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chairofchaos · 2 months ago

Text

All That Follows

Pairing: Azriel/Eris (Azris my beloveds)

Summary: Sequel to ‘Death’ which is, in turn, the start of a sequel to “When the Blood Burns” - I’m ngl guys I’m too tired to write a summary sorry lol just… trust me please and see A/N

Rating: Teen? I guess?

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: allusions to violence, references of past violence from “When the Blood Burns” and “Death” (ik, you’re like “seriously Chaos? With THIS SERIES? THAT’S IT???” But like… yeah?) AND serious canon divergence. And written on mobile so truly HORRIBLE formatting. (See below)

A/N: ‘Twas the night before hiatus, and all through the house, a few creatures were sleeping but Chaos certainly wasn’t.

I wanted to post & All That Follows on this date, for reasons you might remember if you reread ‘Death’ first (wink wink). On that note: I don’t have time to finish the Masterlist edits I made on this blog. If you go to @fictionalchaos you can see all the posts really easily through that masterlist (Blood, Burns and/or Burns CV, then Death) or you can use the search function. I am so sorry about that. In the meantime, enjoy this completely unedited, un-beta-ed rough (ROUGH) draft of the series finale (but likely not installment, there’s some stuff ~missing~ from the middle) of the WtBB saga. All my love to you all. Enjoy today for me. 💛

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Azriel?”

It was warm. Uncharacteristically warm.

“Az!”

A solid hand gripped his shoulder and shook him.

“Azriel Vanserra.” Eris’ voice was firm.. “Get up.”

Eris.

Azriel’s eyes shot open. It felt like someone was banging on his head.

Eris. Eris.

“I’m here,” Eris smiled.

“Eris,” Azriel choked, the tang of blood lingering a moment on his tongue.

Eris laughed, “Hello.”

“I had to kill you,” Azriel whispered, his brain finally snapping to attention. “Over and over, I— I know it. Why don’t I remember it?”

“Ah,” Eris winced. “People don’t seem to remember things about the in between as much as know them. Here, sit up.” He pulled out a canteen from his hip, offering it to Azriel, who sat up, took it and drank deeply. When was the last time he had had water?

“The in-between?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Its a path of sorts. To here.”

“Here,” Azriel replied, fumbling for Eris’ hand, his wrist, Eris himself, as if he could retreat within the body of his mate and never return to himself.

“Here. Where we are now. Look around,” Eris gestured. “What do you see?”

You, Azriel thought. I see you, and that is all that matters.

Eris was waiting patiently, letting Azriel dig his fingers into the flesh of his wrist— warm, real— until he stopped staring, his chest and head pounding with some dull thud of feeling. Was it his heartbeat, the sound of blood rushing in his veins? It had been so long, so long…

The glen. Azriel blinked, and the world came to him all at once. They were in the glen, Eris kneeling by Azriel’s side the way Azriel had knelt at his to heal him in life.

Where they had lay together and stared at the stars.

Their dreams, breathed on the air and planted in the soil, absorbed into the trees where they were fed by the leaves and the magic of the earth around them, dreams held in nature when they could not be held in hearts.

“Why here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the only place I’ve ever felt free, and you were brought to me?”

“Was I?” Azriel stared, incredulous. The corners of Eris’ eyes crinkled the way they always had when he was happiest.

“You appeared here, just now.”

“Eris,” Azriel growled. “Where is here?”

“I don’t know,” Eris admitted evenly, sitting beside him. “Truly. What I do know is this isn’t the end, either.”

Azriel just stared. Eris reached over and brushed a blade of grass from Azriel’s leathers. They were both dressed as they had been the last time they were left the clearing: Azriel, ready for battle, Truth Teller strapped to his side and Illyrian blades at his back. Eris wore light armor, leather mostly, over a plain shirt and trousers. A dagger was strapped to his belt, and on the grass next to him, a broadsword gleamed in the sunlight.

“Others have come and gone,” Eris continued. “No one I knew, or at least, no one I recognized. Everyone comes a little differently. It’s hazy, sometimes. I think people take different paths. But we aren’t meant to stay here.”

“Where do we go?”

Eris shrugged, leaning back on his free hand. “I don’t know.”

Azriel glanced around the clearing, tightening his grip on Eris so as not to let him go, not to lose him again, again, again—

It was light. When was the last time he had felt the sun on his face?

He fluttered his wings gently, then stretched them out. Eris squeezed his hand, then stood.

“You can fly, you know,” he gestured up at the sky. “I see fae all the time flying overhead.”

“Would I lose you?”

Eris shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

A movement at the edge of the clearing drew their attention. A female stepped into the clearing. Her eyes were clear as she looked about, but it was as if she barely saw them. Azriel realized if he didn’t focus, she barely registered to him as anything more than a shift of the light. The female walked evenly across the clearing, not pausing once.

The thought came to him suddenly, a raindrop before a deluge. “They are all going somewhere?”

“Yes.”

“You’re here.”

Azriel stared as the light filled Eris’ eyes in recognition. “I knew you would come. You always have.”

“You waited for me,” Azriel breathed.

“I did,” Eris knelt on one knee, reaching for Azriel’s hand. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I killed you,” Azriel accepted the offered hand and rose with Eris. “I was the reason you died, the reason we didn’t have a life together.”

Eris smiled softly, embracing him. “I know.”

“I pierced your heart,” he whispered.

“‘It was always so.’”

“You spoke to the Mother.”

“I did.”

“She told you it always happened that way.”

“She did.”

“Did she say why?”

“Not in any way that was satisfying. What was more interesting was what she said about here.”

A beat. Two. “Well?”

“I could wait for you forever, or I could journey on alone. I had the choice,” Eris’ voice turned bitter, “A choice we weren’t offered in life. A chance to walk together under the sun.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. The Mother said you may know, if you considered it.”

Azriel blinked, the memory flashing behind his eyes. Eris, or rather, a creature who was not Eris, eyes as black as the depths of the night sky. Truth Teller, plunged into Not-Eris’ chest over and over. The Mother’s face from under her veil, the veil lifting.

“She helped us.”

“Oh?”

“Somehow, I think-” Azriel shuddered. “I think she intervened. She promised me I would see you again.”

A russet eyebrow crooked toward the sky. “And?”

He loves you more than life itself.

Life itself.

“Eris,” Azriel stepped backward, looking his mate in the eyes. “Did you make a bargain during the war?”

Eris paled. “What?”

“Did you make a bargain during the war?”

Eris took a sharp breath.

“Eris.”

“Yes,” he snapped. “I did.”

“What was it,” Azriel breathed. The pounding in his chest and head was now a crushing, steady pressure, a strain on his strength. “What was the bargain?”

“That you would survive the war.” The words flew from Eris’ mouth like embers from a fire- small, and yet scorching. “That you would live.”

The pressure in Azriel broke, and the mating bond roared to life, as if that ember of truth had burned away some floodgate and water now crashed against them.

“I recieved a letter from a Seer I knew from my youth. He— stop looking at me like that, I was trying to figure out how to tell you all of this— he said a vision he had showed a bat injured, and another bat dead trying to save his friend. That it showed it was from this war. And that my mate was involved, somehow, and how he knew that I don’t know, but I couldn’t let it happen, Azriel. I couldn’t let you die. When I saw Cassian stumbling away, I knew it was that moment. I didn’t know what it would do. I’m so sorry, Azriel,” Eris whispered, dropping his head to Azriel’s shoulder. “I’ve spent this whole time trying to figure out how to tell you, how to make it up to you, but I can’t.”

“Who was the bargain with, who has that kind of power?”

“The Cauldron,” Eris frowned. “I didn’t realize what I had done until a tattoo appeared over my heart.”

“Here?” Azriel rested a finger against Eris’ chest, a precise spot he was familiar with from nightmares and repeating that offense over and over again, until the suffering was over. He was here. They were both here. Alive, or whatever it meant to be conscious in a time and place after a life you have passed through.

Eris nodded.

“A warning,” Azriel mused. “To be careful.” He stroked Eris’ spine, neck to shoulder blades to lower back, and back up again. His mate, his beloved mate, who had done everything in his power to save him and gotten killed in the process. Until his breathing evened, Azriel would hold him. They had been alone for so long, and now all they had was time.

“She said that to me, too. It’s about me.”.

“No, I think it’s about both of us.” He paused a moment, then continued, “Eris, did you call me Azriel Vanserra?”

Eris lifted his head at last, a small smirk playing on his lip. “A little fireling told me you changed your name. I bet Father hated it.”

Azriel laughed. “He did. Every second of it, but I did it in Night and never left the court again. There wasn’t anything he could do to stop me.”

Eris shook his head. “You always were strong willed.”

“And you were always impulsive.”

“Could be said about both of us.”

“Strong willed, too.”

It was quiet a moment.

“Where do we go now?” Azriel asked.

“That way,” Eris nodded over his shoulder.

“Should we talk while we walk, then?”

“I think so. Are you ready?”

“Ready to walk?” Azriel raised a teasing eyebrow. Eris rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

“Walk, yes. Are you ready?”

“I am. Are you?”

Eris smirked. “Ready to walk, and ready for what might follow.”

Azriel laughed. “What, like stargazing? Or like battle? You don’t seem concerned.”

“No. No stargazing. My star is right here,” Eris kissed him gently. “As for everything else, well, we’ll have to see what comes.”

Azriel watched as he bent to pick up the broadsword, wrapping the sword belt around his waist and buckling it with practiced fingers. “Well, if we don’t know what’s coming, we’ll have to stick together.”

“Always,” Eris agreed, eyes flashing.

“Through anything that comes,” Azriel promised.

“And all that follows.”

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Tag list: @unanswered-stars (I owe you many thanks, especially for going starting this wild ride with your lovely request.) @ninthcircleofprythian @dusk-muse @lilah-asteria @chunkypossum @c-starstuff-man0

Give me a shout VIA ASK WHILE IM ON HIATUS PLEASE if you want on/off the tag list (general or Azris or what have you). Thank you!

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