#this song makes me froth at the mouth and curl up on the floor

[bitemarx]

jesus christ, i’m alone again, so what did you do those three days you were dead? cause this problem’s gonna last more than a weekend. well, jesus christ, i’m not scared to die. i’m a little bit scared of what comes after… i know you think that i’m someone you can trust, but i’m scared i’ll get scared and i swear i’ll try to nail you back up.

[salazarslytherin]

dance lessons (j.p x gn!y/n)

requested: yes! by @riddikulusweasleys

🃛 masterlist!

summary: james teaches you how to dance

cw/tw: nothing, fluff is all, genderneutral!reader!!!

word count: 1.5k

a/n: short and sweet james fluff <3 hope you like it love! reblog to boost xxx

tag list at the bottom ☯︎ join tag list here

"So Y/N, who are you going to the ball with?"

Suddenly, all eyes were on you, the vivid conversation that had fogged the large table vanishing as you stared at Sirius like a deer in headlights. Froth covered your top lip from the mug of butterbeer you'd been sipping on, and you quickly wiped it away on your sleeve, blinking and stuttering slightly as you tried to answer the question.

"Um, no one."

Mutters of confusion sounded around the round table, a few other students in the Three Broomsticks whispering to each other as they caught wind of your words.

"What? Did nobody ask you to-"

Marlene delivered a quick slap to Dorcas's shoulder, widening her eyes as a quick sign of 'shut up' before turning back and smiling at you, a reassuring look in her eyes.

"It's okay Y/N, there's still time before the ball."

You shook your head at your friends, biting your lip to prevent a laugh from bubbling out of your mouth.

"No, no, no. It's not that, I just don't really feel like going to the ball."

A series of gasps sounded around the table – your friends were quite the drama kings and queens indeed.

"It's not that big of a deal! Relax."

Protests of "of course it's a big deal!" came around, but you quickly cut them off, wanting nothing more than to just move on from the conversation.

"Who wants another round of butterbeer? I'm buying!"

⚔︎.

"So, Y/N."

It was three days later now, you and James were sat in the library working on a transfiguration essay that was due the day after. Leafing through a reference book, you hummed lightly at James, a gesture for him to continue.

"Why aren't you going to the Yule Ball?"

Letting out a groan, your head fell to the table, knocking against the book.

"Can we not talk about that? Sirius literally bugged me about it all of potions."

Twirling his quill in his hand, James quirked an eyebrow at you, an inquisitive look in his eyes.

"Yeah, but unlike them, I know that you were asked. I was there when you were asked. By like, four different people. Why didn't you just agree to one of them and go?"

Letting out a deep sigh, your head turned to face the boy, tucking your hands under your legs as you sat on them, sheepish as you stared at him.

"Okay I can tell you. Just, don't laugh or whatever."

The boy nodded at you, his brows furrowed in uncertainty as he watched you trap your bottom lip between your teeth. Gnawing on the flesh, your eyes fluttered between his, dropping down for a second before exhaling:

"I don't know how to dance."

⚔︎.

That's how you ended up in the Room of Requirement, staring at your shoes while James fiddled with a charmed record player, putting on some old classical song that you might have heard somewhere in passing.

"Alright, are you ready?"

You looked up at James, pursing your lips in a semi pout.

"James I swear I've got two left feet or something, s'not gonna work out very well."

The boy rolled his eyes, straightening his back in true Pureblood fashion as he looked down at you.

"Please. I've had dance lessons since I was four. I can teach you to dance anything."

Stretching his arms out towards you, James raised his eyebrows, gesturing for you to move towards him.

"Come on, I'll lead."

⚔︎.

"Left, two, three."

"Shit!"

James's foot snapped away from under yours, the two of you stumbling as his arm wrapped tighter around your waist. Holding you closer to him, the pair of you fell down to the ground, you landing on top of him.

Your chests were pressed together, your lips ghosting his for a moment as your eyes refocused on James's. Your face was dangerously close to the bespectacled boy's, your breath fogging his glasses slightly. Noticing your distance, you scrambled to get up, brushing yourself off as you stood up. "Sorry James! Fuck, told you I can't dance." The boy laid on the ground for a few more seconds, his eyes blinking in a mist of mild confusion before he stood up as well, clearing his throat awkwardly. "That wasn't too bad. It's literally your first attempt, don't get so distraught over one mishap."

You raised your eyebrows at the boy.

"Really. One mishap. Sure, that's the first time we fell on the ground, but it's like the tenth time I've stepped on your foot."

The seeker rolled his eyes at you, stepping closer to wrap his arm around your waist again as the music automatically looped on the player. He took your hand in his larger one, extending your arms towards the door before stepping backwards.

"Yeah, well, mistakes happen Y/N. This doesn't mean that you can't dance. You're literally learning. It takes time. Not just three hours in this room."

You sighed as you stepped to the side, instinctively responding to James's movements as the two of you waltzed in time to the music.

"Do you really not want to go to the ball?"

You rolled your eyes as your feet glided over the wooden floor, James's hand resting on the small of your back as he guided you into a heel turn, shoes clicking on the smooth maple.

"I-, I don't know."

Your arm was lifted over your head as James twirled you gently, your arm extending as your left foot stepped out sideways, your intertwined hands extending as your free arms stretched outwards, before turning back in to clasp each other gently once more.

"Come on Y/N, it'll be fun."

As if to emphasize his point, James twirled you outwards, the tenacity with which he did so making you laugh as your hand flew out instinctively. Laughing alongside you, James pulled you back in, your body whirling closer towards his in a laugh.

The laugh was cut off as the momentum made you stumble, James letting go of your hand to catch you, fingers interlocking as he wrapped his arms around your waist fully. Eyes squeezing shut in fear of falling, only to find your chest pressed against James's as he pulled you in.

One eye opened as you looked up at the bespectacled boy, the other quickly following it as you watched James, his eyes darting down to glance at your lips before looking back into your eyes.

Your chests rose and fell in unison, as the seconds ticked on you became acutely aware of the fact that his grip hadn't loosened, hands wrapped around your waist, eyes boring into yours.

"Um-"

"Y/N-"

Your mouths opened in unison, smiling as both of you stopped simultaneously.

"You go."

James nodded, his bottom lip sticking out as he furrowed his brows in a bout of uncertainty.

"Do you, wanna go to the ball with me?"

A smile blossomed on your face.

"Don't you have a date?"

James looked up awkwardly, his arms stiffening around you but still not quite letting go.

"Um, I might have... been waiting to ask someone."

The corner of your lip curled upwards as you looked up at the boy.

"Oh yeah? But what if that someone still doesn't want to go?"

James's arms pulled you closer – somehow it was still possible. Your chest fully pressed against his, the prominent smell of broom polish and mint dancing into your olfactory senses.

"I thought I might've persuaded them. They'll have a fantastic dance partner too so they won't have to worry."

Your eyebrows shot up in amusement.

"But... What if they still need some persuasion?"

It was now James's turn to smile, the sides of his mouth turning up as his eyes darted down to your lips once more.

"Would a kiss persuade them, you think?"

"Maybe-"

Before the word had left your mouth properly, James had caught your lips in a kiss, melding your mouths together as your eyes fluttered shut. His hands finally left your waist, trailing up your sides to cup your chin. Your hand moved to hold him by the nape of his neck, memorising each and every crevice of his lips.

After a fleeting moment that seemed to last forever, the two of you fell apart, chests heaving as your hands left each other for the first time in minutes, the ghost of James's hands on your waist haunting you.

"So, are they convinced?"

A soft chuckle left you, pressing your lips together in a moment of shyness, cocking the edge of your mouth upwards.

"Hmm. I think they are. So, shall we practice more? So that somebody won't be too embarrassed on the dance floor?"

James held his hands out, tilting his head to the side as he smirked at you.

"Of course. But it's your turn to lead now."

Your mouth fell open, staring at the boy, bemused.

"What?"

James barked out a laugh, ruffling his hair slightly as you just watched him.

"You don't expect me to lead all night, do you?"

tag list: @tvinny, @marvelslut16, @siriusbarnesslut, @weasleysbitch2, @reg-arcturus-black, @smellslikebadmusic, @quindolyn, @lilypad-55449,@iamnibbsi, @kermiemoon, @jamespotterslover,@remoony1,@siriusblackwifeeey, @azura-mist, @accio-remus-lupin, @themoonwithprophets,@marimorena06, @risingtripletaurus, @greenlyblue, @lillsthoughts,@i-love-scott-mccall,@jeannelupinblack, @justadreamyhufflepuff if you’re crossed out i can’t tag you for some reason, please try to check if your tagging is on!

[missmungoe]

So I'm very very soft for parental Makino and Shanks and recently heard the songs Sleepsong and Song of the Sea which made me wonder if you had any particular song in mind that they'd sing their kids to sleep with? I may also be extremely ridiculously soft for their kids (all of them even the honorary ones)

Oh these are both lovely!! ‘Song of the Sea’ is a favourite of mine, perhaps unsurprisingly (and I may have a little fic in mind for the selkie-verse with Makino and Shanks and their seal-babies). I don’t have a specific song in mind for my stories, I just imagine they sing a lot to their kids, but thinking about this ask inspired this soft, silly thing, so...

pirate lullabies

He’d claimed once, wholly serious although with a twinkle in his eyes, that his singing voice had been deemed so dangerous by the World Government, it had been outlawed in several countries. Among the many outrageous tales he’d told her over the years, it was the only one Makino had no trouble believing.

She was working when the song reached her through the floorboards, carried to her first by the rhythm of their boots, before she picked out his voice, the deep timbre with the raw, laughing lilt that needed no instruments to accompany it, and that probably warranted its reputation, given how many times it had stolen away her good sense, her hair tousled and her laughter faint as he spun her, the polished bar-top under her feet a canting deck: a unique kind of magic he had that could transform even the most ordinary things, gentle-natured barmaids included.

She followed it now, up from the cellar where the casks were stacked floor to ceiling, ageing apple wine and whiskey, the spellbinding sound taking shape into a melody she knew as she hoisted herself up the ladder, although had to pause just to check that she’d heard right, but―no, it was the one she thought, down to the rough, stirring pitch of his voice as he performed it.

Her startled blush recalled the last occasion he’d belted out this particular shanty in her presence, but then he’d been naked at the time, a private rendition she still couldn’t think about with a straight face, which begged the slightly shrill but laughing question now―

“What are you singing to our children?”

It saw him turning around, mid-performance, but he took the interruption in stride, at ease at the centre of attention, the common room of their bar full and every pair of eyes trained on him where he stood, their youngest in her sling across his back and their three-year old on his arm. The former refused to go to sleep without her sister, who could never be compelled to sit still long enough to fall asleep; an alliance that had necessitated some creative strategising. A tiny Scylla and Charybdis, and most captains would have steered clear of the challenge altogether. This one had set his course right through the strait.

“You know this one,” Shanks said, his innocent grin as though she’d asked out of ignorance. “You were the one who taught it to me.”

“One hell of a performance, too,” Yasopp supplied, to loud hoots of approval, their tankards raised to her, frothing at the rim with their latest batch from the brewery. Makino accepted the praise with demure dignity, as Yasopp added, “You nearly fell off the bar. Good thing Boss was there to catch you.”

“He’s the reason I was up there in the first place,” Makino parried primly, and with a pointed glance at the culprit, who didn’t look the least bit chagrined. “I’m just relieved you opted out of the acrobatics this time. You’re not as limber as you used to be.”

“Do you know what ‘savage’ means, swallow?” Shanks asked their three-year-old, who repeated the word, if not exactly with the correct pronunciation, but her father’s adoring grin promised many more attempts.

Turning the grin on Makino, a glint of familiar challenge in his eyes where they curved at the corners, “I’d make you eat those words if I wasn’t carrying precious cargo. Or I could always prove you wrong later, if you’ll join me for an encore. Show you just how limber I am.”

“No cartwheels!” called a voice from the back, to laughing agreement. Shanks stuck his tongue out; the girl on his arm responded in turn, to his delight.

Walking up to where he was standing at the centre of the room, Makino tucked an errant lock back into their daughter’s kerchief, sleek and dark as a swallow’s wing; the only one in their brood whose colouring was like her own. A gentle touch to their youngest’s head saw her looking up, snug in her sling, her cheek pressed between his shoulder blades.

“What happened to putting them to bed?” she asked, a teasing tug adjusting his shirt where the sling had pulled the open front even wider than usual, her fingers smoothing through the hair climbing up his chest. Father of three, but some things hadn’t changed. Not that she was complaining.

“What did it look like I was doing?” Shanks asked, with a grin that said her distraction hadn’t missed him, the cheeky flex of a pectoral catching her in the act, but instead of pulling her hand away, Makino only flattened her palm over the hard expanse.

“From where I was standing? Teaching entirely inappropriate bedtime songs to impressionable little ears.” The ones belonging to the girl on his arm missed nothing, to Makino’s continued horror.

“Oh that? Don’t worry,” Shanks said, his wide mouth stretched in a roguish smile she was tempted to remind him was usually cause to do just that. “I censored it.”

Before she could ask if she even wanted to know what he meant by that, a tiny hand gave an impatient tug at his shirt. “Sing about the rusty sailor!”

Brows arching gently with her smile, “Rusty?” Makino asked, as Shanks pressed a sloppy, bearded kiss to a soft little cheek, eliciting an infectious giggle.

The last time she’d seen that grin, he’d had her thighs over his ears. “What?” Shanks asked, his eyes unsheathed steel. “Certain skills need maintenance, to leave all parties satisfied.”

“It’s just hard to imagine he’d ever get that designation, with his infamous appetite,” Makino mused.

“He has a big rock!” their daughter announced.

From the crowded room, a startled cough sounded, from one of the hundred accomplices to this creative rewriting. In the corner of her eye, Ben’s smile curled around his toothpick.

“Oh does he?” Makino asked her, giving a playful tug at her little kerchief, the fawn-like freckles across the tiny bridge of her nose wrinkling with her giggles, before sharing a look with the man who’d given her that laugh, and while she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, “And what exactly does the rusty sailor do with his big rock?”

Shanks grinned, all pride, as their daughter declared, “He sticks it in the hole!”

Her hand flew to cover her startled grin, as several laughs were smothered unsuccessfully, but, “Not the back one,” Shanks assured her, his grin so wide now, she wondered if that wasn’t what warranted censoring. “At least not without asking first.”

“Classy guy,” Makino murmured, and when he wagged his brows, promptly failed to keep a straight face, to the delight of the room.

His eyes danced, the warm look in them compelling the words from her mouth, “So what else does the song say about this rusty sailor?”

A look was exchanged with the girl on his arm, that cheeky little grin his own legacy, and unsuccessfully supporting his claim to innocence, before Shanks said, “That he can usually be found face-up under a tavern bench?”

A round of hollering toasts rose to punctuate the line, the last of a filthy refrain, before he picked it up from the top, his voice raised as he sang to their daughter on her perch:

“Under skirts and petticoats, he’s never hard to ask, a wink and a slap and he’s ready to go, rising to every task. You’ll find him with the portside boars, he knows them all by name, and if he’s got no coin to spend, he’ll charm them all the same. And at the local tavern, well, he’s known to every lass, and every time he visits there, he hopes he’ll get some―”

“GRASS!” shouted a voice from across the room, to hiccuping laughter from the crowd and a bow of approval from the captain, and the loud delight of the girl on his arm, clutching his shirt as he spun her.

“―and if you’re looking for him, know that this is where he’ll be: a sailor with a thirst to quench, you’ll find him on his back beneath a squatting tavern bench!”

This tavern bench was having a hard time maintaining an appropriately chastising expression, hearing the shrieking laughter of the girl on his arm as Shanks spun her, dancing to the song they’d spurred to life like a storm, and with nothing but the rhythm of their boots on the planks. And she might have reminded them that the goal was to get their daughters to sleep, but their children were used to the noise, had all three learned to fall asleep to the sounds of their bar, tucked in their crates, between the shelves of the pantry and the kegs behind the counter, and in the crooks of a hundred arms, coaxed by the wordless lullabies of creaking floorboards and the clink of glasses, ale tapped into tankards and bottles uncorked invoking the sea rushing across the deck and pistols firing, and the muted chatter of a retired crew of pirates that was as effective as any bedtime story, for hungry little ears.

And of course, the songs they’d learned while still in her belly, sung under her breath as she worked, or with his cheek to the swollen curve, his voice reverberating through her, the words pressed with bearded kisses to the movements beneath her skin, as though responding to the sound. They’d known his voice before anything else in this world; had known the songs before they could speak the words, the many in his vast repertoire from a long life at sea, and he’d brought it ashore, to her deck that remained steady underfoot but that didn’t need more than his voice transform to something else; a wild storm brewing and warships on the horizon, and a daring captain at the helm.

He caught her gaze now, a familiar grin flashed like the bare edge of a blade, offering a duel, and it had been a while since he’d proffered his actual sword, his one arm occupied but no regret in the exchange, but Makino answered him as she would with steel, their eyes tethered and her voice raised to join his, her gentler cadence claiming its due amidst the rougher timbres filling their bar:

“And if you’re looking for him, know that this is where he’ll be: a sailor with a thirst to quench, you’ll find him on his back beneath a squatting tavern bench!”

Roaring applause shook the rafters, sending the bottles on their shelves chiming, the kind that would have made her shrink back once, but she’d learned to claim more than just her due, and accepted it now, and the tender look regarding her from over their daughter’s head, and when he bent down to kiss the top of hers, the rough promise kissed into the skin below her ear was uncensored, and had her laughter flinging out, loud and startled.

The noise settled down, their voices taking on a softer pitch, like the sea after a storm, but then this was a familiar routine, performed many times with each of their children, the oldest of whom had claimed the armchair by the hearth, a book in his lap and his father’s cloak around him, and sound asleep, for all his bold claims that he didn’t need a bedtime.

“That’s three out of three,” Shanks said, drawing her eyes back from Ace. His voice was pitched low, to not disturb the girl on his arm, her head tucked against his throat, one small hand still gripping his shirt where she’d nodded off. The one on his back was following suit, her fingers in her mouth and her lashes kissing her soft cheeks. “Questionable methods aside, you’ve got to admit it’s effective.”

Smiling, Makino helped relieve him of the sling, the girl within reaching for her sleepily, a soft breath sighed against her throat as she pressed a kiss to the top of her head, smoothing her fingers over the red down of her hair.

Meeting his eyes, the tender look in them somehow always a little new, “Portside boars?” she asked.

Shanks grinned. “Not to be approached without caution, at least if you value your life.”

“Sound advice.”

“Isn’t it?”

Her soft laugh followed him to the storeroom. The spacious pantry was bigger than Party’s had been, replete with liquors and foodstuffs, crates and barrels and sacks all neatly organised, and all of it written in the leather-bound ledger lying open on the middle shelf. The smells recalled her own childhood, the sound of her mother’s heeled boots across the creaking doorstep, and the bottles chiming in their crates, stacked high above her head. A rough hand smoothing her hair from her brow, before she'd be gone, leaving the door ajar and a sliver of light, the laughter spilling through and into her dreams.

She watched him tuck them in, snug within their makeshift bunks, a different song sung in low, soothing tones, a lullaby for gentler waters that sang of two clever little seals outwitting the fearsome lord of the coast, a longtime favourite that saw two big brown eyes struggling in vain to stay open. Their youngest had already surrendered, even as her sister persevered, but his voice didn’t waver, coaxing until tiny fingers released his shirt, although even asleep, he lingered a moment longer, to finish the verse.

Watching him from the doorway, the sweat of a long evening making his shirt cling to his back, straining over the wide shoulders that didn’t carry the same burdens they had once, she followed the sight to an old memory; a busy galley on a gentler sea, and the rowdy court of pirates with its rakish king that had swept her off her feet. “Do you remember the first time you sang to me?”

Looking over his shoulder at her, his smile held her answer, even before Shanks said, “Don’t know how I could forget, although it’s not my singing I remember. Why do you ask?”

“I was just thinking,” Makino said, smile soft with the memory, her eyes on the little shapes sleeping amidst the liquor crates, “that they’ll remember this when they’re older.” The years had blurred it at the edges, but some things stood out: his hand lifting her atop the table, and of feeling fearless. A long time ago now, but while the course of their lives had shifted, some things hadn’t changed, their marriage always writing new verses, even as the refrains were her favourite―the lines she knew by heart, and while he could still catch her off guard, a few words altered here and there, the melody was always the same.

“Hopefully they won’t find it too mortifying,” Shanks chuckled, lifting back to his feet, before adding, with a look, “That’s not me saying I’d ever stop. As if!”

Smiling, she didn’t say she doubted they’d ever want him to, although wondered how long until it wouldn’t be him holding the room captive with his singing, but two small successors, who knew songs from every deck of the world, questionable rewritings included.

She watched him make a note in the ledger, a once-cheeky habit that had grown tender over the years, no longer noting her missing innocence but two small additions, currently in stock. Makino wondered if it was a way for him to keep them while he could, and might have felt similarly inclined, but the sea had given her more than it had ever taken, and she didn’t fear trusting it with their children.

She lifted her head as he came towards her, bending down to steal a kiss from her lips, his hand raised to tuck her hair back into her scarf, the long length of silk where it brushed her spine, his thumb catching on the gold in her ears, because he might have brought the sea ashore with him, but she had claimed her own parts.

“So, Captain,” Makino said, head tipped back to look up at him, and saw his brows quirking at her gentle challenge, tugging playfully at his scars.

“Join me for an encore?”

[likeshipsonthesea]

oh my GOD if you wrote something for "i’d suffer hell if you’d tell me what you’d do to me tonight" and nurseydex I'm pretty sure I'd combust pls do it

hello hi it’s been a while. so truth be told i wrote this, or started this, a long time ago, when you first sent in this prompt, and i didn’t like it, but then i read it again and ended up finishing it and..once again didn’t like it. and then i read it last night and thought it was pretty cool and now i’m posting it. fun story, i know.

warning for religious imagery/issues and internalized/referenced externalized homophobia.

nurseydex for the prompt i’d suffer hell if you’d tell me what you’d do to me tonight from Hozier’s Dinner & Diatribes. enjoy!

           On the first night back from spring break, Dex sits across the living floor from Nursey and thinks about Easter mass.

           It’s blasphemous, really. A rough rug, older than him, scratches at the exposed skin of his ankles, his wrists. The team around him laughs and mellows in waves. Bitty’s most recent pie sits cooling in the kitchen, chilled breezes from the open window carrying the scent of it into the living room. Dex ignores it all to watch Nursey bring the mouth of a bottle to his own mouth, rest the glass on the soft dip in his bottom lip. He tilts back his head, jaw lengthening, dropping. He swallows, and his throat bobs. A tendon in his neck guides Dex’s gaze up, up to his stubble, to his mouth, to the regal slant of his nose. His eyes.

           Nursey is looking. Half lidded. Green, burning. Forest fire.

           Dex thinks about Easter mass. Scratchy shirt cuffs rubbing red against bony wrists. The too-thin pages of the Bible like receipt paper on his fingertips, half imagining that the print came off with his touch. Songs about sacrifice, and love, and being beholden to a man who is at once so very human, and so very, very not. Ethereality in kindness. The sweet smell of wine, tasteless wafer. A body, given.

           Nursey looks away—back to Chowder, back to conversation.

           Dex wonders what he would give to be looked at like that for a moment longer. Condensation builds between his fingertips and his beer, and he takes a sip that tastes sweeter than it should. He reckons Nursey is some kind of holy. The descendant of a God long forgotten in name, but never spirit. The kind of God who loved rich smells and smart words, who knew the value of respect, and laughter. The kind of God who looked at love as something to be given, not sacrificed.

           Worship no other God before me. Dex’s beer turns bitter on his tongue.

           Blasphemous.

           Dex watches Nursey hands and imagines the punishment he’d endure. Each hit bloody, bruising. Would Nursey’s hands be smooth? Nails short, light scratches, pinkened skin. Dex would cry out, likely, as hard as he would try not to, under the onslaught. The sounds Nursey would make would be soothing, caressing and lovely and breathy and loud. Dex would shut his eyes and imagine in the darkness that he couldn’t see their frothing rage. Nursey, spread across bedsheets, hair haloed on pale pillowcase, eyelashes dusting the tops of his cheeks, smiling.

           During a lull in the silence, when everyone is busy, Dex stands up from the living room floor. He goes into the kitchen and grabs himself a bottle of water, prodding at the pie to see if it’s cool enough. Back to the doorway, he hears footsteps.

           “Not in the mood to chat tonight, Poindoodle?”

           Dex closes his eyes. Nursey’s voice lilts, laughter concealed in vowels outstretched and pointed consonants upturned. When he’s sleepy, or drunk, his words link together like holding hands, drifting thumbs tucked delicately against sweaty palms. Nursey talks with his hands. Sometimes Dex feels the words more than he hears them.

           “Tired, I guess,” Dex says, because all of this is too much to say outside of a confessional. He does not turn around.

           Nursey hums. “How was break?”

           Dex sways into his hands, feeling the pressure between the calluses on the inside of his knuckles and the vaguely floured countertop. “Good,” Dex says. It almost isn’t a lie.

           The nearly normal has become the best outcome he can hope for. Half beats between conversations about school, hockey, fall into place as if the music called for them all along. It is a tune now ingrained in him, even if the words never make sense, or make him sad. He remembers bits of songs they taught in Sunday school and hopes that one day this will be dulled as well. Home is this, and so it must be good, because by any other metric he might not go home again and the Bible has something to say about that, too.

           A hand on his shoulder. Warm, heavy. Nursey does not say anything. Dex counts the words he doesn’t say until he loses track trying to keep his tongue tamed. I love you. I miss you. I wish I was enough. I wish I could live in a world where what I am is enough. I wish you would touch me. What do I do to make you touch me?

           Nursey’s hand falls. “It’s nice to see you,” he says, and he waits a minute, a passage of time, full of breathing and not breathing, and Dex follows along intently. Nursey leaves the room. Dex counts the bones in his hands and bathes in the bloody faded pink of his knuckles.

           That night, after the drinks are gone and the lights are out and they’re all in their beds, like they should be, Dex shifts under his sheets and drags his own incompetent hands against his skin. Wrinkled elbows and knobbed shoulders, shuddering ribcage bones and fleshy sides. He prays, like he hasn’t in years, to someone he doesn’t know but is somehow surer about than whatever it is that stares at him as he sits in hard pews, scratchy and burning. Let me have this, he thinks, eyes shut, lips pressed together. Let me give myself to this.

           Somehow, his feet bring him to the hall side of a closed door. He cannot hear mumbling. Nursey talks in his sleep.

           I would suffer anything to know, Dex thinks, eyes tracing the lines carved into the wood. Let me know.

           He knocks.

           The door opens.

           Nursey stands, rumpled and perfect, one hand curled around the doorknob, holding himself up. His green eyes are deep, mossy, Maine-like and worried. “Dex,” he says, no fanfare. “What’s wrong?”

           “Let me in?” Dex licks his lips. They’re sweet.

           Nursey moves his body to make room for Dex and it takes all the restraint his church has taught him not to fill it up completely. Door closed, Dex inside, a foot and a half between their bodies. Dex’s fingers twist in his sweatpants.

           Nursey stares, expectation heavy. The weight of it, in this creaking room, in this darkness, is heady, not suffocating. Dex takes a deep breath.

           “I—” Dex knows what swallowed words taste like. Metallic and copper, razor blades on his tongue, kept safe by his teeth, lips, until his mouth fills with blood. He wants to say it, he wants Nursey to know, and yet he stares long enough for his eyes to adjust to the faded Maine green reflecting back at him.

           “Is everything alright?” Nursey finally asks, quiet, whispered.

           The question shudders his bones. Instead of answering, Dex says, “I missed you.”

           The shock of surprise is like a thunderstorm over the water, flashing quick and then muffled. “Oh?”

           Dex’s fingers knot up the material of his sweatpants. It leaves his ankles cold. “I did.”

           Harsh exhale, then slow. “Dex,” he says, he says Dex’s name again, not Poindoodle or Dexington or anything else. “What are you—” Swallowed words, razor blades.

           “I always miss you,” Dex says, because the rest of the words are rusted over with sweetened wine and this seems to be the truest thing he has inside him.

           “Dex,” Nursey says, and Dex would like to cry, sort of, because that name on those lips with that kind of homesick color staring at him wide and open feels more like coming home than two weeks of being in Maine and that aches in so many different, good and bad, kind of ways and he doesn’t think Nursey knows, he doesn’t think he could explain, all the things he’d go through to hear Nursey call him Dex, look at him like this.

           “Please,” Dex says, and he knows it doesn’t make any sense, any of it, but nothing does, really, and he thinks Nursey gets it anyway because in the next moment his mouth is parted over Dex’s and he tastes nothing like razorblades, nothing like wine, just sleep stale toothpaste and a sigh.

           Dex releases his sweatpants to curl his hands over Nursey, his hips, his back, the roundness of his elbow. Nursey does not pull back, he does not flinch away. He slips his thumb under the waistband of Dex’s sweatpants and just leaves it there, warm, like a promise.

[owillofthewisps]

portraits hung in empty halls - part one

notes: fun fact i am about ten times more nervous about writing jaskier than i am about geralt, idk why! also daylights saving time is a farce and a personal attack on me, a humble woman trying to not have a destroyed sleep schedule.

rating: still teen, somehow!

pairing: geralt of rivia/female reader

word count: 3.5k

prologue

there is an odd little portrait tucked away in an alcove. at night, the canvas lies empty. most never notice it.

the Witcher does.

The sun sets, and you rise.

The silk sheet that shrouds you slips to the floor. In the dim glow of the candlelight, it glimmers like snow in the moonlight, the creamy white of it cooled to prismatic ice. You leave it puddled on the stained wood floor. You pad barefoot to the washbasin, adjusting to the lively hum of the inn, to the jolt of noise after so long without. It is never an easy transition.

The cool water trickles down your neck as you splash your face, the droplets rolling over your bare skin like an early spring rain, collecting in the dip of your navel before spilling onward. You turn to the tiny nook that shelves your clothing, your stiff joints moaning as they stretch and pop.

Rose, you think, spotting the verdant sprig of fresh mint placed carefully on the small stool. The bundle you’d pulled a leaf from yesterday had been wilting at the edges, the leaves curling in under themselves, like shy children covering their faces. You’ll have to make her something. Embroider her favorite gown, maybe, weave delicate little morning glories around the bells of her sleeves so they sway with her, as if she’s the dawn wind.

The mint tears under your teeth. It burns cold, searing away the heavy, oily coating that lays rotting on your tongue. You chew slowly, rolling the leaf through your mouth as you unfold your chemise and drape it across the stool.

Unwinding the thin golden chain looped messily around your neck and shoulders takes time. You tease at it, slip your fingers beneath the delicate, tangled thread of it. It is the daintiest tether you have ever seen, a golden, gossamer little thing, a strand of a spider’s web lit by the sun. You dump it onto the thin wood stand the washbin rests on.

Your earrings clink as you set them down next to the chain. It’s a relief to have them off, to let your lobes rest from the sharp pull of their hefty weight.

The homespun wool of your skirts rustles against the floorboards as you dress. You sweep the discarded jewelry into your palm; you dump it onto the silk sheet, watch as the gold sinks into the folds of the fabric.

You leave it all on the floor.

A few travelers tip their heads to you as you sweep down the inn’s halls. You sail past the small alcove that had so entranced Geralt last night, stepping carefully away from the shadowed niche.

Johan is waiting for you at the archway to the tavern. You’ve never thought of him as large, with his wiry frame, thin but strong, like a bowstring pulled tight, but he fills the archway. There’s still a faint hint of rot to him, something acidic tinting his strong, handsome features. You slow your pace, come to a halt before him, just shy of nose to nose, your skirts frothing over his feet like a wave breaking on the sand. The scowl knitting his brow deepens.

“If your intent is anything other than apology, save your breath.”

The flush flares into life. It spills crimson across his skin like wine, spreading wide. “Apologize?” Johan snarls. “When you’re the one who defended that mutant?”

“Did I not just say to save your breath?”

His hand flexes. You watch as his fingers curl into a fist, the knuckles gone bone white, and wait. There’s fear cut sharp into his visage, barely blanketed by the veil of anger on the surface.

“If you’ve nothing to say,” you tell him, “please move.”

That fist of his tightens again, his knuckles a ridge of mountains. The tendons in his jaw cord. “The Witcher cannot stay.”

“He paid his coin, just like the rest.”

Johan’s jaw works. “Stubborn bitch.”

“Careful,” you say, and there is crackling frost in your tone, winter come early. “I won’t tell you to save your breath again.”

He considers you, those green eyes burning incandescent, all sparking St. Elmo’s fire. Johan has often reminded you of a dog with a bone, setting his teeth into the marrow of his irritant and worrying it until he breaks it.

“Move,” you say, pleasantly enough, but with that ice still threaded through your voice. “Malinka’s expecting me.”

Johan lingers in the door frame for a moment more, a shadow of a threat, but he steps aside. You brush by him without a care; if you clip him with an elbow, well, he should have moved further. He’ll just add it to the list of wrongs you’ve done him, you think, and gods know that’s the least of your concerns.

The sounds of the tavern sweep over you. The clank of tankards, that thick hollow thud of wood against wood; the spitting crackle of the fire; chatter punctuated by uproarious laughter, rising to fill the rafters. It is a balm against you. Noise has long been something to steady yourself on.

You scan the room as you enter, and do not glimpse the Witcher’s broad shoulders. Nor do you see a hint of the bard. Your shoulders loosen, the tension melting out of them like winter yielding to spring. Malinka is behind the bar, her ebony curls flowing like a wild river to her shoulders, gleaming in the candlelight. She presses a quick kiss to your cheek as you join her.  Worried, you think. She is not alone in that.

“Ale!” Wren calls from the end of the bar.

“Coin!” you retort, sashaying over to him and leaning against the pitted wood counter. You pull a tankard from nearby, wincing as you flex your stiff fingers. They always take the longest to grow limber once more.

“Fair enough,” he laughs.

“Truly, Wren,” Annika says as she slides past with a tray of empty tankards. “Your mother would faint to hear your lack of manners. Tell me, how do the village girls stand your voice?”

“Yes, Wren, you’re lucky you’re charming when your mouth is closed,” you add.

“Beautiful and cruel, the both of you!”

You reach across the bar and pat his cheek. “Just a little,” you say with a laugh.

Annika snorts, passing you a tray. You nestle it into the crook of your hip and get to work.

The tavern only grows more lively, the gleam of light spilling from the doors cracking the darkness outside open. You whirl about, dipping around tipsy patrons, carrying plates of food high to drop them at tables.

It’s one of the busier nights, considering tomorrow is traditionally a day of rest, and you revel in the tumult, in the show of overflowing life. It keeps you light on your feet, moving until there’s sweat gleaming at the hollow of your throat. You dodge Elias’s hands with a laugh as you make your way back to the bar.

“So,” Annika says. “A Witcher, then?” Her slim hands move like water, smooth and flowing, pouring tankard after tankard between slicing off fat hunks of brown bread, still wisping steam even in the heated air of the tavern.

You sigh and duck beneath the bar to pull a few sausages from the small larder. “Yes,” you say. “Don’t you start.”

“There’s little for me to say.”

“And yet you so often say things anyway.”

She laughs. “True,” she says. “I’ve no quarrel with the Witcher, so long as he keeps his sword sheathed."

If Rose were here, that would not leave untouched - ‘which one,’ she’d say, her grin impish, her voice dropping into something sultry - but she is not, and you think you should try to keep thoughts like that from your head. At least until Geralt is gone, when there’s no danger to considering the thickness of his thighs and the knife of his golden gaze.

“I doubt he’s the one you should worry about,” you say, thinking of the way many men’s eyes had followed Geralt last night, malicious and hungry.

“Probably not.”

Someone calls to Annika from down the bar; she shoves the knife into your hand and gestures towards a loaf. You drop the sausages onto a nearby plate and start to slice the bread.

“I looked for you earlier. I didn’t think it would be so hard to locate such a pretty woman in the crowd.”

You glance up. The bard is smiling at you, his blue, blue eyes catching the light. You cast your gaze to the side, but Geralt is nowhere to be seen. Your grip on the knife’s handle loosens.

“I work nights,” you tell him, and if your smile is a little brittle, he doesn’t seem to notice. “Makes it hard to find me early. What can I get you?”

“Your name?”

“It’s a bit out of your price range, I think.”

He gasps, one hand flying to his chest. “Will you not take pity on a poor bard? How am I meant to write a song praising this inn and its lovely innkeeper?”

You arch a brow. “Why would you need my name for that, bard?”

He blinks. “Jaskier,” he tells you, and it takes you a moment to realize that he’s given you his name. “And because you are the innkeeper?”

“I’m not.”

“Are you certain?”

You stifle a laugh. “Quite,” you say, but then you take pity on him and give him your name. “Why did you think I was the innkeeper?”

“Ah,” Jaskier says. “You were...forceful, last night, not that Geralt was particularly forthcoming about it. Also the serving girl said you were.”

Betony, you think, following Jaskier’s long, nimble fingers as he gestures towards the far side of the tavern. Betony glances up just then, and from the cheeky grin she flashes, she’s unrepentant. It’s harmless enough, nothing worth even getting irritated over, so you blow her a kiss.

“I’m not,” you repeat. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m not sure you could disappoint, love,” Jaskier says.

You fumble with your knife, the tip of it sinking into the wooden board beneath the sausage with a hollow thunk.

My love, Dymitr murmurs, his lips brushing against the curving shell of your ear.

“Isn’t that what you called me this morning?” Rose chirps. She swings over the bar in a flurry of crimson skirts and wraps an arm around your waist. She still carries the chill of the night air on her skin. She presses herself against you, lets you use her as an anchor against the wave pulling you under. “Aren’t bards meant to be inventive?”

Jaskier gapes.

“Be nice, Rose,” you say.

“Rose?” Jaskier says, “Funny, I took her for a bramble.”

Rose snorts. “Be careful not to be caught on thorns, bard,” she says. She tugs at her shawl, lets it flow from her shoulders to the crook of her elbows like a waterfall. It catches against you. “You were looking for the innkeeper? What is it you want from me?”

You sink your elbow into her side. Her curse is blistering; down the counter, Wren cackles at her creativity.

“She’s not the innkeeper,” you tell Jaskier, who is looking somewhere between distraught and combative. “Rose, will you please get more bread?”

She laughs, the sound like woodfire smoke, billowing out in slow, low tones. “I suppose,” she says. Rose dips away from you, giving your waist one last squeeze, and heads towards Wren.

“Gods, do all women here worship a trickster god?” Jaskier asks. “If not, you should consider it. I imagine most would excel.”

“Probably.”

“Is there a test I have to pass to get the innkeeper’s name? If it’s a physical one, can I have a champion? Geralt would do nicely at that.”

You pull the knife free of the board and set it to the side. Someone calls for ale; you sigh and pour a tankard of it. “You can play,” you tell Jaskier. “We’ll give you coin at the end of the night in addition to any earnings you may get from the crowd. That’s why you were looking for the innkeeper, yes?”

Jaskier sets his hands on his hips, his long fingers drumming against the fine material of his clothes. “Do you just use some title other than innkeeper to confuse people?”

“Malinka’s the innkeeper,” you say, nodding towards her. She’s laughing at a nearby table, men drawn in a knot around her, an unknowing queen speaking to her court.

“Right,” Jaskier says. “You just make all the decisions.”

“She listens to me, yes, when she chooses to do so,” you tell him.  I raised her, taught her as much as I could as best I could, and she tends to honor that, you don’t say, trapping the words behind the gate of your teeth. It would only bring questions.

He chews at his bottom lip, bites the flesh pinker still.

“You’ll be paid,” you say. “No tricks, not about that. For last night, too.”

You wonder if other inns see the value in Jaskier, not just in his talent, but in his ability to reassure. There’s little doubt in your mind that his music has soothed many a ruffled feather that Geralt’s presence has caused. From the tongue on him, though, you think he’s also caused his fair share of trouble, too.

“You are a treasure despite your company of treacherous women.”

“Go play, bard, before I change my mind.”

Rose reappears as Jaskier heads towards where the fiddlers usually sit, his lute cradled against his stomach. He’s already plucking at it, discordant notes being corralled into something musical, something pretty.

“Do you think they’ll stay long?” you ask.

She lifts a shoulder in a lazily elegant shrug. “Hard to say,” she says. “I’ve had rocks speak to me more than the Witcher did.”

“Rose.”

“I know,” she tells you, cupping your cheek. Her palm is warm and callused against your skin. “It will be fine. No sense in worrying unless it’s needed.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“It’s not,” she says sharply, all thorn instead of her usual soft petals. “Do not make the mistake of thinking that I do not have fear.”

Jaskier starts to play. The music blooms to life, unfolds delicate and sweet. It seems an odd choice for the rowdy tavern, but the melody is a haunting one, one that slips beneath your skin and hooks deep.

Rose pats your cheek. “Don’t fret,” she says, an echo of last night. “Go help Betony, she’s such a distracted little thing.”

You snort, but there’s more than a measure of truth to it, so you wipe your hands free of breadcrumbs and pick up a nearby tray. Betony is half on Delythe’s lap. She’s plucking at Delythe’s thick braid, coiling it around her wrist and giggling. For her part, Del seems tolerant, the grin on her lips fondly indulgent.

“Betony,” you say.

“You’re no fun,” she says, but she gets to her feet, tugging on Delythe’s braid and pressing a kiss against her cheek. Her lip paint leaves a mark the color of a bruise, deep plum. The two of you gather empty tankards and plates, stacking them high on the tray. With Jaskier playing, everyone seems to fall into a rhythm. You duck between patrons with delicate precision. Each step is practically a dance, Betony matching you as the two of you dash around.

You can feel the night lengthening, can sense the moon tracing a path across the velvet sky. The moon always seems brighter as winter creeps forward. As if the coming snow reflects the light the moon sheds, makes it a disc of shining ice.

Elias catches you in a dance or two between servings; Wren pulls you along for a quick jig when you duck into the back room for supplies. Malinka sweeps you off your feet as well, laughing as she leads you before she twirls you into Betony’s arms. Jaskier’s music rises and falls, a piper’s call to the crowd’s mood. You let it envelop you.

Geralt appears as it grows late enough to perhaps be called early. Patrons are starting to stagger home, though there are a few gatherings tightly knit around tables, still nursing their tankards. Even with fewer present, there are still murmurs that follow the Witcher, little whispers that haunt his steps like an angry wraith. It makes your chest tighten. How quickly people turn on what they don’t understand. On what they don’t even try to understand.

He seems unbothered by it. You think again of stone, of the jutting mountain peaks, for Geralt’s face could be that of a statue’s. He has the jawline for it. Mostly, though, he has the smoothed expression of a marble bust, one just shy of human, as if the artist couldn’t quite settle on mood, caught between emotion and emptiness. It feels a false face. A shield, a barricade for humanity’s siege against his very presence to break upon.

You should leave, let one of the others serve him. You know that. Betony retired home earlier, but Malinka is just in the store room. Rose is not far, either. You should call for them. You know that. But Geralt finds you behind the bar, his amber eyes like firelight, and you stay.

The tankard clanks against the wood as you set it down in front of him. “Would you like something to eat?”

“If there’s something available.”

“I wouldn’t offer something I am unable to give.”

He pauses, the tankard halfway to his mouth, and you cannot look away from his parted lips. Your hands twist in the wool of your skirts, draw the fabric tight against your fingers. “Yes, then,” he says. His eyes flicker, and you think that is not what he wanted to say, that he has swallowed something down.

The plate is a simple one. Geralt seems a man who consumes only to continue, who does not yearn for flavor on his tongue. You keep it to a thick slice of brown bread and some salted meat. You wipe down some tankards as he eats, caught between the compulsion to stay and the whispering nerves that beg you to flee.

“What brings you here?”

Geralt pauses again, those golden eyes lifting to you. You feel heat rise in your cheeks. “I’m sorry,” you say. “It’s habit to chat with patrons.”

He grunts.

You bite at your lip and scrub harder at the tankard, twisting the old cleaning cloth around your fingers until it is cutting into your flesh, until it almost hurts.

“There’s a village to the north,” Geralt says. “It has rumors of a beast, and they have coin. This inn is the closest. The village is small.”

“And by that,” Jaskier says, sliding onto the stool next to his friend and gesturing wildly, “he means it is a hovel of a town, more a collection of houses than a village.”

“I see.”

“Luckily,” Jaskier says, leaning forward until you think he will overbalance, “that means we have found ourselves here. It is a charming inn, innkeeper-who-is-not.”

“It’s just an inn.”

“An inn with good ale and food, and most importantly, appreciative crowds.”

“It’s just an inn,” you repeat, but from the way Jaskier’s smile lights up, he can hear the laughter hiding just beneath your tongue.

Jaskier starts weaving a tale for you, his hands fluttering about as he speaks, his voice falling into a cantering cadence that lulls you into the story. Geralt eats in silence, grunting here and there as Jaskier tries to reel him into the story. The bard elbows him once, lightly, and the withering look Geralt gives him could rust a sword.

It is not long after Geralt finishes eating that the two men rise. It is truly late now, the time when nocturnal creatures begin to slink back to their burrows, the time when the starlight goes cold and strange.

“Good night,” you tell them.

Jaskier chirps something back to you, but his words are washed away by the weight of Geralt’s gaze on you. It peels at the layers of you, cuts through to the bone, until all of you is laid bare before him. Your fingers tremble.

They tremble still when you trace their path to the hallway, pulled after them like a pebble caught spinning in the tide. You catch yourself before you follow them further. From your place just beyond the door, you hear Jaskier heave a sigh.

“Geralt,” the bard says, and you’ve never heard a tone that sounds like someone putting their hands on their hips in reprimand before, “will you hurry up? The painting will be there when it’s not a time when even the gods are asleep.”

The bite of your fingernails startles you. They cut into your flesh, tiny sickle moons against the map of your palm, constellations amid the lined sky of your hand. There are footsteps, then, receding down the hall. They ring in your ears long after the men are gone.

Rose finds you sitting near the hearth, your knees tucked up against your chest.

“I’m frightened,” you tell her.

She kneels at your side, a priestess at your altar, her face turned up to you like a flower to the sun.

“I know,” she says.

She waits for sunrise with you, lets you gaze into the fire’s light in silence.

You feel it when daybreak approaches. You close your eyes and surrender to the dark, to the velvet night that lives behind your eyelids. It feels easier like this. Gods, you miss the sun.

The sun rises, and you set.

taglist: @fairytale07​ @stretchkingblog97​ @nonamejustshame​ @1950schick​ @sageandberries-png​ @peachy-aisha​ @msgeorgiarae​ @alwayshave-faith​ @bumblingandblooming 

[lilyharvord]

Song of the Pheonix Part 8

Hey guys, sorry this took so long to get out. It was super hard to find time to write this lately. Also I was having a hard time connecting plot points. I think I finally got this set up though. It's a little shorter than all the previous chapters, but it gets the important work done. The support for this fic is so uplifting! You can also find it on AO3, and any kudos and comments there are super helpful! 

AO3 Link

Find the rest of the parts here: 

part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 / part 7 

Enjoy! 

(/Coriane/)

      It’s surprisingly cold when the sun begins to rise. Doria snores softly in her chair, while I sit huddled in my mass of blankets. For two nights I’ve sat like this, watching my jailor nod off in the early morning. If I wanted to escape, that would be the time to do it. To combat the cold I could take a blanket, and I’d slowly been stashing away little bits of food that was brought to me. I had enough for maybe two days if I rationed it. I can’t leave without Mare though. At least, I feel like I shouldn’t leave without her. Would we even make it out of the hundreds of miles of plains to return to Ascendant? I don’t even know which direction the city is in, let alone how we’ll climb a mountain to get to it. And if she’s in the same state I remembered, I would have to carry her. I know for a fact that I’m not strong enough to do that. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there though.

Doria snorts and then shakes awake, drawing me out of my thoughts. Her bleary eyes blink into focus as she searches the tent wildly for me. When she finally sees me, almost hiding underneath my pile of blankets, she rubs at her eye with her palm. “Need coffee.” She grumbles before rising from the chair. I watch her pull her hair into a messy tie before asking, “Can I have some?”

Her eyes narrow until she says, “Get up.”

I push the blankets off of me and stand. She looks me over, and her lips curl as she takes in the same robe I’ve worn for three days now. Tapping her point finger to her thumb, she says, “Stay here.” She pushes the flap aside, only to pause and look over her shoulder once more. “Try to leave, and you won’t make it passed the third row of tents.”

“Why would I try and run through hundreds of miles of plains dressed like this?” I grumble as I sit on the vanity stool. Doria’s brow raises at my tone, only for her lips to curl up in a smirk as she leaves the tent.

Outside of the tent, the sounds of the early risers preparing for the day begin. Guards grumble as they switch shifts, alerting each other to potential obstacles. I strain my ears, hoping to catch a hint of Mare’s location. No one discusses her though. Squeezing the loose fabric of my robe in my fists, I try to wait patiently. I doubt Doria will bring me anything back, but I can hope. Coffee does sound nice, regardless of where I’m getting it from.

The tent flap opens, startling me, and Doria enters before stepping aside to reveal Proteus. Raising my chin as he lets the flap close behind him, I say, “You are not coffee.”

He chuckles, completely in control of his expression now. He looks me over before saying, “They’re scouring the mountain for you and Barrow. I have half a mind to leave two animal carcasses for them to find.”

My blood runs cold, imagining what that could do. Blood would run down the mountain in waterfalls if he does that. Swallowing the bile in my throat, I whisper, “Don’t. You’ll have to send more men and women to die if you do that.”

His expression hardens, and he closes the space between us to say, “You don’t know the first thing about what my people would do for their goal.” “Show me, let me try to help you. My son—“

“Your son is a middle rung on a ladder. He forfeited his right to sway anyone’s decision when he abdicated.” Proteus waves my words away with his hand. “I can get more out of killing you and Barrow than I can from trading you.”

My stomach rolls, and I spot Doria finger the knife on her belt behind him. My fingers twitch in my lap and I breathe, “Please. You can achieve more than you think through negotiations.” I would sing if I could, but Proteus avoids my eyes contact expertly. I should have never told him how to prevent me from singing. Beating myself over that mistake won’t help me now though. Besides, if I sing him into a stupor, I’ll have to figure out some other way to handle Doria. I can’t sing to them both.

He keeps his eyes on the floor as he says, “There is no negotiating with Montfort.”

“They’ve been in negotiations with the Lakelands for years now… with Norta, with Piedmont. They can be negotiated with!” I shout as I rise to my feet. Doria takes a step forward and I glare at her, and the song comes before I even mean to release it. “Leave.”

She freezes, her expression going slack as her eyes glaze over. Raising my chin, I sing to her again. “Leave us, he can handle—“

Proteus’s hand closes over my mouth, while his arm wraps around my middle. His fist presses into my diaphragm until the air leaves my body is a pathetic wheeze. Doria stumbles backwards, reaching up to grab her temple as Proteus throws me into the corner of the tent. My head hits the ground so hard my teeth rattle. I try to rise to my hands a knees in a daze, certain that this is now the only chance I will have to escape.

A wave of water hits me though, and I choke as it surrounds my head in a cocoon. I reach up with desperate hands, and try to claw at it. It simply rushes past my fingers though. Through the swirling froth, I can make out Proteus, who sweeps his hand in small circles, controlling the orb of water.

       He’s a nymph.

My vision begins to tunnel as I drop my hands. My lungs burn for air, and through the wisps of my hair ripped from their braid by the force of the water, I can see Doria urging Proteus on. Her eyes are murderous and I don’t need to guess why. I made her weak for a moment, and if Proteus doesn’t finish me here, she will do it.

I open my mouth when I can’t take it anymore. Water rushes in and I fall forward, my vision going dark. The cocoon collapses and I swallow gulps of air, coughing on the remnants of the water as I do so. Doria’s muffled cries of surprise and fury echo on the edge of my vision. When I crane my neck from the ground, I spot Proteus leaving the tent, his expression pale and his hands shaking. Doria chases after him, leaving me alone in a puddle of mud.

(///)

The blankets do little to warm me after my near brush with death. But Doria and Proteus do not come back. I’m sure they left a new guard outside my tent. I’m willing to risk it though. Scrambling to gather my food in a little makeshift bag I made from the blankets, I try to make a plan. I was never a strategist, but Tibe used to try to tell me about his battle plans when we were first married. I try to channel him in this moment, thinking about what he would think about.

I edge toward the tent flap and curling a finger around it, I lift it just enough to look out. There are no guards, only a few children playing with a ball outside. They giggle and shout as they chase after it, kicking up dirt as they do so.

My heart pounds in my chest and I step out into the sunlight. Already I can feel my hair drying under the burning sun. I waste no time scurrying past the children and toward the center of camp. Maybe that will surprise them. After all, who would be dumb enough to escape through the center of camp? I hope that I’m thinking this through correctly. I doubt it, but if this is my one shot at escaping, so be it.

My next step is to find Mare. The fact that no one has tried to stop me makes me bold, and I pause for longer periods of time to try and locate the Shed where they took her.

I’m listening in on two women washing sheets when a cold hand grabs my arm from behind.

“You do have a death wish.”

I try to throw a punch, but Proteus catches it easily. Spinning me so my back is to his chest, he pins my arms to my sides and says, “But you do have the makings of a decent spy.”

“Let me go!” I spit at him, trying to stamp my heel on his foot. He simply turns it out to side, avoiding easily. I throw my head back to catch his nose in response, but he tilts his head to the side, and ends up with his nose buried in my neck. I tense at the feeling as he breathes against my skin.

       “Not a chance. You and I have things to discuss.”

He drags me out of the camp then, passed the tents until we’re standing under the shade of a dying tree. He finally releases me so that I can spin away. Panting for breath, I stalk around him in a circle, trying to look imposing. He raises a brow at my posturing and then chuckles at it.

That makes me pause, and choke, “are you laughing at me?”


       “You’re worse than a child. Did no one teach you how to fight?” He laughs when my face falls slack, and steps forward to grab my wrist again. Pressing his thumb into the tiny bones of my wrist he drags me close to him so he can whisper to me. “You’re going to help me end this war with Montfort. Whether you like it or not.”

I struggle against his hold, fury boiling in my stomach. It’s iced over by fear though when he says, “Do as I say, or I’ll find a nice hole to bury Mare Barrow in.”

“Why not bury me and use her?” I spit. His brows draw together then, and his eyes look me over for a moment.

“The Premier of Montfort wants all the Living Dead she can get her hands on. Barrow may be important to a number of people, but she’s not important to that snake of a woman. You are.”

I strain against his hold, desperate to put some distance between the two of us. I had underestimated how handsome he was the first time I saw him. My traitorous eyes want to observe him, compare him to other men I remember. It doesn’t help that he smells like lavender and something else, something earthy and clean.

“Where is she?” I manage to get out when I stop pulling against him. He drops my wrist and I stumble backwards and land on my back in the dirt. He stands over me, blocking the sun for the most part. I glare until he huffs.

        “Will you stop struggling if I take you to her?”

I squint, wondering if I should even trust him. He did cut my bonds, and instead of killing me like Doria obviously wanted him to, he dragged me out here. I definitely don’t trust him as far as I can throw him, not that that would be very far. But do I have any other choice?

“Show me her.”

(/////)

The shed truly is a shed. It’s made of a few beaten up pieces of tin, and stands alone in a field. It’s a lonely, horrible place. And Mare is locked up inside. The heat is enough out here to make me sweat walking the few steps from the transport. I can’t imagine the temperatures inside that metal box.

    The guards standing outside it, straighten from their slumped positions as Proteus approaches. He waves away their respectful salutes. They share worried glances before one of them reports, “she’s been quiet all day. Not a peep from her.”

     “Good.” He says before steps up to the lock. The guard closest to the door waves a hand over it. It clicks and falls open with a rusted creak that I can feel in my bones. I wouldn’t have been able to get her out if even if I had escaped from the village. I didn’t have the strength to deal with the guards, and I would have needed a magnetron to open the door. I would have done all the work to get here, just to hit a road block at the finish line.

     As the door swings open, a wave of sweltering air washes over my face. It’s hot enough in there to cook an egg in the dirt. Ignoring it, I hurry past Proteus to do a quick sweep of the room. Are they giving her water? Has she already died of heat exhaustion? It's shadowy in here, but I can feel the heat pressing in on me from all sides. I imagine when the door closes it's very similar to suffocating.

     Mare’s huddled form in the corner draws me like a beacon. I drop to her side, cringing at the silent stone net before throwing it off. Proteus doesn’t bother to stop me as I roll Mare onto her back and whisper to her. “Mare? Mare are you awake?” She doesn't respond, and my heart beats faster in response. "Wake up Mare, show me you're alive."  

     Her skin is flushed like she has a horrible sun burn, and she’s soaked in sweat. A low groan escapes her, and I glare at Proteus over my shoulder even though relief washes over me. “Get her some water.”

    He shrugs at my demand. “Promise to help me end Montfort.”

     “Get her some water.” I grind the words out through my teeth. I’ve never been so furious in my life. Even in Norta we had never treated political prisoners like this. This was barbaric and inhuman. “Get her water and cool towel.”

Proteus doesn’t move. It’s a stalemate then. Hissing under my breath, I turn back to Mare. Gently pulling her hair back from her face, I start to tame it into a ponytail of sorts to get it off her neck. “It’s alright,” I coo to her as she groans again. Her skin boils under my hands. Not good. I know a dangerous fever when I see it.

     My robe is much thinner than the heavy duty clothes she is still wearing. I make up my mind quickly. Stripping her of her shirt I wring it out as best I can. Even though my entire body recoils at what I’m doing, I carefully exchange it for the top of my robe. The shirt immediately sticks to my skin, and I want to be sick.

     I swallow the bile, before going for her pants. We’re roughly the same size, but I’ll need a belt to keep the pants on. “Relax,” I whisper to her as I put myself between her and Proteus, trying to give her a sense of privacy. She probably couldn’t care less about it right now, but I won’t let that happen. Underneath my hands her skin feels slick like butter. I can barely get her clothes off. They stick to her like a second skin. She was in here for days. How is she not dead yet? I can't imagine being put through this.

    Once I’m wearing her clothes, and I’ve adjusted enough to the feeling of them on my skin, I slide my robe on her. “Everything’s going to be okay.” My words a pathetic and they probably dont come close to comforting. Does she know that I might have to leave her in here again?

     She groans again, and grabs my wrist in a grip that is so weak my stomach flutters. I shush her softly before looking at Proteus again. “Get her water and I’ll do what you need.”

     “Swear your loyalty to my cause.”

     “Are you really going to split hairs right now? She’s dying.”

     He shrugs. “It’s nothing she doesn’t deserve. She’s killed more of mine than her life could repay a hundred times over.”

“<em>Get her water now</em>.” I sing it this time. His eyes glaze over, and he snaps to attention to complete the order. But the song wears off quickly. I’m too close to the silent stone, and its effects are washing over me as they radiate out.

       He stumbles back and grabs at his temple. With a glower in my direction, he says, “Stop doing that.”         “<em>Get her water.</em>” I sing it again, determined to push beyond the nauseating effects of the silent stone. He turns his eyes away from me though and my words are just a pretty melody that bounces off him. The guards arrive at the entrance after hearing the commotion I'm causing.

      I throw myself to my feet and rush him, repeating the song over and over again. He catches me and pins me to the wall by my throat, making the tin rattle. I wheeze and claw at his wrist in response. I feel like a feral cat that has been caught. I'll gouge his eyes out if have to if it means I can get Mare out of this place.

    Grimacing at the headache I’ve probably given him by trying to hammer my will home over and over again, he catches my wrist with his other hand. “I’ll take her back to the camp if you swear your loyalty to me, right here, right now. Does that appease you?” He pants in my face. I can’t get a breath of air passed his fingers to reply with words. Can I agree to this? If I do, will I be betraying the people who took me in initially?

     But Mare is going to die in this horrid place if I leave her here. I won’t put her blood on my hands.

       Nodding, I crane my neck to gasp for air. “Get her out.”

       He drops me to the floor and turns to the guards with an order to bring Mare to the transport. They blanch at him, and try to argue but his next words are sharp and biting. They leap to action, rushing for Mare who has fallen silent again.

       On the ground, I massage my throat and try to get air to my aching lungs. I watch them pick Mare up though. Her eyes, which are finally open, fall to me. I can’t even muster a smile for her, or another reassuring word. I have a horrible feeling I’ve just tied myself to a group that will use me as a shield against the people I actually trust. Have I doomed her and me? Probably. But she's alive, and she's out of here. Maybe we can come up with a plan together now. Relief washes over me as they carry her out into the sunlight. Proteus looks down at me with a condescending eye as I glower up at him.

      "There may be a soldier in you yet." He breathes before grabbing my arm and dragging me to my feet. I have no idea what he's talking about, but I'm exhausted from using my ability so much in such a short time and I willingly let him drag me out to the transport too.

[adulttrio-imagines]

“I don’t want to feel this way anymore.” Chorllo maybe ?

It isn’t everyday Chrollo casually enters the apartment you own, sauntering in as if he owns the place and hasn’t just picked all four of your locks open. He likes making a game out of how many he can open at a time, so far the record is sixteen. With his eyes closed.

He isn’t surprised to find you missing from your usual spot on the couch, it’s late after all and he wasn’t expecting to drop by anyway. Not that it matters, there’s light shinning underneath the crack of the master bedroom door, and he feels a presence in the bedroom which he immediately recognizes as yours.

Instead he takes his time, lazily wondering around the kitchen to fix himself a cup of tea, softly humming a simple tune as he waits for the water to boil, stacking away dry dishes from the rack and sneaking a pack of sweetened nuts from your pantry.

When the water boils and you still fail to turn up, he pours you both a cup of tea, adding a big spoonful of honey into yours, and heads to your shared room.

The repulsive mix of disinfectant, strong alcohol and blood hits him right as he opens the doors, putridly sour, and for a moment he sees towers of garbage and rotting flesh, before the swirling blend of smells pulsating through all corners of the room forcefully drag him back to the present. He sees you lying face up at the foot of the bed, dressed in your bloodied work clothes, endlessly staring at the rotating ceiling fan as the seconds ticked away, silently mouthing unknown words, his presence going unnoticed.

Quietly, he notes the vacant look carved across your face, taking in your chapped lips and burnt cheeks, the darkened rings under your eyes and color of the dried blood painting your clothes tell him how long you’ve stayed in that position.

He sighs, but doesn’t hesitate to slide his arms under your shoulders and knees, lifting you as easily as one would a bag of sugar, before carrying you over to the bathroom. Settling you on the tiled floor, he runs the bath (burning hot, just the way you like it), dropping a bath bomb in for good measure, and it isn’t long before the whole room is filled with hot steam and the smell of vanilla buries the rot.

Using a free hand, he easily cuts through your scrubs and removes them, kicking them into a corner to be thrown out later. He stares down at your naked form, noting how you’ve kept your face turned from him this whole time. Understandable, as under normal circumstances, being in such an exposed situation would be embarrassing, but seeing you lay limply on the floor, not trying to cover yourself, or even remove yourself from the cold tiles, placidly allowing him to do whatever he saw fit, stirred something in him that he once thought died a long time ago.

He makes good work cleaning you up, taking great care to wash off every last bit of filth and grime, unflinching and unwavering in his focus as his hands meticulously scrub off chunks of dried blood and filth that had built up over the past few days, coloring the previously milky white water a dirty brown. He’s careful to not rub your skin too hard when a few stubborn bits refuse to come off, gently applying the right amount of force to prevent further bruising, remaining just as painfully tender as he massages the shampoo into your hair, making sure to avoid your eyes. It’s silent excluding the lapping of water and the occasional comforting murmurs he whispers. You can only sit there as he cleans you up, too far gone to do anything else, unsure if the red on your cheeks were from the blasting heat or from the gentleness of his touch.

A final rinse later, Chrollo deems your cleanliness acceptable and bundles you up in one of your many fluffy bath towels, and drips water everywhere when he carries your curled up form to the bed. He dresses you in the softest comfy clothes he could find in your drawers, and carefully brushes out the hard knots out of your hair. After which he leaves the room briefly, only to return with sweet smelling oils and healing balms, gently dabbing them onto your burn injuries before massaging the oils into your skin with such tenderness it almost hurts. When satisfied with his work, the cups of tea have long since grown tepid, and he kisses you once on the forehead, settling to sit close to you on the ground, retrieving a book from his coat after he covers you with it, as he patiently waits for you to piece together your story.

It feels like an eternity before you finally wrench out the first of your many thoughts.

“I didn’t mean it.” Your voice sounds out like an ugly croak, as if you’ve dragged yourself across the Gordeau Desert. It’s hoarse and broken, but somehow your mouth cooperates.

Chrollo places his book down but doesn’t turn around. You’re thankfully he doesn’t.

“I didn’t mean it..” You start, and your chest feels so full it might just explode, but the tears never come, there was nothing left to cry out. Yet, you feel the aching hurt in your voice down to your very bones.

“I didn’t want to do it, I really didn’t. You have to believe me.” And you see lifeless faces grinning back, frothing in the mouth, the stale smell from the morgue coming back at you once again, stronger than ever, hollow bodies strewn around the narrow corridors as wailing families begged you for-

He clutches you hand before you could finish. They’re warm, solid, and very much alive, anchoring you firmly to reality, the feeling in your chest blossoms so much that it erupts.

And everything that happened tumbles out of your mouth like a never ending stream of garbage, the words growing more and more bitter as you spilled your heart in front of him, weaving an anguished tale; the unequipped local hospital overflowing from a recent chemical accident at a nearby plant, green-faced patients covered in melting sores screaming their lungs out, the dismal lack of available facilities and equipment to handle the fallout, anguished patients lining the parking lot and walkways leading to the hospital, operating rooms forcefully converted into intensive care units in a desperate attempt to cope with the influx, the widespread panic when the effects started spreading to the elderly and the young, mutating into a terrifying image of unimaginable horrors you once believed to have only existed in nightmares.

He doesn’t interrupt, and sits there listening to your story. The warmth from his hand being the only thing that kept you going despite your heart being repeatedly torn into pieces and stomped on in the process of reliving these memories.

You tell him how you were forced to pick between patients who had the highest rate of survival, how you removed life saving equipment from older patients, piece by piece until the heart rate of your patient fell flat, having to stare into their pleading, conscious eyes the whole time. And you did it, again and again and again and again and again. For one whole month, you forcefully removed ventilators from weakened patients, just to be used on others believed to have a greater chance of survival.

Not that it mattered, at the end of the thousand and forty-four hours, only fifteen survived, and you got to dump the hundreds of corpses into a pit for mass incineration. You let the flames blasting off burn off your skin, even when the heat scorched your hair and made your skin peel off, it felt good to stand there and take the heat.

You close your eyes, feeling the fire lick at your wounds, faceless victims grabbing at your clothes, the haunting smell of vomit and burnt flesh seemingly linger in the air, even when you lay in bed, miles away from the pit.

The world spins for a moment, and you find yourself nestled in his bosom, coat wrapped as tightly around you, arms holding you close to his chest as he hums an old tune, his chest vibrating with each note, as if you were a scared child needing comforting. But he isn’t wrong, and you curl deeper into him, breathing in his scent. Chrollo always smells nice. It was never anything you could distinctly place a finger on, like a suspicious blend of old memories and the first chords of a familiar song, but it’s comforting and safe all the same.

He smells like home.

So you can not help yourself from saying this:

“I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

He turns to you with an unreadable expression and the regret that floods you makes you cower away in shame. It’s a selfish request, and terribly rich of you for demanding him such things. You did not deserve such loving touches or kind acts after everything you’ve failed to do.

You didn’t even deserve to cry.

Chrollo says nothing. He’s not a man of many words, and you weren’t expecting him to say anything either, but the tightening of his grip and subsequent kisses he peppers you with speak to you louder than any words could have.

You are enough.

The feeling of long fingers brushing through your hair, as the same tune is repeated are the last things you remember right as your conscience starts to drift and sleep comes to claim you.

[yourwinedarksea]

i would literally read anything you write but consider this: self-loathing what-percent-human am i prompt

If I tell you, Witcher, that I can neither forgive Stregobor nor renounce my revenge, is that it?

I admit I’m a monster?

He leaves her in the muck and the blood of Blaviken. Leaves her bloodied and dirtied and dead.

But she follows him still, in the taste of cheap ale at the back of his mouth, in his dreams where she’s being cut open, picked apart and cut into pieces. A thing to be labelled and sectioned and studied.

A jar on a shelf.

No more princess.

It’s only in the after of leaving her in the muck, with her slit-throat drying bloody and brutal, and the stones being pelted at him, that he thinks about her words. Stregobor’s words.

You made a choice and you’ll never know if it’s the right one.

And he won’t, he realises, not ever.

.

.

               It’s in an apothecary he visits that he finds Renfri first. A jar on a shelf, a bit of a monster, no more than skin or blood or ground-up bone.

It’s not really her, he knows, these shelves are no homes for a princess, but he looks at the pieces floating inside and wonders just how small she ended up. Wonders how much monster a girl can have inside of her, how many pieces Stregobor saw fit to cut out. Ten percent? Twenty? If he took her tongue and her eyes and her liver. If her blood darkens on a shelf as the months pass.

If her heart, floating, suspended in brine, gathers dust.

What percent is enough to make someone monstrous?

They made you. Just as they made me.

Not quite, he thinks, but is it better to be mutated, better to have been a little boy forced to become something else— or is better to have been born wrong, to have never known the difference in your body, to have never seen your own face change?

But that’s all fucking wrong anyway.

When I cut my finger, I bleed. That’s human, right? When I overeat, my stomach aches. When I’m happy, I laugh. When I’m upset, I swear.

And when I hate someone, for stealing my whole life from me, I kill him.

And this is the worst of it, Geralt knows, that whatever Renfri was, whether Princess or Shrike or Monster… she was a girl first. And no matter what grew inside of her, no matter what tainted her. No matter what sun or moon she first drew breath beneath…

She was a girl first.

(And like him, she saw her body change, saw her face change, saw blood on her hands and tasted it in her mouth… a mutation of a different kind. But a mutation all the same. Forced to adapt. Forced to learn. Forced to go out into a world that could find them no home

but for the dirt, eventually.)

.

(Or a jar on a shelf.)

.

.

                 But still, Renfri is an apparition. His own personal haunting. A thing lingering at his back like the swords he carries, strapped and bound for use.

But she’s not so quiet as a ghost. She’s the spit from a merchant’s mouth, the curled lip of a man in the street, the tightening hand of a woman on her child’s shoulder.

They made me. Just as they made you.

Renfri is, he thinks, that moment between Geralt being a not-quite man moving through the motions of the life chosen for him and the moments where he is Witcher and Demon and Mutant and Butcher.

She’s always there in his head, with her cut throat and her bloody skin, asking him what he’s going to do if they come after him. How many stones can you take, she asks, how much spit and spite and spewed curses?

How heavy is your sword, Geralt?

Too heavy, he thinks, to lift it for so little a thing as a curled lip.

He isn’t sure he ever heard her really laugh, but she said she did, and he knows she bled (out in the muck) and so when she laughs at him in his head, he takes it as a true sound, a spoiled (rotting) princess with a laugh like a broken chime.

You’re a fool, Geralt.

It won’t be stones, next time.

 .

.

               As the years pass, Renfri fades into a voice in his head, into images behind his eyelids, no girl, no princess, just a phantom he knew once. But in her place, like chains on a floor, like a howling spirit cursed to roam, Butcher rises and spreads and Geralt of Rivia is less and less a thing to hire and more and more a rabid dog, frothing at the chain that holds him, waiting to be put down.

Butcher, they say, you’re not welcome here.

Butcher, they whisper, slaughtered a whole village.

Butcher, they spit, you’re the Butcher of Blaviken, aren’t you?

In his head, Renfri laughs.

You’ll be next, you know, she says, there’s a nice jar waiting, we’ll label it together.

 .

.

                 The Butcher of Blaviken—

And his fist is in the bard’s stomach before he really thinks it through, only knows that for a moment, when the bard had first called him Geralt of Rivia, it had been a moment where he’d forgotten Renfri.

There was no spit, no curled lip, no tightening hand on a child’s shoulder. Just a bard and his eager, awkward smile that grates at Geralt like a hacksaw. It reminds him, stupidly, of Marilka.

But for some reason, the bard doesn’t leave. He talks on and on and on like a song echoing through a cavern but—

 For a moment. For awhile. He forgets about jars and shelves and percentages. For a moment, for awhile, he lets the bard stay.

 .

.

               There’s a dead Witcher in a coffin of salt. He wants to ask the witch if she took any parts or if the monster only took the best bits to eat and left nothing worthwhile behind.

Is a Witcher body worth more or less? Does it taste different? Did the Striga taste her own kind on her tongue?

Autopsy, Stregobor had called it, and he wonders what the witch do with the parts left behind. If she’ll cut him open more, split the cavity of his chest-wound wider until she can peel him open the same way Geralt knows Renfri was. If this Wticher will find a home in a jar in a shelf, labelled, tucked away to gather dust.

How much of him is no different than the men already left half-eaten by the Striga? How much of him is mutated? How much monster hides inside a body so well formed to match a mans’?

Forty? Sixty?

Too much, he thinks, or maybe too little. Too little of both, caught in between like bit of sinew in between his teeth.  Too monstrous for man and too human for monsters.

 .

Or maybe it’s just that you’re more human than you want to be, Renfri says, as his blood surges up beneath his hand and the Striga is nothing but a half-feral girl-child, fearful of the monster that saved her. Black-eyed and armoured, black-eyed and pulling her into consciousness and out of the dark where everything is so much easier—

Maybe you’d like to be less human, wouldn’t that be easier?

And yes, he thinks, maybe, as the darkness takes him and all there is is the girl and the dawn chasing out the shadows of the rotting castle, chasing out the stench of a girl trapped in a body that wasn’t quite right, made of hunger and rage and a weak, jealous man’s obsessive love.

 He wonders what they’ll do with his body.

.

                 The princess? He asks, because he pulled her out of the dark of her own body, cut the mutated umbilical cord binding her to her mother’s corpse and let the girl slip free, six years too late.

I’ve arranged for her to stay with the Sisters of Melitele for awhile, Triss says. And the room smells like blood and death and magic. Like herbs and bandages soaked in his own blood.

(And Renfri, he thinks, like blood and muck and her eyes, wide— that final breath—)

Who’s Renfri? Hers was the only name you uttered, over and over again in your sleep.

Jars. He thinks. Labels. Dusty parts on a shelf.

My humanity, he thinks, like a stitch I can’t stop picking at.

(And he wonders then, if he could unwind himself, pick at the stitches that hold him together until he can see his own insides. Until he can jar himself up, label his own pieces and parts and weigh them out, find out how much he’s worth. How much coin his blood would fetch.

How much monster makes up Geralt.

My coin, he says instead and he can tell Triss is waiting for more, that she wants to open him up in a different way, to understand him without looking at his bones, but—

Is that all life is to you? Monsters and money?

But what is a Witcher without their body? What is Geralt if not Witcher, if not Mutant, if not Butcher?

It’s all it needs to be, he says.

[grim-faux]

9 - Behind his Shadow

The temperature changed.  It was a fickle thing in the massive tunnels that made up the sewer, the warm air clinging to my shoulders while small drafts drifted through my sleeves causing me to shiver.  I remained crouched for several minutes listening keenly for the corridor and the thing through the grate, I’m not sure what I was waiting for.  Or if I was aware that I had been waiting for some time before the small spark of a nerve pulsed up my spine.

I needed to keep moving.  Whatever was there I was either following it or barely staying ahead of it, couldn’t decide which it was.  Either I’d stumble into it or linger too long in one area, and that would inadvertently allow it to reach me before I had time to realize I had been hunted all along.

 I wobbled as I rose to my feet and took some small steps toward the corner of the tunnel, watching the dark shades beyond the large grate with avid caution.  What happened to the person that looked down upon me?  The path on my right was open for exploration.

My nerves were too high strung, in the hollow quiet I startled myself back when my foot broke the surface of the water with a soft swish.  I backed away and rolled my eyes, though my jumpiness couldn’t be discredited.  But still, I was spooked by my own footsteps!

A plate on the wall indicated Administration Block on the right with an arrow to clarify this.  I really didn’t have any options, my only comfort came that this path would not branch out into additional tunnels and I couldn’t possibly get lost down here.  Given, there was a way out and my batteries would last.

Originally I had wanted to pause and wring out the excess water from my coat as best I could, but I didn’t want to stay stationary longer than necessary.  It clung to me like a soggy glove, at least the sewers were warm with decay, only upside here.  It was well received given circumstances.

The tunnel was dim with enough light I didn’t need my camera, I carried it beside my hip for the comfort of it.  The tunnel curved and I followed it into a well-lit channel with large drain pipes beneath the floor, grated over and filled to the brim with thick runoff.  The cooler air settled low, generating a murky steam that clung to everything and swirled around my shoulders as I cut through it.  With no area visible to hide enemies I jogged along taking in the constructive details of the abandon sewer.

It looked like railing was installed along the side, or guardrails for the workers that had to come down when it was flooded.  Support beams ran across the ceiling every few feet, but didn’t seem to help much in preventing cave-ins.  At the end of the channel was another collapse, I was approaching it when a light flittered through blinding me.

A soft voice hummed out, I wasn’t sure if I should retreat now or wait.  He was on the other side of the fallen debris, unless there was an access through on the open tunnel to the right.  The song sounded familiar but against the echoing walls I couldn’t decide if it was ‘Father’ Martin, or one of his disciples.  It didn’t sound like him….

“Till all the lambs in the church of god…”

I couldn’t make out what he was saying at this distance.  He had already taken off, on the other side of the tunnel I saw his light glitter as he ran and his feet chopped up the shallow water.  The song was somehow depressing.  Maybe because of the ‘Father’ Martin’s Gospel of Sand, or maybe seeing the man down searching as I was for his own way out, armed with only a flashlight.

I kept to the left and strained to see through the vapor where he might have gone, the tunnel had a neighboring channel but I didn’t have any ambition to explore that side further.  The forgotten corpse of Murkoffs doctors lay dissolving in the drainage gutter, even from where I stood I could pick up the heavy fumes of his bloated body. 

A door waited innocently at my backside.  I tried the handle half expecting it to be broken or locked, but the knob gave with no effort and I entered to find a patient hidden behind a shelf near the back.  I must’ve looked shocked by his presence as he held up his arms and backed away.

“You don’t have to be scared of me.  I can tell we’re the same.  You still know what’s real.”

I stepped out of the room to glance around and return my eyes to the patient, before reentering and shutting the door behind.  This was the first human in this place to actually comfort me, and not sound creepy about it.  First person to attempt a conversation with me.

“Do you mind if I film you?” I held up my camera, keeping my distance.

“Not at all.  Go ahead.  I’d actually prefer it.”  I raised the camera and zoomed in on him framing his head and shoulders nicely.  He looked no different from the dozens of unaccounted victims, his face ruined by malpractice, scars up and down his arms.  But he was fully clothed.

“The doctor’s dead, you know that, right?  Dr. Wernicke.”  I nodded.  “Died before he even started working here.”  He pinched the bridge of what remained of his nose between his fingers as though recalling some detail, or harmed by the recollections.  “What kind of experiments does a dead doctor perform on living patients?  That’s the question.”

“I found the obituary.”

“Yeah.”  To me it sounded like he didn’t credit this fact too much.  “A few of us have seen it too, a little proof he’s never been here.”  He glanced at the shelf beside him and ran a finger along its metal support.  “Doesn’t change what he’s done.”

“But…he’s dead, isn’t he?  It’s on file.”  My breath hitched when he gave me a venomous look, but it dissolved and he turned away toward a mattress abandoned on the floor behind him.  He curled up on its filthy surface and turned his back to me.

The interview was over.

“The Patients know Dr. Wernicke is dead.  One asks me, ‘What kind of experiments does a dead doctor perform on living patients?’  What is PROJECT WALRIDER?”

I examined the room lightly without disturbing him, and always kept my attention trained to any sort of sound he would make, pausing when his breathing wheezed or the broken springs of the mattress shifted.  There was no visible aid, aside from some cracked shelving and a vent that might’ve led to better venues - I couldn’t reach it.  There was only a ladder in the center of the floor leading down a short ways.  I secured the camera and climbed the rungs, that familiar scent of copper whirled around me and I anticipated what would meet me.

The sewage in the drain gutter was a soft rose color, the sharp scent of death thick in the humid tunnel.  It was fresh otherwise it would have diluted out by now.  All the screaming I’d heard in the upper level?

I shivered as I pulled up the camera but decided not to film, instead I held it between my palms and stared into the water.  What was PROJECT WALRIDER? kept ringing through my thoughts.  What was the screaming I heard?  What happened to those people?  It could’ve been Chris Walker.  Maybe I misheard them, others had expressed fears in his violent tendencies, I must’ve misheard them.  But I couldn’t stop shaking.  My coat was damp and cool, my nerves were shot.  I needed to keep moving, keep my mind focused on what was around me.

Across from my position a plate was fixed on the wall that labeled the contrary directions to take, the Male ward to the left and the Female ward to the right.  I glanced down at the river of swirling red before I set my foot on the side of the gutter and teetered, beside a metal gate.  The Male ward was where I needed to be, I think.  I wasn’t sure anymore, I could’ve as easily headed to the right if I thought there was a way out through the Female section but…I didn’t want to see what that area had to offer. I didn’t want—

A body flopped down from above nearly on top of me.  I pivoted sloshing through the metallic froth back to the direction where the Female ward was, only to turn the bend and find a solid metal gate.  I wasn’t satisfied to turn back yet, not until I took the handle and fought to turn it.  The latch was solid, my only course obvious.

I switched between breathing through my mouth or through my nose, the stench sought my senses no matter what, I could hardly bear it.  Halfheartedly I attempted to walk on the side of the drainage gutter out of the liquid, if only to settle my conscience.  The body that impacted the cement looked torn and twisted in bizarre ways and his arm looked infected, possibly blood poisoning but I was no doctor.  I couldn’t tell if he was this mangled before he fell, or whatever killed him had maimed him.

I was better off never knowing.

As I passed under the huge drain he fell from, I could see the grate above had been removed and the bright light from the upper floors descended unrestrained.  Light was still my enemy, but it was hard not to take comfort in its strong brilliance.

I checked the charge on my camera as I continued into the darker portions of the tunnel, stunned to find it nearly half dead.  That was a good battery, I had seen it when I put it in.  Or wasn’t it?  I wasn’t sure.  But if I needed my night vision down here for prolonged periods at a time, it might be on its lowest functions.

It must’ve been the chill.  The cold had a tendency to drain battery life fast.  But, no…the sewers were at times stifling, almost unbearably so in my damp coat.

The cadence of gushing water traveled around the next corner, elevating my anxiety further.  The fore sound could cloak a stew of early warnings from feet to voices, or other unnamed things.  I squatted behind some waterlogged crates stacked at the edge, and glanced over them when I saw red splatters.  Slowly I eased around the side and peered into a foggy tunnel muddled by failing lights, but enough visibility was there to utilize the zoom on my camera.  I couldn’t make out movement, even with the running water dividing my attention.  A new scene of horror awaited me.

I slipped around the boxes keeping low, and moved to the opposite side of the channel in an effort to avoid further soaking.  Water spewed from a broken water valve of a large pipe connected between the floor and ceiling, I didn’t bother to check it as my eyes focused on the red splattered on the walls and floor.  It looked like someone had been straining chunky human pieces from the large drainage pipes in the ceiling, the sides splattered with bright globs of black and red.  It was all spilling from the rim of the gutter into the water staining it the crimson hue.  Beneath the surface I could view small fish like things squirming about, as persistent as the flies burrowing into soggy guts or body parts.

I closed my eyes and swallowed, I could feel myself shaking harder as I lowered my arms beside me.  This nightmare looked recent, it smelled fresh and raw.  I had memories as a kid, being with my dad at the local butchers as he cut up the hindquarters of a hog.  This reminded me sharply of that.  Of all those times.

Maybe after this I’d turn vegan.  I never was a big fan of steak.

There was no end to it as I moved through the tunnel, blood was stained up the walls, and pieces of inner organs left strew over pipes and crates lining the gutter.  Each drain I passed under had blood running down its interior, more innards, or large sheets of skin imbedded with bone.  A leg bobbing in the drain still had blood seeping from the stump, as the little black sewer guppies thrashed into their meal.

Finally, a full human body was laid dead in the bend of the tunnel.  I didn’t care to identify his death, I continued and placed myself on the side of the gutter.  The channel darkened and a cold draft crept through my coat, I was forced to use the camera to keep from stumbling on the slick sides.

Something hissed ahead of me.  I sighed irritated by how jumpy I was, given I was still alone, it was just a pipe—

A thick splash sent cold beads of water through the bars.  I retreated a few steps and gazed through the visor, seeing nothing but a sturdy grate where the movement had occurred.  The bloated body of a Murkoff researcher was crammed against the bars, some of the skin exposed at his neck and face had been disturbed by the sudden kick in the water and floated freely from the muscles of his skull.  Above, or around me there was that same sound, ball bearings rattling through pipes.  I turned my camera filming wherever I thought the sound twittered though there was nothing to see, the noise sent shivers up my spin.  Or it could’ve been the sudden chill locked in the stale air.  Couldn’t stop here.

Need to keep moving.  Had to escape.  Thoughts of Chris and what he could do to me vanished completely with the presence of this ‘unknown.’  I wasn’t sure what I was running from, only that I somehow kept out of its line of sight.  Dumb luck.

I entered an intersecting tunnel on my right but drew back, there was light ahead but the sounds were still present, sounded like it had filtered out of the pipe and was now crashing around behind the door in the tunnels side.  The uproar grew in volume as whatever tore the room apart, shelves cracked as all manner of furniture was flung about.  The metal barrier quivered and my breath came labored, I wasn’t sure if I was actually experiencing this.  How did it get from here to that room?

I took small steps forward, before springing away for no real reason other than my fear of the sounds and I recalled the slaughter.  I could almost hear it now, shrieking voices of the deranged as skin was peeled back and bones cracked.  Then all at once everything ceased and silence saturated the calm tunnel.

It felt like I was in some sort of danger, though no visible evidence was present to suggest this notion.  The air was filled with the metallic reek and rot of old sludge, I could almost pick up the soft warble of water spilling down cobblestone.  I felt my heart sank as I realized it could just as easily be blood spilling from a ruined neck.

I debated trying the handle to see what was in there.  The highest probability would be its displeasure with the intrusion, followed by my abrupt death.  In the dark red liquid of the gutter I could see the drains grate was removed from the wall, a possible means to get away from this area.  For a moment I couldn’t move, my eyes flashed to the silent door with its unassuming threat.

Quickly I zipped along the far side of the wall across from the door and gently stepped into the rosy liquid, there was no sound as I shuffled along in the cramped space in the dark. I choked on that thick oil reek as I felt about, feeling light headed with the sudden collision.  My camera was also getting low on power, but I insisted on using every last bit of what it had.  I still only had two more batteries, and one I was certain was on half power.  My leg stung as I bore my grungy pants into the wounds with the chilled water, I shifted my weight and adjusted the camera in my hand before I could fall over.  This drain lacked the curving edges I could rest my hand upon to keep my balance, as it was I could barely keep my knees and lower edges of my coat dry.  I felt an immediate difference in temperature the moment I entered, the air was cold and calm causing my shoulders to ache as I trembled uncontrollably.

The small tunnel felt near endless in the consuming black, the edges of the green night vision made it more oppressive than should be possible.  What was only mere seconds felt like ages, until I reached a fork.  I attempted the one side that curved left, only to find it dead end at a sturdy grate.  Returning to the original route, I made certain where I was headed before trying the other side.

When the patients came down here earlier, they might have removed some of these grates together for shorter routes.  As long as the path was open, I was obligated to take it.  Every wrong turn wasted battery life and I attempted to conserve the energy by switching the NV off whenever possible, but in the black slate of nothing I felt the patient approach of something deadly.

I crawled out into a small room, a pump station.  It was drained, perhaps by the patients that came through or what was left of the staff still surviving this madness.  Some crates sat stacked in the diluted blood channel, and large pipes bore down through the grates upon which I stood, separating me from a nasty swim.  The thick fumes of oil and gas filled my lungs and the water I stood in had that translucent, iridescent sheen of chemical residue. Neglected machinery, yet still worked long after abandonment. Some miracle.

I put the camera away, with such nice lighting I just should.  The rail ahead was within arm reach if I jumped, and climbed over rather struggle between the bars.  A set of shelves at the opposite side of the room were loaded with tools and parts, and some cans of oil.  Two doors on either wall indicated the only options out of this room, if they were unlocked.

I tried the one nearest to me set on the solid cement floor, its appearance almost pleasant against the cold brick.  Behind the door was a wall of black, which would take me somewhere worthwhile I decided that instant.  The air within felt sharp and chilled, unlike the humid sewers.

The other door may have accessed the room I was locked from, as with it something dangerous and incomprehensible.  I doubted it, but decided not to risk it.  Strange shuffling and scratching sounds came from the other side, I had no wish to meet its gaze and learn its nature.  I slipped into the dark chill of the next channel, and shut the door.

Best leave some mysteries, my sick curiosity was going to be the death of me.

I was upon a high grated walkway, without the night vision I could feel the danger press close into me.  Decay, mildew, and every manner of disease.  My finger with the missing nail was in a good deal of pain, easily ignored but a frequent reminder whenever I fumbled with the cameras operations.

The path to my right was loaded with boxes, a precarious place to climb for a view if they gave out and I fell into god knows what below.  When I checked over the side I could make out the walls of metal sheeting gapped for water flow and ruined by corrosion of the mountains natural minerals, the oily water rippled with garbage from the main ward.  I was vaguely reminded of Star Wars, and half expected some unknown monster lurking in the depths to coil about my leg and drag me downwards to jaws lined with thousands of tiny teeth.

I laughed at this.  My laughter echoing off the great expanse of this chamber, deep into the dark, lost in this hell hole.  Somewhere out there a patient was laughing with me.  I swore I could hear him.

Or maybe that was my echo.

My knees gave out and I slumped to them lowering the camera beside me, but never letting go of it.  I laughed until my sides ached and I tasted that copper residue in my mouth once more.  I had fallen to deep chuckles before I started to cough on the foul air, then I flopped to my good side and lay there snickering quietly to myself on the frigid bridge.

What an idiot I was coming to this place!  “The story that breaks these bastards.”  Weren’t those my exact words?  Don’t quote me on that.  Looks like I got what I was looking for, fuckin’ story of the century, and Murkoff’s crushing demise.  They looked pretty broken to me, but maybe I wasn’t squinting right.  I should get that in fine print, signed by Dr. Wernicke himself.  Oh the irony he died before this place flipped its lid.

I waited till I had control again before attempting to rise, I didn’t need to buckle over the rail and make a graceless swan dive.

The path going left looked clear, but the rail was shattered to some distance.  With no better option I bit down on my reservations and dropped into the water, prepared for the jolt though not taking it as well as I had hoped.  I murmured to myself as my sides settled and I continued, camera held near my face as I waded through chest deep water.  It had the sharp rust smell, that was more metallic than blood, the pipes around here were made of zinc I thought.  Probably wrong, I wasn’t a plumber and I wouldn’t tell one how to do his job before I researched it.

I stopped and listened when I heard something that sounded like hissing, or grinding.  The way echoes twisted between the distant walls….maybe it was shrieking?  Maybe I was shrieking and wasn’t aware of it.

To reassure myself I touched my lips with my hand, never once considering how filthy my fingers were after I had been crawling down in the gutters.  In about five minutes it would come back to me.  I took a shaky breath to smooth my frayed nerves but it didn’t help at all.  I tried not to bite down on my tongue to prevent my teeth from chattering, in the event something did surprise me, I’d wind up biting off my tongue.

In the dark a shape flittered by, startling me back a step.  I gazed at it until my eyes told my brain what it was, just a scrap of blanket from somewhere.  I hated this place.  It was obvious by now.

I searched around the small channel, not sure what to make of this area.  I decided not to worry about it.  There were large grates, massive, separating this area from the channels I might have viewed or come through.  There was no way into them.  I hurried my movement, struggling to build a mental map of where I was going and prevent wasting the battery by getting turned around.  The chamber was extending beyond the dividing sections and cement walls far spread enabling me from following one side without losing too much power in the process.  I ventured into a small area open by a tear in the steel mesh, but found nothing other than a cluster of crates and some magazines that dissolved around my coat.

My battery was done, and I was forced to change it out.  The next one was full power, good to get me out of here.  Just had to find somewhere to get too.

When I returned to the area I had just left, I noted a stack of crates beneath a broken rail.  It’s connector.  I climbed the crates and dragged myself up onto the path, or what was left of it.  A few steps and I was already splashing below in the next channel, wading along with water bubbling into my coat.  I supposed I was looking for ways to get up and walk on these broken paths to reach a door or ladder, anyway to get out of here.  Good plan.  I had a good sense of direction on me, so long as I didn’t overthink which way I was facing.  If I memorized where I came from and kept my back to the drop or path, then I could navigate across the murky waters with a good mind where the next catwalk would appear.

As I was moving the same clatter of pellets in a pipe twittered off the fences and walls.  I checked the ceilings and zoomed to locate large pipes hung above, it was difficult to follow a direction consistently.  I also wasn’t certain if I wanted to follow that eerie sound, I was trying to keep avoid it.

After walking halfway around the small pool I located the grated steps leading up to my next pathway.  One way was the broken remains of the metal bridge, the other took a sharp right.  I walked along, wrenching back when a form came into view.  Just a cold body slumped on the rail, I lowered the camera to rub my face with my hand.  When I pulled my hand back I held it out straight and viewed it through the NV feed of the visor.  My hand was trembling like an addict suffering heavy withdrawals.  I didn’t feel frightened here despite the odd sounds and the lurking threat, I was just cold.  It was very cold and I was trembling.

I turned the camera back on the patient.  It was a rather odd place to die, I gave the corpse plenty of space as I passed.  The small detail that I was viewing murdered patients in the sewers was not missed, it could mean a number of things.  They were lost down here due to ‘Father’ Martins guidance, and the big fucker had found them.  Or, the remaining survivors of the staff had retreated down here, and were defending themselves from the variants.  While the latter speculation seemed the most plausible, I doubted it.  I had already accepted that everyone affiliated with Murkoff for whatever reason, had been killed.  And nothing could change that.

The catwalk came to its inevitable end, and I was certain I heard something glide through the liquid below.  It was only fair to note that at this point I was disturbed, and I couldn’t tell if my mind was playing tricks on me or if there was really something lurking below in the untold depths.

Star Wars.

The water swirled about me when I plopped in, and I took a moment to check the power on the battery before continuing.  I was stunned to find it half done.  What was this?  I found these batteries abandoned throughout this place, had they lost most of their juice exposed the way they were?

For now it would hold, I’d worry over it later.  Probably when it was too late.

I swore I felt the water ripple around my chest.  Maybe my movement caused ripples that returned to me.  Echo ripples?  Seemed logical. I needed to get out of here before something did drag me under and drowned me.  I kept walking, careful steps and slow movements, try not to disturb the surface too much.  The silence grew thunderous as my heart pumped in my chest, I was completely and totally alone here in this channel.

The water burst in front of me spraying the camera as with my face with an icy sheet, it successfully spooked me into a full retreat.  It was nothing I assured, after I had calmed myself and gawked back at the burbling surface.  There was nothing there, no one in the water.  Just…something from the ceiling.  Worn brick, or that nasty shit.  Fuck, a decapitated head, none of those things could consciously hurt me.

Another walkway curved overhead to the right, it felt like I had gone in a complete circle only because I didn’t trust the stability of some boxes.  I could see no boxes from where I was stationed below.  I grunted and hauled myself up, bringing the camera back to my face as I took the path.  A few feet and I found an innocent looking door to my left, the slim crawl of light at the bottom crack.  The hinges stuck and creaked as forced it open, only to meet a despairing sight.

The room was empty aside from a bare utility shelf, some plywood, and a man slumped in the furthest corner.  A thin black puddle had formed under him, indicating an advanced post mortem state.  At his hand was a wrinkled notepad suffering water damage, and the remains of a brown crayon.

I gave the body a distrustful glare before I stepped forward and took up the pad.  The writing was mostly eligible, only because crayon was waterproof, but it had not taken well to wet paper I surmised.

“Already weak, cold.  It’s still bleeding but it doesn’t hurt anymore and I almost have quiet.  I can’t hear the Walrider anymore.  Maybe the therapy is wearing off, I can’t remember the dreams.  Said I could earn my release from this place by submitting to the therapy.  Lies.  Of course they were lying.  It was not therapy.  We were sacrificed to conjure a demon.  Please, let there be no more dreams.  The only hel….”

Out of habit I flipped the page over to see if there was more, but the writing had a thick crescent mark trailing off the unfinished word.

I returned my gaze to the dead man.  One patient had said there were no experiments, but rituals, and had called it a ‘conjuring.’  What exactly did the experiments for Project Walrider entail?

But who did this man refer to?  Murkoff, or ‘Father’ Martin.  ”Accept the Gospel, and all doors will open”’  What was the therapy he referred to?  The mutilation each patient bore?  Too many new questions, not enough answers.  Even the authentic documents Murkoff published made little more sense than the patients statements.

I recorded the note, doubting even with the descent light of the room that it would be eligible, but I went ahead and tore off the page and folded it up to slip into my notebook.  My coat wasn’t waterproof, but the pocket I kept perishable items in was lined with a water repellent material that kept them safe.  A bit of liquid did seep through the zipper, but it was more than my body could say.

I shut the door and resumed on the walkway, only to find its sudden end.  I splashed into another channel coughing at the odd shift in my ribs, it didn’t hurt but tickled more like I had a mild cough.  I waded around the perimeter but located no visible way to exit here, nor an overhead path.  Off on the side I climbed out on a wide drainage chute to take a moment and exchange out the battery.  For a moment I listened to the water drip off my coat and trickle into the large body below, aside from this the chamber was total silence, even the rattle of needles had faded away leaving the echoing vibrations of the solitary water rippling against metal sheeting.

The battery was a half dead one as well.  Might as well use it while things felt calm, I’d have to tread cautiously and maybe give this one up early if I wandered near danger.  Though, the way my batteries were dying, it seemed inevitable that I would change it soon.

With no visible exit here, I decided to backtrack. I must have missed something.  An opening probably, skipped in the poor NV quality.  Excuses, excuses.  I chided myself for being so careless, even distracted as I was I needed to pay attention to my surroundings or I wouldn’t survive much longer.  I shuddered at the thought as I slipped into the cold channel.  It was just cold.

I returned to the previous pool, before had I climbed up into the catwalk with the dead patient.  I scoured the perimeter over wasting precious battery life, before I decided to climb that damn drainage chute with the grate.  I had missed a small opening in the side, looked like someone had kicked it out with fire.  I crawled into the next channel, chamber, flow - whatever, and stepped down into water that was not quite as deep.  It was freezing though, I was shaking so hard the images of the visor were not clear enough to see until I had paused to get my quakes under control.

Felt like my knees were numb, but it did ease the pain in my chest.  I was going to be a female before the end of this.  Damn.

I tried along the outer wall locating all the discarded papers, folders, cans, and cardboard.  My pulse quickened and I was trembling harder than before, I found out why as I turned the camera.  Rotted decapitated heads floating at the sides.  I could see the heads due to the eyes, eyes always glowed.  I hated that.  Somehow my peripheral vision had picked up on them before I consciously realized it, the notion itself elicited a tiny moan from me.  Across the channel I could zoom on the camera and locate more heads balanced on crates staring with vacant expressions across the black expanse.  I shut my eyes and looked away.

There was a sound.  Someone screaming, most likely.  I continued, bumping a few items that became water logged and sunk.  Bodies floated after some time.  Eerie thought right there.  I wasn’t paying enough attention at the moment, couldn’t bring myself to focus on where I was going.  A small knot had buried into my spine like an obnoxious ache, but it felt more like stress and the cold twisting my nerves. 

When I finally staggered in the water nearly dropping the camera I looked out, revaluating my position.  A few large pillars supported what must’ve been the upper floor.  There was a way out, somewhere to climb up on and get a better view of my surroundings.

Movement.  Ripples.  They could have been mine, but they traveled from the opposite side of the room far from walls, that I could tell.  Something solid was down here with me.

I shuffled near the curving wall carefully, taking small steps as I turned the camera in gradual sweeps and zoomed in.  Trying to find what, before it found me.  I drew too near to it and picked up the dull clink of chains, and the rather aggressively way the water broke.

Chris Walker.  Down here!  Damn it, if there was no way out!

But as I turned the camera, up in the ceiling there beamed a light from some sort of opening.  It meant nothing, probably from where the big fucker crashed in from.  But it was my only chance.  It was more than what I’d found so far.

I hid behind a stack of crates and peered out, as his eyes glimmered phantom like in the NV mode.  Just beyond him I could make out a set of steps leading up, and a walkway.  That was something, and the light source right there, it could have been where Chris plunged in from.

What was he doing down here?  Lost?  I didn’t care, it would be a nice change of pace if he was stuck.  I doubted his fate would end in a place like this, he wouldn’t rest until he saw me dead.

“Stacked neatly side by side,” he hummed, taking a turn and wandering a ways from my position.

I zoomed out, heading in the general direction I had seen the steps.  “Too good at what I do.”  He must’ve been lost in recollections of his past, or a session with the doctors.  It kept him distracted and that was good.  “Someone’s here.”  Not nearly enough.

The rings were getting smaller as he closed in on me, I was barely climbing the steps when the power in my battery began to fade.  Fuck, what bad timing!  I bolted up the steps rather bother with it.  Chris gave a sharp snarl when he must have seen my form in the faint light.  I ran, not realizing the path ended before I nearly bolted off the broken walkway into open air.

There was a ladder that would’ve extended down to the bridge, if it was still intact.  The lower portion of it and much of the catwalk was torn to shreds and dumped in the water below.

I felt the vibrations of the big fucker as he stormed up behind me.

I jumped down into the water and wadded away.  He did much of the same, only he seemed to have an easier time charging through the froth after me.  My camera was depleted, but it did punch a small hole of perception in what was otherwise a black wall.  I was in a mad hobble to keep out of his grip, and he was catching up.

A very insignificant memory came back to me, way back from my child hood.  When the kids in my old neighborhood got together Saturday nights to play outdoor games, like kids my age used to do many moons ago, we would often play tag.  I had many fond memories of being it, and not being it.  Sometimes we got bored and would antagonize the tagger, so we could run.  No one liked trying to tag me much, I was good at getting away.  But if ever I was in a jam and close to getting caught, I had a very unique way of eluding my pursuer.

With Chris close at my back, I managed several long strides in the impeding water and leapt forward, twisting in midair and coming down so I faced the opposite way I was headed.  Albeit, it was sluggish in the water, I shoved off glancing by Chris as he fought to jerk about.

The back of his arm slammed into my lower hip as he fell, a loud yowl expelled from my throat as the chains multiplied the pain by six.  I stumbled but recovered quickly, adrenaline pumped through my veins as I made it back, guided only by the poor light of the night vision.

“You had your chance!”

I could hear him stagger upright and resume the chase.  The metal steps were a few feet off but I redirected myself and took them three at a time, never mind the throb building in my hip.  Never mind any of that shit, I wouldn’t have another go at this if I fell.

I stuffed the camera strap between my teeth before I lunged forward, relying on my meek sight alone and the faulty light to identify the ladders bars glinting in the fog.  I hit them with a muffle grunt, my boots slipping through the space and I swung backwards barely catching the rungs with my feet splayed against them.  When I hit the lower side with my back, holy hell, the bolt of pain shot up my shoulder blades and numbed a spot in my tongue.  Somehow I never lost my grip on the camera, probably because I had bitten hard into the strap due to the shock.  Dumbfounded, I hung there as Chris thundered across the bridge with a murderous growl.  I registered his intentions with enough time to jerk myself up, as he leapt slashing at my shoulder.

Complete silence.

I imagined Chris Walker falling forever into a dark void, or well.  A poisoned well, before he splashed at the very bottom.  My abdomen began to ache, and I was forced to haul myself up and climb the ladder the rest of the way.  Below, he snarled with fury and maybe promised next time would be different, before he broke off into mad cackles that sounded a little too feminine to be MY big ugly fucker.

I was delirious by the time I reached the top of the ladder, my body sort of oozed out onto the icy concrete floor and I rolled away from that large gaping hole.  Away from danger, away from that wicked monster.  I curled myself up beside some shelving and lay there, clutching the camera to my chest.  A dull throb pulsed up my side and a unbearable warmth seeped through my lower thigh, I fumbled for my wet pants leg trying to decide if I was bleeding but it was impossible to tell.  I probably shouldn’t be clutching my only light source to my wet coat, but my brain wasn’t registering the warning at this time.  It felt like everything was spinning, the dull beige room I lay in was whirling and twisting, I felt my eyes roll back under their lids as I tried to follow the motion.

I thought I heard someone crying, but it wasn’t me.  Fuck that.  I rolled off my side and looked over at a man in a chair.

Beware men in chairs.

For a long time I stared at him and I think, he stared right back.  His face looked like it was infected, or a bees nest had made a home in his brain.

Miles.  Up.  Get up Miles.  Walk it up.

I don’t really want to.  But I made the effort, slipping my hands under me and pushing off the dusty ground.  A small whine escaped me as I pushed, literally dragging myself to my feet.  Once I was standing, I moved towards the open door.  A familiar sort of door, I couldn’t recall where I had seen doors like this.

I managed to reach the doorway before I dropped.  A moment, I needed a moment.  Just a short span of time in the quiet, away from the screaming and the oppressive death, and the dangers.  Just give me five minutes to get my shit together and get up.  As I sank heavily to my side I exhaled a sharp breath scattering the dust near my face, my forehead thudded with pain as the warmth subsided in my calm state.  I’m not sure if I was on my good side or if I had a good side anymore, perhaps a more favorable position to lie in?  I couldn’t sleep here, but I couldn’t resist either.  I wouldn’t sleep.  I would not sleep.  Wouldn’t sleep.

The soft shuffle of feet interrupted my coaxing.  I turned my head just enough over my shoulder to see the man from the chair approach me.  I did my best to glare at him, or to not look terrified before I blacked out.

[nihlisticfireball]

While a crowded tavern was less to their liking, it would be good to have a roof over their heads, if just for a night.

Immediately through the door a bawdy drinking song and the curtain of hot air of an overfull building hit them in the face. It stank of sweat and beer, and more than once Ellie had to step hard to pull her boots from a sticky plank on the floor. Patrons danced on stools and benches, hoisting steins of frothing ale, spilling more than they drank in their frenzied celebration. Ellie could feel Rafe tense up behind her, full of discomfort at the tightly packed confines, before she could turn and suggest leaving, a man stumbled towards her, arm outstretched.

“So happens I like em thick, look,” he slurred, thick fingers wiggling like worms. Quicker than Ellie could blink, a large, strong hand clamped down on the man’s forearm, the vice-like grip tight enough to blanch the skin on the drunk’s hand. He let out a garbled cry as he tried to jerk back, which turned into a harsh keen as his feet slipped from beneath him and his attempts to free his errant limb grew violent; though whether he was screaming at the pain or the sight of red scales revealed by the rise of Rafe’s sleeve, Ellie was not sure. She gave the Drakiin a pointed look from beneath her hood; he grunted in acquiescence, and let go. The unfortunate man was pulling so hard for his freedom he all but flew backwards, falling to the ground and knocking the legs from a few bystanders and a stool or two.

“Demon!” the man cried, visibly trembling. “You’re a d-demon!” He pointed an accusing finger, grasping the already purpling forearm in his opposite hand as though to hold it steady. The tavern had gone quiet, and everyone too drunk to have the sense to look away was staring.

Rafe’s eyes flashed red under the dark of his cowl in the dancing flame of a nearby lamp. “I thought you wanted to hold hands,” he said, his deep voice a cool rumble from down in his chest. A moment of silence passed. Someone coughed, one of the tavern wenches giggled, and suddenly the room burst into air-tossing belly laughter. The music picked up again, and a number of hands helped the terrified drunk to his feet, though now he looked more confused than scared. “Think you’ve had enough, mate,” someone said cheerfully, while another pointed out “What’d ye expect, layin’ hands on another mans woman?”

Ellie knew Rafe was looking to her for a confirmation of sorts, as he always did with his decisions. She knew he sought her approval no matter how many times she explained he did not need it; his upbringing had left him with little confidence in choosing his own directions. Still, she turned her back on him, and felt rather than saw the shift in his demeanor: he missed his step, brain churning in a moment of panic, and was forced to stutter after her as the rowdy crowd closed in her wake. Ellie had been short all her life, and was accustomed to budging through cramped quarters. The mass of bodies did not slow her, but Rafe, though he was taller than the tallest by a head, found it more troublesome. He was used to forcibly knocking people out of his path, and this dance of dodging feet and encroachment on his personal space made him deeply uncomfortable. When at last he plopped next to Ellie on her chosen bench, his shoulders sloped sullenly and his breathing was shallow, as though even the act of inhaling deeply may draw unwanted attention to himself.

“Water,” Ellie commanded of a nearby serving girl before Rafe could speak, her irritation making her voice short. Rafe’s hood draped lower over his head as he sank in his seat. Ellie bit back a sigh, feeling conflicting waves of guilt and annoyance crashing in her gut. Rafe came from a world where his every emotion was dictated and criticized, with a very twisted semblance of free will, and his recent experiences with actions as simple as feeling showed he was still very new to the process. Her exasperation with him was untoward, and did little to coach him down the right path, but she despised being viewed as an object, something requiring protection, and the very thought Rafe might see her as weak made her heart squeeze in palpable frustration.

“Water’s gone foul,” the girl said.

Ellie crinkled her nose. “Then what do you brew with?”

The girl looked away.

“Beer, then,” Ellie grumbled, “preferably something not made here.” And the girl was away. They sat in silence for a long moment, both stewing in their own versions of shame, before Ellie spoke up. “I don’t need you to protect me.”

“I should just let him grab your tit, next time?” The words were a low growl but there was no bite to them.

“You should have let me handle it,” Ellie countered, “so there would be no next time.” Neither of them had looked at the other, till now. Ellie pulled her hood back, her black curls thicker in the hot, wet air. “I’m not fragile, Rafe. And I’m not an object. I’m not yours to protect.”

His eyes darkened in a way which suggested otherwise, and his mouth parted, then closed, and parted again as he searched for the right words. Finally he swept his forked tongue over his sharp canines and shuffled in his seat, dropping his gaze away. “I… don’t like it when people… touch you,” he said gruffly, frowning, wearing the face that came of him puzzling in frustration over something he felt he should understand: the ridge of scales at his brow furrowed in, the left raised slightly higher than the right, an almost pained expression, like the petulant child he never had the opportunity to be, and as close to one as he would ever get.

Ellie could not help her chuckle. “I don’t like when drunkards try and grab my tits either,” she said, voice softening. Her gray coat rustled as she slipped her hand into his cloak beneath the table, squeezing his clenched fist. “But that’s my problem, not yours.” His brows lifted, but his gaze remained heavy and downcast. “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate you having my back. I just don’t need you to fight my battles, is all.”

He seemed to mull over her words for a time, the quiet between them more comfortable, less stark against the boisterous ambiance of the tavern. The girl brought them two mugs of beer, pale, sour stuff, and Ellie thanked her and tipped her with a silver ingot, more her genial self than she had been earlier.  She took a small sip and struggled to not make a face.

Rafe noticed. “I’ve upset you,” he said, morose.

“I’m not upset, Rafe. Truly.”

“You only drink when you’re upset.”

Ellie looked blankly at her mug. “To be honest, I’m only drinking so it doesn’t seem like we came in here for nought.” She tried another mouthful and grimaced this time, baring her teeth at the offensive stuff. Rafe thought the way she crinkled her nose and made her freckles dance was adorable, and laughed. It only earned him a fierce glare, but where her thick mop of curls made wild by the humidity might make her look intimidating to some, when combined with the pale line of foam on her upper lip and the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth it did little more than endear her to him. He laughed harder, a genuine, happy sound, and Ellie stopped holding his hand and punched him in the shoulder instead. “Asshole.”

“I know,” he said, teeth white in his grin. He twisted the stein about by the handle, elbows on the table, relaxed now. “I know… I know you don’t need me to protect you.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “I didn’t— I don’t— I’m not— trying to protect you… I mean, I am, but not because… I think you need it.” He frowned again, but in puzzlement, not sorrow. “Though you do, sometimes, I think. But, not because you’re weak, or incapable, but… I don’t like to see you get hurt.” He sighed, clearly struggling, fighting with the concept.

Until recently, his life had been spent in servitude, his actions done in the name of another, by the order of another. He did not know what to do— how to feel— without being pointed, or aimed, much like the weapon he was built to be. He found he feared erring now more than ever he had when Kaalarok was there to punish him for his discretions; and err he did, in plenty, but Ellie’s gentle way of speaking him through his mistakes often left him more confused than before, like now: when, if ever, was the right time to intervene if his friend, his only friend he had ever known, was in trouble? Should he wait until the last possible moment, or until she called for him? Was it her folly or his own which pinned them stubborn in conflict, her overconfidence or his underestimation of her? Rafe felt great pain and distress whenever Ellie was threatened with danger, or injured, or troubled, and these were new and overpowering emotions for one so unused to empathy. He had little control over his emotional reactions, would he even be able to stand aside should she come under duress? Could he life with doing so?

“Rafe.” Ellie’s voice bumped him from his thoughts, and he realized he had drifted off, staring silently at the swirls of foam in his beer. He noticed, too, she had reached back beneath his cloak and grasped near the end of his tail, holding it tightly in place, a motion both of comfort and necessity: when he pulled too far inside his head, his long, prehensile tail tended to lash and swing back and forth with the intensity of his rumination, the Drakiin version of a tapping foot for wiggling leg. Six feet of swishing tail, knocking people off their feet and sending tables of earthenware mugs shattering to the ground would draw unwanted attention.

He smiled, sheepish, and shrugged, ensuring his tail was safely circled around his waist. “I just wan’t to be useful.” Useful in a way he had not been since the last time they’d had to kill something.

“Rafe,” Ellie repeated, the sound an admonishing laugh, “you are useful. But I am not your master, and you are not my bodyguard, or my servant, or my soldier, or my shield—,”

“Why even keep me around, then?”

“I keep you around—,” she paused, frowning, “because— I don’t ‘keep you around’,” the words came out in a jumble, she hated when he spoke of himself like a thing or an object to be thrown out, and she turned her steel gray glare on him to tell him so; but he was grinning, all white, sharp teeth and glimmering red eyes, chin lounged on one palm, elbow on the table, and she realized he was goading her. She huffed, looking away, curls bouncing with the movement. “You are my friend,” she said a moment later, palms on the table as though to ground herself, “and is the only use I will ever need of you.” Eyes sliding sideways and up, she met his gaze for one second, two; they both opened their mouths to speak, but she went first: “It would be most useful if you would stop being so damn broody all the time,” she said, tapping the ridge of scales at his nose with the tip of a finger.

The serving girl walked by then, eying their nearly untouched mugs.

“I don’t suppose you have a room available?” Ellie asked, pushing her beer away. The girl took it in hand and reached for Rafes, but he swept his up and began chugging it down, along with all the words he wanted to say. Ellie raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.

“We’re full,” the girl said.

Ellie nodded in understanding, but as the girl went to leave, Rafe slammed his mug down and said in a giant breath, “She’s a Raptoriam.” Then he belched. “‘Scuse me.”

For all the good it’s done us, she almost said, but the girl said she would speak to the proprietor. Ellie sat blinking, amazed the mention of her Order may carry weight here as it had a hundred years ago, and had not come out of her stupor by the time the girl returned with a heavy-set, balding man, his hairy arms crossed over his big chest and stained apron. “Let’s see it, then,” he demanded, and it took Rafe nudging her with his elbow for her to realize he meant her badge.

“Right,” she said, fumbling through the pockets of her enchanted coat. It took her a moment, but eventually she produced the brass circle emblazoned with a rabbits head on one side and a raptor’s talons on the other. It was a snug fit in her palm, but appeared much smaller in the innkeep’s large hand. He eyed it closely, observing both sides, before returning it with a deep nod.

“It’s always a pleasure to have a member of the Order stayin’ with us,” he said, offering his right hand. Ellie reached out to shake it when she realized—

“Your hand, it’s fake.”

“Aye,” the innkeep said, chuckling. Even Rafe let out a snicker.

“No, I mean—,” Ellie flipped the fake limb palm up and scanned her eyes along the wrist. It was an intricate thing, made of pale wood and wire, and she could feel the heft of the gears and mechanisms contained within. “Britha made this,” she said, rubbing the symbol of the boot with an exploding cloud of black powder bursting from the top.

“Ye know th’ Blastboot?”

“She’s our friend,” Ellie said, smiling at the fond memory of the maternalistic, if curmudgeonly, dwarf.

“Well, any friend o’ the Blastboot is a friend o’ mine,” the innkeep said, with a big grin. “Lost me hand to frostbite, many years ago, an’ I didn’t know what to do with meself for a long time. Wandered, mostly, and fought, and lost, and drank, and pissed, and wandered s’more. Then I had th’ fortune of laying a sum of spigots on a brawl with a crippled dwarf, thinkin’ I could win. I imagine ye know ‘ow that played out.” He gave a big laugh while Rafe and Ellie shared a knowing smile. “Th’ Blastboot took pity on me worthless soul an’ offered to make me a hand. I been in her debt since.” He turned to the girl. “They’ll have Curly’s room, then.”

“What about Curly?”

“I’ll tell ‘im he ain’t got no room. Bastard still owes me ten pen, anyway,” he said. “Any member o’ the Order is welcome here.” He nodded and strode away.

“I believe,” Ellie said, grin widening, “this is the first time my being a member of the Order has gotten us anything but laughed at.” Her face was all aglow with pride and there were many things Rafe wanted to say, that she was most beautiful when she walked tall, that smiling suited her, that there was never anything she could say to stop him from throwing himself into the fire to stop her from ever being burned—

but he swallowed his words, and said simply, “No,” as they stood to follow the girl to their room, “we still laughed at you, remember?”

[zolotayafeya]

Mind Tricks

For Otayuri Week 2017, Day 1: First Times/Confessions. In fact, it’s a multitude of first times: First time wearing proper makeup, first time sneaking into a club, first time drinking with others, first time realising your best friend is fucking hot, first time witnessing said hot best friend exceeding the levels of cool thought possible by man—

Read it on AO3!

Since the first moment Yuri can remember laying eyes on him, he’s thought that Otabek Altin is the textbook definition of cool. Behind most of Yuri’s pointed insults and prickly first woods lies genuine interest—unless it comes to JJ fucking Leroy, of course, but that’s a different story. But any guy who can arrive from the airport in a leather jacket and a scarf, exhausted from travel, and still manage to look like the hottest shit on the block? Yeah, he’s cool. 

Notably, the thing that separates someone like JJ from someone like Otabek is how he does it, of course. JJ is loud, flamboyant, and obnoxiously arrogant about how cool he seems to think he is. Otabek doesn’t need to do that. Yuri learned that very quickly the moment Otabek first opened his mouth: When you’re truly cool, you don’t need to say it. You just radiate coolness.

Yuri thinks Otabek is the kind of cool who constantly looks badass but secretly religiously listens to tasteful music and composes orchestral pieces in his free time. He just has that air, you know? As biased as he is—Oh, come on, Otabek swooped in like a tall, dark, handsome stranger on a fucking motorcycle to rescue him, how is he supposed to be unbiased—he assumes this to be true. Of course Otabek reads classic novels and sits at a grand piano, playing an artful, calm rendition of Clair de Lune for his elegant mother and sisters. Obviously. That just seems like the kind of person he is.

Later, he catches Otabek wrinkling his nose at the repetitive, bubbly American pop song they’re playing at the rink during clean-up. Yep, he’s certain of it. He has Otabek pinned down as a music snob, cool and classy.

For some reason, Katsudon’s annoying friend and his two lackeys have decided to latch onto Yuri. Yuri thinks that they’re trying to leech victory out of him like it’s something they could actually steal by constantly hanging off him and snapping photos, even the quiet, sweet little Chinese one. Yuri feels like he could actually make him cry if he kicks him. Maybe it’s because they’re young and Yuri’s younger and they assume that automatically makes them best friends. It’s annoying as fuck, especially with Phichit acting like the wacky, cool aunt of their forced little group, and Yuri would ditch them immediately if Phichit hadn’t promised to sneak Yuri into a club with them… to celebrate flower boy’s late birthday, apparently. Yuri had pounced at the chance.

The thudding of the bass in the club announces its location before the four of them round the corner of the block. Between the American boy’s—Leo, Yuri finally makes the effort to recall—hidden talent with hairspray, Phichit’s admittedly frighteningly wizard abilities with an eyeliner pencil, and the leather pants, fingerless gloves, and combat boots Yuri swears he bought on a whim and not at all because his new best friend’s fashion sense is badass, they’ve actually managed to make him look like less of a prepubescent girl and more like someone not only smoking hot, but also old enough to have actually been to a club before. It’s enough that the bouncer only squints at him for a moment and offers no more than a passing glance at his fake ID, not like he’d actually try to decipher the Russian card anyways and figure out if it’s legit, before he waves all of them in.

It’s overwhelming, to say the least. Yuri’s never been inside a place like this: Dark, lit only by purple lights, packed nearly to the gills with people bumping, grinding, laughing, the floor vibrating with the bass. Phichit giggles at Guang-Hong’s fluttering shyness and drags him off towards the bar, leaving Leo and Yuri to trail after them. Leo, looking remarkably at home in the pulsating lights despite being underage in his home country, bumps his shoulder against Yuri’s and grins.

‘Come on, Russia,’ he says gamely. ‘You look like you’re gonna leap out of your socks. Loosen up a little.’

He passes over a beer Phichit hands him first before needling Guang-Hong until the Chinese boy finally laughs and downs his entire glass in one go. Then another. Then Leo presses a shot glass into his palm and Guang-Hong swallows the contents of that too, giggling past the burn. Yuri realises his jaw is hanging open and he shuts it with a click before glancing apprehensively at the froth at the top of his drink. It’s not like he’s never had a beer before, but he doesn’t trust these fuckers, especially with Phichit grinning at him like the Chesire cat and Guang-Hong already starting to sway.

Then the music changes. Suddenly it’s… not good. No, that’s an understatement; it’s awful. All four of them glance over at the table, where a girl in a low-cut shirt and her girlfriend hanging off her bare waist is giggling and failing miserably at DJing correctly. The crowd’s mostly too drunk to care, but a couple people raise loud complaints over the din of poorly mixed music and the girl starts shouting back at them.

‘Open DJ night,’ someone behind Yuri’s left shoulder says sympathetically.

Without a word, Yuri downs his drink like the goddamned hot-blooded Russian man he is and slams the glass on the nearest table. The other three skaters cheer. Yuri regrets his decision for a good fifteen seconds until it finally sets in that no, he’s not about to get mauled by his new companions while he’s drunk. The music shifts from shitty to… not bad, Yuri supposes. The girlfriend’s taken over. Or maybe it’s just the alcohol.

He never said his tolerance was high.

‘Dance with me,’ Guang-Hong whines, shedding his shyness like a snakeskin that threatens to give Yuri nightmarish flashbacks to the Sochi Grand Prix banquet and a certain disgusting Japanese skater. Guang-Hong latches onto Leo’s arm and hauls him bodily into the fray. Phichit gleefully snaps photos of the drunken Chinese boy doing something sinful with his hips that makes Yuri want to both throw up and save it as reference so he can fight for dancing dominance later.  If there even is a later. Right now, Yuri’s debating between just going back and grumbling his way through the night or joining Phichit in gathering blackmail material. Leo looks all too pleased that Guang-Hong refuses to let go of his hand.

The mediocre music lulls for a moment. Then it shifts into something good. The crowd raises a cheer of approval at the figure who’s taken over the table with the cool ease of an expert. It’s too dark for Yuri to get a clear look at the DJ, but whoever it is is shorter, stockier, male, and he knows what he’s doing. Fucking saviour. This is something that makes him want to dance, slip into the persona of the leopard on the prowl, winding and sinuous. Later’s starting to seem more and more like now… Yeah, now seems like a good time to go test that out. Yuri flicks his ponytail and saunters into the crowd to fucking dance.

Now it’s a competition with a proper background track. Yuri will dance sexier, hotter, better than fucking Ji Guang-Hong or die trying. Ballet’s gifted him fluidity with the sway of his hips, the curl of his wrists. Watching Katsudon skate the Eros routine has taught him how to seduce an audience with his eyes alone. No one’s watching when he starts, but he feels the eyes drawn to him like magnets when he gets going, the alcohol fuelling him to do the very sort of things he’d just been metaphorically gagging at Leo and Guang-Hong for doing. It sends a thrill up his spine. He’s not drunk off of what he was drinking; he’s drunk off of the attention, even when he brushes past Leo and Guang-Hong dancing, ah… close. He doesn’t want to think about what he just saw, so he just dances the thought away.

He grinds, bounces, and swerves his way closer to the table to get a better look at the guy who singlehandedly saved the night from mediocrity. The DJ’s sporting a black t-shirt just tight enough to show off how fit he is, dextrous fingers artfully splayed across the turntables, completely lost in the music. Yuri feels his mouth go dry as his eyes track up the man’s torso, right up until he reaches a strong jaw, stronger eyebrows, eyes rimmed in smudged, dark kohl, an inky undercut artfully styled to the side. Fuzzily, he thinks that eyeliner immediately makes just about everyone fifteen times hotter. The DJ? Hot as sin.

It must be the alcohol that makes the realisation hit him like a goddamned train about five seconds too late. There’s no other explanation for why it takes him so long to recognise that the DJ, large headphones looped around his neck, hips swaying sensually to his own beat, sweat glistening at his barely-exposed collarbones from the heat of so many bodies in such a small space, is Otabek fucking Altin.

Never has Yuri been glad to be so completely wrong. Calm, quiet, composed, classy Otabek, while admittedly very awesome, disappears from Yuri’s mind with what he’s sure is an audible, satisfying pop. Music snob his pretty ass, erase every record of him saying Otabek was the shit before he knew about this—this is the fucking coolest thing he’s ever witnessed in his life. Yuuko’s nosebleeding suddenly makes five times more sense. If Katsudon was here, he might have a heart attack. Mila would melt into a puddle of helpless want. JJ, Yuri thinks somewhere in the back of his muddled mind, would spontaneously combust over how much he sucks compared to Otabek, perfect motherfucker who can be the tall, dark stranger who rescues people like Yuri on his motorcycle, and, oh yeah, is a goddamned master DJ.

There’s suddenly a name he wouldn’t dare say for the confusing feelings Yuri’s been repressing since Barcelona once he manages to link ‘Incredibly hot DJ I would gladly grind upon’ and ‘Otabek Altin, best friend’ as one and the same in his head, and once it clicks, he doesn’t quite know what to do with it. Panic? Act? Flee? Ignore it?

‘Is that Otabek?’ Phichit shouts on cue over the music, sidling up to Yuri’s side. At that, Otabek’s eyes go alert as he seeks out the source, right up until his eyes land on Yuri, who suddenly feels exposed in his too-tight leather pants and his eyeliner. This is where he tenses up and spits something insulting in defence, even over the heavy thud of the bass. This is where he flees into the crowd and finds an exit faster than you can say ‘men’s singles figure skating.’ This is where he scrubs all of the sweat and makeup off of his face, peels off his pants, shreds them, and vows never to mention this ever again. However, after a moment, Otabek grins at him, eyes bright and smile suggestive. He leans forward and gestures for Yuri to join him with a crook of his finger, head tilted just a little bit, hips still moving to the beat.

The scenario flashes through Yuri’s head in quick bursts of half-formed fantasies he didn’t know he was capable of imagining. Everything around him seems to slow down as he digests the images: Otabek guiding Yuri’s hand to the turntables, his breath hot against Yuri’s skin as he offers instruction. Otabek slipping his headphones over Yuri’s ears, shutting out the rest of the club and drowning him in music. Otabek dropping one hand to Yuri’s hip, fingers settling right at the hem of his low-hanging, sweat-slicked leather pants, teasing at his skin. The press of Otabek’s chest against his back, his arms bracketing Yuri’s from behind like the shitty DJ and her handsy girlfriend, but fifteen billion times better. Yuri daringly rolling his hips against Otabek’s, reaching back to curl his fingers into Otabek’s masterfully styled hair and tug. He can almost hear the shocked, heady little gasp Otabek will offer at that, breath heavy, pupils blown wide, those smokey eyes half-lidded and smouldering and—

Yuri has never moved so quickly in his life.

[codenamecynic]

Then, and Again  (For @polkadotfoxx  f!OC mage, f!OC templar, set in a world where the Inquisitor recruited the mages to the Inquisition.  Warning for death - sort of.)

They haven’t seen the sun in months.

Lynna remembers the Blight – but doesn’t.  The Darkspawn never touched Hasmal, never even claimed the southern shore of the Waking Sea, but she remembers tales of how the land turned dark and dead.  The horde brings the rain, they said, but this is more than that.  The sky glows a pulsating, hungry green that one by one consumes the stars.

Beside her, Saf quietly uncorks one of the few vials of precious lyrium they have left.  It’s a muddy color and radiates a song that registers off-key, but they haven’t had the pure blue stuff for some time.

At least it’s not red.  Saf still has some standards, even if the bar has dropped so low it drags the dirt.

It’s not red.

Not yet.

“Stop worrying,” Saf grouses from her left, and immediately she glares, spits back.

“I never worry.”

Saf only chuckles, the sound tight around the new scar that splits the side of her face, still pink and raw where her helmet failed to protect her from a demon’s claws.

“That’s your job,” she adds, quietly, an afterthought.  A memory.  A whisper in the Circle library, pages fluttering like moth wings and flames perfectly controlled behind lantern glass.

Saf tips back the vial and doesn’t hear her.

**

They’re not going to win.

The soldiers around her gird themselves with expressions like ploughshares hammered into blades, crude and grim.  The walls of Redcliffe Keep rise above them, dark against the darker gloom.  The light itself writhes with anarchic glee, giving lie to figures with too many arms, too many eyes.

Too many.

This is how the Inquisition dies, led by desperation, bureaucrats, and children fashioned into toy soldiers on the anvil at the edge of the world – one final blow before the long fall into the abyss.

Lynna’s never been afraid of falling.  She relishes the feeling of wind in her hair, of the tingle and drop in the pit of her stomach that comes from standing far too close to the edge.

Saf isn’t afraid to fall either, she just worries about the landing.

A swath of monstrosities tears through the ranks in front of them, too corrupted to be called templars.  Lynna doesn’t think of them that way anymore, can’t when they’re little more than automatons of burning stone and hunger.  They devour everything, grinding flesh, bone and shield beneath their crystalline feet, and hot blood sprays across her face and neck as a scream is cut short by the wide sweep of a blade that nearly catches her.

Saf pushes her back, nudges her behind her shield.  She’s good with it now, her arm riddled with muscle that ripples beneath the skin like the backs of fish disturbing the surface of a pool.

She wants to see the ocean again.  Wants to feel the water pulling at her feet, eroding sand away beneath her toes.  Before her the battle heaves and they rush forward, reckless cries that she can feel reverberate within her chest lost in the snap-boom of her magic, loosed and wild.  Fire blooms like the first green shoot through cobblestones, spraying shrapnel everywhere.

The hole they make fills up, spills over.

**

They fall.

They fall and fall and fall, toppling like dominos and pieces on a chess board that none of them can see.  They are pawns without a queen, and they have no hope of turning the tide.  Instead they will stand like the story of the Grey Wardens she heard once upon a time, breaking the waves of the impossible with their bodies, a bulwark against the innocent and the end of the world.

Only there are no innocents anymore, no civilians in the apocalypse.  And no one knows where the Grey Wardens have gone.

Her breath comes hard in her chest, thick with smoke and smog.  Her legs burn, her arms ache, and she barely stumbles aside as a beast too large to be a man barrels through the crowd.  Her staff splinters under its feet, six of their soldiers laid low in its wake.

"I don't know how long we can keep this up," someone says.  She looks to Saf, who only shakes her head.

They both know that isn't the point.

**

It was bound to happen eventually.

That's what she thinks, always, in those moments when they shave it just a little too close, a grudging draw snatched from the jaws of defeat.  It's what she thinks when the sound of metal shearing off a shield splits the air around the crackle of lightning from her own fingers and Saf stumbles back, the spur of a glowing red crystal thrust through her middle.

They were always going to die.  She just usually assumed it would be because of something she'd done. A smoking crater with their name on it, she'd joke, and Saf's eyes would roll.

Probably better that it wasn't her fault. Saf deserved better.

Saf pretty much always deserved better.  The templar monster attached to her friend who died screaming in a column of fire from the sky, not as much.

“Lynna-”

“Don’t be stupid.”  The soldiers behind them surged forward, rushing headlong into the lights and the blades, and at least it would never be said that Ferelden went quietly to its death.  She just wasn’t sure who would be left to say anything at all.

“You should go.”

“I said shut up!”

Saf didn’t even blink, one gloved hand curled around the shard of corrupted lyrium burning through her midsection.  Lynna bent over her, and was waved away.  “Leave it, it’s- fine.”

“Well if you want to just lie there bleeding all over the ground, you’ll get no help from me.”

“Then lift me up, you idiot.”

**

Saf is a heavy drunk, and she staggers like one, her arm slung over Lynna’s shoulders.  There is still fighting in the distance where the best of their soldiers press at the foot of the wall, but all around them is death.  It encroaches from behind, rifts blinking into existence at their backs and already long-limbed creatures stalk their prey.

Corypheus is only toying with them now.  The nightmare is real, bubbling beneath their feet, clawing up from below with hands too like her own.

“I’m ready,” Saf tells her, the words bubbling around the blood frothing at her lips, and drops her shield.  “Go, Lynna.  Go.”

It clangs against the ground, tinny and hollow like an empty bowl.

Lynna doesn't listen, because Lynna never listens, and feels the cold, sharp shards of a smite scream through her on the power of Saf’s dying breath.

Then she's gone, the stubborn light in her eyes winking out like stars devoured before her armored knees hit the ground, and Lynna reaches for the last thing she has left.

Saf's sword has always been too big for her, and she too small for it.  They don’t get along.  The blade is dented, marred and scratched, smudged with ash, and she has to take it in both hands to hold it steady.

She's always known it could come to this. She's seen it before, the pause like the quiet before the storm as the world holds its breath.

But the storm is breaking all around them and its voice has howled for so long she feels deaf. Numb.

Certain.

Green lights streak the sky like the last flash of sunlight on the horizon, and the demons that Saf pushed back draw near.  She can feel the tickle of their voices in her mind, the pull of their thoughts at her own.  Promises, temptations, whispers, whispers, whispers, and Saf on the ground at her side, arm bent and raised near her head as though in salute.

A templar, even now.

She deserves better than this.  Deserves better than to be some unclaimed corpse on a battlefield, or worse, a puppet for some demon.  Lynna never has been worth much, but Saf -

Her friend.

Her only friend.

Saf is worth everything.

There is already fire in her eyes when the blade sinks into her stomach, flames licking her hair and up the side of her face.  The power is there, ready, just beneath her flesh, and she pulls it around herself with all her might, feeling it build and swell until it crackles and bursts through her skin.

“Bye, Saf.  I'll see you on the other-"

**

“-side!  LYNNA!”

“Whosa? Wassat?” Lynna sat up and was immediately hit in the face with a shoe.  Fortunately it was one of her shoes and not Saf’s giant manly boot of death, all armored up and festooned with the blood of their enemies.  And all, you know.  Muddy.

“What the shitty fuck.”

The blond warrior stared at her from across the room, half in and half out of the window.  It was impossible to tell what time it was with Saf filling up most of the window frame with her long legs and broad shoulders and the mountain of incredulity and disapproval of anything Lynna was ever doing that she carried around on her shoulders like Commander Cullen’s fancy fur coat.

“I said turn over on your side.  You were snoring.”

“Lies.”

“Not.”

“Slander and libel.”

“It has to be printed to be libel.”

“You hit me with a shoe!”

“That still doesn’t make it libel.”

“No, that makes it assault.  And rude.  Extremely rude.”

Saf just snorted and turned to slip out the window again onto the roof, leaving Lynna to sit up in the darkness.  She put her shoe on, looked around for the other, couldn’t find it and gave up in short order, clomping one-sidedly across the floor to muscle in next to Saf, who signed irritably and blew a puff of smoke out over the rooftop.

“Did you roll that yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“I can tell, it’s garbage.  Give it to me.”

Saf (who clearly knew better at this point than to argue with any of the unquestionable truths that fell from the mouth of her friend and erstwhile self-appointed sidekick like - things that fell from the sky - rain or something - whatever) looked annoyed, but handed over what amounted to a handful of fitfully smoking herbs in tattered rolling papers.

Maker.  It’s like Saf had never been a teenager.  Ever.  

“I thought you weren’t smoking these anymore,” she said, shaking out the charred bits and carefully repacking the roll.  Not that smoking elfroot was the preferred way of utilizing its medicinal properties.  In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure it really did anything at all except stink up your clothes, but it was better than chewing the leaves.  In some light Saf’s teeth still looked a bit green.

“I had that dream again.”  Lynna’s silence and pointed lack of eye contact wasn’t enough to dissuade Saf from the conversation.  “Don’t give me that, I know you had it too.  You were talking in your sleep.”

Lynna sighed, annoyed.  “Was I talking in my sleep, or snoring then? It’s hard to do both.”

“You manage.”  Saf cast her a wry look out of the corner of her eye, and she made a face, handing back the stupid elfroot cigar.  At least it wouldn’t fall apart now as soon as it was lit, and out of early morning pique she lit a spark between her thumb and forefinger in front of Saf’s face as she fumbled with the matches, almost close enough to catch her hair on fire.

Saf was not amused, which was perfectly normal.  Lynna fidgeted awkwardly for a long moment, tucking her sleep shirt down around her bent knees.  “They’re just dreams.  It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I know it doesn’t, but…”  Saf shrugged.  “Do you ever think about what could have happened?  When the Inquisitor…”  The templar - former templar - gestured, smoke trailing a lazy sigil in the air.  “Set the clock back.  Travelled through time.  The future that she saw, and what happened to all of us.  Do you ever think that we-

“Went out in a hail of fire and glory?”  Lynna grinned, felt unexpectedly sick, and grinned even harder.  

“Yeah, that’s the one.”  

“Because we are heroes.”

“Big damn heroes.”

“The biggest.  And most attractive.”

Saf snorted smoke and then coughed, exhaling messily like a dragon with something stuck in its craw.  “Clearly.”

They both laughed, and then sighed, and then leaned together like two tired trees, bracing themselves on each other’s trunks.  Skyhold’s courtyard was silent and still, cast deep in blue by the pre-dawn shadows.  It still looked a bit strange.  Not glowy enough.  Not enough green.

“Saf.”

“What?”

“Don’t die.”

[blisserial]

Ten

By the time summer rolled to an end we were rich as newly made lords. I had gold in my pockets and in my pack, and jewels on my fingers and rich, well cut fabrics to keep me in the highest fashion. We had more invitations to perform than we knew what to do with. We made a game out of it, selecting a date to play in the muddiest town or the farthest reaches of the Seat’s shadow or for the ugliest politician or the most bitert priest.

But as the season ebbed we began to count the days until Ross decided it was time to trudge back over the river back into our own country, to familiar places and faces and food. I cannot say I was reluctant to leave Southern oddities behind, but I also cannot say I was eager to return to a life of poverty. I determined I would guard carefully whatever wealth I did not first give to Granda.

Ross had finally begun to make noises about packing up for home when we received the most unexpected and frightening invitation of all.

The embossed piece of linen paper was delivered by courier on a cool afternoon to the tavern we had been frequenting most often in our last days. The courier, a dusty and weathered lass with the Seat's emblem emblazoned on her leather jerkin, seemed to have no trouble picking Ross from the tangle of loud patrons.

She marched straight across the brick floor to our table and set the linen paper beside Ross's fat goblet of red wine. Then she stood carefully to one side, at attention, waiting.

I remember noting that she had pierced her ears with gold wire and wondering if that was the way of the Seat's army.  She had a pistol at her belt. I thought she looked as though she would not hesitate to use it.

"Imagine that," Ross murmured, fingering the embossed paper. I couldn't make out the runes scrawled along the edges, but I recall thinking the deep purple ink was unusual. "Horrid butcher me and Fox take the remains, in all my years I've never…" Then he paused and shot the waiting soldier a hooded look.

Will, who had been passing the time playing kanoodles under the table with my bare feet, reached a tattooed hand across the boards and snatched the paper.

"What is it?" Amy, the new dog girl, a tiny Southern wench, pressed against Will's other side, trying to see.

"An invitation to play at the Capitol." Will marveled in a near whisper. "During festival at High Temple."

"High Temple," Amy, devout to annoyance, touched her brow in quick respect. "It must be for Gallows Day. Tis only a fortnight away."

I had absolutely no interest in Southern festivals other than our place as entertainment, but I did find Ross's face a curiosity in itself. He looked as though he had swallowed a hunk of sour cheese.

"They say the Seat himself attends Gallows Day," Amy continued. She seized the invitation Will had dropped back onto the boards and ran a finger along the inked runes. "They say he sometimes pronounces blessing on those in attendance."

"Don't be stupid, girl." Ross snatched the invitation back, then passed it to Maurice. Maurice, without so much as a glance at the runes, made the piece of paper disappear. "Even us Northern mud grubbers know your Seat doesn't mingle with the common folk."

"Gallows Day is different," Amy argued, breathless and avid. "Why, my uncle would have given his last leg for an invitation to Gallows, and gods know he was a master at the craft."

"He was a small time tumbler." Ross snapped, "Why do you think he sold you to me?" He finished his wine in one gulp before glaring with muzzy fury at the messenger.

"No," he said. "We're busy."

Amy gasped. The grizzled soldier bowed and departed without a word.

"Ross," Amy complained. "It would surely bring us honor -"

"Honor is a landed man's concept," Ross interrupted. He grabbed Amy's arm, hauling her up from the benches. He was recently insatiable where the sprightly girl was concerned, as he was whenever a new lass joined our family.

Amy did not seem to mind his lust. Whatever further protest she might have made was smothered by Ross's mocking laugh. The two climbed the tavern stairs and then I could hear their staggering footsteps across the floor overhead.

Will wrapped an arm about my shoulders. Maurice lit one of his everpresent cigarettes. One of the dancing dogs, curled beneath the table at my feet, sighed in its sleep.

The next evening a second invitation arrived and this time the wording was more precise. Ross blanched when he examined the purple ink and then nodded sharply at the courier. That day she had a ruby in one ear and a sapphire in the other.

The next morning we packed quickly, rented five horses to join our mule and stallion, and, striking west, turned their noses to the Capitol and the honor of Gallows Day.

                                                            *****

Shaara tailed Bliss for an entire morning. He did not usually tempt fate so readily, especially where his mistress was concerned. Bliss could be a heavy hand and she had no patience with her people, and as a mere apprentice he was worth less than nothing. Or he might have been, if their troop had not dwindled down to a paltry three.

He'd followed her once before, years past, as a near babe only three days under her protection. He'd wanted to see where this fierce woman spent her days. He'd needed some indication that he could trust her.

That particular day she had spent the day drinking in a smoky tavern and then wasted a night sitting in the cold beneath an alder tree, singing drunken Northern love songs to the stars. He'd not seen any strong indication that she was worthy of his fragile trust until she'd fed the majority of her untouched supper to the cobbler's cat. That small kindness convinced Shaara that Bliss was worth a try so the next morning he had stayed on, instead of running off with the back alley urchins as he’d originally planned .

He was grown now and he knew beyond a doubt that Bliss would protect him with her life, even if that life was battered almost beyond repair and hardly worth more than the dirty clothes on her back. But lately Shaara had begun to think again about running. This time it wasn't a babe's dream of romance in the streets but a man's need to tend to his own future.

He rather thought that Emman City was as good a place to make a new life as any. Shaara gave no thought to returning north. Like as not if he did he would end up a conscript in the king's service, digging trenches and fighting the endless war. He'd rather take his chances in warmer weather. In Emman, Shaara knew, he would have a friend, for it was obvious Moire remembered him fondly. Perhaps she could even find him a job that did not involve singing for his supper.

Not that he regretted his training, as such. But what man did not want more than circus wages? Besides, life with Bliss was fluid and of late Shaara wanted to put down roots.

He followed her through the white streets because he intended to take her aside and tell her his plans, firmly and kindly, but he could not quite find the courage to make his approach.

He could see she was in the midst of a frothing temper. Shaara understood. Bliss would rather lay with a snake than walk with a priest . Still, they all knew it was Bliss who had run and she could hardly have expected an easy welcome. They were lucky Moire hadn't tossed them in the brig for breaking and entering. But Moire had always been a fair commander, just so long as she could see the sense in a thing.

Bliss didn't head straight for the bars as Shaara expected and instead wandered the streets without any purpose he could determine. Shaara thought maybe she was looking for trouble and she did indeed pick a fight with a particularly belligerent tulip merchant. Bliss resisted punching the man in the eye but she did knock the dirty fedora from his grizzled head before she stomped on.

Shaara paused to pick the hat up, dust it off, and return it to its furious owner.

"They say that one was always a whirlwind," the man huffed, looking after Bliss. "We should expect bad days. Still, it's lucky you guard her. Things are not the same as they once were.”

Shaara smiled and hurried on. He wondered if every person in the city remembered Bliss's face. It seemed unbelievable, but then, she had hardly been invisible when Emman had been her home.

He nearly lost Bliss when he paused to admire a lass swathed in white veils. He found again in a cul-de-sac, eyeing the sugary treats through the window of a confectionaire's shop. Shaara hadn't expected the dead end. Bliss, apparently, had.

"Stop skulking about," she growled without turning from the window. "You're no sneak thief, boy."

"You've Fox's own ears," Shaara returned, disgruntled. He trudged across cobblestones to her side. "Hungry?" The elaborate pastries on display reminded Shaara of the temple at the center of the city; too bright, too rich, too sugary.

"No," Bliss replied, but at that moment the proprietor stuck his head around the door with cries of welcome.

"Come in, come in," the man caroled. "For you I have my very own special, sweet enough to make the Seat himself weep - rhubarb and custard!"

Bliss shook her head in refusal but Shaara was suddenly ravenous so he pushed past Bliss and the proprietor into the small shop. Three heartbeats later he found himself perched on a spindly white stool, Bliss scowling at him across a matching table, fruit and cream towering in the shopkeeper's very best bowl.

"Eat," Shaara urged Bliss, scooping up the confection. "You can't starve yourself to death just because Moire doesn't want you back in her bed."

Bliss's scowl creased to rage. "Who said she didn't?"

"She knows how you feel about braids and robes. Would she wear them if she wanted you back?" Shaar knew he was treading on thin ice. Yet he couldn't keep his mouth from flapping.

"It's not that simple." Bliss protested. She turned her frown on the pile of rhubarb and custard. The tower did not whither beneath her displeasure. But just in case, Shaara took a hasty bite. "It can't be that simple."

"Well," Shaara allowed through a mouthful of confection. "She did send you the shawl. So perhaps it's not all bad. Maybe…ah…" Shaara wrinkled his brow and thought of the pretty girl in her white veils. "…a gift of flowers or…ah…pastries?"

Bliss's look of disgust should have turned the cream to curd in Shaara's mouth. Defensive, he shrugged. "Well. You always said it was the presentation caught the marks, yeah?"

"She didn't send the shawl."

"No?" Shaara glanced up and saw that Bliss's lips had gone pinched and white.

"She didn't send it,” Bliss repeated.

Shaara scrambled for some bit of wisdom that might save his skin. He wished he had decided to go with Maurice to the temple instead. Today was not the day to seek Bliss's understanding.

His mistress's stern glare focused. Shaara was immediatly certain she knew could see the the thought circling in his head. He opened his mouth to fend off her rage and found unlikely rescue in the shop's proprietor.

"Captain." The man smelled of bitter chocolate. Sweat glistened on his upper lip. "There are visitors."

Bliss's black brows went up. She turned her head slightly. Shaara shoved another spoonful of rhubarb into his mouth before swiveling on his stool, curious. Surprised by what he saw, he swallowed too hastily and nearly choked.

Northerners were not rare on the edge of the Seat's shadow, but they were unusual. Merchants and traders found ways across the river, as did a riffraff of mercenaries and arms runners. The king's infantry had, for many long years, passed in an endless stream across the bridge until an uneasy truce had been purchased at Green Hill and the bridge gates locked tight.

It was rarer than rare to catch glimpse of king's soldiers in a Southern city. They were no longer murdered upon sight, not now, but they were about as welcome as three-day old fish.

The men standing in the confectionaire's doorway were without a doubt Northern soldiers. They wore the king's insignia openly.

They were all a strong,  muscled sort and for a split instant Shaara wondered if they would get caught in the doorway like cattle in a herder's funnel. Then they shifted and twisted and popped free into the shop, bringing with them the reek of oil and leather. Shaara noted the mud drying on their boots and along the edges of their capes. He deduced they were very new to the city, only hours in.

"Welcome," the proprietor said, resorting to the smooth smile of his kind. "Can I be of service? Chocolates, perhaps, or strawberries dipped in molasses….?"

"No." The foremost of the group was clean shaven and young. The delicately fashioned silver chrysanthemum pinned to his collar spoke of the king's favor. "Thank you. We're here to speak to the captain."

Shaara knew the shopkeep had sensed trouble from the very beginning but the man was a Southerner and therefore gifted with more hubris than the god Trout himself.

"She is in the middle of dessert," he protested with a sniff. "A very fine dessert, if I may say so. Perhaps you would like to sit and wait -"

Shaara didn't see the officer move but some signal must have passed because one of his fellows grabbed the poor man about the throat and dragged him without ceremony out of the shop and into the sunlit street. The three wavered on the other side of the window, a tableau of weakening struggles past the display of fruit and pastry, before the the soldier hauled the limp confectionaire out of sight.

"You won't kill him, I hope." Bliss said, entirely without inflection. "His desserts are delicious. And if I recall, the Seat prefers his subjects alive."

"So long as they are obedient, yes." Chrysanthemum stripped off his soiled gloves. He tucked them into his belt, hooked one booted foot about the leg of an empty stool, and scraped it across the floor to Shaara's side. Then he sat with a sigh, audibly weary.

"Unlike the Seat, we don't require mindless servitude. Jorge won't kill the man, no. But there's no reason to tempt a fellow. Even a prosperous shopkeeper will sell gossip to the temple. What I have to say is for Northern ears only."

Shaara set down his spoon. Chrysanthemum snagged it and tucked into cream and rhubarb, obviously starving. His remaining men arranged themselves about the shop.

"What do you want?" Bliss asked, wrinkling her nose in dramatic disgust as she eyed the officer's simpleminded greed.

Chrysanthemum looked up from rapidly diminishing cream, narrowed his eyes, and laughed. "Don't look so offended, Captain. It's a six day's ride from king to Emman. We ruined two horses. Lived on jerky and warm ale. Besides, I haven't had rhubarb since I was a lad. You're right," he added, scrubbing a hand across his mouth, "the man's a genius with a dessert."

"What do you want?" Bliss repeated, cold. Shaara caught her quick, nearly invisible glance about the room and saw she was tatting up odds.

"Tamner's dead. Hung from the gates two days ago, by royal decree."

Shaara flinched. Whatever he'd expected, it was not this. Bliss appeared unsurprised.

"Pity," she rocked her stool backward and forward, easily balancing on two legs, a tumbler's trick. "His wife?"

"Tripped over her little cat and fell down the scullery stairs a day after." Chrysanthemum scraped the bowl clean then slouched comfortably on his own stool. "Broke her neck. Still alive when we left,, but in a bad way."

"Imagine that," Bliss replied. "What has it to do with us?"

"I hear tell your troop performed for His Lordship, not long past."

"We’re not a troop," Bliss corrected, calm. "We're but three and we did our job and left without fuss." She paused. "Why was Tamner executed?"

Chrysanthemum shrugged. "Not for the likes of me to wonder. But if you ask Jorge, he'll tell you any man keeps a Southern wife is asking for trouble. The place was ripe with Southern fripperies and temple perfume."

"Stank worse than a sow's arse," Bliss agreed. "I ask again; what has it to do with us?"

It was Chrysanthemum's turn to consider. Then he shrugged. "Cut to the chase then, aye? When you left Cliffhouse, Captain, you left with more than a fat purse of gold coin."

Shaara's gut flipped. He'd known, from the very start, that Tamner's odd tastes would bring trouble. And if trouble had come after them all the way across the River Ann it had turned to danger.

[loveinthebones]

-Sleight of Hand-

Summary: Song Two of the 20 Song Fic Challenge. Phil Lester likes to hide in plain sight. He’s good at that but change is in the air.

-Sleight of Hand-

The things I would give to see this magic even when I’m wide awake

Magic like gold piles, wings, or that smile

-2AM Dreamy Wonderland (Also the beta which is the version that came up when I shuffled. The first link is the final product.)

-

There was a small coffee shop that was wedged unceremoniously between a book shop with a large glass window that for some reason always seemed desolate but miraculously hadn’t been closed down on one side and a cozy family owned grocery store on the other. If you were striding down the street without taking in your surroundings, you would miss the worn faded light wood door. Or perhaps if you were taking in the scenery, your nose would twitch at the faint perfume of melted chocolate and earthy cinnamon.

Perhaps you would follow it. Only to find yourself situated on the street over with a fuzzy head and a chill creeping up your spine, the weight of having done something wrong making bile rise in your throat.

In those cases, the sparkling eyes of the barista would glitter as he would continue making whatever drink his guest at the time would request with a breathy chuckle.

After all… Phil Lester was adept at hiding in plain sight and he would like to keep it that way.

Not just anyone could waltz into his shop.

Blue eyes found the smudged ash of the jagged “S” shape above his door and thanked Eiwhaz for filtering his customers thoroughly.

-

“Phil!” The chipper voice of Louise followed the tingling of the bell above his door and he paused in wiping the table to flash a bright smile at his friend. “How’s my favorite witch?”

Phil merely tossed the damp towel at the side of her head and quipped half-heartedly, “Shhh!” as Louise shrieked. In the next instant, he had a face slicked with water slime and stale cream coating his tongue. He spluttered and as he rubbed his face on his short sleeved button down, his pointer and middle fingers crooked toward him.

Louise took a concerned step towards him before crossing her arms. “Philip Lester, you better not be using your persuasion on me.”

“I’m not!” Phil giggled sheepishly before shaking the imperceptible tension from his shoulders. “But seriously, Lou. You need to be careful about what you announce. What if I had a customer?”

Phil felt the pang of guilt as he scolded her but he kept his abilities to himself for the most part but the harpy Halfling that was approaching him had known he wasn’t ordinary the day he set up shop next to her.

“Phil,” Louise sighed. His fringe ruffled slightly in the barely there breeze the action caused and he flipped it out of his eyes. “I know better, sweetie. I wouldn’t do it if…”

The gentle tinkling of another arrival had her closing her mouth and Phil waved at the boy stumbling through the door with an armful of two heavy textbooks and wires swinging haphazardly through the gaps of his hold. The dark tint underneath hooded tawny eyes accompanied by tufts of straight brunette locks seemed to emphasize the wrinkled black shirt the boy was sporting.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s late but I saw the light on and I just….” The boy didn’t pause as the words rushed out of him as he shifted from foot to foot. “I have a paper due soon and—“ Phil watched as his lips abruptly ceased their movement and a tongue darted to lick cracked lips. “Are you open?”

Phil could practically hear the silent plea of Please say yes. before he answered, “You’re in luck.”

The boy released a huge breath before he nodded and murmured, “Thank you.” and made his way to a table in the back corner. Both Phil and Louise watched the boy drop the textbooks carelessly on the surface before bending down to plug in his phone. Phil winced as the thick-spined top book slid off its perch and—

The door to his shop crashed against the wall with a sharp crack that echoed throughout the building. The boy jumped, phone falling from his grasp and Phil jolted upright, flexing his fingers to keep the warmth gathering there at bay.

“Holy shit.” The student grumbled and Phil chuckled before going to shut the door, running his fingers along the smooth surface to make sure it wasn’t harmed before turning to Louise’s gaze and then the book that was now firmly situated and not toppling to the floor. He tilted his head in a silent question toward his friend.

She ignored the unasked inquiry.

“Still having problems with that jamb, huh?” She twirled the rose colored portion of her fair hair as she spoke.

One corner of his lip quirked up as he met her innocent façade before squeezing her shoulder in a silent show that he didn’t mind the display before humming an agreement before turning to his guest. “You alright?”

“I’m…fine.” The boy said slowly, hand still curled against his chest. “What the actual fuck is up with the wind?”

Phil shrugged lazily before he moved to take his place behind the counter. “Anything I can get you…?” He directed to the boy as he grabbed a large porcelain mug for Louise’s usual.

“The largest sugariest, most caffeinated coffee, please.” Phil watched the boy swipe his phone from his seat and plop down, lifting the messenger bag slung around his torso with a groan before his fingers danced across the screen of his device. “I have to finish this assignment. By 9am.” He seemed preoccupied so Phil wiggled his fingers to allow the coffee pot to drift to the cup, left hand raised just in case.

“Sure. Can I get your name for it?” The reply was automatic and Phil’s fingers wrapped around the handle not even a second before the boy raised his head, eyebrows furrowed. He hissed silently as the coffee scalded his hand before setting the container down, shaking his hand to rid it of the sting. 

“Really?” Incredulous pupils darted around the empty shop.

“It’s protocol.” Phil rolled his eyes good naturedly before he added coconut milk and some vanilla to Louise’s coffee manually. He grabbed a wooden stick, drawing sowilo in the froth and handing it over. “Here you go, Louise.”

“Thanks, Phil.” She stressed right back before she turned with a wave. “I’ll bring your mug back tomorrow!” As she left, Phil could make out the gossamer outlines of her nearly nonexistent wings.

“My name is Dan.” Dan replied distractedly, staring at Louise’s retreat before shaking his head and Phil barely caught the murmured: “I must be tired.”

-

Dan seemed to find his way to Phil’s shop more often than not.

Phil noticed as Dan would be hurrying along the street before his stride would slow and he would peer through the window for a bit, fingers drumming over his jeans before he would shake his head and make a mad dash to where ever he was going.

He would always show up when the sky was illuminated by struggling stars competing with the bright lights of the city and the droning of traffic, feet dragging and lips pulled down into a small frown.

This particular night Phil couldn’t help but notice the swelling around the boy’s eye with a flare of something boiling curling tight against his abdomen. He wasn’t a stranger to anger but intensity had him pulling away and the spoon that had been scooping sugar into the cup clattered against the floor.

Dan paused in his course to his unofficial table and he heaved the books onto the counter space beside the register to pick up the utensil and hold it out to Phil.

“Be careful, you spoon.” The small smile was just big enough to show the dip where Dan’s dimple lie and Phil’s exhale stuttered to a halt before he nodded mutely.

Dan gathered his books once more but slid into a stool that pulled up beside the pick up area without warning. He folded his arms and laid his head on them, closing his eyes.

Phil nibbled his lip.

I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t…

His fingers dragged through the essential oil smeared on his side of the bar and without his conscious consent, his fingers drew the sleep thorn smoothly and quickly. His heart thumped rapidly as his fingers swirled with tiny pricks of light and Dan’s eyelashes lifted for a moment before he was drug under.

What have I done?

Phil elbowed the cup he had pulled down for Dan as he jumped back. Shards of robin’s egg glass scattered and the coffee began winding a track towards his shoes but he only twisted his fingers in his hair and began a small chant of “No, no, no.”

Dan didn’t stir and his breath came in even puffs, shoulders slumped.

He shouldn’t be using his abilities like this. He shouldn’t be forcing Dan to sleep especially if he had an important paper due and in a coffee shop no less…Even if it was probably safer than any other one in London. He glared at the sigil adorning the entrance that seemed to be neglecting it’s duties because fuck, Dan was messing with his mind and pulling him to do careless and reckless stunts.

He’s dangerous! Why wasn’t he spun around? He shouldn’t be here.

His mind cried frantically and the witch stumbled until he crashed his head into the cupboard overhead, hearing a clinking as something fell.

He needed his rest.

Phil shook his head at the weak justification his mind spit at him, tangling his fingers tighter in the strands.

He shouldn’t be doing this.

He couldn’t be doing this.

He couldn’t .

And yet as Phil observed the sleeping boy, he felt the guilt ease as a small snore ripped through the shop. Phil’s grip fell away from yanking his abused scalp and twitched as he resolutely turned away from Dan to grab the broom to start cleaning his mess.

He had done enough damage for the night.

If he whispered words under his breath that had orange Margikarps drifting around the tables and incantations that word let Dan hear the words he desired from others as he worked, he wouldn’t say a thing. If when the floor was clear and dry, he spotted the velvet rune bag on the floor…he wouldn’t deny it. If he hesitated to pick up the single smooth stone, no one would know. And maybe, just maybe- if the rune he picked up was the sharp edges of Berkano…

well…

Phil Lester kept his cards up his sleeve and his lips sealed.

Only…he couldn’t help but wonder what Dan would think.

[girlonawireblog]

POODLICIOUS

In my mind, this odd little slice of my life runs on a loop:

I am dancing around the kitchen with a black and white miniature poodle. He dances on his hind legs, all people-like, and I sing various made-up songs. Like ‘Poodlicious’—to the tune of ‘Fergalicious,’ of course, with lyrics about how Kimba makes all the girl-dogs go loco.

That poodle goes wild. He chirps, and—I swear—he smiles.

The musical repertoire varied, but for a number of years, this scene was the norm as I put on the coffee and made breakfast each morning. I had somehow become a crazy little-dog lady, and my dances with Kimba put a smile on my own face even in the worst of times.

Our pairing was as unlikely as the bond we ultimately formed.

I grew up with large dogs: German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Newfoundlands. I had nothing against small dogs. I just tended to prefer the big, slobbery, heavily-shedding dogs I’d known all my life.

But because of my (now ex) husband’s allergies, those big, slobbery, heavily-shedding dogs weren’t an option. After some research, we ended up with first a Bichon Frise—Harry, who quickly chose my ex as his favorite human on earth—and Kimba, the miniature parti poodle who became my shadow.

Kimba arrived with a serious case of separation anxiety. Or maybe more accurately, everything anxiety. He was constantly between my feet. Noises and sudden movement sent him into a tailspin. He was so terrified in the car, he shook uncontrollably, frothing at the mouth until he looked like a tiny parti-poodle version of Cujo.

In a way, Kimba’s anxieties were a godsend for me. I was dealing with anxiety of my own, and working with Kimba on his issues proved to be therapy for both of us. We spent countless hours on training to alleviate his fears. In time, he learned to accept my comings and goings, and to so thoroughly enjoy car rides, I couldn’t pick up the keys without him going wild with excitement.

I’d say to him each day: Kimba, you are a brave, independent poodle. You are descended from wolves. Never forget that.

It started as a sort of joke. Who could look at a fluffy little poodle and do anything but marvel at the genetic acrobatics it had taken to create such a creature?

But Kimba took in the words with solemn understanding, and as I watched him grow braver and more adventurous, I wondered if maybe something wolf-like remains in the heart of even the smallest dogs.

Over the years, Kimba earned the nickname The Peace Poodle. He loved everyone he met: people, other dogs, cats, rabbits—you name it. Kids were his favorite. Heck, everyone and everything was his favorite. It was a joke that made it onto our Christmas card just a few weeks ago.

And sure, that level of enthusiasm for life is the hallmark of dogs as a species. One of the things I came to love about Kimba, though, was that he also had a quieter, more serious side.

He seemed downright introspective at times, and he often needed his space in a way that felt more cat-like than canine. He would snuggle up at bed time, but then disappear during the night, choosing to sleep solo on the sofa or in his dog bed by the fire.

Kimba also seemed to instinctively understand how to behave in various environments. He came with me on writing retreats, and was appropriately mellow.

(Well, with the exception of one chicken-chasing incident - which, I maintain, was entirely the fault of the chicken.)

When I was going through my divorce, I brought Kimba to some of my therapy sessions. The first time he came with me, Kimba stood on his hind legs to greet my therapist with a paw-shake. He gave the room a once-over, then hopped up onto the sofa and sat at attention, head tipped, waiting for the session to begin.

The therapist laughed, then said to me, “You do realize that’s not a dog you’ve got there, right? That is an old, old soul in a doggie suit.”

Indeed.

Daily, Kimba would hop onto my lap and I would smooth his ears back and tell him: You are sweetness and light in a poodle suit. Then he would hop back down and go about his business—most of which involved sharing that sweetness and light with the world.

My tendency to rescue animals with disabilities or provide hospice care for those at the end of their lives was something Kimba not only tolerated, but welcomed. He was a natural at being a calming influence. It was almost as if serving other animals was as soothing to Kimba as helping him with his anxiety had alleviated my own.

Only one dog was impervious to Kimba’s charm.

(A few chomps later, we decided Chopper was not best-placed with us.)

When Tiny Tim, the paralyzed Rottweiler, came home with us for his final hours, Kimba lay with me and Tim on the floor all night. He curled up on a pillow by Tiny Tim’s head—which was nearly as big as Kimba’s whole body—and every so often, he would touch his nose to Tim’s. I would hear Tim’s gentle exhale and know Kimba was working his Peace Poodle magic.

He brought so much joy to everyone he met, doing his silly poodle-dance or running in wild circles on the dog beach or tipping his nose at the sunroof and enjoying the wind in his ears on one of our many road trips.

He enthusiastically hiked trails everywhere from New England to California. He reveled in getting filthy, then stoically tolerated being washed in the sink or fully re-poodled at the groomer’s.

Kimba’s sudden passing the morning after Christmas is a thing that will haunt me forever. An open door, a moving car, and a moment’s inattention resulted in a terrible accident with an un-fixable outcome. It is small comfort to me that Kimba was in my arms as he passed.

My brave, independent poodle.

There’s nothing I wouldn’t give to have Kimba back with me. Those who have loved animals understand. They each hold a special place in your heart, yet with some there is just a deeper connection than with others.

Kimba was my little soul-poodle. There is an ache in his absence, and that weird wishful thinking that follows a death: clearly a mistake has been made, and if I can just appeal to the right god, all will be set right again.

As many friends have reminded me lately, the pain I feel right now is not for Kimba. Wherever Kimba is right now, in whatever form, he is not in pain. The sorrow I am experiencing is because his presence in my life was so great, his absence has left a tremendous void.

I used to joke that my primary relationship was with a 12-lb. poodle who loved to spoon.

No joke, really.

Now, as I write this, I have the tiniest dog imaginable at my side.

Mighty Little Max came to me and Kimba just a little over a year ago. His human had passed away and he was failing to thrive. Given his age and overall condition, the animal rescue was going to euthanize him. Kimba and I welcomed Max with the expectation that he might not have long to live.

Ha!

Max rallied big time, becoming Kimba’s enthusiastic little sidekick. I began referring to him as The Doglet Who Lived.

That Max is still here and Kimba is gone seems strangely ironic to me. But that’s how life goes, isn’t it? None of us knows how long we have. The biggest changes in our lives often come down to the smallest moments.

And yet.

Yet...

Mighty Little Max has kept close to my side since Kimba’s passing, and I’ve noticed something.

This 2.7 lb. scrap of a dog has picked up some of Kimba’s mannerisms. Kimba showed him the ropes, and I am certain Max is thriving today because of it. He comes to me each morning after breakfast. I ask him how his meal was, and he high-fives me, putting his tiny paw to my forefinger.

But now, I add: You are a brave, independent chihuahua. You are descended from wolves. Never forget that.

Mighty Little Max takes in the words with solemn understanding.

And somewhere deep within me, I know Kimba’s sweetness and light go on.

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