#they want callum to fall off no doubt

[a-very-sparkly-nerd]

there are hammocks instead of beds simply so the crew can laugh at us and our fics

[raayllum]

Do you think Callum will do dark magic again?

Oh yeah, not a doubt in my mind. This is for 3 main reasons:

1) You don't have a character say "But beware, if you ever do dark magic again, the darkness will overwhelm and corrupt you" and escalate the stakes of usage unless you're going to go there. It's kind of like how I know Callum is going to be possessed Again at one point (s7 dark my beloved) precisely because he's worried about it and more than that, that he's brought another character (Rayla) into the fold with a decision to make. No reason to have setup and then no payoff

2) Unless Callum does dark magic again, Aaravos can't possess him again. And as previously mentioned, Callum has to get possessed unless they want to throw away multiple episodes (4x04, 4x05, 4x07, 5x04, 5x08, all S6 + orb shots, 6x03) out the window. Ergo, he has to do dark magic again. Setup like this (i.e. Rayla as Callum's light being hinted at in framing in s2 and then much more overtly in s4 before being brought mostly home in s6) always comes back around in some manner, just gotta look for it

3) Viren parallels. Viren and Callum have always had oppositional (arc 1) and then mirrored (switching) foil arcs throughout the show (think Callum with wings vs Viren falling to his death in 3x09, or Viren swearing dark magic off in 5x09 and Callum having opened that door back up again an episode prior, etc). Viren, as stated, had sworn off dark magic saying he would never ever do it again, nor did he want to do it in 6x08 for a multitude of reasons.

However, someone he loved (Soren) as well as the extenuating circumstances caused him to use dark magic as a full on sacrifice that likewise only sacrificed himself. A couple episodes we had Callum 'fix' the hole dark magic had made inside him, but if he's following Viren's path, there's two likely angles: the first is that he, like Viren, will use dark magic even after trying so hard to rid himself of it (the mirrored arc). The second, overlapping angle is that Callum will refuse to sacrifice his heart (switching) because his heart is Rayla.

'I will think of you under every full moon. Please don’t let this hurt too much. But, if it does—if you feel that soft aching—know that that piece of your heart isn’t missing. It’s not missing at all, Callum: I’m carrying it with me! Always.' —Dear Callum

Kinda like how Aaravos demanded that Viren should make the sacrifice in 5x09, and Viren refused vs Rayla demanding that Callum should make the sacrifice in 6x03 (and Finnegrin a bit honestly) and Callum inevitably refusing cause Rayla can't permanently die lmao.

Other:

There's also the unsavoury implication that "restores bodies to spirits" spell Callum did in 5x09 has unique associations with the dark ritual spell Claudia did in killing Sir Sparklepuff that was undeniably dark magic usage.

The coin has been seemingly wiped clean now that Runaan is out (though maybe there's the symbol still on the other side?) but it does make me wonder of a potential plotline where Callum knew ahead of time, or belatedly, that this spell would require something adjacent to dark magic and he's done it, but the corruption Kosmo spoke of is gradual, making him more irritated, paranoid, etc. like the King of a 1000 Eyes that Amaya talked about. I think that'd be really interesting

The indirectness / the fact we'd only know it'd Happened retroactively makes me lean that we'll outright see another blatant usage in S7 since that's more Dramatic (which I've always been in favour of Callum viewing "I get possessed again bc I make a 'bad' choice and hand myself over to Aaravos" as a sacrifice of himself into "i'm already dead so kill me" territory). And if he breaks his promise to Rayla that he won't pick her over the greater good, then she can break her promise to him that she'll kill him (this is exactly beat for beat what I've wanted since s4 dropped and even before tbh)

TLDR; Absolutely Yes. S7 being Book Seven: Dark only adds to this and the stakes / set up are all there. I'm pumped

[tategaminu]

SOOO the title for 05X6 dropped and I'm going feral

Be prepared to hear my long ass theory about this episode and why it will be the rayllum fully gets back together episode (I'm annoying)

Of course we already know season 6 will mirror S3 or at least that's what it looks like. "Moonless Night" is episode 5‚ the same one when Callum and Rayla first got together‚ just as 4 had the title of the place they reach. (The Midnight Desert‚ The Starcrapper)

I have to add‚ just as season 3 had Nyx‚ there's this sky girl called Astrid who may act as the Nyx parallel‚ who knows.

I don't use Discord but my info provider (hello there) told me Devon said episode five would be emotionally heavy and a favourite. A person said ep2 of season 5 were their favourite because the cute rayllum moments and Devon said "until 5 of 6" 🧐

Aparently, it was confirmed by writers this episode would DESTROY people KILL EVEN, well maybe not that but you get me. We know how emotional these two blorbos are for each other right? and we for them. In Discord, a person said ep2 of season 5 were their favourite because the cute rayllum moments and Devon said "until 5 of 6" 🧐

Now let's go to the juicy part. The title. This title is absolutely loaded. like wth. We all know whose favourite girl is related to the moon right? of course we are worried. But I think she's gonna be ok, in the end at least, let me explain.

Of course I'm asuming this scene from the teaser may be from episode 5. We see Callum falling in a moonless night but I'm guessing the title isn't that literal. I think Callum is falling emotionally and literally just as he has before for Rayla. He fell in love with her‚ he fell off a cliff for her and then fell emotionally when she left. The sky he is in is dark‚ no moon‚ representing his own mental state without Rayla. Rayla left him at night just as Callum is falling in the night (omg)

Callum had a moonless night every day for two years because his guiding moon wasn't in his life. I think they may talk about it or it will affect Callum in this episode some way.

Note that the teaser opens with this scene, next we have Aaravos saying "we are all of us, stardust, held together by love for an instant"

(wow subtle foreshadowing you guys)

and the teaser ends with Callum losing his love wings. The wings he got for her. Basically opening with a rayllum scene and closing with a "rayllum" scene ya know

In Chasing Shadows Rayla specifically mentions the stars in his eyes‚ when he does the big speech:

Now‚ what do I think will happen?

EP3: They visit the Silvergroove? just like in ep 3x3. Maybe visit Ethari? "heeey your husband is alive ok bye". My own guess is that they will get the boat from the leaked scene there since there are moon animals in that thing and reach the frozen ship with that.

Ep4: they reach destination and meet the sky elves, Astrid included, with no hiccups. ba dum tss

Ep5: Basically 05x3 but different and sexier

Whatever Callum is about to do I highly doubt Rayla will agree with it because you know how they are (me getting hurt is ok but not you). He convinces her like he did in TTM‚

But this time Rayla is the one to say it

I think that even if Callum promises he will be ok‚ he will have a "I want you to know" moment again and that may lead to talking about her leaving. This may derive into a kinda argument. Callum and Rayla can't continue their talk because they get interrumped (once again) but the memories of a broken heart and feelings affects him badly. He's just emotionally distraught and loses his love wings because whatever. I doubt Rayla isn't seeing any of this, you know how she is. She didn't spend 7 hours watching him sleep to actually not watch this like c'mon

This time Rayla may be the one saving Callum from falling (literally and metaphorically). Now yeah Rayla can't fly but maybeeee

A: she calls out for his name, "waking" him up

B: she just jumps (im going for this one) like Callum did for her. She jumps, not knowing if it's going to work, wakes him up after catching him‚ Callum is able to get his wings back and fly them both into safety, Callum gets his love wings again for her but this time she's being the savior (in the most part). Maybe even completing whatever mission they ask as well. TOGETHER.

After this we may get a Rayla is a hero speech or this time Callum is a hero speech, I don't know‚ I think it would be more fitting if it's from Callum and the hero Callum speech is from Rayla to her parents. Whateve, they finally have their three sesaon dragged conversation and they both kiss like in S3 but maybe reversed this time (Rayla kissing first and apologizing and Callum kissing her next) and they fully come back together :'). I dont think we will get an I love you until ep 9 but we won't really need it here right? we already know!

The episode ends with them kissing under the moon. Moonless Night ending with with a moon night (metaforically and literally)

Now‚ this is just my own guess and it sounds very very self-indulgent (heh) but a girl can dream

[sorinethemastermind]

Fluffcember 2024: Christmas Tree | Rayllum & Sorvus & Clauderry Callum is determined to ask Rayla to be his girlfriend this Winter Break. But if he can't even start a fire, how is he supposed to create the perfect moment? Soren has decided to stay on campus this Christmas, but with Rayla and Callum as his only company, he's starting to feel like a third wheel. Except maybe it's not just the three of them left on campus after all. Meanwhile Claudia is trying to have a nice Christmas with her family, but maybe her family isn't at home...

 Corvus still thought this was a very bad idea.

 He understood wanting a Christmas tree. He understood wanting to decorate said tree. He even understood randomly picking one of the conifers that stood in the park as said tree, buying ornaments, and decorating it in the early hours of Christmas morning. 

 What he didn’t understand was why Callum was the one climbing it to put the star on top.

 “I really don’t mind doing it!” Rayla called up to her boyfriend, fidgeting with his scarf. She’d been wearing it all morning. Corvus kept staring at it and thinking about how his scarf would bring out Soren’s eyes.

 But that felt a little soon. A little rushed. They had only decided to try and be anything the day before. Corvus glanced over at the blond. He’d been doing that a lot.

 “He’ll be fine.” Soren said, waving off Rayla’s concerns. “We went to camp together and-” he paused, glancing back up at Callum, who was rather high in the tree. “Actually, you know what, why don’t you come down? One of us will do it!”

 “Oh yee of little faith!” Callum glanced down at the three of them, and in that moment of distraction, his foot slipped on the snowy branch. He scrambled for a moment, looking like something out of an old cartoon with the way his arms were flailing, and then latched onto the branch again, wrapping his arms and legs around it and holding on tight. “I’m fine!”

 Rayla’s hands balled into fists in the scarf. “And what was he like at camp?”

 Soren gave them a sheepish smile. “He spent most of it falling in the mud.”

 Rayla glowered at him. “And you didn’t think to mention that when he volunteered to climb the tree?”

 “Well if I’d remembered before I would have, obviously.” Soren snorted. “Anyway, snow is like… nature’s pillow. He’ll be fine.”

 Corvus made a mental note to protect Soren from Rayla if Callum did fall out of the tree. When, he amended. When Callum fell out of the tree.

 The other boy was still going higher, pulling himself up branch by branch. But it was a big tree and the higher he went, the less helpful nature’s pillow would be should he fall. 

 “Callum, just hang it off the branch you’re on and let’s call it day!” Corvus shouted to him, cupping his hands around his mouth. 

 The idiot - as Corvus was beginning to mentally refer to him - shook his head. “I can make it to the top!”

 “Callum, just do what Corvus said! I’d rather-”

 There was a loud shriek from behind them and Corvus jumped.

 “Sorbear!”

 He had never seen Soren’s face light up quite like it did then. He did a full 180, a giant grin spreading across his face as he threw out his arms. “Clauds!”

 Claudia ran across the park and jumped into her brother’s arms. He lifted her off the ground, her feet dangling above the snow. Corvus noted that she was not dressed for the weather.

 “What are you doing here?” Soren asked when he finally set her down. 

 She brushed the hair out of her face. “I wanted to see you. For Christmas.”

 Soren’s smile widened, if that was possible. “I can’t believe it.”

 “Did you really think I was going to ditch my brother for the whole holiday?” Claudia asked, elbowing him. 

 Soren’s smile flickered. “Does Dad-”

 She shook her head quickly and Soren’s smile returned. Corvus doubted anyone else even noticed it. Then Soren looked at him.

 “Wait! Clauds, I need you to meet Corvus.” He looped an arm around Corvus’ shoulders, pulling him closer. Claudia’s eyes widened. 

 “OMG Sorbear do you have a boyfriend?”

 “I-” Soren’s eyes darted in his direction.

 Corvus tucked an arm around his waist. “Yes. Yes he does.”

 He watched for a reaction out of the corner of his eye and saw Soren’s cheeks pink a little more. And not from the cold, this time.

 “Yep.” Soren beamed. “Actually, you two get to know one another, I have to go and do something.”

 Soren turned abruptly and jogged to the base of the tree, where Callum was still clinging to a branch like a forlorn cat. Claudia squinted up at him. 

 “Why is Callum in that tree?” she asked.

 Corvus shrugged. “Why does Callum do anything?”

 “So Rayla, huh?”

 “Of course.”

 As they watched, Soren banged on the tree trunk a few times, dislodging snow and sending it showering into his hair and onto the ground around him. “Hey, Callum!” he called up into the branches. “Just thought you should know that it is as easy as I said it was.”

 “What?” Callum stared down at him, tightening his grip on the branch.

 “Asking someone out.” Soren said. “Took you like, what, three months to ask Rayla? Corvus and I literally kissed a few days ago and now he’s my boyfriend. Just FYI.”

 Callum glowered at him. Corvus thought he looked even more like a forlorn cat.

 “Now get out of the tree and come say hi to Claudia.” Soren finished, turning and jogging back to the pair of them. “Sorry. Just had to do that.”

 “You did, did you?” Corvus asked, raising an eyebrow.

 “Yeah.” Soren said with a grin. “I did.” he turned back to Claudia. “Where’s Terry?”

 “He offered to take all our stuff from the car back to our room. Isn’t he the best?”

 “He’s… okay.” Soren offered, the three of them beginning to drift back towards the building. 

 “Oh come on, Sorbear.” Claudia teased. “Just admit that he passed the big brother test.”

 “Fine. I like him. He’s not perfect. But nobody is. And he makes you happy.”

 “Ugh you sound like Dad.” Claudia rolled her eyes, laughing. “So picky.” 

 Corvus caught the small clench of Soren’s hand where it hung at his side and reached over, taking it in his own. Soren relaxed at the touch, intertwining his fingers with Corvus’. He gave him a little glance, and Corvus offered a small, reassuring smile in return.

 “Hey, uh, guys?” Callum’s voice came from behind them and they all glanced back. He was still stranded on the same branch. “Where are you going?”

 “Oh, hey, Callum!” Claudia waved to him.

 “We’re headed inside.” Soren jabbed a thumb in the direction of the dormitory. “It’s cold out here and I gotta help Clauds move in.”

 “But… what about the tree?”

 “You and Rayla can finish up and meet us inside.”

 “What about me?” Callum wailed, now sounding like a forlorn cat.

 Rayla sighed, glancing up at him from where she was still stood at the base of the three. “I’m coming, dummy. Just stay there.”

 “You got it?” Corvus asked her. She nodded, rolling her eyes.

 “You go keep an eye on your idiot, I’ll take care of mine.”

 “Hey, I’m not-” Soren began, but Claudia’s laughter cut him off. 

 She doubled over, hair falling in her face as she guffawed until, finally, she straightened up, wiping tears from her eyes. “It’s good to know not much changed while I was gone.”

[justcallmefox89]

Cinderfella's Adventures in Cordonia - Chapter Twenty-Three

An AU of The Royal Romance with a male MC and a bisexual prince.

Masterlist

Return to Cordonia

Liam restlessly drums his fingers against the armrest of his seat, occasionally darting irritated glances towards Callum and Drake.  Pangs of anger and jealously shoot through him as he watches the two interact; his chest tightening as his observes the tender way Callum treats Drake, as if he is something fragile and precious.

Callum tucks a soft blanket around Drake then slouches lower in his seat, allowing Drake to comfortably pillow his head on Callum’s shoulder.  Callum presses a soft kiss to the top of Drake’s head before picking up a battered paperback and starting to quietly read out loud.  Drake’s eyelids begin to flutter, and his breathing becomes deep and even as he quickly drops off to sleep.  Callum tenderly smiles down at him and resumes his reading silently, remaining as still as possible to avoid disturbing Drake’s sleep. 

If they weren’t currently 40,000 feet above the Atlantic ocean Liam would have thrown himself out of the plane without a second thought, anything to escape the painfully sick feeling he gets seeing Drake and Callum together.

Someone slides gracefully into the seat next to him, temporarily drawing his attention away from the two men. 

“I took the liberty of making you some tea,” Hana murmurs, passing him a steaming mug.

Liam inhales the fragrant steam and takes a sip, the scalding tea burning his tongue and temporarily distracting him from his misery.  “Thank you, Hana,” he says, smiling at her gratefully.

“How are you?” she asks, concern shining in her brown eyes.

Liam takes another sip of tea, trying to collect his thoughts.  “This is a situation I never expected to find myself in,” he finally admits.

“I doubt many people do,” Hana replies, stifling a smile.  “I don’t envy you, Your Majesty.  Madeline is furious.”

Liam stretches in his seat, picking out a familiar head of blonde hair sitting several seats ahead of him.  He shrugs, unable to muster enough energy to care about his fiancée’s anger.  “It’s no secret that our marriage isn’t a love match,” he sighs.  “I’m not sure what she expects from me.”

“Probably for you to not openly stare at Drake and Callum as if you’re a jealous lover.”

The king turns his head to stare at Hana, shocked at her uncharacteristic boldness. 

She nervously tucks her hair behind her ears and clears her throat.  “Her pride is hurt, Your Majesty.  No matter the truth of your arrangement it is important to her that the two of you appear to be a loving and committed couple to the public.”

“It’s getting harder and harder to pretend,” he admits, slumping back into his seat.  “I see those two together and I remember every wonderful moment I’ve had with them, and I can’t help but imagine what kind of future we could have together.”

He speaks without thinking, unwittingly admitting to his previous relationship with Drake.  Hana smiles to herself, happy to have her long-standing suspicions finally confirmed, but allows the moment to pass without comment.

“But then I remember how easy it was for Callum to give up, to walk away from me without a fight,” Liam continues.  “And I see how easy it was for Drake to just fall into his arms and I feel… betrayed.  I’m furious, Hana.  With both of them.  And I don’t want to be, but I can’t help it.”

Hana levels him with a disappointed look and he squirms under her gaze.  “I would hope you know both of them well enough by now, especially Drake, to know that none of this is easy for them.  It wasn’t easy for Callum to leave Cordonia, but at some point he had to prioritize his well-being over the chance you might choose him.  For you their relationship came out of nowhere, but Drake was Callum’s rock during the social season, sometimes even more than myself or Maxwell.  They understand each other in a way we never will, because in many ways they will always be outsiders in court.  They bring out the best in each other.  Drake grounds Callum.  And Callum makes Drake free.”

Liam frowns, silently ruminating over her words.

Hana sighs, softening her tone.  “I understand that you’re angry, and that’s fair.  But you need to understand that you played a part in all of this too.  You decided to prioritize your duty to Cordonia, and you have to accept all the consequences that follow.”

“You know better than anyone that I didn’t have a choice.”

“There is always a choice, Liam.”  Hana tentatively lays her hand over his and gazes at him earnestly.  “Drake and Callum chose happiness, it’s not too late for you to do the same.”

“I…” Liam hesitates, the very thought seems overwhelmingly daunting.

Hana squeezes his hand reassuringly.  “I will remain your friend whatever you decide, Liam.  But bear in mind that if you do marry Madeline you run the chance of losing them both forever.”

“I know,” he whispers sadly, glancing over towards the pair.  Callum has joined Drake in slumber; his cheek rests on the top of Drake’s head and he smiles faintly in his sleep.  “I know.” 

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

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🦇 Morbidly Yours Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD What do you want people to remember you for? ❓ ⚠ Trigger Warnings: Grief, Death, Car Accident, Ableism, Bullying, Body Horror, Child Death

🦇 Painfully shy Callum Flannelly would rather dive into an open grave than take a stranger to dinner. But he can only inherit the family undertaking business under one condition: He must marry before his 35th birthday. Texan animator Lark Thompson moved to Galway, Ireland, to restart her life and career, not be reminded of losing her husband by moving in next to a funeral home. Can Lark help Callum find The One, or has she been standing right in front of him all along?

💜 Ivy Fairbanks has done a wonderful job at developing vibrant, realistic characters who will, no doubt, steal your heart. Despite the grief and guilt weighing on her, Lark is a ray of sunshine, and there's no discounting the charm Callum is hiding behind his seemingly dark exterior. Initially, I worried they were TOO different for chemistry to spark between them, but the progression is easy and natural, the two of them bringing light to one another despite coming from very different, dark places. The little moments between them truly build into romance, making their friends-to-lovers progression both realistic and raw. You'll fall in love as they fall in love, feel your heart ache as their hearts ache, and watch both characters grow with every page. Beyond that, Fairbanks directs readers directly into Ireland, the setting's natural beauty and rich history seeping out of the page until you can't help but breathe in the scent of flowers blooming after a heavy rain. This book is a journey, both through Galway and its intense character growth. Callum's stutter is well-represented, as is his ace/demisexual orientation. As someone who is in love with a demi-goddess (hehe), I was glad to see it depicted so richly and honestly. Lark researching to understand Callum better was all too sweet.

💙 Normally, I have limited interest in a marriage of convenience plot, but it really works well here. You feel the pressure Callum is experiencing without it seeming like a hokey plot device. I also appreciate that both characters have both internal and external conflicts they need to resolve. That being said, I do think Lark's enemy comes off as a one-dimensional villain, when so many other characters live off the page. I've encountered coworkers who are willing to take credit for another person's work, throw someone under the bus, and bully to feel powerful, but honestly, there's usually a deeper reason motivating them. I also think we should have experienced more panic from Lark when she realized how Callum planned to fix the marriage problem. Instead we skip that scene and go straight into her finding a solution.

🦇 Recommended for fans of Tessa Bailey, Hanna Bonam-Young, and Tara DeWitt.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🪦 Dual POV 🌻 Contemporary Romance/Romantic Dramedy 🪦 Marriage of Convenience 🌻 Set in Ireland 🪦 Opposites Attract 🌻 Ace/Demisexual MMC (w/ a Stutter) 🪦 Forced Proximity/Neighbors 🌻 Friends-to-Lovers 🪦 Open Door Spice 🌻 First in a Series 🪦 Debut Novel

🦇 Major thanks to the author @IvyFairbanksBooks and publisher @putnambooks for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #MorbidlyYours

💬 Quotes ❝ Lark’s vibrance made me fall for her. Stifling it would be akin to plucking a wild, rare bloom, only to watch it wither under a bell jar. ❞ ❝ To love was to accept risk. In all honesty, the half-century old scooter was a thousand times safer than giving anyone my heart—and I’d done that months ago. ❞ ❝ My heart thumps like a drum, with the taste of your lips, the sweet breath in your lungs. I tried not to fall, but I had to succumb. ❞ ❝ Swear on this life, beside you I’ll stand. ❞ ❝ “Mo chuisle? It means ‘my pulse.’ I never quite understood it before, what it meant to have another person be the d-driving force behind the pump of your blood, but it’s true. Lark, your smile saved me like an emergency transfusion. Your laugh is the song my every blood cell dances to. Your touch revived me from darkness. You are my pulse. You make me feel alive even when I’m surrounded by death.” ❞ ❝ “I can’t b-b-believe you named my character Plague Rat.” “What can I say? You inspire me.” She shrugged. ❞ ❝ “Illusions aren’t lies. They’re gifts. They give the audience something to believe in,” she replied. “Help me put a little magic in the world.” ❞ ❝ “You’re absolutely gorgeous,” he murmured. “You say that after I take your glasses off?” I smiled. “I don’t need them to see you.” My heart swelled. He did see me, and it felt so right. ❞ ❝ In an interview, my animation hero Hayao Miyazaki once said that he strived to portray love as a relationship where two people mutually inspire each other to live. ❞ ❝ We would cherish the light and honor the darkness, together. ❞

[kradogsrats]

The portrait dominated the room, still set on an easel until it could be framed and hung. It would no doubt be copied hundreds of times, into miniatures and engravings, to immortalize the royal family in the hearts of Katolis. For now, it mostly just made moving around the space awkward—the paint on it was barely dry, and it still smelled slightly of turpentine.

"You look so happy together," Lissa said. The artist had captured the ease with which Sarai stood beside King Harrow, the way they turned toward each other even as they looked in the same direction. She smiled, correcting herself. "You are so happy together."

Sarai laughed. "I don't know—I think we look a little stiff. Harrow hates standing still for these, and it shows. And I don't think she got my nose right." She scrunched up her nose, as if comparing it unfavorably with the one in the portrait.

Lissa looked at her. "How were you able to—how did you find it in you to move on, after Callum's father?"

She suddenly remembered she was speaking to the queen and flushed, looking away. Sarai had a way of putting her at ease—King Harrow would always be King Harrow, but Queen Sarai frequently slipped into being just Sarai. "That was too bold, forgive me. You don't have to answer."

"No, it's fine," Sarai protested. She hesitated for a moment, but the pause was thoughtful, rather than uncomfortable. "I loved him completely. I still do. I was a wreck, when he passed—I certainly wasn't setting out to find a new partner, after."

She studied the portrait, her eyes on Callum's small, serious face. "But I knew I wanted Callum to have a second parent, if anything ever happened to me. I knew I wanted more children. I suppose I just... left myself open to love."

Her face softened. "And love found me. It has a way of doing that."

Lissa remembered the dizzying rush of falling for a man with quicksilver eyes and magic sparking in his beckoning hand—how the course of her life had been irrevocably altered from what she'd always planned it to be. How it had been worth it. How it would never be worth it.

"It certainly does," she said.

"Why do you ask? Are you thinking about finding someone?" Sarai grinned mischievously. "Should I comb the Crownguard for particularly dashing individuals to send your way?"

"If you start trying to set me up with a Crownguard, I will teach Callum every Del Barian drinking song I know," Lissa threatened. She looked sidelong at Sarai, trying to keep a straight face.

Sarai cracked first, her face contorting with mirth before she burst into laughter. "You're not serious."

"I am absolutely serious," Lissa said, laughing as well. "I'll start with the bawdiest ones, just try me."

A tentative cry came from the other room, followed by a louder, more emphatic wail. Sarai sighed. "Someone's hungry."

"Or soiled, or gassy, or—," Lissa ticked the possibilities off on her fingers, smiling.

"No, that's the hungry cry. I'd know it anywhere." She pulled Lissa into a quick hug, kissing her cheek, then began to edge around the painting toward the nursery door. "Go home. I'll see you tomorrow. This thing should be out of the way, by then."

"That'll be a relief."

"And Lissa?" Sarai poked her head back around the portrait. "Maybe think a bit about staying open to love? For me?"

She retreated again before Lissa could respond—off to tend little Ezran, who was now crying with gusto. Lissa looked at the portrait again and sighed. The perfect family.

"I'll try," she murmured.

[goddessofeternity]

Chronicles of the Supernovas: Chosen

Chapter 21: Hope and Despair

Callum

This was not supposed to be happening. 

Celica would not make it much longer if we didn’t get off this planet and heal her. Where and why was everything going so wrong? The Darkness appearing made everything much much worse. There was no telling how long Lady Serafina and the Darkness would be fighting. We were so close! We finally have Altair and completed our mission, but we were losing Celica in the process. She would probably see this as a noble sacrifice, but I would never let her think that. She had so much to give to the cosmos, and she was my oldest friend. 

I just can’t bear to lose her.

I watched her as she managed to fall asleep despite the pain of her injury and the planet eating itself. For over two painful hours, we sat in silence as we waited for it to pass. I had no doubt that Lady Serafina could feel Celica’s life force draining from her body. I imagined that it was hard for her to feel it, but that was nothing compared to seeing it. Her breaths were becoming more and more labored, and I’m sure that she stopped breathing at times. Her skin was paler than ever and her ice was making it hard to even be near her. Nim was watching over her like a hawk and Altair looked ready to burst into tears. He had held onto her hand despite us warning him he would get frostbite. Nerissa was pacing so much that she had made a path on the floor. Ka’seem looked the worst, he had gotten choked up when she had stopped breathing. He was blaming him more and more as her breathing grew slower and she mumbled incoherently.

“It’s stopping…” I glanced at Nerissa as she watched the movements of the planet start to slow down. Sure enough, the movements were slowing and Ka’seem stepped out from under our temporary shelter to inspect it. His shoulders and movements were tense, and I wish I knew what to say to him. Altair finally separated from Celica to look up at the moon. It was bright and full on, and the cloudless night made it easier for us to see that Lady Serafina and the Darkness were still fighting. 

“We should move. We’ll make camp somewhere and just…figure something out. I’ll try and contact Lady Serafina, but…” I released a breath as I rubbed my head. “I’ll try…”

No one said anything and Nerissa took Altair by the hand as she led him away, with Ka’seem following them closely. Nim gathered Celica into his arms, but she barely even made a sound. We shared a look before following the others. I could not stop staring at Celica as she started to mumble in her delirium. 

“Staring will do nothing for her…”

“It isn’t like there is anything else to do Nim.” 

“.....”

“Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.”

“I have nothing to say about this Callum. Anything that needs to be said would just be redundant.” 

“Talking to her would bring her some comfort I imagine.” Her eyes were starting to open for a split second, before they closed again. “She needs us Nim…not more of your indifference.”

“....” He sighed and he knew that I was making sense. Nim was never one to talk about his deeper feelings, but now was not the time for it and he knew that. It was not the time for stubbornness. The silence carried us still as we found an area under a sea of trees to rest. Ka’seem managed to make some makeshift huts for us to sleep in. Nim placed Celica in one and she seemed to relax for a bit, but now her wound was getting blacker. The veins on her arms were turning black as well. I grimaced as blood began to seep from the makeshift bandages and was just as dark. 

I placed my hand over her wounds and poured my light energy into it, but it just didn’t seem to make a difference. She seemed to relax, but it just made her comfortable. It was what I wanted, but I also just wanted her to be ok. As a God of light, I should have been able to heal her much better than this, but I feel that this mission is teaching us to learn more healing techniques. Celica was just always the one to go to. She was a tough woman and an even better healer, but we relied on her too much and it showed. How long had we been taking her for granted, and why did she never speak up about it? 

“You know that she would never complain about anything.” I forced a chuckle as Nim sat beside me as we saw her breathing relax a little. 

“I suppose you are right about that…”

“Mmm…”

“Celica!” We leaned forward as she move her head side to side and tried to raise her arms. “Take it easy please…you must conserve your strength.” Her mumbling just continued and I sighed now even more frustrated. All of this waiting around was starting to bother me. My dearest friend was dying and there was not a thing I could do about it. 

“Callum…keep calm, she is probably-”

“My…Mykel…” My heart almost broke hearing her say that name. It had been some time since she last spoke it. He was always a sore subject for her, but hearing from her now just caused me more pain. “Mykel….mother…”

“I’m gonna take a walk.”

“Nim-” He was gone before I could even finish. It would be best to let her rest and contact Lady Serafina. Leaving the hut, I was about to meditate and contact Lady Serafina, but I saw Altair sitting by himself under a tree. Ka’seem and Nerissa were in deep conversation as they skinned some animals for us to eat. The boy was scared and he was trying to act like he wasn’t. 

“May I sit with you?” Altair flinched as he looked up and me before he nodded and moved over. He pulled his knees up and buried his face between them. “It is alright to be afraid. There is no shame in it.”

“I…I’m not scared.” I could practically hear the pouting in his voice. “I just have things on my mind.”

“I’m a good listener. We have…we have time to talk about anything you are worried about. I know that you must have some questions by now.”

“....” He peeked at me for a second, weighing whether he really wanted to talk to me right now. He pulled on a lock of his hair before he faced me. “Is she going to be ok?”

“I don’t have an answer for that. I wish that I could ease your worries, the worries of the rest of my friends, but I can’t.” 

“....”

“We are doing our best to keep her comfortable until we can get some help.”

“There is no one coming to help us though. That thing is keeping us here and I don’t think that Goddess will be able to keep fighting it. Just face it…we’re screwed.”

“Hey…” I clapped him on the shoulder and he frowned at me but I just laughed. “That Goddess above us is much much stronger than you think. She will not let the Darkness get to us no matter what. We just have to have a bit more patience.”

“Is this the Goddess that I heard you guys talking about? The one who is supposed to keep me safe from all of this?”

“Yes…Lady Serafina is a benevolent Goddess who wants nothing more than peace across the cosmos. When she found out about you, she halted everything to find you and keep you safe. Of course, there were some bumps in the road, but at least we have you.”

“What…what is she like?”

“Oh she is magnificent….she truly has a heart of gold and does her best to cater to the many needs of the beings across the universe. She is the Celestial Mother and we owe her everything that has ever been made.”

“So…she made a lot of stuff…like what?”

“Well…she made people and Gods…animals and planets and solar systems. Her laugher even creates the stars in the sky.”

“Her laughter? 

“Oh yes, once I met her, she explained that some stars can come about by her laughter, but once are formed when a person is born. We all are attached to them in some way.” “Really? So I have one too?” I chuckled as he smiled for the first time since Celica was injured. He looked up at the night sky in marvel. “I’ve never really heard about her…”

“Yes well…spreading the word about her is a work in progress.” Honestly, it was taking longer than I would have liked, but Lady Serafina wasn’t exactly keen on spreading any gospel about herself in the first place. Being the humble person she was, she didn’t want people to sing praises about her. Compared to most of the Gods, she was incredibly humble.

“I…will I make a good impression? I still don’t think that I’m very special…”

“Trust me Altair…she already loves you.” I chuckled at his flushed face, before my gaze turned down to my ring. I could feel Masami’s ring burning in my pocket and I wanted so badly to finish this and talk to her. It was unlike her to not want to talk to me when we had a disagreement. I had to find out what it was that made her want to halt our entire marriage.

“You’re married?”

“Huh? Oh…yes I am…” I didn’t realize that I was just staring at my ring. It was the first time I really had the time to think about since the mission took a turn.

“How long have you been married? What is she like?” Children always asked too many questions, but it was keeping him occupied. 

“We’ve been married for over three hundred years…three hundred and twenty-five to be exact. We have an anniversary to plan soon.”

“Wow! That’s such a long time! Is she a Goddess too?”

“She…” Well now I knew that she is a kitsune, but before I was led to believe that she was a simple fae and that explained her long life well enough for me. “No she…is something special though. She is the light of my life. She is beautiful, sweet, and the other half of my soul. Perhaps one day you will meet someone like that.”

“I’d rather get back to my grandpa then think about girls. Girls are really annoying anyway. They always want something.”

“Haha…yes, but it often depends on the type of woman you bring into your life. Not all women are so superficial.”

“Still annoying…” I ruffled his hair and he pouted at me. I was about to continue to tell him about Lady Serafina, but Nim appeared and gave me a solemn look. My heart skipped several beats as I left Altair to go back to the hut. Nerissa and Ka’seem were standing right outside of it, and Nerissa looked as if she had been crying. Ka’seem kept to himself and was twirling his daggers around. Entering the tent, I was relieved to see that Celica was awake. 

“H…Hey…” I knelt beside her and took her hand as she coughed something fierce. “You guys…have…to stop crying…”

“That…isn’t an easy thing to ask us.” She weakly squeezed my hand before she stared at the ceiling. There were so many emotions running across her face right now, but the ones I could see clearly were anger and sadness. There was also some bits of frustration behind her eyes as well. “Tell us how you feel?”

“Frustrated.” 

“That’s to be expected.” She rolled her eyes at Nim as he stepped into the tent and looked over her. “You just can’t help doing the most when it comes to children.”

“I…guess I can’t…” 

“We have to get you back to Lady Serafina’s temple…perhaps if you’re there you will be able to heal.” It was probably going to be a hard task with them fighting above our heads, but we had to do something at this point. Getting settled was not something that we really should be doing. The faster we came up with a plan, the faster she could recover and get better. 

“I…I don’t think so…”

“Hey-”

“Just…just listen…to me…both of you…” She blew out a breath before she looked at Nim and he knelt down to take her other hand. The veins in her skin were becoming even more prominent and I was terrified to check how close to her heart it was. Her bright eyes were even duller than they were an hour ago, and I refused to even guess how much longer she had. For the first time in a while, her eyes sparkled with tears. It took me back to see her so vulnerable and I just wanted to take her pain away. 

“Celica-”

“I'm dying…” She sniffled and her hand tightened against mine. “There is no…denying that…I need you both to…promise me something…”

“Celica…don’t say that.” Nim looked away from her and she just sighed and shook her head. 

“Promise me!” Another coughing fit wracked over her body and Nerissa pushed in an orb of water for her to drink from. After taking some hefty sips of it, she relaxed against the floor again. “You…you can’t deny me…not now…”

“....”

“I…I need you both…to free Mykel…and my mother. They need to…they have to have…a happily ever after…” More tears streamed down her face as she tried to blink them away. “I…I promised…I promised my father…he needs to…see her again…and Mykel…needs to have a life…”

“I…I promise.” Nim silently nodded his head and we both knew that was the most we would get out of him. “We…you just have to hold on as long as you can. You have to promise us that.”

“I…I promise…also…tell your sister…that she’s in charge…” She laughed weakly before she took a deep breath. “You make up with Masami ok? I…I’d hate to know you’re…still fighting…”

A few more tears rolled down her cheeks, and I reached out to wipe them away before I cupped her cheek. “You will make it through this…and Masami and I will be just fine…”

She smiled and turned her face into my palm to lay a gentle kiss against it. “I know…that’s also a gift…a blessing for your…continued happiness and future bliss…you’re both…my best friends…yes…you are included in it…mutt…”

“Tch…who says I want it…icy bitch…” These two could never stop their taunting with each other. Celica turned his hand over and placed a kiss on his knuckles. “What was that for?”

“For you…to get that…stick out of your ass.” I couldn’t stop my laugh at the sight of Nim’s face as a vein almost jumped from his temple. “Nim…seriously though…that was for you…to find love…”

“Celica…” It was nice to witness moments when the two of them weren’t fighting, I only wished the situation was better. 

“No no…I want you to find…and have love…real true love…something to…to carry you through…infinity…and…so you’ll never doubt…that someone…loves you…for you…endlessly…” She trailed off before she passed out into what I hoped was a peaceful rest. Her hand felt so fragile in mine and Nim’s composure was starting to break. He raised her hand to his forehead before gently setting it down. This…this was going to hit us far too hard, and the Darkness would pay for what they have done. Nim stormed off before I could say anything more, and I looked down at her once again as she seemed to sleep peacefully. 

“Is…is she sleeping?” I nodded as Nerissa moved by my side and brushed away Celica’s matted hair from her forehead. I could hear Nim and Ka’seem’s frantic conversation that sounded like it was about to become an argument. Altair was crying now, and I couldn’t muster the strength to go and comfort him. 

“Yes…we have to move on from here.”

“O-Ok…” I could feel her eyes on me, and if she was expecting me to say something comforting, she would have to try someone else. I did not see a way out of this, and she had to realize that. Kind words  would not free us from this planet to help her. I took Celica into my arms and Nerissa was close behind, as was Altair. Nim and Ka’seem finished whatever it was that made them look ready to throw their fists at each other. The only thing that we could do was make our way further into the forest. I suspected that the Darkness would eventually send someone or something after us, and we would have to fight them off. Things were never easy, and with Celica like this it would only get worse from here. The walk was silent, and the only thing that made noise was the creatures around us. Celica was still breathing in my ear thankfully as a full hour passed us by. Altair was starting to rub his eyes and yawn, which meant that we would have to stop soon. I would prefer to keep moving frankly, but he was just a child. There was a clearing up ahead, and that would have to be where we settle for now, or until the planet started to feed again. 

“Nim we should-” 

I barely dodged something that bolted from deep in the forest. The only problem with my sudden movement was that I was holding Celica. The sudden need to move caused her to slip from my arms. I managed to grab her, but not before a sharp pain shot through my left leg. The pain was enough that I took a knee, but I made sure that she didn't hit the ground. The others moved and I looked at my leg and furrowed my brow as a simple pike gave me a deep cut. Something like this should not have hurt this bad unless…

“Guys!”

My words of caution did not matter as a series of fights took place before my eyes. Nerissa was engaged in a fight with a brute of a man, as was Nim. Ka’seem fought a woman who looked like a Goddess that I’m sure I had seen before. I turned my attention back as the pike was yanked out of the ground by a tall man with pitch black eyes. 

“In battle…it is always wise to take out the weakest link…” He smirked as he scanned over Celica and my leg. “It was a good call to aim for the bitch…saving others will get you in the position that you see yourself in.”

“I don’t feel particularly in danger.”

“Hehe…not yet you mean.” He struck his pike at me with blinding speed, but he had to realize that there was no way that he could catch me. His weapon was one of those God killing weapons, and my leg aches fiercely, but that didn’t mean that my speed was gone. The only problem was Celica was a target and the others were occupied. I stood and faced him, but my attention was once again thrown away as I heard Altair shout. 

One of their cohorts grabbed him by the shoulder and began to drag him away and I moved to intercept them. Holding Celica was a problem as I held her waist and appeared at Altair’s side. The woman looked up in surprise, but grunted in pain as I hit her aside with the back of my fist. I hated putting my hands on women, but they could not have him. The woman was unconscious before she even hit the floor, and I pulled Altair to his feet. The others were fighting around me, but my focus had to be on Altair and Celica. They were more important right now and the others would have to fend for themselves. 

I caught Nerissa from the side of my eyes fighting the larger man, but I also saw more people pouring in from the forest. It was starting to get crowded and I would have to remedy that. Laying Celica down, I pushed Altair behind me and felt my power surge over me. My leg was burning for me to relax, but I could not let anything else happen! A radiant force of light erupted from my being, and the men and women around us were consumed in my light. Almost like a bug being hit by a trap, they burned and struggled on the floor and their screams echoed harshly in my ears. 

Nerissa threw her opponent across the field right into the one that Nim was fighting. Nim took his sword and cut right through them. It didn’t seem to matter because they just kept coming from deep in the woods. Their weapons were shining an eerie black under the moonlight, but I would get rid of those soon enough. I caught Nim’s gaze and he nodded at me as we prepared to intercept the weapons before they did any serious damage to any of us. 

Speed was certainly on our side as we both moved around the clearing to take the weapons, but I couldn’t help but wince at the wound on my leg. These weapons were far too potent and it almost felt like a poison moving through my body. I was starting to slow down, but not remarkably so. Despite the volume of enemies coming through, we all fought them off. Altair was still next to Celica who had woken up and was holding onto him. 

The last weapon was in the hands of a mere mortal, and that would be the end of this charade. My staff barely managed to hit him before I felt the pressure of a blade in my side. I barely choked out in pain before I was slammed down onto the ground. I blinked up at the goddess that Ka’seem was fighting. I knew that I had seen her before. 

“Uris?” 

“Hello Lord Callum…it’s lovely to see you.”

“You…you’re working with the Darkness?! Why?!”

“I don’t exactly have the time to talk about that. I have a job that I must do…and as a goddess of Light…I was the only option to keep up with you and Nim.” She swept her long hair over her shoulder before plunging her staff into my stab wound. 

“Gah!”

“Bitch!” Nerissa charged over and swung her ax wildly and Uris  had no problem dodging the blows. Ka’seem rushed over to assist her and the three of them began to fight and I finally took note that Nim wasn’t even here anymore. I could hear him fighting in the distance though, so his fight must be tougher than he thought. 

“Stop it!” 

“Altair!” My heart sank as I heard Celica yell with the last bit of strength that she probably possessed in her weakened frame. Another hulk of a creature had Altair in his arms and Celica was under its foot. The ground was freezing under her, but she was only flailing about at this point. 

“Hey-” I went to stand up, but the wound that I had sustained from those weapons made my sense of gravity shift and I fell to my knees. Dammit…this was not happening! Uris was having trouble fighting Nerissa and Ka’seem which could mean something if they kept it up. Uris was never a goddess that was known for her fighting abilities. It honestly made no sense for her to even be doing this. 

How many other gods had defected to the other side by now?

I had no time to think about such things as the hulking man carried Altair into the woods. I could not will my body to move. The weapon that struck me must have had some sort of numbing agent.  I was starting to bleed out into the grass and Celica was starting to struggle more than ever. She was practically dragging herself across the grass to follow after them. Where the hell was Nim? 

“Give…give him…back!” Celica pulled herself to her feet in a test of strength that I could honestly not even be surprised by. That woman was always full of surprises and stronger than anyone gave her credit for. 

Well…those were my thoughts before she tilted over and fell face first into the dirt. My breath left my body as I realized that she was not moving at all. She wasn’t even breathing anymore.

“CELICA!!” My fear and anger mixed together and my light burst from my body all at once. It had been awhile since such fear coursed over me. It was even worse for the enemies around us. Nim had returned and lightning struck the ground, and the force felt like it was rocking the planet. Combined with my light burst it decimated everyone in the field. 

Almost…everyone.

Uris had managed to block the blast from the man that had Altair and he rushed off into the woods with Altair. Uris looked down at Celica with no emotion in her usually kind eyes. Raising her staff, she went to stab her in the head. I moved at the same time Nim did, but he was faster than me at the moment and hopefully he would reach her first. My heart skipped a beat as the staff was inches from Celica’s head, but she flipped the staff up and a blade appeared and stabbed Nim square in the chest. Everything felt slower as she twisted it in before pulling it out of him. Blood instantly poured out of his mouth as he dropped to his knees.

“Noo!” I turned as Nerissa ran full sprint toward Uris with her ax raised and ready. Ka’seem was right behind her but he failed to notice someone behind him.

“Ka’seem behind you!” Both Nerissa and Ka’seem turned at my warning, but Ka’seem was not quick enough to dodge the arrows that pierced his body. 

“Ka’seem!” I could see the gears turning in Nerissa’s mind as she looked between them both, unable to decide who to go to. She was the only one that might be able to go after Altair at least. The rest of us were to incapacitated at this point. I was sure that I could do something and Nim was still moving, so Uris probably missed something vital. It didn’t mean much since it definitely would have weakened him. 

“I suggest you stop while you can Nerissa…” Uris sighed as she looked down at Celica with sad eyes. “I think that you should give up now.”

“Fuck you bitch!” Nerissa growled through clenched teeth and began to advance to her. “I don’t have shit to say to you. You’ve picked your side so stick that “advice” up your fucking cunt bitch!” 

“So vulgar…” No more words were shared as the both of them clashed and I turned my attention to Nim and Celica. Ka’seem was pulling the arrows from his body as the person in the tree made their way over to him. Nim had grabbed Celica who, by some divine miracle, was still breathing and awake, but I feared that she wouldn’t be lucky for much longer. 

“We have to get the damn kid…” Nim was bleeding more than I thought he was, but he was more focused on the storm around us. “You need to get up.”

“I would if I could Nim!” I didn’t mean to snap at him, but this whole situation was a pain in the ass. Ka’seem brushed off his injuries to face the archer and Nerissa was having a tough time keeping up with Uris. It would continue like this if she didn’t tap into her other abilities, but she was terrible at it. I barely could get my thoughts together before a shadow overtook the three of us. A figure crashed into Nim and completely knocked me away from him and Celica. 

As the dust finally settled, a gasp escaped me as I saw a very very large man had a God killing weapon made into a gauntlet, and it was buried far into Nim’s chest and it was splayed in his blood. In his other fist he held a dark chain and Celica was hanging from it with her arms tied behind her back. He made eye contact with me and smiled before he snapped his fingers. 

Any energy left in my body was sucked out as the same chains appeared from nowhere and wrapped around my body. Hearing the gasp from Ka’seem and Nerissa was not a good thing to hear either. It was good for Uris as Nerissa seemed to catch her off guard and was slamming her fist into her face, but the chains pulled her back. 

“These are the “Supernovas”? What a joke…” Snapping his fingers again, it pulled us all together and the situation just went from bad to worse to astronomically bad. Now the five of us were on our knees in a clearing and Altair was gone, and Lady Serafina was still fighting with no end in sight. Celica could barely even stay on her knees as she rocked back and forth. This was a dangerous obstacle for her since these God killing weapons drained our divinity. The chains were draining my power and in theory they could essentially make us mortal and we were sitting ducks. Her divinity was probably the only thing that was keeping her stable, so Celica was in more danger than ever. 

No way to contact our pantheons, Lady Serafina in combat, in essence, we were screwed. 

“Morlo should be on his way to retrieve the child.” The large man smiled down at us as the archer that Ka’seem had been fighting came to speak with him. “We have to dispose of them soon. Our liege will wrap up their fight with the Light. The child-”

“Give him back you fucking rat!” Nerissa tried to get up but the man just laughed at her failed attempt. The chains were affecting us faster than I thought. Ka’seem and Nim were also starting to breathe heavier. 

I…I saw no way out of this.

I breathed out a frustrated sigh as our enemies moved away from us to talk and I leaned into Celica so she wasn’t using all of her strength to sit up. 

“Does anyone have any idea how we can get out of this? Anything at all?” Ka’seem was met with only silence and Nerissa cursing to herself. “We have to think of something guys-”

“There is no plan right now Ka’seem! Damnit!” Nim growled at Ka’seem who turned to kick him and I was getting more annoyed now.

“Fuck you Nim! I’m trying to be positive and come up with solutions for Serafina’s sake! Stop being so fucking negative!”

“Could you two stop fucking fighting!” Great. Now Nerissa would join in their arguing. Celica felt like she was about to pitch over again. “We’ve all been off our game here!”

“Some more than others…”

“Really Nim? You want to go at this with me now?!” Ka’seem looked ready to headbutt Nim into the ground and I’m sure Nim would be sparking with lightning right now if he could. 

The three of them kept up their arguing and I just turned to look at Celica. “You’re gonna be ok…we’ll make it out of this. I just have to think.”

Feeling Nim tense up next to me, I watched as his head snapped up and his eye glanced to the side. 

“What is it?” He furrowed his brows as his ear started to twitch. 

“Something is coming…and it's approaching fast…”

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

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[casspurrjoybell-33]

Taming Arrogance - Chapter 28

*Warning Adult Content*

It takes almost an hour to put myself back together, most of which is spent pacing around the penthouse suite.

Half of my footsteps are spent dishing out a slew of curse words spat in Blake's phantom direction.

The other half are spent wiping away unwanted tears as they slide down my warm cheeks.

There's no way in fuck I'll give Blake that message and there's not an ounce of remorse in me about it.

In fact, I hope Phil shows up so late that Blake is already gone.

"Fuckin' asshole," I say through gritted teeth.

I mean, it's not as if I have a right to get upset.

We're not together and just last night we spent the remainder of our first, official date with Cade, a man who is fighting to make me his.

So why do I feel like my heart is being ripped from my chest?

I stomp into the master bedroom, scouring for my suitcase.

It's sitting in the corner next to Blake's.

My eyes narrow, silently accusing the inanimate object for choosing sides.

There's nothing of mine I want left in here, not a damn thing.

I drag my suitcase back out into the living room and throw it onto the couch.

With frantic fingers I begin searching for a new shirt, suddenly hating the one I'm wearing now, the very one Blake said looked nice on me this morning.

The hotel phone begins to ring, the shrill sound stilling my frenzied movements.

Who could be calling?

Both Blake and Cade have my cell-phone number.

So is it a hotel worker?

Is it the one who gave me Phil's note?

Maybe he wants to see if I've delivered the special note to Mr. Benson.

Another fit of rage takes a hold of me as I walk over to the phone and swipe it up.

"Hello?" I shout into the receiver.

"Callum?" Blake's voice catches me off guard.

The familiar and masculine tone stirs up all kinds of emotion and desire I wish I could dismiss or even ignore.

A fresh batch of tears sting the corners of my eyes, threatening to spill down my cheeks.

When did I start turning into such a pansy?

Just a few months ago I was ready to spend my summer getting lost in drunken nights and meaningless one night stands.

I've never had feelings for someone.

Well, not any that lasted longer than a few lust-filled hours, anyway and I certainly have never done a relationship.

Look at me now, keeping my tears at bay and being duped into falling for someone, a dude no less, fuckin' pathetic.

I grit my teeth and blink them away as best I can.

"Callum, are you alright?"

It hurts to swallow, the mixture of embarrassment and sadness digging into my throat.

I shake my head and side-step the question, trying to keep a steady voice.

"What do you need?"

Pause.

"I tried calling your cell but you didn't answer. I was hoping you'd still be at the hotel to let me know if they dropped off my dry cleaning yet? If they have, I might try to swing by and change before my evening appointments."

I pull out my phone, frowning when I notice the two missed calls.

Never once did I feel it vibrate, then again, in my mental state, I don't think I would have noticed anyway.

I swipe to unlock it, Blake's number popping up from both missed calls.

"Callum?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

He sighs.

It's a sigh I have come to learn well, one where I know his patience is running thin.

There's another beat of silence and Blake forces out an uncomfortable laugh.

It makes me wonder if other people are within ear shot of our conversation.

"Someone spilled a latte down my shirt. Could you please check on the dry cleaning for me real fast?"

"Yeah. Hang on."

I set the phone down, pretending to take a few minutes to search the suite for the dry cleaning.

Instead I just sit on the arm of the couch, looking out the window with a fuzzy mind.

He's taunting me, he's tugging on my heart strings and he doesn't even know it.

After what happened this morning and seeing our chemistry come to life, the doubt I had started to ease.

I was still scared but I was ready.

I was ready to tell Blake the contest was over before it even started.

What I didn't realize was that there were multiple competitions taking place, the one to win my heart and the one to win his.

Normally I'm all for a competition.

I can't remember the last time I backed down to a challenge, in fact but this time?

The possibility of losing is one I can't chance, I mean, c'mon, who am I fooling?

Blake is the type of guy chicks and dudes alike dream about.

He's the type of guy romance novels and bullshit movies are made of.

When people like him come into the real world, they're untouchable.

Unattainable for more than just a whisper of time.

It's laughable, I thought I had chance, I slowly raise the phone to my ear again.

"Sorry, Mr. Benson. Hasn't arrived yet."

My voice is distant and cold, the epitome of a bitchy receptionist who hates their job.

Indistinct chatter fills the background of the other end of the call.

Blake sighs again, this one far more irritated than the last.

The chatter turns to silence, indicating to me he has walked far enough away to be on his own.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I lie.

"Callum."

"What? Seriously bro, nothing's wrong."

Silence.

"Damnit, Callum. Is it because of this morning? Was it too soon? Are you having second thoughts?"

An ache blooms in my chest hearing his words and the care in his voice.

He's worried I'm backpedaling from our intimate moment.

He has no idea my change in demeanor isn't because I want less of him but the realization that I can't have more.

After another few moments of silence pass, Blake sighs again.

"Can we talk about this tonight? Please?"

I'm about to say yes but stop myself short, I already feel like a fool.

Talking about this subject so soon will only make things worse.

My memory taunts me for a moment, dragging me back to the first time I met Phil.

I remember the way his dark eyes studied me over, probably deeming me unworthy of Blake from the get-go, well, fuck him and fuck Blake too.

The tears clinging to the edges of my eyes lose their grip, falling from their walls of safety with anguish and regret.

Their wetness stings my cheeks, each one giving me another reason to walk away.

"There's really nothing to talk about," I say through ragged breaths.

"Have a good night."

I disconnect the call before he has a chance to respond.

In the same movement I pick up my cell phone, my fingers hover above the screen, ready to send Cade a message about hanging out tonight.

The open thread between us stares back at me, I blink.

No good can come from hanging out with him, I realize, especially not with me feeling like this.

Despite whatever is happening with Blake and Phil, I don't feel for Cade the way I feel for Blake.

It'd be a whole lot fuckin' easier if I did but I don't, I just can't.

There will come a point soon enough that I'll have to let him know that, too.

With a heavy sigh, I set my phone aside, forcing myself to stand and wipe away my humiliating tears.

I walk along the newly vacuumed hotel carpet and try to think it all through again, Phil and Blake are meeting for dinner tonight.

'Where? No idea. Why? No idea. Is it my business? Hell no. Do I want to know anyway? Hell yes.'

Just coming out and asking Blake will show far more of my jealously and emotions than I can or will allow at this point.

So what else can I do? Just as fast as I ask the internal question, a new idea surfaces.

I dash over to the hotel phone again, grabbing it up and dialing the front desk before I lose my nerve.

My heart picks up speed, the sudden shift of emotions catching it off guard.

"Hello Mr. Benson, how may I direct your call?"

"It's not Mr. Benson," I say to the concierge.

"This is his assistant, Mr. Greene."

"Oh, my apologies, Mr. Greene. What can I do for you?"

"So the dinner reservations Br. Benson has tonight? Yeah, I made them months ago and have since forgotten the time and place originally requested."

"Oh, no. Would you like us to call for a reservation elsewhere?"

I swallow hard and try to speak with the most authoritative voice I can muster.

"No. I'm actually calling to see if you'd be able to call around the area to find out where the reservation currently is? I know this is a big favor but I really don't want to bother Mr. Benson about this if I don't have to."

I hold my breath, waiting for the man on the other end to put a stop to my plan.

I have no idea if they're allowed to make these types of calls, especially if the request is given by me and not 'Mr. Benson' himself, plus, it's a flimsy request in the first place.

Who, in this day and age, doesn't just schedule appointments on their phone or tablet?

Better yet, who just 'forgets' where they made reservations in the first place?

Silence greets my ears for a few moments followed by the typing of keys on a keyboard.

My lungs burn waiting to breathe but I have to know if this will work.

"Of course we can accommodate this request, Mr. Greene. Mr. Benson is a high-priority customer of ours, and we always try to do what we can to ease his schedule. Shall we call you or Mr. Benson when we have obtained the reservation information?"

"Me," I answer quickly.

"And please. Hurry."

[scinglives]

Callum knew it was hard, balancing a love life when you had a child, but Sarah embraced everything about his life. She accepted that Izzy was always going to come first, that sometimes he would have to cancel date nights because he needed to be at home. Helping him bake cookies because he forgot it was the school bake sale, helping with building princess forts and trying to teach him how to braid hair. Most of their dates ending up being the most domestic of affairs, but it seemed to just make them grow closer and closer. They didn't need the fancy nights out having dinner or weekend breaks, they were happy just being with each other. It made the alone and intimate time they did have so much more special. He chuckled as Izzy started to jump up and down on the bed, all that mattered now was that she had seen Sarah, and no doubt she would expecting her here every morning now. He smothered her in kisses as she shouted for pancakes and if Sarah was staying for breakfast. "She sure is, kiddo." He smiled and ruffled her wild bedhead hair, smiling at the mention of a scrapbook. That was why he was falling in love with her, everything she did was so heartfelt. "You'd love that, Iz. Arts and crafts, daddy won't get his big hands all over it and ruin it." Callum rolled his eyes, every time he tried to do something intricate his daughter would tell him no, that eh was ruining it with his big man hands. "Come on, Iz. Why don't you run downstairs and bring down the teddys you want to join us for breakfast, okay?" He asked, laughing as she raced off the bed to get them, giving the couple at least a couple of minutes to get dressed. "Every morning she chooses a different teddy that can sit at the breakfast bar, as though they're getting a day out. It's very cute, and takes her far too long to decide who gets the privilege of dining with us that morning."

The young blonde had been out of the dating pool for awhile before meeting him and she was rather rusty when it came to dating but with him? It was easy, it was a breath of fresh air and when he had finally asked her out on an official date, she was quick to say yes immediately. Their relationship blossomed, it bloomed like a beautiful flower and it continued to do so in all of the best ways; Sarah loved seeing the many sides of Callum re-emerging and she loved being able to bring that part of him back to life. She knew that Claire must have been a wonderful person and she knew she couldn’t replace her, something she would never dare to do in the first place - she would just be here to love them both with her entire being. Love and protect them. “You definitely do but there’s nothing wrong with that and I’m glad to help, I love helping you. It’s fun!” She admits. They had made good progress with the princess castle and she was excited for them to finish it up not only to see the final product but to see Izzy’s excitement when they would finally reveal it to her but credit went where credit was due… it was all him being a fantastic father and putting his daughter first in everything he did. “Ever the optimist but thank you! That’s true, good point and we should put a million toppings on them anyway.” Teasing Callum back, the way they melted against one another’s lips was heaven to her. Heaven, a word she perhaps used too often with him but she couldn’t help it - she was happy and he was the closest thing to heaven she’s ever had. “Valid point, we’ll see how we do.” Adjusting in bed and covering herself more with the covers, she sits up completely with her back hitting against the headboard. She giggles as Izzy realizes that she’s there, bracing herself for the impact she makes as she jumps onto the bed. “Hey there little monkey! Good to see you too!” She’s greeted by a hug and a sloppy little kiss to her cheek before she watches her crawl into Callum’s arms, her little voice answering his question with such enthusiasm and love that it made Sarah’s heart swell in her chest. Oh goodness, what a precious little gem she was and if she wasn’t careful she would get emotional. “You two are pretty cute, I might need to start taking some pictures of just these little things. Simple but wonderful things. This little monkey might just have to help me make a scrapbook full of important moments if she wants to, a little arts and crafts day.”

[razzle-zazzle]

movie night

2366 Words; Sit Still, Look Pretty

Happy Birthday @ninja-go-to-therapy!

TW for forced helplessness, doll whump, creepy & possessive whumper, drug mentions, and mild stockholm syndrome

AO3 ver

Lizzie leaned back against the couch cushions, remote clasped in her hand.

The common room of the dorms was alive with all of the junior agents, all arranged on the couch or surrounding cushions around the TV, their faces cast in a soft glow by the screen.

Pieces of popcorn psychically floated through the air to Gisu’s mouth, her arm slung over the back of the couch, a single lock of hair escaping the hood of her triceratops onesie. Norma was beside her, curled up under the blanket she’d claimed and pointedly ignoring the snacks.

To Lizzie’s left, Adam grabbed a few pretzel sticks from the bowl. Raz sat on the other side of him, curled up against the arm of the couch and chewing through a bag of caramel popcorn. Sam had elected for the pile of cushions reserved for building forts, and Morris had claimed the bean bag chair and a bowl of skittles.

Lizzie grinned as the menu came up on the TV. She aimed her remote at the screen and navigated to the options for the subtitles.

Movie Night was officially a go.

+=+=+=+=+

Dion laid back on the bed as Carrie bustled around his room, humming under her breath as she did something with the chain connected to his ankle.

She’d used a lighter dosage, this time. Or so she claimed.

Dion was inclined to believe her. His limbs were too heavy for any real movement, but he could still move them if he really tried. It was just much easier not to, to let Carrie maneuver him into soft jammies much like her own.

It was the sky-themed set tonight. A light blue shirt with a bright orange and yellow sun on the front. Light blue pants with a fluffy cloud pattern. It was soft and loose around Dion, warm and almost comforting.

The cloud slippers were a little silly, though.

Not that Dion could do anything about that, lying still and useless on the bed. His limbs were heavy—but he could move them if he tried. He just wasn’t, because it had been a long day. Because he was tired and wanted to settle into the bed and sleep. Because it was easier to let Carrie take control, easier to lay back and go along with it than to fight. Easier to let Carrie scoop him up her arms bridal-style and carry him over to the door.

Wait.

What?

“I think you’ve earned yourself a special treat.” She cooed, opening the door and carrying Dion out. “But you have to behave tonight, okay?”

Dion could sort of nod, but didn’t, frozen in shock.

He was out of the room.

He was out of the room!

He couldn’t really crane his neck to look around, but from what he could tell, he was in a hallway. There was no blue wallpaper here, no lacey furnishings. Just the heavy door to his room, and a hallway with gray walls.

This was—he was—

Carrie was holding him too tightly, he felt, for him to try and shake out of her grip. Not that falling onto the floor would help him, when his movement was so slow. He’d get, what, five feet? Not even that—he’d get two feet away at most before Carrie snatched him up again. That woman was fast.

Carrie started up the stairs at the end of the hallway—so Dion really was locked up in the basement, of all the kidnapping cliches—panting a little when she reached the door at the top.

And besides, she said this was a treat. That he had to behave. If he didn’t, Dion had no doubt in his mind that he’d be right back in that awful hellroom for the rest of the night.

The paralytic in his veins would wear off eventually. Maybe, if he was out of the hellroom for long enough, he could—he could get away.

And if he could get away…

(Esperanza. Felix. Vera. Callum. Lesley. Tobias. Alicia.

Seven names. Seven people, who deserved so much more than to be names in a list—)

He could make sure that Carrie was put to justice.

+=+=+=+=+

The second movie progressed nicely, soft conversation filling the room. Lizzie could see Raz starting to nod off in the corner of her eye, only to snap back upright, eyes wide.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to last much longer. Norma had already left once the clock ticked past 10:45.

+=+=+=+=+

Carrie opened the door. The hallway had by no means been dark, but Dion blinked at the light of… the upstairs hallway? The wallpaper was vertical stripes of mint and forest green, decorated with framed photos and flowery embroidery projects. The floor was carpeted, up here, a dull reddish-pink.

Carrie turned to push the door closed behind her with her shoulder, affording Dion a view of a stairway leading further up, walls a pleasant shade of pink with a thick white stripe.

Dion had barely a moment to wonder where the stairs led before Carrie turned again, heading down the hallway. He absently wondered if he was even all that heavy to her—he certainly didn’t seem to be slowing her down, and before he knew it they were out of the hallway and into another room.

The walls here were vertical green-on-green stripes, pale mint and dark forest blanketing the walls. A dark green couch with frilly throw pillows sat against one wall, wood-and-glass coffee table in front of it, a few books and a remote arranged neatly on the table.

Carrie carried Dion over to the couch and gently laid him down on it, taking a moment to arrange him just so on the pillows. Dion resisted the urge to grumble as she did—he was not going back in that hellroom if he could avoid it.

Dion waited as Carrie left the room, eyes darting around. There was a TV across from the couch, a VCR on the shelf below it. More of those embroidery circles dotted the walls, all done up with flowery sayings and fuzzy animals.

The couch was soft under him, warm and comforting. It was nothing like his bedroll at home, nothing like the mattress the kids all shared when the caravan was on the move.

The reminder of home stung, his eyes pricking at the corners. How long had it been, now? How long had he been trapped here, forced to play dress up with this woman? He didn’t know. He knew that Halloween had come and gone, but beyond that—he didn’t know. He didn’t know.

If it were his first day, if Carrie had used a lighter dose and brought him upstairs like this, he’d have been searching for the door by now, paralytic be damned. He’d have been doing something—but here he was, lying uselessly on the couch like a fucking doll.

The notebooks flashed through his mind, the names of Carrie’s other victims burned into his brain.

Esperanza. Felix. Vera. Callum. Lesley. Tobias. Alicia.

He should—he should be moving, or doing something—

“Here we are, doll!”

+=+=+=+=+

Raz, predictably, didn’t last much longer. For all the little guy’s boasting that he’d be able to stay up just as long as the rest of them, he was still ten. Almost eleven, but Lizzie didn't count almost. The kid conked out barely ten minutes into the third movie, half-eaten bag of popcorn abandoned in his lap.

The scores were a little muddled, though, by the silence from Sam’s pillow pile. Lizzie couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not, or when she had fallen if she was.

+=+=+=+=+

Dion flinched at the sound of Carrie’s voice, shaken from his spiral by a plush blanket being thrown over him.

Oh. Oh, that was soft—

No. Dion needed to focus. He was finally getting to see the rest of this woman’s hellish little house, he needed to pay attention.

Carrie adjusted the blanket, tucking the edges around him. Dion glared at her. She ignored his discomfort.

“There we are.” She cooed. “Now we just gotta get the TV all set up, and we can begin.” She puttered over to the TV, turning it on. Her hand hovered over the movies in the shelf next to the VCR, waving back and forth as she hemmed and hawed over what to choose.

So that’s what this is, Dion thought, movie night. It… Dion wasn’t sure if it was that much of a surprise, actually. He couldn’t say he’d been expecting it, but it made a sick sort of sense—it seemed almost domestic, like he and Carrie were just two friends settling in to watch a movie together.

Except that woman was very much not Dion’s friend. And he didn’t want this, this sickening mockery of domesticity. He wasn’t her doll. He wasn’t.

(She didn’t care about him, anyway. He’d seen the notebooks. He knew what would happen to him if he didn’t get out.

Esperanza. Felix. Vera. Callum. Lesley. Tobias. Alicia.

He couldn’t let Carrie be the only one to know their names.)

But there wasn’t anything he could do, limp on the couch while Carrie pushed a tape into the VCR. There wasn’t anything he could do, not when she was right there—he wasn’t going back to that hellroom. He wasn’t.

(He knew that chances were he’d be back down there when the movie ended. It was almost a certainty that he’d be going back in there—Carrie seemingly lived to ruin his day, his week, his year.

But Carrie was in soft jammies, ready to settle down on the couch—maybe she’d fall asleep. Maybe she’d fall asleep, and Dion could escape then. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“Maybe” was all Dion had, at this point.)

The movie’s menu came up, and Carrie settled down onto the couch, pulling her own blanket over herself. “Isn’t this fun, doll?” She asked, pink lips free of their usual red lipstick.

Dion stared at her.

“Isn’t this fun, doll?” She repeated, a subtle edge creeping into her voice.

Dion balked at what that edge implied. No. Absolutely not.

Carrie waited.

Dion glared.

Carrie waited.

“...yeah.” Dion muttered, with effort.

Carrie beamed. “I thought so! You’ve been such a good doll, lately, so it’s about time you got a treat!” She grabbed the remote on the coffee table, and started the movie.

Dion bit back the sarcastic comment on his tongue. Treat. Yeah, right.

+=+=+=+=+

Lizzie stood up as the movie finished, already moving to take out the disc and pop in the next one.

Raz and Gisu were already conked out on the couch, sound asleep despite the lights and noise from the screen.

Only three movies in, and three of them were already down and out. Not that Lizzie had expected anything else—the point of Movie Night wasn’t the movies. It was everyone getting together in the common room and conking out one after the other. It was snacks and banter and getting in trouble when things got too loud.

Still, Lizzie moved to swap in the fourth movie. Morris would go out next, either falling asleep or leaving to his dorm.

+=+=+=+=+

Carrie shifted, wrapping an arm around Dion and sitting him more upright. “Let’s focus on the movie now, dear.” She threaded a hand through Dion’s hair, fingers carding through it gently.

Dion swallowed his grimace, turning his eyes to the screen.

He didn’t recognize the movie. Animated characters danced across the screen, talking about something or other. He couldn’t make out the words past the suffocating burn of Carrie’s touch, couldn’t pay attention to anything but the feeling of her barely inches away from him. She was smothering, her presence so strong that Dion couldn’t ignore it.

Oh, how he hated her. How he hated this stupid place and that stupid hellroom and the stupid outfits she forced him into. How he hated her voice and her face and her touch, how he hated the way she got under his skin and clawed her way out until he was a shaking, scared little mess.

Carrie hummed idly, still gently carding her fingers through Dion’s hair. Still setting his brain alight with discomfort at the feel of her against his scalp.

His eyes pricked with unshed tears, his throat tightening the longer he sat there, Carrie’s fingers carding oh-so-gently through his hair. It was too much like his mother used to do, too close to comforting.

His family… were they still looking for him? Were they getting closer?

He missed them. He missed them so much it hurt, his chest tightening at the reminder. He wanted to see them again, to hear his father’s voice and feel his younger siblings piled on top of him in their shared room in the caravan, to taste his Nona’s cooking and feel his mother’s hands carding through his hair—

Carrie’s hands were hardly a replacement.

But they were something, Dion realized, as something happened on the screen, his eyes too blurry for him to see it. It was awful, but it was a familiar kind of awful. A tolerable kind of awful.

(A comforting kind of awful.)

The notebooks danced through his mind again. Right. He couldn’t fall prey to Carrie’s manipulations. He couldn’t end up like the others.

Esperanza. Felix. Vera. Callum. Lesley. Tobias. Alicia.

Dion needed to remember them. To remember that they meant nothing to Carrie, in the end. To remember that he was the same.

Esperanza. Felix. Vera. Callum. Lesley. Tobias. Alicia.

They—they had been people. Not dolls. People, who Carrie had taken and hurt and murdered.

Esperanza. Felix. Vera. Callum. Lesley. Tobias. Alicia.

Dion wouldn’t let his name be added to that list. He couldn’t.

He felt drowsy and warm under the blanket, like when he was little and his parents would hold him and Frazie close late at night before setting them down to sleep. Some part of Dion balked at the notion of feeling any kind of comfort around Carrie, but that part was smaller than it had been when he arrived.

He needed to stay alert.

(He wanted to curl into a ball and cry.)

The contents of the notebooks flashed in his mind.

Dion shoved the thoughts down, and leaned further into Carrie’s touch.

[raayllum]

I don’t know if you have already talked about this before but since you are the CHET theorist I wanted to ask because I have been thinking about it for a while: it’s the fact that we haven’t seen the cub react to Rayla? When she first gets it she literally holds it with her hands but it doesn’t glow, or when Stella has it in S4 (leading to the goofy theories of fake Rayla) it doesn’t glow either even tho it’s super close to her. Maybe my memory is falling but the only time we see it reacting to her is when Callum is playing with it. Why is the cub only reacting to her in that scene? A scene when HE specifically is holding it and she says “this doesn’t end well for you” like oh my god? The cub is not closer than her or Stealla holding it. Some people have pointed these as a animation mistakes but I doubt it, like it’s too on the nose. Maybe I'm overthinking but I needed to get it off of my chest.

Thank you in advance and have a nice week!

So when and why the cube glows is very inconsistent (after all, does the rune have to face what's making it glow, but then there are scenes where it's leagues away from pointing towards anything - 2x09's rune foreshadowing glow for Callum's sky arcanum) so I think that's mostly something operating on a "it works however we need it to work for said scene" on that level.

We don't see Rayla pick it up in 1x04 but when she holds and tosses it over to him in 1x04, it doesn't glow for her at all - so it doesn't glow at anything until Callum has touched and dropped it (which could be relevant, but we also see it glow for the Orphan Queen in 4x04's flashbacks, so it doesn't seem exclusive to him and can't be connected to blood line, at least, on that level either).

However I do actually have two analyses that may be interesting to you

1) The first is on Rayla's weird 'relationship' with the Key of Aaravos (being the character to find it, carry the game motif with it primarily in s1-s2 more than anyone else, the particularly ominous accompanying foreshadowing, and being the only character Callum discusses the cube with - other than Bait when Rayla isn't there - rather than his brother, even though Ezran is the Orphan Queen's direct descendant). It was written pre-S4 so it doesn't include arguably the most Important scene we have thus far with this connection (Rayla showing up with the cube on her shoulder) but I've waxed enough speculative poetics about that scene elsewhere that you can probably get the complete picture.

2) A decidedly more unhinged meta analyzing the rune placement in scenes with the cube (all current scenes since it was S1-S4) that also leaned into the prediction of Aaravos being freed (ergo his prison being found) / Callum doing dark magic in S5 precisely because of rune placement so like, there may be something to it?

Other meta that is less specific to Rayla's weirdness with the cube but still talks about foreshadowing / analysis regarding the Key (all of which were published before S5 so there might be some things that aren't talked about accordingly)

My Key of Aaravos tag in general

Why the Key Might Hold a Quasar Diamond: Egyptian Mythology Edition

The Technical Followup: Why the Key Might Hold Aaravos' Chest Piece

Aaravos' View of Children and What It Might Mean for the Key

2x08 or What the Fuck is Up with the Key's Opposing Symbolism (aka the weirdness of Harrow encouraging Callum to refuse a gift Harrow gave him like, 1.5 episodes prior)

Possibilities on the use/ownership of the Key being joined between Ezran and Callum for the Karim-Janai-Kim'Dael's debt freedom parallels

[hozierandco]

Callum Turner x Reader - The After-Match pt. 2 (SMUT)

A few seconds later, the referee whistled the end of the game, making cheerful and despondent people in the audience.

Cal, 10.56 pm: You better be home in 30 minutes or I'm starting the after-match without you

Y/N, 10.57 pm: I'll be there in no time!

A wave of cheers had engulfed the streets: Chelsea had won and it was only the beginning of a long night for the supporters that had assembled from all around, from Trafalgar Square to Greenwich, from Brixton to Hammersmith.

Horns beeping everywhere, pedestrians with beer in their hand and their voices broken.

"Are you joining us, Callum? We're going to the pub to celebrate!"

"Nah, tonight I'm celebrating with Y/N!"

Callum's friends all chuckled while looking at each other "You lucky bastard!", one snickered.

"We're not holding you back then!", another added.

"Have a great night, lads!", Callum said while getting his coat that had been discarded on the hat stand by the door.

"Yeah, you too!"

There was no time to lose. He could not take a cab since he had not booked any and going with his own two feet would take him nearly an hour. He knew that an hour would be way too long and that his body would not be able to cope.

From the moment he had read that Y/N had been cheeky enough not to wear any undergarments, he had felt a bulge flourishing. He had benefitted from the half-time to try and get rid of the tide that was boiling in his boxers, to no avail.

He then decided to take the tube, hoping in his innermost that the next train wouldn't last too long to arrive and that it wouldn't be too crowded. The Northern line usually was not at that time of the night but it was a game night so who knew...

He ran to the Angel train station as his phone indicated that the next train would be there in 10 minutes.

Cal, 11.09 pm: Shit, Y/N, you've got me running... The things I wouldn't do to fuck you...

Cal, 11.12 pm: U there?

But Y/N too was busy running. If the road from Regent's Park to Primrose Hill was a rather short one, she had taken too much time parting from her friends and was now late for Callum's plans.

Y/N, 11.14 pm: It's only your warm-up Cal'

Cal, 11.16 pm: From now on, it's "sir" for you!

Only a few seconds after reading the instruction, Y/N heard her phone writhe again.

Cal, 11.16 pm: If you're not here in ten minutes, I swear things will go very wrong for you!

It was all that Y/N needed to go back to her running although she was aroused at the idea that things could go "very wrong" according to her boyfriend.

She had one last street to walk by. She looked at her phone: 11.23 pm. Why are the London streets so long, she thought...

Finally the door to the Georgian hôtel particulier they shared with three other tenants. 11.25 pm.

She walked in only to notice that Callum was standing under the bare lightbulb in their living room.

"Congratulations for the game!"

"Yeah...", Callum said absent-mindedly. Y/N understood what Callum was doing: he was going through all the possibilities he had to take as much pleasure with her.

In love, Callum was the romantic type with a twist. It did not take him much to change from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde but he always valued Y/N's pleasure over his, always listening to the echoes of her lust. He was a passionate lover beyond the shadow of a doubt.

But that night, Chelsea had won and a deal is a deal.

Callum walked in a painfully slow pace towards Y/N with his large hands behind his back. When he was at her level, he stood in a parallel way behind her back and with one hand started descending on Y/N's dress. He had to check by himself.

Careful as not to touch her genitalia for the time being as he was not willing to surrender now, he grazed her hips and noticed that she had not lied.

"You really didn't wear no panties, huh?"

"I wouldn't lie to you, Cal"

Callum clucked his tongue and corrected her while putting his two hands on her shoulders "What did I say? It's "sir" for the misbehaving girls who wear slim dresses with nothing under them"

"I wouldn't lie to you, Sir"

Callum flipped Y/N around so that she was now facing him and ignited a symphony of kisses on her neck, her forehead and finally on her mouth. With each kiss, he went stronger too which Y/N replied by forcing her tongue to meet his.

Callum pulled her even closer and was ready to take her right there on the spot but he had another plans. With the contact of his beige chino trousers over her velvet dress, Y/N could spot the bulge that Callum had tried so hard to hide.

She might have looked a little too much for Callum had to intervene "Since you seem to like what you see, how about you get on your pretty knees and suck me off while you're at it"

"Yes, sir"

Y/N hoped that she would not be the cause for a pond on the floor as she had not anticipated that not wearing underwear could come with such consequences.

She executed herself and got on her knees. Right there, in the living room by the sole light emanating from the lightbulb and with the only sound of the supporters from afar.

She used Callum's legs as a support to get down and nodded at her boyfriend's "Are you okay with that?"

She was eager for the touch she had craved for almost ten days. When Callum had to leave abruptly earlier in the night, she had sensed it as a treason. Surely, he knew what he was doing, not giving her any attention for days and all of a sudden being all smitten.

He knew th ehold he had on her and knew the mess she would become if he started a fire only to let the sparks burning behind him.

Y/N then took Callum's trousers and boxers off in one brief moment, thus revealing the proud length that was finally being acknowledged and addressed.

Without further ado, Y/N stroked the thick column with her right hand, taking care of the two other inhabitants with her other one.

Callum could at last savour the fruit of his team's victory and his patience paying.

He was still standing tall on his two feet and came to the dramatic conclusion that he would soon need a pillar to rest on if he did not wish to fall. And would need one very soon as a matter of fact, considering the speed Y/N had gotten her hands used to. He chose Y/N's hair as a pillar and started running his hands in it.

All in her reactions appeared as though she would follow to the letter his commands. She had hungry plums in place of her eyes that manifested her lust to get more from the interaction. And her mouth was watering in expectation of the forbidden fruit that she would gladly receive. Slight moans slipped through her teeth, echoed by Callum's bestial growl.

Some foam oozed out of the head of his member, which seemed to be the signal Y/N had waited to get her mouth have a taste at it. She lapped up the drops of cum before getting more inside.

"All fucking night, I've been dreaming about this..."

"... And Chelsea winning too, I suppose?" Y/N retorted as she caught her breath back.

"Only close second to this", he assured with a moan on the corner of his lips and his hands directing her mouth to find its way back on where it was aching.

Callum's head tilted back as the petite mort was about to overflow and take him in its wake "Oh! Fuck, Y/N"

Once Callum's cock was empty of its ambrosia, Callum held a hand at Y/N to invite her to stand up and once she stood in front of him, he kissed her. In his kiss, he led the parade towards their bedroom.

"Anything else I can do for you, sir?" Y/N playfully inquired in a moment of respite that her lover had been generous to offer. In fact, he also needed it as he was still panting from the kissing and the blowjob.

"Ride me", Callum said in a deadpan tone.

"Anything you want, sir!"

Callum had only had the time to pick his boxers from the floor of the living room but had relinquished his trousers over there. He lay all of his tall body on the bed, taking off his shirt in the process.

Still standing by the end of the bed, Y/N got her knees on the extremity of it, moving on all fours heading straight and as soft as a panther to her boyfriend.

She straddled him, pushing her hair to one side of her face. As she could feel the bulge forming again under her pounding groin, she took off her dress, passing the piece of cloth over her head. In a second when she did not have eyes on Callum as the dress was right before her eyes, he fondled the two pomegranates that introduce themselves to him.

He had straightened up and was now in a right angle to the headboard. In a perfect position to let his lips wander right between the two breasts.

"Fuck! You just never stop being gorgeous, do you?"

Y/N rubbed her pelvis against the actor's boxers on the spot where his growing protrusion was.

"Good God, I hope you're enjoying yourself... Teasing me like that..."

Y/N continued pleasuring her cavity as she purred at Callum's words. To help her on her merry-go-round and because he was craving more, he held her by her hips, enabling circles of bliss. He felt as though he was a bull on a rodeo stand, enjoying the view and wandering on her stomach, breasts and neck.

If there was one thing Callum loved above all, it was to see Y/N being satisfied. In their sex life, it translated in him usually being aroused by the simple sight of her coming. He could come too if he saw just how great it was for her.

"You're so bloody hot!", he commented almost breathless "but I really need to feel how wet you've gotten for me"

Y/N removed just enough of his boxers to grasp the tip of his cock which she plunged into her in one swift movement and carried on riding her boyfriend"

Y/N came some minutes later, too glad that she was finally getting all the attention she deserved. When Callum joined her, he let go of Y/N as she seemed exhausting from so much riding. As she lay on the bed, he slid under the sheets, to the level of her waterfall, desperate to have a taste of both fluids.

It was Y/N's turn to pull Callum's hair to show him how she wanted to be pleasured which Callum blindly followed. Shutting his eyes, he could feel the drops filling his mouth.

His tongue found its way through the humid weather. Y/N had always loved her lover's meticulousness when it came to that subject. It was as though he was under a mysterious spell, completely in trance. He was devoted and took all his time to give her all that she deserved.

Y/N wiggled under his moving head, moaning louder and louder by every stroke his tongue was taking.

"Callum!", she cried in the night as the supporters had grown quieter.

This time around, Callum did not correct her as having her come with his Christian name on her lips was worth all the gold in the world.

[rainwalker-dragonblade29]

@theredhairedmonkey

Yea in the sense that she pushed Viren off the cliff and the fall killed him... yes she killed him. But not directly at all. She used her surroundings to her advantage, not her blade. Not blood. Not direct assassination. Not the way the moonshadow elves killed Harrow.

However, it is not wrong to say that she did kill Viren.

But there was that "in the right moment, I know I will hesitate" doubt in s1, that gets eradicated in the leap... but in a traditional sense, she doesn't have the typical assassin mindset, she wasn't like Runaan. Yes, mission is important, but Runaan's "I will fulfill my duty and vows N matter what" clashes with her "do what's right and not demanded" in s1. The leap was the intersection of these two mindsets.

Now, layer in s4, Rayla did not hesitate to make a death threat to Terry. Now, she did to not harm the elf but to get Claudia, and that required to hurt Terry. Even when she turned her back from saving the drake and soren accused... it was not right to linger at miseries that were more like everyday conundrums in front of saving the world from Aaravos. She acted with brutal reason. She acted like Runaan. Two years apart, she has grown hard. Now it's fitting in so, she gets his bow, and I assume, acts with the drive of duty... and at some point that duty, will turn into death. And she will be tested in her resolve.

There may still be her "lingering tendency to think to much" it seems as tho she grew out of it, (cuz s4, drake being captured and doing nothing thing) but Aaravos still accused her of NOT being able to kill. All the others were only addressed in the bitter truths.

"Failed son whose father wishes he had never been born": Check. Soren was trying to win Viren's approval before realizing those acts were vile and forging his own path. And now he harbors distaste and dread for Viren because he was treated unjustly and deceived by his own father.

"Whining child king, I over his head and he knows it": Check. Ezran is literally a child, and though he is brave and decisive, he still is a child... and he has learned to rule with his instinct and guidance of those he trusts. He gave barium a completely made up title (which was cute of him, but this proves my point) and in the short story, King's Council, he did jelly tart heists. He is still growing up. But with the burden of a kingdom kn his shoulders. He will face ordeals where he will doubt his judgement and experience.

"The human mage already tainted by darkness and destined to play right into my hands": Check. And what exactly was Callum doing in that moment? Being controlled. PLAYING INTO HIS HANDS.

Each were assessed with truth. So why Rayla a falsehood must be the question. Her act did kill Viren and thwart his plans and he knows that so why does he bring her down?

There is also the insight that he addressed the past (Soren), present (Callum), and future (Ezran) things those respective people doubted. But with Rayla... he addressed something she thinks she has already worked over. She had no fear venturing to find Viren... and I doubt the thought to kill him did not once cross her mind.

She will have to take a life in order to save someone (probably Callum)... and in that moment she might at first hesitate, but then do what's right.... maybe it won't be Kim but Viren she has to outright stab... and that will finally make her into Runaan, the dutiful assassin.... and Aaravos's addressing her with a taunt will be like poetic justice when she does outright kill someone to disprove his point.... which almost leads me to believe HE WANTS HER TO KILL.

As @zuppizup mentioned.

What if. RAYLA DID KILL KIMDAEL.

And then Aaravos just walks in front of them from behind a wall, slow clapping... and the gang of heros just looks at each other like 😨...

* He revealed himself at that very moment as Rayla's blade pulled out of the corpse and they all look at each other with fear because this means Claudia succeed and they failed...*

Aaravos then with is snarky smug smile says: "Congratulations Rayla. You're an assassin."

And then Rayls crumbles to her knees... saying "what have I become" or smth like that looking at her bloodied blades...

Gives "congratulations Katara. You're a bloodbender" vibes....

[oikadori]

A/N: No one asked for this but I really wanted to write some angsty fic...so this is the outcome of listening to Callum Scott and Conan Gray for three full days asfkasjk sorry this is the longest thing I’ve written Hope you like it!

Miya Atsumu x f!Reader

Summary: He was your best friend and she was perfect, but still you fell for him

Genre: angst, unrequited love 

Warnings: self-doubt, insecurity, swearings 

Now playing: Dancing On My Own, Heather 

WC~2,6K

You should already be used to hear it, but every time Atsumu let out a booming laugh you couldn’t help staring at him with dreamy eyes.

“Oi, Y/N!  Are you even listening to me?” his hazel eyes open, looking at you playfully.

“Yes, I’m hearing you, and no, it wasn’t as funny as you think” he frowns, pushing you from your chair almost making you fall if it wasn’t for his quick grip on your forearm, “You asshole!”

“Why so harsh on me today, sweetheart?”

Yo feel your stomach twist at the nickname, making Atsumu smile at the way your cheeks get a dark red.

“Because you were a total dick with those poor girls” he sighs, tired, stretching his arms behind his head, “You could’ve been nicer, you know?”

Biting your lip, you remember the teary eyes of those girls as they ran away sobbing after they had told him their love confession. Would you have the same luck if- No, no way you had a crush on him.

“They have a crush just on my looks, it’s annoying”, he spits, “Why do you care so much anyways?”

“I…-” he looks at you with curiosity as you carefully think your words, “-I guess I would feel horrible if I were them and confessed”

“Don’t tell me you have a crush on someone Y/N”

“Of course not, all of you ,men, are idiots”, he place his hand on his chest with a wounded look, making your eyes roll, a smile tickling your lips, “Now, hurry with your homework, you’re stealing my lunch time”

He reaches for his bag, taking out his lunch box to hand you the extra Onigiri he had. You smile fondly even if it is not the first time he brings you food during your study sessions.

He was your best friend, yet his gestures never failed to dazzle you.... Maybe you do have a crush on him.

 ///

You enter the gym with a tired look, a yawn slips pass your lips before sitting on the bleachers, you plug your earbuds and take out an unfinished assignment from your bag. The second years wave at you, Atsumu sticking his tongue out, you wave back before locking eyes with him and returning the gesture, making the setter grin.

The next time you lift your eyes from your work, you open them wide before taking off your earbuds to listen to the scene in front of you.

A girl wearing the team’s jacket enter the gym alongside the captain, making it feel as if the time stop. The team look at them in surprise as she bows.

“I’m eager to be your new manager! I used to play but-” she points at her wrist with a shy smile,” I got pretty bad injured so I hope I can be helpful here”, you advert Atsumu’s gaze, making your heart flinch a little.

“I’m Miya Atsumu, setter, I haven’t see ya around before” the girl looks at him with an eager look, leaning closer, a happy smile on her face as Atsumu stands still, the smirk on his face fades as she erases the gap between them. ‘The hell is she doing?’

“Oh, I know you! The star setter, guess what they say about you is truth-”, you wait for the usual compliments girls told him all the time, your lips curve up a little remembering Atsumu’s usual reaction at them, “-your serves are truly monstrous, your technique is impeccable”

His eyes glimmer with curiosity and you notice the light blush on his cheeks as he gives her his best smile. In all the years you’ve known him, you’ve seen him flirting with girls, hooking up with one before getting another, but this…this was different.

You stand up before properly thinking what you are doing. You haven’t felt jealous before and you didn’t have the right for it, but an overwhelming despair sets the pace of your feet as they move towards them.

“I used to be a setter myself but-“

“Hey, Tsumu, see you after practice to finish our chemistry homework?” you peek your head between them, making the girl take a few steps back, a surprise look on her face. Atsumu looks at your innocent smile and blinks.

“Y/N, I told you not to call me that in practice-” he whispers to you, hiding it with a few coughs, “Uhmm, sure” the couch calls them and he waves at you before jogging off with the new manager to line up with the rest.

Your eyes linger on them a few more seconds, he laughs with her, making you furrow your eyebrows together, noticing just now, how beautiful she was.

///

“You still look like crap”

“Shut up, Samu!

You stand between the twins near the main door of the cafeteria, watching Atsumu run his hand through his hair multiple times as he stares at his reflection on one of the windows ‘All that… for her?’

A voice that comes from behind you, makes Atsumu look over your shoulder with a nervousness you haven’t seen before.

“Tsum Tsum!”

He gasps at the sight of her, the short dress she is wearing frames her figure perfectly, and you can’t help to look at your own clothes wondering if you couldn’t have dressed more casually.

You remain silent as she reaches for his hair and ruffles it friendly, the display in front of you feels surreal, suddenly your limbs are numb and your eyes can’t seem to drift away from Atsumu’s happy smile as he grabs her wrist to kiss her hand.

“You look stunning”

“What a gentleman – Oh, hey ‘Samu and-“

“Y/N” the words come sharper than you intended, the girl just let out an innocent giggle

“I’m so sorry! I don’t get to see you a lot in school, you’re in the advanced classes, right?”

“Y/N is a genius, they wouldn’t allow me to play if it wasn’t for her”, Atsumu says pointing at you with pride while his other hand rests on the small of her back guiding her to your table. A lump forms on your throat, making it impossible for you to reply, you  manage to pull an empty smile.

On the table you are silent as ever, nodding at all the conversations the second years try to include you in. Your mind is already far away, wondering all the possibilities that could happen if you were brave enough to confess right there, right now, but the sight in front of you snaps you to reality again.

Atsumu lips gets stained by some red sauce and before you can point it out, she licks her thumb before pressing it on his lips. His cheeks turn bright red and his jaw slightly slacks open.

“How is that you aren’t already dating? It’s been almost three months since you are all over each other” Suna casually says

Three months indeed, and she entered more and more in their small circle. But how could you stop it when she was just…so lovely?

 Atsumu stayed until much later in practice but still you chatted together. Late night texts, becoming in late night calls to check up on each other.

‘I want to ask her out. Fuck, I want her so badly, but what if she rejects me, Y/N!’

‘Tsumu, you’re Japan’s top high school setter. Believe me, she won’t reject you’

Now you want to hit your head against the nearest wall, remembering your stupid words.

“Would you say yes if I ask you out?” 

“I would say yes to more than that” the table falls dead silent at her words as if they waited for the next scene of a movie.

 Suddenly Atsumu press his lips against hers with ferocity, she pulls the collar of his shirt, deepening the already heated kiss. You almost choke on your water, earning a concern look from Kita, you find yourself standing up violently before rushing to the restroom.

You close the door behind you before looking at yourself in the mirror, ‘I could have never competed with her’. You bite your lip, and shut your eyes tightly, your hands grasping both sides of the sink, you let your head fall forwards, eyes fixed on the white of the porcelain as they water.

“Y/N, are you okay?” you stiffen at the soft female voice coming from the other side of the door, “Do you need help?”, you let out an humorless laugh. ‘A sweetheart with everyone, huh?’

“I-I don’t feel good, it’ll better if I head home. Please tell the others, I had an emergency or something” your throat feels extremely dry all of sudden and your voice comes out shaky.

“Oh! I can take you home-“

“I’ll rather go alone! I don’t know if I’m sick and I’d hate to…infect you. Thank you, tho”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes”

“Okay…text me when you get home!”

When you hear the footsteps fading away, you wait a few more minutes to walk out the restroom, just to find Atsumu talking cheerfully, his eyes filled with adoration for her. He didn’t even look at your direction as you left the cafeteria, and in that very moment you realized he would never look at you that way.

 ///

“Where is Y/N, I haven’t seen her in years?”

“I think she is tutoring some first years”

“Oh” Atsumu finds himself looking at your usual spot on the bleachers, he barely got to see or talk to you in the recent weeks. 

You’ve been missing his calls on purpose. Since that dinner, you had to put all your energy to smile at him when he waved at you in the corridors as he held her hand. It had been almost a month of hearing him talking about how gracious she was and weeks of looking how they made out on the couch in the end of the library or against one of the gym’s walls.

You thought that if you put distance with him, you’ll manage to get over that soreness that felt heavy on your chest each time she made him laugh. But no matter how many extra classes you took or how many first years you tutored, your mind always came back to Inarizaki’s setter.

The sky was dark by the time you finished tutoring the last first year, he bowed at you and you gave him a brief smile before locking the classroom. You handled the keys to your teacher and walked out of the building.

The cold wind hit your face, making you shiver, you search for your jacket in your bag, finding only a scarf. Atsumu gave it to you. You haven’t used it in a while now, but the cold was too much to bear with for your thin uniform. You place the material carefully around your neck, caressing the fabric begore sighing, watching your breath fading into the air and start walking.

“Oi” his voice makes you turn instantly, and you catch him jogging to you, “It’s fucking cold out here!- Uh, you still have it?” he points at your neck with a cheeky grin.

Atsumu looks extremely handsome like this, a little pink on his nose and cheeks and the few lights highlight the hazel of his eyes. It makes you gulp before replying.

“Of course, I do. It was my first two-digit birthday!”, he laughs remembering the chaos you both made by that age, you smile a little before looking at him with concern, “What are you still doing here? Something happened?”

“No! I-I just wanted to walk home with you, like we used to” he looks at the ground and sighs, “I know you’re busy, but I missed ya” the words make your heart warm even when you can’t stop shivering, “You are freezing” he takes his volleyball jacket and place it over your shoulders

“No, I’m fine, really. You should-”

“Stubborn as always. What am I supposed to do with your freeze corpse?”, you huff, putting the jacket on as he starts walking.

“What about your girlfriend?”

“She already left, don’t worry she knows you’re my best friend, she won’t act bitchy at you” you just nod and start walking alongside the setter, not caring about the sting that ypu just felt in your heart.

The walk is long and awkward, Atsumu finally getting hit by the way your friendship had changed. Your brief answers and forced smiles make him more and more annoyed, becoming more silent with each minute.

You didn’t have the energy to keep up with his drollery, each time you looked at him you just felt the urge to be held by him and tell him the painful truth: You didn’t have a crush on him. No.  You loved him.

“What is wrong with you?” he says, suddenly stopping.

“Excuse me- “

“If you don’t want to be friends with me anymore, just say it! Jesus!”, his exasperated tone makes your eyes narrow, “-But don’t have me fooling around, worrying about you for almost a month” your mouth twitches downwards as you realize your indifference had hit a spot on his pride. 

For a solid minute you don’t hear anything, you just stare at him with a flood of thoughts rushing through your head until you manage to pull one of them out into a dry whisper.

“We shouldn’t be friends anymore- “his clenched fists loosen, and he watches your lips carefully, “I can’t do it anymore – thought I could but…is too much”,

The crack of your voice makes you stop for second, giving you time to gain a little bit more of air before feeling again as if you were drowning.

“I can’t be friends with you anymore, because I want you!… The worst part is that she is so FUCKING perfect!” your arms move in the air letting out all the feelings you had bottled up.

“I thought I could brush away the feeling, but I realize – I  love you, Atsumu” his mouth opens slightly not able to produce a sound as your arms fall to your sides, a tear streaming down your cheek.

You take his jacket off, the cold air embracing your body, but you can’t care less. He motions to you, but you lift your hand, stopping him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would it have changed anything?” his silence tells you all you needed, making your heart clench, “That – That’s what I though…It’s okay, really. I wouldn’t choose me either” your breath becomes irregular and you bite your lip, capturing a sob, “This is my fault, falling in love with you…If being friends makes you happy, I-I will do my best to be your friend, then”

Atsumu was usually selfish with the things he wanted and proud about the things he made but seeing you there, shivering with red eyes and swollen lips, made his heart ache.

And he couldn’t be less proud about the things he was about to say.

“You were right before. We shouldn’t be friends anymore. I do not want to deal with you being in love with me and my girlfriend”, you hiccup, fixing your sore eyes on his, “You made things so fucking complicated, it’s better to end this now”, he hiss, gritting his teeth, waiting for you to storm out.

 But when he feels your cold lips on his cheek, he bites his bottom lip harshly.

“Sorry, I never meant-”, ‘To fall for you’, it takes all his will power to not envelope you in his arms, so he only turns his face away, hearing your sobs. He loved you but not the way you did. “-to mess us up”

You walk away quickly, tears running down your cheeks as you press your hand firmly against your lips, drowning the uncontrollable sobs. Atsumu stands there watching you disappear into the coldness of the night, shutting his eyes tightly, understanding, he had lost his best friend.

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↳ ∴ Master List ∴

[tenspontaneite]

Across Shared Skin (Chapter 1/?)

When Callum was born, Sarai pored over every inch of his skin by candlelight until she found it: a tiny, diminutive patch of discoloured skin on the back of his tiny, diminutive left hand.

(Second of two pieces written for @falling-for-you-a-rayllum-zine) (Soulmate AU. For the ‘AU’ chapter. Only this instalment was written for the zine; future chapters are all new. Piece length: 7k. Ao3 link)

---

 It was an interesting skin tone. Pale and purplish, almost, plainly evident against the ruddy colour of his newborn body. She wondered if, across whatever distance separated them, her son’s soulmate had noticed the corresponding shift on their own hand. She wondered how much older they were. She wondered many things that, in the end, only the passage of years would be able to answer. But for now, there were observances to meet.

She fetched a pen, and in the tiniest script she could manage, drew lines of ink carefully across the back of her son’s hand. Callum, she wrote, and left it at that.

Others might include a birth-date, or kingdom of residence, or the names of the parents. But Sarai was wary, and wrote only what custom dictated. The name.

She wasn’t expecting a response right away. For all the prominence of the mark’s location, it was late, and whoever waited on the other end might well be asleep. She had expected more to be waiting until morning, at the very least. But, mere minutes later—

Clear and careful, a name unfolded on her son’s skin, directly beneath the one she’d written.

Rayla, it said, and nothing else.

Sarai mulled the name over. It was unusual. Foreign, certainly, though that didn’t guarantee anything about how far away the girl might live. In the end, she nodded, and committed the name to her memory. It might be years until Callum could communicate with his soulmate himself, but until then, he deserved to know her name.

She left both names on Callum’s hand, and set him gently down to sleep.

 ---

 “He might not be a human.” Lain attempted, yet again, looking down for what seemed like the hundredth time at the name on his daughter’s hand. “Elves use the common script, too. And the name—it’s not unusual. It would fit in well with any of the communities that use Draconic more than we do.”

Tiadrin sighed, and eased the glove once again onto Rayla’s squirming fingers. It wasn’t proper to have one’s mark visible in public, but children so often disliked restrictive coverings. “They didn’t write the primal.” She said, flatly, and that was a tired statement too. “What elf wouldn’t write the symbol of the primal their child was born to? It’s tradition.”

The name and the symbol were obligatory. All else—birthdate, location, family—was optional. But there should have been a symbol. Moon, or Sun, or Sky, or Earth—even Ocean—there should have been a symbol. But there wasn’t, and in its absence, they’d omitted Rayla’s moon. If her soulmate was a human, it would keep him safer. It didn’t seem prudent to declare arcanum to a human audience of unknown prejudices.

Lain was quiet, watching as she covered up the damning ink of the unaccompanied names. “He might not be a human.” He repeated, more softly. “Perhaps they omitted his primal for security reasons. Perhaps he’s the son of someone important.” His brow furrowed. “Perhaps he’s a Startouch elf.”

She snorted. “Fat chance of that. And even royalty declare their children’s primal.” She bent down to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “No, Lain. Our daughter has a human soulmate, and we’ll just have to live with that.”

He frowned, resignation and concern written more clearly on him than the names on Rayla’s hand. “…We can’t let anyone find out.” He said, eventually, defeat weighing on his every word. “She’d never be able to do anything without someone questioning her loyalties. She’d be shunned. We can’t let that happen to her.”

Tiadrin nodded. It went without saying, really. “We’ll tell Runaan and Ethari. Everyone else…” She mulled the name over. Callum. It could mean ‘hard-skinned’. It could also, if derived from Columba, mean ‘dove’. Either way, it was a plainly Draconic name, and Moonshadow elves didn’t tend to name their children for Draconic. Others, though… “We’ll say he’s a Skywing elf.” She decided, and her husband hummed approvingly.

“What about Rayla?” He asked, then. “What will we tell her?”

She went quiet. “…I can’t lie to my own daughter about her soulmate, Lain.” She admitted. “We’ll just…have to impress on her the importance of discretion. Children aren’t always the best at keeping secrets, but…”

He held silent for a moment, then smiled. “She’s a Moonshadow elf. She’ll be fine.” He said, and she wished she could share his confidence.

“We’ll see.” Tiadrin said, noncommittal, and left it to that.

 ---

 Once or twice in his early years, Callum experienced little hints of the shared skin between himself and his soulmate. Here and there, he felt phantom fingertips against the back of his hand, the weight of unfamiliar cloth, and—once—the sharp sting of a scratch from some sort of animal across the skin. It healed quickly, as all blemishes on soulmarks did, but he’d gone crying to his mother from the unexpected pain anyway.

People were circumspect about their soulmarks, and that was part of the background hum of culture that he was raised to. He wasn’t to show his soulmark in public. He wasn’t even to say where it was. He wore fingerless gloves, on both hands, to disguise it—and, at least until he was able to talk to her, he wasn’t even supposed to tell anyone her name.

He did, though.

He finger-spelled it out to Aunt Amaya, albeit clumsily. “Her name is Rayla,” he said, almost solemnly, with the motions of his hands. She smiled at him indulgently and raised a finger to her lips in a ‘hush’ motion.

She wasn’t the only person he told. He told the officer of the Standing Battalion who was watching his mother and Amaya’s latest sparring match. He told the baker that they went to buy sweets from. He told near everyone he met, when he was going through the typical three-year-old’s phase of desperate interest in the phenomenon of a soulmate, and his mother sighed at him for it every time.

Again and again, he asked her to write something to Rayla. To ask questions, to find out something more about her, anything. He had a soulmate, and he wanted to know more about her than her name and skin colour.

“It wouldn’t be right, Callum.” She told him, patiently. “Only soulmates should speak through their skin. You’ll just have to wait until you can write to her yourself.”

Callum scowled, and set back into learning his alphabet very vehemently indeed. Because that was the thing:

It wasn’t proper for someone else to write to your soulmate for you. It wasn’t even proper to be walked through spelling out an introduction. When you first wrote to your soulmate, you were supposed to do it yourself. And you were supposed to wait until you were good enough to manage basic conversation, too.

Callum didn’t want to wait until he had words to communicate with. So, one evening, in abject defiance of custom and propriety, he took off his glove and doodled a little flower on the back of his hand. He fell asleep feeling particularly pleased with himself, and somehow, didn’t consider that writing upon shared skin might garner a response.

He woke to a tiny, clumsy flower-doodle scrawled beside his own.

 ---

 Rayla was something of a lonely child. She didn’t have friends her age, having never meshed well with the other children. She didn’t play like the other children did, preferring instead to train with Runaan, or go off sneaking into the forest alone. She didn’t socialise and the closest thing she had to friends were the adoraburrs she brought home by the armful. So, really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she became so taken with her soulmate.

It started when, one day, Rayla ran up to them with her expression so bright it was impossible not to smile back at her. And then they saw what was on her hand, and Tiadrin had to restrain a surprised laugh at the neat little flower doodled on her daughter’s hand. “Oh, well,” She managed, and shared a glance with Lain. “That’s…” She remembered, for a moment, that this was a human, but… “That’s incredibly cute.” She sighed in the end, because it was, and Rayla was so charmingly pleased with the tiny drawing. “Congratulations, Rayla.”

“It’s only a flower,” said their rambunctious, headstrong little girl, but there was no hiding how delighted she was. “He didn’t even write anything.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know how, yet.” Tiadrin said, while she tried to remember how old Rayla’s soulmate was. “He’s not quite four, and that’s very young for writing.” She shook her head. “Well, I suppose we’d best get you your skin-inks, if you’re going to be talking now. Or drawing.” Suddenly, she levelled her daughter with a penetrating look. “Remind me what you know about talking to your soulmate, Rayla.”

She stilled for a second, and fell from her childish delight into the more bullheaded determination that accompanied her through her training. “Nothing ‘bout elves, or Xadia, or where we live, or anyone’s names, or magic, or assassins.”

Lain reached out and ruffled her hair. “Good girl.” He praised, and she beamed at him. When she was older, no doubt, she’d chafe against those restrictions. They’d make it very hard to talk to one’s soulmate about anything of substance, after all. But for now, she was content.

Rayla puffed up. “I’m gonna draw him an adoraburr!” She announced, and both of her parents made despairing noises.

“Rayla, honey, adoraburrs are magic.” Tiadrin explained, patiently, and her daughter’s face fell. Evidently, this might be more challenging than they’d thought.

(Rayla drew the adoraburr anyway. Adoraburrs were everywhere, after all. What could it hurt?)

 *

 Callum kept up a clandestine exchange of doodles with his soulmate for months before his mother found out. Rayla always used some sort of weird ink that washed off his skin really easily, while his ink lingered in faded outlines for days after he scrubbed it off. It was that which caught him, in the end.

“Callum,” his mother sighed, a little despairingly, at the evidence of many successive generations of doodles on the skin of his hand. “You’re supposed to wait until you can write.”

He made a face at her from the side of the bath, where he really should have expected he’d be caught. “It’s not hurting anyone.” He muttered, chagrined. “We’re just drawing.”

She pursed her lips, reluctantly curious. “She draws back? Or does she write?”

“She draws.” He admitted. “She got this weird ink that washes off easy.”

After a brief correction to his grammar, she shook her head. “Skin-ink. It’s made to wash off. I’ll have to get you some, I suppose.” She watched him almost tiredly for several long moments, then said “I’ll not stop you from drawing to each other, Callum. But this means we’ll need to have your security lessons earlier than normal. There are things you’re not supposed to talk to soulmates about—things that could hurt the kingdom. Do you understand?”

He didn’t. But he pretended he did, to make her happy.

In the end, she held the skin-inks hostage until he could dutifully rattle off the list of things he wasn’t supposed to talk about. This included: local governance, anything about how much food people had or where the food or water was kept, anything about the military (this being especially relevant, considering his mother and aunt), anything about the nobility, and a laundry list of other things.

When he was older, he’d understand the rationale behind it; that the careless words of children to their soulmates could reach the ears of adults who knew how to use them. A complaint about always being hungry might not mean much to the soulmate—but to an adult, it might indicate famine in a neighbouring kingdom. It might indicate weakness. And there were many such ways to damn one’s nation.

Of course, by the time he understood, he was himself a member of the nobility—a prince of Katolis. The damage an unwary prince might do with spilled secrets was potentially catastrophic, and so the lessons were drummed into his head until he almost felt wary to so much as touch the nib of his pen to the back of his hand. It would be so easy to give something away.

But, for now, he was only a child, and the ink on his skin held no secrets. He drew flowers, and birds, and cats, and dogs, and horses. His soulmate drew flowers, and weird circles with eyes, and animals that either had spikes on their heads or extra ears, and occasionally she attempted birds too. She wasn’t very good, but the drawings were from her, so he treasured them anyway.

He just wished he could write already, and talk to her properly.

 ---

 Callum tugged on his mother’s sleeve and requested a writing test every week. And, every time, she looked over whatever she’d told him to write, praised his progress, and said, “Not yet.”

Not yet, every time. It meant ‘you are not yet at the level appropriate for talking to a soulmate’, and Callum thought it was an exceptionally annoying standard to hold someone to. It wasn’t like he and Rayla weren’t already sort-of talking, with their pictures. What did it matter if his spelling was bad or his handwriting messy or his letters extremely slow to form? But his mother was adamant.

Time passed, and in the wake of the great upheavals in his life, Callum wished more than ever before that he could talk to his soulmate. His mother married royalty, and she was crowned Queen, and Callum named prince, and in the overwhelming confusion of trying to adapt to life in the castle he desperately wished he could talk to Rayla about it. He didn’t have anyone to talk to, really. The only kids at the castle were Lord Viren’s children, and he didn’t know them well enough to confide in. But Rayla was his soulmate. He should be able to talk to her, right?

…But then, he realised, when his mother started to hesitate a little before saying “not yet,” he wouldn’t be able to talk to Rayla about this, anyway. His mother marrying a King, and him moving into a castle…that was big, important stuff. The sort of stuff soulmates weren’t meant to talk about, if they didn’t know for sure which kingdom they were loyal to.

That realisation left him sour and solemn for days. Still, he wanted to be able to talk to her about some things, even if not the big stuff that he wasn’t allowed to mention. He thought he was getting close to being pronounced ready, but…

In the end, Rayla lost patience before he did.

When Callum felt the scrawl of pen on his skin, it was an automatic reflex to duck away to somewhere secluded to peel off his glove and watch. This time, though, the scrawl just…kept going, as he headed for a secluded spot among a few trees, and he thought she must be drawing something unusually large and elaborate.

He just about fell over when he removed the glove to find words there.

The handwriting was messy, and slow to form. He was slow to read it. But it was unmistakably words.

Are you ever gonna write? Rayla asked, through their shared skin, and he stared at the back of his hand with his heart beating so hard it made his head feel weird and dizzy and hot. She was talking to him! Really talking!

After a moment, she underlined ‘ever’.

He panicked for several long minutes about what he should do. Mom said he shouldn’t. She said ‘not yet’. But that was about him making contact. The younger soulmate was supposed to do it first, after all.

He hesitated, rummaged for his pen and inks, and finally wrote Sorry. Mom won’t let me yet. It took him a long time. The letters were huge and messy and barely fit on the shared skin. For the first time in his life, he felt embarrassed for his handwriting, and suddenly understood why his mother might be saying ‘not yet’.

There was a pause as she wiped off her skin-inks and both sets of words vacated his skin. In her impatience, she left a vague inky smear behind. But you just wrote now, she pointed out, and – and his face burned, he felt unbearably shy and unbearably excited and nervous all at once…was this how people normally felt when they talked to their soulmates for the first time?

He ducked his head, flushed, and scrawled You did it first. He accidentally wrote over some of her letters in the process.

She washed off the inks again. Yeah, cause you were taking forever!! She paused, then added a few more exclamation marks for emphasis. I was so bored waiting.

After a brief pause where he carefully sounded out the word ‘waiting’ to figure out what it said, he wrote Me too.

Waiting had been annoying, and senseless, and stupid. Maybe it was a bit embarrassing to put bad handwriting on someone else’s skin, but…shouldn’t that be up to them to decide? If she still wanted to talk even though his writing was bad…then wasn’t it okay?

She had contacted him. He couldn’t be blamed for that, right?

…And it wasn’t like he hadn’t already broken tradition by drawing, anyway.

As soon as she washed their ink off, he started writing again. But we’re writing now, so I guess it’s okay?

Finally! Rayla wrote, in a quick and victorious scrawl, and also drew a little smiley face next to it. It was fairly delightful.

I’m Callum, he offered, a little shyly, after a moment. This, at least, he had practiced a lot.

I know. She wrote, the letters blocky and cheerful. I’m Rayla.

I know, he scrawled back, and imagined that on the other side of their connection, she was smiling too.

 ---

 Callum learned a lot of things about his soulmate, in the weeks after she opened contact.

He learned that she liked to go exploring in the woods, which her town was inside. She wouldn’t say much about her town, but he got the idea it was pretty small.

He learned that she spent most of her time ‘training’, and while she wouldn’t say what she was training for, he gathered that it involved weapons and fighting and—apparently—being able to jump and flip around a lot.

He learned that she loved her parents and had two sort-of uncles who were married to each other, and one of those uncles was the one who trained her.

He learned that she absolutely detested water, and was terrified of it, and even the prospect of a bath was completely awful to her.

He learned that she was stubborn, and determined, and occasionally so blunt it was kind of rude. He learned that she didn’t really have friends, and while she put on a good show of not caring about that…

We’re friends, though, he pointed out to her, and felt the warmth of her fingertips lingering beneath the words for several minutes before she replied.

Yeah, she said, and that was all.

 ---

 Rayla learned many things about her soulmate, in turn.

He was kind of shy, and got nervous easily, and wasn’t very good at talking to the kids where he lived. He had moved towns not all that long ago, and really wasn’t used to it yet, and found the new place kind of big and scary. He loved his mother an insane amount, and…didn’t seem to have a father. His mother had remarried, though, and had a baby on the way. He was cautiously excited about that.

He wasn’t good at fighting, and though he’d started sword lessons, he hated it and wished he didn’t have to do it. He took a lot of lessons—with tutors, instead of at a school—and wasn’t terribly keen on those, either. What he did like was drawing, and even though they could write now, he kept drawing things for her. Because he wanted to.

I want to draw stuff for you, he wrote, very firmly, and Rayla’s heart fluttered too much for her to think of objecting.

In all, he was really nice, considering he was a human.

...Maybe he wouldn’t be so nice, though, if he knew that she was an elf.

 ---

 Callum was a shy and often tongue-tied boy out in the halls and grounds of the castle. In private, though, he never seemed to stop talking. And, unsurprisingly, one of his absolute favourite topics was his soulmate. As such, Sarai found out very rapidly when they’d started writing, and honestly wasn’t surprised by it at all. Only a little exasperated.

Time passed and Callum chattered, and Sarai grew to know a lot about her son’s soulmate. But there were things about her that she didn’t know. That she hadn’t even guessed about. Until…

“She spells things weirdly.” Callum confided, one day, while she was brushing his hair. “I tried telling her she was spelling stuff wrong but she just said that I’m spelling stuff wrong. Like ‘color’. She puts a ‘u’ in it. And she spells ‘mom’ with a ‘u’ too. It’s so weird.”

Sarai paused, brush stilling in his hair for a second, before she made herself complete the stroke. “Oh?” She said, lightly, allowing no trace of her unease into her voice. “That is odd. Does she spell any other words like that?”

Callum thought for a while. “She uses ‘s’ instead of ‘z’ a lot?” He ventured. “Like…she’ll spell ‘realize’ with an ‘s’. And sometimes she uses different words for things too. She calls pants ‘trousers’. I think maybe she’s from a kingdom where they say stuff different?”

“The common tongue does change a little, depending on where it’s spoken.” Sarai agreed, by all appearances unbothered. “So more likely than not, your Rayla speaks and writes with her regional dialect.” She paused, and carefully, she asked “Did she ever say where she was from?”

She could almost hear Callum’s face scrunching up. “No,” he admitted. “I guess she’s had security lessons too. I know she lives somewhere in a huge forest, though. She talks about it a lot.”

Sarai hummed, with the usual fond interest, and didn’t ask him to tell her more. He would, in time; he loved talking about his soulmate. If she asked, it would only make him suspicious. He was a bright boy. He’d notice. “Maybe one day she can give you tree-climbing lessons.” She suggested, and then that was all he could talk about for the next hour.

She listened more closely, after that. And, slowly, day by day, the clues started adding up.

“She says she lives inside a tree!” Callum declared one day, absolutely astonished and absolutely delighted and wanting her to know all about it. “A tree big enough that they could carve a house inside it! That must be so cool!”

Sarai agreed easily that it was very cool, and did not mention that there were no trees so large within the Pentarchy.

“I still draw her stuff, even though we can write now.” Her son said cheerfully, maybe a few weeks after the treehouse revelation. “She draws back sometimes, but she doesn’t like doing it because she doesn’t think she’s very good at it.”

“What does she draw?” Sarai inquired, and was presented with his hand, the skin-ink a little smudged around the shape of a fuzzy ball with a cute little face.

“Mostly these round fuzzy things.” He confided. “Sometimes she draws them stacked on each other.”

For a moment, she couldn’t answer. She stared, silent, at what was unmistakably an adoraburr, one of those creatures so common and omnipresent in Xadia that sometimes their charred fuzzy bodies were found fallen into the crevices of the Breach. Viren frequently received shipments of them. Apparently they were useful in some spells.

“Cute.” She commented, in the end, and knew by her son’s abrupt quietness that she hadn’t quite managed to hide her reaction.

She went to Harrow, almost as soon as she let Callum go out to play.

“I think Callum’s soulmate is an elf.” She said to him, without preamble, as soon as they were in private. He froze, and studied her, and watched her with wide eyes as he exhaled. He reached out and took her hand.

“Tell me everything.” He said, and she did. She explained the dialect, and the treehouse, and the adoraburrs, and every other clue her son had cheerfully rattled off at her over the months.

They brought Viren in. He agreed, from his acquaintance with stolen Xadian texts, that the dialect matched. He mentioned that there were enormous forests in Xadia not all that far from the border, and that they were home to a number of communities of Moonshadow elves. There might be other great forests elsewhere, of course. But that was the one he knew of.

From there on, she started noting down everything. The vague idea of ‘maybe she’s a Moonshadow elf’ went from ‘possible’ to ‘very likely’ when Sarai relayed the soulmate’s enthusiasm for a monthly community dance that—when she checked—turned out to fall on the full moon, every month. (Coincidentally, Callum had stopped complaining about his ballroom dancing lessons. She’d have found this much cuter if not for the circumstances.)

“The history texts I have say that Moonshadow elf tradition places a lot of emphasis on dancing.” Viren told her, almost apologetically, when she came back with this latest report.

“There’s no sense denying it any more, is there.” Sarai said, wearily, rubbing at her aching temples. Her son’s soulmate was an elf. Perhaps a Moonshadow elf, even, and those were some of the deadliest and most vicious elves there were. Combined with all of Callum’s mentions of his soulmate’s training…

Harrow laid his hand on her arm in warm, wordless reassurance. “What do you want to do?” he asked, quiet, and she sighed.

“I don’t know.” She admitted. In the end, it took a long talk with her sister before she made up her mind, and even then…it was hard to know what to do. How to react.

“He should know.” Was Amaya’s brusque opinion, expression laced with sympathy as she signed. “He’s a prince now, and he needs to know to watch his words around this soulmate of his. It’s a shame, but he’s hardly the first person to have an enemy for a soulmate.”

“There’s that.” Sarai agreed, glumly, and tried to stop worrying about what it meant for her son’s future, that his soulmate was an elf.

It was hard, telling him. Hard to sit him down and inform him, very seriously, that she was near certain that his soulmate was an elf. It was hard to watch the way his expression went…blank, almost. Closed-off, for a few seconds before it became confused and vulnerable instead.

“…What does this mean?” He asked, quiet, and she wasn’t sure what to tell him.

“It means that you need to be very, very careful what you tell her.” She said, in the end, because that was what she knew. “Her people are at war with ours, Callum. I won’t tell you to cut contact with her—she’s your soulmate. You couldn’t. But…” She exhaled, and shook her head. “I’ll get you some reading.”

She sent him off with a number of historical accounts about the tragedies of loyalty and heartbreak that could come from soulbonds divided by war, and wished that fate had been kinder.

 ---

 Callum was quiet for days, after he learned the truth. He read through the books his mother gave him, even though they were long with tiny script and big words that he didn’t know, and felt more and more upset at the possibilities they implied for his future.

His soulmate…was an enemy. An elf. One of the people Aunt Amaya called bloodthirsty monsters.

He was short and brusque in his replies to her, for a while. He looked at the almost purplish hue of the shared skin with new eyes, and wondered what she looked like. Did she have horns? Pointy ears? The wrong number of fingers and toes? He’d wondered what she looked like before, of course, but…never in terms of how inhuman she might look.

She caught on to his strange behaviour very quickly. Did something happen? She asked him, through their skin, her handwriting its familiar blocky scrawl. You’ve been all quiet.

He wasn’t sure what to say. Wasn’t sure how to reconcile his feelings towards Rayla, his closest friend and his soulmate, with the knowledge that she was an elf. Kind of, he wrote, in the end, heart heavy. He wished his mother hadn’t told him. He wished he didn’t know. I found some stuff out, and I don’t know what to think.

There was a pause while she washed the ink off. And then: Do you want to talk about it?

He didn’t. Not then. So he passed the following weeks, reading her usual reports of daily life, and wondering what exactly she was training for, day after day after day. Why such long hours, when she was so young? Who exactly was she planning on using those combat skills against?

They were heavy thoughts for a child as young as he was, but there was hardly any escaping them. He tried to focus on happier things, like his mother’s pregnancy, and the nigh arrival of his younger sibling. He tried to think of how Claudia was pretty and friendly and fun to talk to, and definitely wasn’t an elf. He tried to think of a lot of things that weren’t his soulmate, and failed fairly thoroughly.

In the end, after weeks of stilted conversation, he couldn’t take it anymore, and sat down with skin-ink and pen to write: You’re an elf, aren’t you.

She didn’t reply for a long time. But eventually, he felt the tickle of a pen-nib at the back of his hand, and retreated into private to peel off the glove. Yeah, she’d written, and nothing else. Not for a few minutes. Then: You’re a human.

It wasn’t a question. He hesitated, wiped off the ink, and wrote You knew?

Yeah, she said again, and then haltingly explained. Apparently, elves wrote their children’s names to their soulmates just like humans did, except they always included some sort of magic symbol, so her parents had known he was human the second his name came through without it.

He asked what hers was. He probably shouldn’t have, and she probably shouldn’t have answered, but she did. She drew a little symbol, and he took it carefully to his mother.

“Moonshadow elf,” she concluded, with honest sympathy, like someone offering condolences. “Like we thought. I’m sorry, Callum.”

‘I’m sorry’, like it was a death-sentence.

He sighed, and put his glove back on. “I’ll be careful.” He promised, quiet, and left to be alone.

 ---

 Both of them were quieter, after that. There was less idle chatter. Less writing about their days, their experiences, the things that annoyed them and the things they enjoyed. He still wrote—he didn’t think he could have stopped himself if he tried. But there was a wariness between them now that he hated.

Still. There were at least some advantages to having an elf on the other end of his soulbond. Investigating rumours, for one. My friend says elves drink blood, he wrote, one day, with a sort of morbid interest. Is that true?

What?? No!! She wrote, furiously, and then underlined it twice and circled it for good measure.

She reciprocated, sometimes.

Is it true humans have extra fingers? She asked, and he responded by drawing his hand onto the back of his hand. Weird, was her response to that, and despite everything, he couldn’t help but smile.

 ---

 I heard that in Xadia everything is magic, he wrote, one day. Is that true? What’s it like?

She hesitated a long while, then wrote I’m not supposed to talk about magic. Or Xadia.

It hurt, a little. But in the end, they both had their security lessons, and their people were still at war. There was nothing to be done.

Eventually, he wrote what had been on his mind for months, now. I wonder how we’ll meet, he said, with a twist of emotion that was half unease and half interest. It was on his mother’s mind, he knew, and it was certainly a thought he kept coming back to, for good reason.

Soulmates always met eventually, whether or not they contrived to. Even if they tried to avoid it…it would happen someday. His mother was worried about it. The circumstances under which a Prince of Katolis might meet an elf were almost exclusively unpleasant, after all. But he entertained childish thoughts of peace treaties and reconciliation, and clung to them, as unlikely as they might be.

I have no idea, Rayla answered him eventually, and he wondered if she was worried, too.

 ---

 The next year or so was eventful for both of them. Callum’s little brother was born, and he instantly became utterly enchanted with him. He wrote to Rayla at considerable length about how tiny his fingers and toes were, how fuzzy his hair was, how he didn’t have a soulmark yet at all. He never wrote his name, because names were forbidden, but Rayla seemed entertained enough by the stories anyway.

Some time later, Rayla went quiet for a while, and was plainly subdued by something. Eventually, she admitted that her parents had agreed to taking a job that meant they had to go away. She wouldn’t see them more than once a year now, if that. Whatever job it was, it was supposedly an honour; but that didn’t help how much she missed them. She was living with her uncles, now.

You can write letters to them, maybe? He suggested. It wasn’t as good as the real-time writing between soulmates, but it was better than nothing.

I guess, she said, but didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it. Her life changed, but Callum’s went on.

 ---

 And then Callum’s life shattered around him.

He shut himself in his room and cried for hours, burying his face in his hands, until tears were streaming between his fingers and his chest hurt and everything felt so awful he had no idea how to cope. How could he? She was gone.

Not much could carry across shared skin. But evidently, enough of the salt-water managed it for Rayla to be alarmed. By the time he checked what she’d written, the tears had smeared and diluted the inks, but the words were still recognisable. Is something wrong? She’d asked, hurried enough that it looked alarmed. Are you crying?

He nearly collapsed, when he went to get the inks. Could hardly see through tears when he wrote, lopsided and awful, My mom is dead. Writing it was terrible. An admission that it was real, it had happened, she was dead.

Rayla didn’t know what to say to that, and he could tell. She wrote I’m so sorry, Callum, and asked if there was anything she could do, if he wanted to talk about anything. But there wasn’t, and he didn’t. Mom was dead. What was there to talk about?

Eventually, perhaps for lack of anything else to try, Rayla drew him a little flower. She’d done it to try to make him feel better, and—and somehow, that made him start sobbing all over again.

A long way down the line, she asked him how it had happened. He couldn’t answer. Of course he couldn’t. That the Dragon King had killed her would reveal too much.

But saying ‘I can’t talk about that’ was revealing in its own way, too.

 ---

 Years passed them by. Callum slowly pieced his life back together around the hole his mother had left, and learned to cope with the loneliness of being without her. His brother grew, and started talking, and swiftly became the dearest person in Callum’s life…except, perhaps, for the elf on the other end of his soulbond.

In many ways, things stayed the same. Callum hated his training and Rayla loved hers. He loved drawing—and became very good at it—and Rayla continued to hate water. She remained as stubborn and headstrong as ever, and she remained his friend.

Sometimes, he had no idea what he’d do without her. Soren was kind of an unpleasant friend, most of the time, and Claudia was always too occupied with her books or lessons or brother to answer his attempts to socialise. He had Ezran, of course, but without Rayla…he could only imagine how lonely he’d have been.

Sometimes he remembered all over again that she was an elf, and felt weird about how much he depended on her.

He still wondered how they’d meet.

 ---

 King Harrow and Lord Viren, with very little warning, departed Katolis and rode into Xadia. There, they killed the Dragon King, and his son the Dragon Prince, and returned covered in a glory that Harrow’s bearing didn’t reflect. Callum wondered if the revenge had felt as hollow to enact as he felt to receive it. The one who killed mom is dead now, he thought, and didn’t feel vindicated. Didn’t feel happy. He just felt…empty. What was the use of it, so many years after her death? She was still dead.

He wished he could talk to Rayla about it. But if names were a forbidden topic, then revealing that his step-father had ridden into Xadia and killed their King…that was plainly out of the question. So he told her nothing.

He wondered if it was his imagination, that she’d grown quieter anyway. When she wrote, she seemed unhappy. Preoccupied, too.

Weeks passed, and she admitted that she was going to be travelling soon. She didn’t say why, or to where, or what for—all of that was proscribed. But she gave it as warning, anyway, that she’d be able to talk less while en route.

In the month that followed, the brevity of their contact left him lonelier than ever.

 ---

 “You must be careful, Rayla.” Runaan said to her, in private, where the other assassins couldn’t hear. “For the first time, you are venturing into the human kingdoms. You must take particular care to avoid meeting your soulmate.”

“Everyone meets their soulmate eventually.” She muttered back to him, fingers resting reflexively over the guard on her left hand.

He was unmoved. “Yes. But, with luck, you can avoid it taking place on this mission.”

It was, in fairness, a very important mission. She sighed. “I’ll do my best.” She promised, though it wasn’t exactly within her control.

When the Full Moon was nigh, and the bindings tight around her wrists, Rayla broke into Katolis Castle and went looking for her quarry.

The first non-soldier she found was a young human boy, maybe around her age. She didn’t know how old Prince Ezran was, but she knew he wasn’t an adult, and…according to what she’d been taught, this boy was wearing pretty high-quality clothes. If he wasn’t Ezran, he should at least know who was.

She chased him. She cornered him. He said, “I am Prince Ezran,” and looked up at her with a resolve and solemnity that didn’t quite manage to mask his fear.

It hit her, then, looking down the length of her blade towards the face of this human boy waiting to die. It hit her that—that he was afraid, that he didn’t want to die, that he was a person, as much as she was, as much as her soulmate was, he was a human just like Callum and she was here to kill him—

But…she had to do it. She had to. She’d bound herself, it was her mission, it was the justice that the Dragon Prince deserved. She had to.

It was in the midst of trying to talk herself into it, and him trying to talk her out of it, that a child’s voice emerged from behind a painting.

It said, “Callum”, and she only had a moment for her blood to freeze before, at her feet, the terrified human boy, the boy who had claimed to be Prince Ezran, the boy she’d been about to kill—

He answered. He responded. It was his name.

What were the chances that she’d meet someone named Callum—the correct age, the correct species, everything—and it wouldn’t be her soulmate?

The painting edged open, revealing a younger human boy with some sort of weird pet. A pet she’d heard descriptions of, held in the arms of a child she’d been hearing about since he was born, looking worriedly between her and the boy she had at swordpoint—

She realised she’d been frozen for too long. She realised that, one way or another, she had to be sure. She reached over, and hit herself hard on the back of her left hand.

The human, in an instant and involuntary motion, flinched and gripped the back of his own left hand. Her heart thudded, and— it only took him a second to realise—

His eyes went wide. He glanced wildly between her and his hand, undoubtedly registering that she was a Moonshadow elf, that she was the right age, that she was—

“Rayla?” He squeaked, and if she hadn’t already known for certain, that would have told her.

She lowered her sword, utterly struck by how much of a disaster this was.

“Shit.” She said, succinctly, and stared at the astounded face of her soulmate.

What in Xadia’s name was she supposed to do now?

 ---

 Notes:

I’ve adored this piece ever since I wrote it in Whenever, Early 2020. Really, really thrilled to be able to share it with everyone at last. As you can tell, it ends on a pretty rude cliffhanger. It’s always invited follow-up, and I think I knew from the moment I finished it that I’d be continuing it someday. And so I did! Eventually!!

According to my discord message history, I began writing chapter 2 in February this year, 2021. I probably wrote the following two chapters within a mad haze in the same week or two, knowing me. The chapters are uncharacteristically short, considering my usual habits, but it felt right for the story. I’ve completed up to the end of chapter 4, and have nothing written after that yet.

Minor edits have been made from the zine version, including some formatting, but nothing drastic. Writing this piece in general was a challenge. There was so much I wanted to include – about the differences in Callum’s life, about Ezran’s soulmate – that I had to cut out because of the word count restriction. Ultimately I opted not to edit that back in for the online version, and simply fill it in organically through the rest of the story. There’s some really interesting stuff, and the story as a whole is going to be wildly canon-divergent.

Some worldbuilding details: - platonic soulmates are considerably more common than romantic ones - there’s some cool weird soulmate metaphysics re: magic

I think I’ll keep it vague and let everyone discover how I’m doing soulmates for themselves, though. Hope everyone enjoyed! Would really love comments on this one; I’ve been waiting so long to share it and I’m so excited.

(also I’m fully aware that the fic’s acronym is ASS, and I’ve decided to embrace this)