#priarch aftermath

[roses-and-grimoires]

Prompt #9: Fair

Characters: Idristan, mentions of Spider @thedarknesssings, Talan @reddevil-xiv

The door slams behind him, the lock falling into place with a satisfyingly sharp click. The white-haired man takes a few moments to lean against it, his eyes closing.

Though he had fled the meeting into Faerie, his stop in his own grove had been rather brief, more of a means of getting away from everything and everyone than anything else. Beyond that, well... he found that he really didn't want to be found right now.

He strides across the room, picking up several bottles of liquor off the side table as he goes. Everything seemed the same as it always did; the looming statue of a gargoyle had not yet managed to break it's spellwrought bonds, nor had any of the other artifacts managed to cause more trouble than usual.

With a flick of his wrist, he sets the waiting timber to burning in the fireplace, then sinks down onto the plush couch. He sips at his drink, rather than throws it; some of that earlier fury had cooled, if not faded, though now it threatened to roar back up with a vengeance as he sat and mulled over the events of the day.

Despite the cheery glow of the fire, he can't help but shiver a bit as he remembers the sensation of webs covering his skin. He grits his teeth as he drags his nails down one of his arms; no trace of web, of course, but the feeling lingers nonetheless.

Damn him! Damn Spider, and his drinking, and his bloody "I can dangle whoever I want from the ceiling attitude". And damn the bastard who caused this in the first place.

"See how he likes it next time," the angry fae mutters under his breath, silver magic crackling dangerously around his fingertips before he exhales a sigh and swings his legs up onto the couch so he's laying upon it rather than merely sitting.

But Spider wasn't the only person who had drawn his ire that evening. He wasn't really pleased with the other victim of the webbing either, which was part of why he was hiding out here, in his office, instead of home in Faerie.

It wasn't really Talan's fault, of course, and he knew that. He knew, of course, that it came down to that bastard, like it pretty much always did. But that did not make it better, to hear his husband dismiss all of the ways that he had hurt him like they had been nothing, like he was nothing, when he had been trying so very, very hard to convince him otherwise.

And the worst part was, he didn't know what to do about it. Or what could even be done.

And that was the truly worst bit of it all. Feeling powerless to do a damn thing to fix any of it.

[reddevil-xiv]

A Solemn Charge

Warnings: Mentions of death, handling of a corpse, blood, murder, abuse, strangulation, grief and trauma. Please read responsibly.

Talia had left Idristan, in the diminutive form that he now possessed, resting in Faerie. More specifically, she knew he was in flight among the stars. Free of the gourd-shaped shell he rested in. She needed to process this anger. She needed to process this sorrow. She needed time to tend to him.

She had made him a promise, as Sinnan had set him into tiny limbs, homed his star briefly in the pumpkin that now held him that she would see to finding him a new body. Later, she had made a second promise, that she would tend to his original, and lay it down to rest where he had requested. 

She had been a specter when she came into Priarch, quiet and mostly unseen as she slipped through the building, and into the almost empty infirmary. She had let Celestin know earlier that she wanted privacy to tend to her husband’s shell. She knew, in her head, where he rested. A star, safe in Faerie. A truth, flying high in the heavens tending to his task. Idristan no longer resided here.

And yet, the sight of the body beneath the shroud on the bed knocked her as motionless as it had the first time she’d seen him. Talia had never been a stranger to death. She had seen corpses in all sorts of disarray. Knew what the body looked like in all stages of it. Had caused it up close, at a distance. Had watched the life fade from someone’s eyes. 

But this was different. She had learned that the hard way. Death, when it was of one of the people you loved, struck you in a very different kind of way. 

She had not expected the scent of the lilacs that lay tucked into his shoulders like a framing halo. She had not expected the care with which they had been laid out, with which he had been treated. As if he had been handled as though he were fragile, and with reverence. 

Who had come with Silvaineaux when he had carried the broken body inside? Okuni, and her ikebana. Perhaps she only imagined the gentle regard with which the other woman might have treated this task. 

Her head inclined and she began to lift each of the flowers, one by one, to array on the nearby table. She had need to pull the cover back from Idristan’s body. It was only once the last flower was moved that she folded the sheet down, and then down again, until it rested below his booted feet. His hands were folded across his chest, and his limbs arranged with similar care. 

This, she suspected, was Silvianeaux’s doing, and she could imagine the Knight standing over him, praying to Halone for a soul that would never see the inside of the Fury’s halls. Would he blame himself for this happening? For that matter, would Inwa? Would Latika, who had first found him in his dying state, blame himself? Would he be alright? Her next task would be to check in with the others. To thank their friends--their family--for their help, for their kindnesses. To express her love for them and all that they had tried to do, and had done.

She lifted his hands gently, and lay them aside so she could begin her solemn work. He still looked so battered, too, his face and his throat ravaged by the bruising that she suspected had killed him. Beaten, and strangled to death. He died in the way that was the worst possible thing for him. In the greatest amount of fear and pain possible. She had worried, when the bond had gone suddenly silent between them, that he was blocking her out. He had blocked them both out. Her hands stilled on his coat and she stared down into Idristan’s lifeless face. 

He should have never been killed. They couldn’t harm the Illusionist in the same way. He would likely never know true retribution for what had he had done to her husband. She was careful when she moved Idristan’s shell to pull his coat free, to fold it and lay it with care to the side. Each piece of clothing followed in turn, until he lay with only the blanket covering his waist and groin. Talia stepped to the side and lifted a pitcher and basin. They were both filled with clean, cool water, and the contents of a small satchel she pulled from her side. 

The fresh scent of roses filled the air, mingled with the lilacs she’d lain aside. It made somewhat easier the task of fetching the rag and dampening it to clean away the remnants of what had had been done to him. She washed away the remains of fear sweat, the blood that stained his skin. She removed the red staining from beneath his nails, and then set to removing the jewelry from his ears, from around his throat. Every piece of metal adorning his skin was pulled free and dropped into the satchel that had once held the rose petals. 

Everything that he had asked her to reclaim from him. A task she had offered herself for. She had no outlet for her anger. She had not yet released herself to frustrated grief for what she knew he must have endured. In this task, she had hoped perhaps to do both. Bit by bit, ilm by ilm, she washed him clean, until all that remained was the sick looking mottle of his skin. 

Her hands stilled at last, the rag lain aside so she could grip the side of the bed. Her teeth ground together in her mouth, and tears stung at the backs of her eyes, until she had to blink. She had told him that this was not just a message to Sinnan, and she had wanted to believe it. But at the same time, it very much was, wasn’t it? 

It was meant to be a message to all of them. Her illusions would never be good enough to match him. She would never be able to break his spells. None of them would. The mortals in Priarch, all of them were just a meal that he was toying with. Did the others even realize it? Her teeth grit again and she shook her head, shoulders finally slumping slightly in defeat.

Her head inclined further, fell until red hair was a scattered curtain around her face as her hands swept out. One came to rest on his forehead, and the other at his abdomen. Magic seeped into ruined skin, knitting, mending. It would never be enough that the body could be inhabited again. She lacked that skill, and the Illusionist had made certain of it besides, no matter who had laid hands on him 

But this much? She could do. She could cleanse the blue, black, yellow and deep purple bruising from him. She could knit together the cuts and scrapes and tears. Banish the signs of the rope that she’d removed from him and lain aside. Layer it all under weave after weave of illusion, until he appeared as he had in life.

She was shaking by the time she was finished, when he lay looking as he should. Untouched by the brutality that had claimed his life. Her hands lifted free of him and she sank down onto the floor beside the bed, her head bowed to the edge of it while she waited for her reserves to recover. 

She still had work left to do. She just needed a few moments to recover. The sound of a tap at the window reminded her that she wasn’t alone, hadn't been alone, though she had asked to tend to this part without help. A raven waited on the windowsill for her task to be complete, and she pushed to stand once more. She moved with care, reclothed Idristan in the simple white fabrics they would lay him to rest in. When the tap came at the window again, she shook her head. No. Not yet. This part of the task was hers. Her promise to fulfill. 

The raven at the window cawed again, and Talia turned, as she gathered Idristan’s body up to her chest. He was already so light in death, and her magic made quick work of lightening him enough that holding him was no burden at all. The window opened, and Sinnan shifted inside in a swirl of shadow, his brows knit low over his dark eyes. Wings spread and folded around her and the form she carried. 

The lilac and rose scented air of the infirmary vanished from around them, replaced by the deep green and wild of the Shroud. Sinnan’s wings lifted away and Talia had the chance to peer over to the other gravestone that sat atop the cliff. It was here that the grave Idristan wanted to be lain to rest beside, resided. One bore a name which she knew, but did not repeat. No body lay inside that grave, but it was a marker, all the same. It was a cruel irony that the stone beside it would be unmarked and bear no name, but cradle a body beneath it.

The dirt below the unmarked tombstone had been pulled from the ground in a deep furrow, piled to the side. Talia had expected this labor to be solely hers, and finding it already finished was a blessing. She lifted her gaze up to Sinnan and he merely smiled, though it was a solemn sort of expression, the kind that didn’t linger. She shifted the body in her arms, and Sinnan reached to help relieve her of at least part of her burden, as they stepped over to the grave that had been dug there.

The entire thing passed without words, as they knelt together, and lowered the form of their husband into the ground. A hand smoothed his hair, another straightened his clothing, and they arranged his limbs with the same care that he had been laid onto the bed in the infirmary, his hands folded across his chest. By the time Talia leaned back again, moisture was streaking its way down her face in the same way her tears always did. In silence. 

Sinnan stepped over and urged her to her feet, eased her back from the grave as the soil trembled and moved to cascade back in over the body that had once contained Idristan’s star. But it was more than that. It carried all of the marks from their past fights. It carried all of the runes and etchings they had placed on him. It was who he thought of himself as, and he had been robbed of it. 

Talia’s hands lifted, wiping away the few tears that had already fallen from her face with the brush of her sleeves.

“It’s….” Sinnan began, but Talia cut him off, frustration in her voice. 

“Just a sock, I know. It’s just a body. It doesn’t change that it shouldn’t be here. That this should never have happened.” Sinnan’s hands tightened around her arms, voice quiet, but firm. 

“I was going to say that it’s alright to grieve, Talia.” It was the tone perhaps, that finally broke her, and she surged against him, her fingers fisting into his robe while she wept, hot tears staining his clothing. He tucked his redhead into his arms, and buried his face into her hair, making quiet noises to soothe and reassure her. 

It was better that way, to hide the angry gleam in midnight eyes. He cautioned calm for their sake, acted nonchalant where he could. Just a sock. Nothing more. His rage better held in check for the two fledgling fae to whom he was bonded, lest the feeling of him overwhelm them. 

He held her while she continued to cry, until tears ran dry and she lifted her head, her sorrow and grief run out. She would be better poised now, to help Idris through his recovery, as they’d helped her through her own. The three of them would care for one another, as they always did. 

They both looked back at the grave that now held Idristan’s former shell, and the tombstone that stood beside it. Their heads inclined almost as one, in thought, perhaps in reverence. This is where the last vestiges of his mortality would remain. Neither would be likely to visit this place again, unless Idristan himself did, should he invite them.

Fingers curled, and Talia lifted one of her hands. In the cradle of her hands was a single red rose. Sinnan brushed his fingers down the leaves, darkening them. He held her steady while she knelt to lay it on the stone that marked where his body had been laid to rest.

“Home?” Talia said at last, lifting her head up. “He’ll be waiting for us.” 

"Home." Sinnan echoed as he dipped his head to press his lips to her brow, shadows creeping from the edge of everything to envelop the pair of them. Home to their husband. The wounds of his body had been tended as it had been laid to rest.

Now they had need to tend to the wounds on his soul.

[thedarknesssings]

This Fate

Content warning:  Mentions of death and explosions. Characters: Edarien; mentions of Inwa @daylightrays, Rain @rain-grey-falcon, and the Priarch A-Team.

Darkness.

The ethereal swell of eternity breathes at the same rate as him.  The Sleeper dwells in the depths, eyes closed and mind branching outward.  Twinges of colour burst with the dark waters around him.  Like buds blooming on a tree branch, they follow a pattern.  

-I could love for a thousand years before time caught me in the lie.-

Ping!  A memory of the past, a bloom in the dark.

He recalls writing this in a journal some years ago.  How long now?  Ten years?  A lifetime?  Years blend together when one walks through them asleep.  He rolls in the depths. The dust billowing upwards muddies the water, churning his thoughts.

There is a difference he finds in losing things by choice or by force.  The sound of the explosion echoes in his ears.  The tinkling of glass raining down around him and the eerie silence in the aftermath haunt him even here.  These memories are poignant, digging claws down into his existence to the core of him.  

He breathes and the darkness weeps.

The old adage isn’t wrong.  He didn’t miss the water until someone blew up the well.  Their life had bled through his fingers, while his life clings to his ribs as if the shards of shrapnel and glass stapled it there.  The pain within his chest is far worse than anything done to his outsides.

-As all things do, they end.-

The Sleeper’s face crunches up with distaste.  The memories are bitter on his tongue amongst the swirl of salt and copper.  His hands clench into fists and he’s forced to swallow how deep his attachment to both lost is.

Rain.  A heart twice given. Once lost to the folly of his spouse’s own ambitions and reforged in a spark of twisted opportunity. Impossible means nothing in the face of his desires. 

Inwa.  A yearning long left to smolder in the shadows.  Excuses piled upon blindness and a lack of action to claim an end to their wandering.  He will drift no more.  

A groan rumbles through the depths.  The waters heave and roll.  The want to lie in the darkness and mull over his losses weighs heavy on him.  Healing ticks time by.  A few hours, a few days, the outer shell of his being mends and resumes function.  He need not lie here and lick his wounds.  Appendages shift in the water, forcing the darkness to abate.

The desire in the core of his being beats in the same rhythm as the pair of hearts he’s lost.  No, not lost.  They know where to look, where to find their lingering spirits.  The aetherflow.  To that end he will go, to the depths beyond the flow if need be.  We forge our own hells, they say, and he will see them freed from theirs before they forget where they belong.  This is not a fate he is willing to accept. 

They are his.

Dark water flows from the figure emerging from the cavern lake.  Far below the surface, the only illumination glows electric blue, a rare form of lichen that coats the walls in lightning crackles.  A black leather boot steps free of the water, the soles thick and solid when one after another foot comes down on the bedrock.  The leather hugs the curve of his calf well up over his knee, giving way to leather pants mid thigh.  The buckles on the boots and at his belt spark silver in the blue light.  A long coat drapes down his back, the skirt of it swaying with his step.  

A gloved hand rises, the silver claws decorating his fingers absorb the illumination in the cavern and streak it through the shorter strands of his hair.  The blue-black locks curl lightly around the base of his ears, against the sides of his neck and nape.  The fire from the explosion had shorn the once near-waist length hair from him and etched scars into more than his flesh.  Scars that need not be.  A sureness possesses his stride, straightens his spine, and hardens his gaze. 

”I choose to walk alone no longer.”

[houserosaire]

Ghosts and Dreams

           “My Lord.”

           Silvaineaux jerked awake to that soft call as if it might have had the power to summon him from beyond the grave. His eyes opened to dim light and a knight’s face looming over him. For a moment he simply stared into that face as he sought to remember where he was.

           He should know that face. He did know that face, he couldn’t doubt it when he looked into the man’s eyes and felt something as sharp and decisive as the cut of a sword, striking deep. Yet what that feeling was or what it meant he couldn’t have said. Nor did he have time to think on it. For when his eyes left the knight’s they found a room, and his contingent of waiting men, huddled against the cold.

           Silvaineaux shoved himself to his feet, making a silent assessment and a count of those he could see as he did. The room would have been a gracious enough once. The carpet was still fine, the furnishings old and valuable. Yet it was bitter cold. Colder than the embers in the hearth should have left it, colder than four sturdy walls that shut out the blizzard outside should have been. And he felt something else. In the dream-fogged haze of his mind he had a strange sickening feeling that he remembered this place, and that something horrible was going to happen.

           He could not place that feeling, could not put it down to anything save weariness and the remnants of whatever he had been dreaming before the knight woke him. Yet it lingered there, a sick low dread in his heart. He had never seen this room before, and he could never have been in such a place as this before, yet that sense lingered. This was familiar, it said. And dangerous.

           The scream that came a moment later only confirmed his wariness. He went to answer it, leaving behind the knight whose presence felt both soothing and steady as an anchor, and startlingly, sharply wrong. There was danger in that house, death even beyond the fate that had found one of his men as they all slept. He caught glimpses of it in passing, a lady who was no living being. He wondered if she meant to warn them. Yet a blizzard battered the walls outside and there was death in that too.

           The house was deadlier. His awareness of that sharpened with each passing moment, as he tried to gather his men, to move them. He had been here before. It had been bad. The blizzard was preferable. But even as the house itself seemed to come to life and attack them he could not place that lurking sense, could not give that awareness a name. He only knew it with all the force of a premonition and yet with a horror that felt as strong as memory.

           Even when he realized the ghostly lady was the danger not the warning he did not understand it. It was not until the pain came and the iron scent of his own blood surrounded him that he truly understood it. His eyes sought out the knight again then, his lips shaped the name that came first to his thoughts. “Sui.” Even as he spoke it he wondered if it was the right name. It should not be. Silvaineaux had been here, but Sui had not.  But the knight turned, whether at his call or at the sound of his faltering Silvaineaux didn’t know. Sui shouldn’t be here. He wasn’t here. And when the knight who was Sui called out to him in turn it was not the right name at all.

           He fell, and dreams caught him, one and then another, and at the end of each, when awareness returned and with it that horrible disorienting knowledge that this was dream and not reality, he looked for the knight who was and wasn’t Sui, or the priest who was, and did not find him again.

           Both temper and horrible bone deep fear grew with each successive realization. And then after battle he woke in truth. He roused to muscles stiff and heavy from having dozed on rough ground in full armor, to aches and the pull of old scars and a clarity that told him this was finally reality. And Sui was there, dozing across his breastplate. Yet when the rest of them woke the priest’s eyes didn’t open. He did not stir or answer no matter how Silvaineaux whispered his name or shook him.

***

           Sui had not woken in the hours since. Silvaineaux stared down at that familiar, beloved face on the pillow and desperately willed him to open his eyes. But more long moments passed, and Sui’s face remained reposeful, his lashes making soft shadows on his cheeks. His breaths were slow and steady with sleep.

           Silvaineaux felt as if he couldn’t draw a proper breath.

He rose from his perch on the bedside abruptly, paced from one end of the room to the other in long strides, quiet at first until with a soft choked sound that might equally have been a laugh or a sob it occurred to him that the last thing he even wanted was to keep from waking Sui.

He’d found someone hours ago willing to listen to his instructions and open enough buckles he could wrestle himself out of the remainder of his armor. It had been a noisy process and he had been careless in his haste with it. With every piece of metal that fell he had wondered and hoped that Sui might wake, but that had not stirred him either.

He strode to the fireplace then back again to peer down at Sui. He lingered for a moment before unease and taut nerves carried him back to the fireplace. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and did not trouble to try to control the way his fingers trembled. There was no one to see. The bottle clanked against the glass and he looked back.

The candlelight pooled softly over Sui’s face, making gentle flickering shadows, but he had been watching long enough that he no longer mistook them for stirring. What was he going to do? He gulped down the drink but there was no soothing in the burn of it down his throat, only a raw and unbearable sharpness that made him want to shout.

His fingers tightened on the glass with that urge, but he suppressed it, tightened his lips against the sound that wanted to escape. Then he hurled the glass into the fireplace. There was a brief, vicious satisfaction in the sound of smashing glass, the little flare as the dregs of whiskey ignited, then only silence and crushing, helpless grief.

“Go over it again.” He told himself and tried to ignore that his voice sounded rough and alien even in his own ears.

Once more he walked his memories back through each moment of the dragon and the dreams to the end. Sui had been there and then he had not and now he wouldn’t wake. It meant something. It had to mean something, but no matter how many times he went over it Silvaineaux couldn’t see what it was. He saw plenty of other things, but not the answer he sought.

A low sound reached his ears, a keening like a wounded beast and he looked reflexively back at Sui before he realized it had come from his own throat. “Why was I even there?!” He asked, taking up another glass. He did not even trouble to fill this one before hurling it with every ounce of force he could muster at the flames. “What use was I? I didn’t fight anything, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even protect anyone!”

Smash. A third glass followed the first two, hard enough that shards of glass rebounded off the brick to glimmer like tears on the rug. He crushed the largest one immediately with a stomp of his boot heel and then knelt to try to gather the tiny glimmering shards in his hands. He had done nothing. He had served nothing. He had been caught over and over in dreams like a fly in a spider’s web or a leaf in the wind and when the time had come to fight he had not really been needed.

His sword could not accomplish what magic could, and he had not noticed the one real danger in time to lift his shield for others. He had been useless, pointless, and people had bled and suffered. And Sui had been there in a darkness he should never have had to see and now he wouldn’t wake.

His sword could not fight whatever this was either. He could no more help this than he could capture every small shard of glass from the fur of the rug. His fingers were bleeding, he noticed, from tiny cuts he had scarcely even felt. He stared dispassionately down at his hands for a moment, the little flecks of shining glass and the tiny trickles of crimson that colored it like rubies. Then he calmly dusted the glass into the fire and swiped his hands clean on his thighs.  

It did nothing to calm him. His thoughts were a whirlwind. Sui would not wake, and there was no one he could ask for help with this one further thing that was beyond him.

Perhaps not quite no one. He closed his eyes, ignoring the shameful burn of the tears that escaped them. “O Halone.” He whispered. “I know I did not serve you well today. But if I ever have, then please help me. Help me understand what to do.”

He waited. But his goddess was as silent as the sleeping priest, and after a moment he returned to the bedside. His fingers curled around Sui’s limp hand and he bent to rest his brow against the quiet knuckles. He breathed out another sort of pleading prayer. “Sui, please wake up.” Part of him still wondered if it was the right name.

[liminal-storage]

Morning Light

Mission aftermath writing, featuring several members of Priarch including @punches-and-cream-puffs @hiraethwyl @reddevil-xiv and vague mentions of others.

----------------------

She woke to the scent of things baking.

For a brief, panicked moment, she thought it was another dream. The walls would dissolve, something would break, her eyes would open to the next nightmare. And there had been nightmares that night, both those of Helivant's creation and her own mind's weavings. But the sight of vaguely familiar surroundings and the smell of caramel were real, a reminder that she had not gone home, but to Teagan's bakery.

The sunlight streaming in through the windows seemed almost alien, too bright for her sensitive eyes. Okuni peeled herself up out of the pile of pillows she'd nested in for the night and silenced her footfalls to make her way out to the yard for a bit. She didn't have it in her to just leave without saying anything. Not after seeing the way that Teagan had nearly crumbled in on herself in shame for the nightmare they'd all played audience to. But she did need a moment.

It had helped, at least in the moment, to pack away her own distress to offer some support to her friend. If she was focused on something useful the despair had no room to creep in. Yet, here in the harsh morning light, it did. It found her as it always did, and she fought tooth and nail to push it back.

Save it for when no one's looking.

Never mind the helplessness of watching Talan bleed out. Never mind the blinding rage towards Helivant for the laundry list of his crimes and his taunting words. Never mind the sting of betrayal for the injury she'd sustained, even if it had been in a dream. Never mind the shame of what others had had to witness, despite the details of her memory being twisted in the depths of dreaming.

Never mind all of it. No one wanted to see it, no one wanted to hear it. They all had their own feelings to sort through, and she'd need to stay steady on her feet. Lyrin'a would no doubt have his own cocktail of disarray to sort through once he woke up, and he didn't deserve to have to deal with her mess too.

Okuni squinted into the sun and leaned her head against the fence, head swimming with the perfume of spring flowers in full bloom. She took a deep, shuddering breath and felt sick with the heady nectar. The air escaped her on an equally shuddering sigh before she turned back to the bakery.

It was too bright out here.

[roses-and-grimoires]

Prompt #30: Sojourn

Characters: Idristan, Caedh @thedarknesssings​​​​, mention of Talia @reddevil-xiv​​​​

He was flying.

The wind soared beneath the silver feathers of his wings, the world laid out below him like the green and brown and blue squares of a quit, the sky above him stretching out into a sea of darkness speckled with stars.

He was flying; or rather, he was always flying, the Moon circling the world along with the Night, heralded by Twilight, shepherded by Dawn, and followed distantly by Day. But it wasn’t something he was usually aware of, merely a fact that lingered in the back of his mind.

Now... now he was aware of nothing else.

“Caedh!” he cries out, his voice ringing across the void of space, the bond that linked them all together. He had been blocking his feelings from it before, silence reigning while he... he...

Feathers brush against one of his wings, the motion gentle but enough to break him out of the spiral his thoughts were starting to take. He turns his head and is met with the sight of the large, looming raven with stars in his eyes.

“It’s only a sock, Idris,” Caedh murmurs, the words gentle. “Only a sock. And you are not your sock.”

That was true; if he were, he wouldn’t be here right now. And yet, he can feel grief and anger and pain bubbling up in his throat, threatening to choke him.

But then a wing brushes against his own once more, followed by Caedh’s voice ringing out: “Look at me.” The words are an order, one that he snaps to obey without thinking. “Fly with me, Koray.”

His back was bared in offer, leaving room for him to settle in against his dark feathers, an invitation that Idristan takes with relief. For tonight, the Night would carry the Moon on their journey.

[roses-and-grimoires]

Prompt #3: Temper

Characters: Idristan, Caedh @thedarknesssings​, with mention of Talia @reddevil-xiv​

Fury boiled inside him like a raging inferno. Talia's words had hit the Ishgardian hard, and though he was doing his best to not show it, there were limits to his control–and he was running into them hard. His mind was a whirl, a jumble of thoughts that made him want to scream. In answer to his anger magic started to pool around him, rapidly turning the floor into a sheet of ice. 

Above the maelstrom, one thought rose above the others: he had to get out of there. 

He made it as far as the beach. 

Idristan stands at the edge of the surf, his hands balling into fists as he lets out a furious snarl. Ice erupts around him in jagged spikes as his eyes blaze with pure silver light, as his skin sparks with the same.

Someone had dared to hurt his Night. Someone would have to pay.

And he knew who.

Another howl leaves his lips as his magic flares once more. He can hear his blood racing in his ears, but also something else as well. Voices, starting as whispers but quickly rising like a crescendo. Voices calling to him, prayers offered to the man in the moon, cries for romance, for the luck of the hunt, for their wish to be answered. 

Reaching out for them is even more natural than breathing. For their prayers, their belief, was what ultimately kept his facsimile of a heart beating, a heart he was sure was ablaze in his chest as that wave of power crested and crashed over him. It begged to be used. It demanded it. And part of him answers in turn. And something in the world around him shifts in answer. 

The next wave that approaches him is anything but metaphysical. No, it is a solid wall of water that seems to tower above him, hovering there in the air for several seemingly endless seconds, before it comes crashing down. Idristan has just enough time to throw up a shield with what lingered from that rush of magic, and yet even he is knocked off his feet by the rush of water.

When the chaos dies he finds himself kneeling in a shell of silver–which is likely the only thing that's spared him from the surrounding chaos kicked up by the rogue wave. Beach chairs, umbrellas, holiday decorations… all lay scattered. 

For his part, Idristan started to rise–only to sink back down to his knees once more, a hand rising to press against his chest as he tries to regain his breath.  For as it turned out, using his position to influence the tides wasn't an easy feat. Who would have guessed, really.

But there was still one thing he could do.

"Caedh," he calls out; not aloud, but echoing along the bond between their souls, uncaring about distance or realm. "How do you kill a fae prince?"

The answer he got back was not one to his liking: “Be prepared for what you leave void.”

The words caused him to bare his fangs in another snarl, even as salt water stung at his eyes. “And what if we just trap him in some deep, dark pit? He seems very fond of those.”

“That’s not going to be a long term fix, mo ghealach gaolach.”

Idristan shakes his head furiously. That wasn’t good enough. That couldn’t be good enough. “But he hurt you. That cannot stand!” Those words were said aloud, as if they were a challenge to the universe itself. And maybe it was, in a way.

It certainly was enough to drive him back up to his feet; for a few moments, at least. But then he crashes back down to the damp sand. Whatever revenge he was planning, it was clear that it wasn’t happening tonight.

The best he can do is vanish in a haze of stars and moondust, leaving naught but a ruined beach in his wake.

[houserosaire]

In Dreams

  (Warning for : blood, death)        

          He was looking up as he entered the cathedral. Shafts of light, broken into shards of color by stained glass, bathed the air. Above him the great vaults of the ceiling hung in their shadowed darkness. Music echoed back at him from the stone of the walls, a battle hymn, but sung slow and sad like a dirge.

           His eyes settled on the statue of the Fury, standing tall and regal at the far end of the room. He knelt for a moment then rose again to start forward. But it was only then, as his eyes lowered to sweep the interior of the cathedral and seek the familiar pew of his family, that the peace of it faded.

           There were no pews. But the great vaulted space of the cathedral was not empty. Where the living should have sat in quiet contemplation of the Fury's grace, instead row upon row of biers rested, each laden with a cloth shrouded body. Silvaineaux swallowed, his stomach twisted as bile rose in his throat. There were so many.

           He wanted to turn and leave, to walk back out into the cold crisp air of morning and away from the scent that caught at the back of this throat. He noticed it now, the metallic tang at the back of his throat that even the sweetness of incense could not entirely cover. He did not turn toward the doors. Instead his feet carried him forward, like duty, walking him into things he did not want to see.

           The bodies were shrouded, and within the cathedral the air hung so still that not a single fold of fabric stirred. He did not touch the first body he came to and yet he knew it. How, he could not have said, perhaps something in the shape it made beneath the cloth, the broken edges to the stillness that even the kindest hands could not set right. Florent. He turned away to the next, and the next and without ever lifting the fabric that shrouded them he knew their faces. Soldiers and knights who had died beside him or under his command. Valerian, Donatien, Yvon. Janvier, Far too many more.

           He whispered each name as he passed, running the memory against the roster in his head, and he felt a surge of dread when he realized how many more awaited. Seraphin. He paused at the foot of his brother's bier, looked up toward the shrouded face.

           "But this one isn't mine." He whispered, and his voice echoed in the empty vault. Mine. Mine. Mine. "This wasn't my fault." Fault. Fault. Fault. Was it? He did not even whisper the last words, only steeled himself and stepped past. Landon. He turned his eyes resolutely away and moved on.

           The scent of blood was sickening now, so heavy in the air that the incense was only a suggestion of sweetness under the metallic reek of it. He wanted to flee, but somehow that smell was enough to speed his steps, driving him onward. He tried not to look at the shapes he passed now but he knew all of  them. Louvel. Inwa. Elathain. Idristan. Viper. Talia. Rinalys.Okuni. He had seen none of them save Louvel thus, broken and empty of life. Yet even under the shrouding cloths he knew them. Dread sank into him, heavy as the stench of blood in the air, and grief sharp as the talons of a dragon in chest.

           Edarien. Alain. Honore. His eyes closed, his steps faltered. I cannot bear this. He thought. But he set his hand briefly on the toe of his brother's veiled boot and stepped forward. His own boots squelched against the floor. He did not look down.

           He didn't need to when the smell of blood was so thick in the air he tasted it. There was one more bier at the front of the Cathedral, almost at the stone feet of the Fury. He knew who lay on it. He knew it and he felt it like a blade through his ribs. His steps faltered, he stumbled. His knees crashed to the floor and blood splashed around him. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing was -left- to matter.

           That should have been enough. But his rebellious heart kept up its wild beating and he pushed himself to his feet and started forward again. His breaths sounded like sobs in his throat, wild and tearing. His fingers left bloody smears on the cloth as he tugged it frantically away. But tugging away the shroud could not change what lay beneath it. "No..." He whispered.

           This time it was not his own voice that echoed back to him from the walls, but a woman's voice, ringing and clear as a commander's, and sharp as ice. "You failed."

           Silvaineaux jerked awake again, sweat beading on his skin, heart pounding in his ears until the thunder of it filled everything and he wondered if it would burst. He could hear nothing else over its wild beating. Shaking, he rolled over, stretched out a hand that had lost all hope of steadiness and rested it against the sleeping figure beside him until he felt the steady rise and fall of his chest. He let it rest so, the peaceful rhythm of Sui's breaths slowly bringing order to his own. And if in the darkness he felt the heat of tears trailing over his cheeks, no one save himself and the Fury would know.

@bookbornexiv @thedarknesssings, @louvel-roche @daylightrays, @dawning-star, @roses-and-grimoires @reddevil-xiv @liminal-storage, @ishgardian-nights and @priarch-enterprises-ffxiv in general for mentions.

[houserosaire]

Nothing

           Perhaps if he moved the knight. His hand extended, fingers closing over the familiar hand carved wood of the piece. But he never lifted it from the board. "No, that's the wrong choice too." His voice was the only sound to compete with the soft ticking of the clock in the study, and it hardly sounded like his own. His throat still ached with every word he spoke.  His lungs ached dully with every breath. Silvaineaux withdrew his hand, curled it into a fist against his knee.

           He had thought this would help. Something to occupy his mind, a puzzle. But he stared down at the chess board and all he could see was men blocking a roadway. A cart, a body.  A problem. A failure.

           Fire. It still burned in the healing lines on his arms and across his chest and back where the chains had turned his armor into a brand. He swallowed folding his hands together because despite himself they were trembling. Pain reminded him with every movement that he yet lived. And the burn in his chest with every breath reminded him how nearly he hadn't.

           And what for? What had it all been for? The cart had burned with its cargo and very nearly him. And the chest? The most important part of the task. Handed over. "Nothing..." He whispered, sharp, almost relishing the way it ached in his throat, the pain a counterpoint to the vicious heat rising in chest. "Nothing." He snarled, reaching for the other knight, plucking it from the board.

           Silvaineaux hurled the knight at the stone wall so hard the sound of the impact echoed in the quiet room, shoved himself to his feet so that the fine chair rocked back and crashed to the floor. And still the rage boiled higher inside him. "Nothing!" He roared, and the sound was a ragged ghost of his usual shout. He tasted blood in the back of his throat mingling with the residue of smoke that still marred everything he tasted.

           He snatched at the chessboard again, threw the king after the knight, and it still wasn't enough. "Nothing." He said, and the sound caught in his raw throat like a sob.

           He had not wanted his life for so long. It had been so easy, running headlong into danger, seeking a meaningful death to free him from everything he did not want to bear. But now... He stared down at his own hands and they were trembling. Snarling he steadied them, closed them on the edges of the board. He overturned it, threw it after the knight and king. "Nothing. It was all for nothing!"

           His eyes stung, hot and painful, just as they had when the smoke had filled them. He threw the small table after the rest of it and didn't care when the fine old wood splintered into shards against the wall. There was pounding at the door, frantic voices, but he could hardly hear them over the ragged sounds of his own shaken breaths. He set his shoulders against the quivering wood and sank to the floor. "Nothing." He whispered and buried his face in his trembling hands.

[houserosaire]

Prompt 14: Scour

            "My Lord, this absolutely reeks." Alain said, glancing up at the Baron, who was seated cross-legged on the floor of the armory across from him, applying himself diligently to polishing a pair of pauldrons. Alain did appreciate not being left to clean this particular mess up all by himself.

            "I know." The tall Baron's nose wrinkled. "I really am very sorry."

            Choking a little, Alain returned to scrubbing things he didn't even want to contemplate off the gleaming metal of a breastplate. For several moments they worked together in a companionable and disgusted silence, broken only by the sound of scrubbing and the odd retching cough.

            "I'm really not sure we're going to get all of the smell off." Alain admitted after several moments.

            "I think..." Came the slow reply, "That we are going to have to tear out all the strapping and leather altogether. We can just take it to the armorer to have the leather replaced. No help for it. I doubt there's enough leather soap in all of Ishgard to salvage it. But surely we can manage to scour the worst of it off the metal."

            "Probably." Alain looked up again, watching for a moment as the Baron scrubbed. "If it's not terribly impertinent to ask what do you even do to get your armor in these conditions sometimes?"

            Silvaineaux looked up, and one of his rare smiles very briefly warmed his face, only to be interrupted by another rather miserable wrinkling of his nose as he set the pauldrons aside and reached for a gauntlet. "It's not impertinent." He said, as he began scrubbing away at the finger plates. "Or if it is I don't mind. It's just that in this particular case I really do think you're happier not knowing."

            Alain looked down at the breastplate, to which still clung a distinct miasma of rot. After a moment he nodded and bent back to his task. "I'm sure you're probably right."