s on the Empress looking for rebellion ties. Why else would she call back an interrogatormentor ship?”

Eridan covered up his apprehension by taking a nervous sip from his drink. He’d noticed the interrogatormentors too-- a cerulean and an enormous seadweller cutting their way through the crowd in silent tandem. “Any ships in range got called back. They ain’t special.” His eyes met the cerulean’s, and his acidic digestive pouch twisted up in six different knots. “You think they’re lookin’ for rebels? In the fleet? Maybe you got a few flirtin’ with the idea in wigglerhood, but they’d be stupid to think rebels actually care about anybody past Ascension.” His lip twisted up into a half-snarl before he schooled his face back.

The teal laughed. “I like you. It’s too bad that naivety’s going to get slammed right out of you. What’d you say your name was?”

Eridan’s eyes hadn’t left the pair of interrogatormentors, who’d started to move towards them as casually as two sharks circling a baby dolphin. “I’m gonna get some air,” he said, ignoring the other troll’s derisive remark about recycled ship air.

The invitation to mingle aboard the Empress’ Imperial Battleship hadn’t explicitly forbidden wandering around, but Eridan couldn’t help but check over his shoulder every few seconds all the same. The interrogatormentors hadn’t followed him out either. Eridan tried to reassure himself that he needn’t worry about them. He had nothing to hide. Any ties to a rebellion now had severed themselves sweeps ago, and he harbored no treasonous leanings now. If they asked him anything, he could say with confidence he didn’t know what the rebellion was planning or who led the charge. Feferi’s name didn’t need to come up. So why did he feel so terrified of the prospect of investigation?

Eridan didn’t meet any other trolls as he wandered further and further, the walls losing their ornamental gilding and becoming more utilitarian as he walked on. The HBC Condescension had started out as nothing more than a personal cruiser according to legends, building itself up into elaborate palace halls around the ancient helmsman at the core.

Eridan jumped as he heard something up ahead of him, fins swiveling in an attempt to pinpoint the noise. He crept around the corner, still holding his drink glass in a shaking hand. It sounded like someone spoke off in the distance, a drone that almost held a melody in words he couldn’t quite parse. As Eridan walked onward, the sound became more distinct but no less identifiable as actual words. Eridan’s brow furrowed as he heard a word he almost understood, until it clicked.

As a devotee to history, especially military tactics, Eridan had amassed more than his fair share of old books and scrolls. At one point, Alternia had had two main languages, High and Low, with the Low comprised of dozens of lowblooded tongues all mashed together in the enslaved warm population. Over time High had become Common, with only a few dialects surviving while Low had faded away with time. Eridan had only seen Old Low Alternian written down once, in an ancient tome bound in clawbeast skin that he still hadn’t fully translated by the time he joined the Fleet. But he knew those words, written down in a column of shaky letters in a section of heretical hymns, although he’d never imagined he’d hear them sung aloud.

“He carries all our pain And one day his strife is forgotten However, we are forgiven.”

Eridan knew at this point, he’d gone too far into the ship. If someone spotted him at this point, he’d earn a trip to the interrogatormentor’s brig regardless of rebel ties, and yet he found himself entranced as he kept going. It took him time to translate the words in his head, but the process made itself easier as the disembodied singer repeated the droning mantra like a prayer, over and over. Eridan closed his eyes as he walked, picturing the words in front of his head, sounding them out and pairing them with the sounds he heard.

“Our kin are separated by color of blood. We are without love or virtue. However, we are forgiven.”

Eridan opened his eyes just in time to stop in front of a door, its frame reinforced in the characteristic manner of a helmsblock to seal moisture in to preserve biowires and living tissue. Eridan swallowed hard, grip tightening so hard on his glass he heard the glass creak. All highblood dinnerware needed reinforcement, but his apprehension definitely put the construction to the test. Despite every instinct screaming at Eridan to back away, to walk right back to the gathering of disgruntled ship captains and crew, Eridan placed his palm on the door’s scanner. The door opened.

The smell hit Eridan first, rotting flesh and damp that nearly had him retching as he looked up at the tangle of wires and remnant of troll strung up in the helming harness. The source of the song came from above, speakers connecting the Helmsman to the ship. Eridan couldn’t find a sign of life in the old psion’s face, silver-streaked hair hanging over his red and blue eyes glazed over like a corpse. Eridan wondered if the battery even had arms and legs at this point, considering the black, necrotic tissue creeping down from the forearms completely hidden in a snarl of devouring biowires.

As Eridan stood there, transfixed in horror and disgust, the speakers’ volume started to dim. The Helmsman stirred, head slowly rising from its slumped position as his lips began to sound out silent syllables. Over the next few seconds he managed to speak up, the speakers going silent as the Helmsman took over the song with a voice like shards of glass scraping up against each other. The psion blinked, first with his blue eye and then his right, and it took a few tries to blink moisture into his eyes like a normal troll. He stopped singing, and spoke.

“You took your time, Eridan.” The Helmsman took a heaving breath, and Eridan swore he could hear the creaking of his lungs. “Ah, I forgot how much I hate this meat sack.”

Eridan set down his glass on a console, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat. Despite the smell and the disgusting sight, he felt a twinge of something akin to pity in the back of his head. This really was the troll he’d played poker with and talked to for these past few perigees. “You were expectin’ me? Surprised you got two pan-cells to scrape together, lookin’ like that.”

The Helmsman laughed, a horrific grating sound that trailed off into wet coughs. “As am I,” he said, choking a bit. Yellow blood dribbled down his chin, and a biowire snaked across his face to clear it. “I asked for you. It was an idle request, but the Empress continues to surprise me in her benevolence.”

Eridan squinted at the Helmsman. “Seems like the most benevolent thin’ for you is a funeral pyre. Why’d you wanna see me?”

The Helmsman closed his eyes. “I do not want to die,” he said, and something about the strained tone to his voice didn’t ring as true. “I get to see the stars. I have been blessed with eternity and power beyond comprehension. But it is lonely, here. Speaking to someone, to you, has reminded me of this.”

Eridan felt his hand lifting outside his control, until he made contact with the decrepit troll’s cheek with a damp pap. He rotated his hand before the gesture could get misconstrued, grasping the old troll’s jaw as he looked him over. The Helmsman’s skin felt like damp sandpaper, threatening to flake off and peel away at any moment. “Eugh. I mean, I ain’t anythin’ special, but if you’re lonely I could stick around for a bit. I don’t think anyone’s gonna miss me for a bit. What was that song you were singin’ about, anyways?”

The Helmsman managed to open his eyes again, lips parting to speak. He looked behind Eridan’s shoulder, and his eyes went round just in time for someone else to announce themselves.

“Singing for your new buoy-toy already, battery?” The voice sent chills down Eridan’s spine, and he stayed frozen with his hand on the Helmsman’s face. “Hope you don’t mind bein’ an object lesson, guppy.”

A cool hand touched down on Eridan’s shoulder, and he glanced off to the side just long enough to see long, tyrian-painted nails that popped against the myriad of golden rings adorning the hand of none other than the Empress herself. He tried to come up with an explanation, a plea, anything, but gasped instead as the prongs of a golden trident pierced through him. An instinctive shriek of pain caught in his throat, his entire being paralyzed by pain he’d never experienced before.

He choked on his own blood as the trident lifted, sweeping him off his feet and tearing through his gut as the Empress lifted him with ease. As his vision went black Eridan remembered hunting freshwater shallows with Feferi, pulling crayfish from their murky dens and impaling them on his fingers. He’d watched them squirm, antennae wriggling and legs kicking as if they had any hope of surviving before popping them into his mouth and crunching through their chitinous shells with his teeth. Eridan’s right leg spasmed, kicking out once, and he saw nothing more.

[mythopoeticreality]

Snow

((written as part of this challenge))

She was marble upon the snow, pale and lifeless and cold as it. No. Paler, for while her skin had leeched all of it's color to a flat white, the drifts of ice surrounding her blazed red beneath the rising sun.My fingers trembled as I knelt down in the bloody snow and reached out for her, just brushing against her arm. My stomach twisted to feel her flesh give, soft as any woman's.

I forced another breath in, past my chest, drawing my hand back, my nails biting into my palms. I cast a glance over my shoulder, but even the birds fled when I had come. A few feathers floated on the air, banners snapped in the wind. In the distance, the shadow shapes of men moved about unmaking their camp.

They left her here, where she had fallen. Like children with a shattered pot or a broken doll, fleeing to avoid trouble. They did not understand what they had done. They did not see it as so wrong, she had come to them after all. Even the King would see it so. But I would not, and they knew it, and as much as the King was a Magician, I was one as well, and I was a warrior, and above all else, I had the King's ear.  

Casting a last burning glare towards the backs of the soldiers, I turned back to the woman. My gaze softened as I looked upon her. A  sigh escaped me. “They were not meant to do this.” I murmured, shaking my head. 

I leaned forward, brushing a long strand of hair from her face, dark as the raven feathers that fluttered around her. My lips twisted, thinning into a hard line as they pressed into one another. My throat drew as I swallowed. For a moment I hesitated there, just looking at her, before my gaze flicked inward and I fell back again, away from her and back to the edges of her pool of blood.

“You were not supposed to be here.”

I cannot say how long I sat there like that, silent and motionless. A flash of black out of the corner of my vision brought me once more out of my thoughts. I refused to look, at first. To aknowledge his presence there. I knew who he was, of course. I knew him too long not to recognize him. I knew the look that would be on his face as he watched me as well. It would be that same look he gave me while we sat away from all of this, looking across the whole of the valley and speaking. When he first mentioned...

It would be that same look. His head just edging to one side, his brows just beginning to draw together as he struggled to hide it. That perplexity he felt. The fact that he didn't understand. After all, he was The Raven King! The rain and the wind, the earth and the sky, every bird, beast, and fish in England would answer to his call and act as his servant. He knew them and how their minds worked. How could there be anything he did not understand?

Arrogant bastard.

The worst of it was how often I found myself wondering the same thing. 

I found him that evening out beyond the edges of our camp. There was a hill not far off that overlooked the surrounding moors – our people, the flickering lights of the village not far off, the rolling silver-tinged field of snow that reached off towards the horizon. In the sky above the stars gleamed, cold and silent as distant chips of ice, watching us. The moon was full, and her light lept up from the snow bright and clear enough for me to easily see by

As the wind swept through, cold biting at me to my very bones, I pulled my cloak more tightly around myself. My feet crunched across the snow as my eyes scanned through the darkened land surrounding me. Even my breath turned to silver mist in the night.

Where has he gotten to now? A sharp click escaped from the corner of my lips, and I raised my hands to my mouth, rubbing them together and hoping to breathe some life back into them as I searched. I knew well enough by now, of course, that he could take well enough care of himself, and yet...

I did not like to leave him alone. Not in a world he had never set foot in before – not within memory, at least –  and not now, especially, in the midst of war. I think of him too much as my own, I know, but it is difficult not to. I have been with him from the moment he was first brought into the brugh, or so it seems, how can I feel any other way towards him?

I found him, soon enough. Saw upon the crest of the hill the crouching shape of him, set black against the snow. I began climbing to approach him.

He did not look back to me as he heard the thin crust of ice that had formed over the snow breaking beneath my boots. He only rolled his eyes back towards me as I knelt down and took my place just behind him, murmuring his name softly in greeting.

There was a moment's silence, and his head just dipped downwards for a moment as his eyes turned back away from me once more. “That is not who I am, Thomas,” he murmured, the words carrying the well worn edge of ritual to them by now.

“No?” My lips quirked upwards into a smirk, “No. It is not. What shall I call you then?”

As they always did the words only prompted a soft snort and an irritated wave of his hand, as though the question were a particularly annoying fly, buzzing in his ear and bothering him with insignificant matters.

Another moment passed in silence, where he edged backwards, nearer to me.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked him.

He gave only a shrug in response. “Why are you out here?” He spoke the words as if they were the more proper question. I rolled my eyes.

“I was searching for you.”

“There are easier ways.” He said.

Now it was my turn to shrug. “I prefer my way.”

His eyes flickered back towards me there was just a fraction of a moment's hesitance before he ventured a thought, “You would rather...walk across English soil now that you are back?”

“Perhaps.” It was true that the air tasted different here, and the sunlight seemed to have a different quality to it than it did in Faerie. It was familiar to me...almost. “This is not my home, however. I have no memories of this place.”

“Hrmmm...”

Silence descended over us again.  For a few moments I let it settle, absently tracing through the snow as I watched my King. Again his gaze had shifted more fully out across the night, to the moors, our camp and the village below.

“It is quiet out here.” I said, “Good for thinking.”

For the first time that night a wry smile crept it's way across the face of the boy beside me. He turned, slowly, to stare at me, his eyebrows nearly reaching his hairline. “It was.” he said.

“Oh, come off it!” I said, shoving at his shoulder, “you are grateful for my company and you know it.”

“Mmmm...Perhaps...” he said. At that very moment the wind picked up, snatching at my cloak and clawing through my clothes to my flesh beneath. The wind tore my cloak off of my shoulders, sending it flying off and dying down only as the garment settled about a yard off down from us. I turned, shivering, to shoot my King a glare. He only stared back at me with wide-eyed innocence.

“Don't look at me like that.” I grumbled, shaking my head and pushing myself back onto my feet as I marched down the hillside back to retrieve my cloak.

“Like what?” He said.

With a snap of my wrist I dismissed the words. Leaning down I snapped my cloak up off the ground to shake the clinging snow from it. The broken, rusted brooch that had been holding it on my shoulders – and had been in perfect condition before – fell to the ground.

I snatched the brooch up into my hand and settled myself back beside my King. “You know what. Explain this.”

He only shrugged, “You needed a new cloak clasp, obviously. I can make you one, if that is what you want.” To his credit, I must say, he managed to keep an impressively straight face while saying it.

As he began reaching for the rusted pieces I snatched my hand back and pulled the rough wool of my cloak all the tighter around me. “Bastard.” I muttered.

He said nothing to this, only smirking and turning back towards the night once more.

As he did that, I muttered a few words over the broken pieces of my brooch, reminding them that they belonged together, and re-fastened the cloak around my shoulders. The smile had faded once more from the King's features by the time I looked back towards him, replaced once again by his usual pensive look.

I sighed, my brows drawing together as I wondered what it was that had brought him up here in the first place. What it was that was going through his mind. “What is it that you are looking at?” I asked him.

Time passed and he didn't turn back towards me. He remained silent as I waited for some response. Finally, just as I was about to give up hope on receiving any answer,he turned and cast a glance back towards me over his shoulder. “Them, below.” He nodded, off towards the camp and then the lights of the village.

“I had guessed at that much.” I drawled.

“Then why are you asking?” Already he'd turned away from me again.

A long sigh escaped me and I only shook my head, deciding to leave it. I knew well enough by now that this was really the best response I could give. He'd say only as much as he wished, and if he wished to reveal more later, well...then he would.

And so he looked back into the night, and I sat with him, waiting, just letting the moments pass. It seemed however that he was finished with me, and the cold was growing to be too much, even if it seemed not to bother him.  I was about to leave, moving back to my knees and from there my feet again, as I heard the murmuring strains of my King's voice.

“There is a girl down there.” He said. “She came with others, but she was the only one bold enough to move forward.”

I froze where I was, turning back to look at him. While he was still gazing out towards our camp, I could see in the way he held himself that he was waiting for some response from me, wanting to know if I was listening.

“What are you saying?” I prodded, “Who are you talking about?”

He turned back to me, shrugging. “They came from the village. I do not know why, perhaps to see who we were. Most of them hung back but one moved forward. She danced with one of the men. Is still dancing with him, even now. By morning she will die.”

He spoke the words so matter-of-factly. As though he were describing some curious insect or cloud formation that he'd seen, rather than a human life. I felt my stomach drop, the words sticking in my throat for a moment as I stared at my King. I was used to such things by now, or I should have been. It was no surprise to hear them spoken by the Sidhe, but the King was human as I.

Or, it was easy to think of him so.

But no, looking at him now, seeing the way he was staring at me in that blinking manner, his head edging to one side, his brows just beginning to knot together as he struggled to hide that he did not understand...

I pushed myself to my feet, shaking my head. Gripping my cloak more tightly around me, I spun on my heel and swept off, without another word, down the hillside and skipping the space between, I arrived back at the edge of our camp. The sun was beginning to rise as I strode onward, gilding the snow. Ravens fled at my approach, and I encountered no sign of Fairy life.  And then I saw her, lying prone across the ground. All of the space around her was stained red, and she was as marble upon the snow, pale and lifeless and cold.

I looked up to see the King, watching me with that same expression I knew would be upon his face. I held his gaze for a full minute, before shaking my head and turning away. A long sigh escaped me. My gaze darted up towards the heavens – The last stars were fading, their cold gaze melting away in the morning's first light – then back to the girl. I raked a hand through my hair, and then letting out another long, shaking breath, moved to lay the girl's arms across her chest. Others would come looking for her soon enough. Her family would find her and they would bury her.

I pushed myself to my feet, only stopping as I moved to stand before my King. By now, any attempt to hide his confusion was gone. He pressed his lips together, opening his mouth to speak, before shaking his head and starting over again. “Have I said – ”

“Nothing.” I muttered, shaking my head and sweeping onwards. How could I explain something to him that should have come so naturally? I heard a low hum press past his lips, he knew that I was not telling him something, but he pressed no further. I felt his eyes on the back of my head – could just imagine he way he narrowed them at me, as though I were a riddle he were attempting to unravel –  before in the next moment he was striding past me.  

“Come,” he muttered, “We are heading out now, we need to be gone within the next hour.”

I gave a low grunt and nodded. Before long, we were gone, leaving only the girl to be found by her family.

[lord-dusk]

Jurassic Emblem-Chapter 13

The story’s getting hot and thirsty guys ^u^ You might want to spray your genetic material at pregnancy art every once in a while reading. Enjoy!

  Lucina was not surprised to hear that the next Aberrant Forms to target next were located in Ylisse. When she and Blue had returned to Askr, beaten up Teba and Warbler and threw back into their cells alongside Basilice, Commander Anna had announced to the raptors that their next mission will bring them to the Exalted Princess’s home country. This time, Lucina decided to have her daddy watch over the mercs and bring along the raptor squad. And Ryukami decided to lounge in the fish pond after several days of swimming in the open ocean.

  When  Chrom’s ex-wife Grima was righteously turned into a Wal-Mart store, the now King of Ylisse had declared open desertification to the already dry conditions of his country. He figured that by rendering his land inhospitable, neighboring countries would have no reason to invade. Indeed, when the local residents uprooted native grasses and drained the rivers, even goblins didn’t want to live in an area with barely any supply of water. But that also meant Ylisseans found it quite difficult to grow crops and petitioned to King Chrom to forgive his neighbors and open up to other nations.

But Chrom wasn’t having any of this shit. He had long since closed off any trade routes out of a deep-seated grudge for that cunt-licker Gangrel and proceeded to dessicate the ecosystem even further. And do you remember how Sha’Rad Yuwi had released a strain of flakka-induced rabies to the country? Well in truth, the virus didn’t kill off Ylisseans entirely, it just sped the catastrophe along. It wasn’t until after his retainer Frederick died did Chrom truly wished he partnered with Prince Xander of Nohr instead of taking his anger out on his non-family.

 “I could really go for a drink,” Echo remarked, trekking in the hot sand. “If we don’t reach the boss of this level soon I don’t think I can refrain from spilling blood in front of you girls.”

“Well, it’s not exactly ideal, but all the nutrients an organism needs,” Delta said,”is condensed right in its kin. But Echo, you know, I know, and we all know that we need to stick together for survival and the last thing Blue wants is for us to dissect each other.”

“Umm, yeah, and don’t even think about lapping up your own pee,” Blue jumped in. “those mistakes of human beings who drink urine for “survival” obviously have too much free time on their hands.” She surveyed the wide desert environment, a few temnospondyl skeletons littered the sandscape. 

Charlie, the little velociraptor, was panting. “Are we there yet? I’m even happy to eat plants if it means getting some nice cool H2O.”

Blue cocked her head to look at her youngest sister. “Tell you what Charlie,” she said. “when we tackle down this baddie of this level, why don’t we all go bathe in Askr’s moat? The trout swimming there are quite delectable I have to say.”

“But I’m so thiiirsty,” Charlie whined. “even now, the last water molecules I have in my body are leaving me.” 

Lucina tapped her hand on the jungle-green raptor. “Now I might sound as convincing as say, Sole Survivor here but you’ve been a good girl Charlie.” She scrunched up her left arm, reveal bare flesh. “Here, if you have to , bite my arm and lap my blood.”

Blue’s eyes widened. “Future Witness, you do know that the moment my little sister chomps your arm, septic bacteria will flood your wound, right? There’s no medical help around here for miles.”

Lucina shrugged. “Sepsis or not, Charlie is in genuine need to rehydrate, and I want to do what I can to save everyone I love, including you.” The green-brown dinosaur sank her teeth into the Exalted princess’s bare arm. The navy girl flinched in response as  warm,dark crimson flowed from Charlie’s jaws.

The blue-striped velociraptor sighed. “I can’t change your choice of action, but if you collapse on the ground because you got an infection, remember that it was you who initiated it.” 

“No need to tell me,” the Exalted Princess replied maternally, Charlie suckling on her bloody arm.

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

  Blue didn’t like her counterpart’s decision, but she had to respect it. As carnivorous animals didn’t exactly practice oral hygiene after their meals, flesh-eating bacteria more often than not inhabited their mouths and despite Lucina applying sand, pressure, and a tunic fashioned from her cape unto her wound after nursing Charlie, the navy-blue raptor knew damn well it was only a matter of time before infection set in and ate away at Lucina’s arm, eventually requiring amputation at best. They had to hurry and complete their mission.

 Unsurprisingly to Lucina prior to their departure, the Aberrant Forms were residing in the ruined castle in the former Halidon of Ylisse, which made traveling there a relative breeze. Aside from the occasional scampering compsognathus hopping about on some crumbling pillars, there wan’t really anything to impede the raptors’ mission to defeat the boss of this area. 

Well, at least anything that wasn’t heavily armored or bearing a sharp saber.

Blue and company were about to take a step toward’s Luci’s former residence and a woman in orchid mounting on top of a spiky turtle-like ankylosaurus met them at the entrance. 

“Howdy cutie babes!” the ankylosaurus greeted them enthusiastically, his eyes gleeming with endorphins. “It’s always nice when I get to see cute young women like you for these hard eyes!”

“Oh great, a wounded girl and four little lizards,” the white and pink woman remarked. “I ought to be killing my sisters and instead I’m stuck here with this pervy turtle and chopping up trespassers.”

Blue walked up to them. “Umm, hello. We’re here to see the boss of this level, and ideally, we would like to defeat them bore Future Witness here lands in critical condit-

WHOOOMP! A spike-laden tail ending in a hard club had just barely missed Blue as the charcoal blue-striped dromaeosaur leaped back. The ankylosaur was swinging his tail, stirring up a cloud of dust.

“Awww, do we really hav’ta go this route? I heard the world of Fire Emblem is full of hot voluptuous chicks and it’ll be such a disgrace if I smashed their frail bodies.” the chelonian-esque dinosaur commented, still thrashing his tail in confrontation.

“Grandpa Havoc, does it really matter whether we kill men or women?” The orchid woman sighed. “At the end of the day, anyone who stands in our way is just a walking juice-box with organs floating in it, gender or no gender.”

“Awww, but Zero, don’t ya think girls like you and those veloci-vixens make bloody anime and games more digestible? The viewers don’t want to experience a Chernobyl gas-leak 20 times a day.” the ankylosaur named Havoc protested.

On the other hand Blue and her sisters were at a standstill. The white woman named Zero could perhaps be taken out with the raptor swarming at her, but Havoc was proven to be a hard hurdle. Somewhere, deep within the fabric of their DNA, just like their ancestors knew 80 million years ago, Blue and her siblings knew ankylosaurs were the pinnacle of armored dinosaurs. A low-profile body enveloped with numerous osteoderms and spikes were already diffult to penetrate enough, then there is the delightful bit that fatal tail-club is more than blunt enough to break the leg bones of a tyrannosaur. Did I also mentioned that ankys’ heads were armored to the extent that even their eyelids took eye-protection to the extreme? The raptors could plan a surprise attack but they need to think hard, and fast-

“Okay Veloci-Volutuous-Vixens, since you’re at a lost here, I think I’m gonna make life easier for you gals and let you pass.” Havoc said.

Blue tilted her head. “...? Did I hear that just right?”

“Why yes, my dear dromeaosaurid theropod. You girls can proceed to the boss fight up ahead, on one condition.”

“And what would that be?” Delta asked.

Havoc smiled. “Why, since you gorgeous girls are in humanoid form, why don’t you unzip those pants and reveal them lacy bras to this tired anky here?”

“....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................are you fucking serious!?” the raptors exclaimed in shock and disbelief.

“I cannot say it is a lie. Even with rex blood pumped into a ya, no raptors can ever flip over an anyklosaurus like me, let alone the king of the dinosaurs. I’m just making things easier for y’all.” Grandpa Havoc eyed Lucina and her bandaged left arm. “and I think if she were to knock boots with my waifu Zero here, I think ya’ll and I struck a deal-OW!!”

Zero had jabbed her sword right in Havoc’s head out of annoyance. “If you’d like me to kill you for assuming I’m like my slutty sister Five, absolutely help yourself Havoc.” She hissed as she jumped off her comrade. As Havoc was trying her shake the erect sword off his head, Zero strided towards Luci and placed a small glowing blue orb in her hand. “W-what is this?” Lucina asked.

“Theorectically I can heal that fleshy boo-boo of your while bedding you child, but I am not a horny slut like Five, so I’m giving you this.” Zero said, not smiling. “this orb will prevent any infections to your body, at least in the moment.” 

“O-oh. Thank you.” Luci bowed her head.

“As for you lizards though,” Zero continued to the raptors. “it IS possible to crush that pervy turtle-lizard thing but you’d have to use spears or magic. In other words: better luck next time!”

Though Delta wouldn’t admit it, she got a very sensational, soft, and wet feeling from hearing Zero’s bold statement. She looked at her other siblings, Blue, Echo, and Charlie, as well as Lucina. “Alright, we’ll shed our outer layers,” The green-blue velociraptor commenced.

And when the ankylosaurus Grandpa Havoc turned his head to see the girls pulling off their shirts, unzipping their pants, and patting their lacy underwear, the sword jammed into his head suddenly loosened and fell off. There was hardlt any better treat than to see cute females donning 2-piece lacy lingerie, revealing lustrous breasts, smooth thighs, and a full abdomen.

[leonard-cohen-the-second]

Serenity Falls Chapter 12: Blood Sacrifice

Pairing: Tamsin/Lauren

Summary: The blood die has been rolled and it looks like no one from the Sunshine gang will survive Lauren's baleful choice. Peril, mischief, pain! Who will come out alive? {1950's sitcom voice}

Links: AO3 - - - FF

Weary feet carried poor Dr. Lauren Lewis over the baseboards of her stairs. She was tired, stinking of every form of ammonia and chloride, and she longed for the warm release of a hot bath. She relished in the thought of bathing her body, of basking her feet in the pool of water, and it soothed her even before she could pull off her professional blouse and tight skirt. After, she could curl into bed next to her gorgeous wife and drift into a peaceful and not so proverbial sleep.

She blinked as a cold feeling of dread pooled at the pit of her stomach. She did not have a wife.

“This feels like the Dawning,” she commented, looking over the room that was identical to her own.

It won't try to trick you like the Temple. But it can have the will to trap you here.

“So you're still here,” Lauren replied to the voice in her head- her Seraphim. She hated to admit it, but the familiar voice soothed her mind slightly.

I cannot very well leave you, Doctor. For now you should go along with whatever this test provides. Sleep while you can.

“I don't think I could calm my mind down enough to...” Lauren couldn't finish the sentence as before she could utter the last few words, her eyes drooped down and she fell fast asleep.

A melodious hum cascaded over Lauren, waking her softly from slumber, her body physically becoming attuned to the beautiful refrain much like a flower's strain towards a source of music. Her breathing became in sync with the song, it rising and falling to the beat, and a small smile appeared on her lips; forgetting for a moment where she was and hoping this captivating song was from the throat of her lover. She continued to listen until a soft finger languidly traveled down through her hair to caress her cheek. The smile became wider as Lauren's delicate hand raised to hold onto the other, and slowly she opened her eyes.

What she found was not what she was expecting, to say the least.

“Now I know this isn't real!” Lauren exclaimed as Evony's fingers curled into her hair again.

“Shh, darling.” A knee moved to the doctor's crotch. “I'll handle the rest.”

Lauren felt something clack together in her pocket as both legs were forced upward onto the bed. She wondered if whatever in her pocket was a totem of help from Tamsin, immediately wondering also where her armor was, before she pushed Evony off of her quickly. Shaking her head, placing a hand to her temple, Lauren looked over to where she pushed Evony to and saw nothing but the silk threads of her sheets.

“You said it wouldn't try to trick me,” Lauren said, getting off of the bed quickly and looking about her room.

It cannot alter your mind for I am here. You have seen through the ruse swiftly and without falter.

“In other words it's still going to try to trick me, but since it can't it'll try other ways.” Lauren rolled her eyes, a half smile appearing on her lips, before shaking her head and looking into her side table drawers. Slamming it shut she huffed out a breath and rubbed her temple. “What am I supposed to be doing?”

What is in your pocket?

A light bulb flicked on in the doctor's head as she remembered the clacking she heard moments before. Fishing around in her pocket, Lauren's brow furrowed as her fingers pressed the strange cubes between the knuckles and pulled. She cocked her head when she brought what she held to eye level, quirking her brow as she wordlessly asked why a pair of blood red die were in her pocket. There were a strange pair, they malformed from a pair of usual looking die, and she sat on her bed as she looked them both over. Either one only went up to the number three, small stenciled bones showing the number instead of the usual white dot, and she hummed a question as she looked on.

The air rushed from her lungs as she fell backwards. Blinking furiously, looking around her, all she could see was a thick blackness. Wherever she was at was devoid of light and as she breathed out in a plethora of coughs, Lauren found there was no sound here either. Even for a split second of not hearing something that should be audible felt like eternity and it was all Lauren had to try to calm her breathing. She couldn't hear her heartbeat, couldn't feel air flowing over her arms, nor could she even feel when she bit into her own lip.

Just as she thought she would snap, an explosion of light and a clanking boom exploded in the area. As suddenly as sensation was taken from her, it swept over her in waves again- practically skewering her with radiance.

Ragged breathing filled her ears as Lauren turned slowly. Her eyes squinted at the light, it being painful now, trying to make out what was standing inside of its rays. With eyes watering, she tried to walk forward but a tug on her body told her not to move. Instead she shook her head as if to clear it, before realizing something wet was in her right palm.

Bending her head downward, Lauren almost screamed and threw the pair of die that were now literally bleeding onto her. The lurid liquid swathed over her palm and hit the dark ground, it seeming to be absorbed there.

Choose.

Lauren looked back up as another boom resounded in the room, it scaring the hell out of her again. This time it was slightly easier to make out there was, in fact, a shape inside of the light that looked to be that of a human. Just as quickly as that light appeared, the person unmoving as if the light was a physical barrier, another and then another came into view. There were six in total all splayed out side by side to each other.

The command from her Seraphim came again. Scoffing Lauren asked, “Why? Who are they?”

As if to answer her question, making Lauren jump, static seemed to clap through the air beside her as a portal appeared. It was similar to the mirror portal Tamsin had created in her chambers just a few hours previously and it showed the Dal Riata and the inhabitants there. They seemed haggard as if they had not slept or bathed in days, and they had their weapons brandished as if they were about to go to war. As Lauren looked on, it was as if the portal followed them outside to continue to show the doctor those back on Earth's progression, she saw the streets lined with filth and bodies.

Gasping Lauren saw many buildings either crumpled to dust or their windows broken in and unoccupied. Some even had bodies hanging from them, as if they were trying to escape something, and as the portal followed her friends, she realized they had caught the attention of things crawling out of the shadows. They looked emaciated, their ribs poking painfully from lithe flesh, and their eyes burned like fire. Their skin was black as coal and their lips rose up into that of jagged teeth. As Lauren stared at them, it seemed as if they disappeared into a void and pulled the onlooker in with them. She feared if she stared any longer she would go mad from such pain, and Lauren wondered how Bo, Kenzi, Dyson and the rest of the gang could possibly fight them.

Choose!

“Choose what,” Lauren cried, shocked again by the sudden scream of her Seraphim. She would have continued to watch the ongoings of the battle as it unfolded- first with Bo's newfound sword slicing open one of the creatures- if not for the opaque lights in the room suddenly becoming transparent.

Her eyes widened as her head swung back and forth from the portal to those standing in the light. She knew these people. She loved these people. What-

Choose which of your family will die...

+++

“That isn't happening... is it?” Tamsin turned, asking her mother with worry furrowing her brow.

Freyja turned her gaze from the circular mirror-portal watching Lauren's test and bent her head low. “No, daughter, the carnage is not so rampant yet. Your prodigy is still dealing with your father and has not released the Abominations yet.” The proud woman lifted her head and squinted towards the portal. “No, tis the future she sees now. What may come to pass, what will, or perhaps you will be able to stop this all before it begins.”

Tamsin stepped around the mirror as her mother spoke and to Lauren's side. The human-fae was laying on the cleaned long table they were once eating from, her body motionless and defenseless. She grabbed Lauren's soft hand and held it for a moment, putting it to her lips with care. “What is this supposed to do?”

“Quite simply, daughter, to see if she is strong enough to choose who will die in the coming war. The blood die has already been set in motion, all she must do is continue it on its course.”

“A Seraphim is strong as you are strong, but it's not possible to decide what the future will hold. Seeing into it, sure, but actually manipulating it...”

A wry smile appeared on Freyja's lips. “Do you not agree that seeing into the future will make one inevitably choose to change it?”

“Of course.”

“Then do you also think, if she survives, she will have a stronger constitution to protect those she is condemning?”

“She already has that, mom.”

Freyja pouted and shook her head, watching as the human-fae accidentally dropped the slippery die. It landed on four and almost instantaneously the one known as Hale's light flickered out. On Lauren's portal she was forced to watch the poor man be mangled to death by the unholy monsters. He tried to use his Siren whistle but to no avail as he was overrun, his lover calling out to him with terrified screams. She began to hack away at flesh, trying to get to the Ash, but it was too late.

The goddess watched Lauren's unsullied hand go to her lips, holding back a scream as she watched what she thought was reality unfold. She dropped down to her knees at the command of her Seraphim and grabbed the blood die again in trembling hands. She was still on the ground when she looked up towards the lights, her beautiful orbs dripping over the remaining five closest people in her life. With still shaking hands, she rolled the die deliberately this time, her eyes refusing to look up to see who she had condemned.

“Ah,” the goddess whispered as she watched Lauren turn her gaze to the portal of Earth. “She is too hard on herself.”

“She thinks she's killing them,” Tamsin replied, holding onto the doctor's hand just a little tighter.

“Indeed she does, but she is also witnessing her supposed choice and yet continuing to make it. She has no information to tell her this is true, but she still feels their death like a scar upon her soul. Almost as if all of the burden must be placed on her shoulders for fear of being-”

“Happy,” Tamsin finished, her lips kissing Lauren's hand before letting it down smoothly. Coming back around to peer into the mirror-portal, Tamsin frowned. She saw Bo screaming for the now eviscerated Trick as she tried to hack through the mob. The more Lauren rolled, the more blood was seeping through her fingers as the dice protruded more gore from itself. The numbers were also weaving and changing with the dwindling lights and was now down to one bone on each side of the die. The number, if rolled appropriately, would only go up to four- the remaining amount of people left- though no matter what it landed on it would force Lauren to break down even further.

Lauren rolled again, this time landing on three and watched on as Kenzi tripped and skewered her ankle by a piece of glass that had fallen from a window. Bo's reaction to it was heart wrenching as the Unholies descended upon the small girl. The die were practically swimming in the pool of blood they created in Lauren's hands and the doctor placed a closed fist to her temple and screamed. She was at her ropes end, it seemed, as she suddenly lifted her arm and threw the dice as hard as possible away from her.

Tamsin heard them screeching in the dark, they clattering on the stone and resounded as they finally came to a halt. Dyson's light went out, a grisly murder of similar fashion happening on the Earthen portal.

“No, that wasn't me!” Lauren cried, her body crumpling in on itself as she watched the scene unfold. Tamsin almost broke down herself seeing her doctor like this. It was not the violence that staggered her, but the pure and unadulterated helplessness that was seeping through her soul. “No,” Lauren whimpered as she looked to the two remaining women. “No, I can't do this.” Her Seraphim presumably yelled at her to choose again, the dice skittering back into the halo of light surging down onto her, before she picked them up and held them to her chest. The die only had one bone on either one now, the rest of the spots being voided by a swirling darkness. It was either one- Tamsin- or two- Bo. It was stacked against Tamsin and Lauren knew it too. But even so, Bo would also die if she rolled snake eyes.

It was fucked up, this all was too fucked up.

“What is the true purpose of this, mom?”

Freyja, who was far too interested at the unfolding events, tore her hazel eyes away for a moment to look at her daughter. “I told you: to see how strong she truly is.”

“She was strong enough to survive a transplant from Seraphim DNA into her bloodstream. Isn't that all that you needed?”

“Yes, this is true,” the goddess admitted. Holding up her hand to quiet her daughter from yelling indignation her way, she continued, “It is better this way. Now you will see if the woman you love is still holding strong, or if she will be devoured by her Seraph.”

As the woman spoke, trembling hands rolled snake eyes and the pitiful cries came again. This time, however, Tamsin noticed something as Lauren cradled her arms around herself. A bright light, brighter than the barrier around the last remaining people in the room, was exuding from Lauren's back. It seemed as if it was detaching from her, or perhaps running away in a sense, but it was gone in an instant as the doctor picked up the die again.

“I'll see you again, love,” Lauren whispered to the Tamsin doll. Without giving herself time to rethink her decision, Lauren dropped the die down onto the ground, closing her eyes just as Tamsin's light disappeared. Her weary eyes traveled over to the Earthen portal and watched as the valkyrie died with a smile on her face as her belly was ripped open. Lauren was still on her knees, her bloodied hand going up into her hair as she cradled her head and rocked.

“This is madness,” Tamsin said, shaking her head with disdain.

“More than you know, daughter.”

“Wait, why isn't she waking up?”

Freyja looked down to Tamsin with sadness in her eyes. “The test is not over yet.”

“What do you mean? There's no one else to kill!”

“There is always someone, or something, to kill...”

Tamsin's transparent green eyes swung back to the mirror. They widened as she realized Lauren was looking down at the die again that had skittered back into the barrier. As the human looked down, just as Tamsin saw it too, she took in the fact she was now standing on a bloodied red number zero. The human-fae looked at the dice again, seeing no number printed, and realized what the true test was. Her weary eyes looked back to the portal, it panning now to her own self walking out of the Dal slowly.

“I have too much to do to die now,” Lauren said shakily, though her hand no longer trembled. “I won't stop here!”

As her arm careened toward the ground, the dice with it, Lauren truly believed what she had said. Sniffling and heaving, the woman watched as nothing happened in the portal and smiled with no care behind it. It was all fake, it wasn't real, and now-

“Lauren!” Tamsin screamed just as the woman's smile was erased from her face.

Her body swayed forward then back again, as if stuck on something. Lauren made a face of confusion while she looked down as if to see what the strange feeling in her gut was. Her fingertips touched the condensed light softly, surprised that she could not feel the burn, before it was suddenly gone. She doubled over, coughing up warm liquid, before she fell onto her side.

Lauren looked up to the shining form of her Seraphim, it seeming to burn away all of the shadows around them, and to its light-sword soiled with lurid liquid. Blood, Lauren thought slowly as she tried to cover a hand over the wound in her stomach.

“No,” Tamsin said. “Open your eyes, Lauren. You open your eyes right now!” The valkyrie had gone back to the human's side, her hand caressing her cheek. “What have you done,” she screamed to her mother after a beat of silence. “What have you done!”

+++

The pain in Lauren's belly seemed to transport her back to her first assignment with Tamsin. Their home together, their wedding rings. The murderer in the night that had swung a ruthless looking dagger into her stomach and how she almost died then too. It was strange how something so similar, yet so different, could feel the same. It was if there was a dull ache in between the moments of sharp pain that wracked her body. Tamsin was with her last time, coaxing her to stay away, calling Dyson to prep the medical lab. How funny it seemed so far away in this moment. So much had happened that had devolved into this poignant affair and yet it seemed only yesterday Tamsin and she were happy. Truly happy.

Her whiskey orbs looked back to the burning gold of her Seraphim's. The woman standing before her was beautiful, though bathed in a golden sheen and made of sunlight. If she were anyone else, Lauren guessed her eyes would have already burned from her skull for looking into the Seraph's eyes for too long. Yet here she was, holding onto her wound while her head lied gently on the floor looking up into those golden spheres.

“I have to protect-” she tried to say, her words being choked in her throat.

“It is I who wills control,” the melodious voice of the Seraphim resounded into the stoned room. Lauren's mind translated the ancient Enochian as if a second language. The being spoke again, “You are now just a voice.”

Lauren couldn't feel her legs anymore and her skin felt cold as ice. She put more strain into her voice, her words trying to govern the power she knew she had, “I will protect them. You cannot stop me.”

“You are strong, but not enough.”

A surprisingly strong hand clamped down onto the Seraph's ankle. Squeezing, Lauren slowly pulled herself up to the surprise of the fae. The hand left her stomach as she gripped the Seraphim's shoulders tightly, her face inches away. ““Everything that I have done is for her. Everything that I will do is for her! You hold no sway over me, demon and you will listen to my command. I will no longer bow to any fae!” As she spoke the last sentence, it was if pulses after each word poured out of her and into the fae's body causing the light surrounding the Seraphim to beat brighter. “Now take... me... home,” Lauren finally said, raising her hand and pushing it through the fae's chest.

The Seraph looked surprised, its face contorting into a yell, before the rays of light were suddenly gone as it was enveloped into Lauren. The blonde looked down at herself, her hand slowly leaving the wound on her stomach, and nodded when she saw the laceration knitting itself back together again. The human-fae looked at her hands, now void of all blood, as they emitted brilliant light from them.

“She is at one with her fae.”

The disembodied voice resonated to the woman's core and she smiled that beautiful smile. “I'm coming, Tamsin,” she said as she looked upward.

I'm coming...

+++

As quickly as Lauren spoke from the portal, her body suddenly jolted upward with a hitch and a gasp. Tamsin, who was already at her side, practically jumped on top of her with a hug and a sigh of content.

“Where am I,” Lauren asked groggily.

“Back in the great hall,” Tamsin replied, letting the woman go and smiling wide. Looking over her slowly, making sure her body had not garnered any injury, she glanced back up to Lauren's eyes. “It was all fake. You didn't kill anyone in there.”

“Except your fae, of course,” Freyja interjected. “Not killed per say,” she reprimanded as Lauren looked at her warily, “but you have dominated it. If Tamsin had done this same test correctly the first time, her shell would not be stuck in Valhalla right now with her father.”

Tamsin sneered at her mother, practically sticking out her tongue, before she looked back to Lauren. Her hand still caressed the back of the woman's head, while her other was placed on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I thought...” Lauren paused for a moment before looking into Tamsin's eyes and smiling. “I thought the Dawning trip would be the last time I would have to deal with mind altering shenanigans.”

The valkyrie laughed too, her giddy nature suddenly rearing its head. “Let's try to keep it down to two, shall we?”

“I agree wholeheartedly.”

Tamsin slid her forehead onto Lauren's as they both closed their eyes. Simply breathing each other in, the two stayed as such for some time before Freyja cleared her throat.

“That is all the time you shall have from this point on, I am sorry to say.”

“What do you mean?” Tamsin asked but was stopped from further inquiry by Lauren's hand on hers.

“The Unholies are about to be unleashed back on Earth. If that happens millions will die in the span of a few days.”

Freyja nodded solemnly. “I will create a portal that will lead you both to your father's kingdom, Tamsin. But if you cannot stop the girl from taking his power and unleashing hell on Earth, then the next time we see each other will be the last, daughter.”

With that the goddess waved her hand at her side and the crackling of lightning filled the room as the portal was created. It was swirling with blues, greens, and purples with flashes of lightning shooting forth from it.

The two, Lauren still in Tamsin's battle garb, approached it slowly. Lauren was still getting the hang of walking again, her being in her test still fresh on her mind, and Tamsin was simply not in the mood to see her father again so soon.

“Thank you, mother.”

A smiled played on the goddess lips as she watched the newfound fae nod with appreciation and to her daughter. As they disappeared into the portal, Freyja put a hand to her lips before blowing out a kiss to the departing women. “May we meet again, my dear children. Gods speed...”

Traveling through the portal was not something Lauren thought would ever grow easier with time. She was wrong as she maneuvered around this one, actually seeming to understand the speedy time passing as they catapulted through it. All too soon she was in a place of wood and stone, completely at odds between the golden hues of the great hall, and Lauren was even more surprised and happy she did not double over and vomit up her lunch.

There was a slight ringing in her ears, however, and as she looked up to a burly man sitting atop a throne, she heard Tamsin speak after hesitance and silence.

“Hey, daddy-o. Miss me?”

[writeanapocalae]

The Tower of Purity

The World of Gray | The Sleeping World | The World of Gray | The World of Gray| The Falling Plane of Loss | The Falling Plane of Loss | The Falling Plane of Loss | The Sleeping World | The Sleeping World | The Sleeping World | The Sleeping World | The Falling Plane of Loss | The Falling Plane of Loss | The Falling Plane of Loss | The Tower of Purity | The Tower of Purity | The Tower of Purity | The Tower of Purity | The Tower of Purity

Casteval did the fighting for them, screaming and bucking, trying to escape the hands that held him. He felt a pulse of heat come from them, but didn’t care, he kept pulling. “You don’t want them! You want me! I’m the one who will fight back, who will do whatever he can to stop you!” it was all bating, he knew that, they knew that. He couldn’t hurt any of them, not when they were together.

He looked at the chair, at the man in the stool. He couldn’t do anything. If he was the one in it, he wouldn’t be able to fight. It was only when someone else was in danger that he could do anything. It would have been smarter for them to take him first.

Erimot was dropped into the chair callously, though they did nothing to stop it, nothing to make themself more comfortable against the cushion. Casteval was still shouting, begging and threatening, but Erimot just gave him a small look, his blue eye hurting and tired.

Casteval deflated. This was the next step in their rebirth. It wasn’t the right next step, they were supposed to go to that place of flesh, like Carmilla had told them, not here. Perhaps, they didn’t want to leave this place, perhaps they wanted to lose all of themself. They were the Living Vessel and that fact didn’t seem to sit well with them.

Still, Casteval couldn’t let it go. He wanted to stop this. There was no reason for them to lose who they were.

Erimot closed their eye.

It looked so much like surrender. They did nothing as the cuffs closed around their wrists. They did nothing as the small man drew near, picking up the best tool for the job. He was tutting to himself, about Erimot’s hard crest, how best to crack it.

Erimot opened their eye.

The blue was gone, as was the red. All that there was was black. A few of the people, and they were people, Casteval could now tell, all deformed and horrific, gasped and stepped back. None of them stood against them.

The black shot out of Erimot’s eye then, thick tendrils splitting and multiplying, a massive network of limbs spreading out, pushing the old man away, pushing through all of the barriers in the room. Reaching and cloying and gathering Casteval.

And Casteval knew. This was what was in the sword. This was the swords connection to Casteval. Erimot had swallowed it as if it were a god, let it permeate and grow within them, and now was using it.

Casteval was free from the grip of the burned man, was free of all of it, aside from Casteval’s sword and Erimot’s care. He searched his person. The moment he was released, he’d have to do something. He had the sword still and the veins around them were encircling it, more than they were connecting with Casteval, shooting up his sleeves and pantlegs, trying to become one with him. He couldn’t use the sword against all of them. There were too many.

There were too many black limbs as well. He could hardly see through them. He knew he was getting closer to Erimot, but that was it. He could feel the slithering veins around his neck, going down his collar, stretch and pull at his limbs, try to find a way to connect, though his body, his mind more likely, was still fighting them off.

Amongst the darkness he could see the purple glow of the bottle at his side, still wrapped securely in the net. He didn’t know what it was, but it was bright, and it had to hold something important. Everything in that pit had been important. He’d given away something, something very important, and it had glowed in the same way as the bottle, though he didn’t remember why.

Memories. Remembering things was impure, was wrong, was something that these things would despise beyond all else.

“Erimot!” Casteval shouted as loudly as he could, hoping that his voice would be heard through the walls of darkness. “Erimot! I know what to do! Let me go, I’m going to get you out of here!”

Erimot’s face, half submerged in the darkness seeping from them, came through the veins. The limbs parted around their face and they were shaking so terribly, were even more pale and shaky than Casteval had ever seen them. They were so weak. All of this, whatever good Casteval had done, this had undone.

“You are Casteval,” Erimot whined. “Why didn’t you tell me you were Casteval?”

There was so much hurt in their voice. It was almost as if Casteval had betrayed them. He hadn’t, he didn’t want to, he would never want to. Erimot, for as short a time as they’d known each other, was his friend. He didn’t want to hurt them.

“I’m not Casteval,” Casteval wanted to scream, forced himself to speak calmly. He would never be done saying those words, “People keep saying that I am, but I’m not. I just have the same name as him.”

“This wouldn’t be happening if you weren’t Casteval.” Erimot meant the vines, not their circumstances, and glanced around as best they could with such things taking up their eye.

“People want me to become Casteval. I’m afraid the sword, that, wants me to be him too. I don’t want to be him, Erimot. I want to be me. I have always just wanted to be me.”

“And you think you, not the hero, just you yourself, can get us out of here?”

Casteval nodded.

“I hate this.”

Erimot shuddered and closed their eye, the lids severing the branches. They stilled, hardening around them, around all of them, before becoming brittle and shattering, becoming nothing more than dust. Casteval was slightly aware of falling, but it was short lived, and he was on his feet when he landed, only falling a few extra inches to right himself.

The darkness fell into piles of dust around them and the others, those things that were human once but now something much much worse, were pinned to the walls, having been shoved away. The injuries looked bad, bruises and blood on so many of them, a few bones twisted the wrong way.

“You’re going to let us go now,” Casteval ordered, hand untying the rope around his waist. “If that wasn’t a good enough reason for you, perhaps this is.”

A few eyes flickered down to his waist as he grabbed the bottle, holding it out promptly. “I’m sure you all know what this is.” He didn’t, he wasn’t sure anyway, but the way that they flinched, feared him and his bottle, was enough to give him confidence. “You will release my friend and we will leave this place, go along our way unmolested, or I will use this.”

He didn’t know how to use it. They didn’t have to know that.

All of them glanced at one another, none of them sure as to what they were supposed to do. Casteval had the upper hand, but they had a job to do. The red woman trembled, looking over the others, the most powerful of them all. She nodded though and the battered, bruised, and broken of them backed away from the door.

One of them, almost normal looking although so thin that the bones were poking through gray skin in places, undid the bindings on Erimot’s wrists. Another helped them into Casteval’s arms. It was all rather cordial, comparatively. Casteval almost felt inclined to thank them but he swallowed that urge.

No one tried to get in their way as they went through the door, as they walked through the somber halls. The path was easier now, almost lit up, as if the building itself wanted them out.

While there were a million doors, and none of them were locked, Casteval didn’t bother with any of them. They just led to other rooms, other people who were here because they wanted to be but perhaps had forgotten that fact. Casteval didn’t look back, even though he wanted to know if those in charge here were following them.

At the end of the path, it was easy to tell where to go. While there were a few rooms, a few doors, there was only one set of double doors, only one entrance that had a bar over the door. Casteval shifted his hold on Erimot so that he could use one of his hands, and pushed the bar to the side.

There was nothing out there. The door was open but out there there was just a gray beach. It looked almost like that gray place that Casteval had started in, so much water and fog, but they were on a small island. Casteval was certain, as well, that the water was far deeper. Still, he could see the outline of a door out in the fog, and there were the bones of boats sitting amongst the sand, half buried in places.

Casteval squinted, tried to see, and did see a figure out there, near the door, who was peering back at them, one hand raised. There was something off about the figure, not like those they’d left behind, but something else, closer to have Carmilla and Erimot were, altered by people’s perceptions of them.

The figure was standing on something and was holding what looked like a long staff. Casteval could only guess that it was the last remaining boat and the figure was the ferryman from the door to the island itself.

Casteval did not want to go through the door. Erimot would not survive another encounter like the last and they didn’t need to. They deserved to rest.

Now safe, Casteval put the bottle back into the net around his waist. He didn’t need it right now. Now that he had some idea of what it was, he was curious, but he would save it until he truly needed it.

Casteval stepped out, into the water, feeling the cold of it wrap around his legs like the skeletal hands of the dead, icy cold and wrong in so many ways. At his touch lights formed, in all different colors, swimming around him, bioluminescent. The figure just watched. The lights weren’t algae though, nor were they fish, but the impurities from within the building, the memories that were more instinct than memory.

Casteval took another step, focusing on what he needed to focus on, what Ranvert had told him to focus on. Home, bed, comfort and warmth and a good meal. He was going home.

He took a third step and on this one the water went on forever and he was stepping as if he was rounding a corner, until the world was a different one than he’d been in before.

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