#reading tomes and lifting weights in her past time so true

[wistrea]

this is how i imagine kira is built btw :>

[mymothershumility]

neverflownwithme asked: “Princes bleed just like other men.”

past transmissions || { always accepting }

{ Part 1 } & { Part 2 } & { Part 3 } & { Part 4 } & { Part 5 }

{ Part 6 } & { Part 7 } & { Part 8 } & { Part 9 } & { Part 10 }

{ @neverflownwithme }

Though the room about them is small in size, it is packed to near bursting with all manner of items. Leather bound tomes are piled upon shelves, scrolls arranged atop desks, and trunks stacked along the stone walls. For then, such items pale in comparison to the painting that had drawn her eye when the room had been flooded with light.

Eyes drift over the portrait, gaze flickering across the seven figures painted upon the canvas. She knows them all save for one. The youngest of the seven is little more than an infant with her dark mahogany curls and shining amethyst eyes. She is swaddled in deep grey and white silks and cradled in the crook of her mother’s arm.

Saera.

Laira recalls the name as if it is an extension of herself... as if it is a part of her. As she ponders the state of her dreams of late --looks upon the physical manifestation of them-- she cannot help but think such a thing might be true. Her visions have been too detailed --have felt far too real-- for there to be another explanation.

And, now, there is all of this.

“There has never been a recorded recount of the Targaryens and the Starks marrying,” Hal says, eyes still trained on the painting.

His voice surprises Laira, has her own gaze turning to look at him. He has been quiet since their discovery, focus devoted to the portrait before them. Still, there is no disbelief or confusion in his voice. As Laira looks to him, he seems almost relieved by what they have stumbled across hidden within the walls of her solar.

“None before the two of us,” Laira offers, pausing as she considers her next question. She is hesitant to voice it aloud.

‘Ask him if he knows,’ something whispers to her. ‘Tell him what you have seen while you have slumbered.’

It is not the taunting voice from King’s Landing that speaks to her. Instead, it is the comforting one that had soothed her when she had first woken upon Dragonstone. Again, fear seems to slither its way down the column of her spine. Is she losing herself to grief and anger once again?

Has the damage already been done?

Is she going mad?

Has she already slipped into the abyss?

“It is Visenya Targaryen,” Laira begins, her voice hesitant, “and Tor...”

“I know,” he interrupts, eyes still trained upon the portrait. “I know who they are.”

His words shock her, make her body go rigid as she reaches for him. Her hand sets itself upon his arm, fingers practically trembling as she holds on to him. “How?” Laira asks, fearing what he may say to her. Has she told him of her dreams in some past conversation? Has she confided in him and forgotten it?

When he reaches and sets his hand over the top of her own, thumb ghosting across the bumps of her knuckles, some of her fears abandon her. She feels as though his coming answer is not so dire... that, perhaps, her fears are unwarranted. All the same, he seems hesitant himself to speak after her inquiry… if only for a moment.

“I’ve had dreams about them,” Hal finally admits, the words low. His brow has pinched together in thought again, a look of practical relief fluttering across his face the longer he gazes upon the portrait before them. “All of them,” he goes on, giving a nod towards the portrait.

Laira cannot keep herself from clinging to him all the tighter, relief bleeding through the press of her fingers and the gaze that she casts across to him. “I have seen them as well,” she admits aloud. There is something freeing about the admission, something that lifts the weight that has been settled over her shoulders since she had awakened screaming not so long ago. “I have been dreaming of them since arriving here.”

“So have I,” Hal returns. He lets his gaze linger a moment or two longer on the portrait before he turns to look at her. “I thought, perhaps, all the trials and the losses we have faced might have been to blame for it. Some sort of wishful thinking on my part.”

He pauses in his explanation once more, a sigh working its way from him. When he does, Laira speaks before he can continue on. “I do not believe that our dreams are so simple in their origins,” she admits. Not now. Not after the bloodstained stones within her solar. Not after the portrait that seems more mirror than painting to her. “Do you?” she asks him.

“No more than you do.”

They keep their positions just on the outskirts of the room, neither wishing to breach the threshold and pass through the open doorway before them. Too much uncertainty lingers ahead of them. Far too many questions are brewing. Though Laira wishes to find some sort of answer to all that has been occurring in the capital and there among Dragonstone’s ancient walls, there is also a part of her that worries what she may discover.

“It’s late,” Hal murmurs over to her, arm moving so that he can set it across the plain of her back. His hand finds a home at her waist, fingers dipping into the fabric of her robe. “We can investigate matters further when morning comes. You need to rest,” he reminds. His statement is punctuated by a brief kiss to her temple and the press of his cheek to the crown of her head. “We will find the answers to our questions.”

She cannot deny his observation, does not even think to try. Her body is sore in all the ways that she anticipated it would be from their lovemaking mere hours before. And, though her nightmare has faded away to nothing more than a passing discomfort, her head now aches and throbs because of it. Rest would be wonderful, yet Laira is uncertain how much she will be granted now.

The Queen allows her husband to draw her away from the room and back towards the main living area of their apartments. She allows her magic to slip, watching over the line of her own shoulder as the sconces upon the walls flicker before extinguishing all together. 

Returned to their bed, there is little rest to be found despite the exhaustion that clings just at the back of her mind. Buried beneath the sheets and the heavy duvet atop their bed, back pressed to Hal’s chest, Laira attempts to let the calming hammer of her husband’s heartbeat and the grumbling roar of thunder sooth her back to slumber. Disquiet awaits her each time her eyes slipped closed. She sees the portrait in the back of the hidden room within her solar at times. But, mostly, she sees Shiera Seastar, gasping and dying among a pool of blood in ruined silver and pearl silks.

If Hal sleeps, she cannot be certain. Too many times she feels his breathing change, feels his muscles bunch as if in anticipation of some sort of strike. He keeps still despite all of that, holding her to him as they both attempt to rest. It is a hopeless attempt, in the end; however, Laira welcomes the comfort he gives to her all the same.

When dawn begins to break, casting a hazy gray light through the windows of their apartments, Laira slips out of Hal’s hold to go in search of clothing to change into. She has fresh dresses and gowns available to her, all of them hanging pristinely within her armoire. She sees very little use in donning them, though. With all that she is planning to do that day, it seems senseless to ruin a dress or a gown among the dust of the hidden room. She pulls out a pair of soft riding leathers and one of Hal’s worn tunics, slipping on both in relative quiet. Taking up her abandoned pair of silvered hair pins, she sweeps her hair up into a tangled nest of curls atop her head before securing the hair in place.

Feet bare, but dressed otherwise, she steps back into her solar. The doors are left ajar as she enters, the sconces upon the wall bursting to life with flame. Those within the hidden room do the same, yellow light reflecting off the dark stone within it and casting dancing shadows across the space.

Everything is as it was those few short hours before. Leathered journals, tomes, and heavy trunks are stacked in every available space. There is another Myrish carpet set along the floor, one that stretches from wall to wall in all directions.

Pausing for only a moment at the threshold Laira steps into the small room, breath momentarily hitching in her chest. She anticipates something. What, she cannot say. A vision, perhaps. Or some other oddity. When none manifest, her breath leaves her in a relieved sounding sigh.

Stale air still lingers in the space, clinging to the walls and carpet beneath her feet. Everything seems to loom about her as she stands just inside the doorway. It’s near overwhelming, the stacks of tomes, scrolls, and sealed trunks. The portrait at the end of the space, lit by the dim rays of dawn breaking through the windows of her solar, is all the more striking.

Turning, she reaches and begins sorting through the stacks of leather bound journals and scrolls that are piled upon a desk near the doorway. She does not know how else to begin, does not know if there is even a correct place to start. Among the stacks, one journal above all the others draws her attention. She recognizes the Lyseni craftsmanship, the deep amethyst leather impeccable. Moreover, the three headed dragon of House Targaryen is emblazoned in silver along the front cover.

Flipping through the pages, she finds them filled in their entirety in a foreign --yet strangely familiar-- hand. The pages are filled with various journal entries, recounts from as far back as 193 AC. Laira begins reading from the first entry, eyes traveling across the page and the carefully penned words that are written upon it.

The first several entries are short, snippets of encounters and happenings. Some of the entries contain notes, reminders for the recorder. Others contain desires or wishes. Some, even, list grievances and fears. It is not until a quarter way through the journal that the entries seem to shift. They become longer, more detailed. It is easy for Laira to pinpoint the cause of the change. By then, she has seated herself in the middle of the room, legs drawn up so she is sitting cross-legged upon the Myrish carpet. The journal is resting in her lap, fingers ghosting along the silvered edges of the bound parchment as she devours the words.

She does not start when two familiar presences join her. The first comes to rest against her side, black fur brushing against her legs and the exposed skin of her arms. Moone whines for attention, going quiet only when she is granted the sweep of Laira’s hand over the top of her head. The second presence comes but a moment later. Hal slips up behind her, bending until he is sliding into place behind her with a tired sounding sigh. She recognizes the exhaustion all too well… feels it herself bearing down upon her shoulders.

Still, she slides back to sit between his legs at the press of his hand to the crook of her elbow, her own legs uncrossing to help push herself back. She folds them underneath one of his own when she settles, toes momentarily curling against the carpet.

“You did not sleep,” Hal speaks, leaning over her shoulder to see what she is reading.

“Neither did you,” Laira returns, mouth quirking when she feels him press a kiss down onto the bare line of her shoulder. “I hope that it was no fault of mine.”

“You know better.”

“Perhaps,” Laira concedes. Another smile lifts the corners of her mouth when a porcelain cup is passed over her shoulder to her. The porcelain is warm under her fingers when she takes it from Hal. The contents swirling within it smell heavily of orange and ginger. “Thank you.”

His initial answer comes in the form of a quiet grunt, arms moving until they are wrapped around her. The flats of his palms rest against the plain of her stomach, fingers intertwining until they are steepled together over her. “Mira gave me a rather scandalized look when I granted her entry.”

“I pray you were clothed,” Laira murmurs. When she sips from her cup, she releases a quick sigh of approval. Her tea is sweetened perfectly with honey. There is a hint of lemon lingering in the background of the brew as well. Her husband’s doing, she knows. Laira holds the cup back to Hal in offer, keeping hold of it until she feels one of his hands rise to take it from her hand.

“Partially,” he admits, drinking from the cup himself. His sip is more careful than his wife’s, not wishing to scald his tongue or the roof of his mouth. “My tunics have begun disappearing once again.”

“A curious mystery.”

Laira welcomes the ease of the conversation, welcomes the way that they are able to converse in such a manner despite what they have stumbled upon just hours before and what surrounds them even now. There is some sort of unspoken vow there between them, Laira thinks. A vow that they will find the answers that they so desperately hope to, yet will not allow anything to sway what they already are to one another. They cannot allow a desire for answers to ruin what is already there between them.

And, they shall not.

“What have you found?” Hal finally asks her, taking another drink from the cup before passing it back to Laira. “A maester’s recount of something?”

“A personal journal,” Laira answers, fingers plucking the cup back from him. She takes her own sip and then sets it aside on the carpet beside them. “It belonged to Shiera Seastar.” As for all of the other items within the room, Laira cannot say. “Aegon IV’s final mistress, Lady Serenei of Lys, has been mentioned among the pages I have read a number of times. Queen Naerys and the Dragonknight have been as well.” She goes quiet. Then, she admits, “I dreamt of her last night. Shiera, that is. She was in my nightmare.”

There is little known about the Star of the Sea. That, Laira already knows too well. Yet, Laira can recall the various dates that surrounded Aegon IV’s last Great Bastard. Those recorded, thus far, within the journal intersect perfectly with the life that Shiera Seastar would have lived. What baffles her most, though, is the mystery surrounding the latter portions of her life.

Why was there such secrecy? Why was there so little known of her?

As she ponders such a thing, additional questions spring to mind. Why was Visenya Targaryen surrounded in mystery? Why was Rhaena of Pentos?

“This entry,” she begins, fingers lightly tapping the edges of the pages, “is of particular interest.”

“What does it say?” Hal asks. Some of the script he can read over his wife’s shoulder.

Laira lifts the journal from her lap, holding it closer to her so that she may read from it while allowing Hal the opportunity to follow along with her if he wishes. “The Wolves have journeyed to the capital at Daeron’s request. More have come in tow than originally anticipated. I encountered the Heir of Winterfell earlier in the day out among the gardens. Having listened to my good-sister speak of him, I had expected him to be older than he was and not of my own age…”

The Queen’s private gardens are her favorite. Here, she can sit and read without being bothered by the stares and the whispers of others. The Queen and the King are always kind to her -- have always been kind to her. The King calls her little sister and dotes upon her in a way that her father never had in the few short years that she had known him. And, the Queen is as near a mother to her as she can desire.

All the same, the King and Queen’s pleasantries cannot undo the gossip and the sneers that members of their court give to her when she walks among them. Even at the age of five-and-ten, she has garnered a reputation for herself. It is a reputation fanned into flame by slander and misunderstanding, yet it is a reputation all the same.

It is such a reason that she prefers the solitude of the gardens to the chattering halls of court.

Silver skirts bunched beneath her knees, Shiera bends forward to snip pieces of lavender from the bush in front of her. The trimmings join the others in her basket. She has found all manner of things in her trek among Queen Myriah’s gardens that day. There are pieces of lemon thyme, lavender, and mint in her basket. There are also pieces of tansy, basil, wormwood, and pennyroyal among half a dozen other plants and herbs. And, Shiera has use for all of them.

Some, she will use in medicines and tonics. Others, for cures that some ladies of the court dare not speak of aloud.

Humming softly, she is leaning to snip pieces of rosemary from a nearby plant when a shadow falls over her. She feels the presence clawing faintly at the back of her mind before the voice comes.

Both are uninvited. Both are unwelcome.

“Shiera.”

The young girl scowls, focus devoted to the rosemary plant that she now cuts. She drops the sprigs into her basket alongside all the others, refusing to acknowledge the presence that still hovers just behind her. She hates Bloodraven and everything that he brings forth with him in his wake.

How someone as kind as Lady Melissa Blackwood could birth a son such as Bloodraven truly baffled her.

“Don’t be cold,” Bloodraven says.

There is a hint of a growl to his words. Shiera hears it as well as the birds chirping in the trees all about her. The growl sends a shiver up her spine… or, perhaps that is Bloodraven’s tampering once again. She feels the clawing at the back of her mind once more, a desperate attempt by something dark and incredibly dangerous to gain access to her in some forsaken manner.

Shiera refuses to yield, has long since proven to be a host that Bloodraven cannot gain access to. The daughter of Serenei of Lys would never be one to be so easily controlled. Her defiance only serves in fanning Bloodraven’s temper. Such a feat seems to be a more common one as of late. There is a great deal of pride in that for Shiera.

Let him know that he has met his match in her. Let him know a girl five years his junior already holds more power than he does.

When the shadow above her moves, and Shiera sees a hand stretching out for her, she whirls and slaps the hand away from her. Her gardening shears are dropped, another blade snatched up from the amethyst belt at her waist and thrust in Bloodraven’s direction. The dagger in her hand had once belonged to her mother, had been an heirloom of Serenei’s Lyseni family for generations. Forged from Valyrian steel, Shiera grasps the handle of it tightly in her palm, the blade gleaming smoke gray in the early afternoon sun.

Bloodraven stares at her, having stopped in his advance. He stares. And then, all at once, he begins to laugh. The sound makes Shiera’s skin crawl.

“What are you going to do, Shiera?” Bloodraven taunts. “Kill me? Our dear brother will have your head for such a thing.”

He moves again and, when he does, Shiera slashes with merciless intent. The blade drives home, slashing deep across the other’s untainted cheek. There is nothing that has ever sounded so sweet as the surprised yell that Bloodraven gives in answer to her strike.

Her victory --no matter how small-- is short lived. In the next moment, Bloodraven’s hand is connecting with her own cheek. The force of the slap sends her stumbling to the ground, body upsetting the contents of her basket in her fall as her dagger jolts out of her grasp and scitters across the brick pathway winding through the garden. She attempts to scream when Bloodraven’s weight falls atop her, finds that the sound is muffled, though, by the press of his palm over her mouth and nose. She can’t breathe. She thrashes and shrieks behind his hand, screams louder and louder when she feels his free hand attempting to yank the bottom of her skirts up.

Just as quickly as Bloodraven’s attack starts, it stops.

Shiera feels the other’s weight leave her, hand torn away from her mouth and nose. She gasps for breath, half screaming in the process. Over the sound of her panicked gasps, she hears the sound of flesh connecting against flesh. The sound of snapping bone comes and then Bloodraven is howling and cursing. Shiera looks about her at the sound, searching for her dagger. She spots it only a second later, shining just across the garden pathway. She nearly trips twice over the length of her silver skirts as she bolts to retrieve it.

“You bitch!”

Shiera hears it screamed at her, turns just as she is snatching up her dagger to see Bloodraven making another bolt for her. His cheek is still bleeding from the strike she dealt him. But now, there is additional injury. His nose looks crooked. There is blood pouring openly from it. Broken, Shiera realizes. She cannot temper the fluttering satisfaction that rises within her at the sight. She anticipates another slap from the man, braces herself as she clutches her dagger tighter in her hand. Another body is stepping between her and Bloodraven in the next moment, an unmoving shield between her and her demented half-brother.

“Northern dog!” Bloodraven yells.

Bloodraven never advances beyond the man standing before her. When he tries to bull through him, the man --a Northman, Shiera gathers-- takes hold of Bloodraven’s doublet and throws him back onto the brick pathway. The Northman’s arm extends back while Bloodraven attempts to collect himself upon the ground, urging her to remain hidden behind him. Shiera makes no move to depart from the safety of her spot. She does not move to relinquish the hold upon her dagger, either.

Stumbling back onto his feet, Bloodraven growls low in his throat, glaring over to where Shiera still hides behind the safety of her rescuer. He spits blood at the two of them, wiping his bloodied nose upon the now ruined sleeve of his doublet. A finger is jabbed in Shiera’s before he skulks away, a threat growled out as he retreats.

“I will have you.”

The words send fear cascading down the column of her spine. She takes half a step closer to her rescuer, her free hand touching at his shoulder to steady herself. She’s surprised when she feels his own hand set itself against her arm. She flinches --unwillingly-- with the contact, but does not shrug away from it.

Neither she nor her rescuer make an attempt to move, not until Bloodraven is retreating down the garden pathway in a near whirlwind of black and crimson silks. Each and every step that he takes is framed with a loud curse. It isn’t until he is out of sight that Shiera finds herself willing to move. She steps away from the remaining man, hurrying back across the pathway to where her herbs now lay scattered among the grass. Half of them are bruised and flattened. She will be able to find some purpose for them, she knows, but it will not be what she originally anticipated using them for.

With a sigh, Shiera bends and sets her knees back into the soft grass, skirts bunched up around her again. Her basket is righted before she begins collecting all that has been scattered in Bloodraven’s strike. She keeps her dagger in hand, working slowly. When a presence settles down beside her in the grass --the Northman, she realizes a moment after--, Shiera pauses in her gathering to watch him out of the corner of her eye. He has short-cropped dark brown hair and eyes that are a near match. As she watched him, she thinks his eyes are actually a shade darker than his hair.

“Are you all right?”

Shiera nearly laughs at such a question. This is not the first time that Bloodraven has acted in such a way. She knows that it shall not be the last as well. This is the first time, though, that he has come as close as he did in succeeding in his attack. He is becoming bolder each time.

“Would you like me to find a maester for you?” the Northman asks, a bundle of herbs placed back into the young woman’s basket. “Or one of the Queen’s guards?”

Shiera immediately shakes her head, gathering another fistful of herbs. “They do not need to know,” she tells him. And, then, “You should not have done that. He will be angry now…”

“Princes bleed just like other men,” the Northman tells her. “I should have done worse for what he was attempting to do, Princess.”

She smiles at his response, less from his reasoning and more from what he calls her. “I am not a princess.” To many there at court, she was barely even a lady. The Westerosi courts had little favor for bastard born daughters and sons… even those of royal and noble birth. “And Bloodraven is no prince.”

The thought occurs to her, just a moment later, that the Northman assumed such about Lady Melissa’s son… that he’d defended her in such a physical manner against a man he thought to be a royal.

“He’s not even a man.”

That makes Shiera smile. There have never been truer words spoken. “No, he is not.”

At times, Shiera thinks he is something entirely inhuman. She had thought so since the very moment she met him.

With her herbs back in her basket, Shiera gathers her shears and begins to stand. She’s surprised when her basket is taken up ahead of her. She is even more surprised at the hand that the Northman offers down to her in aid. There’s a moment of hesitation before Shiera reaches to take hold of it and climbs back to her feet. Shiera expects him to relinquish her basket back to her and be on his way. Instead, he keeps his hold on it and offers his free arm to her.

Shiera watches him for a time before slipping her dagger in her hand back into the belt at her waist. Then, she reaches to slip her arm through the other’s own.

“Do Northmen make a habit of defending ladies from unwanted advances and then acting as their escorts?” she asks him, walking with him as he leads her back to the garden pathway. He turns them back towards the Red Keep as they begin walking side-by-side. “Or is it merely a personal code for some?”

“My father would be angered if he discovered I had left a lady to journey anywhere on her own after such a harrowing encounter.”

Shiera makes a sound of understanding. Then, she asks, “And, what would he say to not formally introducing yourself to the lady you aided?”

He laughs at her question. “He would likely be angered all the same,” he admits. “My name is Donnor.”

“Donnor,” Shiera repeats. “Thank you for coming to my aid,” she tells him. Most of the men visiting court would not have… would have been turned away by the reputation that followed her about the court.

“You owe me no thanks for that.”

“That does not mean it is not owed to you.”

It’s Donnor’s turn to hum in understanding. He follows it with a question of his own. “Would my lady grant me her own name?”

“Shiera,” she tells him. When she turns to look at him, she finds him already watching her. “My name is Shiera.”

{ @truetargaryen & @fullrangeofemotions & @xcoatlicuex & @thequeenmaker & @ialwayswasthebest & @viperparamour & @hisvipereyes & @nolongerhispawn & @adornishviper & @shewhoisironborn & @anunfailingkindness & @therosesofhighgarden & @aladyofwinterfell & @fairytalesandstars & @iveneverbeenagoodgirl & @zaldrizo & @arisiarrxb & @alionessroars }

[drabblesforsanguine]

Letting Go - Oneshot

Summary: Miraak lets go of the past and looks towards his future.

Pairing: Miraak/f!LDB

Warnings: fluff, flirting, light angst, brief descriptions of ptsd, mentions of violence, possible thalassophobia triggers

Word Count: 1879

Prompt: none

A/N: this is the first oneshot I've ever posted on this site, so pls be gentle lol. Also I'm on mobile, so sorry about any spelling/grammatical errors. Find me on ao3 

The only sound to be heard was the soft splash of the oars cutting through the water. No sound of waves crashing against the shore or the cry of seagulls, for even they didn't fly out this far.

If he squinted hard enough, Miraak could just barely make out the rocky outline of the northern coast far behind the Last Dragonborn.

The midday sky above was overcast and the ocean breeze was bitter. More than once he'd seen her shiver from a particularly harsh gale only to pretend that she didn't. A storm was brewing on the sea behind him, though with luck it would be many hours before it reached them.

"Not much further, now." Her eyes were fixed on the dark waves as she spoke.

"You've been saying that for the past hour." He grumbled, his arms starting to feel sore from this seemingly endless amount of rowing.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, a faint teasing smirk on her lips.

"Well, this time I mean it."

His gaze flickered down to the wooden chest resting by her feet, his curiosity still piqued as to its contents and purpose for being here.

He'd asked about it at the beginning of their voyage, among many other questions, but of course she'd just shrugged him off like she always does and said he'd find out once they were far out at sea. Well, they were far out enough.

He stopped rowing and fixed her with a hard stare.

"I'm not rowing another inch until you tell me what we're doing out here."

She finally turned and faced him fully, one of her dark eyebrows arched upwards. With a dead serious look in her eyes, she spoke.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm going to kill you, lock your corpse in this chest and dump it in the sea."

He blinked at her once, twice.

"Is it impossible for you not to act like a child all the time?"

She rolled her eyes then, with a sigh, she leaned over the chest and lifted the lid. Miraak peered inside with curiosity. His eyes narrowed at what he saw.

"Are those..."

"The Black Books, yes." She said, wrapping her arms around herself as another breeze rolled by.

True to her word, inside the confines of the chest were all seven of Hermaeus Mora's forbidden tomes, each individually wrapped in animal skins and tightly bound with rope.

"He will not be happy if we do this." Miraak cautioned after a short pause, his eyes still fixed on the evil books before him.

The books that had brought him nothing but suffering. Just looking at them made him feel... uneasy, for lack of a better word. It was the same feeling he always had in Apocrypha: alone, yet constantly under watch by an unseen entity.

She just shrugged nonchalantly. "He's not exactly thrilled with me anyways."

He stared at her, his brows pinched together. "Why?"

For a moment she appeared confused. "For starters, I shot him with Auriels bow, temporarily destroyed his plane of Oblivion and stole his favorite champion?"

He rolled his eyes and huffed out a breath. "No. I mean, why are you doing this?" He gestured towards the chest to make his meaning clear.

"Oh," she mumbled, suddenly avoiding eye contact with him. When she finally focused back on him, it was with a seriousness he'd rarely seen from her before.

"These books have brought us nothing but misery -- you most of all." He winced involuntarily at her words, but she continued. "Maybe doing this will give you- us, some closure. If not, then at least it'll piss Hermaeus Mora off, which is good enough for me."

He scoffed, "He is probably laughing at us as we speak, you know."

"Yeah. Well, he can choke on his own tentacles for all I care. Now, are you gonna keep rowing or what?" She asked, feigning irritation as she shut the lid of the chest.

He rolled his eyes but seeing as she revealed why they were there, he stayed true to his word and continued pushing the boat further out to sea.

"You are too eager to defy the Daedra." He admonished lightheartedly.

She shrugged, "We defeated him once. We can do it again."

He gave no response, though there were many things he wanted to say. Most notably that she was naive to think they could defeat a Daedric Prince twice. They'd merely gotten lucky the first time. He wanted to say that, but he didn't.

After a brief silence, she spoke again.

"How long has it been now?"

"Nine months, 14 days." He answered without skipping a beat.

"How time flies," she mused. "It feels like only yesterday that I was nursing you back from the brink of death."

"Don't remind me."

She smirked at his sour tone.

"Come on, I wasn't that bad of a caretaker."

Again, he didn't respond.

Miraak would much rather forget those first few weeks after he was freed from Apocrypha -- after she freed him from Apocrypha -- when he was so weak and ill that he couldn't even walk by himself, and he was forced to rely on the Dovahkiin's good will to help him.

He hated feeling so powerless. So vulnerable.

He'd learned from an young age how to take care of himself, but all those years trapped in Oblivion made him forget. For a long time it pained him to admit how much he needed her in the beginning, to help him remember how to be human. It wasn't quite as painful to admit now, but he'd still rather not be reminded of it.

"Is it such a bad thing to let others take care of you from time to time?" She asked, as if reading his thoughts.

"In my time, relying too much on others was a good way to get yourself killed."

"You're not in that time anymore."

She looked at him with a sincerity that made his insides ache. He almost couldn't stand it -- these feelings she aroused in him.

He looked down at the chest again, just so he didn't have to bear that look anymore.

"This should be far enough." She said suddenly.

Miraak stopped rowing and secured the oars in place. He watched curiously as she reached into her satchel laying on the bench beside her and withdrew an iron padlock. She paused for a split second before reaching out towards him with the padlock.

With little hesitation on his part, he took it from her open palm, his fingers lightly grazing against her skin. He saw goosebumps raise on her arm as he withdrew his fingers, but chalked it up to the cold. For a Nord, she didn't handle the cold very well.

His hands felt heavier than usual as he reached forward and snapped the lock shut around the latch, sealing the chest.

When he looked up at her, there was a hint of relief in her eyes. Like a huge weight had already been lifted from her shoulders. He felt it too.

"Ready?"

He nodded, unwavering.

They both stood carefully as to not tip the small rowboat over, each grabbing one side of the chest, and leveraged it precariously on the boats edge. Kneeling side by side, they shared one last look of determination then, after a deep breath, they pushed the chest overboard. Together they peered over the edge and watched it sink into the dark water below. With all luck, it will remain lost to the depths of the Sea of Ghosts forever.

Then they waited.

A minute passed, two minutes. For what felt like forever they remained there, holding their breaths as they stared into the icy water. Nothing ever happened. No mass of angry, slimy tentacles appeared over them, threatening to disembowel them for desecrating his precious tomes.

When it finally felt safe to do so, they each exhaled their long held breaths. Relief finally settled in his bones.

She spoke after another significant pause, if only to break the ice.

"When I 'won' the Oghma Infinium, the first thing I did with it was drop it into the sea. At least now it's wretched cousins can keep it company."

"Mora will not let this go unpunished. Sooner or later he will have his revenge." He hated that his voice wavered ever so slightly. He was never one to show fear. He could feel it, yes, but he certainly never showed it.

If she noticed, she gave no indication.

"Yes, he will," she said, her tone not lacking in surety. "And when he does, we will face him together."

Then she turned towards him, a faint smile on her face. His stomach nearly jumped out of his throat when her hand slowly slid over to rest atop of his own. Strangely though, he didn't move away. He should've moved away, but he found that he didn't want to.

Even before he'd been imprisoned for thousands of years, Miraak had gone out of his way to avoid intimacy. It was nothing but a weakness to be used against him. After being completely devoid of the touch of others for so long, he'd forgotten how nice it could feel.

Seeming to act on a will of it's own, his hand turned upwards and sought her own significantly smaller one. Her ice cold skin immediately warmed at his touch.

"Together." He repeated with a nod.

Her smile grew a little bit brighter, her cheeks turning a faint pink. It was only due to the cold air, or so he told himself.

"But until then," he continued, "let's get somewhere warm. You're freezing out here."

She gave his hand a little squeeze before pulling away, much to his disappointment. He tried not to let it show, but the way her smirk grew even more told him he was not as stoic as he thought.

His disappointment quickly faded, however, as he watched her take a seat on the bench he'd previously occupied. Still smiling, she crossed one leg over the other and pat the empty space next to her.

"Yes, let's go home."

Home. She'd never called it that before. It was always 'my house' or 'the house', but never 'home'.

Struggling to contain his own smile, he sat down next to her and started unfastening the oars. Before he could react, she scooted closer to him and huddled against his side, digging her hands into his robes for warmth.

She was shivering worse than he'd realized.

He wrapped one of his arms around her to grab the other oar. She angled her body in a way that allowed him to row while still being close enough to absorb his warmth. With a tranquil sigh, she rested her cheek on his chest, the peek of her head stopping just below his chin.

He tried to tell himself she was just cold, but he knew better. He'd always known better.

It was in that moment, with his ferocious little Dragonborn cuddled against his body for warmth, he realized that she was his home, and to his surprise, that wasn't such a scary thought.

For the first time in a long time, he had something worth holding onto and he never planned on letting go.

[buirbaby]

The Wardens: The Dothraki Sea

Rating: M + Mature themes, language, and violence

Warnings: Themes of a child being wed and underage sex implied (as is canonical)

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Viserys Targaryen was not difficult to pick out, a blazing beacon amongst the tanned and dark haired Dothraki, in a fine silken tabard with the black and crimson of his house. For someone who had been decent looking in the show, Taliya was somewhat taken aback by the beauty that those descended from High Valyrian blood possessed. From the long silver blonde hair, to the fair skin, and the pale lilac eyes, admittedly, she was staring a bit longer than she ought to. However, the moment that Viserys noticed that she was gazing at him, she saw the hard lines of his face and the gaunt shadows that made him appear more emmaciated than robust. There was a sparkle, a maddened glimmer, that ripped a shiver down her back despite the heat burgeoning in the air as the wedding was about to begin.

Even if she had snapped at Benjen, it was only his presence beside her, the one true constant since arriving in Essos, that kept her from balking. Taliya could be brazen, she could be snarky, and she could be clever, but she was human and she had fears. She feared men who made eyes like that and even as she held the certainty that she'd carefully woven the web that got them there, she couldn't help but anxiously think of the unknowns and fickleness of this realm that could get her killed in an instant. With the way that he was looking at her now, she could only presume that the young man, barely on the cusp of passing his teenage years, was undressing her with his eyes.

Despite looking youthful, maybe even in her 20s, Taliya was more akin in age to Benjen than the Targaryen. Age didn't seem to matter here. Just appearances, connections, and gold. A comely woman was a comely woman. She'd never considered herself anything exceptional back on earth, but here she supposed she was rather good looking. Lean, athletic, a symmetrical face, and a wide, pearly white and straight smile. Things taken for granted, simply 'normal' back on earth, were signs of wealth or nobility in this world. Few commoners took half as much time grooming themselves as Taliya subconsciously did.

"I heard that there would be embassies from the Red Temple, but I did not expect them to be Westerosi," Viserys parted from a knight beside him-a large middle aged-man with dark hair.

While Viserys was focused on her, Taliya knew this was the moment of truth, whether or not Jorah Mormont would recognize the man beside her. He was shorter than she thought he'd be, but was twice as broad as Benjen. Despite his exile, he still took a fancy to wearing the dark green tunic displaying the standing black bear of House Mormont. His eyes flickered between them, landing curiously on Ben, but after a lingering moment, they repositioned on her.

"Followers of the Lord of Light come in many shapes and sizes, your grace," Taliya retorted crisply. "I am Taliya Sand and my companion is Ben Rivers."

"Bastards," Viserys observed.

"Bastards can find meaningful ways to live their lives," Taliya replied in turn.

"No doubt, much of Essos is evidence of this," Viserys waved dismissively. "To what do we owe the honor of the Lord of Light's ambassadors? My own family followed the Faith."

"The Lord of Light is here to bless the wedding," Taliya said lightly, but unfurled a tight smile. "But His gaze also extends past this union and toward the future. We are here as representatives for our Lord in your future endeavors. Perhaps your family followed the Faith, but I ask you, what did the Seven do when the Baratheons stormed Dragonstone and the Lannisters turned their swords inward toward the Targaryens? Regardless on whether you decide to convert, your grace, we have come here to be of service." Brushing back her scarves, she lifted Fate from her hip, scabbard and all to prevent the Valyrian steel from seeing the light of dawn, before she knelt. Ben mirrored her efforts, head bowed as they stooped before Viserys. "If you should accept our swords."

The prince paused, his eyes flitting between the pair, before his lips curled impishly. "The Dornish allow their women to fight, don't they?" he inquired, keeping them where they knelt.

"Yes, your grace," Taliya answered.

"The Seven never did answer the prayers of the Targaryens as they were slaughtered. I'd like to hear more about your Lord of Light. Rise," Viserys decided, motioning for them both to stand. "I acquire more swords by the day," he said smugly. "And after my sister weds this horselord, I'll have enough to retake what is rightfully mine."

"Your grace, it appears the wedding is about to begin," Jorah Mormont intercepted, still sparing the both of them wary glances.

"Right, let's get this over with," Viserys waved.

Illyrio joined them soon after, huffing with each step as they stood toward the front of the crowd as Daenerys and Khal Drogo were wed. Reading about a 13 year old girl getting married in a book was different than witnessing it in real life. A child, a little older than a third of Taliya's own age, stood frightened and tiny beside the great shadow of the Khal. She was a demure thing, none of what made her a conqueror or queen stiffening her spine. Dany was young, inexperienced, and had yet to step through the harrowing trials that would fashion her into a ruler.

Had Viserys believed that this was going to be a short ordeal, a simple ceremony, and then they'd be off--he was sorely mistaken. The first part of the wedding included the words, in Dothraki, before cheering ensued and the feast was kicked off. Inside the shade of the tent, Drogo and Daenerys were seated upon a dias.

"I should be up there," Viserys muttered, glaring up toward the Khal as he called for a toast, raising a horn of wine. "I am a king."

"The rightful king of Westeros," Ben remarked evenly. "Here, we are in the Khal's domain and it is his day for celebration." This should have been obvious, but the jaded lilac eyes of Viserys pinned a glare at the Stark.

This did not get better as the newlyweds were fed first. Viserys put in another wounded comment about how a king ought to be fed before his sister and her husband. Taliya wanted to bang her head against a wall, listening to the sniveling of a teenager who thought himself a man and walked with the weight of a sword that she knew he couldn't use. She had to pretend to like him for a time, to be loyal to him, despite the fact that it was Daenerys that she and Ben were there for.

Thankfully, there was a bit of entertainment to keep Viserys from whinging the entire time, but it wasn't the most... wholesome of shows. Dothraki danced to the beating of drums, the line between proper and modest erased completely as men mounted women like animals in the open. Fights erupted over women, which devolved into fighting and blood spilling in the sand before the victor took what they had originally laid claim to. By the end of the day, there had been a dozen deaths, which meant that the wedding was going on exceptionally.

Just as they'd arrived at sunrise, it was sunset that indicated the last portion of the wedding. The dramatic huffing from Viserys indicated his own disdain for the length which this all was dragging on. While unlike any wedding that Taliya had ever witnessed, she had to admit that she wasn't bored. With the bridal gifting upon them, they were resigned until waiting their turn, which came to be after Viserys, Illyrio, and Jorah. The three handmaidens, Irri, Jhiqui, and Doreah, were proposed to Dany... Not much older than herself.

Jorah's gifts were of books in the Common tongue, which brightened the girl's face and she thanked him repeatedly. While not as luxurious or brilliant as many of the more decadent gifts, it was something she could use to pass time and for enjoyment.

Illyrio's gift of the dragon eggs drew the attention of her brother. They were magnificent and undoubtedly, Viserys believed that he deserved them more than the girl wedding a horselord. Jealousy was rapt on his face as he stood back, arms crossed, as Dany ran her fingers over the stone ripples. Once she had finished admiring them, the trunk was closed and moved aside, her eyes flicking up to drink in Taliya and Ben.

The girl had spared them a few looks between her nervous smiles up on the plinth during the feast. They were strangers, dressed queerly, and sitting beside her brother. Rather than remain stone faced and impassive, Taliya relaxed her countenance and broke a smile as she stepped forward with Ben. Bequeathed in their arms was a gift similar to Jorah's, but different. They had not been as poor as the knight, but Taliya had remembered how the books had been well received by Daenerys in the pages of Martin's writing.

"Khaleesi, our gifts to you are books from Valyria before the Doom," Taliya explained, keenly aware of how expensive the tomes were, as many men had died passing these between hands. Despite how old they were, they were still relatively intact, but written exclusively in High Valyrian. Sitting upon the bundle that Taliya held was the bouquet that she had fashioned from the flowers acquired on their way to the wedding. "None have ever returned from the Smoking Sea, so there may not be any others like this aside from at the Citadel. We hope that these gifts will suffice."

"From Old Valyria?" Daenerys muttered, but her eyes had brightened just as they did when Jorah had brought forth books. "These are wonderful, rare gifts. I'm sorry, but I didn't quite catch your names-"

"Taliya Sand and Ben Rivers, Khaleesi," she bowed her head, passing the books from bloodrider, then in turn Daenerys. "We are swords of the Lord of Light."

"The Red God," Daenerys recalled, having lived in Braavos for a time, undoubtedly passing by followers of the religion until this point. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

Turning away to let the next guests gift the Khaleesi, they settled back as the night winded down and Drogo was the last to gift Daenerys. The girl's final test of the day would be to please her husband, the very thought twisting knots in Taliya's stomach. Her arms crossed, a stiff line to her shoulders, and sharp eyes surveying the thick crowd as the newlyweds finally parted way from the khalasar and the finer attendees made to leave for the evening, including Illyrio.

"You look as if you could kill a man," Ben mused, nudging her with an elbow as they started back toward their horses to unpack and pitch their tents for the evening. They did not possess any regal yurts or beds or anything more than a bedroll and tarp enough to keep a roof over their heads and shade during the hot mornings. Here, they were not nobles, they were soldiers. Luxury was not on their side, but to be honest, she did not mind. The tent reminded her of those that she'd used when hiking long distances, intended for a single person and to be easily packed up each day.

"Perhaps I could, if the wrong one bothers me," Taliya snipped glibly, pulling down the rolls from the back of the saddle.

"It's more than that," Ben gleaned perceptively.

She wanted to curse at him, to tell him to shut up, but pursed her lips. Getting feisty with the only friend she had would do more harm than make her feel better. Perhaps he was good at reading people because he'd been First Ranger with many subordinates beneath him. "Where I come from, we don't marry little girls off like that," she sighed. "She was basically a gift horse, the cost for 40,000 swords. I can't even imagine her getting pregnant when she's little more than a child herself."

"It's not much different in Westeros," Ben admitted with a frown. "When a girl flowers, she's considered old enough to wed."

"That doesn't mean it's right," Taliya countered. "She's the same age as your niece. Could you imagine the same happening to her?"

Ben didn't seem to like the comparison. "And where you are from, how old do girls usually marry?"

"When they want. From 18 and above usually, but there are exceptions for 16 year olds. Some women don't wed at all," she shrugged.

"And you never-"

"No, I did not," she told him, her mood lightening at the questioning glance he continued to spare her. "I'm not a maiden if that's what you're continuing to wonder. Virginity is not as taboo as it is here."

"You didn't have to-"

"Oh shut up, you were wondering about it," Taliya snickered, punching the man lightly on the shoulder. "Oh Lord, you're a sweaty mess. It wasn't even that hot today," she wiped her knuckles off on her trousers, slick with the dampness from his doublet.

"Not that hot? It was blistering," Ben groused. "You would have me believe that it will get even hotter than this?"

"Mm, you'd better adjust quickly or maybe you'll melt entirely and I'll have to continue our mission on my own," she snarked.

"I'm not made of ice. I'll survive. I've survived in more austere environments."

"You've survived in one type of austere environment," Taliya corrected with a wolfish grin.

"And you're so much more experienced?"

"Actually, I am," she preened. "You've got a lot to learn, wolf-boy. I spent two years in the desert on deployment. Just a fair warning, fine sand gets everywhere. And given your fair complexion, you're going to want to cover your face."

"Wearing more clothing defeats the purpose doesn't it?"

"Unless you want an ungodly sunburn, which I have no doubt you'll get, then I'd cover up. A sunburn is worse than the extra bit of sweating you'll do. And, it's what you wear that matters. Thick wool like that will have you sweating like a pig, but silks and linen are much more breathable and will protect you from the sun. We'll see about getting you better attire before we leave Pentos," Taliya elaborated as they found a spot to pitch their tents and erect a small cookfire. The Dothraki paid them little heed, continuing with their festivities into the evening as they buckled in for the night.

"You're going to dress me up like a Dornish man?" Ben inquired smartly.

"If that's what you'd prefer, but I simply meant that we'll trade the wool for silks or linen. Call it whatever fashion you'd like."

"I'd prefer not to fall from my horse due to the heat, despite how queer I might look," Ben admitted as they both took a seat around a fire he had just lit. The evening had blown in a cool sea breeze, wiping away the worst of the day's heat as if it'd never been there.

"Do that you'll lose the respect of the Dothraki," Taliya reminded him. "I think they'll care less if you wear silks and more about you being weak."

"They certainly are... unique people," Ben admitted, utilizing the most polite manner he could to describe the barbaric displays they had witnessed earlier. "But there are things about them that remind me of the Wildlings."

"I think you'll see more differences the longer we spend amongst them. Now, let's work on your Dothraki, but it's still absolutely abysmal," Taliya grinned, watching as the bearded man frowned at the suggestion, and that the latter part of their evening wouldn't be spent relaxing, but instead practicing. Either way, she won this battle and they started going through the language once again. Ben would get better now that they were with the Dothraki and speaking their tongue would become necessary and more accessible than just muttering to one another in an effort to learn the basics.

*

The Dothraki Sea wasn't quite the desert, but it was just as sweltering and unforgiving. An expansive savannah with tall golden grass. The khalasar moved with a purpose, only the weak and the old confined to wagons where they could no longer sit a horse. Despite the plethora of things that they possessed, the horse people packed up and continued their nomadic lifestyle with ease. One would think it would be difficult to move beds, tubs, furniture without the amenities of the future, but the Dothraki had everything perfected to a fine, methodical manner.

Most often, they were riding beside Viserys and Jorah Mormont. The prince frequently wished to be right beside his sister, convinced that if he took his eyes off her for a moment that Khal Drogo would steal her away and not deliver on his promise of his khalasar. The fact that he distrusted the man so, bespoke of his ignorance of their customs. Khal Drogo had promised their alliance in exchange for Daenerys. He would hold true, despite the fact that Viserys saw the copper skinned nomads as mongrels and sub-human.

After getting past the harsh exterior and miasma of sexuality that exuded from the Dothraki on the first day, even Ben began to warm to them as he started to comprehend them better. There was a strong dichotomy between male and female life, on top of the position of slaves. Even if Taliya had been frightened of being attacked at first, she quickly came to realize that even if they did undress her with their eyes, they wouldn't lay a hand on her unless she welcomed it. She was a guest, woman or not, and not free to claim. This protection extended from Daenerys' status as Khaleesi and her connection to her brother. She did notice that the Dothraki men preferred not to speak to her directly, but supposed that was better than being afraid that she might be attacked.

Usually, if anything did need to be passed along to her, either a slave would deliver the news or they'd talk to Ben. This gave the Stark the opportunity to work on his Dothraki and understand their customs. His original trepidation lightened, conversation became lighter, and a few of the Dothraki men even asked him questions about his own customs and experiences. She knew once or twice (perhaps even more times than that) he'd been asked about their relationship, which always amused her as Ben tried to explain what it was they were, because to the Dothraki, a woman was not a warrior. She had a purpose and that was to birth children and raise them. Taliya was an anomaly, unlike any they'd seen before, and some even doubted she knew how to use the sword that she wore. Their confusion did not bother her, because as 'barbaric' as many claimed the Dothraki were, they'd been cordial until this point. A lot of that had to deal with her own understanding that she wasn't to participate in conversation without being asked a question first, which rarely happened.

That did not mean she did not have opportunities to talk. In fact, while Ben enjoyed learning about the Dothraki, she found herself having to listen to Viserys. Jorah also seemed to be growing as restless as she was when it came to tending the Targaryen prince, pretending that he cared when he had his eyes on the prize: Daenerys. Uncertain if their presence there would make Jorah act sooner on his assassination plans, she kept a sharpened eye on him, but thus far the knight had been a much more admirable companion than Viserys. Mormont women were known to pick up swords and thus, Jorah did not seem disdainful over her own choices in life and treated her as an equal. This actually sort of surprised her and while she made an effort not to let her guard down around him, it was nice to chat with someone else other than Ben on the road.

The Khaleesi took more time to warm to her, but eventually the girl's curiosity got the better of her and Taliya found herself riding beside her Silver on a fine afternoon while Drogo rode ahead with his bloodriders.

"Viserys told me that the Lord of Light sent you to him," Daenerys remarked as they canted forward.

"He did guide us in this direction," Taliya agreed cryptically. "He works in mysterious ways that we can't even begin to fathom. We only take our orders as we are given them."

"And how do you get them?" she continued, giving Taliya a sideways glance.

"Through the flames. We light a fire each night to keep away the darkness. Priests and priestesses sing to call the light back at dawn, but nor I or Ben are priest or priestess. Still, the Lord of Light gives us His messages in the flames, just as He gave us eyes that can interpret His will," Taliya answered as honestly as she could. Most of this was speculation, because the Lord of Light had never been exceptionally honest with either of them.

"I'd never heard of swords of the Lord of Light before my wedding," Daenerys commented.

"As have few others. We are well protected secret," she threw a tiny, but friendly smirk at the girl who seemed to be growing more confident with each passing day.

"Were you always a sword of the Lord of Light?"

"No, not until recently. I grew up in a family that owned a gardening shop actually. In Dorne, bastards are not scorned as they are in the rest of Westeros. But I still wanted to explore and do my own things. I loved seeing new places, exploring the wild... So I joined a sellsword company and I did travel. I spent six years going where the wind took me before returning home to take control of the family shop. My parents passed away in an accident and then the shop, which had been passed down for generations, burned to the ground. I found the Lord of Light shortly after that," Taliya told the tailored version of her history, meant to match up with her current setting more than that of earth.

"You were free to do as you pleased?"

"As are most common folk," Taliya pointed out.

"I envy that. Not having your fate decided for you, to do as you choose," Daenerys breathed loftily.

"Not every person has that opportunity, I was lucky that I had encouraging parents and enough coin to do as I pleased. Others are not as fortunate," Taliya admitted. "Be that they're too poor, uneducated, or just down on luck. I am gracious for everything I've been afforded."

"I've never wanted for much," Daenerys commented. "Material-wise," she corrected, her lips pulling up in a sad smile. "But I've never truly felt free. Viserys has always been looking out for me, making the decisions for us... Listen to me, I sound ungrateful, but here I am as Khaleesi-"

"A cage is still a cage, whether it is gilded in gold and garnets, Khaleesi," Taliya reminded her gently. "I think there are many noble and royal women who feel much the same. There are pros and cons to both origins. I suppose you just must decide which sound preferrable. Often, the grass seems greener on the other side, but I haven't a name to protect me, only my actions and sword. Additionally, in most places, I am still a woman and common born, a bastard at that. I am no one."

"I do not feel as if I am in a cage so much anymore," Daenerys admitted thoughtfully. "It was difficult at first... All of this. Even the riding hurt... but I do not feel that way now. Khal Drogo is... kinder than I thought. He truly cares for me. I do envy you though, you're free to do as you please."

"I am glad to hear that he treats you well," Taliya remarked evenly, aware that this would be the case, but it still felt good to hear it. Daenerys was so young and Khal Drogo dwarfed her like a mouse to an elephant. "But I am not truly free anymore. I serve the Lord of Light."

Daenerys pressed another smile and glanced back amongst the throng of Dothraki that rode in a file through the sea. They were rather far ahead, upon a ridge where the others were slowly beginning to catch up. The days in the saddle might've been difficult for Taliya had she not had the years of riding Balerion beneath her belt. She recalled the sores she had between her legs, the aching thighs from holding on so tight because she feared falling into the sky, but a horse was easy in comparison. She had already earned her calluses and the leathered area on her rump from where she'd grown accustomed to the relentless riding, especially bareback.

However, as both females gazed back toward the group, the pale head of Viserys was falling further and further behind. He was struggling to keep up and Taliya knew it was because he was not used to being pushed this hard. Had she been back on earth, she would've thought horseback riding was easy lest she spent this much time in a saddle. In the heat, beneath the open sun, it was relentless and a workout. The Dothraki grew up in the saddle. Ben had been horseback riding since he was a boy and as a ranger. Jorah had a similar experience in the saddle. Taliya's own experience, though limited by comparison, had been fast tracked by her griffin and riding in the air compared to the ground.

Viserys was used to being brought places or riding very short distances. Discomfort was a word he had not known in the recent years and his softness showed. Daenerys, a girl of 13, rode better than him and with less complaint. Originally, the girl had been a little battered and lethargic, undoubtedly earning her calluses and healing her own saddle sores. Now, she moved on her Silver with ease and displayed more comfort in being around her enormous husband. The shift in attitude wasn't instant, taking place over weeks in which Taliya had not been able to get closer to Daenerys. But now, the girl was comfortable enough with herself and her status to call upon Taliya.

Taliya suspected that it was inquisitiveness at first, the mystery surrounding the sword of the Lord of Light that had piqued the Khaleesi into requesting she ride beside her. Then, as Taliya noticed that the child preferred her company to that of men, she realized that she'd become a manifestation for Daenerys' attention because Taliya was all that the girl wished she could have been, romanticizing the idea that common life was free. She suspected it also dealt with the fact that Taliya was companionable with the Khaleesi, still discreet enough to address her by titles, but with each conversation the walls were lowering and she jested more often, poking fun at the girl as often and carefully that the girl might see her as not only a sworn sword, but a friend or maybe an older sibling that didn't put the fear of awakening the dragon in the girl's heart.

Each Westerosi had their own role. Jorah seemed to be the one who knew the most about the Seven Kingdoms and of her beloved, late brother Rhaegar. He filled her ears with what she wished to hear of her home, but was also honest about how the common folk wished for no war, bountiful harvests, and a summer that never ended.

Ben had earned the respect of the bloodriders, even sparring with a few of them to display his talent with a sword, while he honed his skill in their tongue. Daenerys took notice, often poking fun at Taliya for her partner's handsomeness and prowess. But the relationship that Daenerys had with Taliya did not extend to Ben. She was slightly more formal with him, but seemed to trust him as she trusted Taliya because of their mutual rankings as swords to R'hllor.

Even Khal Drogo started to tolerate Taliya more, his gaze no longer as scathing as he noted the manner in which Daenerys would spend afternoons riding beside her and not once had Taliya given him reason to worry that she was filling the girl's ears with redderict of her religion. Instead, she became another companion and also assisted Jhiqui in teaching Dany Dothraki.

"Is there a rule that you have to be celibate? I mean, you said you were not a priestess," Daenerys commented as they rode through the never ending sea.

"Lord up above, Khaleesi. I think I might drown in the amount of times you've asked me if I have interest in anyone," Taliya whistled, rolling her eyes emphatically. "I'm old and grouchy and there's other things on my mind."

"You are not that old," Daenerys retorted, running her eyes along her.

"How old do you think I am, Khaleesi?" Taliya chuckled.

"That's a dangerous game to play," Daenerys jested, but put a little thought into it. "Perhaps three and twenty, but no older than seven and twenty."

"Try about a decade more than your first guess," Taliya corrected lightly.

"I thought you were old enough to be my sister, not my mother," Daenerys snickered.

Taliya scoffed in mock offense. "I have never been more insulted in my life."

"You might run out of time to start a family at this rate," Daenerys continued impishly.

"Clearly, that's the first priority on my list," she smirked sarcastically. "A woman is not measured on her ability to wean children, but nor should she be scorned if that's the decision she wishes to make."

"I wish that were true, but you and I both know that a woman's ability to have children is most of her importance in this world," Daenerys sighed.

"And that's why I reject that reality and substitute my own. And why I'm ancient and live without a man."

"But you would really never consider Ben? Unless there are rules that you have not mentioned."

"Again, Khaleesi, it is not my priority. Ben and I have an amicable relationship, one that I would not wish to ruin by becoming romantically involved. I consider him a good friend and a trustworthy partner," Taliya insisted, but if truth be told, she did find the man attractive. It was natural to be drawn toward a person she felt comfortable around, especially since they could speak openly and honestly to one another. Still, she was under no guise that the man was task oriented and he had spent many years abhoring relationships with the opposite sex. They were partners, not lovers, and Taliya had done nothing to even encroach on blurring that line, as not to make him feel uncomfortable.

"But, if you ever wished to, you could," Daenerys pointed out. "Because you're free to love as you choose."

Taliya's face nearly betrayed her, the unspoken truth of how Ben was actually noble born and once their plans began to develop, he had substantial claim to House Stark, should Ned and his sons still perish. There would be no fooling herself as to how she'd be received, the scorn she'd meet by playing at the lover to a Stark who had much to inherit and little to gain by having interest in her--a nobody. Perhaps she had freedom, but that freedom did not include being with anyone of import. "I have many things to worry about, Khaleesi. I am not keen to add a man to that list."

"Hm, but you must know what you are missing," Daenerys quipped before kicking off on her Silver. "Stay behind with the others and have them wait for a moment. I'm going to ride ahead."

Taliya's jaw dropped at the girl's insinuation, choking back on a laugh at the little wildling thundered through the wastes and kicked up a cloud of red dust. Even if Daenerys told her to remain behind, she brought her gelding to a trot to cut the severe distance between her and the princess. While there was no one visible on the horizon, it didn't sit well to leave her on her own and she knew that her assigned bloodrider for the day also felt similar. She noticed Jhogo keeping close by as well, his dark eyes set forward to where Daenerys had stormed toward, a silver lance against the field of grass.

The day was nice, not as scathing as it could get, with a nice breeze making the tall grass dance. She suspected that Ben might even find it tolerable, having slowly adjusted to the heat of the Sea when compared to the frigid Wall that he was so accustomed to. A third pair of hooves joined the chorus with her and Jhogo, but when she turned back, she was thankful for the scarves wrapped around her head, as she'd bared a smile thinking that Ben had come to join her.

Instead, Viserys bobbed beside her, his narrowed gaze slipping from her and then to the bloodrider. "Where is my sister?" he asked tartly.

"She has ridden up ahead," Taliya informed him curtly, observing how he leaned in his saddle, not an anxious maneuver, but because he was in pain. Her eyes flitted up, poised toward Jhogo, who also had observed the gesture. "Please wait here, your grace, the Khaleesi is scouting ahead and requested that we wait-"

"My sister has ordered us to stay behind?" the young man's nostrils flared, his lilac eyes widening madly as he threw a haughty glare in her direction. "My sister, the whore to a smelly horselord, demands that I stay behind and wait?"

Taliya drew a gentle breath, controlling her own flaring anger as she tried to gauge Jhogo's reaction. He knew a few words in common as Ben had been speaking to him often, but even if he did not comprehend, he knew the tone of voice and the underlying fury in the blond's voice and that it was insulting. "Your grace, I doubt that the Khaleesi intended it to be a demand," she placated.

Viserys jerked the reins to his horse, erring uncomfortably close toward her, reaching over the horn of his saddle and yanking on one of her many scarves. "I do not need you interpreting my sister's commands, you Dornish cunt," he snarled, spurring his horse off after he'd tugged on one of her headscarves so hard that her head jerked down.

The veil of the silk fell into her face and she cursed beneath her breath, trying to fix her field of view. She had a bit of whiplash from his action, rubbing her neck as her tongue snapped behind her teeth and she snarled. For as fast as Viserys could ride in pain, she could ride faster. He had a head start, but she was vehement, beside herself with wrath that he'd touched her while she'd done nothing but tried to soothe his building vexation.

He arrived before her, Daenerys shoving him away as he spat like a serpent. For all his hissing, he was little more than a snake making futile attempts to breathe fire and not even managing a puff of smoke. His eyes widened at his sister's indignance, her rising confidence to react to his abuse, and as he raised a hand again, Taliya swept down from her saddle and smashed her forearm beneath the prince's jaw, sending him spiralling back a few paces, though he caught himself before he could fall. Her hand flew to the hilt of her sword, threatening to bare the steel if he countered.

"You whore! Do you know what you've done? You serve me. You swore fealty to me! I'll have you killed for this," Viserys snarled, his fair features blazing with crimson as if his skin had been set aflame.

"I recall asking to serve you, but I swore no oaths of fealty. I am no noble, nor am I a knight. However, you have laid hands on an unarmed woman, the Khaleesi at that, and my actions hurt much less than the misery you might've experienced had Jhogo intercepted you instead," Taliya countered vehemently. "Consider it a kindness I've done to you, because Khal Drogo does not care if you are the Khaleesi's brother, especially if you intend to harm her."

"You impudent-" Viserys fumbled, clumsily ripping his sword from the scabbard to point the steel toward her. "I am not just the Khaleesi's brother. I am a king! And a king does as he pleases! I will not be ordered around by the horselord whore or a sand bastard."

"Khaleesi, stay behind me," Taliya warned, brushing her hand back to urge the girl further from the fight.

But her sword never left its scabbard, a hissing snap echoed through the air and Viserys' blade went flying, thumping into the sand as Jhogo's whip coiled around the Targaryen's throat. He fell to the ground, choking on spit as Jhogo glared down at him from upon his steed. "Tat zalat mae driv che thash ha fin mae et nakhaan, Khaleesi?"

"What is he asking?" Daenerys stepped aside to gaze up at Jhogo.

"He is asking whether you wish for your brother to die for his impudence or if you'd prefer he injure him," Taliya translated, feeling no sympathy as the prince recoiled on the ground, his face changing from red to blue and then purple. She hoped a few brain cells died from the lack of oxygen.

"No, tell him to take Viserys' horse and make him walk," Daenerys decided after a moment of contemplation.

A much kinder fate than Taliya would have spared him, but she obeyed the girl's wishes, aware that this was an emasculating punishment. To walk was to be slow, weak, and lesser than most of the khalasar. Even outsiders rode horseback, but slaves did not. Death would be too kind, but this would make Viserys the subject of ridicule, which he was already honing such a niche. Without a horse, his fate would be sealed.

Answering Jhogo, the bloodrider nodded, loosening the whip so that Viserys could suck air in greedily.

Ben and Jorah had joined them on the rise, uncertain of what had just happened, but having heard Daenerys’ decision. Viserys scrabbled on the ground, wild eyes turning toward Jorah and then her partner. "K-kill her! Kill the sand bitch and the Dothraki too. I am a king and I will not stand being disintegrated like this-"

Neither man made a move toward their swords, eying Taliya before settling on Daenerys questioningly. Even if they'd considered obeying, what would that get them? They would be surrounded by enemies.

"Khaleesi?" Jorah entreated to the astonishment of Viserys. "He should walk."

Jhogo corralled Viserys away who spat venomously, leaving his sword behind as he was forced away. It would seem the threat of more pain was a good enough ward against his intention to do it again.

Her blood was still pounding, her ears thundering with the noise as she realized Daenerys could turn on her for lifting a hand against her brother. Lord, that had been a foolish mistake, but her fury had ignited as if the R'hllor Himself was in her. Even if she was just a girl, she had the power of her husband's 40,000 riders behind her. Swallowing hard, Taliya turned to look at her.

Daenerys was barefoot and contemplative, turning away to return to where she'd been gazing over the crest and down below at the expansive horizon. Her fingers left her hilt and she approached tentatively.

"I'm surprised I fought back," Daenerys muttered, making no mention of what Taliya had done just yet.

"He had no right to put hands on you. Not now, nor before," Taliya replied crisply.

Daenerys scoffed lightly. "I am not an amazing warrior like you, Tali. I have never had the opportunity to defend myself until this point," she sighed, shaking her head, tendrils of starlight blowing in the gentle wind. "Why did you defend me? You pledged your sword to my brother."

She stiffened and considered her answer. "I could not stand by and let him hurt you. To tell the truth, Khaleesi, my partner and I came here in search of Azor Ahai. We thought it might be your brother, but with the passing weeks, I doubt that and am beginning to believe our prince that was promised is a princess," this was not the entire truth, but the one that her and Ben agreed to cite when they changed allegiances. "And as I told him, I never took an oath, I simply asked to work in his service. However, I would take an oath for someone I believed in."

Daenerys flitted intelligent eyes up toward her, the corner of her mouth quirking, but not flipping up. "Remind me to keep account on any promises you make, it seems you're clever in finding loopholes," the girl mused. "Do you think I woke the dragon in Viserys?"

"The dragon?" she snorted, not hiding her indignance. "Cariña, he is a tiny, hissing snake without an ounce of venom." (Darling)

"But he is the rightful king. You understand this even if you are not of noble birth," Daenerys countered.

"Tell me, would you like to see him as king? Can you see him as king?"

"It does not matter what I think. The common people have been praying for his return, to be free of the Usurper," the girl raved, unconvinced, but repeating the words she'd been told so many times before like a parrot.

"With some experience as a commoner myself, I can tell you that they do no care who sits upon the throne so long as they are safe, healthy, and not caught between the wars of nobles. Peasants are often the ones forgotten and amongst the innumerable casualties when blue bloods wage battles with each other. They are not waiting for Viserys," Taliya assured her.

A blanket of silence threatened to smother them and she wondered if she had overstepped her boundaries again. Finally, "I always knew Viserys would never succeed in taking the Seven Kingdoms. I have always known deep in my heart, for a very long time. He could not lead an army, even if my husband gave him one," Daenerys declared insightfully. "Tell me, Tali, would an oath still stop you from betraying someone?"

"An oath is an oath, Khaleesi. I would not make one lightly," or make one at all if that pigeonholed her into one path and on path only. However, surrounded by the Dothraki, she was beginning to wonder if she'd ever had the choice, especially after what she'd done that day.

[kewltie]

Izuku is eight when he learns the finer point of politic at his parents' hand and the word ‘betrothal’ is thrown inconsequentially around like his future hadn't been decided by a single word; intertwined with a boy he hasn't even met yet.

"Be strong, dearest," his mother tells him.

He accepts his inevitable fate with a solemn nod and turns to look beyond the horizon toward the north where the winters are said to be harsh, the lands are barren and rough, and the people are as cold and cruel as the bleak landscape that they had made home out of. One day it will also be Izuku’s.

Two years later, he meets the boy who would be king; his future husband.

With eyes burning a fierce red, clashing against the mute color of his thick wool coat, Katsuki of House Bakugou shoves Izuku to the floor. "Don't be such a baby," he says with a sneer. "I will not have my consort be a pathetic sniveling little brat."

Izuku's breath goes still as his stomach twists uncomfortably. "I," he blinks back another set of tears, "I'll be better from now on, Your Highness." A was supposed to be a little roughhousing, a game between boys, but Izuku had never lifted a blade in his life and there are scars littered across Katsuki’s chest.

A grim silence settles heavy between them until Katsuki says, "Cry if you must, but don't ever do it in front of anyone but me. You will be mine one day and I will accept all your weakness. Even your tears."

He extends a hand out toward Izuku. Doesn't reach out and force Izuku to take it. That's when Izuku knows while love doesn't bloom easily between them, this is a start.

It's their story to write.

Izuku leaves his homeland at fifteen and heads north to the mountains where he'll to be wed before the summer's light end. The cold doesn't hit him right away, but it slowly sinks into his lungs until every breath he takes a tendril of chills against his chest.

It's unbearably frigid.

The nights are long and hard in the north, and all that Izuku can see is covered in white. It's snow, he'd read about it once tucked up his bed. Something as delicate and utterly beautiful as that can only survived in this brutishly cold condition. How strange, he muses.

It's something he wouldn't ever experience in the evergreen of Maedorii, where it's humid and wet like summer has never left. It's nothing like here. "How do your people live like this?" he grumbles to Katsuki as they push their way through a foot of snow and harsh biting wind with their caravan.

It's several more miles still before they make it to Frostmountain, the heartland of the northern passage, but Izuku already feels like a walking block of frozen over ice. It makes him feel so helpless and weak when the rest of the Northerners are barely fazed by the harsh conditions.

"We don't." Katsuki snorts, riding beside him. "We survive and we thrive." He pauses and turns toward Izuku. "They will be your people too," he points out. "And you too will learn to survive and thrive like us."

He spoke with such an unshattered certainty that when Izuku's breath is stolen again, it's not from the cold this time around but it is Katsuki’s words that had left him breathless.

When they finally arrived at Frostmountain, a fortress of unsurprising large stature and presence that easily looms menacingly over them, Izuku finds the Northerners look upon his strange green hair and the freckles that dotted across his skin with curious but unwelcoming eyes.

Izuku pulls to a stop at the iron gate of the castle, his feet unwilling to move another step. Ahead of him, Katsuki also stop dead when he notice Izuku wasn't there next to him anymore. He looks back with a frown and Izuku shakes his head. He sighs and walks back toward him.

Without a word, he takes Izuku's hand in his and squeezes it firmly as Izuku's breath hitches at the touch, before dragging him through the entrance.

"I can walk," he snaps with flushed cheeks. This is so unsightly to be drag along like a disobedient child. "Please unhand me, Your Highness."

"Will you." Katsuki's feet halts just as crowd titters on with curious interest at the theatrical scene they must have made, but he hasn't let go of Izuku's hand.

Izuku blinks at the hanging question. "Yes?"

"Stand with me," he grunts out. "We can do this together or I can do it alone. Your choice."

Izuku's gaze drops to their held hand, the grip is tight but he knows if he wanted to he can break it. Katsuki has always given him that choice since he'd offered his hand out to Izuku five years ago. Take it or leave it. It would always be his to decide.

In the years since they'd met, Izuku learned that while Katsuki is neither a gentle or humble man, but he’s ambitious and honor bound; he won't break Izuku to make him bend to his will. It's unfair that he hasn't made any promise, but the walls surrounding Izuku's heart is already starting to crack under the weight of Katsuki’s conviction.

Izuku bites down on his lips, quelling the anxiety that had twisted itself into a knot in his chest, and nods his head. Nearly went unseen, Katsuki releases a small exhale of relief that draws Izuku's attention to him.

So Izuku wasn't the only one shaken after all. That's comforting to know.

It's easy to forget that they're both only fifteen years old and neither had signed up for this marriage that had made Izuku depart from the only home he'd ever known and for Katsuki to take in a stranger from a foreign land to his bed who share none of his people's customs and history.

They're children playing in a game of politics meant for adults and even then no one should have their fate played like that, but all children grow up one day. That means Katsuki will become king one day and Izuku is to stand by his side to support him. Will stand by his side until his dying breath. It is his duty as his husband.

They may not have chosen this marriage, but this is what they have decided now. Each other. Neither had ever spoken up about their unavoidable situation, because they're young and dumb. A relationship is already hard enough as adults, let alone two young men who had zero experience in it before each other.

But what couldn't be put into many clumsy words, they had let it translate through other ways. Katsuki made an effort to visit him every summer since they’d first met and he brought with him several books - a bestiary and herbology tome of the North. Izuku had dutifully read each and every one of them, treating them like sacred knowledge.

There were no big gestures and sweeping romance between them; Izuku wasn't wooed and Katsuki didn't pursue him. They are both a guarantee thing for each other even if their feelings didn't carried any weight. Yet. But Katsuki had extended a hand out and Izuku had gingerly taken it.,That was enough for both of them.

So Izuku lets Katsuki's lead him into the castle and he tries to put on his warmest smile for Katsuki's, no, their people. It spreads across his face a little uneasy, but it feels true. Feels right at this moment. It'll be okay. He has Katsuki after all. Katsuki won’t let him mess up.

Eleven days later Izuku got married in a sweeping red, his braids pinned up in the style of the north, and wore a crown made of the hardest metal mined in the northern mountains. He left the Southern Lands as Izuku of House Midoriya, but now he steps toward Katsuki as one of his own.

Three years after he'd discarded his past and stepped toward his future, the South comes roaring back into his life and brought the threat of war to the foot of Frostmountain. Katsuki is the king to be, but his parents were there before him. This wasn't to be his fight yet.

If Katsuki’s parents had their way there would be no war in the foreseeable future, so Queen Mitsuki and her consort travels to the Southern Lands to resolve the border dispute with the promise to return in two months’ time when everything is concluded; they never came back.

There wasn't even a body sent back for them to properly mourn and bury. Not that they have time for that either because Katsuki is proclaimed High King of the North in a solemn coronation five days later after the news of his parents' death. Izuku stands beside him the entire time.

Katsuki didn't allow himself to even grief properly as he mobilizes his troops and the other lords of the other Houses of the North. But in the darkness of their bedroom, he breaks down in front of Izuku and Izuku takes his grief and bears all of his sorrow and hurt.

This is his privilege alone. Nobody else can see their king fall apart like this.

Izuku doesn't tell him that everything will be alright, because it won't be. War had finally come to them and there are always casualties in war, even for winners. They can only mitigate it.

"Three days from now we'll march south," Katsuki tells him, curling his arms tighter around Izuku. "You'll stay here."

His hand stills where it was stroking Katsuki's hair earlier. "I want to go with you," he insists. The thought of Katsuki going anywhere alone petrified him.

They'd already lost Katsuki's parents to the South and now Katsuki will advance to the heart of it in order crush it, but that itself may be a futile effort. The North is a frozen fortress, but their people are few and sparse. They're easily outnumbered by the North’s wealth and armies.

There always been conflict on this continent. The south, with the highest density of population and the most advance technology, is always on cusps of invading them, while the South, a monument to the old ways, remains resilience against such threat. The Northerners are free spirit and independent people and they do not bow to the Southern's might.

But greed continues to pushed the Southerners to turn their eyes North for the abundance of mines and untamed territories. Izuku, the son of the Keeper of the Hand of the Southern Lands, was married to only son of the High King of the North was meant to keep that hunger at bay in this lifetime but their desire could not be extinguished.

They continue to yearn for the rich resources and vastness of the north, but the people here are hardy and unbending as the mountains they had settled on. They kneel to no king but their own; they'll have no other but Katsuki. Izuku will have no other but Katsuki.

"No, you can’t come with me. Who else will protect this land when I'm gone?" He lifts his head toward Izuku, his familiar hand reaching toward Izuku's face to caress it. "I'll be back though," his vows adamantly to Izuku. "So make sure there is place for me to come back to."

Izuku nods somberly and leans into Katsuki's touch, lips kissing callous palm that had never shy from hardship. "Write to me every week at least," he requests. "If I can't be with you then I don't want to you suffer alone. Tell me about your troubles and burdens. Let me bear it too. Promise me,” he urges. It's Izuku's only selfish request.

Katsuki stares at him, eyes heated with a hunger that is deep seeded, and Izuku lets himself be swallow up as he drags Izuku down for a kiss that scorched him to the bones. "I promise. I fucking promise you this," he answers.

Three days later, Katsuki is set to leave with his soldiers as he'd said. Izuku gives him one last kiss goodbye before he departs to the southern lands.  "I’ll find my way back to you,” Katsuki says, eyes burning with determination that could have move the entire world. “So wait for me.”

 “I will,” Izuku answers him urgently like he couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “I will.”

It may be the last time some of them will ever see their loved ones again but, for Izuku, he has no doubt Katsuki will keep his words.He will come back to Izuku. Tomorrow. Weeks. Months. Even years and Izuku will still wait for him.

With a burning hope in his heart, every week he waits in one of the castle’s courtyard for large eagle owl to land, bringing with him Katsuki’s letters just as he'd promised. It's never long or full of sentiments, but it offers Izuku immense comfort and relief. He’s alright.

He rereads each letter by candlelight every night before sleep, carefully combing over each word like he can find traces of his husband in them. It keeps his hope alight until one day, a year into this bloody war, Katsuki's letters abruptly stop.

Izuku won't find out the reason till several weeks later when a messenger brought news of the legion Katsuki was leading had been wiped out in Khro and he'd disappeared – declared missing, because they couldn't locate his body. Missing is a kinder word than dead, but it might as well hold the same weight.

Now, the only thing holding the tattered remains of the north together is Izuku. He doesn't cry then. Instead he calls upon his advisors and make provisions and plans for a war he's about to wage. The South was his home for fifteen years, but now it had gutted his heart and made an enemy out of him; Izuku will take no prisoner.

Only when Izuku manages to relieve himself from a tense meeting with his war council that he locked himself in his, their, bedchamber and lets the tears fall. He'd promised Katsuki that he'll only cry in front of him and this is promise he'll keep, curling in their bed and holding out for the ghost of Katsuki that he can't seem let go of.

That night he’d cried all night long but by the next morning his eyes are dried, never letting his people know the truth of his grief. There's a war to win and an entire northern territory to save, because there must be a place for Katsuki return to one day. Katsuki is alive, Izuku believes, because Katsuki won't ever break his promise to him and it is that promise that keeps him going.

[creative-type]

Commiseration

Robin didn’t talk much about her mother. Strangely enough, neither did Usopp

Rating: Gen Word Count: 3100 AO3

Robin didn’t recognize the silence at first. She had been engrossed in a book, a history of the West Blue that predated the Buster Call that she’d been trying to get her hands on for years. There was nothing between the covers that she hadn’t read before. The history of an entire sea was too broad a topic to go into too much depth on any one subject, but it wrote of Ohara and the library that rested there, and it did so without calling the scholars of the Tree of Knowledge demons or monsters or traitors of their chosen field. Newer editions of the same book had been sterilized by the World Government, passages that lovingly described the verdant branches of the great library scrubbed from the public consciousness as if it never existed.

Of course, a book of history would love the historian’s holy land, and Robin remembered reading this very tome from within those hallowed grounds. The memory was a balm for the ache she still felt when she thought of Ohara, the familiar words a warm summer breeze against her soul.

But then, there was quiet.

It was the sort of quiet that became its own sound, unfamiliar and unwelcome in a crew as boisterous as hers. As was her habit, Robin had her ears spread throughout the Thousand Sunny . There was a time she had been forced to listen for the first sounds of betrayal, but those days were long past. The lesson borne out of paranoia evolved to serve a more benevolent purpose.

Robin marked her place and peered across the deck. Luffy was sitting crosslegged at the ship’s prow, a monkey atop the head of a lion. He was in one of his rare contemplative moods, gazing out at the sea with eyes lit with a childlike wonder. Sometimes Robin he saw that excited him so.

But even now he was not still. Luffy never was, not even in sleep. He hummed a rather out of tune rendition of Bink’s Sake, slapping his sandals together as he kept time. He was not the source of the quiet, and so Robin stood, stretching in a long, catlike motion and wandered to the woman’s quarters.

Robin spread her eyes as she walked. Sanji was cooking, Zoro keeping watch while he lifted weights. Brook was on fishing duty with Chopper by order of Nami, after an ill-considered dare led him to breaking the glass of the aquarium with his voice alone. Franky had, of course, replaced it posthaste, but was in the bowels of the ship drafting a new design that was resistant to sound as well as any damage that might be caused by any future roughhousing.

None of them caused the disquiet that Robin felt in her bones. She dropped her book off in her bedroom, exchanging brief pleasantries with Nami and inquiring how her researched fared as she planned their course ahead.

“I’m still not sure how we’re going to get to Fishman Island,” Nami admitted. She took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes with her forefinger and thumb. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

Robin’s smile seemed to reassure her some, and she let Nami return to her books. Her apprehension, while noteworthy, was not the source of the silence that roused Robin from her reading, which left one final destination.

She found Usopp at the workbench of his designated tinkering room. Surprisingly, it was cleared of tools and the odds and ends he used while inventing. Instead he had the day’s paper spread out flat, staring intently without seeming to actually read .

Robin couldn’t think of a time she had seen him worry over the news. She could count on one hand the time she’d seen him with a paper at all. Like most of the crew, he was content to let his knowledge of the outside world filter through Nami, trusting her to share with the crew anything that was important enough for them to know.

He was tense, singularly focused on the words that lay in front of him. All the boisterous enthusiasm, the bravado -- both warranted and not -- had left him, leaving Usopp looking strangely small. His bluff and bluster usually puffed him two sizes bigger than he actually was, but now all Robin could see was his knobby elbows and the round youthfulness that remained in his face.

Usopp seemed...young. Unsure of himself in a way he rarely let others see, but often felt. Robin was suddenly aware that he had sequestered himself away on purpose, taking the news that distressed him so much to the one space on the ship that was well and truly his.

Robin lingered in the doorway for a moment, uncharacteristically unsure of herself. It was difficult while out at sea to find a place to be alone with one’s thoughts. Not every bout of quietness required direct intervention. Not every secret needed pried loose.

This, too, was a difficult concept that Robin was just starting to wrap her mind around. She had spent her life searching for hidden things. There were no efforts she wouldn’t go to in order to find the truth, no matter how painful or personal. Secrets were powerful, just as capable of destroying a person as a knife or a gun. Robin collected secrets like some did bottle caps, and had learned as a young girl to jealously guard her own lest they be used against her.

The Straw Hat Pirates deserved the same privacy they had afforded her. And besides, Nami was not the only member of the crew who read the paper, and Robin had a strong inkling as to what was bothering their sharpshooter so badly.

Robin was about to slip away unnoticed when something within Usopp shifted. He stared at the black and white print so long he saw red, and making a sound that was half-curse, half-noise of impotent frustration he crumpled the paper into a ball and hurled it across the room. Usopp spun sharply away from the table, as if he was about to storm from the room, bringing himself face to face with Robin.

All the color drained from his face and settled in his ears, which burned with embarrassment. He sputtered half a dozen excuses and apologies before Robin held up a hand to silence him.

“It’s okay. I was just passing by and wondered if you wanted me to fetch you a drink. I believe Sanji was working on a new concoction using some of the jackfruit we found on the last island.”

It was ironic that he couldn’t tell that she was lying. Usopp let out a rush of breath that he’d been holding, shoulders drooping like a flower in the desert sun. “No, I’m fine. Thanks for asking, though.”

His fingers became restless, fidgeting and twitching with the need to be working on something, anything , to distract from the fact that he was very much not fine. Robin waited as he pulled supplies from the cubby holes Franky installed in the walls: his chemistry set, a few sheets of scrap metal, a long-handled wrench. Nothing that could be used effectively in conjunction with each other, a sign that his mind was still preoccupied.

And truly, Robin would have been content to let the matter drop, but she knew at that moment that he did not want to be alone. She had long-since memorized his tells, the little shifts of insecurity and nerves that went beyond his usual theatrics, the quiver of his lips as he tried to speak but couldn’t find the words.

She slid into the seat next to him and waited. If there was one thing she knew about Usopp, it was that he could not be kept speechless for long.

“It’s stupid,” Usopp muttered. He bent so low his long nose nearly touched the table, clasping his hands around the back of his neck, his nails digging into skin and leaving white streaks that filled in red.

“How do you mean?” Robin asked.

“It’s just...I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Everything was fine the way it was, and now...I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

Only this time the tone he used for the word it’s made it sound as if he’d meant I’m. Robin conjured a line of hands to retrieve the crumpled up paper and smoothed it out on the table. The headline was about a recent marine skirmish with Red Hair Shanks, and some intrepid soul had managed to catch a snapshot of the battle itself.

Beside the Emperor was a tall man with dark skin, dreadlocks hanging to his shoulders and a gun in each hand. A tattoo was partially visible below a billowing and rather tacky cloak with the letters Yas clearly legible.

Even without it, the man would have been unmistakable. His grin was identical to his son’s after a particularly good shot: cocksure, almost arrogant. But justifiably so, if the rumors of his sharpshooting prowess were to be believed.

“I wanna see him so bad it hurts,” Usopp said miserably. “So why am I so mad?”

Robin folded the paper into neat fourths and set it aside. She knew enough about Usopp’s past to understand what he was saying, having pieced together the snippets and stories he’d shared during their travels. Some of them may even have been true, but even if they weren’t it was evident that Usopp worshiped his father. Held him as a picture of an ideal pirate, one that chased his dreams on the open sea.

Even if that meant leaving his family behind.

There were other details that were less clear. Usopp spoke less frequently about his mother, but always warmly and with great fondness. The rest of the crew made it seem as if he had been living alone when they found him at Syrup Village, a boy of seventeen by himself in an empty house. Robin could guess what had happened, but she didn’t know for sure. Whatever the case, there was no mistaking the hurt on Usopp’s face now, and the anger he used to defend himself from it. Grief and loss commingling with confusion and helplessness into one wretched expression.

Robin knew, because she had experienced it herself. She could read all the histories she wanted about Ohara that venerated the ground that it sat on, but without the buffeting layers of nostalgia, the truth became much more complicated. Her few happy memories with the archeologists were like a scab protecting a bleeding wound, and once peeled away all that remained was a lifetime of pain and misery.

“There is nothing wrong with being angry,” Robin said. “And there is nothing wrong with admiring him.”

“But those two things don’t fit together,” Usopp protested.

“I know.”

Robin hadn’t meant the words to come out as bitterly as they did, leaving the sour taste of regret in her mouth. Usopp looked at her, eyebrows knitting together in an unspoken question.

It was her turn to go silent. Robin had not spoken about her mother in anything but the broadest terms, preferring not to think of her if she could help it. Twenty years had passed, and the contradiction did not get any easier to untangle, the knot of repressed feeling, confusion, and resentment growing only larger over time.

But Usopp waited for her to speak, and Robin realized suddenly that if there was anyone on this ship who could understand, it was him. The revelation startled something loose, the one final push to break down one of her oldest and strongest walls.

“My mother left Ohara when I was young to study the poneglyphs,” Robin said. She propped her hand under her chin and looked at the opposite wall, studying the grain in the wood to distract from the surprise on Usopp’s face. “My father passed away before I was born, and my only relatives were my mother’s brother and his wife. They had a girl about my age, my only cousin. And they hated me, or at least my aunt did. The rest followed suit.”

Robin blinked to clear her vision, which had gone unexpectedly misty. She had forgotten the truth of her words until she was forced to say them aloud, locking the memories of home into some deep corner of her soul and throwing away the key. Now they rushed back and pressed against the corners of her skull, demanding to be remembered. For the truth to be told, instead of the sweet falsehood that was so much easier to bear.

“She’s the reason I became an archeologist,” Robin admitted. “I thought that if I did she would take me out to sea. I met her, once. The day Ohara burned. She told me she was proud of what I accomplished and sent me out alone. She died with the rest of the scholars trying to save the library.”

A lost cause, Robin knew. Had always known. Ohara had been doomed the moment the World Government pressed the golden den-den mushi. And still her mother stayed.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have made a difference, but Robin had always wondered what her life would have been like if she hadn’t. If anything would have changed if Robin had one person who she could trust and depend on instead of spending twenty years struggling to keep her head above water in a sea of loneliness and isolation.

“Why?” Usopp asked.

“I wish I knew,” Robin said. “She said I would understand someday, but it hasn’t come yet.”

It occurred to Robin then that she was doing a very poor job, sharing her own woes instead comforting Usopp. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly through her nose before turning back to look at him properly. It was difficult to find a smile for him, but she managed. The caustic aftertaste of her own bitterness twisted it into something less than genuine.

“I’ve worshiped my mother and cursed her name, sometimes in the same breath. I’ve hated her, and loved her, and wanted her, and wished I never knew her all at once. I’ve dreamed of seeing her and wanted nothing more than to hurt her beyond the grave. It’s not logical, and there was a time when it almost consumed me.” Robin paused, more memories of an angry and self-destructive adolesce causing an involuntary shudder down her spine.

Really, it was a wonder she was still alive at all. There had been nothing left after the rage burnt itself out, the pressing need of her own survival giving her little time to nurse the hurt into a wrath that could sustain itself. Bit by bit the weight of life had pressed against her, smothering what little hope she had left and leaving a bleak wasteland that made Robin want to curl up and die.

After all, she’d twice been abandoned by her own mother. Who would want a monster as unlovable as that?

“I just don’t understand why he never came back,” Usopp said after the silence went on a beat too long to be considered comfortable. “Or write, or something. Was he trying to protect us?”

He looked down at his hands, calluses and fine white scars crisscrossing into a map that laid out the path of his adventures. He clenched them into fists, the strain pulling the tendons taunt against his knuckles.

“Did he forget about us? Does he know what happened to Mom? Does he even care ?”

Usopp kicked at the leg of the table, then yelped when he succeeded in stubbing his toe. His eyes shone with unshed tears, and he wiped them away with the back of his hand. Robin knew the physical pain wasn’t their source.

“I don’t know,” Robin said. The blunt truth startled another yelp out of him, and Usopp looked up at her with his jaw slack and an unguarded look of terror in his eyes. Robin felt her expression soften, and she reached out to lay her hand over his.

It had been a long time since her touch could offer comfort instead of destruction. The simple act of holding his hand brought back more memories, one that was neither the tearing pain of her miserable childhood nor the false nostalgia that she’d hidden behind for so long. It was a healing sort of hurt, powerful in its simplicity, and Robin gave a soft, reassuring squeeze.

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.

“What I do know is that your father is still alive,” Robin said gently, “and when the right time comes I believe that you will have the courage to face him.” She paused, one last silence in a day that had been full of them.

“And...you don’t have to follow his path. No matter how similar you are, no matter how much of him rests in your heart, you are not your father.”

Robin thought back to that last meeting with her mother. She had been honest when she said she didn’t understand why she had stayed behind. Her mother had chosen her dream over the people she loved. Despite Robin’s best efforts to convince herself otherwise, as time passed and she became, if not unbiased, then more openminded, it became clear that her mother had loved her very, very much.

He mother said that Robin would someday understand, and when faced with the same impossible choice Robin thought she finally would. Had her mother been at Water 7 Robin had no doubt that she would have chosen her own survival over the life of the Straw Hat Pirates. After all, that’s what she had done at Ohara.

But Robin couldn’t. Twenty years later, and she was still no closer to understanding. She made her peace with that. She had to, or the contradiction would have torn her in two.

Usopp broke through her ruminations with a hug that threatened to crush her. Robin sprouted arms to keep her chair from tipping, then returned the embrace, digging her fingers into the rough fabric of his coveralls as if he’d disappear if she didn’t hold on with all her strength.

“Thanks, Robin,” he said, his voice muffled and wet.

Robin smiled, not caring when a tear slipped down her cheek. She had no answer, safe to tighten her hold, the silence holding more understanding than words ever could

[pikapeppa]

Fenris/f!Hawke pirate smut: Hands

Chapter 23 of @schoute‘s and my beloved pirate AU Where The Winds Of Fortune Take Me is up on AO3! Read it here.  It was actually up on Friday but I went away and didn’t have time to post it and I just got home and CAN I STAY HOME FROM WORK TOMORROW PLEASE I’m so fucking tired~

In which... well, the title is relatively self-explanatory. And because I’m still sobbing over it, some beautiful gift art for the previous chapter from the insanely talented @lethendralis-paints!

!- FENRIS - 

Fenris lay on his bed gazing up at the ceiling in a happy daze. His entire body still felt like it was buzzing from his and Hawke’s long meandering conversation on the forecastle deck this afternoon. 

They’d shared little bittersweet stories of their childhoods, and Fenris marveled at the strangeness of being able to share those stories at all, now that Hawke knew his past. She flirted outrageously with him, which he was able to finally enjoy without reservation, and when Fenris flirted back, her delighted laughter was the most thrilling reward. She prodded him to talk about his favourite places that he’d travelled with Piper, and her questions were incessant as always. But for the first time since they’d met, he was able to fully answer them. 

He could look at her beautiful face and he could openly admire her bright and brilliant smile, because he had nothing left to hide. Hawke had seen the worst of his past, and she wanted to be with him anyway.

Somehow, despite his attempts to push her away and his undeserved coldness, Hawke loved him. And Fenris wanted nothing more than to be wrapped in her arms again. 

Unfortunately, Anders had returned to the ship with an armful of new medical tomes and had called Hawke away to look at some blasted thing or another. Fenris forced himself to let her go, and he’d busied himself as best he could by cleaning and sharpening the Lady Luck’s store of weapons. But the afternoon had gradually melted into evening, and it had been hours now since Anders had pulled Hawke away… 

Fenris pushed aside his frustration. He was too thrilled about the turn this day had taken to be truly annoyed. He settled his head more comfortably on his pillow and closed his eyes.

The weight of Hawke’s slender body resting over his hips and her affectionate arms around his shoulders… he couldn’t decide whether he preferred that breathtaking embrace, or the careful stroke of her fingers over his scarred and spoiled skin. For weeks he’d imagined the feeling of her hands on his skin, but the fantasies were always tainted by shame at the thought of being seen. Ah yes, shame: that vicious but well-earned byproduct of the disgust in the mineworkers’ eyes when he was forced to punish them. 

But Hawke never looked at him with disgust. From the first time they’d spoken in the market in Kirkwall, the look in her eyes had been nothing short of enthusiastic. No, even before that: that time when they’d spotted each other while she was standing on the steps of Lowtown, before they ever even spoke. Her smile was mischief and heat and openness, and never even a hint of disgust. 

He wanted her to look at him that way again. Kaffas, he wanted her to touch him again with tenderness like she had this afternoon. No, not just with tenderness, but with urgency like she had when he’d pinned her to the floor and kissed her, right here in his cabin…

A wriggle of warmth twisted in his belly. He shifted restlessly on his bed, then rolled onto his unwounded side. 

He wanted to see her. Surely she was finished studying with Anders by now. And even if she wasn’t, it wouldn’t be strange for him to go and find out what she was up to. He’d interrupted their sessions before, after all. 

But the thought of going to her… Even after everything that had been said, even with everything laid bare between them, there was still a small and visceral part of his heart that balked at the thought of making his feelings so plain, and for the second time in one day. Perhaps these nerves were to be expected after spending the past few years so profoundly alone, but it didn’t make it any less frustrating.

Fenris rolled onto his back again and stared at the ceiling for a minute longer. Then he pushed himself upright and slid off of the bed. But before he could pull on his tunic, there was a knock at the door. 

Hawke? His heart lodged itself in his throat. He hoped it was Hawke. She was the only person he wanted to see right now. 

He strode over to the door and cracked it open, then threw it wide. Hawke was standing at the threshold, and as soon as she laid eyes on him, her face lit up with a grin. 

“Well well, what’s this?” she purred. Her gaze slid slowly over his bandaged chest. “Were you waiting all lovely and half-naked just for me?”

“Perhaps I was,” he said. He stepped back to let her in.

To his amusement, she blushed. She laughed and fanned herself playfully as she stepped into his room. “Well, that’s a treat I won’t turn down,” she said. 

Fenris gave her a half-smile. She was moving around his room in a slow and aimless manner, and when she paused near his rumpled bed, his heart flipped with excitement.

And perhaps a little anxiety. 

She nibbled her lower lip, and Fenris swallowed as the silence between them started to grow heavy. Then she turned to face him. 

His breath stopped for a moment. Her clear coppery eyes were hot with intent, but her next words were very innocuous. 

“Are you hungry? Did you eat anything?” she asked.

Slightly nonplussed, he shook his head. “Are you?”

She shook her head as well. “I had something with Anders. But I’ll come to the galley with you if you want–” 

“I’m not hungry,” he assured her. The buzzing feeling deep in his abdomen was definitely not hunger, at least not of the kind she meant. 

She nodded and nibbled her lip, and Fenris returned her stare in silence. She was standing near his bed, and he was standing near the door, and the gap between them seemed so incredibly enormous, and he wanted nothing more than to cross it. But he felt somehow frozen in place, paralyzed by the terrifying and delicious want that was humming through his limbs more strongly with every beat of his heart… 

He took a step toward her. Then another. Then he was standing in front of her, and her chin was tilted up and her palms were resting lightly on his bandaged abdomen, and her lush raspberry lips were parting–

“Fenris, I don’t think we should, um, make love tonight,” she blurted.

He blinked, and her pinkened cheeks flamed red. “If that’s even what you were thinking, I mean,” she babbled. “That is, I hope you were thinking the same thing as me. I swear half the time when I think about you it’s to think about ripping your clothes off, but I don’t think we should tonight because you’re wounded and I don’t want to hurt you by accident…”

A little squiggle of disappointment and relief made its way through his belly. Perhaps she was right. It would be moving a little fast if they had sex tonight. Even if it would mean bringing his fondest and most intimidating fantasies to life. 

He took a reluctant step away from her. “A wise thought,” he said softly. “There’s no need to rush.” 

She blew out a breath. “Speak for yourself. I’ve been wanting to throw myself at you since I set foot on this ship.” 

Fenris huffed out a quiet laugh. “Would you believe it if I said I felt the same?”

Her eyes and her smile widened. “No, actually,” she said. “I’d believe you if you said you wanted to throw me off the ship the second I set foot on it.”

He winced. She was joking, but her words still struck a little too true. 

He ran a hand through his hair. “Hawke, I… I’m sorry. I have not been kind–”

She grabbed his hand in both of hers. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Maker’s balls, I’m just…” She squeezed his hand and beamed at him. “Honestly, I’m just so happy that you like me. I still feel like I should be pinching myself in case this is a dream.”

Fenris swallowed hard. It felt paltry to say he simply liked her. He meant it when he said he felt the same as Hawke. She claimed never to have felt this way about anyone else; Fenris too had never known anyone who made him feel such a deep and giddy fondness, not even in the occasional dalliances of his youth. 

He loved Hawke. It might only have been just over a month that they’d been on the ship together, but he loved her just the same. But he’d also never confessed those words to anyone before: certainly not to any lover, and not to his mother nor to Varania, not that he could recall. 

But he wanted to tell Hawke. He wanted to return the words she’d said to him, those words that meant so much. But in that guarded and cowardly part of his heart, he was still too afraid. 

He twined his fingers with hers and admired the contrast of her pale golden skin with his darker complexion. When he lifted his eyes to her face again, she was smiling hopefully. 

“Can we lie on your bed?” she asked. “Or is that too bold to ask?”

He nodded, and Hawke smiled more broadly before releasing his hand and crawling onto his bed. 

Fenris slowly sat on the edge of the bed, then laid on his back with his hands resting on his belly just as he usually did. Beside him, Hawke rolled onto her side to face him and tucked one arm beneath her head. 

His heart started to thrum a joyful beat in his chest, laced with just a hint of nerves. He’d never shared a bed with anyone before. When he first became the master-at-arms and moved into this cabin, even having a bed that was large enough for two felt like a needless luxury. To think he now had someone who wanted him, someone who loved him and wanted to share this bed with him… 

He swallowed the lump in his throat. Then Hawke spoke in a soft voice. “Fenris, can I ask you something?”

He turned his head to look at her, and was surprised to find her looking quite serious. “What is it?” he said quietly. 

“How did you leave Minrathous?” she asked. “Varania escaped by winning over a merchant. How did you escape?”

He released a slow sigh and looked up at the ceiling once more. “I didn’t escape right away,” he admitted. “I remained under Danarius’s thumb for nearly a year after Varania left.”

“Why?” she asked softly.

“It didn’t occur to me to leave,” he said. “I… had forgotten what it meant to be free.” He sighed again, then looked at her. “You have not been a slave, Hawke. A slave does not dream of freedom or wonder at possibilities. I thought only of keeping Danarius happy in order to keep my sister safe.”

Her expression was serious and sympathetic, but somehow her sympathy didn’t grate at him the way it did before. Then she reached for his wrist. 

He glanced down. Her hand was sliding over his, and her fingers were twining between his own. Then she shifted a little closer to him and pulled his hand toward her, tucking it close against her chest. 

He swallowed hard at the tenderness of her gesture, then continued to tell his tale. “After Varania left, I was… I felt more hopeless than before. It did not occur to me to run away until I saw some other slaves fighting for their freedom.”

Her eyes widened. “You saw a rebellion?”

“Yes,” he said. “At the lyrium mines. It happened when I was there one day with Danarius. The slaves rose up and fought back. They used their own shackles and their mining tools as weapons. They even managed to kill a few of the slavers.” 

“Wow,” Hawke breathed. 

He nodded. “Danarius made me protect him, but… to see that slaves could fight? That they were willing to die for a chance to be free? It… it forced me to think. And I did think, for months.” He turned his head to face the ceiling again. “Then, one morning when Danarius approached to shackle me as he did every day, I killed him.”

“Just like that?” she said in surprise.

He shot her a sharp look. “It was not easy,” he said. “I had spent most of my life doing what he told me to do. But the disbelief in his face when I crushed the breath from his miserable throat…” He curled his lip. “He never expected such agency from me. He thought I was but a pet that he had tamed. His tamed little wolf.” He scowled at the memory. “An ignominious death was the justice he deserved.”

Hawke was silent for a moment. She stroked his knuckles with her thumb, soothing away his momentary agitation.

“What happened then?” she asked.

“I ran,” he said quietly. “I was pursued by the city guard and wounded, but I killed them and escaped. I stowed away on a Seheronese fishing trawler, but they eventually found me; it was a small ship, after all. And…” He exhaled slowly and shrugged. “Well, you have heard the rest.”

She shuffled closer to him. “You liked being on the fishing boat, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “I did. They were kind and quiet. They taught me to sail, as I told you. I knew them only a few months, but in that time, I felt as if I truly lived.” He shook his head slowly. “It made it all the harder to tolerate the return to slavery when the pirates came.” He took a deep breath and looked away from her. “By the time Piper and Varric raided the slaver ship, I… I had almost given up.”

Hawke was quiet for a moment as she ran her thumb gently along the side of his hand. “I don’t believe that,” she said eventually.

He looked at her. “You don’t believe what?”

“That you would give up. You’re too strong for that.”

He frowned slightly. “You didn’t know me before. I was… cowed. Hopeless.”

“If you were really hopeless, why did you join Piper’s crew?” she asked. “Piper told me she gave you the option to go to the colonies with the other slaves. But you didn’t leave. You stayed on the Lady Luck.”

He shrugged a little irritably. One again, Hawke was giving him more credit than he was due. “I was angry,” he said. “I wanted the slavers to suffer. Being on this ship gave me the option to fight back.”

Hawke shrugged and continued to stroke his hand with her thumb. “That sounds like a strong choice to me. A fighter’s choice.”

He shot her a flat look, but his irritation was short-lived. Her expression was confident and affectionate and perfectly lovely. 

He carefully rolled onto his unwounded right side so he was facing her. “Ever the optimist, Hawke,” he murmured.

She smiled. “That’s me. Rynne Hawke, the insufferable optimist.”

He gazed adoringly at the cheeky twist of her smile and the warmth in her coppery eyes. “You are not insufferable,” he told her. Then he smirked. “I would gladly suffer your company whenever you deign to give it.”

She laughed brightly, then shifted closer to him. “Was that supposed to be a smooth line? Because it was not so smooth.”

He smiled more broadly, but his heart had just kicked into an excited rhythm. Hawke was very close now, close enough that their slightly-bent knees were touching and her nose was a mere few inches from his. 

He wanted to find a clever response, but he couldn’t. Hawke was so near, near enough that he could smell her warm sandalwood scent. She was still holding his hand, but he wanted to hold more than just her hand; he wanted to hold her, to have her body pressed tightly to his the way it had been earlier when she embraced him on the forecastle deck–

And she was moving closer. No, that wasn’t true; he was moving closer, shuffling nearer to her on the bed so that he could hear the gentle sound of her breath as she inhaled through her parted lips–

And he kissed her. After weeks of waiting and wanting and agonizing, Fenris was kissing Hawke for the second time. But this time couldn’t be more different than the last.

The last time he’d kissed her, his mind was a turmoil of lust and anger and uncertainty. That kiss was a moment more bitter than sweet, burned into his memory as a perfect example of passion that he both regretted and idolized, but this…

This was completely different. There was no regret here. There was no anger and no angst. Instead, there was the longing that had been living in his heart for weeks, which Hawke was finally able to fulfill with the sweetness of her mouth. There was the love that she’d proclaimed to him this afternoon in the deck, and he could only pray she was feeling its return in the impassioned press of his lips to hers. 

Her parted lips were soft beneath his own, and her waist was a smooth dip beneath his roaming hand. She was perfect, and this kiss was perfect, and it became even more so when she cradled his neck in her palm and shifted closer still. 

He encouraged her closeness, pulling her body flush to his with his arm around her waist, and when their hips pressed together, she broke away with a gasp. 

Fenris pulled back slightly and opened his eyes. Her eyes were still closed. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

She nodded and slid her fingers into his hair. “Kiss me again, you handsome fool.” 

He smirked, but he was more than happy to comply with her cheeky demand. He coaxed her lips open by gently nipping her plump lower lip, and when he gently lapped at her tongue, she whimpered and pressed against his groin. 

He exhaled shakily against her mouth. Her lithe body was pressed firmly to his, and the skin of her back was soft and temptingly warm where his errant palm had slid beneath her tunic. Despite her words and the wisdom of taking things slow, he wanted… fasta vass, Fenris wanted her, and he could openly admit that he wanted her, and that alone – the simple and joyful ability to confess that he wanted Hawke: it just made him want her all the more desperately. 

He propped himself up on his right elbow and abruptly pulled her closer before kissing her again. She was practically beneath him now, and her fingers were clutching his shoulder in a firm grip, and– 

And then her fingers left his shoulder. She was grabbing his hand firmly and pulling it away from the soft warm skin of her back. She slid his greedy fingers up over her waist and then over her ribs–

Then Hawke arched her spine and pressed his hand to her breast, and he gasped into her mouth. He could feel her nipple beneath his palm, so firm that it was budding through her loose tunic… 

Her tunic. He could feel her nipple through her tunic. 

She wasn’t wearing a breastband or a bustier. 

He broke away from her lips. “Festis bei umo canavarum,” he groaned.

She pressed his hand more firmly to her breast. “What does that mean?” she breathed. “Something nice, I hope?”

He gazed at her with a mixture of adoration and total exasperation. “It means ‘you will be the death of me’,” he said. He reached down and inched his fingers beneath the hem of her tunic.

She burst out a little laugh, but seconds later she was panting fitfully, a rapid desperate staccato of breath as his hand moved higher over her ribs. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I just, I – I don’t want to interfere with your wound…” 

He cupped her bare breast in his palm. She gasped and arched toward him, and he kissed her parted lips once more before pulling away.  “Don’t apologize,” he murmured. “Perhaps I can do something that won’t affect my wound.”

“Like what?” she panted. Then she grinned. “Fenris, are you going to teach me something?”

He smiled back at her and stroked her nipple with his thumb. He was hardly an expert in this arena; it had been years since he’d been with anyone. But hopefully Hawke wouldn’t be able to tell.

“I could,” he said. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” she said loudly. “Maker’s balls, yes. I…” She broke off, then clumsily started pulling her tunic up, and Fenris gaped at her stupidly as she pulled the garment off and threw it to the floor.

Hawke was half-naked, bare to him from the waist up, and she was… venhedis, she was beautiful. Small breasts and tight budded nipples and skin that would be a burnished gold if it saw more of the sun, and the delicate lines of her collarbones rising and falling as she panted for breath, and as Fenris shamelessly admired her, he couldn’t quite believe his fortune. She was here, in his bed with his hand roaming from her slender neck over the crux of her collarbones and down, and as he happily lowered his mouth to her breast, he couldn’t help but marvel at the difference a single day could make. 

In the space of a single day, he now found himself curled on his bed with Hawke’s willing body stretching beneath him as he tasted the delicate tip of her breast. Her hands were pulling gently at his hair and her pleading voice was floating through his ears, and… fasta vass, this was everything he’d barely dared to want, and now that she was here, he could admit that he hadn’t really thought this would happen, not truly. 

Having Hawke here… it had been a hope. A very dear hope that was too close to his guarded heart, and despite his vague intention to tell her how he felt in Afsaana, Fenris hadn’t really trusted that this could all come true. 

But Hawke had brought his hopes to life. She was his hopes brought to life, a lucid dream given colour and form and sound, and as his hand slid down her ribs and over the planes of her belly, he marvelled at how very tangible she was. 

Her breath was sharp in his ears as he unbuttoned her breeches, and the movements of her hands were impatient and rough as she shoved her breeches down, and the glossy sheen between her legs was the most enticing indication of how strongly this foray was wanted by them both. 

She grabbed his hand. “Teach me,” she begged.

He smiled. Only Hawke would make that particular request of him with this particular degree of nakedness. And only Hawke had ever tempted him to want to fulfill such a request.

He pulled his hand from her grip and stroked his fingers between her legs. 

She arched her whole body and spread her legs wider. “Fenris,” she mewled. 

He captured her gasping lips in a kiss. He smoothed his fingers slowly through her slippery warmth, but she was bucking her hips desperately fast, and Fenris eventually peeled away from her lips to whisper against her ear. 

“Move with me, Hawke,” he told her. “It is not a race.” 

She slowed down with a groan of frustration. “But I want you so much…”

“I’m right here,” he whispered. 

“I know,” she whined. “I know. But I really…” She broke off with a gasp as he stroked the swollen bud between her legs. 

“Focus your attention here,” he said quietly. “Tell me if you want more or less.”

She strained against his hand. “A little less,” she panted.

He lessened the pressure of his fingers. A moment later, she twisted on the sheets and spread her legs wider still. “Oh Maker, yes...” 

Her voice was high and strained, and it sent a hot rush of lust burning down his throat. He inhaled slowly and kept his fingers light between her legs, and soon she was rolling her hips in a slow rhythm that matched the gentle slide of his finger around her precious tiny bud. 

Her cheeks were pink and her raspberry lips were parted with pleasure, and Fenris watched her lovely face with an attentive sort of hunger until she threw her head back in the pillow with a rapturous cry. 

She shuddered and pressed her hips insistently toward his hand. “P-please,” she gasped. 

He slid his fingers low to stroke her cleft, and she lifted her hips right off the bed. “Fenris, please!” she sobbed.

He stared at her. She was so beautiful and so shameless, begging him with her pleading words and her twisting golden body, and her lack of inhibitions was… well, it was Hawke. This was who Hawke was. She was uninhibited and open, asking him questions and telling him about her life without any reservations at all, offering herself to him and asking him to love her in return, and he’d been too scared to meet her halfway. 

But he didn’t want to be scared. He wanted to be open like she was, to give her all the affection she deserved and all the heated press of emotion that he’d kept too close to his chest. And this was how he would start. Here and now, with Hawke’s arching body under his hands, he would start to give her everything.

“What do you want, Hawke?” he asked.

She opened her eyes, and Fenris breathlessly returned her heated stare. Her ribs were rising and falling with the rapid cadence of her breaths, but she didn’t speak.

He lightly petted her glorious heat. “Tell me, and it is done,” he murmured. “Do you want me to do that again?” 

“I… I want more,” she panted. “I need… I feel like…” She broke off with a whimper and thrust her hips toward his hand, and Fenris knew what she meant. 

He hovered his fingers over her entrance. “Can I–”

“Can you fuck me? Please?” she blurted. 

Her drew back slightly in surprise – and undeniable excitement. He was going to suggest sliding his fingers inside of her, but if she wanted him… 

She reached for the laces of his breeches, but he gently caught her hands. “I thought you were worried about my wound,” he said. Frankly, he didn’t care about his wounded side; if it started to bleed again, Hawke could simply patch it up. The shining possibility of giving himself to her was overriding any other impulse that he had right now.

She sighed sharply. “I… fuck. You’re right,” she admitted. She pulled her hands from his and pressed her legs together in frustration. “Fuck,” she whined. “I just… Fenris, I really…”

He traced the line of her jaw, then turned her face so she was looking him in the eye. “If you want me, I am yours,” he said softly. 

Her frustrated expression melted into an almost disbelieving look of joy, and Fenris’s heart squeezed at the hope in her face. Then she smiled and gently pinched his chin. “Such a smooth talker,” she murmured.

He gave her a little half-smile. Then, without moving his steady gaze from her face, he slid his hand over her knee to pull her legs apart. 

Her breathing was growing short and sharp again, and even more so when he ran two fingers through her slippery folds. Then, slowly and carefully, he slid one finger inside of her.

She keened with pleasure and arched beneath him. Venhedis, she was so slick and hot, and the smoothness of her flesh pressing around his finger kicked his rising desperation even higher. 

He forced himself to breathe through a fresh and dizzying rush of desire. “Do you want this?” he asked. He curled his finger slightly, and she jerked. 

“Yes!” she cried. “Fenris, please!”

He curled his finger again, and she clawed at the bed and sobbed. “I want you so much, it’s not fair…”

He carefully withdrew his finger from her heat, then stroked her cheek with his knuckles. “Then let me do this,” he urged. “I want to be with you.”

She looked at him worriedly. “But what if I hit you in the side with my knee or something clumsy like that? I don’t want to hurt you…”

“It is worth the risk,” he said. “Being with you is worth the risk.” As soon as he said the words, he realized it wasn’t just the sex that he was talking about, not anymore. 

Fenris didn’t like taking risks. For as long as he could remember, he avoided taking chances when the potential losses were more than he could afford. But not being with Hawke – not taking that risk to let her in all those weeks ago when she’d first offered herself to him: he’d regretted that choice ever since, and he wasn’t going to make that same mistake again. 

He ran his thumb along her cheekbone. “It is my risk to take, Hawke. I want this.”

A slow and brilliant grin lit her face, and she eagerly nodded. “All right. Yes. Yes, let’s–”

He cut her off with a kiss. Her tongue stroked his own, and her fingers were tugging at the laces of his breeches once more and loosening the knots and–

And she was touching him. Her impatient fingers had burrowed into his half-loosened breeches, and she was stroking his cock. 

“Hawke,” he moaned.

She tried to wrap her fingers around him, but his breeches weren’t loose enough. “Please,” she mewled.

“W-wait a moment,” he panted. He pulled her hand out of his breeches and pushed the garment down with his left hand, ignoring the ache in his side as he twisted to free himself. But before his breeches were fully down to his knees, Hawke was pulling impatiently on his hips. 

And her impatience was feeding his own. His breathing was just as harsh and hurried as Hawke’s, and it grew harsher still as she pushed herself up on one hand and kissed his neck.  

Her tongue on the side of his throat, and now her teeth in a gentle nip, fasta vass... Fenris gasped for breath and shoved desperately at his breeches. At long last, he finally kicked them away and settled between her legs, and when he was poised and ready, he looked her in the face. 

Her eyes were wide and her breaths were sharp, and her fingers were clenching against his arms. As Fenris stared at her, he was seized by a ringing sense of unreality. He’d imagined this so many times – what it would be like to have Hawke beneath him, and to have her treasured hands on his marked skin and her treasured body sharing his bed. He’d imagined this and wished for this and rued the thought that he might never have it, and now that she was here…   

Venhedis, he was nervous. It had been so long since he’d done this, and just as long since anyone other than those vile Tevinter doctors had seen his body bare. And no one had ever mattered so much before. Hawke was so important, and this was her first time, and Fenris needed to make it right. 

She stroked his cheek. “Are you all right?” she asked. 

He snapped his attention back to her. “Yes,” he said. “Everything is fine.”

She studied him for a moment, then smiled. “It’s all right, Fenris. I’m nervous too.” 

He sighed and bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he lamented. “It’s… it has been some time.” He shook his head dismissively. “But it doesn’t matter now. You have never–”

She stroked his hair. “How long?”

“Six years, give or take,” he said. 

Her fingers went still in his hair. “Why so long?”

He took a deep breath. “I received the tattoos six years ago,” he told her. “The way those doctors looked at me and… handled me. I did not want to be touched after that.” He remembered it all too clearly: the humiliation of their cold eyes on his naked skin and their clinical hands prodding and cutting his unwilling body, and the months of agony as the lyrium scars healed.

Strange hands on his skin and strange eyes on his naked body. He shoved the memory away and looked into Hawke’s wide whiskey-coloured eyes. “I did not want to be touched,” he told her. “I barely wanted to be looked at. But it is different now,” he assured her. “With you, it is different.”

“Are you sure?” she breathed. She looked quite stricken now. “I don’t mean to…” She covered her mouth with one hand. “I’m so stupid, Fenris,” she mumbled. “I didn’t even think about all of that. I mean, I knew you didn’t want the tattoos, but I didn’t… I just thought you wanted me to keep my greedy pervy hands to myself.”

He shook his head. “You’re mistaken. Yours are the only hands I have wanted.”

She swallowed hard, then dropped her gaze and bit her lip, and Fenris watched her with a fresh and heart-wrenching surge of affection. 

He tipped her chin up until she met his gaze. Her eyes were wet, and Fenris studied her fondly for a moment before speaking.

“Hawke,” he said softly. “I never needed anyone, or wanted anyone. Until now.” 

A tear escaped the corner of her eye, and she beamed at him. “Keep up that smooth talk, you handsome fool,” she said. “It’ll get you everywhere with me.”

He grinned, then flexed his hips and slid his cock against her.

Her smile melted into a look of pleasure and surprise, and Fenris continued to rock himself between her legs until they were both panting fitfully. She was so very slick and warm, and his cock was pulsing with want, and any remaining nerves he had were chased away by the temptation between her legs. 

He pressed his forehead to hers. “Are you ready?” he breathed.

She stroked his face. “Yes,” she panted. “I’m ready.”

He nodded tightly, then reached down with his left hand and positioned himself at her entrance. Then, very slowly, he began to fill her up. 

A breathy moan escaped her lips, and Fenris caught it with his lips and fed his own pleasured moan back to her. Her fingers were tightening on his biceps with every slow shift of his hips, and by the time he was fully sheathed, her nails were biting into his skin.

He broke away from her kiss and pressed his lips to her ear. “Are you all right?” he breathed.

“Yes,” she whimpered. “I… I feel so fucking full.” She burst out a breathless little laugh.

“Does it hurt?” he asked. 

“No, no,” she said hastily. “No, it’s… I...” She shifted her hips experimentally, taking him just a little bit deeper. 

Fenris jerked with pleasure, and she gasped and tilted her hips, and he dropped his lips to her neck. “V-venhedis...” he groaned, and he nipped her damp neck.

She let out another little sob of pleasure and tilted her hips toward him. “I hope that means something nice?” she moaned. 

He couldn’t reply. She felt so good and she tasted like sweetness and salt, and he couldn’t find the words to respond. 

He kissed her hard and flexed his hips, and her cry of pleasure echoed into his mouth. They fell into a slow and rolling rhythm, hips meeting and moving apart in a smooth and steady grind, and a dull pang of pain pulled at his wounded left side with every thrust. But Hawke’s fingers were twisting in his hair and stroking his neck, and the slick pleasure of her body and her tender hands on his skin was more than enough to drown the pain away. 

They moved together in tandem, and Fenris inhaled her scent and her breath and her eager little cries, and with every stroke of her hands and every glorious thrust, his sense of giddy wellbeing continued to grow: Hawke was here, sweat-laced and panting with pleasure and pushing him toward his peak with her every ecstatic cry, and before he knew it, before he meant for it to happen, he was shuddering and releasing his rapture as a guttural groan against her throat. 

She tilted her head back with a gasp, and Fenris nipped her neck, leaving a delirious trail of tiny bites along the margins of her throat until his climax left him boneless.

He sighed and relaxed into Hawke’s supine form. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and as their sweat dissipated into the relative cool of his cabin, her hands began to move. 

He sighed leisurely into her collarbone. Her slender hands were drifting over his back, trailing slowly over the raised scars that traversed his skin. There was something so soothing about the feel of her hands, the firm stroke of her uncallused fingers and the care they left in their wake, and Fenris wished there was some way to capture this moment perfectly in his memory, like a carefully rendered oil painting. With every gentle pass of her hands across his back, it was like she was wiping the old memories away, pushing away the pain and the hurt and clearing space for her own caring caresses instead.

More than the sex, more than the pleasure he’d stroked from Hawke’s twisting body or the rapture she’d pulled from him with the rolling of her hips, this moment of afterglow stood out: this feeling of her hands on his body – her hands and all the love and pleasure and care that she gave to him by smoothing them across his scarred and knotted skin. 

“Do they hurt?” she murmured. “The scars?” 

He drew in a deep, relaxed breath. “Not anymore, no.”

She hummed in acknowledgement, then traced the tip of his ear delicately with her fingers. “Well, if they do ever hurt, I’ve been told that massage is very good for painful scars.”

He huffed in amusement. “Is that so?”

“It is,” she said pertly.

He lifted himself on his elbows to look down at her. “Are you any good at massage?” he asked.

She smiled cheekily. “Well, we’ll never know unless I try.”

He chuckled, and her smile broadened before turning soft and sweet. She reached up and brushed a lock of hair from his eyes. “You look happy,” she said softly.

He regarded her with some surprise. “I am happy,” he said. Then he realized how significant this was.

He was happy. Fenris was happy. And it was a deeper happiness than the momentary amusement of bantering with Piper and Varric. It was a richer sense of wellbeing than the fleeting peace he derived from meditating at the bow of the ship. For the first time in years, Fenris felt peaceful and good all the way down to his muscles and the core of his belly. 

“Are you happy?” he asked her.

She grinned at him. “Are you kidding? This is exactly what I wanted. I’ve never been more happy.” 

He stroked her cheek. “Neither have I,” he murmured. 

Her grin softened into something so heart-poundingly sweet, and Fenris gazed at her in total adoration. That soft smile on her face: this was the smile that had drawn him unerringly since the day they’d met, and which he’d fled for fear of what he might lose. 

But now, in the warmth of Hawke’s arms and the heat of her gentle smile, there was no fear. There were no reservations. There was the desire that they’d finally sated, and there was the love he had yet to speak.

And most of all, there was happiness. 

[whiskeyworen]

Kaleb & Miriya: The Sword

"I never expected you to be someone who'd be into collections, Kaleb." Miriya admitted, looking around wide-eyed at the vaulted chambers. "I mean I knew you were an enthusiast, but..."

The team had been sent to the Priory to retrieve some obscure dwarven tome relating to the location of the new advance operating base in the Elon Highlands, and they had taken the opportunity to relax. While the Priory wasn't exactly the friendliest to those outside of their order, they did at least welcome their visitors and provide them room. Those that weren't Priory just wouldn't be permitted into the classified sections. What no one outside the organization knew was that the Priory was constantly expanding its underground warehouses and galleries, burrowing them into the living rock of the mountain. Thanks to the geological knowledge and experience given to them by Ogden Stonehealer, those ever-expanding chambers were perfectly sound and structurally strong; nothing short of the mountain collapsing would damage or disrupt them. So when Kaleb showed everyone to the guest chambers, and then offered to show Miriya his collections, there was know way she could have known that he meant extensive collection. Enough to fill a small museum. There were entire city armouries smaller than the gallery chamber he'd filled with gear and weapons. Each one was mounted carefully and properly, with a small tag full of information about the item. Miriya walked along the aisle of daggers, browsing the sheer variety on display. Most were suspended between twin iron pegs, held up by their quillons, but there were quite a few exotic designs that either lacked those components, or simply would not be suspended in the same way. Like the Charr steam dagger held up by a bolt screwed through the fuller of the blade. Or the two kinds of Sylvari daggers that sat blade-down in two small pots of soil with little sunlamps aimed at them.

She was just about to ask how he kept them watered when he was out, when a golemite wobbled up with a watering can, blooping an 'excuse--me' before watering the plant weapons properly. Miriya watched, amused, as the golemite put the watering jug near a sink on the far side of the room, before parking itself into a recharge unit on the floor and deactivating. Guess it's on a timer or something? She presumed.

"Yeah, I know. It's kinda cliche." Kaleb shrugged, levering his Magmaton hammer onto a stone table where its natural heat wouldn't cause damage. He rolled his shoulders now that he was free of the weight, and smiled. "I mean, a Warrior who has a collection of weapons. Pretty sure everyone knows someone like that."

"Maybe, but you got quite the collection." Miriya replied, running a finger around the curve of a Norn focus, flicking the feathers with her finger playfully. "I mean, you even have weapons types I've never seen you use. Can you use these?" He walked up beside her, noting where she was looking. Some Focii were on display, but others were in glass cases lining the wall. The ones that were more... unique. Like the focus made out of a skull of some poor bastard. "Nah, I can't use'm. Focii, Scepters, Staves... I can't use'm. But my collection wouldn't be complete without them." He waved a hand at some of the Asura-tech staves, as well as an Aureate spear or two. "I mean, just look at them. Asura tech is so simple, yet high-tech. Your people make the best weapons." "Ah, maybe you're right." Miriya lied, ego clearly stroked. She crossed her arms, striking a proud pose, grinning. "It's hard to be so awesome." She was immediately forced to duck when he playfully flicked one of her dreadlocks, the movement loosening her headband slightly. "Ow!" "You are awesome, Miriya." Kaleb laughed. "But Charr weapons are just as cool you know."

She stuck her tongue out at him while she pulled her mussed locks behind her headband again, tightening the band. He kept laughing while she grumbled obscenities at him. Finally he tired of laughing and shook his head. "Okay, I'm going to get changed. Feel free to explore my collection. Maybe there's some stuff you haven't seen before?" "Doubtful." Miriya declared confidently. Kaleb just shook his head and headed off to a side room between the weapon racks, shutting the door behind him.

It only took her a minute, but soon she was wandering deep in the racks of greatswords, admiring the workmanship of zweihanders and buster blades, and marvelling at the size of a human-scaled Asura greatsword. It was twice her own height!

"Jeez, even Sis would have trouble lifting that." She muttered to herself, running her hand down the flat of the blade. The greatsword was big enough that her oldest sister, Sonnya, would have been dragging it on the floor. The fact that Kaleb could lift a monster like that was something else entirely.

With her hand on the blade, she could feel not just the sword, but the essence within the blade. The essence bestowed on it, intrinsically, by its creator, the smithy. Every creator left a mark on their creations. Those who were attuned to things like life and death, like Miriya and her necromantic ilk, could read those impressions. It was kind of like a kind of conjuring, or spirit-connnection.

Every weapon a Necromancer used, they had to be attuned to. To know the nature of their weapon, its uses, its own desires. An axe wanted to carve, whether it was wood, metal, flesh, bone... it enthusiastically wanted to go to work. Most of the time, it was a pleasant, invigorating sensation. To know your weapon wanted to help you. An axe was not picky about what it was used on; it merely wanted to be used.

A Dagger would whisper sneaky things to a user, like where to aim its blade. Or what kind of venom it liked on its edge. In the hands of a necromancer, a dagger would realize how it could carve into the realm of Death itself to call forth ghostly locusts. A true delight to a veteran dagger was being able to strike at a distance, to make a target or group of targets weak with sickness, to make it easier for its blade to cut.

There were weapons that Miriya had never used before though, that gave her alien sensations. Pistols felt very direct, with not much 'thought'. Rifles were deadly serious, but also as direct as their smaller kin.

She'd never used a Greatsword though. To be honest, she'd never even held one to find out what it 'said' to her. What its intrinsic spirit was. Touching this Asuran greatsword though, she could feel a sense of massive pride, a chest-filling confidence. The sense of power. It was...interesting. It still wanted to carve things up with its blade, but it was a proud thing, only wishing to be of use to its owner.

It actually made her smile. If she knew how, she'd gladly use something as welcoming and heroic as this sword. The synergy between it and her would be great.

But that's when she heard another whisper. Not one from the greatsword she was touching. If anything, the one she had her hand on suddenly quieted, as if it were a child hearing the monster under the bed.

No... the whisper she felt was coming from around the corner, in the back of the room. In a different display case.

It was wordless. To give it a name would be to call it a hiss. A subtle, but pervasive hiss of... something. Curious, Miriya slowly stepped around the case, her Demon's Gaze mask unfolding on her face. With eyes that could see the hidden aspect of life near her, she saw a trace of something.

It was the shadow of Death energy. A wisp, one of many, leaking through the room from somewhere near the back. A tendril of it swirled past her leg, stroking up to her hand before recoiling and slipping away as if it had never existed.

"What. In. Tyria." She breathed, turning the corner after the wisp, before she saw it.

It was a greatsword. A straight, blackened blade with a diamond tip, stood in its stand before her. It had a long, double-handed hilt done in some form of banded leather, with a stained horned skull for a pommel. The guard had savagely hooked ends, and there was another long, bronze or gold skull or helmet on either face of the blade, the horns travelling fully half way down the length of the blade itself.

And it was practically dripping Death essence. It was fascinating to look at. Miriya found herself staring in awe, reaching out one hand to touch the forehead of the skull on the blade. As her fingers gently brushed the gold, she felt something reach back.

If the sunken, blackened eye sockets in the blade could have held eyes, they would have snapped open at that moment.

Miriya's head snapped back, her mouth agape and eyes wide and blank, as a host of incredibly vicious, violent thoughts spilled forth from the blade.

...CaRVe tHeM uP! SkuLLs and GoRE! The BloOd MuSt FLOW! RenD THeir SOULS! REAP and LET NONE STAND BEFORE YOU! BeaR ME and Let the SLAUGHTER beGin! SouLs for the THRONE! Necromancer-bear-me-and-see-your-enemies-FALL! NONE sHall SurVivE!...

Miriya gasped, trying to pull her hand away from this sword. This tainted, tainted thing. The images it sent her nearly made her vomit. It was like looking into Torment itself. She gagged on the sensations of smell it sent her; blood and gore, severed limbs and heads on spikes. The swing of the executioner's blade, the reaper's sickle. The sickening chunk of metal through bone. She was no novice to combat, but... this was being caught in an avalanche of hellish imagery.

It was all too much; she pushed back as best she could, but this spirit in the blade was too strong. Too focused. Too dedicated to its craft. It had a grip on her, and if she didn't break away soon, she knew, somewhere deep inside, that it would overwhelm her. Who in Tyria forged this thing?! She wailed in her mind as she tried to pull away.

"Oh hey, there you are." Kaleb said pleasantly, stepping around her and picking the sword up, breaking its contact with her. He didn't have his armor anymore, instead having chosen to wear some more casual clothes. Miriya stumbled back, breathing heavily and sweating profusely now that she was free of the sword's touch. Her hand actually stung like it was on fire from where it had rested on the blade.

She cradled that hand as the pain faded, staring up at him in mute horror as he gave the sword a cursory glance, turning it this way and that, before giving it a spin. She could still see the tendrils of Death reaching out, but now they tried to curl around him, swirling around his bare arms. "I see you found this thing. Neat, isn't it?"

"K-...Kaleb... What?..." She mumbled, stumbling back another step. "What in the Alchemy is that thing??"

He gave her a raised eyebrow, noting her expression curiously. She looked like she'd seen a ghost. Or worse. "What, this thing?" Kaleb held the blade up, running his hand along it, and over the golden skull. "I forget where I picked this thing up. Pretty sure it was some random trader, or something. Or someone gave it to me as a reward for something when I was still a merc."

Kaleb shrugged. "I used it for a while, but now it's more of just a big paperweight. Got much better weapons these days."

Miriya winced as she 'felt' the blade's insane rage at such a dismissal. It practically screamed loud enough that she could hear it without touching it. "That... that sword. It's..."

"I looked it up once in the library." He continued musingly. He gave the blade another stroke with his hand before putting it back in its mounting hooks. "Book said it was something called a 'Dhuumseal'. A sword made by Grenth himself when he sealed Dhuum away."

Miriya winced as the blade hissed again, this time at the mention of Grenth.

Kaleb just laughed though. "I doubt it's the real thing though. It's probably just a mock-up based on the same drawing I saw in the history book. Good enough sword, but definitely not a God-forged thing."

He turned and walked away, patting her on the head as he passed. "I was thinking of getting it reforged into a better weapon. Come on, let's go get some grub in the cafeteria. I hear the cook's got roast griffon today."

The Asuran necromancer was slow to follow him. Instead, she stared at that sword, which seemed to glare back at her with impotent rage. "Uh yeah -- I'll be right there."

It was another minute before she backed away around the corner, her eyes still locked on the blackened blade. There was no doubt in her mind that it was the Dhuumseal. How Kaleb had gotten his hands on it didn't matter; the fact that it had no influence on him just confused her -- and the sword.

She left the room with Kaleb as fast as she could. Privately, she made a promise that she'd never carry a Greatsword, should there be a way for Necromancers to learn how to use them like every other weapon. Not after encountering that one.

There was no way for her to know, but she had just gotten her first taste of Reaper powers -- and the bloodthirsty, ice-blooded madness that every Reaper necromancer would have to work to restrain.

Because Dhuumseal was just one sword....but there were many Greatswords out there. Many of them... that had the same kind of spirit.

[danysghost-archive]

True Rulers

Blurb: What if the Seven Kingdoms, for once in their whole shit history, were ruled by a just woman and and honorable man?

Word Count: 1137

Warnings: none!

A/N: okay. so it’s short. it’s unbetad. but it’s a start. there’s an open tag list that i scrounged together. i really hope you enjoy this, it feels good to be writing again. :)

The unbroken silver direwolf seal stared up at everyone in the small council, reminding them all of a glaring question. Queen Arya had been gone for a month, once again sailing off to discover more land. So far, she’d come across very few scattered islands, but nothing that hadn’t already been charted or written down in an ancient tome. But this time she had gone west and was due back today. But returning with news was unexpected for them all.

King Gendry entered, looking slightly flushed from his hustle to not be late. As the men rose from the table to greet him, he cleared his throat and straightened his tunic. “Thank you, gentlemen. Uh, please,” he sputtered, gesturing for them all to sit. Even after a year of ruling, he still hadn’t gotten used to his position. He wasn’t sure he ever would. But the kingdoms were happy, and he always had Arya to confide in. “So? How are we today? Is anything about to collapse, or are there any big arrests to make?” His tone was humorous, but in the back of his mind, he knew anything was possible. It hadn’t been an easy time, learning how to deal with issues, political or economical.

Tyrion cleared his throat, glancing at the open book in front of him. “Your Grace, Highgarden is still in debt. Lord Bronn says he’ll send payment as soon as he can, but the issue remains.”

“I believe the words he used were ‘Calm down ya bastards, you’ll get your fuckin money’,” Davos grumbled. “Or something along those lines.” He had never liked Bronn, and it didn’t help that the lord didn’t have much respect for Gendry.

The King pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” He let out a small groan before looking to Tyrion. “How much can he pay off with his food production? Is it worth the exchange?”

Tyrion flipped forward in his book, trailing his fingers over a few different pages. “With the rate that he’s been producing these past few months… he could probably pay off nearly half. But if Samwell has heard correctly from the Citadel, we are moving into a dry season. He won’t be able to complete his payment for another… six months?” He raised his brow in Sam’s direction.

Grand Maester Sam nodded. “More or less.”

Gendry shook his head. “Wonderful. Well… I feel very comfortable saying I knew what needs to be done.” He sighed and looked down, catching sight of the rolled up parchment in the corner of his eye. “From Arya, I assume?” He pointed to the letter placed in front of Davos.

The Hand passed the letter to him. “Should be, Your Grace. She’s due back this afternoon.”

“Our deck hands will be waiting to help bring her ship in,” Quentyn Martell spoke smoothly. He was much like his Uncle Oberyn, which Tyrion had noted to him many times. “Will she be joining us for tomorrow’s meeting?”

Gendry let out a small chuckle as he cracked the seal and unrolled her letter. “I’ve never known Arya to sit out of anything just because she’s tired. As much as she might try to hide it, she does enjoy her role…” He trailed off as his eyes scanned the page in front of him. His eyebrows pulled together and he pressed his mouth into a tight line.

Jon noticed his changed expression. “Your Grace? Is everything alright?” Jon was dressed particularly odd for a Northman, in much lighter weight clothes than he had ever worn. He’d lost the furs and large cloaks he was known for. But he was Jon Stark, thanks to Gendry, and Arya was still family. He could tell something was off.

The king scratched his head in thought, slightly ruffling his slow-growing hair. “I think so. She… didn’t say much. That’s not like her.” Still, he shook his head. “She probably has a surprise!” he said in his most hopeful voice. He looked to Podrick at the other end of the table. “Ser, ready a few of your men. We will head down to the docks to greet the queen.” He rose, and the others followed suit. “Thank you very much, gentlemen. See you all tomorrow.” He and Podrick left the council room, the other lords slowly trailing out behind them.

Not long after, Gendry and his entourage were watching Arya’s ship, Nymeria, pull into the harbor. The bow had a large direwolf head carved into it, and the Stark direwolf sigil was painted on the mainsail. And the she-wolf herself, now Arya Baratheon, was dressed in her most casual attire - a long tunic top and pants laced up loosely on her hip. She had tall boots that were scuffed to hell, and her hair was half up and half down. The Dornish deck hands rushed to pull the ship flush with the dock and lower the ramp. Gendry ran to meet her, embracing her in a strong hug the second she stepped off. He spun her around with a hearty laugh.

“I’ve missed you, my Queen!” He buried his face in her hair, breathing in the salty air and old oak smell he loved about her. He placed her back on her feet, as gentle as ever, and cradled her face in his hands. “I swear, every time your return, you’re more beautiful than the last.”

Arya rolled her eyes, but couldn’t stop the smile that crept onto her face. “I missed you, you bull.” She lifted herself onto the tips of her toes, softly capturing his lips in hers. She placed her hands on either side of his neck, holding him against her. When they eventually parted, she drew in a deep breath. “Did you get my letter?”

He nodded and briefly kissed her forehead, as they turned to head back to the Red Keep. “Yes, and your brother was just as confused as I was when I read it. You didn’t say much, except that you had news.” He gave her a suspicious look, hoping to meet her eyes. But she was staring up at the towers of the castle. He knew the memories she had of the place, the terror it had held for her family. She admitted to him that it was worth attempting to make new memories, though, especially since she would be with him. He had convinced his council to spend the money on remodeling the private rooms, at least, to give her a better sense of comfort in her own home. “Arya? You alright, love?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, as if in discomfort, but smiled up at her husband anyway. “Of course. Just happy to be back.” She let out a smooth breath, regaining her composure and cool, as they resumed their trek uphill.

tags: @aryaenastark @miladyaryastark @jessforthethrone @cuteshunnybunny @javiscera @danillion-procrastinates @anotherwaywarddreamer @blackbird337 @givemesususshi @bonesgadh @silvulen

[intim3ate]

To Follow a Lead | Claude/Sylvain [Fire Emblem: Three Houses]

Claude doesn't mean to keep running into Sylvain, at first. He doesn't mean to develop feelings for him, either. But, as they say: coincidence is the mother of intention.

This was originally just a short concept about Claude and Sylvain flirting, but somehow it turned into a 6000+ word fanfic... Let me tell you I was empowered by how good these two are together. Like... they're both so shady and deceptive and I feel like if anyone is going to appreciate Claude's somewhat-underhanded methods of flirting, it's probably Sylvain.

God I love them. What is it with me and rarepairs, though?

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Of all the quiet places in Garreg Mach Monastery, Claude thinks his favourite might be the library. It’s quiet, solitary comfortably familiar way. It’s hardly lonely – he’s joined all the time by the people around him, flitting about and minding their own business, completely unaware of the plots he’s hatching or the schemes he’s brewing – but it is isolating, somehow, in its silence.

But that same isolating silence is worth its weight in gold every time it is interrupted. It doesn’t take long for Claude to become a familiar fixture in the library. The bookshelves conceal all manner of hidden secrets; some written in ink and charcoal; some found in the people hiding behind the shelves, away from prying eyes or ears; and still more whispered between those same students, whose eyes roam the room to make sure nobody is listening.

But someone is always listening.

Claude learns, quickly, that people pay him no mind if he acts as if he is minding his own business. They ignore him at best, and cast wary glances and whispers in his direction at worst. He is used to it, though, unaffected despite the occasional wish that that wasn’t the case. Sometimes, he finds himself wishing that he was the one leaning in and whispering conspiratorially in a friend’s ear.

It isn’t even for a lack of trying, really. Claude has made it a personal mission to be at least friendly, if not kind, to everyone he approaches. Sometimes it’s a genuine attempt to make friends, and others it’s what they all expect: a hunt for information, for something to use in his next plan. His mother would call it catching flies with honey. She wouldn’t exactly be wrong, per se, but… Claude had quickly come to the realization that even honey would not work if the flies thought it dripped from a wolf’s teeth.

A lion’s teeth, however…

Sylvain Jose Gautier makes no effort to hide his ulterior motives. He speaks to everyone like they’re the most important person in the world to him, lifting them up and telling them whatever they need to hear to nudge them in whatever direction he has chosen for them. Insincerity spills from his lips like sweet, sugary poison, and he knows it. He weaponizes it in the most insidiously gentle way, mixing it into his speech alongside his real, honest feelings.

It’s rather impressive, really, that so many people recognize it and still give him what he wants.

The first time Claude truly comes to appreciate Sylvain’s… gift, as he calls it, is a late night in the library, long after the moon had risen above the spires of the monastery. He’s alone in the dim room save for Annette, whose nose had been buried in the same book for hours upon hours. It’s just as quiet and peaceful as ever, but something about the late hour and the way the candles along the wall have almost burned to nothing sets Claude on edge. Instead of the comfort he usually feels among the dusty shelves, he is restless.

He looks to Annette and wonders if she feels the same. Her foot shifts beneath the table, drawing out a pattern Claude can not distinguish. He wonders what she’s reading.

His restlessness gets the better of him, eventually. To his credit, Claude holds out for a while - much longer than he normally would - but, as put-together as he tries to appear, he knows his restraint cannot be checked forever. And so, curious, he approaches Annette with a carefully-applied smile. 

“Must be a good book for you to be up so late.”

Annette frowns up at him, sleepy and annoyed. “Oh, Claude. I’m… just studying. What does it matter?” 

Claude raises his hands before him defensively, backing away instinctively. His smile, however, does not falter. “No need to bite my head off,” he says lightly. “I was just curious is all.” 

“Yeah, well…” Annette covers her mouth, trying to muffle her long, drawn-out yawn. “I think I’ve hit my limit anyway. I should probably go to bed. Just... one more chapter, I think...”

Claude nods and shifts, feeling a touch awkward. “Right. Well… good luck, then. And try to take it easy tomorrow, all right? You look exhausted.” 

A small smile graces Annette’s lips - a personal victory for Claude, as far as he’s concerned - and she silently returns to her studies. Claude returns to his own seat a few feet away, ready to resume his own reading… Except that the moment he re-opens his tome, Sylvain Gautier comes barreling in through the door, effectively destroying both his and Annette’s concentration.

Not that Sylvain seems to notice. Or care.

“Annette! Thank the goddess you’re here,” he says, breathing heavy and laboured as if he had been running. Despite the raspiness of his tone, however, Sylvain looks alive, face flushed and smile wide enough to light up his eyes. “Say, have you done… something with your hair? It looks amazing.”

Annette sighs resignedly. Claude takes some satisfaction in the way her eyes roll. “No, Sylvain.” 

“Really? You’re trying to tell me you just always look this good?” 

An aggravated sigh this time. “Just tell me what you want, will you?” 

And he does. It’s the usual fare: a girl kicking up a fuss after he’d broken her heart (though he claimed she had been the one to shatter his). “I just need a place to lay low,” he says. “The library was close, and she’s… not exactly the studying type, if you know what I mean. I figure I’d be safe here, and if it looks like I’m helping a friend study…” 

Annette looks like she’s trying to fight back a smile, but she just can’t help herself. “Fine,” she says. “You can stay. Just don’t get in the way too much, okay?” 

“Me? Never.” Sylvain smiles and takes his seat next to Annette. True to his word, he doesn’t get in her way… at first.

Sylvain sits quietly for a long moment, but it’s easy to see that boredom is slowly overtaking him, because he starts to fidget incessantly. Claude can’t help but watch; it’s distracting, and there’s something about the way Sylvain looks like he’s holding something back that makes his hair stand on end. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to wait long to find out just what it is that’s being hidden, as Sylvain suddenly blurts out: “I can’t take in anymore. Annette, look. See this? This entire section here? It’s all wrong.” 

Annette looks at him like he’d grown a second head. “What?” 

“It’s wrong. The formula should go like this, and that rune should be tweaked slightly… see? It’s missing a stroke.”

Claude raises an eyebrow, intrigued. He glances down at his book and realizes he hasn’t read a single word in the last few minutes, so he closes it and sets it aside for now. His research on Hero’s Relics can wait; this is much more interesting. He’d never had the impression Sylvain knew much of anything about magic, but…

“You’re right,” Annette says, incredulous. “How did you know that?” 

Sylvain shrugs. “Guess I just have a knack for this stuff. I…” 

He looks away for a split second, just long enough to catch Claude’s eye, and pauses before turning back to Annette, gaze lingering on Claude even as he turns his head. “The better question is, why are you studying this stuff, anyway? Isn’t it a little above our current level?” 

A sense of disappointment washes over Claude, though he doesn’t quite understand where it stems from. Had Sylvain been about to say something about himself? If he hadn’t spotted Claude, would his conversation with Annette taken a different turn?

He tells himself it doesn’t matter, that he isn’t interested. Claude has gotten quite good at lying to himself.

“Maybe it is,” Annette says, calling Claude’s attention back to the present. “But I’ve been interested in it for a long time, and I always try to study and learn as much as I can. You see, my father…” 

Huh, Claude thinks to himself as Annette describes her past in detail she would never, ever willingly share with him. How about that.

  It really is just coincidence that he keeps running into Sylvain, at first. Claude spends so much time in the library it’s rare that he isn’t around when Sylvain pops in to hide from a girl or - much less often - to actually study. But no matter what his purpose is on any given day, Sylvain always manages to find himself a conversation partner (never Claude, though, despite the frequent lingering looks in his direction), and he always, always manages to pull something interesting out of them.

Like when he runs into Bernadetta, who had run from Claude when he’d asked what she’d been working on. Sylvain manages to get her to show him a new chapter in the book she had apparently been writing and she swears him to secrecy over it, not knowing Claude is listening in as he selects a book across the room.

Or like how Sylvain pokes and prods at Dorothea’s taste in literature until she tells him all about how she aspires to be like the singer in the book she’s reading, which she had memorized even before joining the opera. That one stings a little; as much as Claude has tried to flatter her, Dorothea still refuses to grace him with even a single note of her favourite song. 

Sylvain even manages to get Dedue to open him. Dedue, who rarely speaks to anyone who isn’t His Royal Highness. Claude listens to them exchange quiet stories of their childhoods in the back of the library, and wonders what could have possibly coaxed Dedue into smiling like that. 

It’s as frustrating as it is impressive. Sylvain, arguably, has an even worse reputation than Claude himself, and yet while Claude can’t get anyone outside of his own House to open up to him (and even within the Golden Deer, he still has his difficulties), Sylvain manages to pluck the most interesting things about a person straight from their lips without even trying.

Claude wishes he had that kind of talent. He tells himself that’s why he’s so interested in being around Sylvain, but he realizes, when he watches Sylvain coax Marianne into smiling for him, that there’s more to it than that. He doesn’t dare put a name the longing pang in his chest, though; he convinces himself that it’s simply his own curiosity shifting off of the people Sylvain talks to and on to Sylvain himself.

Because for all Claude knows of Sylvain’s reputation, and all he knows about their classmates through him, he knows frighteningly little about the man himself. And that simply will not do.

Claude resolves, as Marianne walks away with pink cheeks and a shy smile peeking out from behind her hand, that he will pick apart the mystery of Sylvain Gautier if it’s the last thing he does.

And if that means continuing to linger around him when he’s chatting with someone else, well… so be it.

  It’s surprisingly easy for Claude to find what he’s looking for, even if Sylvain himself never speaks of his own interests. He’s oddly secretive, deflecting and redirecting conversation with hollow flattery or disinterested shrugs anytime it comes around to him. It may be enough to get his conversation partner to leave him be, but all it does for Claude is intrigue him further, push him even deeper into this strange, budding fascination he’s developed.

But Claude knows how to get around the deflection. He’s careful about picking his moments, and when it comes to Sylvain, he realizes right away that it’s all about finding exactly the right one.

  The first thing Claude finds out that surprises him is Sylvain’s apparent love of board games.

On his way to his usual library table, he passes by Sylvain and Felix sitting across from one another with a chess board between them. A generous amount of Felix’s pieces stand off to the side, and the smile on Sylvain’s face tells Claude he’s all too aware of his impending victory.

But, as invested as Sylvain looks as he studies the pieces, brows knitted in concentration and hand to his mouth in thought, Felix looks completely and utterly bored. 

“Are you going to take much longer?” he demands. “I have better things to do than wait for you to move a piece on a board.” 

“Ah-ah,” Sylvain chides. “Patience, Felix.” 

He moves his piece and knocks Felix’s queen off its square. Sylvain plucks it off the board and adds it to his collection, catching Claude’s eye as he does. His smirk grows impossibly wide, and he honest-to-goddess winks before turning his attention back to the game and waving Felix’s queen tauntingly before him. “You can’t rush perfection.”

No, Claude agrees, heart fluttering. You can’t.

  The next thing Claude learns, when he spots Sylvain and Ignatz together in the library, is that Sylvain likes art.

He sits on a table, one foot resting on it while the other taps away on the bench Ignatz sits on. They chat idly about a portrait of a knight in a book laid out before them on the table, Ignatz’s own sketchbook with rough drawings of armour set off to the side.

“The composition leaves a lot to be desired,” Sylvain says. “If the artist had chosen a slightly darker shade for more contrast… or something else entirely, like maybe a bit of gold… Yeah, that would have been better. Still, the knight’s expression makes up for it. He’s pretty handsome… as all good knights should be, of course. By the way, if you’re looking for a handsome, dashing knight to paint…”

He looks up as Claude approaches, meeting his eye and greeting him with a silent smile (and what a smile he has, too). There’s something there, something playful, something Claude can’t quite place no matter how much he wishes he could. In response, he raises an eyebrow, and whatever it is he thinks he’s caught in Sylvain’s gaze dissipates.

“Speaking of art…” Sylvain nudges Ignatz, effectively cutting off what he was about to say. His eye shifts, like he’s looking right through Claude, and though he’d thought for half a second Sylvain had been addressing him, Claude quickly realizes he can hear some girls chatting behind him. He doesn’t dare turn to look at them, or let himself laugh at the absurdity of his own thoughts, but the temptation is certainly there.

Sylvain hums. “Looks like someone needs to talk to you,” he says. “Later, Ignatz.” 

Sheepishly, Ignatz smiles. “Right. Goodbye, Sylvain.” 

They both stand. Sylvain passes right by Claude, giving him a private smile as he leaves (Speaking of art, indeed). It would have made Claude grin if he wasn’t so frustrated - he had actually been meaning to talk to Sylvain this time. 

Ah, well. Nothing I can do now, he thinks as Ignatz approaches him. Claude gives his fellow Deer a winning smile of his own. 

“Ah, Ignatz, just the man I was looking for,” he lies. “I’ve been doing a bit of light reading on the divine, and I think I might have an idea for your next drawing…”

  He learns that maybe, just maybe, Sylvain is more an actor than he lets on.

Claude doesn’t hear the whole conversation. He only just catches the tail end of it as he enters the library: Sylvain is with a girl; one Claude doesn’t recognize. It’s not an unfamiliar sight, but something about the way she smiles at Sylvain and flutters her lashes at him tightens his stomach.

“I’ll see you tonight, then,” Sylvain says. His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, tender as he tries to make it.

“Yes, you will.” The girl turns from him with a sly grin and exits the library, leaving Sylvain all alone.

Well, mostly.

Claude doesn’t mean to look. He really doesn’t. But it’s hard not to when Sylvain sighs like that, chest deflating and shoulders slumping. The smile he’d worn for his lady-of-the-night doesn’t fall from his face so much as shatter like a porcelain mask, replaced with something darker and more… real. If Claude had to put a name to it, he would have called it disdain, but even that doesn’t seem quite right. This look is Sylvain, uncharacteristically natural and unrestrained, and it sends more than one kind of chill through him.

He doesn’t give himself time to dwell on it, because a moment later Sylvain spots Claude out of the corner of his eye and turns away, expression unreadable. He exits the library.

Claude tries not to think about it.

  But then, two nights later, Claude learns that Sylvain is much more genuine and intuitive than he lets on, too.

Claude had been expecting to be alone in the library that night – it was late, and the nagging questions in his mind of what the church was hiding made him restless – but when he hears voices drifting into the hallway from inside, he pauses outside the library door and presses himself against the wall so as not to be seen. He catches Sylvain’s voice first, and then… someone else’s. Are they… is she… crying? 

“Hey, Ingrid, come on…” Sylvain’s voice is low, almost inaudible. Claude holds his breath and sticks to the wall, willing himself into complete stillness and utter silence. He does not want to get caught. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up such a bad memory.” 

“No, it’s okay,” Ingrid insists. Claude can hear the quiver in her tone, the hitch in her breath. He wishes he could see Sylvain’s face. “It was my fault. When I saw this book, I… I couldn’t help myself. Glenn used to read it to me and Felix all the time…” 

A heavy sigh and a pause; and then, quiet and fragile, like the whispering of a ghost: “You loved him, didn’t you?” 

Claude leaves before he can hear any more. 

  It takes some time, but Claude finally gets his chance to speak to Sylvain when he finds Teach lecturing him about ‘improper conduct.’ The library is blessedly empty but for the two of them, and so Claude finds it easy to settle in and wait his turn. He doesn’t expect to learn anything from this conversation - about either of them, really - and he doesn’t know how long it’s going to take for Teach’s quiet tirade to end, so he selects a book on war strategies and takes a seat at a nearby table. 

He tries to read, at first, but within the first ten seconds he realizes the attempt is futile. He decides to ignore the book and listen in. 

It’s hard not to, with the way Teach lists off all of the… many, many complaints against Sylvain. Byleth doesn’t sound particularly angry as they speak (when do they ever, though?), but Sylvain sounds uncomfortable all the same when he finally responds. 

“Look, I get it, okay? I’ll make an effort not to be so overt about my flirting…” 

“Sylvain.” 

“Fine, fine! I’ll try not to flirt at all. Better?” 

No response from Teach at first; just a long, drawn-out silence. Claude can see them giving Sylvain the stare-down - one he himself has been subject to many a time for his own brand of ‘improper conduct’ – before they eventually relent with a sigh. “If that’s all I can get out of you…”

The conversation doesn’t last much longer. When Teach finally exits the room, Sylvain is left to slump in his seat and exhale in what Claude can only assume is a mixture of relief, aggravation, and resignation. He straightens up quickly, though, and when he does, he looks right in Claude’s direction.

A sudden smile tugs at Sylvain’s lips; Claude hurriedly looks back down at his book.

There’s movement from Sylvain’s table. Claude doesn’t dare look up, trying to keep the illusion of disinterest going. He debates saying something, though; now is his chance, now that Sylvain is finally alone. Claude’s leg bounces. He bites his lip. What can he say, though? Sylvain is—

A hand covers his book. 

"You can stop pretending to read now."

Claude's eyes snap back into focus and he looks up, bewildered but careful to maintain a straight face. Sylvain stands at eye-level in front of him, bent over the table with one palm flat against the wood and the other firmly on the page Claude hadn’t been reading. 

"Hm?" Easy, Claude. Don’t let him know he’s caught you. With an affected nonchalance, he tilts his head to the side. Sylvain just laughs at him - a small, pleased noise that pulls at Claude’s heartstrings - and leans in close. 

Claude frowns. He doesn’t mind that Sylvain is blocking him from his book, but he knows he needs to keep up the act for… for some reason. “You know that’s my favourite part, right?”

Sylvain sits down. “Uh-huh.” He withdraws his hand and uses it to close the book. Claude does not protest as he pushes it aside, not even bothering to look as the corner of the cover slides over the edge of the table; Sylvain seems much more interested in maintaining eye contact than ensuring the book’s welfare. More interested in studying Claude, gauging him for a reaction. Is he trying to play some kind of game? 

If he is, Claude is all too willing to play with him.

Sylvain props his elbows on the table and rests his chin on his interlocked fingers. "Except you aren’t reading it,” he says. Damn him. “You've been staring at the same sentence for ages. I can't even remember the last time you turned a page.”

Claude smiles easily. He's played this game before. “Oh really,” he says, drawing out the word. “Do you make a habit of watching people while they go about their business, then?" 

"Maybe," Sylvain chimes. Claude isn't sure he likes what the smirk on his face implies, but he can't wait to see where it leads. "Could be something we have in common."

His heart sinks - was he really that obvious? - but his smile widens. Can’t give ground too early, he thinks as he leans in too, arms folded on the table. "Could be. Care to elaborate?" 

"You seem to spend a lot of time in this library. Especially when I’m around.” There's something hidden in Sylvain’s voice, something dark under the forced casual tone, the false familiarity. Suspicion, perhaps? Or something else? 

"Is that so?" Claude speaks as if making a statement, not asking a question. 

"Yeah." Sylvain nods. His smile never falters, but his eyes narrow a little, just the slightest droop of the eyelids, enough to say that he's looking for something. "Every time I turn around, there you are. Call me curious."

Claude shrugs with one shoulder, closes one eye in a lazy wink. "Does there have to be a why? Maybe it's just coincidence."

"Coincidence that any time I have a conversation with someone, you show up and make yourself comfortable? You, the guy who never seems to do anything 'just because?'" Sylvain snorts and shakes his head. "Come on, Claude. I know I may act like an idiot, but you've got to give me some credit."

Finally, Claude lets his smile drop. He sighs, knowing he’s been beaten. If there's one thing he's learned about Sylvain in these last few weeks, it's that he's anything but an idiot. He might even be too perceptive for his own good. 

"Fine," he says at last, though not without some bitterness. He hates being forced to play his hand. "You caught me." 

"Not sure it counts if you're trying to get caught." Sylvain's voice drops along with his gaze, and for a moment Claude wonders if Sylvain really does know. But he keeps his own gaze and his expression steady, determined not to let on any more than Sylvain thinks he has. 

"Trying to get caught, huh?" he repeats. "And why would I want to do that?" 

“I can think of a few reasons…" 

It's a stupid line and Claude knows it - knows it's one of the many he's used on girls in the past and he shouldn't let it get to him, but he feels goosebumps prickle up his arm anyway. He curses himself for it at the same time he thanks the stars his uniform has long sleeves. "Uh-huh. Take me to dinner first and I'll think about it."

Sylvain raises a brow as he studies Claude once more. The corner of his mouth tugs upward into a grin, and Claude immediately recognizes the signs that he’s about to lose control over the conversation. He cuts Sylvain off before he seizes the opportunity.

"Simmer down, pretty boy. Much as I know you'd like a piece of this, that wasn't why I was hanging around you." Something sits funny in his gut as he says it - Because it’s a lie - but Claude doesn't give himself time to dwell. "It's actually… Look. I know this is going to sound stupid, but… nobody trusts me around here." 

He frowns and decides that now would be a good time to look past Sylvain so that he doesn't have to see those lovely brown eyes agreeing with him. Self-defense, as always. "I don't know if you know this, but I've earned myself a bit of a reputation. I'm a schemer, right? I don't bother to hide it.” He frowns. “So, Sylvain, with that in mind… what would your reaction be if I, the untrustworthy and heretofore unheard-of heir to House Riegan, just came up to you out of the blue and struck up a conversation?"

Sylvain leans back, hands behind his head. He grins and winks. "'Hey, gorgeous.'"

Claude kicks him lightly under the table, but he can’t quite suppress the smile that stretches over his features. "Knock it off; I'm being serious."

"So am I!" But Sylvain laughs despite the insistence in his tone. "I take it not everyone's as willing to play nice as I am, though."

"Nope." Claude crosses his arms in front of his chest. "Everyone thinks I'm up to something, or that I have some kind of ulterior motive in getting to know them. They're not wrong," he adds before Sylvain can interject. "But it's left me a little short on friends."

"So you've been following me because… you want to be friends with me?" Sylvain's brows furrow. Confusion looks good on him, out of place as it is.

"Oh, no." Claude laughs. "If that was all I wanted, I would've asked you to play chess with me or something. And don't even try to tell me you wouldn't accept,” he adds. “I saw the way your eyes just lit up." 

Sylvain frowns, that little spark of intrigue Claude had caught extinguishing just as quickly as it had blinked into existence. He’s sad to see it go, but that doesn't outweigh the feeling of victory that warms his chest. He continues: "I've been lingering around you - not following you - because you're good at getting people to open up."

"So you were looking for pointers." Sylvain frowns, like he still doesn't quite get it. No real surprise there; he still hasn’t quite made it to Claude’s finish line. 

"Wrong again!" Claude waggles a finger reproachfully at Sylvain. "I was looking to learn something, sure. But not about how to get people to open up."

At last, something clicks. Sylvain’s eyebrows rise up past his bangs. "You were getting me to open them up for you."

"Now you've got it." Claude leans forward to rest his arms on the table again. Sylvain's eyes narrow and he lifts a hand to his mouth, knuckle to his lips. 

"That's so… devious," he says. And then he breaks into a grin. "...I'm kind of into it."

"I thought you might be," Claude lies. He tries to ignore the pounding of his heart, part relief and part affection. There was always a chance Sylvain would be fine with it - the more Claude had watched him, the more alike he had realized they were, after all - but there was also the chance that he'd be furious, and he isn't sure if he'd have been okay with that result. "You're quite the wingman, you know. Even when you're not aware of it."

"I'm good at lots of other things, too." He lowers his voice again, both in tone and volume, and licks his lips. Claude swears he sees Sylvain's eyes dart downward again, but he tries to ignore the way that makes his heart beat, too. "I could show you sometime, if you like."

He tries to play it cool. "Now that you mention it, there is someone else I'd like to get to know better…"

"Oh yeah?" Sylvain looks genuinely intrigued. "Tell me everything."

"Well, we're in different houses, for one thing." Claude holds up a finger on the word one.

"Right, of course." Sylvain nods. "Why would you need my help talking to someone in your own house?" 

"Exactly! They're kind of obligated to talk to me." Claude snickers. If only that were true. "I knew you'd understand."

"Mhm. So if you need me, then you're probably interested in someone from the Blue Lions…" 

Claude nods. "Yup. You might even know them."

"Oh?"

"They're clever, perceptive, take all the worst opportunities to make jokes…" Claude laughs. "Or pretend to, anyway. And they're unbelievably attractive…"

"Ohh��?" Sylvain's smirk spreads, catlike, and his eyes narrow even more. He's practically making bedroom eyes at Claude by now, and it's all the Golden Deer leader can do to meet them with a straight face. "They sound like a charmer. Never mind helping you out with them; can you introduce us?" 

Claude shrugs nonchalantly. "I dunno, I get the impression they're already interested in someone else."

The quirk of a brow, and Sylvain's smirk twists into something more amused. "And who might this mystery man be?" 

"Well, he's dashing, smart, and always seems to have an ulterior motive for everything…" 

Claude meets Sylvain's gaze and holds it. He's still smiling, but he's acutely aware that it doesn't meet his eyes. He's studying Sylvain for a reaction this time, searching for whatever he's not getting on the surface. He can see something has definitely shifted, though; Sylvain has gone from easy flirtation to something a little more guarded, a little more careful. He's analyzing Claude just as much as Claude is him. 

But finally, after what feels like hours, Sylvain breaks the silence. "... So," he begins slowly. "How does this mystery man feel about them…?" 

It's like a weight is lifted from Claude's shoulders. Sylvain is curious - he's moving cautiously, afraid to reveal too much of his own hand - but he's receptive, at least.  And Claude has already come too far not to play every card he's got. 

"I'm not sure yet," he admits. "I was hoping I could find out over dinner."

"Ha!" Sylvain pulls back, lifting a fist to his mouth in an incredibly poor attempt to hide his wide, toothy grin. His knuckle bumps his teeth; his shoulders shake with held-back laughter. 

Claude tilts his head to the side, careful to maintain a curious, but amused expression. He wishes Sylvain would quit laughing and answer the damn proposition, but as with all things, he knows to be patient with this. 

Eventually, Sylvain’s silent amusement gives way to actual laughter. Claude feels a small jab of annoyance hit him in the chest, but it flashes like lightning and vanishes a split second later when he realizes it's pleased laughter, not mocking.

Even so, Sylvain trembles, and Claude manages to realize that it’s not with mirth, but nerves. It’s a subtle difference, one he has only come to recognize from so frequently seeing someone come close to piercing Sylvain’s careful façade.

"Ha ha… did you just… Did you seriously just ask me out on a date?" he asks, incredulous. "Damn. I gotta say, I'm not used to being the one asked out.” He pauses and looks away, scratching his cheek without realizing he’s drawing attention to how red it’s become. “It's… kinda nice."

"It'd be nicer if you said yes," Claude says, voice a thousand times calmer than he feels. It hits him all at once that yes, he really did just ask someone out on a date (but he's not just someone, is he? He’s Sylvain Gautier, who’s left a hundred hearts broken in his wake), and that he's tantalizingly close to actually getting one.

He just needs to make one more small push. "Tomorrow night?” Claude holds out a hand, palm-up. Sylvain looks down at it, and his hand twitches as if he wants to reach out and take it, but doesn’t yet dare. “We could go into town."

Sylvain takes a deep breath. His smile isn't quite… gone gone, but it's definitely morphed into something… different. Claude isn't sure what to call it - curious, perhaps? Disbelieving?

…Or maybe even pleased, if he dares to give himself that hope? 

Sylvain meets his eye. Holds his gaze. "Wow," he breathes. "You… you really are serious about this, huh?" 

Claude winks. Sylvain's face turns an even darker shade of red. 

"You know…" He looks away again, he grumbling into his hand as if he is suddenly unable to meet Claude's eyes. "There's a joke in here somewhere. Something about deer and lions…"

"Tell it to me over dinner." He's pushing it a bit hard now and he knows it, but the way Sylvain's lips twitch on a huff of laughter tells him it's a very welcome push. 

"R-right. Okay… yeah. Yeah, sure, why not? I’d like that. It sounds like a good time." He laughs again, a sound caught between disbelief and giddy satisfaction, and Claude finally permits himself to believe that the look on Sylvain's face now is one of genuine excitement. He's learned how to tell when Sylvain is acting for someone else's sake, and at the moment his countenance bears no sign of its usual pretense. Sylvain’s smile now isn’t the kind he usually wears: he is not waiting for someone to turn their back, not forcing anything he isn’t actually feeling. This smile is real, genuine. One of the few Claude has ever caught him wearing.

It’s… nice. And that is all Claude will allow himself to think.

"Great," he says, maybe a little too loudly. He tries to calm himself, taking a long breath through his nose in an attempt to still the furious beating of his heart. He's certain he must look like he's vibrating with the intensity of it. "I'll come get you sometime around… Hm, after the evening bell goes off?" 

It takes Sylvain a moment to compose himself, like he can hardly believe what he's hearing. Claude can't blame him – he’d never meant to take the game this far, even though it had been his end goal for a while. But Sylvain does manage to pull himself together, slipping his mask back on like it had never fallen away. And then it's right back to his old self, reaching (at last) for Claude's hand and taking it in his own. He grins flirtatiously as he turns it over in his palm.

Claude raises an eyebrow, simultaneously asking what Sylvain is doing and giving him permission to go ahead with it.

Sylvain does not disappoint. He grins and lifts Claude’s hand to his lips, closing his eyes as he leans forward to lay a ghost-like kiss on each knuckle. When he finishes, he gazes up at Claude from under his long, long eyelashes. "It's a date."

Damn him, he’s good. Claude swallows the lump in his throat, fights down the flush on his cheeks. “Can’t wait,” he says, a teasing tone to his voice.

Sylvain nods, a tiny jerk of the head (is he surprised he didn’t get a stronger reaction out of Claude?), and lets his hand go. He lingers a moment, once again holding Claude’s gaze, as if he’s trying to figure something out. But then he blinks, stands, and turns to leave.

“See you tomorrow, then.”

Claude waves goodbye and happily watches him head to the library door. “Yes, you will. Just don’t keep me waiting too long.”

“Handsome guy like you?” Sylvain pauses to turn, wink, and blow a kiss in Claude’s direction. “I would never even dream of it.”

It’s unbelievably cheesy, but it’s Sylvain’s way of getting the last word in. Somehow, Claude finds he doesn’t even mind the embarrassed flush that creeps up his neck in response as Sylvain smirks at him over his shoulder. How can he, when in the end they’ve both gotten exactly what they want? 

Claude smiles. Tomorrow night is going to be fun.

[clarosowrites]

Dancing

    It was another bitterly cold night in the Frostbacks. Another sleepless night staring up at her ceiling, feeling her breath catching in her chest. Feeling--almost seeing--the walls creeping closer, squeezing her between them. 

    When it became too much, she grabbed her mask and almost ran from her rooms. Through the great hall and into the atrium . Up the stone steps to the library, deserted at this time of night. The smell of dust and leather greeted her.

    Wooden crates lay open, filled to the brim with books. Gercia picked a crate and began putting them onto shelves, organizing them first by topic and then by author name. They had been shipped from all over Thedas. Books of strategy from Orlais, of history from Antiva, even tomes of magic from Tevinter. Although she wasn't sure how they managed to get those into through Fereldan. Very uptight, those dog lords.

    She emptied one crate, and then another. She was working on a third when she heard a faint voice behind her. 

    "Hello." 

    She turned to see a man in patched clothes and a large hat leaning against the railing. He was positioned oddly. His limbs out at odd angles, like a marionette that had been leaned up against a wall. The man--no, just a boy, he was young despite his sunken eyes. He peered at her through a pale fringe of hair.

    She opened her mouth to answer and found that she couldn't. She coughed and tried again. "Good evening." Her voice sounded strained and raspy, as though she'd forgotten how to use it. 

    The boy tilted his head. "Why aren't you asleep? Most people are."

    "I suppose I had too much tea after supper. It kept me awake." A classic excuse, one she'd used many times when her father caught her up at odd hours. 

    "No." He frowned. "You're lying." 

    "Excuse me?"

    His eyes slid over to the stack of books. "Why are you sorting through books? That's Dorian's job."

    "I just..." A swell of panic rose in her throat. She tightened her grip on the book in her hand, her nails digging into the leather cover. "I like to stay busy." She replied stiffly. 

    "Hungry hands and a hungry heart." He said in a strange, airy voice. "Maybe feeding one will satisfy the other. It hasn't yet, hasn't filled the space where half a family used to be, but the hands keep moving. They need something, anything to keep them busy, to keep them from shaking apart, bone by bone." 

    "...how did you know that?" She whispered. 

    "Trapped, caged in by courtesy and conduct, can't walk too fast, speak too loudly. Tired of being elegant and beautiful, but you can't find a place to take off the mask without anyone seeing." His lips turned up into something like a smile, like he saw someone else smile and copied them, not truly knowing what it was. "I know a place where you can. I can show you, if you like." He hopped down from the railing and held out his hand. 

    This was insane. She shouldn't go with him. Even if he was a normal young man--and it was apparent he wasn't--she shouldn't follow him to an unknown place in the middle of the night. But every word that he said was true, lifted right from the parts of her soul that she ignored. It couldn't be fixed, but if he had some way to help...

    "Please." She said simply, placing her hand in his. 

    He led her down the stairs and out of the hall. Outside, they passed a pair of guards. She blanched and stumbled, but the boy squeezed her hand."It's alright. They won't notice us." He said. The guards looked right through her like she wasn't there. 

    Just past the drawbridge, he pulled her past a cluster of giant pine trees and into a large clearing. He threw his arms out to encompass the space. "No one will see you here. The trees block any eyes." He smiled. "The Iron Bull trains his Chargers here. Only a few people know of it, and all of them are asleep." 

    "It's perfect." She unfastened her mask, feeling like a heavy weight has been lifted off her shoulders. 

    The boy sat down. "You can do magic or sing really loud or roll around in the dirt." He beamed up at her. "Nugs seem to like doing the last one, maybe you will too."

    "I might." She smiled and closed her eyes. Wind whipped around her, carrying the scent of pine needles. It was a perfect night for dancing, she realized with a pang in her chest. She pushed it away, and turned to thank her helper.

    He was gone. She hadn't heard him move, but he wasn't in the clearing.

    Then, suddenly, he was in front of her. She pressed a hand to her mouth, holding in a cry of surprise. He held out a quarter staff. "So you can dance."

    There could only be one explanation for his powers, the way he could read her thoughts and disappear without a sound. So she bowed in the way her mother, Seer of Afsaana, taught her. "Thank you. I am in your debt, Spirit." 

    He smiled. "This will help."

    She took the staff, relishing the familiar bend of the wood in her hands. She hadn't danced in years, not she had left Rivain. And though she left for a reason and never planned on returning, the thought of her homeland tonight didn't cause the usual sorrow in her chest. She could almost hear the sounds of the dock market and smell the salt water as it washed against the shore. She felt sure and solid, a pillar of red stone. 

    She quickly stripped until she stood in just her breastband and underskirt, her mask nestled on top of her discarded clothing. Her bare feet moved her into first position, the staff raised high. She slowly slid into second position, then third, then fourth, until she was moving fluidly across the hard packed ground. The staff felt like an extension of her arm as she twirled, sweeping it above her head. 

    As she danced under the cold moonlight of the Frostbacks, she could feel the scorching Rivaini sun on her shoulders.

[theashofwkm]

The Invitation

Summary: In which Mark invites Damien to a party.

Warnings: none? It’s angsty, but pretty tame.

Prompt: “What about before WKM, #17 (Angst)?”

17: “Are you upset with me?”

@kaylaevs5162 I had a ton of fun writing this, and I really hope you like it.

———

Damien doesn’t remove his eyes from the paper he’s hunched over when he hears a knock at the door.

“Come on in,” he sighs, thinking it’s the DA coming to thank him, again, for their new position and office. It’s really not necessary, but they’d already stopped by three times that day, first with a hug, again with yet another hug, and again later with lunch, gushing their thanks all the while. It was a bit over the top, but it did warm his heart.

It’s not the DA at his door.

“Damien?” A deep voice questions quietly, nervous yet somehow confident as well. Damien lifts his head to meet the man’s eyes, the Mayor’s widening upon confirming who his visitor is.

He gestures to the chair on the other side of his desk. “Sit, sit,” he encourages, still half-distracted. “Let me just finish reading over this document real quick, alright?” He continues to read, though at a noticeably faster pace, not seeing the silent nod given in response to his question. He scribbles his signature with a pen before turning his full attention to his guest.

“Sorry about that.” He smiles an apology, leaning forward and shuffling the document to the side for later filing. “What are you doing here, Mark? I assume this isn’t a social visit.”

“No, it’s not.” Mark replies in a soft voice, his face calm and oddly... forlorn, Damien notices. Something is up, Mark isn’t usually so quick to get to the point and is usually much cheerier. Mayhaps something’s happened, though, it has been a while since the two have spoken or seen one another.

Damien frowns reflexively, in response to Mark’s tone and serious face. He nervously straightens his suit. “Why are you here then?” He asks, after Mark lets the silence sit instead of filling it to answer Damien’s question.

“I am hosting a small party, and I would like it if you came.” He offers Damien a cream-colored envelope, marred only with his name and position, and a bright wax seal that holds it shut.

Damien lets his eyebrows sink closer to his eyes as he accepts the envelope. Something is definitely wrong with Mark, he decides. He’s much too stiff and proper and he never hosts small parties.

“Of course I will,” Damien reassures. “But that can’t be all you’re here for, is it? You’re much too tense for this to just be about some party you’re throwing.” He mentally makes a note to adjust his schedule to fit the party. He doesn’t ask what it’s for, as he senses it holds some importance to Mark, so of course he’ll go, no matter what he’d have to shift around or cancel to do so. It had been too long of Mark sulking over his failed marriage.

“You’re right.” Mark cracks a small smile at Damien’s worry, putting his acting to good use to make it appear genuine, and it is, partly. He never could hide anything from Damien. “I’d also like your friend to come, as well. Your new District Attorney, Y/N Y/L/N.” He offers Damien another envelope, identical to the last, bar the name and position.

“I’ll pass this on to them.” He places the envelope beside his, dead center on his desk to encourage him to pass it on before the day was over.

The air hangs in an awkward silence, something Damien isn’t used to being there between him and Mark. Or him and anyone, really. He was a charismatic person, it was part of his job. He decides that he isn’t too fond of them, he much rather prefers it to be filled with chatter, no matter the subject.

He runs his hand over his hair as he notices Mark’s tenseness, absorbs it, reacts to it.

“Are you alright?” The Mayor asks the stiff Actor gently. “If I’m not mistaken, you appear to be... regretful of something. Is it about C—“

“Don’t.” Mark cuts Damien off harshly, shooting him a hard look. He then sighs, closing his eyes for a moment before wearily explaining himself. “Sorry. Just- I don’t want to hear her name right now. And it’s not about her, I’m over it, really.”

“What is it about, then?”

Mark cuts his eyes away from the Mayor’s, too guilty to meet his concerned gaze any longer. “Nothing of much importance,” he lies, fighting to get the words past his closed throat. “It’ll be over and fixed soon enough, anyways.” He forces himself to meet his friend’s eyes with a small, half smile.

“Are you sure?” Damien pushes, unable to leave his friend suffering if there’s anything he could to help. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No, Damien,” Mark shakes his head, still oddly sad and accepting. “I’ll be alright.”

Damien feels a weight in his chest as Mark stands and gets ready to leave. He panics, knowing Mark has been telling him more lies then truth in the last few minutes and wanting, needing, to ease his friend’s pain, no matter how long it’s been since they’ve had a proper chat.

“Are you upset with me?” He stands, blurting out his worry as Mark reaches the door, causing the Actor to pause and turn to look at Damien with startled eyes that soften upon seeing his friend’s worried, guilty face, neither one noticing the papers that slip off the desk and float gently to the floor.

“No, of course not,” the Actor soothes, taking a few steps and grabbing Damien’s hand, guiding him around the desk to give him a tight hug. “I’m just working through a few things. I’m hosting the party in hopes of relaxing a bit before I put this all behind me.” His chest tightens with his half truth. He crumples Damien’s pressed suit in his guilty fists.

Damien presses his face into Mark’s neck, holding his friend close. “I wish you’d let me help you,” he mumbles into his tanned skin.

“You can’t,” Mark replies, his tongue thick and his mouth bitter with the words, with this whole encounter. Coming to deliver the invitation in person was a mistake. He relaxes his tight fists and holds Damien by the shoulders at a distance, giving a smile that he doesn’t try to make real.

“I mean, it’s already done, I’m just waiting for it to go through and process, you know? I guess the nerves are getting to me a bit.” He tries to erase Damien’s responsibility over him, not wanting him to hurt any more then what is necessary.

Damien shrugs Mark off and retrieves his cane, twisting it in nervous hands, not willing to speak to Mark with his amalgamation of truthful lies, and still feeling unnecessarily responsible for his friend’s hurt.

“Damien,” Mark calls, causing the Mayor to meet his apologetic gaze. “I’m sorry. For all of this, I really am. I know I’ve been distant. I’m trying to fix that now, if it’s too late.”

“Of course it’s not,” Damien fires back at rapid speed, somewhat offended by Mark’s words, turning his gaze back to the sleek wood in his hands. “It’ll never be too late, you’re my friend and I’m here for you, with whatever you may need.”

Mark feels his chest deflate a little. He nearly forgot just how... sincere and touching Damien could be. He wishes he could him that he’s apologizing for what’s to come, not what already passed. He wonders if Damien would still think kindly of him, if he knew everything.

“You really are a great friend, you know,” he admits. He doesn’t say how much that hurts him at the moment, though, because Damien being a good friend is only going to get him hurt and that’s the last thing Mark wants. Damien’s already suffered too much because of him and Mark hates to inflict more, but he’s in too deep now and it can’t be avoided.

“You should go, if that’s all,” Damien says, offering a tight lipped smile as he ignores the heartfelt statement. “You have a party to prepare for and I have work to do. It was nice seeing you again, and I’m looking forward to your little get together. I could use a destresser.” He retreats back to his chair, trying to ignore the heavy sadness spilling out of Mark’s dark eyes.

“Yeah, me too.” Mark lifts his lips out of habit, picking up Damien’s true intentions. He really is sorry for what is going to happen. He makes a mental note to buy Damien’s favorite scotch for the party as he walks out the door and shuts it behind him, leaving Damien to his work.

Just because this will end in tragedy doesn’t mean they all can’t have a little fun beforehand.

———

My Masterlist

TAGGING:

@pleaseletthisjimbetaken @electricprincess888 @berrie-b @mackenziplier @gerardwayslips @risiskifi @cawestad @theinvisiblespoon @californiakxng @just-another-starfish @superawesomeamazingname @moonstonefox12 @bones-and-tomes @am-I-Heaven-or-am-I-hell @itsbumblebunnybee @harmonyofstars @cosmic-frapuccino @jmweezy

I hope you all like this! I actually like it a bit too much. It’s a bit weird at some points, but I’m proud of it. Let me know how you like this and remember that prompt requests are still open!

I feel bad for Actor!Mark. check the tags for more angst

[porsefwrites]

The King’s Dogma | I | Opalia

This is the first chapter to this novel I will be writing. If you like it or spot any errors, let me know! Thank you for reading it if you do. n __n /

The water rippled as gentle, ashen hands breached it's surface. They released a black soot into it that bloomed like a cloud in it's depths. A distorted reflection shined back when the sunlight licked at the peaks of the ebbing waves. A pair of opalescent eyes gazed back, framed by blushing olive skin that was blotched with dirt and ash. She brought her hands to her face, rubbing the water into her skin. "That's better," she hummed. A tired smile formed on her lips as she wiped her hands on the washcloth nearby.

"You're finished with your work today?" asked a man, walking through the leather flaps that made up the door to the dim workshop. His voice was deep, aged, and held a weight to it. He groaned as he sat in a wooden chair which seemed to groan back. She turned her body around to look at him. "Yeah. You're alright?" A thunderous laugh and a vicious cough blurted out from his mouth. "I'm fine! Don't worry about me," he choked, "You're like you're mother with that, you know!" He continued to stifle his cough as best he could as he took a few sips of water.

She frowned and scooted a bit closer to him, resting her head on his thigh. He was warm and smelled of fire. She knew she would have to wash her face again but it didn't matter. "I'm not goin' anywhere." He sounded offended. A huff blew out his nose. "I know." She didn't know that. He was old, much too old. His fingers pulled off the sweat damp cloth that covered her forehead and he rubbed the birthmark that it was hiding. It was much lighter than her skin and never seemed to darken.

The mark of Flodea, they called it. A blessing from a Goddess who had never been seen before. In the tomes, they say she died at the hands of the great dragon but her spirit lives on through the unicorns. But it was a curse to her. Her following demanded the baby girls born under her blessing to be taken away and placed into covens. She didn't believe in it nor did her family. The covens couldn't check all the babies born and most families willingly sent their children off. Each mark was different. Her own resembled a twinkling star.

"They will find out one day," the old man wheezed. She knew that but she made it this far without accidental revealing her mark. "I'll fight anyone who tries to take me away," she said with a smug grin on her face. "Opalia." He tensed up, giving her a light smack on the back of her head. "I know." The reality of the situation was she couldn't stop herself from being taken. It was tradition and they wouldn't take any chance to anger their gods. Most of them were living after all. Thankfully, the small amount of people permitted to see her never dared raise an alarm.

Her people were tall and she was short. She was a sick child, they claimed, stunted her growth. It was true but it wasn't the reason. Her eyes were a rare color. An opalescent silver that captured a rainbow of colors like a kaleidoscope. They all had actual horns as well. A variety of earthy colors but mostly muted. Their eyes typically shades of crimson to gold and their pupils stilted like the great dragon they descended from. Her pupils were horizontal and square like a horse. They had patches scales on their skin as well of their own unique color. She had none but her tanned skin glistened when in the sun.

Her grandfather was a muscular man in his youth but now he was fattening with old age. He had light brown horns that stuck out of his head similar to a ram. Dark brown scales spread across the bridge of his nose like freckles and sprinkled themselves along the top of his arms and hands. She always liked how they felt as they were much softer than his rough skin. His eyes were a golden brown color and his hair was pitch black, peppered with grey. She inherited the color of her locks from her mother who inherited it from him. It was the only thing unusual for those who had her gift as they usually had white hair. But a gift it was to be the same as her mother. It kept the priestesses away.

"Your grandmother will be home soon. I can feel her drawing near," he grumbled, drawing a deep breath and a rough cough followed, "Wash up and start dinner." Her grandfather gave a few pats on her back. She didn't want to get up but dinner wouldn't make itself. Opalia crawled her way over to the basin, dipping the washcloth into the cool water. She heard the leather straps leading outside slap against each other and assumed her grandfather went to walk his wife the rest of the way home. The water was much too cold now but she washed away the remaining soot on her body before running into her room to change.

A few moments later he returned with her grandmother in tow. Opalia was in the middle of chopping up vegetables, placing them into a pan with a bit of animal fat. A wave of relief settled in her body since she didn't have to keep cooking. She wasn't very good at it much to her grandmother's disapproval. "How was your day, grandmother?" She asked, getting up to walk over to her, embracing the old woman when she did. "Good, good," she huffed. The woman was tired as always but out of the three of them, she was the best at hunting and gathering so no one else could do the job. "Thank you for starting the food, chama." She chuckled, kissing Opalia on the cheek. Her lips were chapped and damp from spit, leaving a cool sensation on her skin.

"Only for you," Opalia winked at her. "And only for you do I come home, chama!" Her grandmother cackled, resting her bones on the floor by the basin, cleaning herself up. Opalia laughed along with her. Her grandfather sat down on the floor by the fire, chuckling. "Hey, hey! That's not nice." All three of them were laughing now and there was a good energy in the air. Their home was warm and their bellies soon to be filled. Her grandmother began to sing in a tongue she couldn't understand but somehow the words revealed themselves in her heart. It was a language of emotion and made the spirit in her body surge.

Opalia hummed along to the tune, making her way to the door and stepping outside. It was getting dark out and there were to be no more travelers to pass. They lived far from the capital in a small, remote village. Folks passed by on the road in front of their house. Caravans, travelers, and other sorts of people that occasionally bought their wares. Her family was known for their quality handicrafts and metalworking so they had enough money to keep their land. They had a forge on the side of their home along with a loom and a variety of other tools.

She wandered over by the garden, idly running her hands through the foliage. They had checked them for yield in the morning and harvested for the day. A variety of fruits and herbs grew in it. Mostly herbs due to it's size. The poppies and spirit flowers began to close their petals for the night to prepare for the morn. She walked out into the clearing in the yard, settling down among them. Opalia laid back into the grass, closing her eyes. Just for a moment she'd rest. For a little bit.

The sound of rumbling hooves woke her from her nap. Startled, she sat up, looking down the road in their direction. "Opalia, get inside!" Her grandfather shouted, waving over to her. She did her best to scramble up, slipping on the long silk-like grass a few times before she could catch her footing. In the side of her vision, a figure ran past and a sudden wave of heat collided into her. At first it was just that but an intimidating power made her freeze in her tracks. The shouts of her grandfather grew quieter and her ears focused onto labored breathing that wasn't her own. Then, the thumping heartbeat that raced alongside her own. All she could do was turn as did another. Her eyes met with those of someone else. They were blazing like molten metal and they left a searing mark on her soul as they burned into her.

She didn't know who he was nor did he know her from the startled look on his face. None of them knew what was happening until a splash broke the force connecting them together. He screamed in agony, falling to the ground. A plume of steam emitted off of his body.

"Go inside! Do not get involved!" A soldier shouted, pointing his sword at her and her family. She couldn't see the faces of the soldiers. They were just as heavily armored as their horses. Opalia looked back over at the man on the ground and somehow she could feel his pain even if it was just a fraction. A voice echoed in her mind.

It burns. It's so cold.

Her fingertips felt like they were dipped in ice water and it traveled up her arms slowly. A rough grip on her arm broke her from her trance as she was carried off towards her home. "Are you deaf, girl?" Her grandfather was furious, she could tell from his tone. But all she could do was stare at their victim and the pain in her body intensified. They clamped chains onto his body and wrapped them around tightly. It was inhumane, cruel.

I'm dying.

The chill she felt began to burn and paralyze her. Her knees gave out from under her. "What is wrong with you? Get up!" Her grandfather tugged her upwards but she couldn't move. "Stop," she mumbled. He paused, loosening his grip. The soldiers splashed another bucket of water onto the man and another burst of steam come off of his skin. He screamed and it was louder than before. It intensified in her ears. "Stop!" She shouted, spirit flowing out of her in waves of light. Opalia lifted her hand, pointing it towards him. A orb of magic erupted from his body, surrounding him in a barrier which pushed the soldiers back. They were as astounded as her grandparents who stood by her.

Beads of sweat dripped down her face as the sensations subsided. The man had collapsed, his breathing labored and blood dripping down the corner of his mouth. "What... happened," she huffed, her gaze drifting away for a moment to the soldiers. "S-she's just a child, forgive her," said her grandmother, stepping in front of Opalia. They had to improvise for her a lot but this was a mess they weren't sure they could get her out of. She knew this. "I'm sorry," said Opalia. But the soldiers ignored her words and said nothing. "No, please! She didn't mean it!"

The clang of armor approached them swiftly. "She is under arrest and will be brought to the capital for trial." Their voices were muffled through their helmets but they were clearly flustered. Opalia was pried from the grasp of her grandfather who needed to hold his wife back as she struggled to reclaim her granddaughter. "You can't take her from us!" She shouted but to no avail. Everyone knew that there was no trial. It was either death or dungeon and either resulted in never seeing the culprit again. No matter how small the crime.

Opalia wanted to struggle. But she felt more and more fatigued as they brought her closer to the man. The soldiers linked their chains together and shoved them into a cage made of magic she couldn't even comprehend. The screams from her grandmother and the pain on both of their faces broke her heart. They couldn't stop this. It wasn't any use as it would only get her killed. They could only hope that there was a trial or that she would be sent away to the coven to serve Flodea. As long as she lived, as long as she could come home.

The road was to be long. They were far from the capital. All she had was this stranger who she felt a strange connection to. Opalia let him rest his head on her lap. He was bound and extremely hurt. She lifted her hand over his body and tried to command her spirit to flow but it wasn't working. Their prison floated behind the horses, keeping close to them.

He was young and his hair was silver. It was long, reaching a bit below his shoulders and straight. His skin was tan but not quite as dark as her own. He had black scales along his jaw and a bit under his eyes. The warmth she felt before returned to him. He wasn't wearing much and what he was wearing was soaked. His horns were pitch black and emerged from the front of his head. They went straight out and had a slight curve. They were not akin to any animal she had ever seen. Who was he? She leaned down to smell his hair. It was perfumed. He was either a thief or someone of high status. His current state made her believe he was a criminal. A good one to be restrained like this.

The reality of the situation set in after a few minutes as the adrenaline subsided. A tightness in her chest and throat pained her along with a flutter in her stomach. She didn't want to die or be trapped in a dungeon for the rest of her life. What would even happen to her? The worst things came to mind and it made her sick. She felt like vomiting but there was no place to do so.

It seemed as if an hour or so had passed. The sun retreated behind the horizon and night was there. The road behind them was pitch black and the only thing illuminating the area was their cage and the torches from the soldiers. He began to stir in his sleep, waking from his slumber. She was jealous he had slept for so long. The grip of slumber was upon her but her nerves wouldn't let her sleep. His hand brushed over his chest and stomach as he peered up at her. His eyebrows lifted but his eyes were still heavy with sleep.

"You're quite beautiful to wake up to," he yawned.  "Who are you?" She asked, her body tensing up as he rolled onto his stomach, nesting his head into her thighs. "None of your business." His voice was muffled and his breath was hot. "G-get off of me," she grunted, pushing at his shoulders. His body size was so massive that he wouldn't even budge. "I'm not some lady of the night, y'know." Opalia was flustered. Didn't he know what personal space was? Pervert.

"You smell like shit. So I'd be happy to," he grumbled, rolling off of her and landing with a thump to the side. She rolled her eyes but couldn't say much as it was most likely true. She didn't even get to bathe yet. The man hissed, the chains rattling as he tried to sit up. Out of pity, she placed her hands on his back, helping him lift himself up. He rested his back on the bars of the cage, staring at her. "Who are you?"

"I think you should answer that first," she spat, crossing her arms in front of her. He chuckled, nodding his head. "Fair point. My name is Raphael. That's all you need to know." It wasn't like she cared but at least she'd meet someone that wasn't her family before she was sent to her doom. "I'm Opalia and that's all I'm telling you, criminal." He burst out laughing, stopping in worry as he nearly fell over. "Criminal? Is that what you think I am? I'm a prince, you idiot. I'm going to be king and you've never heard of me? Classic."

One of the soldiers sneered. "My lord, you're not going to be king if you keep this up. I'm surprised your father hasn't killed you yet." What he said was both respectful and disrespectful all at once. Opalia was impressed. "Good one." Raphael shattered the chains around his upper body, growling at the soldier. "You're the one who is dead once I get out of here." She backed herself up in the cage. Opalia did not want to be in here with that wreck. He was more hot headed than a wild boar. Raphael looked at her and relaxed his body.

"When we get back, I'll make sure you'll be okay." He seemed guilty. His posture seemed to sink and he looked smaller despite being so large. "What is that supposed to mean?" She had every reason to worry. It wasn't like this happened every day. Would he make her a slave? Throw her out into the wilderness? Worse? "Stop doing... whatever you're doing. It feels weird." He shuffled in his spot uncomfortably, trying to make distance between them. "What am I doing?" She asked, curling her knees close to her chest. "I don't know." Opalia let out a sigh and stared out the cage away from him. He did the same. Eventually, she fell asleep.

When they finally reached the capital, the sky was bright. Lavender strips of color brushed across the sky, mingling with the orange hues of sunlight that appeared as the sun rose. Her eyes fluttered open as he shook her awake. "We're here." His voice sounded so distant. She moaned in response, not wanting to wake just yet. "Can you just open the cage? I'm not an animal." He commanded, tapping his fingers impatiently on the floor. "No," responded one of the soldiers. Raphael slammed his fist against the bars, jolting her awake. She could feel his anger in bits and pieces. It felt like the vibration from slamming a hammer against hot steel.

Opalia wiped the tears and crust away from her eyes. She looked around at the capital. It was empty for what she knew a city to be. Everyone must still be asleep, she thought. "Raphael," she mumbled. "Yeah?" He gave her his attention for a moment before looking back at the soldiers to make childish faces. "Am I going to die?" The man froze, looking back at her, his eyes wide with surprise. "Are you sick? If not, no. You're not going to die. Can you stop with that?" He sounded annoyed but she couldn't help it. For the first time, she was truly without her family. She felt herself getting choked up as she thought about the possible fates that may be upon her. "Don't let them take me away," she cried, covering her face with the cloth of her dress.

"What are you talking about? No one-- Oh." It clicked for him. "You can stay with me until I can get you home. You aren't afraid of being a maid... or something, right?" He was anxious, she felt it. But she couldn't stop sobbing. Raphael rested his hand on her shoulder. "You're going to be okay. Just... stop crying. Please." His voice was soft. He was trying to comfort her. She had to give him that much. "Take some deep breaths, okay?" Raphael took a deep breath in and she tried her best to as well but it was shaky.

He moved closer to her, wrapping his arm around her slowly. His body was even unnaturally hotter this close. Raphael didn't say anything but he kept breathing with her until she stopped. "I'm sorry," she chuckled, wiping the moisture from her face. Her eyes felt puffy and irritated from crying. He let her go, slinking away from her. "It's fine." He looked out towards the castle. "We're nearly here. I can't wait to get out of these clothes."

The horses stopped after a few minutes of silence between the two. She felt better and he made her feel safe. There was a genuine concern for her that she knew was sincere. A man with a robe came out from around the soldiers and to the cage, releasing the magic upon it. The two of them fell onto the gravel below. She gasped as the pebbles poked her palms. "Ow," she winced. Raphael broke the rest of his chains off, standing up onto his feet. He stumbled a bit but he was alright. She looked up at him in awe. He was a lot taller than any man she had ever seen. Twelve feet at least compared to her stature of about a bit above six and a half. Nearly twice her size.

He held his hand out to her, bending down a bit. She grabbed onto his hand and he pulled her up with a single motion. It took her a moment to catch her footing but she finally let go of his hand. "Thank you," she mumbled. "Come on, my lord. You are to answer to your father." The other soldiers dispersed, leaving what she could assume was their captain behind. Raphael groaned, following him as he began to walk towards the large doors of the castle. Opalia didn't get a good glimpse of it but as she looked up, it made her dizzy.

It was huge and made of a glossy, black stone that captured light similar to a pearl. The designs of the pillars and trim was intricate with ancient designs and magical runic symbols. It's towers were tall and everything about it was sharp. A large, black dragon curled around it that rivaled it's size. It's scales seemingly blending in with the stone. She could hear it breath as it slumbered. Opalia was in awe. A living god. The great dragon in the flesh in front of her. "Come on," said Raphael, breaking her out of her trance. "S-Sorry," she apologized.

"Yeah, my grandfather tends to have that affect on everyone. Don't be too impressed, he's a foul, rotten soul. No one worth meeting." His words disappointed her. Everything she heard of the great dragon was... well, great. But he would know the god more, wouldn't he? She shuffled quickly behind the prince, her eyes still locked onto the dragon. It's snout nearly touched the doorway and as they approached, she couldn't help but touch it. A deep rumble emanated from it's throat at her touch, shaking the ground. She quickly pulled her arm away, moving closer behind Raphael.

The hall was gigantic and much brighter than the outside. The black stone was mostly replaced with a white stone and gold accents. Large windows let in copious amounts of light, illuminating the room yet concentrating most of the light on the throne. Her eyes traveled to it and she made eye contact with the king. A man she had never seen before in her life. He was different than what she imagined. The complete opposite of what she was told. Raphael tensed up and his anger returned. The sensation made her nervous.

The king was an evil looking man. His hair was thin and long, growing past his shoulders. It was completely white. His face was wrinkling with age and his eyes the same color as his son yet they burned hotter. He was in full armor made of a black metal she wasn't familiar with. The scales lining his jaw were black with a red sheen and his skin a muted tan color, nearly grey. His horns were much larger but similar to Raphael's own.

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you now."

Raphael spit in his direction, a sour look on his face. "You couldn't even if you tried." The king went to stand but the queen rested a delicate hand on his chest. She was as beautiful as they said. Her hair was the color of moss and stretched like vines down to the floor. Opalia looked at her, infatuated. The queen had eyes the color of pure gold and skin like milk. It didn't even look like age had taken a hold of her yet but she was definitely mature. She changed the mood instantly with her interjection. Her voice was melodic and soothing.

"Who is this beautiful young woman, my son?"

Opalia nearly choked on her own spit. Beautiful? Her? She could barely process the compliment let alone that it was from the queen. "Me? I'm not--" Opalia laughed nervously but Raphael interrupted her. "She's just a girl that got caught up in my mess. I'll make sure she's sent home." The queen rose from the arm of the throne, making her way over towards Opalia. Her hands cupped her face, lifting it up. The golden eyes seemed to examine her features. Opalia couldn't help but blush in embarrassment. Her own eyes treasured the beauty of the queen. She hummed, drawing closer to the girl. "She can accompany us tonight as a guest." Her thumb grazed over her forehead, making Opalia flinch backwards. The queen furrowed her brow. "A free little foal, aren't you? Such beautiful markings... you will do."

Raphael placed his hand around his mother's wrist. "Stop. Leave her alone. She just wants to go home to her family." Opalia felt torn. What he said was true but the queen was seductive and she didn't want to be disrespectful. "It's okay. I can stay if she wants me to." She said, trying to rub the goosebumps off her arms. It was an awfully awkward conversation. Raphael let out a low growl and stormed off up the stairway, leaving her alone with the wolves. Her heart dropped as she watched him storm away.

"Is that true? Did these horrible soldiers take you from your home?" The queen's pupils dilated and her eyes seemed to glow with magic. "When you were trying to save my poor son? How cruel." Her lips formed into a twisted smile. She turned away from Opalia, twirling her hand in the air. The captain began to choke and fell to the floor. Opalia took a few steps away from him, looking on in horror. Vines began to tear out of his body, leaving him to bleed out onto the floor. The warm blood made contact with her feet. Opalia wanted to gag at the mere touch of it. She hadn't seen anyone die before. Is this what they did here?

"Don't worry about him, dear. He wasn't very good at his job and you should be glad he is dead. That man is the one who ordered you to be caged like an animal. Such a beautiful creature such as yourself should be treated like royalty."

The once beautiful queen seemed like a viper to her now. She was afraid of her and had every right to be. This woman could kill her at any moment. A group of maids came out from behind Opalia, cleaning up the mess with no fuss and surprising speed. One of them stuck out to her. A woman with lavender hair and metallic prosthetic limbs powered by spirit. Her skin was tan and the grey horns that stuck out of her head were broken. She looked up at Opalia with her magenta eyes. "My lady, if you would excuse me." Opalia wasn't sure what she was excusing but she put two and two together, stepping away from the blood. It didn't help as she left tracks but the maid lifted her foot, wiping them free of the bodily fluid.

"Thank you," she said. The maid simply bowed and went on her way to carry the body out of the room. When she looked back at the throne, she was met with judging eyes from the king. He seemed to be analyzing her as well but it was different from the queen's way. It felt savage. Like he was dissecting her like a butcher with a corpse. He didn't say a word but he watched her as the queen grabbed her hand and began leading her up the steps. "Let's get you a warm bath and clean clothes."

The queen led her to a room with a large bath in the center. A gentle mist floated along the ground and the air smelled of floral oils and perfumes. "I will leave you to have privacy but please bathe as long as you like. I will send a servant to bring you clothes and escort you to breakfast." Opalia nodded her head and watched the queen slither out of the room. She took a deep breath and looked back at the bath. It felt weird to undress in a place that wasn't home but she did so. Her skin was still stuck with ash and soot from the forge.

As she stepped into the water, it all seemed to clear off of her. The bath was a nice temperature. Not too hot and not too cold. It was much deeper than she expected but it was most likely much more shallow for them. They were larger after all. Opalia explored the room with her eyes. Different bottles were lined across the bottom left corner of the bath which she swam over to. One by one she opened the bottles, smelling what was inside. Honeysuckle, rose, lavender, mint, and other scents were there for her to mix into the bath. It was a larger selection than she had at home and it was exciting.

For the first time since she was here, she put on a warm smile. All it took was a bath. She took a bit of the honeysuckle and a vial of mint, putting a few drops into the water. "All better." Opalia dipped her head under the water to wet her hair. When it was wet, it straightened out the waves in her hair, letting it drop to it's full length which reached her lower back. The door inched open and the purple haired maid from before entered with a blindfold on her face. Opalia raised her eyebrow and watched her set down a towel and folded garments before leaving.

She spent a few more moments in the bath before getting out, wrapping herself in the towel and wringing out her hair. A sharp knock on the door startled her. "My lady, the first meal of the day is starting and the queen wishes for you to come as soon as possible." Opalia rushed to dry down her body. "I'll be ready in a moment," she said. The dress she gave was plain and white. It held itself up on her shoulders with thin straps and flowed down her frame nicely. The fabric was soft and matte but had a nice weight to it. A bit of extra fabric gave the bottom of the dress some body but not too much. The queen definitely had taste in fashion.

[lombax-lombardi]

Bandages~

A/N: Apparently this was an everyday occurance for the Walters family, for the youngest of the house to drag in a frightened child and a bleeding Au Ra in through their doors. Her heart was too kind. So one of the family members will return this kindness in full.

So @glyphenthusiast ​likes this ship that I told them about so I wrote about the ship. Enjoy!

“Aunt Stella!” a ghastly cry emanated from outside the manor doors, the woman sitting on the chair reading an old spell tome lifted her head, knowing who that voice is.

“Ruby! Ruby what’s wrong?” she immediately rose from her chair, tossing her tome to the side, tugging on the golden handles of the door to see Ruby, her friend Rielle and a bloody, bruised Au Ra trudged themselves in the doorway.

“What happened?”

“Temple Knights…they came after Rielle again and Sidurgu lost his temper and just…attacked them! Without mercy” Ruby explained as she motioned the other young Elezen to let go as she could handle the rest of his weight.

“And you brought him here? Ruby…..” Stella shakes her head, as she helped her niece drag the bleeding Xaela to a large sofa. “Alright, Ruby. Go upstairs and find your Aunt Sarina, she has healing magic, I know Rielle does as well but I do not want her over taxing herself”

Ruby nods and turns to her friend, giving her a big and bright smile. “See, I told you we are good people.”

“I can see that” the young girl gave her a somewhat weak, small smile. “Okay Rielle, over there is my maid-“ she points to a somewhat tall Miqo’te who bowed before them. “Go with her and she will give you the bandages”

“O-Okay”

So the two girls go off to do their respective tasks while the red clad Elezen was left to tend to the bleeding Au Ra on her sofa. She was removing pieces of his armor when the sudden clasp on her arm made her stop.

It was his hand.

“Easy there. I’m not going to hurt you” she narrowed her eyes at him, sensing her true intent he released her arm, letting her go about her business. Stella had never seen so much mail on armor in her life as she lives in a family of magical Elezen, so the only armor she ever sees is her nieces’ Paladin mail.

There was silence; until he spoke.

“I’ve seen you. In the tavern. The one in the white armor…is she-“

“No. We do not serve the Temple Knights in anyway shape or form. My niece weened herself from her Mother’s protection when she was able to lift a sword. She would never report her friend or her friend’s protector”

He scoffed.

“She is soft”

That comment didn’t sit well with Stella, Rielle returned with fresh rolls of bandages in hand.

“I-Is Sid going to be okay?”

“Once Ruby finds her Aunt yes. I would heal his gashes and bones myself, but I know not the art of healing my dear.” She finished, removing the last plate of the Au Ra’s armor, her head shifted at footsteps behind her.

“Stella? Darling? What happened?”

“Mother. This is Ruby’s friend Rielle, and her guardian Sidurgu. Take Rielle upstairs so she may eat and rest. And would you find my twin and niece if you please!”

The older Elezen bows. “Of course, my dear. Come a long with me young one, your guardian is in safe hands” She looked up at the older woman.

“Really?” she asked as their bodies and voices faded upstairs, leaving the mage to once again go about her work.

It was silent again.

Her dark red eyes wavered along her patients’ wounds, skin and scales, being ever mindful of how much pain he was in. Gently weaving the soft fabric of the bandages around the gashes, hopefully with how tight she will make these it would stop the bleeding.

“…..Thank you”

Stella stopped, raising her head to only be met by dark eyes. “You are welcome”

“…Rielle speaks fondly of your niece. Says she….is the only true friend she has…”

“Besides you of course?”

That only elected a huff out of him, but it seemed to be true as she went about her business once more, giving him the opportunity to fixate on her. Her skin was paler then most of the Ishgardians’ he’d seen, flowing locks the darkest shade of purple as if she herself was cleansed in the darkest midnight.

But the one thing that threw him off was her eyes.

Granted he had only just met two of her family members, from what he’d gathered from his young charge, the Walters seemed a large family, and a majority of the family had different shades of emerald green eyes.

This one has red.

Deep red

Dark red.

And he noticed the scars around-no-through her eyes. How has she not been blinded? The way the scars looked, it was as if someone intentionally wanted her blinded. Lucky of her to survive.

“…You are staring” She said through a coy smile, gently pushing him more forward so she could bandage around his chest. It seems she caught him.

He didn’t intend, no, mean to stare but how could he not? Her voice was harsh but gentle as well, what he had seen in the past hour made him realise he probably judged them too quickly, not verbally of course.

But he had to keep Rielle safe, even after she called him out on his shit.

It was nice to know she had made friends with these people, regardless of how he felt about Ishgardians.

More silence.

Stella was almost done with her bandages, making mental note of the scars he already has. So many, just what did the Temple Knights to do him?

She did know who he was, who his charge was. She didn’t care it was wrong, wrong for what her people did, wrong for what they were going to do to that young girl.

No wonder Ruby would sneak out of her room.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t realise that she had ran her nails against a fresh scar, hearing the somewhat low growl from his throat brought her back from her musings.

“…..How did you get this one? It seems to be a deep arrow wound….Pierced even…serrated edges even….”

“That girl, your niece. She jumped in to protect Rielle, regardless of what I told her. She wasn’t afraid, didn’t scream when she saw me as most did…and still do. She told the Knights to back away, they scoffed saying they’d never listen to the bastard child of a noble house….”

Stella sighed. Ruby’s heritage was only known to a select few. The Temple Knights knew because her Father was a now former Knight of the Heavensward….the one who….She shakes her head.

“She raised her shield and told us to run. Only for some bastard to fire an arrow at her….”

The Elezen had finished rolling the last of her bandages on his skin, taking a breath to say “You took the arrow for her? For someone you barely knew?”

His eyes followed her movements, meeting her gaze. It was intense….it burned.

She was met with silence as they continued staring at each other.

Taking a breath, leaning down she pressed a kiss on his forehead, catching him completely off guard. What was she doing?

“Thank you. For saving her. Ruby has a sense for people, she’d always run in to help people. Children. She is more popular in The Brume then most nobles. Thank you…”

He huffed once more, motioning his head to the nearby sound of a door opening. Ruby had finally found her Aunt Sarina.

“I found her Aunt Stella! Aunt Sarina was working and I explained and-“

Stella raised her hand.

“I am glad you found her. Sister, he is bandaged up. Please do what you can”

Her twin nodded her head. “Of course. Eos and I shall be ever glad to assist” She waltzed on over to her patient, explaining to him who she was and what she was going to do.

Ruby smiles. “You aren’t mad at me? For bringing them here?”

“No you did well, just as you always do. Go find Rielle, she is upstairs. Tell her he is going to be fine”

“Right~” she said with new found vigor as she raced up the stairs to find her friend.

Stella was about to leave when she felt someone staring. It was familiar.

It was him.

She only glanced back slightly and she was right. He was staring again, this time with purpose, barley paying any attention to her twin, the movements of his mouth indicated he was asking a question, but she could barely hear.

“…Those scars on her eyes…how did she get them?”

Sarina sighs. “It was from…some children. Stella as a child was very powerful with her magic, caused some accidents. Nearly killed people. One day she was alone and a larger kid, probably a teenager pulled a knife and tried to hurt her. A good mage is a dead mage, I remember them saying, I was hiding in a nearby crate. They got her eyes, stomach and her arms, only for my elder sister to jump in and….retaliate” she shakes her head, motioning for her fairy companion to move to his other shoulder.

“….Because she was different?”

She looked up at him. “Yes but also…..Stella and I are bastard children. Unlike the Foretemps House, Walters acknowledge their mistakes and we were reinstated as noble children. Though the other Houses didn’t treat to my twin and I as kindly as our elder sisters”

Sidurgu watched Stella leave. So, they’ve had their share of pain too it seems.

[jrazillashadowworks]

Behind the Mask

So, this short is for Victubia’s February theme of Behind the Mask. I really enjoyed writing this silly story and I hope that you will enjoy reading it as well!

Word Count: 2053

Warnings: None

It had been a long day of disappointing drills for Luca, the sun slowly descending into the warm, red, pink, and purple liquid hues of the darkening sky before he was let loose. It would be a lie if Luca admitted he wasn’t distracted the entire day, mind preoccupied with looking forward to going to the Royal Library to see his crush Melissa as soon as he was free.

Unfortunately for him, his military drills were overseen by Channarong, the most prestigious strategist within the Royal army, who kept him there longer than anyone due to his abysmal attention span and scores in each session. At the very end, he had sighed and slapped Luca on the forehead with a gilded, folded fan.

“You hold yourself as loyal to her majesty,” Channarong said coldly, his voice like icy steel. “With such a pathetic display, the Queen herself would feel a true dishonor should she had witnessed it. Don’t let it happen again.”

With the plump strategist disappointingly walking away, Luca couldn’t help but feel tears sting his eyes, finally realizing the weight and severity of his failure. There was nothing he abhorred more than failing his Queen. Sniffing loudly, he promised indeed that he would not fail her again.

Leaving the training grounds, Luca felt the immeasurable burden of his incompetence on his consciousness, almost too ashamed to meet with Melissa after failing in such a manner. So, it was more out of habit that his body continued on to the library than his mind, which was lost in deep thought.

However, along the way, a ruckus broke out in front of him, ripping him back. Luca only caught a glimpse, as a robed figure knocked over a woman carrying a basket. With an alarmed yelp, she fell over and the bizarre person darted into the nearest alleyway. Instantly, a flare of inspiration filled Luca’s chest, a chance to make up for his dreadful performance that day. Whoever this person was, they were surely up to no good.

Running up alongside the woman, he helped her to her feet and kindly asked if she was okay, instantly giving chase to the individual once she nodded, a blush setting on her cheeks. Surged with purpose, he charged just in time to see the billowing tail of the blue cloak reach the bend. Turning the corner after them, Luca caught sight of the strange, Papier Mache mask made up of white and yellowed book pages, adorning the hooded figure as it looked back at the hulking man. “Wait up,” Luca amiably called out.

From then, a ridiculous game of cat and mouse transpired in the streets of the Capital, the two weaving through the evening crowds, the masked one keeping just out of reach. Luca pressed on, politely yelling at all to get out of the way, while the figure knocked over whoever and whatever they could to bar the muscular Luca, who apologized to all who were affected.

Amongst the crowd, out of the corner of his eye, by a pure stroke of luck, a stern ‘friend’ of Luca’s raised a brow, freezing on the spot, possibly hoping to not be noticed. Unfortunately for him, Luca saw him.

“Hi, Riley,” Luca chimed excitedly, waving madly without losing his stride. “I’m chasing a suspicious individual! Once I capture them, I won’t have failed the Queen! Isn’t that great?! Got to go, bye!” Riley completely ignored him and the confused eyes darting to him and left the scene.

Keeping up his warm, silly expression, breathing lightly, Luca easily out winded the one in the mask who begun to slow after ten minutes of continuous running. Though it was impossible to see the villains face, it would surely be surprised that such a behemoth could be so fast.

Finally, by some bad planning on the part of the villain, they had run into a dead end in the form of a tall brick wall. Now, Luca stood at the mouth, thick arms out. “I gotcha,” he said with a smile.

The cloaked individual paced back and forth, mumbling curses as they started to jump pathetically at the wall, fingers not gaining purchase between the grout to climb up. At that moment, their cloak opened up, revealing a strapped, leather knapsack, filled with multiple books and tomes.

“Drat and curses,” they finally hissed, their voice all over the place, piercing high octaves at each end of their sentences. “You belligerent oaf! I have never been caught before. To think it would be to such a bumbling beast! For shame!”

Lots of words had been lost to Luca, who simply stood there and smiled brightly, large chest heaving. “By her majesty, you will turn yourself in…” Mid-sentence, Luca realized he had no idea what the person had done wrong. “For…whatever crime you have committed.”

“Blast it! Fine!” They unstrapped the bag and held it out. “Rejoice you buffoon, for you have caught the nationally infamous, Victubian book thief!”

Luca’s expression slacked as he then gasped. “Woah! That’s pretty impressive!”

“It is?” The thief faltered, unsure if he was serious. “I mean, yes! That’s right! So, well done! You’ll be lauded as a hero for this!”

Luca’s face flushed as he suddenly chuckled bashfully. “I’m a hero,” he said more to himself. “Wait until I tell Melissa!”

“Congratulations. So are you going to take the books or not?”

“Ooh, right.” Luca closed the distance and took the bag into his hand, clasping it close to his powerful chest.

“Now do you want to know how to become more of a hero?”

Peering down into the mask of the thief, Luca’s sea green and blue eyes sparkled. “How?”

“You let me go. It means that one day you can catch me again and then you’ll be twice the hero.”

Luca gasped innocently. “Really?!”

“Absolutely. You can trust me. Would this face lie?”

“But I can’t see your face…”

They chuckled and started to lift up the mask slowly. Out of nowhere, a rush of professional and forceful voices blared out behind Luca, a ways back. Taken off guard at the moment, Luca failed to keep the thief, as they took the opportunity to dash past the man and disappear just in time for police officers to come into view.

Ray spearheaded this group of officers who surrounded Luca now. Fixing his cap, the young constable looked Luca up and down. “What happened here?”

“Well, I had caught the infamous Victubian book thief but…then they got away.”

“The who? Never mind, follow me to the station. We can talk about it there. You lot, search around for this thief. They couldn’t have gotten far right?”

“Umhm.”

Being brought to the precinct, they discussed the situation, Luca less than helpful with as little information as he actually had. At this point he was growing giddy, not wanting to miss, Melissa at the library, night already falling. Leg bouncing, he answered questions as quickly as he could. Ray finally let him go after a few minutes, along with the books, no traces of the masked thief left on any of them.

“Have a good night, soldier Luca. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Bye officer!”

Once outside, Luca instantly ran all the way the library with a fervor that matched the earlier chase. Along the way, figuring that since the books were given to him, he decided he would gift them to Melissa, considering her overwhelming fondness for such things. He did not check what the books were even about but assumed it would do just the same, knowing her thirst for new information and knowledge.

Reaching the front steps of the astonishingly elegant and massive library between the VU and VMA, Luca huffed, beaming up at the front door. All windows were ablaze with the warm glow of the golden lights within, cascading rectangles of luminance on the stone steps. Despite his long and strangely busy day, a new blossom of excitement filled him with energy and he skipped up to the entrance and swung open the door a bit too strongly. Flinching at the harsh sound of the screeching hinges, he chuckled nervously, glancing into the building.

Right away, he was greeted by a collective hiss from the libraries patrons, shushing him, glaring disapprovingly at his disruptive entrance. Grinning childishly, Luca waved with his free hand. “Sorry,” he half whispered.

Attention turning away from him, he took in the glory of the Royal Library, a tradition he was unable to break, no matter how many times he entered. He was always in absolute awe of its magnificence, the circular main building still busy even at this time of night. Three floors of countless books covered the shelved walls, with rolling, wooden ladders to reach the higher tomes leaned against them. The spines of the books created a rainbow tapestry of color all around him. These walls reached up to the glass-domed ceiling, revealing the now darkened sky, twinkling in starlight. The moon almost directly overhead, bathed the dome in the pale light, glistening against the window panes.

After standing hilariously still for a good couple of minutes once again lost to the beauty of his surroundings, a soft, sweet, and intelligent feminine voice addressed him. Blinking wildly, being pulled back to reality by the angelic, familiar tone, he felt his face immediately heat up as a radiant blush stretched across his face. Unable to contain his silly smile, he looked down on the gorgeous, dark-skinned beauty standing below him, dressed smartly and gracefully, thick, long and wavy purple hair dancing down past her shoulders and down her back.

Staring up at him with tantalizing violet eyes and an amused expression, raising the two beauty marks under the edge of her right eye, her purple brows lifting high, a long scar stretching diagonally at the corner of the right, she chuckled lightly. “Good evening, Luca.”

Luca had forgotten to breathe, finally sucking in air, a rather dramatic, strange sound. “Hello, Gor…Melissa.”

Chuckling, she grabbed his hand. “Stop standing at the entrance like a doorman at a fancy hotel and come sit down.”

Face practically a scorching, red spotlight, he followed her to the reception desk where she sat down, her posture perfect and neat. Taking a seat beside her, he fidgeted, unable to take his eyes off her. Melissa stamped a book then side glanced at him. “You look rather spent today, Luca. Rough day?”

Luca began to spill out the details of his entire day, his mouth like the opening of floodgates, words rushing out. Most people would find it impossible to keep up with the fool’s silly ravings, but Melissa did not miss a word, listening intently. She eased his worries about his earlier failure and inspired him to work harder with encouragement. Finally, he came upon the incident with the thief and lifted the bag of books onto the glossy reception desk. “A gift for you,” Luca bubbled.

Melissa scoffed lightly and gently removed and lined up the books. “I can’t believe you got them back.”

“Got them back?”

Her face lit up as she opened the covers of each book, revealing the prestigious, purple stamp of the Royal Library above the titles. “These were all stolen this afternoon by the strange individual you mentioned.” She beamed, reaching out to gingerly touch his hand yet again. “Thank you so very much, Luca. You truly are a hero.”

At a complete loss, he mumbled incoherent words, blinking at her, impossibly blushing even more than before. “T-Thank you so very much, Melissa.” Tears once again threatened to well up in his eyes, but he wiped them away quickly. “H-How was your day?”

Giggling, a chiming sound that tickled Luca’s ears with delight, Melissa’s thick lips twitched upwards at the edges. “How about we go out to dinner and I’ll tell you all about it?”

Feeling as if his heart would explode from his chest from the sheer elation, his jaw slacked in utter disbelief. “Really?!” He asked breathlessly.

Melissa leaned closer to him, batting her lashes. “If you want to of course.”

Gulping down, he nodded briskly, an almost boyish innocence on his face. “Yes, please. I would love nothing more.”

Pleased, she stacked the recovered books and shut the last cover. “Wonderful.”

[stringwindertheory]

Release Me

He turned the pages of the book in his hand without really reading them. It had been a long, dull night, and as the fire sizzled and popped in the large, brick fireplace in front of his chair, his mind wandered out to the darkness beyond the confines of the house. He sighed and stretched his stockinged feet toward the wrought iron screen that separated him from the flames, felt the warmth on his feet turn to heat, held them there until his soles were so hot he had to pull away. 

Then he placed his feet on the cool, wooden floor, relishing the contrast, closing his eyes as he allowed himself one last brief moment of pleasure. When the moment passed, he opened his eyes and studied the book. Father Glasser had always mocked him for his cramped handwriting, but the man had been a fool who cared more for appearances than for the true power of words. He traced his pale fingers, gnarled with arthritis, against the words he'd wrote so long ago, felt the scritched imprints where he’d cut the ink into the vellum, ran them out along the book’s binding, the rough, pulpy resin, the embossed gold lettering. Then he clapped it shut, pushed aside the screen, and threw it into the fire. 

It took a moment, the thick binding diverting the flames, sending them up and around the edges, but soon the inner pages caught like dry tinder, and it burst with the heat, blooming like the fiery nightcrowns that grow in the underworld. It blackened and crumbled, bits of ash wafting up in the chimney’s draft. He smiled. 

Then he tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling. He still remembered when the painters, led by the mad, charming artist Solara, had come to render the night sky on the interior dome of the library. The library had been closed for months while they worked, the books all stored away, the shelves built out with scaffolding and covered with huge curtains of sailcloth, spattered with paint. He had thought it so beautiful then, what they had made, a thousand points of starlight constellated against the blackness. But paint fades with time, as all things must, and all he saw now was falseness and trickery.

He stood up, his joints popping with the effort, and picked up the iron poker. He swung it like a cudgel, knocking the logs with its curved iron hook, making them crumble and tumble, sending out sparks. Then, leaving the screen off the fireplace, he turned and walked towards to the doorway of the library. His stockinged feet skished over the lacquered wood, and his shadow danced in the firelight, fracturing into a crowd of giants along the stacks of tomes that lined the walls of the room. He went out through the door and did not look back. 

The hallways of the enormous old house were dark and empty as he made his way to the central stairs. He had walked these halls many times, and he did not need candlelight to guide him. As he descended the broad stairwell, he passed the paintings of all the former Progenitors, the faded oils and dyes catching glints of moonlight through the windows, making the faces of the men and women who lined the wall look ghastly and wicked; dozens of them leering out from the past. But he refused to see them. Tonight, he had decided, he would no longer let the dead hold sway. 

The vestibule at the bottom of the stairwell had been grand once, a high ceilinged room with dark oak panelling and brass trimmings, and he remembered the days of his youth, when the house was filled with life and merriment. They had hosted lavish parties then, the revelry often lasting until dawn, back when the sun still rose above these lands. He’d wait crouched at the top of the stairs, bursting with excitement to see the people arriving in their masks and costumes, and he’d make up stories about who they were and what distant realms they had traveled from. He had learned early on not to let elder Father Culler catch him, for he had been a cruel and unyielding man who did not appreciate little urchins spying on the guests. But the Baroness had always taken kindly to him, and she had once even given him his own mask and let him walk among the myriad rooms as people danced and sang in the old tongue of making.

But she was just a painting now, along with old Culler and all the others, and the house had been empty of life for many years. The brass trimmings were faded and tarnished, and the cornice that circled the top of the wall where it met the ceiling was cracked and moldering. White dust and chunks of plaster speckled the threadbare patterned rug.  

He crossed the room to the wide, heavy, interior double doors and pulled them both open. The moon was nearly full tonight, and it sat low on the horizon, rising just above the trees, fat and silver in the starless sky, sending light through the exterior glass doors on the other side of the entryway. His rubber boots were in the entryway, but he walked passed them and pushed the exterior doors open. The air was bracing as it hit his skin, and his breath fogged in the late autumnal night before it rode away on the wind. 

He smiled with pleasure, striding down the marble steps and onto the stone gravel path that led down the broad, sweeping grounds. The pain of the stones on the soles of his feet sent jolts up his legs with each step. He let the pain enliven him, refusing to step off to the weedy grass that lined the path until he reached the fountain near the center of the unkempt lawn. He paused at the fountain, staring up at the leering seraphs that presided over the bone dry bowl beneath. He hated this place, hated the memories it brought back, when the fountain had been full with gurgling water and the Baroness’s daughter had laced her fingers with his own, whispering sweet fantasies about the great power he carried within him, the last scion of the old home, the last of his kind to know the language of making. She had understood even then that there would be no one left to paint her when she was gone, and before she leapt, she had made him promise to write it all down. All of it. 

He cursed her for that promise as he stared at the fallen ivy leaves that sat withered and shrunken in the empty pool. Bare vines crept across the granite flesh of the seraphs like bulging veins, black with disease. Beneath them, a bas-relief showed a woman clutching her bosom. An arrow pierced her heart, and her face was a mask of pain and sorrow. At her feet lay a man, already dead, a half dozen arrows in his chest and head. He lingered before the gruesome scene for a moment longer, then snorted with disgust and walked past. It did not bother him that the eyes of the seraphs followed his path around the fountain. They could never withdraw from their perch without his permission, and he would never grant it, leaving them trapped there until the day they finally crumbled to dust. 

He stepped off the main gravel path, which would have led him down towards the gates, and moved off west towards the rising moon that climbed above the forest. It was higher now, casting the land in skeletal hues. The weedy grass stood tall, but there was a hint of a path, little more than a narrow track of dirt, and he followed it. When he came to the edge of the trees he did not hesitate, forcing his way through the undergrowth that threatened to swallow the trail. 

The trees were mostly cleared of leaves now, but the branches caught the moonlight at every turn, and the shadows made for slow going, obscuring the vines and roots and rocks. There was no sound except for his breathing, the scrunch of his stockings in the dry leaves, and the clattering and creaking of the branches. By the time he reached the far edge of the woods, the moon was well overhead, and he looked out across the fallow pastures that rolled down towards the cliffside. 

The grass rippled in the wind, and with it came the scent of the ocean, fresh and salty. He pushed across the pastures, climbing over the low, mossy stone walls that sectioned off the land, making for the cliffs. They were still a ways off, and his stockings were soon muddied and soaked with dew, but he kept on. When he was well away from the woods, he glanced back. As he did so he stumbled, rolling his ankle in a soft patch of earth that collapsed beneath his weight, coming down to his hands and knees. 

But he had seen it. 

A dim, orange glow, tinting the horizon above the trees. 

He stood again, wiping his hands on his trousers, testing his weight on the tenderness of his left ankle. He limped onwards. Finally, he reached the headstone at the edge of the cliff, a simple cross hewn from granite. The moon had traversed behind him, and it cast its cold light over the ocean far below. The markings on the headstone were weathered and unreadable, but he had carved them himself, after she fell, and desperate though he was to forget them, words were promises in this place. 

The soughing of the tides came up to him like the breath of the nameless ancient ones who still make their home in deep, lightless places. He turned back again. The orange glow was brighter now, climbing above the trees like a false sunrise. He smiled a satisfied smile.

Then he lifted his arms wide and leaned backwards, letting his weight carry him past the edge of the cliff.

That was when I caught him. 

A clod of dirt broke away, dislodged by his feet, and fell to the rocks far below, soundless from this distance, but he hung there, suspended in the air like a still frame.

I warned you not to come this way, I whispered in the wind, hauling him back to sturdier land.

He knelt on his hands and knees, sea grass pushing up through his splayed fingers, his head hanging down. He said nothing, just breathing, stilling his beating heart. Then he lifted his head and looked around in the emptiness of the night.

I burned your story, he said. And your home with it. You have no power over me anymore.

You burned a book. Wood pulp and stains of ink. And you set fire to a house with it. Oak beams and stacks of bricks. That does not change the promise you made.  

Why won’t you release me? he asked. The pain in his voice made me sad.

It was your words that plucked the stars from the sky and gave me life, Father, I said. What power of mine could ever set you free?

It was a mistake, he whispered. 

I said nothing. 

The flames were consuming the dry grass around the house. Soon they would reach the forest.

I just want to see the stars again, he said.

I left him then, left him alone by the cliffside where she gave her life so that he could make me come alive, a final offering to a dying world.

If a star appeared in the sky that night, it was too bright with fire and moonlight to see it.