#somehow kateyui became a major ship

[tomuratta]

Deathmates

Fandom: Dead by Daylight Ship: Taurie Cain/Haddie Kaur/Élodie Rakoto For @polyshipweek 2024 Day 3: Reverse Tropes Word count: 1021 Warnings: Dead by Daylight-typical violence, cults AO3

Taurie is raised to know one thing about the marks on her hands: that they belong to the two people who she will either kill, or be killed by.

On her left, a compass. On her right, an eye.

"A good sign," the masters say. "They are powerful, and you will be too."

Selfishly, Taurie wishes they were weak instead. Then she could surpass them faster.

Her parents take her and her brother all over the world. They are researchers, they say. Scientists, instilling their children with good values.

In public she learns to be friendly (but not too friendly). Polite (but not afraid).

In private, she is deferent. She learns the prayers and repeats them with glee. She is her parents' daughter.

A flight attendant, in a perfect TV-show accent, points to the marks on her hands.

"How lucky!" she says. "Most people only have one."

Taurie smiles and says her thanks. Her heart boils with rage. What a foolish woman.

She enters the Bleed as a child. Later, the masters will talk about her innocence, how ripe she was to be changed, to be chosen.

She will never admit to it, but she is afraid.

At her worst, her moment of most cowardice, she runs her fingers along the marks on her hands.

Taurie stares at the suit in front of her, meat and hair and things she didn't realize could have once been a person. She wonders what the strangers she is fated to share death with would think. Can they feel her? If this happens to her, too, in the screaming darkness, will they know?

Her father's body is heavy. In her future nightmares, the ones the masters say will go away as soon as she prays hard enough, she carries him. She can feel his suit in her arms. No matter how old she gets in the real world, she is tiny, and he is large.

She sees Ewan, the vague shape of a human in that awful old suit. She doesn't even know the last thing she said to him. She can't hear the last words he says to her.

Home is empty. Home stays empty, years down the line.

The masters tell Taurie she is special. More special than being just one of many with two marks on their hands.

Every dream, every nightmare, Taurie records. She sees through other eyes — violence, loyalty, offerings. When she isn't carrying her father's limp body, she is running her blade (and claws, and chainsaw, and more) through sacrifices' bodies.

She knows her fate now. She's going to be one of them, serving the Talon. And the people who match the marks on her hands will be her first sacrifices.

The fog swallows Taurie, and she does not scream.

The sacrifices — survivors, they call themselves, taking comfort in the idea of life — treat Taurie like she's one of them. They extend their hands easily, so trusting and unable to even think of the possibility of a traitor within their midst.

The backs of Taurie's hands itch now, all the time. They're here. She's sure they are, somehow, among the shifting crowd that sits at this campfire.

They try to teach her how to live in this place.

Jonah plunges his hands into a generator, and Taurie copies him. She embraces the way the wires burn her skin.

Steve, blood in his hair, pulls her from a hook. He tells her to run, and leads the monster (one she recognizes, one whose eyes she once looked through) away.

Yoichi offers to heal her with the tinctures Claudette has made. Taurie can see him in the distance as she bleeds.

Kate points out vault points — gaping open windows and crumbling brick walls — and pauses, as though something just came to her mind.

"Have you met Élodie yet? She can help you with chests."

At the name — Élodie — Taurie's left hand burns. She almost gasps.

"Élodie?" she asks, tasting the name in her mouth. "I should — I should meet her."

Kate smiles at her. Taurie looks at her arm instead of her eyes, the geometric flowers leading up to the silhouette of a motorcycle rider on her shoulder.

It's the Knight, this time. Taurie knows his name, but does not speak it. She has dreamed of him too many times to count.

He runs her through with a viciousness she used to revel in. She used to think she could be like him.

Kate is already at the campfire. A woman leans against her, pink-tinted goggles pushing back bleach-blonde hair.

Kate says something to her, and smiles at Taurie.

"Did ya'll get out alright?"

Taurie isn't even sure who else was in the trial with her. She holds back the words that threaten to spill from her tongue.

"No," she says. "He..."

She doesn't know how to phrase it.

"Aw, babe, I'm sorry," Kate says. "I'm sure you'll get luckier, we all struggle at first."

Taurie can't stop herself from frowning.

The woman next to Kate meets her eyes.

"Kate was saying you wanted to talk to Élodie?" she half asks, half states.

Taurie nods, and she grins, easy and confident.

"She's right on the other side of the campfire. I'm sure she'd love to help you out."

"Thanks," Taurie says. Absently, she puts one hand on her throat, feeling the marks embedded in her flesh.

The fire flickers hypnotically as Taurie walks past other sacrifices. Steve grins and waves. She doesn't meet his eyes.

Taurie recognizes Élodie instantly. She's sitting on a log, engrossed in conversation. Freckles dust her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, barely visible in the fluctuating light.

Taurie's left hand burns. She grabs it, covering it with her right palm in a desperate attempt to mitigate the pain. She can feel the compass outlined starkly against her skin.

She stumbles, and Élodie looks up. Her smile turns to a grimace, awful and pained.

The woman next to her looks up too. All Taurie sees is the white streak in her hair before the eye on her right hand erupts in pain.

This time, she screams.