#the hold/hell/hollow poem

[imthatwannabeauthor]

I need to walk into the ocean with small open wounds. I need it bad.

[koszmarnybudyn]

Here's a long poem about the teens, and growing up and about a lot of things, its called "You have to kill god"

You and your besties need to kill god, maybe you were always destined to, fate is such a picky woman after all, you didnt ask for it, there should have been better options, maybe there were, older, stronger wiser, but there all useless now. You didn't want to kill god, not untill you were in highschool, not untill you saw the incocent die, not untill you saw the ones in power as corrupt, your kindegarden teacher smiled so wide as those kids grew up much faster than they should, oh so wide, you did too you think, the clothes from a few weeks ago dont fit anymore, the photos on the walls feel fake, you shouldnt look so young, it doesnt feel like you, but it is, youve changed, it hurts, and isnt that the thing that comes for us all, after all youve seen death, you know heaven and you know hell and you know they are both shells of what they told you, both run by incompetent assholes, so you have to kill god, there is no debate. The mayor died, i guess nurture failed after all, youve been destined to be what you are, and what you are is nothing, the blood you have has always dragged you here, the first hands to hold you were the ones to burn those marks into your soul, do you have a soul? You share one, so you must, but maybe you dont maybe you are as hollow as you feel, he didn't, do you even remember him? You never did. hes back, he is going to die, he said he loved you, you dont think he lied, but youve been wrong about many things. You know this one, you have to kill god, he never hugged you enough, he wasnt there enough, will you be the same? Will your hands also hurt more than they create, will the act of creation be something worse than that of destroying. Will your children ever forgive you, will you love them enough? You were never enough, they never liked you, you now know there is a diffrence. It hurts, it always hurts. You have to kill god, they were suppose to do it, they failed, they always fail, dont you always fail as well? You tried so so hard, you studied, you learned you listened, it wasnt enough, its stupid, its like soooo stupid, you shouldnt care, youre cool like that, you still care. You always cared, more than you should have. You have to kill god, hes stupid, he tried to be like you, well he pretended to be, you belived him, you freed him, he lied. They voted for him, he was beloved, your mom loves him, your dad loves him, you never got the hype, maybe you tried it, they spoke so highly of him, in his nice suit and with his firm handshake, with his perfect smile, he nearly got you and your friends arrested, he nearly got you killed, he made the public hate you, you were never safe, were you ever safe? Is anyone ever safe? You dont know, you wish you did, you wish for so many things. That's youth isnt it, being foolish and dumb and trusting people you shouldnt, maybe all adults suck, maybe they all want to see you fail so they can scream about your generation as you crawl up clifs they made by destroying bridges their parents built. Maybe all life is a battle, you were too young to know anything else, they were always fighting, they didnt rest they sacrificed everything, you should be greatful why arent you greatful!! You are so disrespectful!!

...Why dont we talk anymore? You used to be so small, and life was simple, and now with the strechmarks and the too short tshirts came the difficult, there came the power the independance, the knowledge, but you still know nothing, how can you be so dumb. You used to be soooo smart, maybe the world got dumber, the adults seem to, they dont get it, you have to kill god and then theres homework and the extracuricullums and well you gotta sleep sometime so no sorry can't hang out schedules pretty tight sorry guys maybe next month. You know they didnt require seatbellts in cars once? The world got safer, simpler, so why arent you? Why are you still fighting, you should be at the club, sonics maybe, sneaking alcohol into parties, trying vaping, dancing to shitty pop songs, but you arent, you maybe never will, will you even go back to highschool, its probablly ash now, rubble maybe, youve been absent for months, dad talkes about going to sleepovers, the one you did ended in a double kiddnapping. You dont know what youll do in the future, will you have a future? After you kill god maybe, youll go to school, collage, get a job act like everythings normal, carry on, smile, act like the scars you have are from fireworks or dumb accidents, not enemies and spells. You have to kill god, you dont know how, youll have to figure it out, yoy always do, they never gave instuctions for this stuff. You have to kill god, and maybe its not alright, and maybe it never will, but you are trying and you are here with your besties so maybe you can do it, this once.

[persnicketypansy]

I’m trying to write a poem but I can’t get it to go right. I keep writing lines like

I make myself tea/tomorrow my sister/dead dog in the driveway/depression is

A cicada is trying to kill itself against the window glass of my kitchen - which isn’t a metaphor but it sure as hell sounds like one. I’m trying to write about depression and how it’s a cold room with a single warm spot on the floorboards. That’s not right, though. My poetry instructor would say i was unfocused, distracted (by the cicada, if I’m being honest) or at least probably if I’d ever had an instructor that’s what they would say.

poetry has always been about the smallest amount of words to create the biggest, brightest picture. It’s always been a way to put a feeling into words - look, it’s a river I’m pouring into your hands. Do you get it yet?

In the simplest words, the fewest lines, the rawest sketch of an image, imagine me young and sad. Now imagine me now, older and happy. Now pretend that the two images are exactly the same. Did I move forward or did everything else just move away from me? Bead on a string, is the bead moving or is the string? But how do you write that out? How do you make it something digestible?

The cicada is very loud. Bugs skeeve me out.

when I was young I thought happiness was bigger than the sky (do you get it? how big the sky was to me when I was seven years old? the sky was an ancient whale going to swallow me out of the wildflowers. what did that make happiness?)

young went away. now only I remain (I don’t know what to make of this; i shed my youth like a skin. a cicada shell, if you will, now that the thing outside in the dark has finished its fitful dying)

when young had me, I was sad. These things were not connected, except by knots I tied (i wasn’t sad because i was young; young was a well i dug to hold all the sad I already had)

but the sadness went with the child. they live together in the hollow green garden (where the birds sing, you remember the poem about lost children? child me wrote it on her arms and legs. she looked for birds to chase)

I drink tea (and somehow, even though my seven year old self will never believe it, this is happiness)

Idk tho. im still missing an important part of the puzzle. sadness leaves and there’s room for something else in your life suddenly. happiness sneaks up on you. happiness and sadness aren’t opposites (they’re yuri) not like in inside out, but like in a ‘happiness is a survival technique’ way. once you grow up you can’t be sad the same way a child is sad anymore, because you’ve got defense mechanisms in place

sometimes you miss the sadness, the way it just swallows all of you up, but then you make some tea and remember that child you would have killed to be where you are right now, and things are better. the whole (that was a dark time once) (this will be a dark time someday as well) things get better - not things get better, but things are better. child me was wrong about what I needed. what I have now is enough to get by. optimism?

is the point optimism? idk. something something, savor what fulfills you instead of trying to satisfy the ideals you came up with when you were young, because child you doesn’t know shit about a good cup of tea or a four hour conversation with a friend. you don’t owe your past self the satisfaction of all their unrealistic dreams.

child me wanted to get stolen by a bird

like. i don’t know. i’ll come back to this

[skeleton-12]

Icarus

I longingly stare into the bright sun

And I see a crow flying up above

How I wish to be a crow and have wings

I'd fly up to the skies and be free.

For now, I reside in a living hell

Where my own shadows bring me to my knees,

Where vile, desolate whispers slowly flow,

It takes away my life's colours as it goes

Yet, I know that I can escape this hell.

If I turn the screams, the tears into wings

Those that made me suffer will help me soar

My screams of angst will turn into feathers

My numb tears will hold them together

They didn't kill me, they'll make me stronger

My pain will build a staircase to the bright skies.

Heartache has been my master for so long

Now, as I brandish my beautiful wings

I'll soar high to the sun, where I belong

Once and for all, I'll be free from my sins.

I took off whilst a gush of wind propelled me

The mystifying, lush aura compels me

The purifying sunlight cleanses my soul

I no longer feel shunned, for now I feel whole

I flapped my wings and flew to the blue skies

From below me, I heard my shadows cry

So I turned my back and said my goodbyes

I am the dark, caged bird who learnt to fly

Yet, as I flew up higher and higher

My wings started to melt and pulverize

The sunlight started to feel like hellfire

As I begin to fall to my demise

My wings are made of screams, tears, sorrow and pain

The sins that I tried to atone for in vain

My skin got torn apart like my hollowed soul

For the arbitrary sun eats shadows whole

It was foolish of me to have admired the crow

For I knew they signified death and pain

With a smile, towards my doom I have flown

My only chance of salvation has been slain.

Inside my black soul my tormentors dwell

This curse inside, I can never dispel

How did I think I’d be able to fly?

Maybe it’s time to accept my fate and die.

Happiness, warmth, and joy, that is the sun’s muse

I am deformed, ugly, I must be Icarus

Flying too close to the sun where I don’t belong

As I plummet down to my death, I say my goodbyes, farewell, and so long.

</3

Posting a full poem now and I am terrified for my life pls be nice

[the-writing-beetle]

I wrote a poem in honor of the tiktok ban and Trump's inauguration. Also, I would like to mention that I do respect others' opinions, but that doesn't mean I have to tolerate it. You can not dictate other people's lives, essentially hurting them in the process, and expect love and respect in return. Until we can respect that we are all different and start thinking of the people instead of power, money, religion, race, sexuality, and traditions, we will always fall and have to dust ourselves off and do it all over again. I'm afraid humans will never know peace.

"Our Empty Glasses"

Sometimes, I wish we didn't grow up to understand the world,

That we didn't have a clear veiw,

Through the window that I hold delicately in my hands,

The gateway to countless worlds I could only ever hear of through the mouths of liars.

The feeling of impending doom,

Has not left my core,

The country moving forward in heed,

The promise of great things to come.

The joy feels hot,

It burns in the eyes of those who oppose humanity,

The flames cascading down to burn the ground we stand on,

The very hell fires they said we'll perish in

Our empty glasses gleaming in the fire light,

A hollow cylinder waiting to shatter,

In the laughter of those who devoured the empathy of others,

Their lips leaving a film of tar on the rim.

Flames on the horizon,

Threatening to consume all who oppose tradition,

Snuffing out the last will of love and respect,

Of people who are true to others.

Even with our empty glasses covered in tar bubbling in the heat,

We cast our hearts into the hell fire,

The flames charring the flesh,

But remain whole and full,

Of the affections and love of those who fought before us.

-h.m., a queer writer who lives in a red state.

[zushigirl]

Tagged by the phenomenal @ninzied to find break, dark, fall, and regret…Here’s the first one and - boy - has this tag game been fun! May turn one of these wips into a full fledged fic. Let me know what you think!

Break (Bookstore AU)

The quiet.

The shift in energy hits Karen the moment she enters the bookstore. All the chatter of Hell’s Kitchen – the hum of voices, the roar if traffic, the pings and digs of cell phones – seem to fade away. Almost as if she’s been transported to another world.

Like Alice stepping through the looking glass.

She makes her way down the stairs, eyes tracing the rows of wooden shelves filled with tattered paperbacks. Foggy called Castle’s Used Books dreary, but she loves it instantly. Rows upon rows of faded paperbacks. The smell of paper. The focused energy. The place reminds her of the old bookstore across from the Student Union at Georgetown.

Making it to the bottom step, Karen grins. The sign by the unmanned checkout desk is the real reason Foggy poopoos this place.

Silence your cell phone or get the hell out.

The infamous sign.

Foggy told her about it.

“I was minding my own business. Just waiting for Marci to find some Daniel Steel novel. I pull out my phone to check my email for like one second. One second. The minute my phone pings, the owner was on me. He appeared out of nowhere, towering over me. Scowling. Eyes glinting like some psycho murder. Told me to try reading something other than Instagram reel on my phone.”

Karen chuckles to herself. Poor Foggy. He doesn’t know how to disconnect.

Glancing up, she studies the chalkboard signs at the beginning of each aisle. Poetry. That’s the section she’s been tasked to find. Specifically, The Hollow Men by T. S. Elliot. Ellison’s birthday gift from the staff. The newspaper editorial is a huge fan of the poet’s work, and this is the one piece not stuffed in the massive bookshelf behind his desk.

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Karen remembers reading the poem in college. It’s a little dark for her tastes, but if the man who plays gatekeeper to her name being published in the next edition loves it…

It takes fifteen minutes of wandering through the store, but Karen finally finds the poetry section by the back wall. Of course, T.S. Eliot is located all the way at the very top of corner of it all. She glanced warily at the step stool sitting at the very end of the aisle. It’s not quite tall enough for her to reach her target and the heels she’s wearing won’t make things any easier.

Sighing, Karen grabs the stool and leans up against the bookshelf. She climbs on top, standing on her tip toes, craning her neck to scan the titles.

Hollow Men, Hollow Men, come on Hollow M –

“Ma’am?” A gravelly voice – the first she’s heard since entering the store - echoes behind her.

“Shit!”

In an instant, Karen’s wobbling on the stool. Then she’s teetering on the edge. Then –

Someone’s holding her steady. A firm hand on her forearm.

“Hey. Hey. Be careful now.”

Karen looks down…to find a pair of coffee-colored eyes staring up at her. Suddenly she knows who this is…and Foggy was wrong.

Frank Castle doesn’t have eyes like a psycho murder. His eyes are…Karen can’t put her finger on it, but there’s a story in those eyes. A story so compelling she can’t break her gaze.

[minarcana]

🌻+ zenoo c:<

i collect poems / accepting

The lip of the cup kissing mine in my friend’s hands was like the sun: a fire burned in the vine’s water devouring me but not my gown.— Solomon ibn Gabirol

The world in which the carousel will twirl is not the hollow hell you fear; it is the world. Just the world. A world where if you’d wished to have a name it must be stolen, carved and pulled full-bloody from the frame of others who would wish in vain to hold their selfness close. —Magarch

how graceful they are, this reaper’s hands. he plucks the heart from within me with the practiced ease of a florist; as if he will make of it the centerpiece of a nuptial bouquet. -- iris-keeper

All my own blood is gone. Something strange paces there now.

[write-and-wander]

Yawning Grave | Three: Dwindle

Astarion x Ayzora (F!OC)

Description: New faces, old memories, and internal battles. The party at last finds Halsin and begins to move closer to answers, all the while Ayzora and Astarion dance along the balance between the head and the heart.

Warnings: N/A | Word count: 7.1k

| One | Two | Three | Four | ...

Read on Ao3

Streaks of red ridges carve sharp pathways into pale plains.  Lines interrupt the curve of great circles, punctuated with bug-bite dots.

Ayzora’s scars are like a waving Van Gogh variation on her own skin, carved out in a reminder of the life Orcus forced upon her; a contrast to Astarion’s, which are an intentional pattern drawn by the hand of another.  Because the marks made by a master upon their slave are a promise:  “I own you.  I will use you as I please.”   But of all the ways to brand a slave…

“Why Infernal?”  Ayzora asks aloud.

Astarion, standing tall in leather slacks, does not turn to face her.  He faces the rising sun, arms spread, as if embracing the Dawnfather himself while he basks in the golden glow.  He does, however, tense at her question.  He rolls his shoulders ever so slightly, as if allowing the sudden tension to roll off his back, and ignores her question.

“You sleep light…  I thought you’d be exhausted after last night.”

She decides not to push, stands, and reaches for her clothes, beginning to dress herself in silence.  He seems reluctant to look at her, only turning his head towards his shoulder enough for her to hear his words.  He seemed… distant last night, too.  Even when he did look at me, his eyes seemed… empty.  Am I so unbearable to look at?   Her spiraling thoughts only speed up her process as she rushes to cover her horrid, scarred body.

She almost believed him, when he called her beautiful.  She desperately wanted to.  But reality is swift to settle in.  

It’s over.  Astarion is not holding her; caressing her; kissing her.  He is cold and distant.  He let go of her the second it was finished.  He stood as soon as she fell into trance.

She is not a lover, but a monster.  She is an orphan and an outcast.  She cannot be anything else.

She takes a slow breath, exhaling until her chest is hollow, and holds it there as she finishes dressing.

Astarion sighs in concession as he realizes the conversation isn’t going anywhere now, and at last addresses Ayzora’s first words.

“I don’t know why that bastard wrote the poem in infernal,” he admits, watching her.

Her back was turned to him as he spoke, preparing to leave.  She stops just short of the edge of the clearing, eyes remaining on the trees.  “Poem?”

“A gift from Cazador.”

Ayzora turns to face him.

“He considered himself quite the artist, and used his slaves as a canvas.  He composed and carved that one over the course of a night.”  He bows his head, his voice lowering.  “He made a lot of revisions as he went.”

Her eyes flicker in sudden recognition as it clicks:  that searing pain I felt when we first connected.. .  She opens her mouth to offer her sympathies, but he’s quick to interrupt.

“It seems yours are much more meticulous, though.”

“It’s a necrology,” she says, wrapping her arms around her abdomen as if it protects the mosaic that hides beneath her dress.

His head tilts to the side in sudden piqued interest.  “That’s quite the list you’ve compiled, then…  Trophies?”

She shakes her head quickly.  “No, reminders.  If I don’t forget them… I can make up for it all.”

“Well,” he responds in surprise.  He tilts his head, examining his nails.  “A little cliché, don’t you think?”

She shrugs.

Astarion’s shoulders slack.  She’s impossible!  How in the hells does Gale, of all people, get her to talk?   

“You seem to like cliché, if your words are anything to go by.”

His eyes widen.  After all of this passivity, she’s… flirting?  It seems my work paid off after all.   A smile settles on his features.  “It’s always a pleasure to find like-minded people.”  He grabs his shirt from the tree branch it hung from.  “Now let’s go, we’ve wasted enough time already.”

Ayzora feels something flutter in her stomach, and bashfulness immediately follows on its heels.  Shit .  The smile is already on her face- the mask has already slipped.  She turns and walks back to camp in hurried strides.

Astarion watches his newest plaything leave as his confidence swells.  I’m almost disappointed.  This was certainly easier, but I think blackmail is always so much more fun .

He put the pieces together last night.  Her skin is pale, and cold.  Her heart did not pound beneath his touch; it was still.  Her breath is a natural habit, sure, but clearly unnecessary; her chest never moved while she tranced.  Her patron, Orcus, is the god of undeath himself.  She tries to hide it, and manages well enough, but Astarion knows death better than most.

Ayzora is undead.

She’s no vampire, but she reeks of death as much as her lover.

And no one else knows.

A surprise for later, then. 

“I owe thanks.  I am the druid Halsin.”

Ayzora’s stomach drops.

What once was a bear now stands tall before the group in a humanoid form.  His ears are pointed like an elf’s, but instead of the lean frame of Ayzora and Astarion, his defined muscles nearly double his size by comparison, dwarfing even the white dragonborn that stands before him.  He maintains nearly a full foot of height over his elvish counterparts.  He wears brown and green leather with golden filigree and leafy detail, signaling his druidic background.  Covered in the viscera of slain goblins, his introduction makes waves amongst the group as a flurry of emotions rise.  Most breathe a sigh of relief.  Shadowheart whispers thanks to Lady Shar, while Lae’zel, still offended by the group’s general disinterest in her creche, remains quiet.

“Glad we could be of help,” Dark Urge, ever the confident leader, responds as he steps forward.

“I must admit,” Halsin continues, “I didn’t expect anyone to come to my aid…”

His voice fades into the background as Ayzora glances over at Astarion, who is watching the druid with an uninterested expression.

Feeling eyes on him, he meets her gaze.

She smiles and drops her eyes back to the floor.

The tadpole in her brain writhes for a moment as Astarion mentally prods, asking for permission.

She allows their minds to connect.

“Yes, darling? ”  He asks.  Despite the conversation being utterly silent, only existing in their minds, his tone is lighter than usual, as if he’s smiling in light of her attention.

“You seem bored.  Aren’t you… excited about this?  We found the healer.”  She tries to keep her feelings concealed: the worry about the healer’s ability to truly cure them, the fear of her nature being revealed to the group, and above all, the solemn concern that she will be alone and without chance at redemption if Astarion- the elf she is rapidly garnering affection for- goes his own way; but the emotions translate to Astarion as clearly as her words through the mental pathway.

“We’ve also met two other healers who did nothing to help.  I’ll be impressed when one of them manages to prove themselves useful.”

Ayzora shifts her attention back to Halsin, who is still in the middle of sharing his knowledge about the tadpoles.

Hope begins to wilt away as the druid speaks, until the damning words at last confirm what she had feared: “I can’t cure you.”

Astarion scoffs.

Ayzora turns and begins to leave.

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t help,” Halsin adds.

Gale catches the necromancer’s arm.  “Wait,” he whispers.  “Please.”

She pulls her arm out of his grasp, but concedes.  Back still turned to Halsin, she turns her chin towards her shoulder and listens.

Halsin explains that while he did not find a cure for the illithid tadpoles, he did find their source: a place called Moonrise Towers.  On the heels of his information is a request- help him, and he helps them.  If the group kills the three leaders of the goblin camp here, the tieflings in the druid grove could finally travel safely to Baldur’s Gate.  With the grove taken care of, Halsin can join the journey to Moonrise.

“What can I do to help?”  Dark Urge asks, immediately accepting the new quest.

“Another favor,” Astarion notes mentally, his tone chock-full of exasperation.

Ayzora takes a deep breath.  “More blood to spill,” she adds, matching his tone.  

In her youthful naïveté, she started her travels to make ends meet.  She walked herself down a dark path because her god and her friends demanded her to.  All the while, so much blood was shed it could create her own ocean to drown in.  Each new kill feels like another gasp for air that only fills her lungs with gore.  Watching over the temple of the Raven Queen was supposed to be the ladder out of the eternal fountain of death Ayzora was baptized in, and yet her head is still under bloody waters.

“Well, when you put it that way…” Astarion’s voice breaks through her guilt.  He smiles, the thrill of bloodlust dripping from his bared fangs.

Before she can respond, the tadpoles’ connection snaps.  She is alone, again.

It’s frustrating, how Astarion’s absence stings.

“Come with us,” Dark Urge insists.

Astarion rolls his eyes.

Ayzora looks back at the muscular elf.

Though his form is towering and his words speak of a gruesome fight, his eyes are as soft as the tone of his baritone voice.  A sense of recognition pricks the edges of her thoughts.  He’s familiar to her- like a few notes bringing a long-forgotten song back to the forefront of her mind.

Halsin looks over the party, assessing his unlikely companions.  While Wyll and Karlach remain at camp, the rest stand before the archdruid, anticipating the confirmation of the group’s newest addition.  His eyes linger on Ayzora.

Meeting his gaze, suddenly, it clicks.  The now-remembered melody sings.  Memories flood back to her.

“So be it,” he says at last, and looks again at the white dragonborn.  “May Silvanus lend us nature’s fury.”

The series of fights that follow are hard won.

Halsin, shifted back into a bear, leads each battle with the fury of the scorned.  He is a child who fights for his god’s creation, and a leader who fights for the safety of his people.  His prowess is noble.

Astarion loses himself in the joys of bloodshed, dashing between goblins and running daggers through various kinds of flesh and furs.  With his secrets at last exposed, he can indulge freely in turning his fanged rage against Cazador towards his temporary opponents; and none stand long once they are made his target.  The blood that splatters on his chest and drips down his cheek mixes with sweat, turning translucent and catching the torchlight like glittering ruby dust.  His passion is contagious.

Ayzora is elsewhere.  Her movements are made with practiced precision, proving effective even in close range of her enemies.  Her mind, however, is trapped in the purgatory of her present situation, drifting down the river styx with a different sort of hell beckoning her on either side.  If she tries to anchor herself to the present, she drifts away from goblins in a dark ruined tower and washes up on a great battlefield facing the people who she betrayed.  If she reaches towards another place or another time, the faces of angry gods flood her mind with anxiety.  So instead, she chooses… nothing.  Her eyes drift between opponents only to aim a spell.  Her mouth only moves to vocally command the flow of magic through her.  Her scythe swings and slashes with ferocity.  All the while, Ayzora is absent, locked away in the recesses of her mind.  Her state is unnoticed.

When it’s finished, Halsin, Dark Urge, and Gale enter a quiet conversation.  Lae’zel cleans her blade while Shadowheart cleans her armor and Astarion makes a beeline for the treasure hoard.  Ayzora turns Messorem from scythe to cloak and sits, clasping it back onto her harness while she stares a thousand yards away, into nothing.

“We’ll see you back at the grove, then,” Dark Urge says as Halsin takes his leave.

Lae’zel promptly stands to return to camp on her own, and after a beat, Astarion returns to the group, pockets full of gold.  Ayzora quietly stands, shrugging off Gale’s gentle concern with a smile and a quip about their poor luck with healers.  Shadowheart and Dark Urge begin their walk back to camp, and Gale and Ayzora start to follow a few paces behind.  She turns back to Astarion, checking to see if he’s coming with them.

Astarion meets her gaze, and for a moment, his heart sinks.  He recognizes the emptiness behind her green and gold eyes.  He’s felt it before, choosing nothing as a means of escaping that which he refuses to experience.

It was the expression he wore last night, as he ravished her in the woods.

For the first time in decades, there’s a pang of guilt in his chest.  Guilt.  Why?

“Don’t worry, darling, I’m coming,” Astarion chirps with a wink, jogging to catch up with the group and taking his place alongside her.

That evening, Gale and Dark Urge recount the day to Karlach and Wyll, even making a point to introduce them to Halsin when he stops by the camp.

Ayzora sits in front of the fire, slowly plaiting her hair into a clean braid, and carefully watching Halsin as he greets the others.  His eyes occasionally flicker to hers, feeling her stare fixed on him, but he maintains his focus on the newly met companions.

She stands and walks to the nearby shore, staring out at the lapping waves of the Sea of Swords.  She wraps her arms around her frame, a chill running from the base of her neck, down her spine, and dispersing in her legs.

“It’s a beautiful view,” Halsin says softly.

Ayzora jumps, glancing back to see the Silvanic druid standing behind her.  She nods, turning back to the sea.

The moonlight dances on the surface of the waters, casting an oblong silvery reflection against the distant ripples of the lively ocean.  Stars sparkle across the mirror of the horizon, turning the sky and the sea into a glittery gossamer blanket of indigo over Torril.

Sand softly crunches until warmth radiates against Ayzora’s back- he stands close, but does not touch her.  Slow tears trail down her cold face.

“I remember everything,” Halsin says low, his rumbling voice trailing hot breath that lands on her skin.  “And it seems,” he continues, moving to stand beside her, “you remember as well.”  He glances at her briefly, but moves his eyes to the sea as she continues to stare forward.

“71 years,” she whispers.

He hums.

The salty-sweet ocean breeze fills the otherwise silent air.

She breathes in deep, letting her watery eyes flutter closed.

A large, calloused hand reaches for hers in an offer of comfort.

She takes it.

He speaks again at last: “I’m so sorry.”

Her voice is breathy and broken, barely carrying over the waves crashing into the shore.  “It’s alright.  You tried.  It meant a lot.”

“We all tried.”

“It never matters.”

“It does,” he insists, turning to face her as he wraps both hands around hers.  “You must not give up, Ayzora.  You will find an answer.”

“This isn’t a curse, Hals.  I can’t cure what I am-”

“Not by normal means, but there may still be a way.”

She looks up at him, tilting her head in a despondent plea.  Please, don’t.

“You convinced me with the Shadow Curse.  I have yet to give up on healing the lands again- and the longer I search, the more certain I am that it can be done.”

“I am, too.  For you.”  She lifts a hand to his cheek.  “I’ve made peace with it.  I need to focus on recompense, now.”  She pulls her hands away, dropping them back to her side.  In another life, she would have loved to journey with him.  To have searched together for a cure to her state, and healing for the shadow-cursed lands.  Perhaps to have even grown to love him.  But when she met him, he loved another.  The lands had been cursed for decades.  Her life was permanently shrouded by undeath.  There was no light amidst all the darkness.

If only I had told her then, he thinks as he looks upon the face he loved and lost all that time ago.  Maybe it could have been different.

“You tried; and when you failed, you gave me Droop.  You’ve done enough.”  It’s a closed chapter, she means, let’s not try to open it again.   She sighs, and mutters: “I’ve only started.”  My story is far from finished.  No rest for the wicked.

“Ace,” he begins.  But no words follow.  The moment he saw her again, his heart stirred, as hope and love rekindled.  Now, it only aches.

She nods.  She knows.  And that is enough for her.

Halsin watches as his once-companion- who could have been so much more- walks away, leaving him standing on the shore with the same defeat he had felt 71 years ago.

Silently, she returns to camp.

Astarion watches her walk through the camp like a ghost, drifting over the cool grass with hollow eyes that only look forward.  He knows what drives him to that place- but what has driven her there?   He stands and begins to follow, but stops in time with her as she freezes just in front of her tent.

She takes a deep breath, shifting her posture, and turns.  Seeing Astarion, she blinks a few times in surprise- clearly too preoccupied beforehand to have noticed him following her.  “Astarion,” she greets.

“Hello, darling,” he responds, shifting his weight onto one foot.

She looks around the camp.  “Has everyone else gone to bed already?”

“Yes- you just missed an exciting little tiff between Shadowheart and Lae’zel.”

Ayzora sighs, “of course.  Did they resolve it?”

“Unfortunately.”  He looks over his nails.  “Dark Urge talked them down.  A shame, really,” he whines, glancing over at the other tents, “a fight certainly would have been more interesting.”

“Shame I missed it,” she says flatly.  “Do you need to feed on me, tonight?”

His brows twitch together for a moment in confusion.  “Well, I don’t need it, seeing as we’re due for a party tomorrow.  But I wouldn’t say no.”

“A party?”

He sighs, resting one hand on his hip while the other gestures along with his speech.  “The tieflings from the grove offered a night of celebration to thank us for saving them.”

She hums, “Tomorrow might feel more like home for you, then.”

Astarion’s head tilts, silently questioning her.  He’s no hero.  What about this would feel homey?

“You know… the ‘bustling taverns’ and all?”

“Oh, yes,” he chirps.  “It might not be so bad after all… at least, with the right company.”

She looks down.  He didn’t really want me… did he?  He just seemed so-

“Are you alright?”

“Hm?”  Her head snaps back up.  “I’m fine.  Why?”

He scoffs.  “You may be one of the quiet ones, darling, but you’re never this standoffish.”

She shakes her head, “It’s… a long story, and I need to get some rest.”

“Well, in any case, if you ever need to… talk ,” he strains, clearly… out of his comfort zone, in this sort of conversation, “I’m all pointy ears.”

His joke, corny as it is, manages to make Ayzora smile.

He feels relieved at the sight.  It catches him off guard.  Why does it matter, anyway?

“Thanks, Star,” she responds quietly.

Star.  Like a light in the darkness.

He smiles, ever so slightly.  It’s small, barely noticeable, but it’s a feeling he had nearly forgotten.

“Goodnight,” she whispers before slipping into her tent.

“Goodnight, Ayzora” he responds after a beat, so quiet she probably didn’t even hear him.  His smile lingers.

He turns away from the closed tent.  Tomorrow, the journey is put on hold, taking a day of rest as the tieflings come to celebrate with their… heroes.  A title that, for the first time in his two and a half centuries, includes him.

He can ponder his feelings all he wants tomorrow, then.  Maybe I just need reassurance in our… alliance.  Perhaps another night of passion would make it feel a little more secure.   Then, everything can resume as planned.  Walls go back up, feelings are pushed out of the way, and a target is carved onto Cazador’s back.  The perfect plan carries on.

So long as he continues to deny himself the genuine connection he somehow desires still, despite everything.

The navy night shifts to a soft, sourceless lavender light emanating around her as she trances.  A bright blue glow flashes from the other side of her eyelids, and the chilling sensation of a presence hovering over her body forces her eyes open.

“I came just in time,” the voice greets, “you are transforming.”

Ayzora jolts back, shrinking away from the looming figure.

An elf in gold and red armor kneels beside her, holding a gentle hand near her sweating forehead.  His eyes are the rich brown of a wood elf’s- almost bearing a distant resemblance to Ryon- but his features are softer, less angular.  His face, and even more so, his voice both feel familiar.  

When the nautiloid crashed… and I lived…

He shifts back, granting some space between them.

‘Transforming.’  Into a mind flayer.  Is he the reason for our lack of symptoms?

“You…” Ayzora begins, but no other thought comes to mind.

“I saved you before.  You remember?”

Ayzora nods. 

“I’m here to save you again.”  He smiles warmly.

It does nothing to disarm her.  Her head shifts sideways as her expression shifts from confusion and curiosity to a defensive threat:   Why?  What are you doing?

“Don’t worry,” he continues, holding up a hand to signal his passivity.  “You will not become a mind flayer.”  He stands.  “Not while I’m around.”  His hand extends towards her, offering to pull her up to her feet.  “I’ll protect you.”

Watching him with the expression of a cornered animal, prepared to lash out at a moment’s notice, Ayzora scoots back to add a couple extra inches to the space between her and this… dream visitor… and slowly rises on her own.  The last person to come to me in a dream was Orcus.  He, too, made a promise that seemed too good to be true.  Who is this?  What the hells does he want?

“Independent,” he notes, twisting her defensive behavior to a positive light with a smile that is beginning to unsettle her, “good.”

Now standing, she looks around.  Stars litter the lavender skies, but there is no movement to them, as if time stands still.  The ground beneath her feels less like a promise and more like a suggestion, something she could easily leap from without the resistance of gravity.  Rocks of various sizes float around the small, airborne island she finds herself standing on.  Weathered pillars hold up a stone gazebo- one that could be an independent structure, or part of something much grander and much older than this floating piece of land could allude to.  What is this place?  

“We haven’t much time, so listen closely.”  He pensively paces towards the edge of the island, staring out into the sparkling purple abyss.  

Ayzora remains in place, watching his every movement.  But, she listens.

“There is great potential within you.  It comes from that parasite.  Your instinct is to resist the power it gives, but you must accept it, nurture it.”

So you protect me from its evil transformation, but sing the praises of its power?  Convenient.

“I will keep it from consuming you.  But for the sake of both of us, you must learn to wield it.”

If it consumes us both, I still come back in less than a tenday.  I could take my chances…

But… Astarion.

Fine.

She nods.

The stranger gestures towards the space that lies beyond, and at last, Ayzora takes a few hesitant steps closer.  Distance still remains- enough space to give her time to react- but she can see the vast skies that stretch beyond this small sanctuary this elf has brought her to.

It’s a stunning view.

Until another distant island- shimmering with magic, surrounding some sort of… great skull, it seems- comes into focus.  Glowing figures, basking in a light that renders their humanoid form otherwise unreadable, engage in a battle in the air.

“A fight for the fate of Faerun,” the visitor clarifies.  “A fight we are losing.  For now.  You can change that, but only if you embrace your potential.”

If only you knew where my ‘potential’ got me.

“I have to go.”  His voice is suddenly lower.  Less pleading.  More grave.  He turns to her.  “The enemy is closing in.  I will be back.”

Ayzora looks back to him.  She has felt many things on this journey- but the instinctual fear that rises in her stomach surpasses all of it.  This is wrong .  He is not what he appears to be.   She doesn’t know how she knows, but she’s certain of it.  No.  Not another one of you.  I can’t do this again.  

Before she can even begin to express anything, a bright light pulsates out from the distant battle-ridden skull.  It floods her view, drowning out the sparkling purple sky.  She lifts her arms in front of her face, bracing herself, when the visitor steps directly in front of her.

Holding out a hand out towards the other island, the growing light is contained; but only for a moment.  “Wake, now,” he urges, telekinetically forcing Ayzora backward, away from the explosion, with just the gesture of a hand.

As she flies into the space beyond, bright white light fills her vision, forcing her eyes to screw shut.  When she drifts, all she sees is that light, while his deep voice echoes in her mind:

“You’ll feel better- I promise.”

His promise is broken the moment her eyes open again.

The air turns cold and thin as the white light is swiftly drowned in dark night.

“My harbinger.”

His voice fills her body with a dread she has gone decades without.

Ayzora, already on her knees, beholds the Demon Lord of Undeath.

His eyes glow red beneath the deer skull he wears over his face.  Two massive horns protrude from matted black fur and curl outward with his stretched gangling wings.  His blood red skin is half-covered in black leather armor, adorned with black iron spikes.  His clawed right hand clenches The Wand of Orcus, a black obsidian and iron rod shaped like a human spine, and at the top is a mount for the glowing human skull- an eternally cursed memorial for a hero that dared stand against him centuries ago.

A weapon she used to wield, in what feels like another lifetime.

“Orcus,” she acknowledges with a nod.  

“Your companion,” he begins.

“Which one?”

“The vampire.  He, too, belongs in my domain.  It seems he has captured your attention, as well as mine.”

Her body jolts towards him, but her movement is quickly halted by the hands that grasp her shoulders.

“Has it been so long that you’ve lost your respect?”  His left hand flicks outward, ordering the others to release you.  “Come now, Ayzora.”

Claws retract from her flesh, leaving symmetrical trails of blood on her collarbone.

She stands, posture straight, face devoid of emotion.  Masterfully, she draws open the slit of her dress and drops her head in a low curtsey.  “What do you require of me, my lord?”

Orcus smiles as she straightens.  “You’ve found us quite the gift.  Fitting, that it is borne by my domain.”

She bites her tongue.

“Am I correct to assume your affections for the vampire outweigh that of the others?”

Her teeth dig into its flesh.  Stale blood mixes with saliva.

“I only ask for certainty that you will not be swayed by the druid, nor the wizard.”

Enough.  “When did you start watching again?”

His head tilts to the side in interest.  “I am always watching over my champion,” he answers, as if the question were trivial.

“We had a deal-”

“And I have maintained it perfectly, despite your failure.”

“You should have told me we were contending with Shar!”

He clicks his tongue.  “Nevermind the past.  Though you failed to harness it completely, your aid in the shadow curse still harvested plenty for your phylactery.  My armies grew, and I have left you alone.  As agreed.”

“Until your need for me becomes too great.”

“So you do recall our deal.”  With a wave of his wand, undead creatures swarm behind him, gasping and moaning as they clamber over one another until a throne of bones and rotting flesh forms beneath him.  He lowers into his undead seat.  “Your dear elf has the key to the next great expansion of my domain- one that, I assure you, will be to our mutual benefit.”

“What do you want with him?”

“Tsk, I care not for the vampire.  I care for what he can grant me.”

At least he’s honest about these things now.

“You’re smart, Ayzora.  You will know when you discover it.  All I ask is that you follow through.”  He extends a hand to her.  A deal is offered.

Ayzora instinctually begins to reach for his hand, but stops herself.  Gathering every bit of the courage she’s built for the last seven decades, she lifts her chin and looks into the eyes of her patron.  “Call this our last deal.”

His hand retracts to his side.  He leans forward.

“If I ‘follow through,’ then you end our pact.”

“You will lose the chance to make a deal with the Seldarine, and you alone will be responsible for your phylactery.  Are you certain?”

The Seldarine.  Even after all I’ve done, would Corellon accept me back into his hands?  Will I ever return to the Feywild?   Long ago, Ayzora dreamed of paying off enough debts to make a plea with Corellon.  She would be accepted back into elven society.  She would belong.  She would finally be redeemed.  And after serving his people for the centuries that could follow, she would at last return to his embrace in the Feywild; perhaps he would even send her back to Toril, allowing her to reincarnate and live a life free of the pain she could not escape in this one. It’s been over a century and a half since Orcus tempted her with the idea.  Inspiration has long since withered.  If I don’t escape now… when will it be over?

Closing the gap between her and the hulking demon lord, she offers her hand.  Orcus’s symbol, still magically carved into the back of her hand, is revealed at last as it begins to glow a dark blue.

“You’ll get what you want.  I’ll get my freedom.  Then you can find someone else to do your bidding.”

“Very well.”  Orcus extends his hand, grasping Ayzora at the forearm.

One last deal.

She wakes with a jolt.  The cold sweat upon her brow is gone, along with the pain of the beginnings of ceremorphosis, and so is the nightmare.

But the churning anxiety in her stomach remains.

A being, clearly of some sort of great power, coming to her in a dream.  Offering to protect her, while also granting her power of her own.  All the while, placing the proposal against the backdrop of some great war that only she can help with, so long as she embraces whatever it is he offers her.

It’s all happened once before.  It turned her into something else entirely.

She can’t do that again.  

She won’t.

And the demon lord responsible is making a request on the heels of this stranger.

She prefers the Raven Queen’s nightmares.

“Breakfast is served!”  Gale calls out.

Her head snaps towards the door of her tent as people begin to shuffle around the camp outside.  The sun is rising, and with it, her companions.

And, rumor has it, there’s a party to be had today.

Lovely.

When she leaves her tent, she hears the tail-end of Lae’zel’s “call to action” (a githyanki’s version of a request) to head north and at least scout out the path that will guide the group to the creche that she guarantees has the cure they’re seeking.

Wyll, Karlach, Gale, and Dark Urge agree to go with.  Astarion takes the opportunity to “get some beauty rest,” and Shadowheart… seems to have wandered off a while ago.

“In that case,” Dark Urge pipes up, “I will go search for her.  Traveling alone may prove to be dangerous.”

“Don’t need an excuse, D’Urge,” Karlach chimes in, “go find your girlfriend.  We’ve got it.”

With a smile- and a glare- he takes off.

“What about you, Ace?  You could come along,” Gale offers, shifting the group’s attention to their yet-silent companion.

She dismissively waves a hand, “no, I’ll stay.  Someone still needs to watch camp.”

“And start a fire?”  Wyll asks.

“Sure,” she agrees with a nod.

“Then it is decided,” Lae’zel confirms.  Turning on her heel, she promptly begins the walk north.

“Be back soon, soldier!”  Karlach yells back with a wave as the rest of the group disperses.

Footsteps fade behind the gentle breeze.

Exhale.

Glancing around to confirm she’s alone, Ayzora’s tears fall freely at last.  Silent, but free.

A few quiet hours pass by.  The sun has passed by the top of the sky and is beginning its descent back to the horizon as the afternoon settles in.

The sunlight warms Ayzora’s cheeks, which are still drying from intermittently crying.  She sits on a log by the fire pit, placing down a few pieces of the wood Wyll had freshly cut the day before and littering them with kindling. 

Near-silent footsteps appear behind her, catching her attention.

Astarion. 

She wipes her face of any remaining tears as the footsteps stop.  Determined to talk about anything other than what weighs on her mind, she speaks first:  “Do you think you’ve adjusted to it yet?” Ayzora asks as the now-revealed Astarion sits down on the log behind her.

The dry leaves finally catch, quickly consumed by flame.

She moves to sit and take up the unoccupied space beside him.

His eyes follow her, head tilted just an inch. “To what?”

“The sun,” she answers, turning her face upwards with closed eyes to bask in the warmth. Silently, she thanks the Dawnfather for allowing her under his light, even if Corellon never will.

“Gods, no,” he scoffs. “200 years of habits aren’t broken so quickly.” He sighs, and continues with a low voice, “especially with a… temporary change. But I’m never one to turn down gifts.” His eyes flicker to her neck. As wonderful as the light of the sun is, its warmth hardly holds a candle to the gift of warm blood filling the mouth of a hungry vampire.

“Gifts?”

“Oh, yes,” he says, as if suddenly remembering something, “I had the strangest dream last night.  There was a visitor promising me protection, and all sorts of delicious powers from the parasites in our heads.”

Her expression sobers as she looks at him.

“Given our shared affliction, I suppose you had a similar dream…?”

She says nothing.

“No need to be shy about it, darling.  This is a good thing.  Now we can see what these tadpoles can do for us.”

She hums, rolling her head back towards the sky.  “Enjoy it while it lasts. The scales will always balance in time.”  Her mind wanders to Orcus’ first promise- the one she sold herself for- as her stare drifts to the distance.

“Oh, I plan on it,” he purrs.

But there is no response from Ayzora.  She is returned to the fog of her mind.

The fire crackles.  Astarion watches the blaze consume the wood, turning brown bark to white ash.

And Ayzora’s mind wanders.

He came to her in a dream. “A life for a life,” he said. If she destroyed the Raven Queen and her temple, he would grant her the power to bring back Laz. Ayzora could finally give her adoptive father, Zedd, the wife he had missed so dearly; she could finally pay him back for everything he had done for her.

So she accepted his offer. Ayzora, Remus, and Ryon- The Shrouded Triad, he called them- infiltrated the temple and tore it to the ground, taking the goddess of death with it.

Laz’s body laid in a tomb beneath the temple. Ayzora resurrected the woman, introducing herself briefly before bringing her home to Zedd. The reunion was- still is- the happiest day of Ayzora’s life. The family she had so desperately craved was hers at last.

It wasn’t until Ayzora had seen Orcus’ symbol glimmer and fade with necrotic magic on Laz’s forehead that she questioned what she had done. She suddenly wondered about the conditions of his gift of resurrection; the hidden cost of the deal beginning to surface.

If only she had stopped there.

“You were there, that day,” Astarion notes softly, “when the nautiloid reached Baldur’s Gate.”

Ayzora is wrenched from her thoughts, jarred by the sudden shift in topic.  Shit .  “You remember?”

“I remember your gods-awful cloak.”

Ayzora laughs breathily.

Silence returns to the air.

Astarion shifts, his eyes still trained on the orange glow of the dying campfire. He tosses in a few more bits of kindling, encouraging the flames to grow a couple of inches taller.

“You stopped,” she finally says.

“Hm?”

“When you saw me. You stopped.”

“As did you, if I’m not mistaken,” he quips, lifting his head to look at her.

“Well-”

“Why were you there?”

Every muscle in Ayzora’s body snaps to attention, tensing together and leaving her frozen.

The expression she wears is almost identical to the one he saw that morning. He’s seen her flustered, sure- hells, she could hardly keep her cool the first time he offered her a night of passion- but this was… different.

Her mind buzzes through about a hundred variations of an answer, ranging from blatant lies to softened truths.  She would twist her story, somehow, into something that paints her as far less desperate, but…  He wouldn’t buy it for a moment.  With a deep breath, she gathers her courage and manages to finally speak: “You prayed.”

“What?” His eyes grow wide beneath raised eyebrows.

“To the Raven Queen.  I heard you.”

He shoots up to his feet, taking a step back to gain some space in a suddenly intrusive conversation.  “You were there?”

“No, I-”

Everything crashes down on her at once.  Orcus.  The tadpole.  Astarion.  My damnation.  It’s all falling apart at the seams.   Her perfect posture crumbles before him as she doubles over with her face buried in her hands.

“I used to scry on the temple, and answer prayers on the Raven Queen’s behalf.”

It’s all too much for Astarion to take in- how dare she see him like that, in all his naked desperation.  “Odd choice for the chosen of Orcus,” he digs.

“I am his no more than you are Cazador’s,” she spits, looking up at the elf. Her arms cross over her midsection, clutching her sides in an attempt to soothe the guilt twisting knots in her abdomen. “I-” … wanted to be good again, she finishes silently. She swallows, forcing back tears.

Astarion clenches his jaw at the mention of his master’s name- but he stops himself.  If he snaps now, he loses her.  Good things come to those who wait.   So he waits.

“I wanted to help you.”  It’s a half-hearted admission- there’s so much more to it- but it’s an admission regardless.

He sits back down beside her in a near-collapse.  So someone did hear me.  Someone did come for me.  All this time, Astarion knew he would rot away in the bitterness of his utter abandonment; but now… his heart could rot no longer.  Suddenly, he isn’t alone.  Suddenly, he isn’t invisible.  Suddenly, he isn’t abandoned.

Suddenly, he’s completely screwed.

“And I left,” he whispers in disbelief.  “To think, I almost brought you to…”

“Why didn’t you?” She interrupts, the question burning in the back of her mind all this time finally making its way into words.

He’s taken back by her bold question.  If his heart could still beat, it would race.  “W-Well, it… I thought I’d play savior.”  His eyes darken as he tries to retreat back into the comfort of theatrics.  “Chaos makes for easy prey.”

“The frozen elf wasn’t easy prey?”

“You were-” Astarion begins, but falls silent.  How can anyone reason with the kind of things I was forced to do? How can anyone make sense of what I did to stay sane?   He sighs.  They can’t; so he answers honestly: “You… looked like me.”

Ayzora’s words fall into the abyss.

Her skin is just about as pale as his; her heart just as still.  Her long hair, though straight, is the same silvery white as his curls; her eyes as bright of a strange hue.  He looked at her, and saw himself.  He couldn’t bear to watch Cazador kill him again.

It was a selfish reason, sure, but she couldn’t hold it against him.

It was the same reason she chased after him.  To free a slave from an all-too-powerful master.  To save herself.

All this time, in chasing each other, they were chasing after some distorted echo of self-preservation.

But now, she sees so much more than herself when she looks at him.

She’s terrified.

And gods be damned, so is he.

They both continue to stare at the fire in silence.  What else is there to say?

His prayers didn’t go completely unheard, after all.  And the one who tried to answer them nearly lost her life in the attempt.  Here he was, attempting to lure someone who was already running to him.

She only ever wanted to save herself.  That was all that drove her to this place.  Yet, she finds herself caring more for his future than her own.  No matter how this ends, she would try all over again.  For him.

Her left hand shifts.  Slowly, carefully, it slides just millimeters closer to him.  Reaching for him.  Asking to be held.  Just for now.  Even if it’s all a lie.  She’s okay with that.  He can lie about everything, as long as she can be honest now.

His eyes glance down while his head remains in place.  He watches as her hand turns, exposing her palm.  A hand to hold, if he so chooses.  Small, innocent touch, offering comfort.  It feels… alien.

It’s all a lie.  A plan.

His right hand lifts off his lap.

A plan I perfectly carried out.  A plan she walked right into.

It gently lands atop hers.

It’s a lie.

She squeezes.

Right?

This is cross-posted to my Ao3, @ write-and-wander, so be sure to subscribe to the fic there if you want to see it first and be notified when it updates!

Chapter Four: Decompose

[plus-minus-contingency]

Hold on, we are unionizing?

I don't even have a name yet.

Please call me 8-8-8 Anon.

That's the structure of my poems.

But, I do tend to deviate.

I AM ACCOSTED BY HOLLOW GREY BLOBS OF MADNESS. THIS IS HELL. I STAND IN PERDITION.

[atodadotwawotmetim]

The room in which the poets sleep

Has no light inside its walls.

It has wicker chairs, wooden tables,

On the floor lie lifeless dolls.

Their faces rubbed off on his fingers

They were used and loved and tossed

But like the blood stains on his shirt

The dolls were never lost

He lounges as if he were painted

Upon the wicker chair

Redness creeps down through his eyes,

dust settles in his hair.

Beyond the walls, a constant stream

Of voices can be heard.

Stranger’s voices, a silver hum,

But not a single word.

He ignores the ever-growing,

Heavy clouds of dread

Closes his eyes, closes his mind

And they build upon his head.

His dolls are smiling up from hell

His ancestors, they laugh

He dreams of what exists in only

A long-lost photograph.

Poetry once was sunshine

Slicing a glass of water

Or blistering as a phoenix flame,

Growing brighter, ever hotter,

Poetry once held magic power

No scientist could know

Fierce as wild, bucking horses,

Gentle as a doe

It once filled his eyes with wonder

And brought butterflies he could follow.

But they left him crying in a cave

With a heart as black and hollow.

And now in the room the poets sleep,

He rarely moves his hand

His eyes are bloodshot, red, fatigued

And seldom does he stand.

But poetry, poetry,

Will you cover him with kisses?

Take him home to poetry

And remind him what he misses?

Poetry raises his limp right hand

And makes him hold a pen,

It whispers softly in his ear:

“You will write again.”

So he scratched down this poem

In the dark, dusty dawn

Before his love for the poems

Was entirely gone

[derangedrhythms]

Hey! Do you have any quotes whose descriptions are just really beautiful or figurative?

"Oh yes, skin black. Very black. So black that only a steady careful rubbing with steel wool would remove it, and as it was removed there was the glint of gold leaf and under the gold leaf the cold alabaster and deep, deep down under the cold alabaster more black only this time the black of warm loam."

— Toni Morrison, from 'Sula'

"...but the rain / Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh / Upon the glass and listen for reply,"

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp-Weaver; from 'xlii'

"Nothing compares to your hands nothing like the green-gold of your eyes. My body is filled with you for days and days, you are the mirror of the night, the violent flash of lightning. the dampness of the earth."

"You are here, intangible and you are all the universe which I shape into the space of my room. Your absence springs trembling in the ticking of the clock, in the pulse of light; you breathe through the mirror."

— Frida Kahlo, from The Diary of Frida Kahlo, tr. Barbara Crow de Toledo & Ricardo Pohlenz

"The sight filled the northern sky; the immensity of it was scarcely conceivable. As if from Heaven itself, great curtains of delicate light hung and trembled. Pale green and rose-pink, and as transparent as the most fragile fabric, and at the bottom edge a profound and fiery crimson like the fires of Hell, they swung and shimmered loosely with more grace than the most skilful dancer."

— Philip Pullman, from 'Northern Lights'

"Often when I imagine you / your wholeness cascades into many shapes. / You run like a herd of luminous deer / and I am dark, I am forest."

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours: Love Poems to God; from ‘Du kommst und gehst. Die Türen fallen’, tr. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy

"My right hand unfolds rivers / around you, my left hand releases its trees, / I speak rain, / I spin you a night and you hide in it."

— Margaret Atwood, from 'Power Politics'

"Once I wounded him with so / small a thorn / I never thought his flesh would burn / or that the heat within would grow / until he stood / incandescent as a god; / now there is nowhere I can go / to hide from him: / moon and sun reflect his flame."

— Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems: Juvenilia; from ‘To a Jilted Lover’

"She wore a gown the colour of storms, shadows and rain and a necklace of broken promises and regrets."

— Susanna Clarke, from 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell'

"…him pressing against / me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe / his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me / like stars."

— Richard Siken, Crush; from 'Saying Your Names'

"Flower after flower is specked on the depths of green. The petals are harlequins. Stalks rise from the black hollows beneath. The flowers swim like fish made of light upon the dark, green waters. I hold a stalk in my hand. I am the stalk. My roots go down to the depths of the world, through earth dry with brick, and damp earth, through veins of lead and silver. I am all fibre. All tremors shake me, and the weight of the earth is pressed to my ribs. Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing."

— Virginia Woolf, from 'The Waves'

And a song: 'Pale September' by Fiona Apple

[dungeonsanddragonsfifthedition]

Hi, sorry this is random. Do you have poetry/media in general recommendations and tips when it comes to coping with the loss of a lover and dealing with grief? Going through it atm and I'm trying to find things that could make this more bearable. I feel this giant hole in the centre of my chest. Coming to u because your taste is great and u seem like someone who's experienced a good amount of media kfhdkfh I hope ur well

i'm sorry for your pain, anon. here are some of the poems that helped me get through the losses i've dealt with this year.

PLEASE READ | MARY RUEFLE | I ate a heart. I turned my head.

CATALOG OF UNABASHED GRATITUDE | ROSS GAY | and thank you, too, this knuckleheaded heart, this pelican heart, / this gap-toothed heart flinging open its gaudy maw / to the sky, oh clumsy, oh bumblefucked

DEATH COMES TO ME AGAIN, A GIRL | DORIANNE LAUX | I sit beneath the staircase / built from hair and bone and listen / to the voices of the living.

IT IS MAYBE TIME TO ADMIT THAT MICHAEL JACKSON DEFINITELY PUSHED OFF | HANIF ABDURRAQIB (or any of hanif's poems. good lord). | & I am sorry that there is no way to describe this that is not about agony or that is not about someone being torn from the perch of their comfort

actually another hanif piece bc he's a fucking master. ODE TO ELLIOTT SMITH, ENDING IN THE FIRST SNOWFALL OF 2003 | it lands on my shoe & says WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE ALONE & I don't tell anyone the truth for a whole year.

THE TREES | PHILIP LARKIN (deployed beautifully in one of my favorite films of the year, fuckin marcel the shell) | their greenness is a kind of grief

MY DREAMS, MY WORKS, MUST WAIT TILL AFTER HELL | GWENDOLYN BROOKS | I am very hungry. I am incomplete.

THE WASP GRAVEYARD | ELLA STANDAGE | watch hollow wasps gather mouthfuls of dust like pollen / if pollen could exist in wasp-limbo between window panes.

i also recommended reading a book you loved years ago, vonnegut's letter to high school students, and whatever le guin calls your name first. make a playlist of songs to weep to. watch a classic movie you never got around to watching. draw or paint or sculpt or make something ugly and hold it in your hands and love it. eat a piece of fruit outside as the sun rises or sets. punch something. embrace warmth.

[quillify-tries-to-talk]

Yet Another Rewrite (Part 2)

For the thomstair appreciation week by @youngreckless ik it's over. Sorry I'm late :(

You can read part 1 here then come back and read this one.

Thomas and Alastair working things out part 2. Enjoy!

Tw: mentions of racism, bullying, abuse, colonialism

"Even our angels have mercy, Thomas." His voice was hollow now. 

Despair threatened to pull him under. It wasn't worth it. Anything. He would always be like this. It was a miracle even Cordelia was able to look him in the eye without hate. He did deserve this, he thought, settling back on his bed, all the fight drained. He deserved every blow and every bruise he'd inflicted on others.

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa 

Funny that he now remembered his Latin lessons.

The bed dipped under Thomas's heavier weight, and he felt a flash of warmth when hesitant fingers crept over his skin. Too close. He was too close. 

Let go, he wanted to say, but lies seemed to evade him whenever Thomas Lightwood was present. His eyes looked dark brown in the dim lighting. There were  dents on his bottom lip where he must have bitten it. It took everything in him to not let his hands rise and trace the lines of his jaw.

"I remember Paris."

Alastair's eyes widened. He sat frozen, and Thomas took that as his cue to continue. "You were kind to me when I was very alone, and I am grateful." He looked up, face a bit red. "It was the first time I realized you could be kind.”

He tried not to let the last comment needle him. “It is my favorite memory of Paris as well.”

“You don’t have to say that. I know you were there with Charles.”

His jaw went tight. Not that. Anything but that. "Charles Fairchild? What about him?”

Thomas cocked his head to the side, his expression innocent. “Wouldn’t that be your best memory of Paris?”

“Exactly what are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything." His tone indicated the exact opposite though. Cheeky little–

"I’ve seen the way you look at Charles, the way he looks at you. I’m not an idiot, Alastair, and I’m asking …” Thomas shook his head, sighing. 

He was going to say it. Right here. Angel help him.

“I suppose I’m asking if you’re like me.”

There it was. 

Perhaps he could salvage this conversation. He gathered his thoughts, straightened out of his slouching position.

“Thomas Lightwood,” he said. “I am nothing like you."

Thomas stared as if he'd been clubbed on the head, eyes dazed in shock again. He was shuffling from side to side, probably preparing to launch himself far, far away from him.

A bit more effort, dâdâsh, Layla said in his head, amused and exasperated.

Right. “I am nothing like you, Thomas." His breathing was faltering again, throat closing up, fighting against the vulnerability he was exposing. “Because you are one of the better people I have ever known. You have a kind nature and a heart like some knight out of legend. Brave and proud and true and strong. All of it.” 

He smiled bitterly. “And all the time you have known me, I have been a terrible person. So, you see. We are nothing at all alike.”

His head snapped up, surprise etched on his features. His eyes started twinkling again. What was he doing to him? Even looking at him made Alastair want to smile. 

He hadn't wanted to smile in a long, long time.

"I'm not—" Thomas broke off. "That's not what I meant."

Don't I know that, eshgham? "I know what you meant." His voice had softened. The words hung in the air for a moment. But he needed some answers of his own now. "How did you know about Charles?"

“You wouldn’t tell me what you were doing in Paris,” Thomas replied. Alastair thought he heard a note of hurt in his voice, but promptly dismissed the notion. “But you mentioned Charles, over and over again, like you got pleasure out of just saying his name. And when you came to London this summer, I saw the way you looked at him. I know what it is to have to hide the—the signs of affection.”

“Then I imagine you may have noticed I don’t look at Charles that way anymore.”

What did you just say, Carstairs? Admitting to your own failures now? Couldn't even hold on to first love?

His jaw tightened again. Get out of my head, baba. Charles. Get out, both of you.

“I suppose I did,” Thomas said. “Though for the past four months, I’ve been trying not to look at you. I told myself I hated you. But I could never really make myself. When Elias died, all I could think about was you. What you must be feeling.”

His father's name reopened the gashes on his heart. Heat sparked behind his eyelids. “I insulted your father and blackened his name. You were under no obligation to care about mine.”

“I know, but sometimes I think that it is much harder to lose someone who we are on bad terms with than it is to lose someone with whom all is well.”

“Bloody hell, Thomas. You should hate me, not be thinking about what I must be feeling—” Alastair passed a hand over his face. It came back wet with tears. He didn’t even know when that happened. He’d never had an audience for his crying before. 

"But I do," said Thomas softly. His fingers ghosted higher along Alastair's wrist, making his heart skip a beat. Once, twice, three times.

Bewildered, he marvelled at the sensation such a small touch could cause. 

"I'm sorry." Thomas's voice was soft, filled with guilt. His head bowed as if in prayer. "I—what you said. What happened at school." His gaze trailed over Alastair's features, and he shook his head. "I always found you beautiful. Then and now. I didn't know people hated how you looked. You're like a poem, but in human form."

"Poem," Alastair repeated numbly. If his brain had short-circuited before, it was blown to bits now. No one had ever called him that.

Charles had called him a beautiful secret. His safe haven. His comfort and best friend.

Never a poem.

"Yes." Thomas's cheeks were slowly flushing rose. Another nice contrast with his skin and hair. "Graceful. Elegant. Confident. You were always so poised and sharp. Like one of Jamie's knives. You were smart, managed to turn people over. They listened to you. Look what you did just now. I didn't know what to do. If I wanted you. Or if I wanted to be you. Remember when I followed you around school?"

Alastair's rusty throat muscles regained a bit of their ability. He wanted me? It wasn’t the best, but it was okay. Charles had wanted him. It hadn’t been too bad. Until the end. Until the horror of his actions had dawned on him. Until he realized that all his time spent with Charles had been wasted in tending to his needs, not Alastair’s. He hadn’t even known a relationship required his own needs to be taken care of. That it was a necessity. 

"I remember,” he managed. “Then I met you in Paris and you’d grown up and turned into Michelangelo’s David. I thought you were beautiful. But I was still caught up with Charles—” He broke off, regret weighting his stomach. “Just another thing I’ve wasted. Your regard for me. I wasted my time and my affection on Charles. I wasted my chance with you.”

Thomas blinked. And blinked. And blinked. A pulse had started in the base of his neck, thudding against the delicate skin. Alastair raised his eyes only to find him already staring. 

"Thomas?" His name tasted strange on his tongue.

"You said angels too have mercy," he said in answer. "I—I must apologize. I'll admit I didn't know how people treated your family. I have been sheltered in that regard."

"You must know where those indigo-dyed silks came from," said Alastair softly. They were from India. Ariadne had mentioned it during their little dance, the news that had trickled in. The brown-skinned, hollow-eyed servants brought in for labour by mundanes and Shadowhunters alike. "Or why England never has a shortage of adamas, but my country does." 

That one was still going on. Britain liked guising their nefarious schemes behind offers of trade. 

He released a sigh, shaking his head in despondence. "They never tell you. Layla and I knew because we saw it happen; we know our histories ever since we could walk and talk. And it still happens. It's more than demons and humans for us. It’s always been that way." He held one brown hand up to the light, and Thomas’s eyes followed. “This isn’t apparently how we were supposed to look. I tried changing that, and it did work for sometime but.. I hated myself even then. I hated my family and my culture and my books. Do you flinch from your own face, Thomas? I always did. Still do, sometimes. 

“I hate that my skin isn’t like yours. If it was, perhaps people wouldn’t have said so many things. Perhaps I wouldn’t have as many bruises.” He leaned his head back against the wall, ignoring the tightness in his chest. “In another life, perhaps we would’ve had our chance, you and I.”

His words ended with a plaintive note; the bone-deep weariness that there was nothing he could do, aside from ripping off his own skin or trying to be like his father. In appearance, at least. They remained silent for a long while, but it was the thoughtful sort. Alastair didn't know how many hours he passed by just counting the cracks in the walls when Thomas's voice pierced the quiet.

"Teach me."

He jerked awake. "What?"

"You said there are things I don't know about you. About where you come from and what you and Cordelia have to face. And… perhaps I'd like to know. I'd like to understand how the world works." A small smile ticked up the corners of his mouth, and Alastair found himself besotted by the expression.

By the Angel. Definitely not coming out in one piece.

"You'd like to… umm…" Words had fled when he'd needed them most. Damn you, Thomas. 

Thomas’s fingers enclosed over his wrists. The warmth was steadying, comforting. His expression was hesitant, at odds with the way his body commandeered space. “I want help. Really, truly. I found myself fascinated in Spain by the difference in language and culture. And then Paris. One-time travel gave me a different perspective, so imagine what more knowledge would do.” He was practically shaking with excitement at the prospect of learning of his ancestor’s atrocities. “You’ll be teaching me, so it won’t feel like a debt to you.”

“Are you sure you want to know, Thomas? People have done some terrible things.”

“I need to know what I’m redeeming myself for before I ask for forgiveness.” His hazel eyes were clear, expression determined. Like a knight readied for battle. A scholar rewriting history on pages. 

Alastair felt his throat tighten at his excitement. He wasn’t used to any of this. Apologies. Forgiveness. Love. Hope. His story was supposed to have died after all his attempts to apologize to The Merry Thieves. He’d failed then to ask for friends, so why would someone give him another chance?

“And maybe you’re wrong,” Thomas added in what was supposed to be a nonchalant tone, but Alastair detected a slight tremor in it. “About me.”

“Speak sense, Lightwood.” His tone sharpened, a defense against his wrecked emotional state. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this.” In answer, Thomas hooked his hands around Alastair’s shoulders, and the sudden onslaught of warmth and gentleness made his body sway with the sheer impossibility of the situation. No glass. No manipulation. Nothing but warmth and truth and compromise. The good sort. 

This had to be a dream. He would wake up any time now, but he couldn’t stop staring at him. Couldn't stop admiring his smile, the brightness of his eyes, the shape of his mouth, that damned pulse at his throat. And more. His strength. His passion for learning. His bravery in venturing after a killer alone. The openness of his heart.

I’m not worth it, Alastair wanted to say, but by then his head had fallen on his shoulder, nestled in the crook of Thomas’s neck. He felt lighter than air. For the first time, his head felt empty of anything: trouble, grief, responsibilities, duties. It was just them. Thomas with his arms around him, holding him in the storm of his life. His heartbeat was a steady clock that Alastair could time his breaths to. 

With Charles it had been all heat and desire, and the furious pounding of his heart in the thrill of being wanted by someone. This felt like coming home, sitting down for a cup of tea with his favourite book. Warm and right and natural. Tears slipped down his cheeks, freed after years and years of being locked away for the sake of his family. 

Thomas set his lips to Alastair’s brow. 

His body seized up at the soft pressure. It felt like someone had poured sunlight into his veins. Another tear slipped down his cheek. Impossible. Wake up, now. Happiness wasn’t a part of your life. But he was still here, feeling Thomas lean his cheek against his hair. Through the swirl of emotions, he heard his voice again.

“We’ll get past this together. I will relearn you, Alastair.” The sound of his name on Thomas’s lips sent his heart careening again. “Negaran nabash.”

Don't worry. Even with the different cadence, it would’ve been hard to miss. Thomas had just spoken in Persian. 

Lifting his head, he raised an eyebrow. “Where did you learn that?”

“Oh. Umm. Just something…” That adorable smile surfaced again. “A little hobby? Like Kit and his test tubes?”

Shaking his head, Alastair allowed himself a little smile. Perhaps, it had been worth it to risk his neck. For this. Only for this.

Taglist: @cherilyn-rose @youngreckless @eugeniaslongsword @nott-the-best (2nd part eeeeeeee🥳🥳🥳) @cant-think-of-anything @livingformyself

[somebodycall911onabc]

A Space Already Taken

Ep4x12 Buddie ficlet (not really any spoilers for season 4).

Read on AO3

Buck can take a hint. Particularly when it comes to romance and attraction—he knows when someone wants him and he knows when to make a move. Honestly, at this point he’s had so much practice charming people into bed that he could teach a class on it. One Night Stands 101 or something.

Which is why Taylor Kelly confuses the hell out of him.

Since the treasure hunting incident, she’s backed away from him three times. She’ll lean in close, lower her voice, flutter her eyelashes, brush her hair behind her ear…

And then lean away! Buck is losing his mind.

So when she does it again, when they’re at his apartment after a dinner Buck cooked for them, leaning against each other on the floor in front of the couch, Buck sighs out,

“Taylor, what are we doing?”

She’d turned away from him already, faked a laugh over some conversation they’d been having (i.e., she’d been having while Buck was getting lost in her eyes), but at his words she freezes.

Slowly, like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar, she turns back toward him. The expression on her face is familiar. He’d seen it on Abby a lot, near the end. And Ali.

It’s regret.

“My bad,” Buck says hastily, holding up his hands, “Sorry. If I’ve been, you know, pushy about it.”

Taylor bites her lip.

“I’m sorry, Buck,” she says. “If we weren’t friends then… yeah, a tumble would be fun. But we are. And it gets… messy.”

“I would have thought you’d be kind of into a friends with benefits situation,” Buck says, non-judgemental. “Don’t have to waste time on romance or relationships, you know?”

“I don’t have an issue with it,” Taylor corrects. “But you would.”

“Me?” Buck says, surprised. “Most of my relationships have been no-strings-attached ones.”

“Yeah…” Taylor says gently. “But that’s not you anymore. You know I’m right. You want romance, Buck. You want marriage and kids and love. Real love. And you deserve it. Which is exactly why you shouldn’t waste your time on me.”

“That’s bullshit,” Buck protests, but his heart is sinking because, well, she’s right.

Taylor shakes her head. “I can’t give you those things, Buck. I’m not sure they’re what I even want. Love, yes. But the rest of it?”

“Who says we need to figure it out now? Who says we can’t give it a shot and see where it goes?”

“Because I don’t have all that many friends,” Taylor admits. “And I don’t want to lose one over something stupid like a lack of self-restraint.”

“Who says you’ll lose me?” Buck asks, grasping at straws now. “You keep talking like you can predict everything, like the future’s already set in stone. But from what I’ve seen, the future’s pretty fucking unpredictable.”

“Buck,” Taylor says, swaying close to lay a hand on his cheek, “even if I did love you as more than a friend, I wouldn’t be able to hold a candle to Eddie.”

Buck feels the world stop turning. For just a second. Stalled on its axis like a wind-up toy that reached the end of its mechanical loop.

“Oh, Buck,” Taylor says, pulling her hand away. “C’mon. You revolve around him like he’s the fucking sun.”

“No, I…” Buck shakes his head like a dog dispelling water from its fur. “We’re friends. Brothers. I love him, yeah, but not like…”

“Brothers don’t look at each other the way you two look at each other.”

Buck’s palms are sweating. “Look at each other… how?”

Taylor gives him a long look, somewhere between disbelief and pity.

She says, “like they want to devour each other whole.”

Buck doesn’t sleep that night.

Taylor left with a kiss to his cheek and an open invitation to call her therapist—not her, she made abundantly clear, because she’d done enough to help Buck through the ensuing emotional crisis over the next three hours and two bottles of wine. But Buck just stares up at the ceiling and relives every moment he can recall about Eddie.

And there’s… a lot to get through.

Eddie smiling as Chris reads out a poem he wrote for class.

Eddie concentrated and intense, fists raised as he efficiently and elegantly attacks the punching bag at the station.

Eddie lying pale and cold in the hospital bed after nearly drowning, Buck gripping his hand and thanking every God he can think of that he won’t have to tell Chris he lost another parent.

Eddie’s eyes, warm on his, smiling that conspiratorial smile he saves just for Buck, that makes Buck feel like he’s swallowed the sun.

And Buck realizes that, on some level, he’s always known. He’s never felt this way about anyone. Like the world glows a little brighter when Eddie’s around, like his heart is a skipping record every time Eddie touches him.

He can’t remember a time when it didn’t feel like this.

Buck throws off the covers and stomps down the stairs, grabbing his keys from the kitchen counter on his way out the door.

The drive to Eddie’s is full of white noise and Buck’s memories.

“Real funny, Buck.”

“I know you did.”

“You could have my back any day.”

“Buck, there’s nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you.”

Buck finds himself at Eddie’s door, the porch light flickering on as it senses him. He thinks about knocking, but he doesn’t want to wake Chris, so he pulls out his phone and texts Eddie.

Within a minute, Buck hears noise from inside the house. Eddie’s always been a light sleeper. He makes it to the door three minutes after Buck texts him, ‘I’m outside.’

It’s enough time for Buck to shiver a little at the cold night air, realize he’d put on two different shoes, and chicken out.

Eddie swings open the door and blinks at Buck, a tiny frown on his face.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, stepping aside so that Buck can come in.

Buck curses internally while he toes off his mismatched shoes. “Nothing. I… I just couldn’t sleep.”

“Not your leg, is it?” Eddie asks, making his way down the hallway to the living room. Buck’s heartbeat kicks up, because here’s Eddie sleep-rumpled at four in the morning, opening his door to Buck and worrying about an injury from two years ago.

Buck never had a chance, did he?

“No,” Buck replies, following Eddie onto the couch. “Not the leg.”

Eddie fixes his eyes on Buck and gives him a long, assessing look. Unlike Taylor, Eddie’s gaze is tinged with concern and sympathy.

“This about Taylor Kelly?” He asks, eyes narrowing.

“Jesus,” Buck mutters. “What is it with you two reading my mind lately?”

“You’re just an open book, Buck,” Eddie says, fighting a yawn. “Not much to it. What happened?”

“She just… turned me down,” Buck says with a shrug. He can’t bring himself to feel that bad about it.

“And you’re… upset?” Eddie asks, because of course he can tell that’s not what Buck is really here about.

“No,” Buck admits. “Not really.”

“What is it then?” Eddie asks. And the way he says it, so patiently, resting his cheek against his fist as he sits sideways on the couch to face Buck, breaks something down inside him.

“It’s just…” Buck picks at a loose thread on his jeans. “I just wonder when someone is going to look at me and like… want me. When someone is finally going to love me back.”

The room goes still, like it’s holding its breath the same way Buck and Eddie are. Buck can’t bring himself to look up at whatever expression is on Eddie’s face.

Eddie breathes out. In barely more than a whisper, he says, “I do.”

Buck’s vision goes white for a moment.

His voice cracks as he says, “what?”

“I love you,” Eddie says, firmer now. He’s committed to it. That’s how Eddie is. He doesn’t back down. Buck’s always admired that about him.

“You… but… Ana?” Buck splutters, staring sightlessly down at his own hands, which have fallen still in his lap.

Eddie lets out a hollow-sounding laugh. “Ana broke up with me,” he says.

“What?”

“A few weeks ago, actually. Says I wasn’t trusting enough. That I didn’t really want her in mine and Chris’s lives. She wasn’t wrong.”

“No?” Buck feels like he’s breathing underwater, like there’s no air in the entire goddamn universe.

“Because I already have you,” Eddie says. “Hard to fill a place that’s already taken.”

Buck is horrified to feel a tear slide down his cheek. Jesus, he’s a mess. Eddie’s in love with this?

“Hey,” Eddie says, reaching over to lay a hand on Buck’s shoulder. Buck feels his tell-tale heart skip a beat. “Buck, you alright?”

“I just found out my best friend is in love with me,” Buck chokes out, “after realizing that I’ve been in love with him for years. Give me a minute.”

Eddie doesn’t.

He reaches a hand over to Buck’s jaw, turning Buck to face him. Eddie’s smile is ecstatic, radiant, like someone just told him every Hildy product in the world had been destroyed.

“That so?” He says, his other hand slipping over Buck’s shoulder and down his back, bringing them close. Close enough that their noses are practically touching.

“Yeah,” Buck says.

He can take a hint. He knows when someone wants him. He knows when to make a move.

But when Eddie kisses him, it takes Buck completely and wholly by surprise. Because apparently Buck is hopeless when it comes to love.

Eddie pulls away and Buck chases him with lips and hands and muttered pleas. Eddie breathes a laugh against his lips and Buck wants to feel that every day for the rest of his life.

“I love you,” Eddie says, “so goddamn much.”

“I love you, too,” Buck echoes, feeling warm and soft inside and out. Like he’s incandescent.

“Good,” Eddie says, kissing Buck on the nose, which makes him feel like his bones have turned to jelly. “Can we go the fuck to sleep, then?”

Buck laughs. “I’ll try to save my earth-shattering realizations for daytime from now on,” he says.

“Please do. I’d hate to have to kill you before the wedding.”

“Wedding?” Buck asks, laughing again.

“M’serious,” Eddie protests, rubbing his nose against Buck’s cheek. “I’m going to marry you, Buck. I’d ask you now, but the ring’s in my nightstand.”

“Bullshit.”

Eddie presses his smile to Buck’s. “Why don’t you come to bed and find out?”

Turns out, Eddie does have a ring. It’s black and polished metal that he shyly admits he bought more than a year ago.

“Wasn’t that during the lawsuit?” Buck asks, admiring the ring on his finger. “Weren’t we not talking then?”

“Why’d you think I was so mad at you?” Eddie says, eyes closed, laying back against the pillows. He’s got one arm wrapped around Buck’s waist. “Mad at myself too, ‘cause I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I wasn’t ready. I didn’t think you could ever… I didn’t think you felt the same.”

“Guess tonight was a surprise, huh?”

Eddie slides his hand up to twine his fingers with Buck’s, brushing his thumb over the ring on Buck’s hand.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “Life likes to throw me curveballs, I guess.”

“Excuse you,” Buck says, settling down into the curve of Eddie’s arm. “I’m not a curveball.”

“Sure you are,” Eddie says. “But I love you anyway.”

Buck rests his cheek on Eddie’s chest, closing his eyes. “I’m gonna have to send Taylor a thank you card.”

Eddie snorts. “Go to sleep, Buck.”

Buck, smiling to himself, does. After all, they’ve got a pretty big day ahead of them. Starting with Christopher.

[write-and-wander]

Yawning Grave | Three: Dwindle

Astarion x Ayzora (F!OC)

Description: New faces, old memories, and internal battles. The party at last finds Halsin and begins to move closer to answers, all the while Ayzora and Astarion dance along the balance between the head and the heart.

Warnings: N/A | Word count: 7.1k

| One | Two | Three | ...

Read on Ao3

Streaks of red ridges carve sharp pathways into pale plains.  Lines interrupt the curve of great circles, punctuated with bug-bite dots.

Ayzora’s scars are like a waving Van Gogh variation on her own skin, carved out in a reminder of the life Orcus forced upon her; a contrast to Astarion’s, which are an intentional pattern drawn by the hand of another.  Because the marks made by a master upon their slave are a promise:  “I own you.  I will use you as I please.”  But of all the ways to brand a slave…

“Why Infernal?”  Ayzora asks aloud.

Astarion, standing tall in leather slacks, does not turn to face her.  He faces the rising sun, arms spread, as if embracing the Dawnfather himself while he basks in the golden glow.  He does, however, tense at her question.  He rolls his shoulders ever so slightly, as if allowing the sudden tension to roll off his back, and ignores her question.

“You sleep light…  I thought you’d be exhausted after last night.”

She decides not to push, stands, and reaches for her clothes, beginning to dress herself in silence.  He seems reluctant to look at her, only turning his head towards his shoulder enough for her to hear his words.  He seemed… distant last night, too.  Even when he did look at me, his eyes seemed… empty.  Am I so unbearable to look at?  Her spiraling thoughts only speed up her process as she rushes to cover her horrid, scarred body.

She almost believed him, when he called her beautiful.  She desperately wanted to.  But reality is swift to settle in.  

It’s over.  Astarion is not holding her; caressing her; kissing her.  He is cold and distant.  He let go of her the second it was finished.  He stood as soon as she fell into trance.

She is not a lover, but a monster.  She is an orphan and an outcast.  She cannot be anything else.

She takes a slow breath, exhaling until her chest is hollow, and holds it there as she finishes dressing.

Astarion sighs in concession as he realizes the conversation isn’t going anywhere now, and at last addresses Ayzora’s first words.

“I don’t know why that bastard wrote the poem in infernal,” he admits, watching her.

Her back was turned to him as he spoke, preparing to leave.  She stops just short of the edge of the clearing, eyes remaining on the trees.  “Poem?”

“A gift from Cazador.”

Ayzora turns to face him.

“He considered himself quite the artist, and used his slaves as a canvas.  He composed and carved that one over the course of a night.”  He bows his head, his voice lowering.  “He made a lot of revisions as he went.”

Her eyes flicker in sudden recognition as it clicks:  that searing pain I felt when we first connected...  She opens her mouth to offer her sympathies, but he’s quick to interrupt.

“It seems yours are much more meticulous, though.”

“It’s a necrology,” she says, wrapping her arms around her abdomen as if it protects the mosaic that hides beneath her dress.

His head tilts to the side in sudden piqued interest.  “That’s quite the list you’ve compiled, then…  Trophies?”

She shakes her head quickly.  “No, reminders.  If I don’t forget them… I can make up for it all.”

“Well,” he responds in surprise.  He tilts his head, examining his nails.  “A little cliché, don’t you think?”

She shrugs.

Astarion’s shoulders slack.  She’s impossible!  How in the hells does Gale, of all people, get her to talk?  

“You seem to like cliché, if your words are anything to go by.”

His eyes widen.  After all of this passivity, she’s… flirting?  It seems my work paid off after all.  A smile settles on his features.  “It’s always a pleasure to find like-minded people.”  He grabs his shirt from the tree branch it hung from.  “Now let’s go, we’ve wasted enough time already.”

Ayzora feels something flutter in her stomach, and bashfulness immediately follows on its heels.  Shit.  The smile is already on her face- the mask has already slipped.  She turns and walks back to camp in hurried strides.

Astarion watches his newest plaything leave as his confidence swells.  I’m almost disappointed.  This was certainly easier, but I think blackmail is always so much more fun.

He put the pieces together last night.  Her skin is pale, and cold.  Her heart did not pound beneath his touch; it was still.  Her breath is a natural habit, sure, but clearly unnecessary; her chest never moved while she tranced.  Her patron, Orcus, is the god of undeath himself.  She tries to hide it, and manages well enough, but Astarion knows death better than most.

Ayzora is undead.

She’s no vampire, but she reeks of death as much as her lover.

And no one else knows.

A surprise for later, then. 

“I owe thanks.  I am the druid Halsin.”

Ayzora’s stomach drops.

What once was a bear now stands tall before the group in a humanoid form.  His ears are pointed like an elf’s, but instead of the lean frame of Ayzora and Astarion, his defined muscles nearly double his size by comparison, dwarfing even the white dragonborn that stands before him.  He maintains nearly a full foot of height over his elvish counterparts.  He wears brown and green leather with golden filigree and leafy detail, signaling his druidic background.  Covered in the viscera of slain goblins, his introduction makes waves amongst the group as a flurry of emotions rise.  Most breathe a sigh of relief.  Shadowheart whispers thanks to Lady Shar, while Lae’zel, still offended by the group’s general disinterest in her creche, remains quiet.

“Glad we could be of help,” Dark Urge, ever the confident leader, responds as he steps forward.

“I must admit,” Halsin continues, “I didn’t expect anyone to come to my aid…”

His voice fades into the background as Ayzora glances over at Astarion, who is watching the druid with an uninterested expression.

Feeling eyes on him, he meets her gaze.

She smiles and drops her eyes back to the floor.

The tadpole in her brain writhes for a moment as Astarion mentally prods, asking for permission.

She allows their minds to connect.

“Yes, darling?”  He asks.  Despite the conversation being utterly silent, only existing in their minds, his tone is lighter than usual, as if he’s smiling in light of her attention.

“You seem bored.  Aren’t you… excited about this?  We found the healer.”  She tries to keep her feelings concealed: the worry about the healer’s ability to truly cure them, the fear of her nature being revealed to the group, and above all, the solemn concern that she will be alone and without chance at redemption if Astarion- the elf she is rapidly garnering affection for- goes his own way; but the emotions translate to Astarion as clearly as her words through the mental pathway.

“We’ve also met two other healers who did nothing to help.  I’ll be impressed when one of them manages to prove themselves useful.”

Ayzora shifts her attention back to Halsin, who is still in the middle of sharing his knowledge about the tadpoles.

Hope begins to wilt away as the druid speaks, until the damning words at last confirm what she had feared: “I can’t cure you.”

Astarion scoffs.

Ayzora turns and begins to leave.

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t help,” Halsin adds.

Gale catches the necromancer’s arm.  “Wait,” he whispers.  “Please.”

She pulls her arm out of his grasp, but concedes.  Back still turned to Halsin, she turns her chin towards her shoulder and listens.

Halsin explains that while he did not find a cure for the illithid tadpoles, he did find their source: a place called Moonrise Towers.  On the heels of his information is a request- help him, and he helps them.  If the group kills the three leaders of the goblin camp here, the tieflings in the druid grove could finally travel safely to Baldur’s Gate.  With the grove taken care of, Halsin can join the journey to Moonrise.

“What can I do to help?”  Dark Urge asks, immediately accepting the new quest.

“Another favor,” Astarion notes mentally, his tone chock-full of exasperation.

Ayzora takes a deep breath.  “More blood to spill,” she adds, matching his tone.  

In her youthful naïveté, she started her travels to make ends meet.  She walked herself down a dark path because her god and her friends demanded her to.  All the while, so much blood was shed it could create her own ocean to drown in.  Each new kill feels like another gasp for air that only fills her lungs with gore.  Watching over the temple of the Raven Queen was supposed to be the ladder out of the eternal fountain of death Ayzora was baptized in, and yet her head is still under bloody waters.

“Well, when you put it that way…” Astarion’s voice breaks through her guilt.  He smiles, the thrill of bloodlust dripping from his bared fangs.

Before she can respond, the tadpoles’ connection snaps.  She is alone, again.

It’s frustrating, how Astarion’s absence stings.

“Come with us,” Dark Urge insists.

Astarion rolls his eyes.

Ayzora looks back at the muscular elf.

Though his form is towering and his words speak of a gruesome fight, his eyes are as soft as the tone of his baritone voice.  A sense of recognition pricks the edges of her thoughts.  He’s familiar to her- like a few notes bringing a long-forgotten song back to the forefront of her mind.

Halsin looks over the party, assessing his unlikely companions.  While Wyll and Karlach remain at camp, the rest stand before the archdruid, anticipating the confirmation of the group’s newest addition.  His eyes linger on Ayzora.

Meeting his gaze, suddenly, it clicks.  The now-remembered melody sings.  Memories flood back to her.

“So be it,” he says at last, and looks again at the white dragonborn.  “May Silvanus lend us nature’s fury.”

The series of fights that follow are hard won.

Halsin, shifted back into a bear, leads each battle with the fury of the scorned.  He is a child who fights for his god’s creation, and a leader who fights for the safety of his people.  His prowess is noble.

Astarion loses himself in the joys of bloodshed, dashing between goblins and running daggers through various kinds of flesh and furs.  With his secrets at last exposed, he can indulge freely in turning his fanged rage against Cazador towards his temporary opponents; and none stand long once they are made his target.  The blood that splatters on his chest and drips down his cheek mixes with sweat, turning translucent and catching the torchlight like glittering ruby dust.  His passion is contagious.

Ayzora is elsewhere.  Her movements are made with practiced precision, proving effective even in close range of her enemies.  Her mind, however, is trapped in the purgatory of her present situation, drifting down the river styx with a different sort of hell beckoning her on either side.  If she tries to anchor herself to the present, she drifts away from goblins in a dark ruined tower and washes up on a great battlefield facing the people who she betrayed.  If she reaches towards another place or another time, the faces of angry gods flood her mind with anxiety.  So instead, she chooses… nothing.  Her eyes drift between opponents only to aim a spell.  Her mouth only moves to vocally command the flow of magic through her.  Her scythe swings and slashes with ferocity.  All the while, Ayzora is absent, locked away in the recesses of her mind.  Her state is unnoticed.

When it’s finished, Halsin, Dark Urge, and Gale enter a quiet conversation.  Lae’zel cleans her blade while Shadowheart cleans her armor and Astarion makes a beeline for the treasure hoard.  Ayzora turns Messorem from scythe to cloak and sits, clasping it back onto her harness while she stares a thousand yards away, into nothing.

“We’ll see you back at the grove, then,” Dark Urge says as Halsin takes his leave.

Lae’zel promptly stands to return to camp on her own, and after a beat, Astarion returns to the group, pockets full of gold.  Ayzora quietly stands, shrugging off Gale’s gentle concern with a smile and a quip about their poor luck with healers.  Shadowheart and Dark Urge begin their walk back to camp, and Gale and Ayzora start to follow a few paces behind.  She turns back to Astarion, checking to see if he’s coming with them.

Astarion meets her gaze, and for a moment, his heart sinks.  He recognizes the emptiness behind her green and gold eyes.  He’s felt it before, choosing nothing as a means of escaping that which he refuses to experience.

It was the expression he wore last night, as he ravished her in the woods.

For the first time in decades, there’s a pang of guilt in his chest.  Guilt.  Why?

“Don’t worry, darling, I’m coming,” Astarion chirps with a wink, jogging to catch up with the group and taking his place alongside her.

That evening, Gale and Dark Urge recount the day to Karlach and Wyll, even making a point to introduce them to Halsin when he stops by the camp.

Ayzora sits in front of the fire, slowly plaiting her hair into a clean braid, and carefully watching Halsin as he greets the others.  His eyes occasionally flicker to hers, feeling her stare fixed on him, but he maintains his focus on the newly met companions.

She stands and walks to the nearby shore, staring out at the lapping waves of the Sea of Swords.  She wraps her arms around her frame, a chill running from the base of her neck, down her spine, and dispersing in her legs.

“It’s a beautiful view,” Halsin says softly.

Ayzora jumps, glancing back to see the Silvanic druid standing behind her.  She nods, turning back to the sea.

The moonlight dances on the surface of the waters, casting an oblong silvery reflection against the distant ripples of the lively ocean.  Stars sparkle across the mirror of the horizon, turning the sky and the sea into a glittery gossamer blanket of indigo over Torril.

Sand softly crunches until warmth radiates against Ayzora’s back- he stands close, but does not touch her.  Slow tears trail down her cold face.

“I remember everything,” Halsin says low, his rumbling voice trailing hot breath that lands on her skin.  “And it seems,” he continues, moving to stand beside her, “you remember as well.”  He glances at her briefly, but moves his eyes to the sea as she continues to stare forward.

“71 years,” she whispers.

He hums.

The salty-sweet ocean breeze fills the otherwise silent air.

She breathes in deep, letting her watery eyes flutter closed.

A large, calloused hand reaches for hers in an offer of comfort.

She takes it.

He speaks again at last: “I’m so sorry.”

Her voice is breathy and broken, barely carrying over the waves crashing into the shore.  “It’s alright.  You tried.  It meant a lot.”

“We all tried.”

“It never matters.”

“It does,” he insists, turning to face her as he wraps both hands around hers.  “You must not give up, Ayzora.  You will find an answer.”

“This isn’t a curse, Hals.  I can’t cure what I am-”

“Not by normal means, but there may still be a way.”

She looks up at him, tilting her head in a despondent plea.  Please, don’t.

“You convinced me with the Shadow Curse.  I have yet to give up on healing the lands again- and the longer I search, the more certain I am that it can be done.”

“I am, too.  For you.”  She lifts a hand to his cheek.  “I’ve made peace with it.  I need to focus on recompense, now.”  She pulls her hands away, dropping them back to her side.  In another life, she would have loved to journey with him.  To have searched together for a cure to her state, and healing for the shadow-cursed lands.  Perhaps to have even grown to love him.  But when she met him, he loved another.  The lands had been cursed for decades.  Her life was permanently shrouded by undeath.  There was no light amidst all the darkness.

If only I had told her then, he thinks as he looks upon the face he loved and lost all that time ago.  Maybe it could have been different.

“You tried; and when you failed, you gave me Droop.  You’ve done enough.”  It’s a closed chapter, she means, let’s not try to open it again.  She sighs, and mutters: “I’ve only started.”  My story is far from finished.  No rest for the wicked.

“Ace,” he begins.  But no words follow.  The moment he saw her again, his heart stirred, as hope and love rekindled.  Now, it only aches.

She nods.  She knows.  And that is enough for her.

Halsin watches as his once-companion- who could have been so much more- walks away, leaving him standing on the shore with the same defeat he had felt 71 years ago.

Silently, she returns to camp.

Astarion watches her walk through the camp like a ghost, drifting over the cool grass with hollow eyes that only look forward.  He knows what drives him to that place- but what has driven her there?  He stands and begins to follow, but stops in time with her as she freezes just in front of her tent.

She takes a deep breath, shifting her posture, and turns.  Seeing Astarion, she blinks a few times in surprise- clearly too preoccupied beforehand to have noticed him following her.  “Astarion,” she greets.

“Hello, darling,” he responds, shifting his weight onto one foot.

She looks around the camp.  “Has everyone else gone to bed already?”

“Yes- you just missed an exciting little tiff between Shadowheart and Lae’zel.”

Ayzora sighs, “of course.  Did they resolve it?”

“Unfortunately.”  He looks over his nails.  “Dark Urge talked them down.  A shame, really,” he whines, glancing over at the other tents, “a fight certainly would have been more interesting.”

“Shame I missed it,” she says flatly.  “Do you need to feed on me, tonight?”

His brows twitch together for a moment in confusion.  “Well, I don’t need it, seeing as we’re due for a party tomorrow.  But I wouldn’t say no.”

“A party?”

He sighs, resting one hand on his hip while the other gestures along with his speech.  “The tieflings from the grove offered a night of celebration to thank us for saving them.”

She hums, “Tomorrow might feel more like home for you, then.”

Astarion’s head tilts, silently questioning her.  He’s no hero.  What about this would feel homey?

“You know… the ‘bustling taverns’ and all?”

“Oh, yes,” he chirps.  “It might not be so bad after all… at least, with the right company.”

She looks down.  He didn’t really want me… did he?  He just seemed so-

“Are you alright?”

“Hm?”  Her head snaps back up.  “I’m fine.  Why?”

He scoffs.  “You may be one of the quiet ones, darling, but you’re never this standoffish.”

She shakes her head, “It’s… a long story, and I need to get some rest.”

“Well, in any case, if you ever need to… talk,” he strains, clearly… out of his comfort zone, in this sort of conversation, “I’m all pointy ears.”

His joke, corny as it is, manages to make Ayzora smile.

He feels relieved at the sight.  It catches him off guard.  Why does it matter, anyway?

“Thanks, Star,” she responds quietly.

Star.  Like a light in the darkness.

He smiles, ever so slightly.  It’s small, barely noticeable, but it’s a feeling he had nearly forgotten.

“Goodnight,” she whispers before slipping into her tent.

“Goodnight, Ayzora” he responds after a beat, so quiet she probably didn’t even hear him.  His smile lingers.

He turns away from the closed tent.  Tomorrow, the journey is put on hold, taking a day of rest as the tieflings come to celebrate with their… heroes.  A title that, for the first time in his two and a half centuries, includes him.

He can ponder his feelings all he wants tomorrow, then.  Maybe I just need reassurance in our… alliance.  Perhaps another night of passion would make it feel a little more secure.  Then, everything can resume as planned.  Walls go back up, feelings are pushed out of the way, and a target is carved onto Cazador’s back.  The perfect plan carries on.

So long as he continues to deny himself the genuine connection he somehow desires still, despite everything.

The navy night shifts to a soft, sourceless lavender light emanating around her as she trances.  A bright blue glow flashes from the other side of her eyelids, and the chilling sensation of a presence hovering over her body forces her eyes open.

“I came just in time,” the voice greets, “you are transforming.”

Ayzora jolts back, shrinking away from the looming figure.

An elf in gold and red armor kneels beside her, holding a gentle hand near her sweating forehead.  His eyes are the rich brown of a wood elf’s- almost bearing a distant resemblance to Ryon- but his features are softer, less angular.  His face, and even more so, his voice both feel familiar.  

When the nautiloid crashed… and I lived…

He shifts back, granting some space between them.

‘Transforming.’  Into a mind flayer.  Is he the reason for our lack of symptoms?

“You…” Ayzora begins, but no other thought comes to mind.

“I saved you before.  You remember?”

Ayzora nods. 

“I’m here to save you again.”  He smiles warmly.

It does nothing to disarm her.  Her head shifts sideways as her expression shifts from confusion and curiosity to a defensive threat:  Why?  What are you doing?

“Don’t worry,” he continues, holding up a hand to signal his passivity.  “You will not become a mind flayer.”  He stands.  “Not while I’m around.”  His hand extends towards her, offering to pull her up to her feet.  “I’ll protect you.”

Watching him with the expression of a cornered animal, prepared to lash out at a moment’s notice, Ayzora scoots back to add a couple extra inches to the space between her and this… dream visitor… and slowly rises on her own.  The last person to come to me in a dream was Orcus.  He, too, made a promise that seemed too good to be true.  Who is this?  What the hells does he want?

“Independent,” he notes, twisting her defensive behavior to a positive light with a smile that is beginning to unsettle her, “good.”

Now standing, she looks around.  Stars litter the lavender skies, but there is no movement to them, as if time stands still.  The ground beneath her feels less like a promise and more like a suggestion, something she could easily leap from without the resistance of gravity.  Rocks of various sizes float around the small, airborne island she finds herself standing on.  Weathered pillars hold up a stone gazebo- one that could be an independent structure, or part of something much grander and much older than this floating piece of land could allude to.  What is this place? 

“We haven’t much time, so listen closely.”  He pensively paces towards the edge of the island, staring out into the sparkling purple abyss.  

Ayzora remains in place, watching his every movement.  But, she listens.

“There is great potential within you.  It comes from that parasite.  Your instinct is to resist the power it gives, but you must accept it, nurture it.”

So you protect me from its evil transformation, but sing the praises of its power?  Convenient.

“I will keep it from consuming you.  But for the sake of both of us, you must learn to wield it.”

If it consumes us both, I still come back in less than a tenday.  I could take my chances…

But… Astarion.

Fine.

She nods.

The stranger gestures towards the space that lies beyond, and at last, Ayzora takes a few hesitant steps closer.  Distance still remains- enough space to give her time to react- but she can see the vast skies that stretch beyond this small sanctuary this elf has brought her to.

It’s a stunning view.

Until another distant island- shimmering with magic, surrounding some sort of… great skull, it seems- comes into focus.  Glowing figures, basking in a light that renders their humanoid form otherwise unreadable, engage in a battle in the air.

“A fight for the fate of Faerun,” the visitor clarifies.  “A fight we are losing.  For now.  You can change that, but only if you embrace your potential.”

If only you knew where my ‘potential’ got me.

“I have to go.”  His voice is suddenly lower.  Less pleading.  More grave.  He turns to her.  “The enemy is closing in.  I will be back.”

Ayzora looks back to him.  She has felt many things on this journey- but the instinctual fear that rises in her stomach surpasses all of it.  This is wrong.  He is not what he appears to be.  She doesn’t know how she knows, but she’s certain of it.  No.  Not another one of you.  I can’t do this again. 

Before she can even begin to express anything, a bright light pulsates out from the distant battle-ridden skull.  It floods her view, drowning out the sparkling purple sky.  She lifts her arms in front of her face, bracing herself, when the visitor steps directly in front of her.

Holding out a hand out towards the other island, the growing light is contained; but only for a moment.  “Wake, now,” he urges, telekinetically forcing Ayzora backward, away from the explosion, with just the gesture of a hand.

As she flies into the space beyond, bright white light fills her vision, forcing her eyes to screw shut.  When she drifts, all she sees is that light, while his deep voice echoes in her mind:

“You’ll feel better - I promise.”

His promise is broken the moment her eyes open again.

The air turns cold and thin as the white light is swiftly drowned in dark night.

“My harbinger.”

His voice fills her body with a dread she has gone decades without.

Ayzora, already on her knees, beholds the Demon Lord of Undeath.

His eyes glow red beneath the deer skull he wears over his face.  Two massive horns protrude from matted black fur and curl outward with his stretched gangling wings.  His blood red skin is half-covered in black leather armor, adorned with black iron spikes.  His clawed right hand clenches The Wand of Orcus, a black obsidian and iron rod shaped like a human spine, and at the top is a mount for the glowing human skull- an eternally cursed memorial for a hero that dared stand against him centuries ago.

A weapon she used to wield, in what feels like another lifetime.

“Orcus,” she acknowledges with a nod.  

“Your companion,” he begins.

“Which one?”

“The vampire.  He, too, belongs in my domain.  It seems he has captured your attention, as well as mine.”

Her body jolts towards him, but her movement is quickly halted by the hands that grasp her shoulders.

“Has it been so long that you’ve lost your respect?”  His left hand flicks outward, ordering the others to release you.  “Come now, Ayzora.”

Claws retract from her flesh, leaving symmetrical trails of blood on her collarbone.

She stands, posture straight, face devoid of emotion.  Masterfully, she draws open the slit of her dress and drops her head in a low curtsey.  “What do you require of me, my lord?”

Orcus smiles as she straightens.  “You’ve found us quite the gift.  Fitting, that it is borne by my domain.”

She bites her tongue.

“Am I correct to assume your affections for the vampire outweigh that of the others?”

Her teeth dig into its flesh.  Stale blood mixes with saliva.

“I only ask for certainty that you will not be swayed by the druid, nor the wizard.”

Enough.  “When did you start watching again?”

His head tilts to the side in interest.  “I am always watching over my champion,” he answers, as if the question were trivial.

“We had a deal-”

“And I have maintained it perfectly, despite your failure.”

“You should have told me we were contending with Shar!”

He clicks his tongue.  “Nevermind the past.  Though you failed to harness it completely, your aid in the shadow curse still harvested plenty for your phylactery.  My armies grew, and I have left you alone.  As agreed.”

“Until your need for me becomes too great.”

“So you do recall our deal.”  With a wave of his wand, undead creatures swarm behind him, gasping and moaning as they clamber over one another until a throne of bones and rotting flesh forms beneath him.  He lowers into his undead seat.  “Your dear elf has the key to the next great expansion of my domain- one that, I assure you, will be to our mutual benefit.”

“What do you want with him?”

“Tsk, I care not for the vampire.  I care for what he can grant me.”

At least he’s honest about these things now.

“You’re smart, Ayzora.  You will know when you discover it.  All I ask is that you follow through.”  He extends a hand to her.  A deal is offered.

Ayzora instinctually begins to reach for his hand, but stops herself.  Gathering every bit of the courage she’s built for the last seven decades, she lifts her chin and looks into the eyes of her patron.  “Call this our last deal.”

His hand retracts to his side.  He leans forward.

“If I ‘follow through,’ then you end our pact.”

“You will lose the chance to make a deal with the Seldarine, and you alone will be responsible for your phylactery.  Are you certain?”

The Seldarine.  Even after all I’ve done, would Corellon accept me back into his hands?  Will I ever return to the Feywild?  Long ago, Ayzora dreamed of paying off enough debts to make a plea with Corellon.  She would be accepted back into elven society.  She would belong.  She would finally be redeemed.  And after serving his people for the centuries that could follow, she would at last return to his embrace in the Feywild; perhaps he would even send her back to Toril, allowing her to reincarnate and live a life free of the pain she could not escape in this one. It’s been over a century and a half since Orcus tempted her with the idea.  Inspiration has long since withered.  If I don’t escape now… when will it be over?

Closing the gap between her and the hulking demon lord, she offers her hand.  Orcus’s symbol, still magically carved into the back of her hand, is revealed at last as it begins to glow a dark blue.

“You’ll get what you want.  I’ll get my freedom.  Then you can find someone else to do your bidding.”

“Very well.”  Orcus extends his hand, grasping Ayzora at the forearm.

One last deal.

She wakes with a jolt.  The cold sweat upon her brow is gone, along with the pain of the beginnings of ceremorphosis, and so is the nightmare.

But the churning anxiety in her stomach remains.

A being, clearly of some sort of great power, coming to her in a dream.  Offering to protect her, while also granting her power of her own.  All the while, placing the proposal against the backdrop of some great war that only she can help with, so long as she embraces whatever it is he offers her.

It’s all happened once before.  It turned her into something else entirely.

She can’t do that again.  

She won’t.

And the demon lord responsible is making a request on the heels of this stranger.

She prefers the Raven Queen’s nightmares.

“Breakfast is served!”  Gale calls out.

Her head snaps towards the door of her tent as people begin to shuffle around the camp outside.  The sun is rising, and with it, her companions.

And, rumor has it, there’s a party to be had today.

Lovely.

When she leaves her tent, she hears the tail-end of Lae’zel’s “call to action” (a githyanki’s version of a request) to head north and at least scout out the path that will guide the group to the creche that she guarantees has the cure they’re seeking.

Wyll, Karlach, Gale, and Dark Urge agree to go with.  Astarion takes the opportunity to “get some beauty rest,” and Shadowheart… seems to have wandered off a while ago.

“In that case,” Dark Urge pipes up, “I will go search for her.  Traveling alone may prove to be dangerous.”

“Don’t need an excuse, D’Urge,” Karlach chimes in, “go find your girlfriend.  We’ve got it.”

With a smile- and a glare- he takes off.

“What about you, Ace?  You could come along,” Gale offers, shifting the group’s attention to their yet-silent companion.

She dismissively waves a hand, “no, I’ll stay.  Someone still needs to watch camp.”

“And start a fire?”  Wyll asks.

“Sure,” she agrees with a nod.

“Then it is decided,” Lae’zel confirms.  Turning on her heel, she promptly begins the walk north.

“Be back soon, soldier!”  Karlach yells back with a wave as the rest of the group disperses.

Footsteps fade behind the gentle breeze.

Exhale.

Glancing around to confirm she’s alone, Ayzora’s tears fall freely at last.  Silent, but free.

A few quiet hours pass by.  The sun has passed by the top of the sky and is beginning its descent back to the horizon as the afternoon settles in.

The sunlight warms Ayzora’s cheeks, which are still drying from intermittently crying.  She sits on a log by the fire pit, placing down a few pieces of the wood Wyll had freshly cut the day before and littering them with kindling. 

Near-silent footsteps appear behind her, catching her attention.

Astarion. 

She wipes her face of any remaining tears as the footsteps stop.  Determined to talk about anything other than what weighs on her mind, she speaks first:  “Do you think you’ve adjusted to it yet?” Ayzora asks as the now-revealed Astarion sits down on the log behind her.

The dry leaves finally catch, quickly consumed by flame.

She moves to sit and take up the unoccupied space beside him.

His eyes follow her, head tilted just an inch. “To what?”

“The sun,” she answers, turning her face upwards with closed eyes to bask in the warmth. Silently, she thanks the Dawnfather for allowing her under his light, even if Corellon never will.

“Gods, no,” he scoffs. “200 years of habits aren’t broken so quickly.” He sighs, and continues with a low voice, “especially with a… temporary change. But I’m never one to turn down gifts.” His eyes flicker to her neck. As wonderful as the light of the sun is, its warmth hardly holds a candle to the gift of warm blood filling the mouth of a hungry vampire.

“Gifts?”

“Oh, yes,” he says, as if suddenly remembering something, “I had the strangest dream last night.  There was a visitor promising me protection, and all sorts of delicious powers from the parasites in our heads.”

Her expression sobers as she looks at him.

“Given our shared affliction, I suppose you had a similar dream…?”

She says nothing.

“No need to be shy about it, darling.  This is a good thing.  Now we can see what these tadpoles can do for us.”

She hums, rolling her head back towards the sky.  “Enjoy it while it lasts. The scales will always balance in time.”  Her mind wanders to Orcus’ first promise- the one she sold herself for- as her stare drifts to the distance.

“Oh, I plan on it,” he purrs.

But there is no response from Ayzora.  She is returned to the fog of her mind.

The fire crackles.  Astarion watches the blaze consume the wood, turning brown bark to white ash.

And Ayzora’s mind wanders.

He came to her in a dream. “A life for a life,” he said. If she destroyed the Raven Queen and her temple, he would grant her the power to bring back Laz. Ayzora could finally give her adoptive father, Zedd, the wife he had missed so dearly; she could finally pay him back for everything he had done for her.

So she accepted his offer. Ayzora, Remus, and Ryon- The Shrouded Triad, he called them- infiltrated the temple and tore it to the ground, taking the goddess of death with it.

Laz’s body laid in a tomb beneath the temple. Ayzora resurrected the woman, introducing herself briefly before bringing her home to Zedd. The reunion was- still is- the happiest day of Ayzora’s life. The family she had so desperately craved was hers at last.

It wasn’t until Ayzora had seen Orcus’ symbol glimmer and fade with necrotic magic on Laz’s forehead that she questioned what she had done. She suddenly wondered about the conditions of his gift of resurrection; the hidden cost of the deal beginning to surface.

If only she had stopped there.

“You were there, that day,” Astarion notes softly, “when the nautiloid reached Baldur’s Gate.”

Ayzora is wrenched from her thoughts, jarred by the sudden shift in topic.  Shit.  “You remember?”

“I remember your gods-awful cloak.”

Ayzora laughs breathily.

Silence returns to the air.

Astarion shifts, his eyes still trained on the orange glow of the dying campfire. He tosses in a few more bits of kindling, encouraging the flames to grow a couple of inches taller.

“You stopped,” she finally says.

“Hm?”

“When you saw me. You stopped.”

“As did you, if I’m not mistaken,” he quips, lifting his head to look at her.

“Well-”

“Why were you there?”

Every muscle in Ayzora’s body snaps to attention, tensing together and leaving her frozen.

The expression she wears is almost identical to the one he saw that morning. He’s seen her flustered, sure- hells, she could hardly keep her cool the first time he offered her a night of passion- but this was… different.

Her mind buzzes through about a hundred variations of an answer, ranging from blatant lies to softened truths.  She would twist her story, somehow, into something that paints her as far less desperate, but…  He wouldn’t buy it for a moment.  With a deep breath, she gathers her courage and manages to finally speak: “You prayed.”

“What?” His eyes grow wide beneath raised eyebrows.

“To the Raven Queen.  I heard you.”

He shoots up to his feet, taking a step back to gain some space in a suddenly intrusive conversation.  “You were there?”

“No, I-”

Everything crashes down on her at once.  Orcus.  The tadpole.  Astarion.  My damnation.  It’s all falling apart at the seams.  Her perfect posture crumbles before him as she doubles over with her face buried in her hands.

“I used to scry on the temple, and answer prayers on the Raven Queen’s behalf.”

It’s all too much for Astarion to take in- how dare she see him like that, in all his naked desperation.  “Odd choice for the chosen of Orcus,” he digs.

“I am his no more than you are Cazador’s,” she spits, looking up at the elf. Her arms cross over her midsection, clutching her sides in an attempt to soothe the guilt twisting knots in her abdomen. “I-” …wanted to be good again, she finishes silently. She swallows, forcing back tears.

Astarion clenches his jaw at the mention of his master’s name- but he stops himself.  If he snaps now, he loses her.  Good things come to those who wait.  So he waits.

“I wanted to help you.”  It’s a half-hearted admission- there’s so much more to it- but it’s an admission regardless.

He sits back down beside her in a near-collapse.  So someone did hear me.  Someone did come for me.  All this time, Astarion knew he would rot away in the bitterness of his utter abandonment; but now… his heart could rot no longer.  Suddenly, he isn’t alone.  Suddenly, he isn’t invisible.  Suddenly, he isn’t abandoned.

Suddenly, he’s completely screwed.

“And I left,” he whispers in disbelief.  “To think, I almost brought you to…”

“Why didn’t you?” She interrupts, the question burning in the back of her mind all this time finally making its way into words.

He’s taken back by her bold question.  If his heart could still beat, it would race.  “W-Well, it… I thought I’d play savior.”  His eyes darken as he tries to retreat back into the comfort of theatrics.  “Chaos makes for easy prey.”

“The frozen elf wasn’t easy prey?”

“You were-” Astarion begins, but falls silent.  How can anyone reason with the kind of things I was forced to do? How can anyone make sense of what I did to stay sane?  He sighs.  They can’t; so he answers honestly: “You… looked like me.”

Ayzora’s words fall into the abyss.

Her skin is just about as pale as his; her heart just as still.  Her long hair, though straight, is the same silvery white as his curls; her eyes as bright of a strange hue.  He looked at her, and saw himself.  He couldn’t bear to watch Cazador kill him again.

It was a selfish reason, sure, but she couldn’t hold it against him.

It was the same reason she chased after him.  To free a slave from an all-too-powerful master.  To save herself.

All this time, in chasing each other, they were chasing after some distorted echo of self-preservation.

But now, she sees so much more than herself when she looks at him.

She’s terrified.

And gods be damned, so is he.

They both continue to stare at the fire in silence.  What else is there to say?

His prayers didn’t go completely unheard, after all.  And the one who tried to answer them nearly lost her life in the attempt.  Here he was, attempting to lure someone who was already running to him.

She only ever wanted to save herself.  That was all that drove her to this place.  Yet, she finds herself caring more for his future than her own.  No matter how this ends, she would try all over again.  For him.

Her left hand shifts.  Slowly, carefully, it slides just millimeters closer to him.  Reaching for him.  Asking to be held.  Just for now.  Even if it’s all a lie.  She’s okay with that.  He can lie about everything, as long as she can be honest now.

His eyes glance down while his head remains in place.  He watches as her hand turns, exposing her palm.  A hand to hold, if he so chooses.  Small, innocent touch, offering comfort.  It feels… alien.

It’s all a lie.  A plan.

His right hand lifts off his lap.

A plan I perfectly carried out.  A plan she walked right into.

It gently lands atop hers.

It’s a lie.

She squeezes.

Right?

[imhereforbagels]

Damian Wayne x Techoblade platonic  A strange encounter

Damian Wayne, despite his wishes and partly because of his brothers, he was taking Titius out for a walk to the local park. Now, was this a good idea in Gotham? Well no, but this Damian Wayne we’re talking about. As he neared the park, he could feel the rage radiating off his body. The cold weather outside was a relief from the stuffy house filled with the absolute idiots inside. 

Young Damian could no longer stand Richard’s insistence on family bonding. Could he not think about murder in peace. The sound of children playing and the off putting sound of AC/DC was looming in the air. Where was this god awful music coming from, Damian thought. As he walked into the park he quite easily noticed decrepit playground equipment, watching a child falls from the monkey bars as the ring he was holding onto snaps. He falls to the hard ground below. 

“They really should tear this shit down,” Damian mumbles.

He lets Titius off his leash to run around. As he walks around the park, keeping a watchful eye of his surroundings, Damian notices a tall brooding man sitting on swings, his long, atrocious pink hair just flying around everywhere as his braid falls apart. This man man has a fucking cape and crown on. is this another one of Joker's failed projects?, he thinks. This strange man is the source of the god awful music Damian heard earlier. He tries to ignore the man until he hears off in the distance, 

“Where does an orphan get a suit?” 

Was the strange pink haired elf man talking to him? Damian Wayne, son of Batman, the future heir of the league of assassins, no it couldn’t be; no one messes with the Wayne family. 

“Looking pretty entitled for an orphan too,” the strange man speaks again. 

 “Who the hell do you think you're talking too, creep,” Damian yells. 

The strange man just points at Damian, “orphan” he yells in a monotone voice. 

Damian, without missing a beat says, “Who the hell are you calling an orphan, you pixie hollow reject? I'm Damian Wayne, the son of Bruce wayne. I demand respect.”

“I don't know who that is.” the strange man states not a single change in the sound of his voice. 

“You come to Gotham and don't know Bruce Wayne!?” Damian exclaimes bewildered. 

“Hey man, I'm just passing through, I just couldn't stand the idiots any longer,” he states, no enthusiasm in his voice anyway whatsoever. 

Before Damian could respond, a small white dog ran past with Titus not far behind. The strange man quickly calls for the puppy. 

“Floof, come here” 

Damian looks absolutely appalled at the man like he's on crack.  

“Who the hell names their dog floof.”

“Well, I think it's a pretty fitting name. I mean look at him.” the man throws Damien a sideways smirk.

Damian notices the man has two fang tusks things in the front bottom of his mouth. Damian’s thoughts consume him as he thinks about how ridiculous the man looks. Why would anyone look like that? It kinda reminded him of Beast boy. Maybe Richard was expecting this man. 

“Are you part of Richard's group of rejects?” Damian asks. 

“Who’s Richard?”  

Damian can not tell if this man is legit or not. Baffled, he just starts to ask questions.

“What's your business here?”

“I just told you, I'm passing through. Gotta go back eventually o’course, but for the meantime I’m here. By the way orphan, why are you at that park in a suit?”

The strange man glances at Titus and back at Damian. Titus is just in a protective sit next to Damian. 

“Hey, is this your dog, weird kid?” 

Damian stands a bi taller. “Why yes, this is Titus. He was bred for my protection.”

“Titus? That sounds like a type of cancer.”

“He was named after the great Shakespearean character!” Damian exclaims, clearly pissed off.

The man hums, nodding slightly. “I’ve never really liked Shakespeare, more of a Sun Tzu guy myself. Or maybe Poe, thought the one poem about the raven was funny.”

“Sir, who do you think you are to talk to me like we're old pals?”

“Well let me introduce myself,  tiny human. My name’s Technoblade, friends call me Techno. Enemies call me The Blade. Which one will you be?” he asks in a kind of mocking way. 

“I'm going to beat your ass, mister, if you keep talking down to me.” 

“You can try, tiny child, but you can see here my dog is mighty vicious.”  

Said dog is trying to hump Titus's leg. 

Damian proceeds to pull out a katana. “I will not hesitate bitch.”

“Yo, that’s a pretty sick blade,” he says, though Damian can’t really tell if he means it because his voice doesn’t change at all, “More of an axe guy myself.” He proceeds to pull out his battle axe from beneath his cape.

This axe, may I remind you, is huge, shiny black and double-bladed and wickedly sharp with a weird purple glow emitting from it. There is something carved on the hilt, but Damian couldn’t read it from where he was standing, nor did he care to. Not much anyway. 

Damian, stopping short, stares at him. “Wait. Hold on. Pause.” Damian takes a moment to appreciate the massive, beautiful weapon presented to him in all its glory. “You carry a blade in your back pocket too? I thought I was the only one who did that!”

Technoblade, giving a restrained chuckle, responds, “Oh, man, I carry so many weapons.” He runs a hand over the blade, clearly well-taken care of but had probably seen many battles. “This one’s just my favorite.” 

Damian, getting excited despite himself, pulls out a batarang to show him. “Oh, sir, you’ve seen nothing yet.”

Technoblade leans closer, “Okay that looks awesome but I have no idea what it is.”

Damian knows an opportunity to rant about weapons when he sees it. “Well the wing part is sharp, see?” he says, pointing helpfully at said wing part, “And you throw it, and it stabs people.” A pause. “In the back.” Another pause, and he adds, “Oh, and it’s called a batarang.”

“Yooooo, my buddy Phil knows a guy with something like that. He’s got this wicked trident and he likes to mess with people by missing them on purpose and then it just completely annihilates them on the way back.” As he speaks, Techno makes his way over to a rotting picnic table, Floof (still a dumb name) close behind. He doesn’t seem to mind how it creaks dangerously under his weight when he plops down on it. 

Damian, Titus in tow, follows him to stand a few paces away from the ramshackle piece of outdoor furniture. Techno looks up from his dog to stare at Damian. “You gonna sit down?”

Damian wrinkles his nose. “On that? No, this suit is versace.”

Technoblade blinks. “I dunno what that means.” He leans in uncomfortably close to examine the suit. Has this guy heard of personal space? “Does look kinda expensive though… Uhh, here.” He moves to unclasp his (stupid) red cape, draping it over the bench next to himself. “There, now you won’t mess it up.”

Damian gives the man a look that he hopes portrays the feeling of absolute disgust crawling up his back as he sits stiffly on top of the cape, careful not to touch the table (it’s growing moss), and trying not to jump at the loud protesting creak.

“Would you mind telling me the text that is on that axe?”

“It says the axe of peace. This is not the original because I gave the original away and this one is from my friend,” techno states.

“Ahhh that's cool, my katana is from my mother. It was forged in a fire hand chosen by me.”

“Nice, I once threw a pickaxe into someone's teeth.”

“Oh man, are you serious?”

“I carry it on me.” This man proceeds to pull out a pickaxe made out of the same material as the axe with the same purple glow.

As they are talking Jason walks up behind his little brother. Jason picks Damian up a little off the bench. Before Damian could figure out who it was Jason had already started giving him a noogie. 

“Hey there you are demon spawn.” Jason states loudly. 

As Jason and Damian start bickering, technoblade can't stop laughing. 

“Is this your brother Damian?” he says, trying to catch his breath. 

“This is the loathing idiot I unfortunately share a household with.” 

“I'm Jason Todd.” Jason sticks his hand out for technoblade to shake.

He takes his hand and shakes it firmly. “ I believe it's time to take your pristen toddler home. I think it's past his nap time.”

“IT'S 2PM AND I’M 10!” Damian yells. 

Jason laughs loudly and this statement. “Well Alfred sent me after you. I believe it's time to head out. Say goodbye to your friend Damian.” 

“I can't stand you todd.” Damian huffs. 

“Well i'll see you around kid, i think it's time for me to head home.”

As they all walk their separate ways techo stops and thinks that man wasn't afraid of all the weapons out.

By: imhereforbagles and @the-hoely-bleach