#this was supposed to be a sketch among other sketches but it deserved its own post and a golden touch instead of being just black and white

[toasterkoi]

Never a frown

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Differences between the first editions and the republished (edited, abridged) edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, chapters 1-27

Given that I have been unable to find the comparison anywhere, I'm doing it myself here. A will be the original text, B, the abridged/edited one. Keep in mind I won't be making this for every insignificant edition (I've to I have, for example).

In first place, B omits the titles of the chapters, that are as follows:

A Discovery

An Interview

A Controversy

The Party

The Studio

Progression

The Excursion

The Present

A Snake in the Grass

A Contract and a Quarrel

The Vicar Again

A Tete a Tete and a Discovery

A Return to Duty

An Assault

An Encounter and its Consequences

The Warnings of Experience

Further Warnings

The Miniature

An Incident

Persistence

Opinions

Traits of Friendship

First Weeks of Matrimony

First Quarrel

First Absence

The Guests

A Misdemeanour

Parental Feelings

The Neighbour

Domestic Scenes

Social Virtues

Comparisons: Information Rejected

Two Evenings

Concealment

Provocations

Dual Solitude

The Neighbour Again

The Injured Man

A Scheme of Escape

A Misadventure

"Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast"

A Reformation

The Boundary Past

The Retreat

Reconciliation

Friendly Counsels

Startling Intelligence

Further Intelligence

"The rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."

Doubts and Disappointments

An Unexpected Occurrence

Fluctuations

Conclusion

A includes the following text before chapter 1:

TO J. HALFORD, ESQ. Dear Halford, When we were together last, you gave me a very particular and interesting account of the most remarkable occurrences of your early life, previous to our acquaintance; and then you requested a return of confidence from me. Not being in a story-telling humour at the time, I declined, under the plea of having nothing to tell, and the like shuffling excuses, which were regarded as wholly inadmissible by you; for though you instantly turned the conversation, it was with the air of an uncomplaining, but deeply injured man, and your face was overshadowed with a cloud which darkened it to the end of our interview, and, for what I know, darkens it still; for your letters have, ever since, been distinguished by a certain dignified, semi-melancholy stiffness and reserve, that would have been very affecting, if my conscience had accused me of deserving it. Are you not ashamed, old boy-at your age, and when we have known each other so intimately and so long, and when I have already given you so many proofs of frankness and confidence, and never resented your comparative closeness and taciturnity?-But there it is, I suppose; you are not naturally communicative, and you thought you had done great things, and given an unparalleled proof of friendly confidence on that memorable occasion-which, doubtless, you have sworn shall be the last of the kind,-and you deemed that the smallest return I could make for so mighty a favour, would be to follow your example without a moment's hesitation.- Well!-I did not take up my pen to reproach you, nor to defend myself, nor to apologize for past offences, but, if possible, to atone for them. It is a soaking, rainy day, the family are absent on a visit, I am alone in my library, and have been looking over certain musty old letters and papers, and musing on past times; so that I am now in a very proper frame of mind for amusing you with an old world story;-and, having withdrawn my well-roasted feet from the hobs, wheeled round to the table, and indited the above lines to my crusty old friend, I am about to give him a sketch-no not a sketch,-a full and faithful account of certain circumstances connected with the most important event of my life-previous to my acquaintance with Jack Halford at least;-and when you have read it, charge me with ingratitude and unfriendly reserve if you can. I know you like a long story, and are as great a stickler for particularities and circumstantial details as my grandmother, so I will not spare you: my own patience and leisure shall be my only limits. Among the letters and papers I spoke of, there is a certain faded old journal of mine, which I mention by way of assurance that I have not my memory alone-tenacious as it is-to depend upon; in order that your credulity may not be too severely taxed in following me through the minute details of my narrative.-To begin then, at once, with Chapter first,-for it shall be a tale of many chapters.-

Chapter 2:

A) chilly look that had so unspeakably roused my corruption at church

B) chilly look that had so unspeakably roused my aversion at church

Chapter 9:

A) and here he raised his eyes to my face

B) and he raised his eyes to my face

Chapter 10:

A) I had not yet ventured to offer it for her perusal

B) I had not yet ventured to offer it for perusal

Chapter 12:

A) perhaps I might venture to attempt a word of comfort

B) perhaps I might venture attempt a word of comfort

Chapter 14:

A) -for, lost in my own reflections, I was letting it jog on as leisurely as it thought proper-

B) -for, rapt in my own reflections, I was letting it jog on as leisurely as it thought proper-

A) as it seemed probable he was actuated by some such spiteful motives in so perseveringly refusing my assistance

B) as it seemed probable he was actuated by such spiteful motives in so perseveringly refusing my assistance

A) as calmly reclining as if he had been taking his rest on the sofa at home.

B) as calmly reclining as if he had been taking his rest on his sofa at home.

A) At all events, he must have met with some terrible accident, and you ought to see him: he'll take it very unkind of you if you don't.

B) At all events, he must have met with some terrible accident, and you ought to see him: he'll take it very unkind if you don't.

Chapter 15:

A) but we will reserve its commencement for another chapter, and call it,-

B) but we will reserve its commencement for another chapter.

Chapter 21:

A) the less he says, the more he thinks-G- d-n him!-I beg your pardon, dearest-and this is Hargrave's missive

B) the less he says, the more he thinks- and this is Hargrave's missive

Chapter 22:

A) "Gentlemen, where is all this to end?-Will you just tell me that now?-Where is it all to end?"

"'In hell fire,' growled Grimsby.

"'You've hit it-I thought so!' cried he. 'Well then, I'll tell you what'-he rose.

B) "Gentlemen, where is all this to end?-Will you just tell me that now?-Where is it all to end?" He rose.

Chapter 23:

A) ...to look farther, and aim higher than you do."

We now stood before our own door, and I said no more; but, with an ardent and tearful embrace, I left him, and went into the house, and up-stairs to take off my bonnet and mantle. I wished to say nothing more on that subject at the time, lest I should disgust him with both it and me.

B) …to look farther, and aim higher than you do."

Chapter 24:

A) "Is it interesting?"

"Yes, very."

"Humph!"

B) "Is it interesting?"

"Yes, very."

Chapter 25:

A) No, no," persisted the impracticable creature; "you must go home, Helen; I must have the satisfaction of knowing that you are safe and well, though far away. Don't I see that you are looking quite rakish?-Your bright eyes are faded, and that tender, delicate bloom has quite deserted your cheek."

B) No, no," persisted the impracticable creature; "you must go home, Helen; I must have the satisfaction of knowing that you are safe and well, though far away. Your bright eyes are faded, and that tender, delicate bloom has quite deserted your cheek."

A) "That would be hard, indeed!" he replied, tenderly squeezing my hand. I don't know whether he fully understood my meaning, but he smiled-thoughtfully and oven sadly-a most unusual thing with him;-and then he closed his eyes and fell asleep, looking as careless and sinless as a child. As I watched that placid slumber, my heart swelled fuller than ever, and my tears flowed unrestrained.

B) "That would be hard, indeed!" he replied, tenderly squeezing my hand.

Chapter 26:

A) enough to make him deem himself a favoured and a happy man. And yet, at times, a sombre shadow over-clouds his brow even in her presence, but evidently the result of despondency rather than of ill-humour, and generally occasioned by some display of her ill-regulated temper or misguided mind-some wanton trampling upon his most cherished opinions-some reckless disregard of principle that makes him bitterly regret that she is not as good as she is charming and beloved. I pity him from my heart, for I know the misery of such regrets. But she has another way of tormenting him,

B) enough to make him deem himself a favoured and a happy man. But she has a way of tormenting him,

A) I can amuse and please him with my simple songs, but not delight him thus. I might retaliate if I chose, for Mr. Hargrave is disposed to be very polite and attentive to me as his hostess-especially so when Arthur is the most neglectful, whether in mistaken compassion for me, or ambitious to show off his own good breeding by comparison with his friend's remissness, I cannot tell; but in either case, his civilities are highly distasteful to me. If Arthur is a little careless, of course it is unpleasant to have the fault exaggerated by contrast; and to be pitied as a neglected wife when I am not such, is an insult I can ill endure. But for hospitality's sake, I endeavour to suppress my impulse of scarcely reasonable resentment, and behave with decent civility to our guest, who, to give him his due, is by no means a disagreeable companion: he has good conversational powers and considerable information and taste, and talks about things that Arthur never could be brought to discuss, or to feel any interest in. But Arthur dislikes me to talk to him, and is visibly annoyed by his commonest acts of politeness; not that my husband has any unworthy suspicions of me-or of his friend either, as I believe-but he dislikes me to have any pleasure but in himself, any shadow of homage or kindness but such as he chooses to vouchsafe: he knows he is my sun, but when he chooses to withhold his light, he would have my sky to be all darkness; he cannot bear that I should have a moon to mitigate the deprivation. This is unjust; and I am sometimes tempted to teaze him accordingly; but I won't yield to the temptation: if he should carry his trifling with my feelings too far, I shall find some other means of checking him.

B) I can amuse and please him with my simple songs, but not delight him thus.

Chapter 27:

A) October 9th.-While the gentlemen are ranging the woods and Lady Lowborough is busy writing her letters, I will return to my chronicle for the purpose of recording sayings and doings, the last of the kind I hope I shall ever have cause to describe.

B) October 9th.-It was on the night of the 4th, a little after tea, that Annabella had been singing and playing, with Arthur as usual at her side

[straighttohellbuddy]

📓 !!

Okay im so excited please know I think about How The Light Gets In's world every day still, and so anyways here is a side story I want to write but there's a lot of set up regarding the reader and eef becoming friends again. For context, they were incredibly close around 2014-2017, but people were getting creepy and invasive and demanding about their friendship (think 2012 toxic side of the Phandom, if that makes sense), and a lot of the reader's relationships were strained at that time because while they had been successful before, they were absolutely blowing up after their first album released and they became far more mainstream. They felt like they were bothering the people they had become closest to, both because they're worried that they're a bother, and because gossip rags and paps would harrass their friends looking for a scoop, and so they ended up just completely cutting off contact without warning one day right before they went on their first tour. the start of HTLGI is about 3 years since they'd been in proper contact with any of the creators they were close to at that time.

DON'T LOOK AT ME on their 2017 ep Hyperfocus was a more general song in response to everything that had been happening in their life around that time, with a focus on how they stop associating with anyone for a while, without outright addressing it, but on their latest album n o s t a l g i a, read at 5am ft. Troye was specifically written at the start of quarantine, when the reader was getting back into YouTube, about their feelings regarding how their friendship with ethan ended, as they spent a lot of this time looking back of their YouTube career, and he was the person they were closest to for a very long time, before they iced everyone out.

OKAY SO THERES MORE OF THE BACKGROUND OF THE WHOLE FIC AND THE READER BUT

Werewolf Ethan & Mark. I'm sorry I don't make the rules. They have golden retriever energy you cannot change my mind. But also because this is the HTLGI you know that supernatural characteristics are able to be activated rather than just triggered by the full moon. What I'm trying to say is since this is set in the year of Unus Annus, they film a video together that's like, you know that show where a person has to try and outwit a professional tracker? Except its the reader being tracked by two werewolves at night in a national park. Reader is wearing some sort of night vision camera on themselves so whenever it cuts to them the audience can't actually see how they're using their powers, if that makes sense.

Also the reader agreed to this knowing it would probably be when they ended up telling Mark and Ethan about them being a demon.

Video is titled Hunting Down An Old Friend

A few Moments that the boys edit out:

The reader using their stupidly sharp prehensile tail to swing from tree branches, though they leave in shots where the reader's tail can't be seen.

Knowing that with the werewolves having advanced hearing, the reader would give themselves away by talking to the camera, they take a few minutes having flown up to a high tree branch, to pull out a notebook and do a little sketch of how Mark and Ethan appear in their Demon True Sight, and holding it up to their camera.

Werewolves being one of the animals who can kind of sense demons without being able to identify them, essentially like dogs can sense natural disasters and are often good judges of character, this can be heightened on command for werewolves. There's about 15 minutes of footage cut out of the boys discussing or mentioning how this place has awful vibes and that they should have done this during the day. It gets worse as they get closer to the reader, who didn't realise that the boys hadn't thought to ever use that particular power around them before.

("I say this with so much love and appreciation for you, dude," Ethan yells, looking up at you from the base of the tree they'd finally found you in, "but I- this is making me anxious I feel like something terrible's gonna happen, and we should probably get out of here and film the rest of the video back at Mark's." And behind him, Mark's nodding, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, eyes scanning the trees for whatever was most likely the cause of this terrible impending doom.

Oh. It's you. And they don't know its you.

Now or never, you suppose.

"Can you cut the cameras for a second? You're going to be fine I promise," you called back, and though they obligingly did, they both seemed antsy. You cleared your throat awkwardly, "that... that terrible feeling, that's not the park or anything in it- well I mean, it is, but it's just- it's me."

and later

"Dude your wings smell like rotten eggs."

"To YOU Ethan! And no they don't!"

"If it makes you feel better they smell like burning and rotten eggs."

"It does not."

(for reference, when enhancing their sense of smell werewolves can kind of distinguish various supernatural creatures, or parts of supernatural creatures. Some creatures have an inherent scent, but some, like angels and demons, only have distinct scents when they've activated certain attributesor abilities; demon wings smell like fire and brimstone, which unfortunately means burning and rotten eggs. I like to think angels wings are like the love potion in Harry Potter that smells like the things you love the most. Mark and Ethan usually don't enhance it around each other because they smell like wet dog to the other)

This gets about 2k notes on tumblr. The reader likes it:

Ethan finally finding Y/N at the end of Hunting Down An Old Friend (2020) Colourised.

Other things to note regarding all this:

It takes a while to rebuild their friendship to the point where they're comfortable enough to be on camera together (eef and reader specifically).

However, the Unus Annus video is the first thing they properly do together, and the reader, in an effort to connect more and make up for the past, will join in multiplayer gaming streams if asked.

Impromptu duet in proximity Among Us of Young Volcanoes by Fall Out Boy, which has their respective chats and fandoms losing their minds, except it stops abruptly after the first chorus as they both remember the opening lines of the second verse (make it easy, say I never mattered -- those lyrics hit a little too close to home)

But also the reader convinces him to join him for a proper cover in like, February of 2021, and it's something deeply sappy (I'm thinking Bon Iver by mxmtoon because I think its sweet and fits them well)

Also Ethan being reminded that the reader is kind of a much bigger deal than when they'd been friends before.

designed to hurt (touch me) from their ep Working On It is nominated for a Grammy for Track of the Year, and n o s t a l g i a wins Best Pop Album (because it's my fic and I said so)

FIRST OF ALL designed to hurt (touch me) is a beautifully produced song about Corpse (which people do not know) and the title itself is literally making fun of something he said IMAGINE his reaction to it being Grammy Nominated 😂😂😂 God he'd be proud but lowkey fuming, meanwhile the moment the nominations are announced the reader tweets:

me: here is an album where I processed my entire world view including heartfelt explorations of the trauma of existing and oversharing in the public eye from a young age without the traditional barrier between audience and entertainer

the grammys: that's cute BUT you know the song you wrote to bully your boyfriend and also be horny on main for him before you guys were even dating? THAT deserves its own recognition.

meanwhile Ethan's like..... this is the same person who I filmed a video with playing cards against humanity, and you laughed so hard you almost threw up. I am very proud but deeply confused.

The Hot Meme of Late April 2021 is "2 time Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N" with a gif, still, or quote from the reader where they're just being an absolute chaos gremlin.

Of course we have "If I bleached my asshole for charity I'd do it tastefully."

2 Time Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N speaking to their actual boyfriend in the year of our lord 2020: You are being executed for Clown Crimes.

ethan posts a short video to twitter simply of his screen where he's renaming a folder from "Never Before Seen Images of Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N" simply changing it to 2 time Artist. The reader responds specifically to his tweet with a video of themselves asking Google how to hard reset someone else's computer.

So many screenshots from old videos surface that week.

I miss this world. Sorry this is rambly!!

[glassworkspiderlilies]

interlinear

Genshin Impact | @albelumiweek 2021 Day 2 | Touch | AO3 Summary: “Hello, Albedo,” Lumine says, her voice amused as she slips into his workshop, gently closing the door behind her, “It seems that your boredom is causing trouble of its own.”  Notes: day 2!!! featuring a distinct lack of touch, or does it? Σ(-᷅_-᷄๑)

.

.

.

True to her status as a hero of Mondstadt, Lumine arrives at the Knights of Favonius headquarters as a balm to aid of their ailing members. It is a severe affliction, one not so easily contracted nor treated in a man such as Albedo, and the news he is affected is kept only among the Acting Grandmaster’s and Albedo’s close circle.

“Hello, Albedo,” Lumine says, her voice amused as she slips into his workshop, gently closing the door behind her, “It seems that your boredom is causing trouble of its own.”

He is sitting by the window, elbow resting on a stack of finished books that has risen tall enough for him to do so, propping his head up with his cheek against the backs of his fingers. In his free hand is an ancient-looking scroll, quite a bit of it already unraveled and pooling onto the floor. Despite the assumption that surely it must be occupying his time, a sense of displeasure radiates off of the Chief Alchemist anyway, though his expression remains impassive. His workshop is in a state of disarray—even more so than usual—with various experiments bubbling away in isolated spaces, scribbled notes and charts both strewn about and pinned up, and half-used ingredients still scattered along surfaces.

His demeanor brightens, however, when he sees her, the oppressive pall within the room dissipating like smoke as he lifts his head.

“Hello, Lumine,” he greets back, “Is that what you would call this?”

“If not boredom, then a slump,” she amends thoughtfully, leaning her back against the door. “You’ve said so before that specimens are finite, and the enlightenment of investigative process is fleeting in nature. I expect this is a rather severe dead end, isn’t it?”

His gaze turns more piercing as she repeats his words back to him, and she tilts her head a little, giving him a pointed look. She had been concerned back then, on Dragonspine, as it was evident his list of worthy specimens and points of interest was already being exhausted. That seed from another world was a rare thing—wholly new and exciting, a problem difficult enough for him to have to enlist the help of someone else. He’d been satisfied at the seed’s transient blooming, but also perhaps a bit disappointed that the experiment had come to an end.

“…Even so, there are plenty of more mundane studies to be done,” he says lightly, turning back to his scroll, “I will confess I did not think I could be subject to ennui.”

Lumine chuckles a little at that.

“To be honest, I didn’t think so either. But if you keep doing things that you already deem dull when you’re bored, it just makes it worse, doesn’t it?”  

Albedo sighs, finally putting down the scroll entirely. She’s right. It is unusual indeed for him to get to this point; between his work as both Chief Alchemist and Captain of the Investigation Team and taking care of Klee, normally his days are very full, even without new studies to pursue. But there’s a brief dry spell in the work for the Knights, which does happen every so often and thus signals a well-deserved break. He does spend more time with Klee, but there are also days where she goes out adventuring with her friends, and it would not do for him to be overbearing either. It is the same with Sucrose and Timaeus; they need time to continue their studies and garner results, and to hover too much would be more detrimental than beneficial.

At first he had turned his hand to busywork—stocking the Knights on potions and other supplies, reading lesser known manuscripts and theses, also walking around and sketching more. But too soon did the Knights’ stores become overstocked, that his focus for reading all these texts flagged, that his artistic inspiration and motivation dwindled.

Albedo with nothing to do was something of a menace. Not because of his attitude or any such thing—though he did become more intimidating to talk to, as the air of dissatisfaction hung about him—but because he was so capable that there was simply nothing he could be given at the moment that would be considered up to par.

Except, Kaeya had brought up, when he, Jean, and Lisa had met, the Traveler, whom Albedo had a continuing interest in. Jean had brightened at this, while Lisa had raised a slender brow at the mischievous twinkle in Kaeya’s eye but said nothing.

“I shall send the Traveler to Albedo when she arrives,” Jean had said with a relieved smile, “I’m sure she’ll be happy to assist; if I recall, they are good friends as well.”

Kaeya had chuckled, and all but purred his response.

“Indeed they are. I’m certain her company will be very…stimulating.”

And so Lumine was sent, though not without her own agenda.

“You’re correct,” Albedo admits, then gives her a wry smile. “I suppose I am in need of assistance.”

“Lucky for you, I’m here.”

“So you are. Tell me then, how shall I occupy myself?”

“With me,” Lumine says, continuing without a change in expression while Albedo blinks hard, “I’m offering myself as a study.”  

There is a silence. Albedo regards her carefully, but she does not flinch under his gaze.

“I subjected you to my research back on Dragonspine, and you went out of your way in being cooperative with a total stranger. You needn’t go so far again just to humor me,” he says politely, and Lumine smiles.

“It’s only partially a favor to you, and besides, we are far from strangers now. You told me back then…I function much like a human from this world, but the fact still remains that I am not from this world. So, what about the percentage that I am not like a human from Teyvat? It is difficult to see a situation for what it is when you are in the center of it. So I’d like your help, to find answers to my own questions. Symbiotic, isn’t it?”

Albedo’s face is impassive, but he remembers the sediment that formed at the bottom of the vial which she drank from, the sediment that should not have been there. He had made a point to tell her how ordinary the results were at the time, but she was starting to probe at the loopholes in his explanation herself. He is not entirely sure what she should know, but…there are countless questions that could be posed in regards to the Traveler from another world, countless avenues of research.

“I’m in no position to refuse,” he says, inclining his head. “But I am glad that this will be a mutually beneficial endeavor.”

“How sweet,” she says, her eyes crinkling, and he blinks. “But so it is. And with that, I shall give myself over to you.”

But he doesn’t yet move from his seat, and the two stare at each other from across the room. Her lips are still curved in an amused expression, and the fact that they are wholly alone in his space strikes him more clearly now. Paimon isn’t even here, he realizes, and he belatedly thinks that she would make a wonderful study as well if she allowed it. But oddly, he does not particularly feel like asking where the fairy is.

This shouldn’t hit him the way it does. They’d been alone for stretches on Dragonspine too, and many times after that when gathering materials or having lunch or just making simple conversation. But at present there is the particular manner in which she speaks, the words that she chooses, and the fact that she is still leaning against the door.

There is another brief silence before he speaks again, very slowly, his eyes not leaving hers.

“I suppose I should warn you that I intend to be thorough, as is my nature.”

Her amusement deepens.

“I would expect no less,” she says easily. “I would be disappointed otherwise.”

“I would not want you to be uncomfortable at any point in the process.”

“I would tell you, if I took issue.”

“The experiment may take quite some time, as well.”

“Don’t worry, my schedule is cleared for you. Barring anything drastic, of course.”

“And I’m afraid that my workshop is lacking in amenities.”

She glances around the room, inclining her head towards a small, squashed couch that is shoved against the wall, its seats occupied by various books and paraphernalia.

“That will do just fine, once it is cleared off,” she says.

There is a pause. He does not say these things to deter her, merely to confirm her will.

It is his turn to be amused, that she answered all of them so readily, and he tilts his head, measuring. He has to marvel at her, as well as the situation they are in.

She senses his mirth, and tilts her head back.

“May I?” she asks, gesturing.

“It is probably for the best.”

She opens the door a little, reaching out and flipping over the sign hanging outside to say Experiment in Progress. She closes the door with her back, the same way she did when she first came in, watching him as she reaches one hand towards the doorknob.

The lock clicks.

Albedo stands, removing his gloves as he crosses over to her and cups her cheek.

“Well then,” he says, and she finally pushes away from the door. “Shall we begin?”

.

(Kaeya comes by sometime later and knocks, the sign indicating that Albedo is free. He steps in once permission is received, and smiles when he sees Lumine reading a book on the unearthed couch, Albedo on the opposite side of the room observing one of his bubbling concoctions.

“Hey, you two!” Kaeya says cheerfully, holding up a bag. “Brought you some snacks. How’d it go?”

It is a very nonspecific question.

“Lumine has been very helpful,” Albedo says without pause, attention still on his experiment, “I think I’ll be making a breakthrough on this soon.”

“How nice,” Kaeya says, turning to Lumine. “And you? I hope our frustrated Chief Alchemist didn’t work you too hard.”

“Albedo is always a gentleman,” Lumine says smoothly, her eyes revealing nothing, but her direct stare also lets Kaeya know she knows exactly what he’s doing and is having none of it. “I’ve learned a lot about advanced alchemy.”

“How nice,” Kaeya repeats, his lips quirking up. “Say, how about we all go out for a drink? You two have been cooped up all day, so why not a different kind of diversion?”

“No thank you,” Lumine and Albedo say together, their tones unfailingly polite.

“I am at a delicate stage in this experiment now,” Albedo explains, gesturing in front of him. “It will require careful monitoring.”

“And I’d like to master the process this book details before I have to leave Mondstadt again. But perhaps another day, before I head out?” Lumine demurs.

“Sure, sure,” Kaeya says with an airy wave of his hand. “I’ll grab Rosaria instead, then. We’ll be at Angel’s Share, if you change your mind.”

Lumine and Albedo make noises of acknowledgement.

Kaeya gives a lazy salute before walking out, leaving the door askew as though by carelessness.

He does not turn around, but he smirks when he hears the very quiet but telltale sound of the door closing behind him.)

[iphisesque]

Joe + Nicky + Saint Sebastian + ☕

(this started out as a fun little question to answer! might throw around some headcanons! might even reference some of my favourite renaissance artists along the way! and here we are, a couple of months and 1.1k words later, with a fanfiction about joenicky, saint sebastian and antonello da messina. i have no idea how this happened --- you can find the link to this on ao3 in the source!)

---------

Yusuf loves drawing Nicolò, that much is certain: whether it be a doodle on the corner of a page in his sketchbook or a painting on a panel larger than either of them, he's always found something almost sacred, almost divine about it, about tracing the curve of his nose, the bright glimmer in his eyes, the relaxed grin on his lips and recreating his image like Allah created man in his own. They often joke about Yusuf making Nicolò into a saint, giving his face to George slaying the dragon, or perhaps painting both of their likenesses onto an embrace of Sergius and Bacchus commissioned by another wealthy Florentine with tastes not unlike theirs, but nothing really ever becomes of it --- until.

They're staying in Venice at Antonello's house, not long after he's returned from his latest travel to the Flanders; him and Yusuf are excitedly discussing the latest news in oil painting, while Nicolò is dozing off in bed as he pretends to follow the conversation, still tangled up in their sweat and spill and little else.

He stretches and stirs, more asleep than awake, and both of them look up at him from the desk in Antonello's room they're sitting at; the man glances at his figure, lightly constrained by the bed sheets strategically covering his body, his face still blissed-out, and reaches for his sketchbook, showing his latest preliminary sketches to Yusuf. A young man, tied up with rope to a pole, arrows penetrating his near-bared body in an intent more sensual than murderous, if the man's expression is anything to go by.

"San..." He can't recall the saint's name on his tongue, but he knows the man is one: it's always saints and Marys with Catholic artists, which isn't necessarily a complaint. "Sebastiano," Antonello helps him, his voice low. "I was commissioned a Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian by the Church of San Zulian, and I thought you might appreciate the idea."

He glances up at his lover, fast asleep in bed still, and back down at the sketch. "Who's the man?" he asks, an artist's silent understanding: every painting contains a part of its maker's soul, but masterpieces such as Antonello's seldom are created without a certain familiar face to inspire the hand that paints its likeness.

"An old friend," he answers, his eyes growing dark. "Loved him and left him in Messina, like too many other things in my life."

Yusuf nods, he too well aware of what it means to leave people behind; his heart still aches when he thinks of his sister Maryam sometimes, watches over her descendants in Mahdia and Tunis as best as he can alongside his beloved. "I'm going back there as soon as I finish this commission, tell you that," Antonello interrupts his thoughts. "I far too much miss my dear Smeralda and my dearest hometown, though I'm sure a man like you would have none such problems."

Yusuf scoffs playfully. "I miss more places and people than you could ever think possible, believe me," he replies, and that much is the truth: the pain of leaving people and places he's loved never stops or dulls after centuries of life, or at the very least it still hasn't for himself and Nicolò.

He comes back home that night with his head buzzing, and dreams of his sister, of his past life in sun-scorched Mahdia, of his beloved's embrace as they ate and drank and recited poetry in his family's house in Damascus, back when they were still learning to know and love each other for the very first time. He dreams other, abstract dreams too: a broken arrow, lengths of rope holding strong muscles tight, his beloved's face enraptured, the near-indecency of a drape slipping off his bare lap, and these don't fade from his thoughts even after he wakes up.

He tells Nicolò of the sketch Antonello showed him, the sketch that hasn't left his mind since he first saw it, and his lover's eyes widen, his interest piqued. "Would you like to paint me like that?" he whispers, his voice low and raspy like he knows it drives Yusuf wild.

He nods, not wanting to break the heavy intimacy of the silence hanging between them, and Nicolò presses a kiss to his lips, his hand caressing at first his cheek and then moving lower and lower.

"Paint me then, beloved," he tells him in that same voice, before dragging him to the bedroom, and Yusuf begs Allah to let him at least finish the sketch that night before succumbing to the desires of the flesh. (If He hears that plea, He seems to pay him no attention.)

---

Centuries later, one French art forger baptised as Sébastien Le Livre has joined their warrior group of immortals, and he finds himself with them at a safehouse in Florence sometime between the two world wars; he's still young, barely been undead for more than a century, and cannot wrap his head around the idea of his mates having been alive since way before his country or the one they're staying in were united. Safehouses like that are a blessing to him, filled to the brim with material testaments of his and his companions' eternal lives, and often hiding pieces deserving of a place in a museum; it is one of these he stumbles upon that afternoon as he explores the dusty old attic, holding a torch high and not too close as he theatrically removes the white cloth covering a painting --- late 1400s, he thinks with a glance at the technique and at the style, further proved by the signature in the lower right corner reading "al-Kaysani, 1479".

Yusuf's old art, and certainly not his oldest, he thinks to himself, and he has a better look at the subject: a Sebastian like himself, painted as was the norm in the day, penetrated by arrows and tied up to a pole, in an expression of supposed agony resembling more of a petite mort than a real death.

Only when he pays closer attention to the face does he realise who the subject is, and he recoils so suddenly he drops his lamp in the darkness --- he cannot look Nicolò in the face for a week following the incident, and they only find out about that when Yusuf goes to store another masterpiece in the attic alongside the cursed San Sebastiano. They laugh it out eventually, of course, and it becomes something to tease them both about, but he is more than glad to be leaving Florence and going to London the week after that, where he starts going by Booker and buries his old name for good.

---------

A few notes:

1) the mention of Saints George, Sergius and Bacchus is not casual: Saint George, in particular, was the patron saint of the Republic of Genova, and Sergius and Bacchus are two saints martyred together who are often thought to have had a homosexual relationship and are somewhat of the patron saints of the gay community.

2) Antonello da Messina was an early Renaissance painter who introduced Flemish oil painting to Italy and Italian perspective technique to the Flanders; his portrayal of Saint Sebastian, inspired by Andrea Mantegna’s, was among the first ones to popularise what we now consider to be the classic portrayal of the martyrdom of Sebastian, aka “young man tied to a pole and sensually struck by arrows”. In Messina, Antonello was friends with Saint Eustochia Smeralda (the Smeralda Antonello mentions), and he allegedly based his masterpiece Virgin of the Annunciation on her.

3) the headcanon of Yusuf coming from Mahdia belongs to @hottopicmonk, and him having a sister named Maryam comes from a conversation with @tovezza!

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: My Top Ten Muppets

Listeners of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour recently cast their votes to rank the best Muppets – an impossible decision, really. And yet, once the top ten list was read aloud on the podcast, I found myself completely unsurprised. It’s a list that made sense, a list of safe bets. It’s also an incredibly Muppet Show-heavy list, even though the competition was open to Muppets of all properties, including Sesame Street and my beloved Dark Crystal. The full top 25 list, available here, reveals that a few Sesame Street Muppets ranked in the teens, but still. We all know the top ten is where it’s at, and this top ten was neither creative nor representative. It struck me as a list of popular Muppets, not a list of the best Muppets. Most of my favorites weren’t on that list at all!

So, here’s my take on the ten best Muppets – and because I don’t believe in objective Muppet rankings, I want YOU to reblog this post and tell me your favorites!

10. Swedish Chef              

The Chef came in ninth on NPR’s rankings, and I gotta be honest, I’m on the same page with them on this one. Maybe it’s the fact that when he comes onscreen, there’s no way to predict how the sketch will end. Maybe it’s the bizarreness of human fingers on Muppet arms – and knowing that those arms indicate a frankly superhuman feat of teamwork going on under the table. Maybe it’s just the Popcorn video, which always brightens my mood. Whatever it is, the Swedish Chef is definitely tenth best.

9. Fozzie Bear

I like Fozzie. He’s an underdog, never giving up in his pursuit of fame and audience acclaim. And even though his whole shtick is that he can’t succeed – Statler and Waldorf always get bigger laughs during his bits – he objectively has succeeded, because he’s still around and making us laugh after all these years.

What puts Fozzie in the top ten for me, though, is that I genuinely find his jokes funny. Honestly. I really do. So maybe Fozzie Bear sketches don’t really work for me, but Fozzie Bear himself does.

8. Rosita

I mentioned my disappointment before in the “official” ranking’s lack of Sesame Street characters. Sure, the cast of The Muppet Show has had a notable cultural impact, but it would be a disservice to Muppetkind if we ignored the impact of their friends on Sesame Street.

I could never forget Rosita. She’s not the most popular Muppet; she’s never had a super catchy song or a roll-on-the-floor-laughing one-liner to rival the others’ success. But her “Spanish Word of the Day” segments have a permanent spot in my memory. She’s sweet, she’s sincere, and she’s an excellent friend to her more famous fellow Muppets. (And as a bilingual Muppet, she’s really hecking important – there’s an episode where she deals with some kids making fun of her accent, and it’s equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming!)

7. Rowlf

While other Muppets have one-note personalities – see number 10 on this list above, and number 5 below – there’s also Muppets like Rowlf. He’s not an “Anything Muppet,” by any means – he’s a character in his own right – but Rowlf is a dog who rises to any occasion. He sits at the piano to bring both beautiful classical pieces and hilarious parodies to life, and it’s all music to my ears. He can be the Straight Man to more chaotic Muppets’ antics, but just one clip of “Veterinarian’s Hospital” proves that he’s got enough silliness in him to take center stage.

And all the while, no matter what role he’s playing, he’s still that chill dog I adore – calm and adorable, with that round black nose, those big fluffy paws, and those floppy ears just begging to be scratched.

6. Deethra

As much as I love the original Dark Crystal film, the Netflix prequel series Age of Resistance has one big thing going for it: its characters. The protagonists of this show draw me in and make me care, quickly and continually. And best among them all is Deet. Deethra the Gelfling – small and beautiful, kind and powerful. She cares wholeheartedly about the world around her, and that care begets a wisdom that balances out her naivete in fascinating ways.

Muppets are so often silly, and we love them for it. But Deet embodies the Muppets’ potential to tell a serious story, a potential we would be remiss to ignore.

5. Animal

Oh my god, Animal. If you want to talk about the sheer silliness of Muppets, you need to talk about Animal. There’s just no way around it. He’s loud – in both sound and color scheme. And he’s absolutely bonkers. I know every drummer has an Animal in them, and it’s likely that all humans do. We’re just not all comfortable with letting him out to play.

That’s what’s so great about watching Animal do his thing. He has no inhibitions; he is freedom, he is chaos. And he lets me feel a little freer by association.

4. Hup

I talked a bit about underdogs in the Fozzie Bear section above. There’s an essay to be written about the Muppet as underdog; it’s an essential Muppet quality. Muppets are characters you logically wouldn’t expect to succeed, but they persevere, nonetheless.

Hup is the underdog of Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. He’s the Podling who wants to be a paladin. Dear god he’s adorable, dear god he’s funny, and dear god do you root for him (and his spoon) to save the day! Of all the characters in this show, he feels the most Muppety – and that’s why he’s higher on the list than Deet. He’s still a serious character in a serious story (when he cries… my goodness), but he’s got that classic Muppet spirit to him.

3. Elmo

You know, I just don’t get why Elmo gets such a bad rap. Is it that people think he’s annoying? Sure, he is! Muppets are objectively annoying characters – they all are. Yes, even the one you’re thinking of right now. But I fricking love Elmo. He’s joyful, he’s spirited, and he’s exploring the world around him in that carefree way only a child can – and he brings you along on that adventure! “Elmo’s World” is your world. “Elmo’s Song” is your song. Elmo’s laugh is fricking infectious. And yeah, I’m probably biased by nostalgia (my dad’s Elmo impression cracks me up to this day), but Elmo is a darn good Muppet and he deserves our respect and admiration.

2. SkekSil

On a completely different note… let’s talk about the Chamberlain. There aren’t really that many Muppet villains. There are plenty of Muppet henchmen, providing comic relief for a human actor who isn’t supposed to be seen as that much of a threat anyway. The Skeksis of Dark Crystal are a notable exception, and SkekSil, better known as the Chamberlain, stands out among them. He is evil and he is smart. I hate him, and at the same time, I am fascinated by him. He knows what he wants and how to get it, even though he’s nowhere near as strong as the other Skeksis. He is, in his own way, an underdog. He believes in himself, and he wields that confidence as a weapon, calmly explaining to his enemies why they should do what he wants. You just can’t look away. He’s an amazing character, embodying the dark side of Muppethood.

1. Cookie Monster

When my mom first shared that episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour with me, in which the hosts talked about their favorite Muppets, I first thought, “How could you decide?” And then Stephen Thompson said his favorite was Cookie Monster, and I shouted “YES!!!” out loud. Because he’s right – Cookie’s the best.

Cookie Monster is eternally funny, whether you’re five or fifty-five. Everything that comes out of his mouth is pure gold (“Why me not get royalties?”) He’s got the best songs – not only the classic “C is for Cookie,” but also “Me Want It (But Me Wait),” “Me Am What Me Am,” and the “Healthy Foods” rap. All the stuff I love about other Muppets on this list – the unpredictability, the ability to fit into any role a sketch requires, the lack of inhibitions, the confidence, the chaos, the unexpected moments of wisdom – he’s got it all. He’s irreplaceable, he’s lovable, and he’s the top of my Top Ten Muppets list.

[omgthatdress]

How to make Cats a good movie.

I watched Cats, and once I got over the initial horror, I was actually pretty entertained and found myself enjoying the shit out of it. Like god bless it, for as nightmare-inducing as much as it was, Tom Hooper was clearly *committed* to his vision and you gotta give him credit for that. The scenery was actually really beautiful and the cinematography was frequently breathtaking. Like it really did have a lot of elements that really worked for it. But for every bit of genius, there was something terrible that the movie just couldn’t overcome. So let’s dive in.

First of all, you kind of have to understand Cats: the musical. It’s an adaptation of poems that T.S. Elliott of nihilistic lost generation fame wrote for his godchildren about cats. And the poetry is charming af and totally captures the nature of cats and why they’re so lovable. In the in the 1970s, Andrew Lloyd Webber did a shit ton of cocaine and decided to make a musical out of these poems. As a result, Cats has no plot. It’s a bunch of cats singing their songs about who they are and doing a lot of dancing. The thinnest of narrative devices is created with the “jellicle” ball and the deciding of which cat gets to ascend to heaven or some shit. So yeah. Cats is actually pretty controversial among theater nerds, it’s very much a you either love it or hate it thing. Is it stupid? Yes.  Is it going to make everyone happy? No. Does it lend itself well to film adaptation? fuck no. I get the feeling that Tom Hooper was really going for deep, meaningful poetic cinema here and trying to make another Les Mis (which was way overly long and ultimately sank under its own sheer weight as a movie and probably is better viewed as a play). I’m operating under the assumption that Hooper was going for ground-breaking cinema that would have made millions and swept up during awards season and cemented him as a legendary director and gone down in movie history, because every little detail of Cats is clearly meant for maximum impact. You kind of need to drop all expectations going into Cats, so once you’re there, you can have fun with it. So how do you make it a good film?

1. The HORRIBLE hyper-realistic cgi human-cat hybrids. YES, it’s a technical marvel, and the CGI artists who made it all deserve a ton of credit for the work they did. And I understand why the actors were kept in their human shapes: live dance is a huge part of what makes Cats work. One of the smart decisions made was hiring theater veterans for the filler roles in the cat chorus, so when you have the choreographed numbers, it’s really spectacular. It’s just the end result was way too uncanny valley and bizarre for any of the film’s good parts to ever rise above it. I think a minimalist approach would have actually worked best. Cat ears and simple costumes with clean lines that show off the dancer’s bodies. Go for the suggestion of cats, and kind of let the viewer’s imagination take over, and showcase the cat’s personality. A huge part of what I enjoyed was hearing the poetry and imagining these cats and how they all relate to cats I’ve known. The dance and the music helped heighten this experience, but hybrids kept reminding me of the joke: what do you get when you cross a human and a cat? An immediate cessation of funding and a stern rebuke from the ethics committee.

2. The schlocky, honestly amateurish attempts at slapstick humor. I’m gonna come out and say it and say that Hooper is pretty deeply entrenched in *dRaMa* and has no sense of how comedy works. There was a lot of added in comedic bits from Rebel Wilson and James Corden, and it was honestly terrible. I mean really, a crotch hit? That kind of lowbrow comedy is so crude and base that it’s actually really hard to pull it off well. Slapstick comedy actually lends itself to the whimsical tone, and slapstick done well can be utterly sublime, but Cats seemed satisfied that fat people falling over is the height of comedy and should be left at that. And a second note on the comedy? Weirdly fat-shame-y. A saw a post about how odd it is to see James Corden, who has been very frank about how he’s struggled with dieting and come to accept that his body is fat and can’t be made not fat, playing this role where fat is added to his body, his CGI vest strains at the buttons, and he’s literally stuffing his face with garbage. The theme of fat people as lazy, stupid, and slovenly carried over from Rebel Wilson’s role, in which she also plays a fat lazy cat who is leaned on heavily for comic relief. I know the role is about a fat cat, and gently laughing at a fat lazy cat who loves to eat is fine, but, speaking as a fat person myself, this felt like a gleeful exploitation of a nasty and cruel stereotype. James Corden and Rebel Wilson are both extraordinarily funny people who happen to be fat, and their comedic gifts were tremendously mis-used here, reducing them to simply two fat bodies to be laughed at.

3. Jennifer Hudson. She’s a talented actress who can sing and emote like a motherfucker. And emote she did. She was clearly GOING for that second Oscar. I really don’t want to call her performance bad. The same level of emotion, tears running and snot flowing, in another movie, would have been devastating (Hello, Viola Davis in Fences). But this isn’t Fences, it’s fucking Cats. You need a level of character depth and development that Cats doesn’t afford to make those tears hit. All the crying and misery was an odd maudlin and over-dramatic break in the fun and whimsy. With a subtler performance and a hint of self-awareness, it could have actually brought in an emotional anchor for this light-as-air film, but Cats doesn’t make any attempt at nuance, and as a result the scenes just hit you out of nowhere like a load of bricks. 

4. Francesca Hayward. Okay, before we go anywhere, I want to say that this girl is not un-talented. She’s the principal ballerina of the Royal Ballet, and has a very long list of ballets that she’s lead in. So it makes sense that she’d be hired for a role that’s primarily ballet. This girl is a really really great DANCER. But Cats was clearly trying to make an A-list actress out of her. They tried to make her into Florence Pugh, who has been acting for a while and is blowing up right now because she’s very talented. Like everything about Francesca’s role in the film said “This is a star-making role.” A new song was written just for her to sing as an addendum to Cats’s show-stopping signature song. But the song was just okay, it didn’t carry nearly the emotional weight or all-around beauty of “Memories,” and all in all felt wedged-in and totally unnecessary and really just felt like a grab at that “best original song” Oscar. Francesca’s voice is high, thin, and child-like. It’s not unpleasant, but next to the richness and depth of Jennifer Hudson’s voice, it crumbles, and it’s not the sort of voice that I want to seek out to listen to over and over again. As for her overall performance, she largely keeps the same look of wide-eyed wonder throughout her numerous close-ups, so much so that I found myself thinking of the the MST3K “dull surprise” sketch. But I don’t know if that’s really entirely her fault. There was an attempted romantic storyline with the magic cat, but again, because of the nature of Cats and its lack of real character development or depth, the chemistry fell flat. There really isn’t much of a chance to show off a lot of dramatic range, so to keep going back to her character, it kept reinforcing the one-notedness of her performance. Really, I just kept wanting to see Francesca dance. Ironically, I think they really blew an opportunity trying to make an A-list actress out of her. All she really need to make people want to see more of her is one spectacular dance number, but for some reason, she never really gets that show-stopping moment. 

5. Dignity? I guess this goes back to the whole CGI cat thing, but there were a lot of moments when I felt this tremendous wave of second-hand embarrassment hit me on behalf of the talented actors in this film. Watching Gandalf lap up milk from a saucer was a wholly uncomfortable experience, like come on, grant the great Ian McKellan some fucking DIGNITY here. Which goes back to whatI said earlier that a suggestion and interpretation of cats would have worked better than all-out just being a cat. Or it could again just be how much Cats just fails its attempts at comedy. But then again there was no fucking reason at all for Idris Elba to be that fucking NAKED. I guess they were trying to make him sexy? But his sexy smolder and just being Idris Elba wasn’t enough they had to make sure that we all saw his chiseled pecs and thick thighs. And then at the end when he’s dangling off of the rope of a hot air balloon and what’s supposed to be a funny scene, I think, I kept thinking “I’m so sorry this is happening to you, Idris.” 

There’s a bunch of other small, nit-picky things that I could go into. Those cockroaches would have worked so much better if they weren’t humans with an extra set of arms. Watching them get eaten was some horror movie shit. Taylor Swift’s Macavity song would have worked a lot better if the cat chorus full of cats we’ve gotten to know had sung it, but instead Taylor Swift is brought in as a new cat we don’t know whose only purpose is to sing the Macavity song? but of course a big oscar-bait movie needs to have that pop star that draws in the people who wouldn’t otherwise see it and making her a part of the cat chorus would have had her performing throughout the whole movie and she would have floundered the way pop stars tend to do when performing musical theater around a bunch of musical theater actors. So I guess I get why she was thrown in.

So.... yeah? Is there anyone else who found themselves enjoying it in spite of everything? I’m glad I have dogs and didn’t have to watch this mess with actual cats around me.

[likeanemployee]

A Whiterose Night at the Beach

As days went, she thought to herself stretching and smiling up at the moon shining brightly just beyond the sea spreading endlessly before her, I’ve had worse. To be fair that was a rather lower bar then Weiss might have preferred considering some of the days she had endured. The day in question however was probably one of the best days she had ever had, and the night was looking to be even better.

The water had been almost perfect, cool enough to be refreshing in the day’s blistering heat but not frigid. She and Ruby had “swam” together for a few hours although in Weiss’ opinion that was a bit of a misnomer. Most people did very little actual swimming in the ocean and Ruby and Weiss were no exception. A more accurate description would probably have been to say they stood about waist deep, closer to chest deep when a wave came by, in the water and chatted. There was a fair amount of splashing and dunking under waves as well, entirely retaliatory on Weiss’ part of course. She would never start something so childish… unless Ruby really deserved it.

At one point they had walked as far out as they could, to see how far they could get before they couldn’t touch, and since they were out there already they had waded even deeper which, Weiss supposed, had necessitated at least a little actual swimming, assuming they didn’t want to drown anyway. They hadn’t made it all that much deeper before they agreed the lack of solid ground below them was disconcerting, Ruby had used the word “freaky”, and decided to head back in. Ruby, of course, decide they should make it into a race. Weiss had intended to argue but Ruby started back before she got the chance and something inside Weiss had forced her to chase after the younger girl. She hadn’t tried that hard to catch up, trying to beat Ruby in any challenge of speed was a fool’s errand but she at least tried not to fall too far behind and she came splashing out of the water only a moment behind Ruby giggling like a school girl as she did.

That had just been the start of the day. Yang and Blake had run into some old classmates who had set up a volleyball net and they had all played for a while. Then, Ruby had suggested they build sandcastles. That too had turned into a competition although this time that had been Yang’s idea. She and Blake vs Weiss and Ruby, the losers had to pay for the winners to go out to dinner together. Somehow, Ruby and Weiss had managed to pretend like she wasn’t implying anything about their relationship, after all Yang had clearly designed the bet assuming she would win. She probably hadn’t even considered what that dinner might be like for Ruby and Weiss. Sure, and Ursa are cuddly. Weiss’ smile broadened at the thought as her memories of the day continued to flow through her. Ruby had set right away to building a simply massive moat. It must have been six inches wide and half again as deep running 3ft long on each side. As she dug, she piled all of the sand on the inside of the moat and Weiss had set to building an equally impressive, or at least equally large, curtainwall. The dimension of the wall itself were smaller it couldn’t have been more than three inches thick and less than 8 inches tall, but it also had turrets at each corner. They were round all the way to the base and slightly wider than the wall with a diameter of around four inches. Most impressively they were nearly a foot tall and crowned with parapets. Unfortunately, Weiss and Ruby hadn’t realized until after they had built the wall that they would need to put something inside it and with the wall and moat in the way building their keep had been difficult. In the end they had settled for a simple house like structure which was more or less a box with a triangular roof on top. If they had been building a sand cottage it probably would have been an at least passible facsimile, but it wasn’t much of a keep and it had seemed decidedly out of place among the walls protecting, and dwarfing, it. Still, Weiss had been surprised but what they had accomplished its was perhaps more impressive in scale then intricacy, but it was impressive, and it wasn’t totally devoid of intricacies either. They had carved a simple door into their cottage keep and put a pair of windows, which were little more than boxes drawn on with a finger, on each wall, but they helped flesh out the structure nicely. They had also added periodic archery slits on the turrets with a similar method and Ruby, much to Weiss’ dismay, had poked a hole through part of the wall to be the portcullis. Weiss had been mildly amazed that hadn’t brought an entire section of the wall down around it, but it had added nicely to the design especially after Ruby had found a sunscreen bottle to lay across her moat as the “drawbridge”.

Blake and Yang had built a structure which was somehow simultaneously much more basic and much more complicated. In essence, it was simply a large tower, but it was a very large tower. The top reached above Weiss’ hips and its diameter was almost a foot and a half at the base, although it was still lower the Yang’s hips and it tapered sharply as it rose. Yang had spent pretty much then entire time they were building simply piling more and more sand up to grow that monstrosity as much as she could but while she had done that Blake had decorated. She had started by adding a gently arching set up steps which rose to a door which she had drawn about an inch above the base. Other than that staircase Blake hadn’t been able to add any adornments which protruded from the tower, but she had set to carving details into its face with an artistry which had impressed Weiss. Weiss had seen some of the sketches Blake had made in her various notebooks while they were at Beacon together and she knew the other girl was a highly competent artist but the degree of detail she imparted, drawing into the fragile sand face with nothing but fingertip and sometimes nail, was more than Weiss would have expected even out of her. A doorway and windows with ornate frames gradually filled the perimeter of the tower and once she had been satisfied with those she had set to sketching in individual bricks. Those bricks had probably been a bit oversized relative to the doors and windows, even Blake had a limit to her patience after all, but they were remarkably consistent, and they gave the tower an incredibly realistic look.

Weiss had been impressed both by the size Yang had managed to build and the artistry Blake had added to it, but it had also only been a single tower not a full castle. She had made exactly that argument and claimed that that meant she and Ruby had clearly been the winners. Partially that had been because she had wanted to win that dinner with Ruby, and partially it had been a simple a desire to win regardless of what the competition, or prize was but mostly it was how much she loved the castle she and Ruby had built together. Ruby had jumped right in, probably for mostly the same reasons, to help Weiss claim victory but predictably Yang had disagreed insisting there were no exact rules on what made something a sandcastle and obviously the only reason Weiss had tried to use a technicality like that against her was because of how superior her tower clearly was. Blake had stayed out of the ensuing debate looking up periodically from the bricks she had still been busily drawing to laugh at her teammates. She finally finished them almost a half hour later and listened briefly to the bickering still going on around her, within an amused expression, before standing and suggesting that without an impartial judge they were never going to choose a winner and that maybe it would be best if they just called it a draw. The other three members of team RWBY had glared at one another a moment longer then sighed almost as one and agreed.

They had also decided that meant they would all go to dinner together and headed to a small seaside café just up the beach. They had talked and laughed and enjoyed on another’s company as they ate, and the sun had set. As they left the restaurant the sky had turned a beautiful array of colors as the final rays of sunlight slowly fell below the horizon. They had set out down the beach to watch the sunset and as always happened they had unconsciously and without a word being spoken, split into pairs. Blake and Yang walked ahead of Ruby and Weiss just far enough to create privacy for each pair. They had held hands as they walked and on occasion, they would lean into one another or rest their head against the others shoulder as they talked quietly and enjoyed the beauty of the world around them. Weiss and Ruby had done much the same except there had been no touching between them, that was a shame Weiss had thought but it was also probably her own fault.

And now night had fallen, and Weiss stared up at the shattered moon in a perfectly clearly sky treasuring the memories of the day just past.

“It’s beautiful.” Ruby said quietly, breaking Weiss out her reminiscing.

… and so are you. A corner of Weiss’ brain finished as she slowly turned her head to smile at Ruby. She wasn’t entirely sure if that corner had hoped Ruby would say those words or if she had wanted to say them to Ruby. As she stared silently at the younger woman, she considered doing exactly that but decided better of it. Ruby would almost certainly reply with her normal awkward babbling and the moment was too calm, too still, too... perfect to break that way

“it is.” She answered instead. They had still been walking along the beach before Weiss had paused to look up at the moon and Ruby had taken a few additional steps before she realized Weiss had stopped putting a bit of space between them. Now with Ruby still gazing out to sea Weiss took the few steps to close that gap coming to stand close against Ruby’s side and grabbing her hand. Ruby looked down quickly as she felt Weiss’s hand slide into her own and felt the heat rising in her cheeks as her questioning eyes slowly rose to Weiss’s face, but Weiss was looking away out into the ocean. She said nothing simply stood there with the most content look on her face and took in the sound of the waves rushing quietly along the sand, the feeling of the breeze soft against her cheeks, the glow of the broken moon and it’s shimmering reflections far out to sea and the warmth of the body next to her. Ruby continued to stare at Weiss for a moment questions flying through her mind but as she took in the serene joy on Weiss’ face she look back out across the water to take in the same view, hear the same sounds, and feel the same things. The questions never quite left her mind, but they became much quieter, secondary to the beauty of the moment and suddenly the quiet waves seemed to roar in the silence between them. It stretched out for an eternity that moment and yet ended entirely too soon as Weiss spoke at last “I love you Ruby and nothing would make me happier than if I could call you my girlfriend” after months of agonizing over what to say and how, the words, the simple truth, fell out easily and with almost no thought at all.

Ruby’s eyes grew large and she turned suddenly back to Weiss too shocked to respond immediately but then the shock faded, and the babbling started “Wiess I had no idea! I mean I had hoped but.. I didn’t really think.. that is…”

“Stop. Dolt.” Weiss interrupt sternly but not harshly “You’ll ruin the moment.” She continued in a much softer tone and Ruby realized her eyes still head never left the horizon. “Just say yes or no. Can I call you my girlfriend?”

Ruby stared blankly at her for a second longer then blurted out “YES! Definitely! Of course, you can!”

Weiss shook her head lightly “Technically not just a yes or no.” she said “but I’m glad” She finished sliding her hand back out of Ruby’s so she could wrap her arm around her waist, leaning her head against Ruby’s shoulder as she did.

Ruby hesitated a moment longer before relaxing into the embrace and putting her own arm around Weiss shoulders. “Weiss” she said quietly a moment later

“Yes Ruby?”

“I love you too.”

[tenspontaneite]

Peace Is A Journey (Chapter 10/?)

In which Rayla's hand is just about out of time, and everyone begins to lose hope.

Or…almost everyone.

Content warnings: Pain, wound descriptions, stress, amputation mentions.

Note: If you have the time and inclination, I strongly recommend rereading a good 3 or more chapters in advance of this one, so that the foreshadowing and subtext is fresh in your mind. This chapter contains something I’ve been building for the entire story thus far.

(Chapter length: 18k. ao3 link)

---

In the dark of midnight, a crow arrived at the city barracks. Not just a place-finding crow, either, but one that winged its way down the halls in search of a person. Gren saw the crow coming in the movement of soldiers ducking out of the way, in the metallic fwoosh of feathers against someone’s helm, and then – seconds later – the crow landed determinedly on Amaya’s left pauldron. It cawed, and pecked imperiously at her hair.

Amaya lifted a hand, startled, to the inky feathers. The orders she’d been writing were set aside as she took the crow onto her wrist, and in the better lighting, Gren recognised it as Kora. It would be a report from Corvus, then. He tensed a little at the realisation, saw the same tension settle near-imperceptibly into her shoulders, and watched as she loosed the paper from the crow’s leg.

“Close the door.” Amaya ordered him, one-handed, as she walked Kora over to a perch and set her upon it, letter held between two fingers.

Gren bowed his head and rose to obey, cutting off the General’s office from the barracks at large. Clearly, she didn’t want to risk a potential breach of security with this particular report.

When he turned back, she was already unrolling the missive, eyes scanning over Corvus’ concise handwriting. He was watching when she went utterly still – he was watching as, a second later, she stood abruptly, face utterly pale, holding the letter up to the light as if uncertain she’d read it correctly.

“General?” He signed at her, uncertainly, enough into her field of vision that he was sure she’d see it.

Still, she didn’t respond for several moments, eyes scanning the report again and again. The paper fluttered in her grip as her fingers shook.

Slowly, she set the letter down. Raised her hands, and said “Corvus has found the elf’s trail. He has also-“ She stopped, teeth clenched so tightly he could see a muscle jumping in her jaw. She took a deep breath before continuing, fingers oddly clumsy. “He reports that the elf is not alone. There are two additional sets of footprints in the trail, as well as prints of a small animal.”

Gren startled, wide-eyed. “Other elves survived the assassination?”

“…The footprints are…human.” There was a pronounced pause before that last word, as if she’d had to struggle to force her hands to shape it. “Barefoot, at times, so there’s no mistaking it.” She refuted, and he stilled, starting to get an idea of the reason why her hands were shaking, the reason for the awful pallor that had come over her. “One set larger. One set smaller. As if. As if from a child.” She raised a hand to her face, trembling badly enough to abandon signing for the moment, her breaths heavy and agitated.

He found himself feeling a little shaky at that. “A small animal. The…the prince’s glow-toad?” He murmured, aloud, as a terrified sort of hope clutched at his chest, thinking of two sets of human footprints and a small animal and one set smaller, as if from a child. Hope, but a sickening and tenuous sort, because – because what if it were wrong? He was abruptly half-overcome with breathless nerves at the mere thought…and if he was feeling that way, what must she be feeling?

He stepped more fully into her field of vision, and raised his hands blatantly enough that she’d see the motion even with her sight mostly obscured. She lowered her hand enough to watch him, looking horribly shaken. “Do you think it might be them? Do you think there’s a chance?”

Her answer was stiff and halting. “I don’t know.” She said, expression horribly drawn. “It would be a particularly vicious coincidence if it isn’t. And the animal prints.” She gestured at the letter, and he stepped closer to see a small sketch included, to-scale, of the small animal footprint. “The shape is exactly right.” She stared at it, and he stared at it, and they considered the implications together. He couldn’t begin to imagine how she must be feeling, right now.

Cautiously, he signed a question. “Are you alright, General?”

She looked up at him, expression tight, the epitome of a woman trying very, very hard not to allow herself much hope. “The uncertainty is very trying.” She admitted, horribly tense. She hissed out a frustrated breath and went for fresh paper, sitting back at her table with eyes drifting between the report and the empty page. “Corvus thinks he will catch up with the trail within two or three days. So, I suppose, we will have to wait for more information.” Her brow settled, every second, into a heavier scowl.

“…Will we still set out in pursuit tomorrow?” he inquired.

“Of course. We can’t afford any delay.” She answered, shaking her head a little. “If. If they are alive, and with the assassin, then they are captives. And they must be freed, safely, and the assassin brought to justice.” Her fingers trembled as she forced her mind through the next thoughts, the next conclusions. “If the humans are…unrelated…then they are either traitors, or captives. And they still must be found, and justice served to them or the elf, or both.” She sighed explosively as she spoke the next words, hands almost vicious with the motion. “Opeli was more right than she knew. A situation this complex deserves a Justiciar.”

His hands jerked a little where he’d kept them raised and ready to speak. “You’re going to accept?” he asked, motions tentative.

“Maybe.” Her fingers wavered among words. “Perhaps. I will have to think.”

Looking at her, even uncertain as she was, Gren was fairly sure she’d already made her decision. General Amaya was not a woman to shy from responsibility, or from a job that needed to be done. This constituted both.

Still, he said nothing, and left her to her thoughts as she scrawled out a terse response for Corvus, reading it over her shoulder. A very urgent request for further news or details, and an entreaty to take the utmost caution. She set the crow loose again from the window, her black feathers turning her near-invisible in the night sky.

After a moment, she raised her hands again. “Crows aren’t good night-flyers, damn it. She’ll likely roost until the morning.” She sighed, plainly frustrated.

“Is there anything you’d like me to handle, General?” He asked, eyeing the still-considerable amount of paper on her desk. It was unsurprising, perhaps, that writing orders to sustain the Standing Battalion in her absence would be a lengthy task, but…

Her eyes swept wearily over the papers, and she went to retrieve the quill again, signing her response one-handed. “No, Gren, but thank you. Get some sleep. It will be a busy day tomorrow.” He frowned at her, silently disapproving of her obvious intent to renege on her own sleep, and she rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll sleep when I’m finished.” She informed him, and set nib to paper. A second later, still one-handed, she added “Or when I’m dead,” A cynical sort of smirk lifted one side of her mouth.

Well, it wasn’t exactly anything new, for her. Under the circumstances, he’d leave her to it, and only start really nagging her if she kept it up for another day or two. In the end, Gren sighed, nodded, and obediently went off to unfold one of the cots at the side of the room, and removed most of his armour before allowing himself to fall into it. Then, with the practice and habituation of any trained soldier, he settled and fell asleep within minutes.

He woke hours later, at the habitual hour of dawn, and the first thing he noted (disapprovingly) was that the General was still at her desk, and had clearly not used her cot. He sat up and eyed her unhappily, and she turned at the flicker of motion he made in her periphery.

“Morning, Gren.” She said, fingers a little sluggish from exhaustion, but her face as alert as ever. “Get your armour on. It’s time to go see Opeli.”

He rubbed his eyes and reached for his boots, speaking aloud while his hands were occupied. “You’ve made up your mind?”

“Yes.” She nodded, expression grim and resolute. “I’ve made my decision.”

---

Callum wasn’t used to travelling.

Even in the earlier days of this journey, when the river had done most of the walking for him, the travel had exhausted him. He supposed it made sense, in a way – when they’d set out, there had been so much uncertainty about everything. He hadn’t trusted Rayla nearly as much as he did now, and he’d been a little wary around her, and there was so much to worry about – maps and routes and evading guards and a hundred other things. So, he’d been exhausted, even then. And when they’d started walking for a good six to eight hours daily? Yeesh.

So, with the aid of that utter, bone-deep tiredness, Callum had slept easily and deeply every night. He had a lot to worry about…but, for once, he wasn’t laying awake trying to quiet his mind enough to fall asleep. He wasn’t waking from dreams disturbed by an ambient, insistent anxiety. He’d been travelling almost a week, and miraculously, had slept well every night of that journey.

But, evidently, there was only so much worrying that could be offset by exhaustion.

This time, the anxiety of the day followed him into slumber, spawning vague and transient dreams plagued with a sense of unease, of urgency, of time running out. He came close to waking, a few times, aware that – that there was something he needed to do, that time was running out, that he had to do something – but each time he fell back asleep again without opening his eyes.

Until, some nameless stretch of time into the night, the dreams became distinctly less vague. Distinctly less transient. He woke with the sickening crunch of a falling blade in his ears, with the red of blood painted in front of his eyes, with distress and panic pulling his heartbeat into overdrive-

Blinked, and replaced the image of blood with the image of dark fabric, pressed close against his face. Light ebbed and flowed gently in his peripheral vision, either Bait or the egg or both, and it took a good few disorientated moments for him to realise that he was awake, and in the tent, and…and had been woken by unpleasant dreams. It took him several more moments after that to register the warmth and solidity of what he was laying against, and quite a bit longer to wake up enough to figure out what that meant.

The realisation arrived like an electric shock through his limbs – he produced an undignified squeak, withdrawing his arm and scrambling away from Rayla as if burned. There was not exactly very far to scramble, in the tight confines of the tent, so he ended up squashing Ezran a bit in his haste to move away. Ezran, fortunately, didn’t seem to notice at all.

Face burning, Callum eyed Rayla warily, vigilant for any sign of her waking and demanding explanations for why he’d – well – why he’d latched onto her right arm like a teddy bear and then slept with his face pressed into her shoulder. She was a light sleeper, right? She must have noticed…

…except she’d been on the lilium, hadn’t she? And it had very obviously made her sleepy, so…

Callum stared at her in the dim light of the tent, and she didn’t move. Didn’t stir, except for the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Her bad hand was settled on her belly, and her pale hair falling every-which-way around her head and horns. She didn’t wake.

Some of his mortification ebbed, at that. He’d got lucky, apparently, in unwittingly sleep-cuddling her on a night where it wouldn’t wake her. Still, though…

Unable to entirely restrain his concern, he stared carefully for a few moments, to track the speed of her breathing by the rise and fall of her torso. Slow, of course, since she was sleeping and still probably under the drug’s effects, but…fine.

He sighed, rubbed a hand over his face, and watched her tiredly. She looked different, like this. Not tense, not worried, not in pain and trying to hide it – just…sleeping. Completely, if temporarily, unaware of the bruise-dark spectacle of her dying hand. He hesitated, then reached out to gently press at the skin, just to make sure it would still go white. Mercifully, it did, and when he withdrew again he felt weird and kind of creepy about having poked and stared at a sleeping girl – a girl who was probably still too drugged to wake easily.

Embarrassed all over again, Callum shuffled away from her as much as he could without entirely squashing his brother, and tried to settle down again. He closed his eyes, and for several moments, couldn’t quite help the way that hopelessness rose around him like a dense fog, the way that the images from his dream sparked and remade themselves behind his eyes, blood-stained and choked with fear and dread.

There was some distraction to be found in the sounds from outside the tent. Rainfall, pattering against its fabric, and wind in the trees outside. Rayla had been right – the weather had turned. It was some distraction, but not quite enough. His thoughts ran over and over themselves, incoherent with exhaustion but still distraught. He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want it to happen, he didn’t want to do it, but he’d have to, he’d have to, there wasn’t any hope, not really…

It was perhaps a mercy that he managed to fall asleep before the despair grew too potent. But, considering the dreams, perhaps it wasn’t a mercy at all.

---

Rayla’s sleep was thoroughly, pleasantly blissful for most of the night. She slumbered so deeply that she didn’t even feel the passage of the Moon overhead, didn’t stir at the movements or murmurs of her companions in the tent, and didn’t feel even the slightest insinuation of pain prickling her from sleep. Until, steadily, the benediction of the lilium receded: slowly, but remorselessly, until the ache in her hand started up, and then began to burn, and then drew her second-by-second from her sleep.

She made a low, unhappy sound at the pain, a quiet murmuring, and tried to ignore it until she was awake enough that she realised there was no sense in ignoring it. It would just hurt more and more as time went on, so she might as well resign herself to consciousness and be done with it.

Slowly, she sat up, blinking blearily. Her head ached violently and her mouth was drier than the Midnight Desert, but…

Rayla felt, absently, at her sense of the Moon, and concluded that dawn wasn’t far off. She’d slept through most of the night, then, and felt far better for it. She moved her hand, flexing it with a grimace while it was still not too awfully sore, and looked down at it. And blinked.

What’s with the bandage? She wondered, half-asleep and bewildered, and even less alert than her recent awakening should account for.

She pushed herself more firmly upright, blinking at her own wrist in the cyclical light Bait cast in his sleep. Gingerly, she reached out and plucked at the bandage, and felt something underneath protest the movement: a searing pain where she pulled, like there was an enormous blister there. That…hadn’t been there yesterday. Had it?

Rayla frowned, fighting the sluggishness and odd, lingering haziness that mired her thoughts. What had happened? She was in the tent, which was pretty normal, so they’d all gone to bed, and…what had happened yesterday?

They’d gone to the human town, and the boys had talked to their human healer, and then there’d been that whole thing with the goose and Ezran getting upset, and then she’d ended up trying the lilium to manage the pain-

Oh.

Right. Potent painkiller with side effects. Side effects that were, apparently, more virulent than she’d expected. She concentrated, and…thought she could remember the evening’s events, but they seemed sort of ridiculous. Dreamlike, and vaguely implausible. She remembered asking things that were stupid – that she’d never ask. Remembered-

You started peeling your skin off, she recalled, unbidden, in a half-indignant and half-anxious voice that sounded like Callum’s. She eyed her wrist warily, and reconsidered the plausibility of her memories.

Maybe she would act like that and say such things if she were absolutely, ridiculously moonstruck on some weird human flower drug. She’d not expected it to be that potent, but she knew that the strongest Xadian painkillers could seriously mess with your head, so…why not the strongest human painkillers, too?

She groaned, half from the headache and half from the memories she now had to consider as genuine. Did I really ask him if he had wings? She wondered, incredulous, and looked to her side at her companions. Callum was currently sleeping sort of balled-up, on his side, and as such was not imposing his limbs into her or Ezran’ sides of the tent. Unusual. She observed him and his scruffy bed-hair for a few more moments, a smile slipping onto her lips, and then turned aside to look to take stock of herself and her things.

Apparently, she’d not managed to take her boots off before falling unconscious, as she was wearing those. She shrugged, and shuffled forwards, intending to slip out of the tent and go find something to drink, since she was absolutely parched-

Her hand fell on something rough, and she stopped. Looked down, and closed her fingers around two long pieces of willow bark.

For a moment she stared, sluggish mind struggling to comprehend what they were doing there, but – but there was only one explanation, wasn’t there? The boys had set out some of it for her, anticipating that she’d likely wake in pain – that she’d need it. She swallowed, and blinked rapidly against the sudden stinging in her eyes, finding herself suddenly and almost overwhelmingly moved by the sight of the little strips of bark in her hand.

Get yourself together, Rayla, she thought at herself, and raised an arm to wipe vigorously at her eyes. It’s not a big deal. It’s just…

Just a small, thoughtful gesture. A small, incontrovertible piece of evidence of how much they cared.

She swallowed again, considered the bark, and elected not to start chewing on any until she’d found a waterskin. That decided, she shuffled towards the tent door again, and peg-by-peg opened the inner layer, eyes moving to the bags stowed between the layers. And, there – both waterskins, side by side, not packed into the bags. Rayla grasped at one, carefully, with her bad hand, and sat back into the tent, raising it for a drink. She was even thirstier than she’d anticipated, and drained the thing entirely, setting it down in her lap with mild bemusement.

“Maybe it’s a side effect.” She muttered to herself, quietly, but reasonably confident that she’d not wake anyone, except possibly Bait. The boys had proven themselves very solid sleepers, after all.

Which was why she was surprised when Callum murmured something garbled and incomprehensible, unballed himself, and twitched noticeably. She stared at him, wondering if he’d just picked an especially coincidental time to move about in his sleep, but – he murmured something again, indistinct and almost agitated, and then suddenly shot awake so violently that he lurched upright in the process, his eyes wide and his breathing ragged.

Rayla blinked at him, astonished, as his eyes darted around in the sort of unseeing panic typical of someone unceremoniously shocked from slumber, and then finally settled on her. He stared for a few seconds, blinked at her several times, and then – she noted – looked down at her hands before looking up at her eyes again. “…Rayla?” He asked, voice croaky and uncertain.

“…Good morning?” She offered, a little nonplussed at how to proceed. He’d never woken up on his own before, let alone so suddenly.

“Morning?” he repeated, almost confused, as his eyes darted between her face and her hand a few times. A little comprehension dawned, then. “…Right.” He said, slowly, and raised a hand to wipe at the edges of his eyes. “…I was dreaming.”

She eyed him, inferring from the hollow, exhausted way he’d said it that it probably hadn’t been a happy sort of dream.

…Well, she supposed it was probably a miracle none of them had had nightmares until now, given the more than slightly traumatic implications the whole full-moon assassination thing at the castle had for all of them, but- “Let’s go outside.” She said, quietly, and nodded to his brother. “I don’t think he’ll wake up this early, but best not push it.”

Callum nodded at her a little gormlessly, clearly not entirely awake yet, or else not yet fully divorced from the clutches of his dreams. He slapped himself lightly on the cheeks, presumably in some bid for alertness, and then obligingly pulled himself and his scruffy head of hair to the front of the tent to look for his boots.

She unfastened the front tent door while he was shoeing himself, and then slipped outside, the smell of recent rainfall practically hitting her in the face as she moved into the damp air. It was cold enough outside to make her shiver, the increasing altitude and the dampness actually seeming to leave a light frost in places, and her breath steamed pale into the air as she emerged.

Rayla breathed, taking stock of the two burnt-out campfires and the small stack of unused firewood nearby. The boys hadn’t left the camp too messy, which was a pleasant surprise. She certainly didn’t remember any of the tidying, so either they’d done it after she fell asleep, or she’d actually forgotten something. “Hm.” She expressed, and resolved to ask Callum about it at some point. She turned back to the tent at the rustle of him emerging from it, squinting and stumbling a little. He stared around with a strange lack of tracking, eyes not seeming to settle on anything in particular. He was oddly hesitant and clumsy as he rose from the tent.

“…Rayla?” he called to her, as if uncertain of her presence, despite her standing right there next to him, just to his left. “Where are – ack!“ He tripped over one of the storm-lines, arms flailing wildly as he tried to forestall his inevitable face-plant into the ground – she darted sideways to catch him, supporting him upright again until he seemed to have his balance.

“You okay there?” She asked, with a touch of humour, as she released his shoulder and let him stand alone. “Planning on tripping over any more bits of tent this morning?”

His eyes fixed on hers again even as he steadied himself, and said, a little grumpily, “Rayla, I can’t see.”

Rayla blinked, nonplussed. “…You what?”

“It’s too dark.” He insisted, waving his hand out at the pre-dawn campsite. “The only thing I can really see right now is your eyes – because they do that sort of…glowy thing? But everything else…”

She frowned, and looked out at the clearing, and then up at the sky. “…The sky’s getting lighter, though.” She said, a little hesitant. She knew she had significantly better night vision than humans – or even diurnal races of elf – but was it really that much of a difference? “Can’t you see at all?”

He looked up and frowned at the sky. “I can see that it’s sort of lighter over there, and I can see the edges of trees next to the sky? I mean, that’s what I assume the sort-of darker bit without any stars is.” He answered, a little uncertain, as if he wasn’t completely convinced that he could see the treeline at all. “But everything down here is too dark. I can’t even see the ground.” He held his hand out experimentally and stared in its direction, brows furrowed. “…Actually, I can’t even see my hand.” His fingers waggled, as if trying to conjure greater visual acuity for his eyes.

She processed that, a little bewildered, and tried to imagine existing in a reality where night-time was too dark to see in, even right before dawn. She couldn’t quite manage it. “Weird.” She expressed, eventually, and reached out with her good hand to grasp at the one he’d extended. “…Come on, I’ll stop you from tripping over the rest of the camp.” She said, tugging on his fingers.

He huffed, reluctantly amused, and allowed her to lead him away from the tent to the husks of the campfires. “…Thanks.” He said, and when she glanced at him, his cheeks had coloured a little.

Abruptly, Rayla noticed their joined hands, eyes flicking down to them, and…well, it was for legitimate guidance purposes, but – she resolutely pretended that it was not at all awkward, and tugged him down until he was seated, orienting towards her eyes again like a compass pointing north. She supposed it made sense, if that was all he could actually see, but – well. She felt her own cheeks heat as she dropped his hand, and hoped it was too dark for him to see it.

She cleared her throat, dropped the willow bark into her lap, and reached to the side for a few unused branches and the neglected flint. It would probably be polite of her to allow Callum to see his surroundings, and that meant starting a fire. Unfortunately, the rainfall that had come in the night had left its mark, and the wood was damp enough to disdain the sparks. “Ugh.” She muttered, disgruntled, and tried several more times. The heat built enough for a spark or two to catch, reluctantly, on the vaguely-dried edges of one branch.

“…Oh, right. Wet firewood.” Callum realised, after watching the spark-shower for a while. “I didn’t think of that. How do you start a fire when all the wood is wet?”

“Find something dry to start it off in, usually.” She answered, distractedly, as she nursed the tiny embers at the edge of the branch. They slowly and tentatively built into a small, flickering flame, barely brighter than a candle. It was enough to cast some small light, though, so hopefully Callum could see something now. He huddled close around the flame once it was set, and given the morning’s chill, that was something she could definitely sympathise with.

“…You used the flint yourself.” He said, after a moment, watching where she’d put it down. So, apparently, the little fire was enough for him to see by. “Is your – I mean, does your hand…?”

He didn’t complete his sentence, but she thought she could guess what he was asking. “It’s sore, but I don’t think the lilium has worn off completely yet, since it’s not too bad.” She grimaced, and turned her hand over so she could watch as she flexed it. She sort of wanted to see what was under those bandages on her wrist, but…at the same time… “I wanted to ask you about that, actually.” She said, reluctantly, and glanced to the side at him. He tensed a little, as if wary of some sort of reprimand.

He shifted, uneasily. “…Yeah, sure?” He said, eventually, not sounding especially sure at all.

Lightly, she trailed her fingers to the edge of the bandage that obscured the binding. “What’s all this about?”

He followed her motions, and blinked, a little of the wariness ebbing from his posture. “You don’t remember?” He asked, obviously surprised.

“Sort of. Not well. I remember some things, but it feels sorta…dreamlike. Hard to tell if it actually happened or not.”

For whatever reason, he looked distinctly self-conscious at that. “…Right. Er.” For a second he stared at her side-long, with the sort of barely-restrained energy that made her think he was going to blurt out a question – but then, visibly, he stopped himself. Instead of whatever he’d been about to say, he asked “So…you don’t remember what you did to your wrist?”

She stilled, turning fully towards him at the implications of that question. “I did – no, I don’t remember!” She hissed, alarmed, as she stared down at the bandage with new worry. She’d hurt herself? The lilium had messed with her that badly? What had she even done?

Unbidden, she recalled that scrap of vague memory – something like Callum’s voice, high and distressed, though the words were hard to recall…

Rayla exhaled, as she grasped just enough to have a pretty good idea of what had happened. “Please tell me I didn’t actually peel my own skin off.” She said, resigned, with no actual expectation of getting an answer she’d like. More as just…a token attempt at hoping that she hadn’t actually been far gone enough in a drug-induced haze to do something that stupid.

“Er.” He offered, wincing a little, his eyes sweeping down to her bandage. “Well. More like scratched, but…”

Her fingers squirmed with an twitchy, crawling feeling as her mind helpfully provided the image of – of scratching at her wrist because it itched so horribly, the strangely satisfying sensation of wet skin pulling away beneath her nails, the odd and distant sting of air on the raw red that she uncovered. She hoped, without much optimism, that that was just an unusually detailed and disgusting mental image, rather than an actual memory. “Ugh.” She expressed, after a moment, feeling the area beneath the bandage prickling and searing as she paid it more attention. “Well, isn’t that just peachy.”

“Well, it’s…not ideal.” Callum agreed, diplomatically, and his eyes flickered up to her face. After a second of consideration, he shuffled closer, hands rising in the direction of her bound wrist. “I’d like to check on it, if that’s okay? I think I should disinfect it again. Change the bandage, too.” She inclined her head a little, offering her hand, and his fingers hovered around the bandage. He looked up, a little anxiously, as he hesitated with their hands not-quite-touching. “I mean, if…if the lilium’s wearing off…it’ll probably hurt.”

“It’s not too bad yet.” She sighed, with an odd flicker of bemusement in her gut, because…well. Not so long ago, the soreness and ache of her hand would have been the worst pain she’d ever experienced, but then, obviously, it had grown considerably worse. So this almost seemed bearable, compared to how it had been yesterday morning. “I’d probably better have some willow bark, though.” She glanced down at her lap, where she’d deposited the two pieces she’d found in the tent.

He jolted a little at that, as if in sudden recollection. “Right! I forgot about – did you find the-“ She held up a piece of the medicinal tree-skin, questioningly, and he nodded as his eyes went to it, fingers still lingering at the edges of her bandages. “-yeah, that.” He finished, after a moment, going oddly still for a second. A moment later, he starting pulling carefully at the tie on her bandage, deliberately not meeting her eyes.

“I found it.” She agreed, and looked across at him. She swallowed past a lump in her throat, feeling that uncomfortably insistent emotion of earlier insinuate itself upon her, and asked almost without thinking “You…left it out for me?” She’d not thought, specifically, on which of the boys had been responsible for the gesture, and had as such unthinkingly attributed it to the both of them…and found herself bizarrely and disproportionately affected by the possibility that it had been Callum, specifically, who’d laid out the bark for her.

He fidgeted, not quite meeting her eyes, and coloured a little. “I thought the lilium would probably wear off in the night.” He mumbled, not quite indistinctly or quietly enough for her to have difficulty parsing the words. “I just – you know – wanted you to have it there if you woke up and, well, if your hand was hurting.” He shrugged nervously, and fixed his eyes carefully on her wrist, fingers coaxing the bandage open.

Rayla stared at him for several long seconds, bewildered and a little shaken at the strength of feeling that clutched at her chest. She wanted to reach out, to close her fingers around his again, a sudden and startling need for – contact, maybe. Or closeness. She shied away from the thought, oddly alarmed by it, and ruthlessly squashed the impulse. At once, she was strangely, intensely aware of Callum’s hands working carefully around her own.

She cleared her throat, bizarrely off-kilter, and managed to say “…Thanks.” Then, somewhat mercifully, she was distracted by the sensation of the bandage falling away, and air hitting the skin below. It burned, in a cold sort of way, as the much cooler air came into contact with – she stared – with raw, glistening-red flesh.

Yesterday, the skin there had been puffy and tender, and obscenely painful. Now…plainly, it had opened into luridly-red sores, wet on the sides of her wrist, on both sides of the binding. The sores plainly extended further than the exposed portion, the edges wreathed with damp, discoloured skin that was peeling back, pale and bloated with fluid.

“That’s disgusting.” She said, almost morbidly fascinated, as she squashed down the despairing part of her that was noting another step towards to the loss of her hand. She bore the increasingly awful sting of the air on the sores for a few more seconds before, finally, she popped a piece of willow bark into her mouth. Regrettably, the effect of willow bark was decidedly not instantaneous, so it did absolutely nothing to quell the more immediate searing of the sores.

Callum grimaced as he carefully set the bandages aside, their white stained an unhealthy pink. When he didn’t say anything, she glanced up at him fully, and saw his face tightening the longer he looked at her wrist. His shoulders stiffened, and when he breathed, it looked to be a sort of deliberate, controlled exhalation. “I think the sores on the arm-side of your binding look sort of better.” He said, with a very forced sort of optimism.

She looked down, dubiously. “They do?” They looked a bit more dry, maybe?

He nodded as if to confirm her unspoken thought. “They’ve dried out a bit. Started scabbing over. Pretty sure that means they’ve started healing, which is…good.” In contrast, this meant that the sores on the other side of the binding were not healing. She could see that observation written all over his face, even if he didn’t speak it.

Rayla stayed silent for long, sombre moments, staring at the wreck of her wrist. It looked…horrible. Disgusting, even. When she stopped looking at it in the abstract, with that odd and instinctive distance – stopped looking at it like an injured wrist rather than her injured wrist – her throat clenched with sudden nausea, a hint of horror making her eyes sting. It looked awful, and it hurt, and it was only going to get worse-

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and forcibly shoved the feelings away. Distanced herself, just enough to keep a level head. “…Going to be a pain to stop that getting infected.” She noted, clinically.

Callum nodded, slowly, and when she looked up at him his face was oddly pale. He’d been staring at the open sores with what seemed like a similar brand of horror. “…Yeah, I’d better….” He swallowed, shuddered visibly with what might have been revulsion, might have been any number of things. “I’d better get the disinfectant. Clean it and bandage it again.”

She nodded, and stood. “I’ll get it.” She said, with a forced humour that she suspected fell flat. “If you go, you’ll trip over half the camp on your way over.”

He sighed, casting his eyes across the campsite. “…Yeah, probably.” He agreed, resigned.

When she returned with the bag, he was nursing the fire, coaxing it steadily brighter along the damp boughs. Her wrist burned more with every second, the movement and moving air seething on the exposed sores. She chewed her willow bark more determinedly, but suspected it wasn’t quite equal to the task of dulling this kind of pain. Her eyes slipped unerringly back to the wounds, and found herself thinking that’s definitely going to scar before she caught herself.

Of course it wasn’t going to scar. It’d be a stump soon enough, after all.

“We should probably start boiling bandages in the evenings.” Callum said, absently, breaking her from the dark thoughts. She looked up, breathing her way past the feeling of her throat closing up, blinking past the prickling of her eyes. He was dousing a wad of bandage in the clear spirits from the bottle. “Make sure they’re clean.”

“Boil the used ones, too.” She added, voice a little thicker than she’d have preferred, and he blinked. “So we can use them again.”

“….Didn’t think of that.” He said, a little ruefully, looking down at the pink-stained bandage he’d removed from her wrist and then discarded. “It makes sense, though. Bandages are good for a lot of things. And we’re going to be travelling a long time, I guess.” He looked somewhat nonplussed, though, and she thought she could guess why. He was still plainly unused to the idea of working with finite resources.

“You’ll want to be sparing with the disinfectant too.” She informed him. “Hard to get more of that, out in the wilderness. And there’s only so many medicinal plants I can find.”

“…Right.” He agreed, now looking distinctly daunted, but did take care with the alcohol. Uncapped the bottle and pressed bandage to it, tipping it just enough to wet the fabric. This he held out to her, meeting her eyes, a clear question in his bearing.

She braced herself, and held out her wrist for easier access. Nodded, tersely, and watched as he lowered the imbued bandage to the open sores.

It burned; it stung like acid on the skin, like salt in an open wound, and she was entirely unable to restrain the hiss of pain at it. She clenched her teeth around the bark in her mouth in part as a coping mechanism, and clenched the fingers of her other hand over her knee. Callum flinched at the reaction, as sensitive to her pain as always, but gritted his teeth and got on with it before she had to tell him to, and she very determinedly exorcised her subsequent reactions into the willow-bark.

He was as quick and careful as he could be, and she let out a shaky breath when he dabbed at the blister, evidently finished with her wrist sores. “Just need to wrap it again now.” He murmured at her, voice gentle and reassuring like it had been when he helped her with the gauntlet, and she allowed herself to relax from the full-body tension she’d borne through the burn of the disinfectant.

“Peachy.” She sighed, and watched him as he tied fresh bandage around her wrist and then her finger. She thanked him when he was done, and he offered a small and earnest smile before offering to go off and get water from the river for boiling. She eyed him dubiously at this, and glanced up at the sky. Still lighter than before, to her, but… “Can you see your way around yet?” She asked, sceptically, and his face fell.

“Er…actually, probably not.” He admitted, and swivelled his head around to stare into the dark beyond their meagre, reluctant fire. “…No, I’d probably trip over a tree root and fall into the river or something.”

Her hands clenched at that; both of them. “Not a great time to take a swim, so, better not.” She said, dryly, to disguise the mortal terror that any mention of close encounters of the watery kind could inspire in her. “I’ll do it.” She decided, the next second, with the sort of grim resolve that most people reserved for heroic last stands.

Callum frowned, fidgeted with his fingers, and asked “Are you sure? We could just wait a bit, and then I could go instead. You shouldn’t have to go near the river if you don’t need to.”

Rayla inspected him, a warm flutter of affection starting up again in her gut. “No, that’s sweet, but there’s no point wasting time.” She shook her head, shifting her weight in preparation to rise. “If we’re both up early, we’d best use the time properly.”

“…Alright.” He accepted, and settled into place as she stood. “Anything you want me to do while you’re gone?”

She considered it. “Get the pot ready to boil things, I guess. Make sure you’ve got your primal stone around in case any Verdorn-humans ambush us.” She fetched the thing herself, and then tossed it into his lap as she returned.

He looked abruptly amused at that, shifting the primal stone to the fireside. “You said something like that last night.” He said, lips quirking with the reminiscence. “Something about needing to stand watch in case townspeople decided to attack us in the night?”

Rayla paused, frowning a little as she tried to remember. “…I don’t remember that part.” She said, disgruntled. “Not even a little.”

“Well, you were kind of falling asleep at the time.” He said, reasonably, turning to watch her as she went over to the tent to take the waterskins, and also to retrieve Callum’s light travel cloak with its handy hood. She strapped the former to her hip and slung the latter over her shoulders, fastening it carefully at the front.

“…I’ll take your word for it.” She sighed, a little disgruntled at having to take someone else’s word for her own actions. Maybe this was why the older assassins had lamented their anecdotes of excessive drunkenness? There seemed to be some degree of memory loss involved in alcohol-related intoxications, too. “I’ll be back in about ten minutes. Shout if anyone attacks you?”

“Will do.” He said, and watched after her as she slipped into the trees. There was something strangely tense about the line of his shoulders, and the way he stared after her as she left – but then she was too far into the trees to see him anymore, and she pushed the observations to the back of her mind.

---

When Rayla left, there was a strange pressure to the way he watched her recede into the darkness. A feeling like holding his breath, or waiting, desperately, for – for something. He didn’t quite realise what that something was until she was gone, and he was alone, and – and there was a sudden quiescence of some subliminal drive, something that had been saying keep it together for her, don’t fall apart – and then it stopped, and…

All at once, breath burst from him in panicky, gusty sobs, the breaking of the dam so forceful that he abruptly realised what he’d been holding in. He’d kept composed, hadn’t he? Talked to her and cleaned and bandaged her sores, and he’d held himself together, because surely she had enough to deal with without adding his panic and fear and nightmares on top of it all. But now that she was out of sight – hopefully out of hearing – he couldn’t quite manage it anymore. There were no tears on his cheeks, but the breath gasped and shuddered in and out of him like air from a bellows, and his shoulders shook, and he couldn’t tell whether he was crying or panicking or both.

We’ll find something, he thought to himself, desperately, like a drowning man grasping for a thrown line. He told himself there’s still time, as if it would change anything, and felt fear clutching a little more keenly at his heart with every moment. He thought of the lurid-red sores spreading across her wrist, the blister on her finger – and felt bile rise in his throat, sharp and acidic, at what that image represented.

I can’t help her, he thought, numbly, and raised his hands to press against his face. I can’t help her. The after-image of the fire’s light lingered in his vision for a few seconds after he covered his eyes, and he breathed, shaky and shuddery, shoulders hitching.

Even through the panic and despair, he tried to clutch at some semblance of control. Rayla wouldn’t be gone for long. Not for long, and…he had to be better when she got back.

He lowered his hands, and drew the primal stone into his lap as some meagre form of comfort while he breathed and breathed and breathed. It was smooth and cool, the glass tingling against his skin, with that faint crackly undertone of static. He stared at it, fingers trembling on its surface, and failed to feel the thrill of delight that it usually inspired in him. Useless, he thought, with a bitterness that stretched further than to the powerlessness of the stone.

And then there was a slight rustling from the direction of the trees, just enough in the quiet of the hour for him to hear. He looked up, cautiously, and saw the familiar pinpricks of light that were Rayla’s eyes emerging from the dark. He wondered if he was getting better at hearing her coming…or if she just wasn’t in a state to sneak as easily as before.

Determinedly, he squashed down every trace of the fear – the fear, the panic, the bile-taste of helplessness – into a place where it couldn’t quite grasp him in ways that she could see. “…Hi, Rayla.” He greeted her, quietly relieved that his voice hadn’t gone suspiciously hoarse or shaky or frail. “Nice trip?”

“As nice as a trip to a river can be, I suppose.” Her voice was dry as she approached and settled beside the fire, its light settling onto her features as she put down the waterskins. His eyes drifted unerringly to her hand, before he managed to tear them away again.

He took the pot and filled it from one of the skins, and set it carefully over the fire. “No ambushes while you were gone, you’ll be pleased to know.” He said, in an attempt at humour that fell somewhat flat. Apparently, not-falling-apart was about the extent of what he could manage right now.

She snorted anyway. “Let’s keep it that way.” She said, and shuffled over to compile the bandages.

They spent a while there, talking quietly while the fire grew and the sky lightened and the tentative bird-calls arranged themselves into a proper dawn-chorus. The water did boil, eventually, though the fire was particularly sullen about growing on rain-damp wood, and they pushed the bandages around in the hissing water with the tip of Rayla’s blades until she deemed them ‘probably clean’. Callum then took them away to get them dry with a few judicious applications of aspiro, because otherwise they’d just go damp and smelly in their bags during the day. There should have been something almost amusing about using an incredibly rare and valuable magical relic like a Primal Stone to dry off laundry, but…he wasn’t really in a state of mind to appreciate the humour.

And then there was very little to do except sit, and talk, and carefully avoid the topics that they were pointedly trying not to think about. Paradoxically, that just made him even more aware of them. Callum passed the time with questions about the sorts of edible plants found in mountains, and pretended that his eyes didn’t keep returning to Rayla’s definitely-not-doomed hand.

Eventually, the sky was light enough that he glanced over at the tent, wondering “Should we wake Ez up soon? It’s not that early now.”

Rayla didn’t even need to glance at the sky to check it, and hummed pensively. “Normally I let you two sleep in a bit later.” She said, thoughtfully. “But you’re right, it’s not too early. And we’re too close to humans. I’d really like to get going a bit earlier.”

“Then we’ll wake him up.” Callum nodded, and with only a little effort, pressed a smile onto his face, and a teasing note into his voice. “Can’t risk someone ambushing us while we’re camped, right?”

“Oh, shut up.” Rayla grumbled, though she was plainly stifling her own smile. “It’s a valid concern. We’re only about a five minute walk from human houses. We could have been ambushed in the night.”

“But we weren’t.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Callum, I noticed that, thank you.” She said, dry, and her lips finally curved into the smile she’d been restraining. “Still-“ She stopped, suddenly, the sentence truncating as her head snapped around to stare at the forest, smile falling from her lips in the space of a second. Her ears twitched, noticeably twitched, and he hadn’t known they did that – but he was more occupied with the alert, focused expression suddenly settling onto her face.

“…What is it?” he asked, uneasily, in a silence that held for ten tense seconds before she spoke.

“The universe has a terrible sense of irony.” She said, and pulled her hood up moments before two random men stepped into their clearing from the trees. They stopped short, blinking, and – they were both armed, both with longbows – they lowered their weapons, plainly perplexed.

Callum stared at them, wide-eyed with surprise. The men stared back. “Uh…hi?” he offered, after a second, weakly. He glanced a little desperately to the side to make sure Rayla’s hood had gone up properly, and – good, it had-

“What are you kids doing camping out here?” The first one asked, a broad-shouldered and thickset man asked, bewildered, as his posture loosened. Callum noticed, abruptly, the sight of a dead pigeon tied to his side. So…they were hunters? Maybe? “Are your parents in the tent? …Are you from Verdorn?”

“Er.” He said, scrambling for explanations, but then-

“Wait.” Said the second man, eyes narrowed, a hand raising to forestall any further inquiry from his companion. He stared. “Is that-“ He stopped.

A second passed in which the man’s expression quickly transmuted from suspicion to alarm.

He grabbed his companion by the arm, frantic, and pointed. “Elf!” He shouted, panicked, gesturing wildly as Callum’s gut dropped and Rayla tensed conspicuously beside him. “It’s an elf! Look!”

“What?” The first man scoffed, dismissive for all of a second before- “She’s just –“ he stopped. “Oh.”

Callum followed their gaze to Rayla’s hands. Rayla’s uncovered hands. He looked at her, and for a second they shared identical looks of dismay, before she swept her hands belatedly behind her back.

“Who, me?” She asked, cheerful, all East-country accent and folksy charm, “I’m just a human girl, who likes the human things!”

“You’re an elf!” The second man shrieked, evidently unconvinced, and raised his bow-

Abruptly, over the next few seconds, Callum was violently reminded that he hadn’t actually really seen Rayla in action before. Sort of, when she was chasing him, and sort of, against Claudia’s shadow-wolves, but…he hadn’t seen her hunt, hadn’t particularly seen her fight, and now-

One moment, she was beside him, seated on the grass. The next she was sweeping across the clearing, stance low, a blade already unsheathed and ready at her hand. She moved so fast, he could hardly tell what she was doing – she swept her blade across the bowstring, kicked the man’s legs in, and then whacked him solidly on the nape of the neck. He made a gurgling noise and fell to the ground, stunned and barely moving, and while Callum was staring at him he didn’t quite notice whatever Rayla did to the other guy – but whatever it was, it ended with him on the floor, too, one arm pinned behind his back and Rayla standing on his back, crouched low as she divested him of the coil of rope at his side.

Whoa, Callum thought, heart in his throat, as he stared at the conclusion of a conflict that had barely lasted five seconds.

“Callum. Come here and help me tie this guy up.” She ordered him, voice terse, shoving the hunter a little roughly back into the ground as he tried to push up and free himself. “Kind of hard to do without any hands.”

Because, he realised, she was using her good hand to pin the guy, and her bad hand probably wasn’t up to the task of that sort of dexterity. “…Sure.” He agreed, weakly, and shuffled over to follow her directives.

So it was that he spent his morning being shown how to properly restrain a captive, all the while said captive wailed about his no-doubt imminent demise and descended into hysterics when he was moved enough to see his apparently-unconscious companion.

“Oh my lord you killed him,” The man wailed, in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. “You killed him, he’s dead, I’m dead, I’m going to die-“

“Oh, shut up.” Rayla muttered to him, irritably, as she moved off enough to pull on one of the knots Callum had tied to tighten it. “He’s barely even unconscious.”

The hunter either ignored her or failed to listen, and chanted “Mercy spare me and Justice avenge me if I fall-“

She huffed, and apparently deeming him sufficiently restrained, rolled him away and nudged Callum towards the other guy. Who, he noted, did seem to be stirring, like he was on the verge of waking, sort of rolling and making indistinct noises of complaint. “Humans.” She muttered, under her breath, and at that, Callum gave her a look. She had the decency to look mildly abashed, at least, and shrugged as she helped him through the process of tying this one up, too.

She left the second one with his hands ostensibly free enough to untie his buddy, even if his legs were too tied-up to walk with, and then stepped back to stare at them.

“…Are we going to leave them here, then?” He asked, tentatively.

“Sadly, yes.” She sighed. “Hopefully they’ll be tied up long enough that no one will come after us too soon. But, ugh. What a pain.”

It was then that Ezran poked his head out of the tent, apparently awoken from sleep by the sound of the conscious hunter’s caterwauling. He stared, wide-eyed and alarmed, and rubbed his eyes. Blinked.

“What did I miss?” he asked, bemused, and…looking at his brother’s confused face, Callum put his face in his hands and started to laugh.

---

It was something of an unusual experience to pack up their camp with a couple of tied-up humans spectating from the periphery.

Not long after they’d finished restraining them, the man she’d dazed with the hit to the nape regained his wits, staring upside-down at the spectacle they made, and then at the spectacle his companion was still making with his shrieking. Honestly, if it had gone on any longer, Rayla would have seriously considered gagging him, but as it was: the second man got the first man to shut up and promptly started engaging him in an urgent, whispered conversation.

Obviously, she could hear every word.

“Can you get to your knife?” Hissed the more collected human, while his companion squirmed like a worm on a hook, rolling ineffectually about the damp ground. In so doing, he began to accumulate a fine coating of loam and leaf-litter over his body.

The man’s fingers strained, but his wrists were quite solidly tied behind his back, with no access to his weapon belt. “No!” He whispered back, with an edge of barely-restrained panic. “What are we going to do?!”

“Stop panicking, for a start. Can you get to my knife?”

She kept an ear on their conversation as it progressed, and occasionally looked over to check whether or not they were approaching any kind of successful escape attempt. They always froze under her gaze, wide-eyed like frightened rabbits. She huffed and turned back to helping the others, packing up what she could on her own.

“We’ll eat while we walk.” She informed her boys, as she saw Callum staring a little covetously at one of the jars of cold meat. “Best not hang around here longer than we need to.”

“…Sure.” He said, eventually, eyes straying to their captives again. “So we’re just…gonna leave them there?”

“More or less.” She agreed, looking over their party with a searching eye. She gave the camp another once-over before deeming them ready to depart, and nodded. Then, briskly, she strode over to the captives, both of whom froze with abject terror at her approach. The less-collected one started babbling about Mercy again. The second one hissed to his companion, very vehemently, ‘Don’t panic!’

She rolled her eyes, bent down over the calmer one, and removed his knife from his belt. This was the point at which the second guy absolutely lost it and started shrieking again, this time at close enough range that it was absolutely piercing. She winced, feeling the beginnings of a headache brewing in her skull, and then stabbed the knife firmly into the ground beside them.

“There.” She told them, inwardly bewildered at how strange her life had become, to be leaving two human witnesses alive with the means to free themselves. “Now shut up.”

With that, she turned back to her boys, who were staring with evident confusion at the knife she’d planted in the ground. She rolled her eyes again, sighed, and then herded them away from the campsite.

“Come on, you.” She said to them, unsurprised at their lack of comprehension, and listened as the captive humans started whispering urgently to each other again behind them. “Let’s get moving.” She shushed them the first few times they tried to start talking, wary of whatever range of hearing the hunters had, until she thought they were at a distance that could more-or-less be called safe. “Well, that was annoying.” She announced, upon making this assessment.

Callum eyed her, looking a touch ornery at having been shushed. “Am I allowed to talk now?” He asked, flatly, while Rayla swung her bag around to extract a jar from it.

“If you like.” She said generously, popping the jar open and proffering it to him. He maintained his irritation for about four more seconds, before the siren-call of food won him over. He relented, grabbing a good-sized chunk of cold gooseflesh and taking a generous bite. She’d dispensed more of it to a lightly-frowning Ezran by the time he’d chewed enough to talk.

“So, what was with that knife?” He asked, after swallowing. “And…um, aren’t you worried they’ll just sort of lay there until they…you know, starve? Or get eaten by a banther?”

“Banthers don’t eat people.” Ezran muttered, almost reproachfully. “They’d only do it if they were starving.”

Callum side-eyed his brother and amended his statement. “Aren’t you worried they’ll get eaten by a starving banther?”

Rayla waved a hand dismissively. Given this reflex action turned out to involve her bound and incredibly painful hand, the effect of the gesture was distinctly lost as she winced and clutched it to her chest. “…Nah.” She answered, eventually. “That’s what the knife is for. I left their hands free, so they should be able to work out how to grab the knife and cut the rope off each other.”

Ezran blinked up at her. “What if they can’t?” He inquired.

She shrugged. “Too dumb to live.” She assessed, and received a scandalised spluttering noise from Callum for her troubles.

“Rayla.” He complained, levelling her with a distinctly disapproving stare.

She made a dismissive sound this time, rather than a gesture, and said “Oh, come on. If they are too dumb to figure out what to do with the knife, they’re not exactly far from the town. Or all those mills. Someone’ll find them.”

“Hmmm.” Still evidently unimpressed, he took another bite of his breakfast. Shortly afterwards, he tripped over a tree root, neatly ruining whatever gravitas he might have been aiming for. She rolled her eyes and caught him by the arm until he found his balance again, amused all over again at his pronounced clumsiness when he was distracted.

“I don’t even know how it happened.” Ezran said, eyeing his own handful of breakfast with a somewhat conflicted expression. “I just woke up and heard someone yelling and then I went outside and there were guys tied up.”

“It’s not really a complicated story.” Callum said, shrugging. “We were just sitting down and talking and then those guys showed up, and one of them saw Rayla’s elf-hands…”

“I can’t believe I forgot about the hands.” She muttered to herself, vaguely embarrassed. She’d raised the hood, but that was a pretty useless thing to do if she left her hands in plain sight. “I’ll not make that mistake again.”

“Keep your gloves handy.” Callum advised.

“Ha!” Ezran said, prompting a blink and a confused look from his brother.

“What? Did I say – oh, handy, right. Heh.” He huffed, half-heartedly amused – at least up until his eyes slid to her hands again. The half-formed smile slid from his face and left it tense and empty. “…Can we have breakfast, now?” He asked, as if to distract from the turning of his mood, but Rayla knew what she’d seen.

She watched him for a few seconds, solemn, then fetched the jar for him. “Have at it.” She said, gut churning, and turned to speed up a little. Suddenly, she wanted to be away from Callum and Ezran and their too-obvious fears, but…well. It wasn’t as though she could go substantially ahead of them without them getting lost in her absence. But she could at least walk ahead of them, where she didn’t have to see Callum’s face whenever he looked at her hand.

Rayla ignored the quiet murmurs exchanged behind her – “Did I say something?” – “Dunno.” – and slipped another chunk of bark between her teeth.

Even with the willow bark she kept chewing, Rayla could feel the lilium wearing off, some subtle haze on her thoughts dissipating and leaving a headache behind, then ever-more retracting its blessing from her body. The pain of her wrist sores welled up in her like blood from a wound, flaring every time she stepped and her hand jolted and the shock of the tiny impact magnified the ache from her wrist to her entire body. It was almost worse, that her fingers were starting to hurt less than they had before, the numb ache just becoming…numb tingling. She gritted her teeth, and kept moving, because what else could she do?

Dread was seething like a living thing in her gut, and the longer she walked, the harder it was to ignore. She’d been ignoring it, pushing it away and breathing past it and casting it aside for days as her hand grew worse and worse and worse – but the human healer had said it, hadn’t she? She didn’t have long. She didn’t have long at all. She’d have to face this, soon, and then it would be over, and then – then, she’d just have to deal with it. She’d have to deal with it, and there was no way around it, so why was it so hard not to face it now? Get it over with now?

For all their optimism and all their hope, she knew the boys were faltering. She could hardly miss it – it was plain in the way that Ezran watched her with solemn, troubled eyes, in the way that Callum couldn’t seem to stop looking at her hand as if watching the sand spill from its hourglass, as if watching her time running out in front of his eyes. And – it essentially was, wasn’t it? He’d have to be an idiot to miss it, to not realise that inevitability was closing around them and that there was nothing they could do to stop it.

She needed to just…say it. Tell them. Say it out loud, that there was nothing to be done, that they needed to deal with that, that it was time to start thinking about when and how to – to do the amputation, and make sure she could still travel afterwards…

She needed to just say it. But, even now, she couldn’t seem to get the words out, and that was just another frustration to pile on top of all the rest.

Rayla was already hiding the truth about their father from them, and that – that was horrible. Keeping that secret felt like more and more of a betrayal every day, but she still couldn’t tell them, and…this should be easier, shouldn’t it? It should be easier to tell them to give up on her own hand. She should at least be able to tell them this.

But, still, she just…couldn’t.

The failure burned, almost more vicious than the wounds.

Almost.

---

Rayla grew quieter and more withdrawn the longer they walked. She stayed ahead, where she could, and wouldn’t look at them. It felt weird and uncomfortable to talk to Ezran about it when he knew she could hear them, so…for the most part, they just exchanged increasingly unhappy glances, trying to carry on conversation that somehow edged around the painful presence of the topic they were all trying to avoid. It came out awkward and stilted, falling into strained silences and grim thoughts and a sense of dread that grew with every passing minute.

…And, through it all, Ezran was acting….weird.

Callum knew his brother. He knew when Ez was trying to avoid something unpleasant, and this – wasn’t quite that. He also knew what it looked like when Ez was trying to hide something – and that felt a lot closer to the way he was behaving now. He watched Rayla with the sort of uneasy anxiety Callum might have expected, but…there was something off about it. Something about the way he kept looking down, pensive and almost furtive, with a shadow of uncertainty over his brow.

He had elected to carry his backpack in his arms today, though with Bait sat atop it, it had to be way heavier than just carrying it the normal way. And – for a second Callum thought Ezran had suddenly lost fingers, because a couple of them just plain weren’t visible on the bag’s side – but no, that wasn’t it, there was a hole in the bag. He’d not said a word about it, but – Callum could see it, now that he was looking, a point where one of the seams had ripped to make a little gap in the sturdy fabric. Enough for Ez to, apparently, touch the egg through. There was something….distinctly off about that. As if he were trying to hide, for whatever reason, this strange thing he had going on with that dragon egg. How long had that hole been there? Had it happened on its own? ….Or, had Ez made it, the better to be furtive about his egg-weirdness?

Even with how all-consuming the issue of Rayla’s hand was, Callum found he still had enough mental space to worry about his brother. To think, uneasily, on his thoughts on enthrallment, and wonder what it is that Ez was trying to keep a secret.

He considered, again and again, bringing it up. Asking Ezran about the egg. About the hole in his bag, even, since that was just plain weird. But pressing his brother on some weird secret…

Ez could be really, really bull-headed about things when he tried. And frankly, with all the stress, Callum wasn’t sure he was up to wrestling truths out of his brother today.

…Maybe in a couple of days? After all, by then…

He squashed down both the thought and the sickening pang of dread, took a shaky breath, and kept walking.

After a couple of hours, Rayla stopped abruptly ahead of them, and he was reflexively alarmed until he saw her craning her neck to look upwards into the branches of a large tree. “Rayla?” He called to her, even as he and Ez caught up to her and closed the distance she’d been maintaining all through the day. “What is it?”

“This tree has a cloudberry vine.” She said, sounding almost bemused by her own words. “I didn’t even know you could get cloudberries here.”

“…Is that good?” Ezran inquired, looking up to follow her gaze, and Callum did the same. He could see a somewhat morose-looking vine winding around the branches of the distinctly bedraggled tree. The tree itself seemed mostly dead, which made it easier to pick out the pale blue of the berry clusters.

“I’ve never seen – um, cloudberries? – before.” He said, intrigued. “Can you eat them?”

“They’re not as nice-tasting as the other kind of cloudberry, but…yeah.” Rayla nodded, a little distractedly, brow furrowed as she looked up at the tree. There was something about her hesitance that drew his eyes to her again, and then he saw the way she seemed to be measuring the tree up, as if uncertain of how to proceed.

He noticed the way she held her injured hand at her side, still and careful and rigid, as though to guard it against jolts from sudden movement..

“There’s another type of cloudberry?” Ezran asked, eyes moving between Rayla and the vine. He probably wasn’t oblivious to the subtext either.

“One’s a vine and one grows on the ground. They look and taste completely different, even if they’ve got the same name.” She answered, still sizing up the tree. A little cautiously, she withdrew a blade with her good hand and flicked it to its hook form, and…watching her uneasy approach, Callum couldn’t help but remember the first couple days they’d been travelling, where she could take to the trees so effortlessly it seemed as easy as breathing.

And now…

“…Are you going to try to pick them?” He asked, uneasily, looking between her hook and the vine. It was pretty high up. The tree looked mostly dead, and had very little leafage, but it was still…well, very tall.

“I’d better try.” She said, expression going somewhat steely. “Or we might not have anything but meat to eat for days, and that’s not much better than having nothing but berries.”

Still, though, she didn’t climb. Ezran stared at her, brows furrowed, and offered “I’m a pretty good tree-climber? I could try doing it.”

If Ez had been trying to spare her from what was likely to be a very difficult task, he thoroughly failed. Perhaps it was the implication that a ten-year-old human prince needed to pick up the slack for her, or…something. It could have been a lot of things. Either way, Ezran’s words put such a scowl on Rayla’s face that Callum reflexively took a step back at the sight of it. “No,” She said, jaw set and eyes fixed almost angrily on the vine above. “I can do it. It’s fine.”

Callum shifted on his feet, uneasy, and shared an alarmed glance with his brother. “Rayla…” he attempted, but didn’t get any further than that.

“I said it’s fine,” Rayla snapped at him, and then – she squared her shoulders, raised the pick, and launched herself at the tree.

He called her name again, almost indignantly, at the same time as his brother. She lodged the hook into the tree’s bark, bad hand held stiffly against her side, and looked if anything more determined at the sound of her name.  He hurried up to the tree trunk and stared up at her, fingers twitching anxiously, as if itching to follow her. That was a dumb idea, though, it wasn’t like he could really help her all that much even if he did climb after her, and he wasn’t a good climber by any means-

Rayla visibly tensed again, in plain preparation for something, and lunged again with the pick. This, naturally, meant she had to remove it from the bark in the first place, which meant she was no longer hanging onto the tree at all, which meant she was falling – his arms shot out as a reflex as if he’d have any hope of actually catching her if she fell, but it wasn’t necessary. She got the pick into the tree again, and stopped. But given that she had fallen a little….her initial upwards lunge had barely got her any further up the tree at all.

A second later, she lunged again, feet scrabbling uselessly to slow her fall until she could lodge her pick in again. She was a little further up, maybe. But only a little.

She could maybe get to the berries like that. But it would take a long time, and…and, frankly, much more effort than it was worth. “Rayla, this isn’t going to work!” he called to her from the ground. Her initial jump had been pretty impressive, so she was hanging a good five or six feet above his head right now, boots bereft of any sort of useful foothold. She was actually half-way to the fruit vine, but…most of that distance had been crossed when she jumped. Her subsequent attempts had barely elevated her at all.

He couldn’t see her face from here. But her shoulders hunched at his words.

Ez stared up anxiously from beside him. Almost timidly, he said “Rayla? I think you should come down. You’re hurting yourself.”

Callum looked sharply down at his brother, then up again, and – yeah, he was right. The way she was holding her hand, the way she’d been lunging with that hook – there was absolutely no way she hadn’t jolted her hand horribly, or ended up squashing it between herself or the tree, or hitting it on the tree….

“We’ll be fine without the berries?” he offered to her, in a way that he’d intended to be reassuring, but judging by the visible increase of tension in her shoulders, wasn’t. “C’mon, Rayla, just – come down. If you want to try again in a minute we can figure something out with some ropes? Try to lasso some of the branches, or something….”

He thought it was a pretty reasonable suggestion. There was no reason to brute-force their way through a problem when they had rope and brains. Rayla could probably throw things pretty far, so she could probably get a rope loop or something fixed up higher on the tree and then just pull herself up, without any of this painful, pointless struggle.

But she didn’t come down. She didn’t even say anything. He moved to the side a little, trying in vain to see her face, and saw her fingers trembling around the handle of her pick-sword.

Then Ezran shifted beside him. The movement drew Callum’s eye, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, and…his brother was staring upwards, expression solemn, eyes an icy-blue that seemed far too understanding. “Rayla,” he said, with that quiet gravity. “It’s okay that you can’t do it.”

She went utterly still.

For a second, he thought Ez had gotten to her. That she’d be coming down in a second, that her stillness was just a prelude to acceptance – but…

Ez had gotten to her, and her stillness was a prelude, but not to acceptance. In a moment of pure, vicious speed, Rayla’s whole body moved as she hurled herself upwards with a yell that was almost a scream. The pick went out and up and she tried to lodge it into the tree again – but it was too shallow. With a horrible scraping sound, it tore through the bark, and then Rayla was skidding down the tree trunk.

It happened fast. He barely had time to see the pick scoring a violent furrow through the peeling bark, to see Rayla bring her other hand up automatically to slow her fall – to hear her scream as her skin scraped over the bark – and then she pretty much fell on top of him.

“Oof!” The noise was knocked out of him along with his breath as his legs collapsed under him, sending them both spilling onto the ground. She hadn’t fallen with enough force for it to actually hurt too much – evidently, the furrow she’d scored through the tree-bark had slowed her down enough to make a difference. Still, he thought he’d have some bruises tomorrow. But that wasn’t his main concern. He scrambled to get himself out from under her, while she did the same. “Rayla! Are you okay?”

She slumped against the base of the tree trunk, expression a little dazed, hunching in a little around the hand she was holding gingerly against her chest. There were tears glinting at the corners of her eyes, and her breathing was harsh and sharp. Her knees drew up, slowly, and her shoulders closed in even further. She didn’t respond.

Ezran was there in a second, a hand going to her knee in some reflexive offering of comfort. He flinched, though, when he touched her – or maybe when he saw her face. “You’re in pain.” He said, anxiously, and withdrew. “Should I – should I get some bark?”

She shook her head, but didn’t answer. She was hunched forwards enough now that he could hardly see her expression, but it was really worrying him, how she was folding herself around her hand like that, and – and she wasn’t speaking. “….Can I check on your hand?” He asked her, reflexively gentle, like he was tending her wounds again. Which…he might well be.

Her shoulders shook, but she unfurled enough to very slowly extend her hand in his direction, and enough for him to see her face again. He tried not to flinch at the sight of it, utterly contorted with pain and frustration. She made some muffled sound that might have been a word, and he took her hand as carefully as he could.

The bandages on her wrist had been disturbed, pulled slightly up her wrist to expose the lurid-red sores there, as well as the binding. The one on her finger had gone askew, too. He supposed that was the consequence of tying them loosely enough to not constrict anything, but at least the existing injuries didn’t look any worse for the experience.

She’d grazed the skin of her palm a little on the tree bark, though, which he grimaced at. It was the sort of thing that’d be basically a non-issue if it was like…on a knee or elbow on a normal limb, but on her bound hand…would it be like the blister, and the sores around her wrist? Would it heal at all? Would he need to bandage her whole hand to stop the tiny grazes from getting infected?

“You’ve grazed it a little bit, but it’s okay.” He told her eventually, and would have reached over to gently get the bandages back into place, but-

She looked up, straight at him, her face screwed up into an anguish he’d never seen from her before. She choked out a horrible, bitter laugh, and repeated “’Okay’?” with such sour incredulity that he couldn’t help but flinch. And then she said it again: “’Okay’?!” She wrenched her hand out of his grasp with a huff of pain, and then waved it violently at the trunk of the tree beside her. “Callum, I can’t even climb a stupid tree! It’s not ‘okay’!”

Ezran shuffled back from her a little, wide-eyed, as if he’d never seen her before. Callum faltered for a moment, astonished at the sudden outburst, then tentatively reached out again. “…Rayla...” he tried, only for her to cut him off again.

“No, Callum.” She said, almost accusatively, rising to her feet in a sudden burst of aggressive motion. “No. It’s a tree, just a tree, and I couldn’t even-” She cut herself off then, shaking her head angrily, and whirled around to face him again. He stared up at her, wide-eyed, from the base of the tree, and she stared back, and…all of that motion, all of that angry energy just…seemed to bleed out of her. Her shoulders slumped, and she looked…tired. “It’s not going to work.” She said, quieter, almost resigned, and it his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.

Slowly, cautiously, Callum rose to his feet. “…What are you talking about?” he asked, even though he knew. He knew, but – she didn’t have to say it, she couldn’t say it, she couldn’t, because then it would be real-

“It’s not going to work,” She repeated, and dread closed its fingers around his throat. She met his eyes, sad and defeated and just on the edge of despair. There were still tears in her eyes, and one of them had spilled down the side of her cheek, tracing a line there. And then she said it- “There’s nothing we can do for my hand and you know it-“

All the air went out of him, along with a small, wounded sound. She broke off as she heard it, faltering, and somehow he managed to say something, managed to give voice to the gut-deep denial that had been running through his head for days now. “I don’t know that, Rayla, and neither do you!” He refuted, voice rising, and – and he could feel his breathing going again, getting short and fast and panicky, and this was not the time for that-

“Callum-“ She started, but he shook his head violently.

“You can’t just give up!” he half-shouted it at her, the denial brimming under his skin and trembling in his fingers and stiffening his body until he almost felt angry. “There could – we could still find something! Something could still happen!”

She folded her arms, scowling back at him, defensiveness bristling in the lines of her shoulders. “Like what, Callum?” She demanded, her voice rising to meet his. “Like what? We’re going up a mountain! In the human kingdoms, where there’s hardly any magic anywhere – what could we possibly find?”

Her words felt like physical blows, and it was all he could do not to stagger under them. “I don’t know!” He burst out, and then – then the panicky, shaky breaths got the better of him, and he gasped on what should have been his next word. His eyes burned, near to welling with their own tears. He tried to say something, but…couldn’t.

She just…looked at him. The anger ebbed from her frame, and…she just looked at him. Sad, and resigned, and – and he hated this, he really, really hated this…

“I don’t know.” He said again, the words just as hopeless and resigned as she looked.

Rayla said nothing for several long, awful seconds, then she looked away. “I…know you don’t want to hear this.” She said, quietly. “But…Callum. Ez. We aren’t going to get my binding off.”

His eyes flickered to his brother for a second, startled, as he remembered that he was there and he hadn’t been saying anything, but then- “Don’t say that.” The words fell from his lips unbidden, almost indignant, as if by speaking the words she’d made them more likely to come true. His gut clenched as he tried to regulate his breathing, tried to wrest back the panic, tried to grasp at any withering vestige of hope that still existed.

It didn’t have to be true. Surely, if they didn’t say it, didn’t accept it, kept trying – it didn’t have to be true. She wouldn’t have to lose her hand, he wouldn’t have to – wouldn’t have to help.

“I know you wanted to save my hand. I know. But it’s not going to happen.” She said to them, far too gentle, far too understanding. Why wasn’t she upset? Why wasn’t she frustrated? It was her hand, so why should she be comforting them? It just – it wasn’t-

“It’s not fair.” Callum said, a little helplessly, to try to convey to her a little of how not-right this situation was. “It’s – it’s not fair for you to – it’s not-“ he broke off, upset rising in his throat to choke him, and he closed his eyes to take a deep, shaky breath.

When next he opened them, Rayla was looking at him, quiet and strangely solemn. It occurred to him, suddenly, that she might not agree. That she might still see the loss of her hand as the rightful price for sparing Ezran’s life, and not as the injustice that it truly was. But then…. “Maybe so,” She admitted, voice weary – and he thought that maybe she understood, after all. “But that doesn’t change anything. You tried, but – I never expected miracles.”

He stared down at her dark, awful hand, his eyes hooded and his heart heavy. “…I know you didn’t really think we’d find anything. But…” I hoped you were wrong. I thought we’d prove you were wrong, and there was hope after all.

She reached out with her healthy hand to squeeze his, a quiet attempt at reassurance. “It’s okay. There’s…there isn’t anything you could do to change this. I know you wanted – but this is just…how it is. I’m going to lose my hand.” She exhaled, gustily, and he almost felt his breath go with it. He felt himself shaking a little, and felt frustrated all over again at how wrong this was, how wrong it was for her to lose her hand because of her mercy, how wrong it was for her to be composed and him on the verge of tears- “It’s okay.” She said, again, as if by saying it twice she could make it true.

“No.” Ezran said, very quietly. Ezran who, Callum suddenly realised, had been very, very quiet through this whole conversation; he hadn’t objected, hadn’t protested, hadn’t tried to convince him or Rayla that there was still hope- “No, it’s not.”

Their eyes flicked to him at the same time. There was solemnity in the way he stared at them, but – something else, as well. Nervousness, perhaps. A hint of resolve.

Unexpectedly, he stood, a quick and abrupt motion that ended with him upright, fists balled at his sides. Callum opened his mouth to ask what he was doing, but – Ez ducked to the side, where his bag was, and slipped the egg from it within the space of a few seconds. His fingers settled over the shell with easy, practiced familiarity. His eyes slid shut, just for a second, and when he opened them, that strange and quiet determination was awake in him again.

He stared out at them, and there was such a gravity to his bearing that Callum found himself falling quiet, to…to wait, maybe. To see what he was going to say, or what he was going to do.

“I need to tell you something.” Said Ezran, the glow of the egg casting his skin in blue. “And I need you to listen.”

Callum opened his mouth, closed it, and then glanced at Rayla with a frown. She seemed no less mystified than him, but nodded, slowly. “…Alright.” She agreed, confused and wary in the same moment, and they both watched. Both waited. Ez breathed, looking strangely pale in the blue light, and stepped forwards with the egg.

“I can talk to the Dragon Prince,” He said, and – whatever Callum had been expecting, whatever scraps of an explanation he’d had for his brother’s behaviour, it had absolutely not included that.

“What?” He demanded, though oddly woodenly. He – hadn’t anticipated that, not at all, and it was so far out of the realm of expected things that he found himself at a loss of how to respond to it.

Ez shifted a little, the gravity of his bearing faltering in the wake of his uncertainty. Suddenly, he looked like a kid again, worried and fallible and confused. “I – maybe talk isn’t the right word, but it’s kind of the closest I can get? I can feel him. I can talk to him. And – he can talk to me, too.”

“I…” Rayla spoke, brow furrowed, then let the words trail off, apparently at a loss for words. She seemed no more sure of how to respond to this than Callum was. It was – beyond startling, to be at the height of despair over her hand, and then, suddenly…suddenly, there was this? Ezran making some crazy claim about talking to a dragon egg? Callum didn’t even know what to think, let alone say.

And Ezran was still talking. “It’s hard, because he’s – he’s in the shell, and sleeping most of the time, so it’s kind of like we’re trying to talk through a wall while both of us are dreaming, so it’s…it’s really not easy. But we’re getting better at it. And he’s learning things, too.” Ezran’s hand moved on the shell, just a little, as if stroking it.

Callum opened his mouth, a reflexive protest bubbling behind his lips, because – because it was crazy, right? Communicating with an unborn dragon, that was – that was just as unbelievable as his talking-to-animals claim, and he’d already proven that one a lie, so…

Still, something stopped him. His mouth closed again, words dying behind his teeth.

Callum recalled, unbidden, the things he’d noticed about Ezran and that egg. How he spent hours and hours sitting with it – how he slipped his hands into his backpack at almost every opportunity, as though he didn’t like to be kept from its shell for too long. How he slept with it in his arms. How he’d been so strangely, uncharacteristically quiet when asked about it. “Ezran,” He said, a little helplessly, and then didn’t know how to continue. A part of him, ugly and upset, tried to say he’s making things up again. He’s lying. There’s no way it could be true. But…

“His name is Azymondias,” Ezran spoke, and Callum felt his breath catch. Rayla’s eyes widened, across from him, and-

“How can you know that?” Callum asked, and for all that he was a sceptic, for all that Ezran had lied about this sort of thing before – his voice came out sounding disbelieving, maybe, but…he couldn’t quite dismiss it. It should have sounded like nonsense. It should have been completely unbelievable. But…it wasn’t. “…How could he know that?” he added, a second later, almost bewildered by his own credulity.

Ezran’s eyes flicked to him, for just a second, plainly nervous. “His mom used to talk to him, through the shell.” He answered, cautiously. “He remembers it. He misses her.” He shook his head, and looked up at Callum, expression now so much more tentative than it was determined. “…Do you believe me?”

For a moment, both of them were at a loss for words. “I heard you talking to it the other day.” Rayla said, after a moment, brow furrowed. “It was…strange. Like you were only saying half a conversation. And you’re saying that-“ She stopped, face contorted strangely, as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to speak such outrageous words.

“…Yeah, I was talking to him about the meat thing.” Ezran admitted, a second later, eyes straying back to the shell. “He didn’t understand it either. He’s a dragon, you know, and they eat meat, and even though he’s not hatched he knows that.”

The silence hung among them for several more wordless seconds. “….That…makes sense?” Rayla attempted, eyes still wide, looking no more certain about the whole thing than she had a minute ago.

Ezran’s shoulders hunched a little as he looked at them. “…You don’t believe me?” he asked, quietly, looking as though he were bracing himself for an awful wound.

“I-“ Callum started, and exchanged a very lost-looking glance with Rayla. “I…want to believe you wouldn’t lie about something as important as this.” He settled on, finally…which wasn’t a ‘yes’, but was the truest response he could give right now. “And…” he trailed off. And, he finished silently, this really would explain how weird he’s been with that egg lately. Hadn’t he wondered, the other day, and even today, if dragon eggs had some kind of magical allure to them, because Ez seemed so incredibly captivated? If his brother had been silently communing with the Dragon Prince all this time….

“I wouldn’t.” Ezran agreed, immediately. “I wouldn’t ever. And that’s why-“ he hesitated, and looked down at the egg for a second…and then stared up at Rayla. “Rayla, yesterday – yesterday, you picked up the bag with the egg in it, and – he – he felt something. So I just-“ He stopped again, and shook his head. “I…don’t know if…it’s probably nothing. It probably – but we just want to try something. Just in case.” He looked at her, pleadingly, as if he were worried she’d veto his idea before he even spoke it.

“…’we’?” She asked, very carefully, and abruptly Callum remembered what this discussion had come on the tail-end of. They’d been talking about Rayla’s hand, and accepting the inevitable, and then…then Ezran had come out with this? His mind was trying to make the connection there, but…he couldn’t quite let it click all the way. It was so – so strange, unbelievable, he could hardly get his head around it.

Ez looked down. “Me and Zym.” He clarified, quiet, and glanced up again. “Just…let us try something.” She stared for a few seconds, perhaps waiting for him to elaborate, perhaps uncertain of what to say, and in the end was silent for long enough that Ezran spoke up again to say “Please, Rayla.”

She exhaled, holding herself with a cautious tension that made her expression look oddly worried, and nodded. “What do you want to do?”

He shuffled forwards with the egg as soon as she spoke, eyes bright and anxious and yet-again determined. “Hold him,” he said, and reached out to offer it to her.

Rayla hesitated, and moved closer, settling onto her knees as pale fingers brushed the bottom of the egg. Very carefully, she moved her bound hand around to cradle its front, and gently lifted its weight from Ezran’s arms. The blue glow spilled over her skin, and she stared down at it in wonder. “…It’s warm.” She said, as if to herself, and her lips twitched very slightly upwards. She balanced the egg between her hands and settled it onto her lap, just as Ezran had done so often. Where her hand had been before, she’d left behind tiny smears of blood on the shell from her grazed skin. They looked oddly flat and colourless against the searing blue.

Then, closing his eyes, Ezran reached out to splay the fingers of one hand over the shell. He sighed, all at once, his shoulders slumping with a strange relief. “I was right. He can feel it.” He murmured, and moved to put his other hand onto the egg as well. “You’re familiar, Rayla. He met people a lot like you, before. They were introduced to him through the shell. Two elves.”

She stared at him, shaken, and then looked down at the shell. “…My parents?” She asked, softly, and he nodded.

“I – he thinks so.” Ez said, and watching that – Callum felt an odd, swooping sensation in his gut at his brother’s words, at his brother relaying the impressions of an unhatched dragon. He sat, wide-eyed and silent, and watched. Listened. Tried to reconcile himself to what he was becoming increasingly sure was a new and confusing part of reality. “He’s not sure. But you feel familiar. I’ve told him about you, too.” He closed his eyes again. “…And he can feel it.” He muttered, more quietly, more to himself than to either of them.

“…He can feel what?” Callum asked, after a moment, when Rayla seemed too busy staring between Ezran and the egg to ask it herself.

“The binding.” His brother answered, and…they both went completely, utterly still. “He noticed something, yesterday – but he wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure. But we were right. We can-“ He stopped, sounding suddenly embarrassed. “He can feel it. There’s a lot of magic in it, and it stands out, and it’s – not right. It doesn’t belong. It shouldn’t be there, and we don’t like – he doesn’t like it.”

“…Ezran. Are you saying-“ Rayla hesitated, eyes wide and wary, as if she didn’t quite trust herself to finish that sentence. Callum thought he could guess why, that tenuous connection clicking into place in his mind. Ezran had only brought up this whole thing when she said there was no hope for her hand, and now apparently the Dragon Prince could sense the binding somehow, and – and Ezran was talking like he thought he could do something, and maybe…maybe Rayla was just as wary of false hope as he was. He barely breathed, as if by holding it he could hold the moment still, hold himself back from daring to hope-

“I don’t know.” Ezran answered, truthfully. “I really don’t. Zym thinks – if he was out of the shell, he thinks he could get rid of it. It wouldn’t even be hard. His magic is stronger. But – he’s not out of the shell, so…” He trailed off, and blinked his eyes open at the egg. He exhaled, a quick puff of air, and set his shoulders and his jaw as though bracing for something. “We’re going to try something.” He said, decisively, and squeezed his eyes shut. “Keep holding him there, okay? I don’t know how this is gonna work.”

“…Okay.” Rayla said, very faintly, and stared down at her hands and his, splayed against the eggshell.

Callum didn’t know what he was doing – what, exactly, his brother and the unhatched Dragon Prince were ‘trying’, but – they were trying to do something about the binding, that was actually – but, oh, what if it didn’t work? What if it was nothing, in the end? What if Ezran was wrong, and they were left with nothing but a dying hand and dashed hopes?

He held still, utterly silent and barely breathing, as if his slightest movement might disrupt his brother’s concentration.

It was a strange spectacle to watch. Rayla, with the egg in her lap braced with both hands, Ezran kneeling in front of her with his eyes shut and fingers tight against the eggshell, and the glow of the egg…pulsing, somewhat. An ebb and flow to the light that looked more pronounced, more deliberate than anything Callum had seen from it before.

Ez muttered, from time to time, sometimes too quiet for Callum to hear. He heard “maybe if you-“ and “no, kind of, like, there? Maybe?” and “oh, that’s closer, I think-“ and then, suddenly, in a very focused voice, Ezran spoke clearly: “Rayla, can you move your hand so the binding is touching the egg? Yeah, that’s way better, thanks. Okay.” He exhaled again, just as determined as before, and he suddenly sounded…confident. “Okay. Let’s try this,” he said, and his face screwed up with an almost comical degree of concentration-

Blue light flashed-

Rayla inhaled, short and sharp, like a gasp-

And, all at once, the light of the egg dimmed. Not completely, but the lessening of the glow was very noticeable, and very sudden. Ezran opened his eyes so quickly he looked almost like he’d been shocked awake from a dream, pale eyes blinking rapidly, and he said “Oh, wow, that was – did it-“ he leaned over, to stare at Rayla’s hand, like she was staring at it, and so Callum quickly shuffled around to look as well, and-

For a second, he looked at the binding, plainly still in place, and felt disappointment drop into his gut like a stone. But then he saw how Rayla was staring, wide-eyed, how Ez took the egg back from her so she could raise her fingers to the silvery ribbon, to tug at it, just a little. It didn’t move, or come off, or anything like that, but…

“It’s looser.” She said, voice a little choked, and he saw her fingers tremble at the edge of the binding. “It’s a lot looser.”

Callum let out a shaky breath at almost the same time as Ezran, and shuffled over to see for himself, and – sure enough, it wasn’t cutting so viciously into the flesh of her wrist, now. The skin was still blistering and still swollen around the ribbon, but… “It’s looser.” He echoed her, utterly dumbfounded, and reached out as if to touch it himself – he aborted the motion, hand hanging in the space between them, and had no idea what to say.

“It worked. At least a bit.” Ezran sighed, looking suddenly incredibly exhausted, like light had drained out of him as well as the egg. “That was…really hard, though. For both of us. And it took a lot out of Zym. We definitely can’t do that again today.”

Tentative, Rayla reached out to rest her good hand on the eggshell. “…Is he alright?” She asked, worriedly, and they all stared at the considerably-dimmer intensity of its light.

“…Yeah, just really tired.” Ez answered, after a moment, and frowned. “I think maybe it’ll help if Callum shoots lightning at him.”

“Er. Didn’t we already say fulminis is kind of a strong spell?” Callum managed, still utterly dumbfounded.

“Callum, his parents used to breathe lightning on him.” Ezran told him. “I’m pretty sure you can’t do lightning worse than the King of the Dragons.”

He blinked. “Well, when you put it that way…” He cleared his throat and wavered in place, briefly, looking between his bag and Rayla. He was oddly hesitant to leave her side, feeling intensely as though – as though this was important, that something extremely important had just happened, and that if he looked away from it – if he looked away from her – it would somehow be undone. Like the good fortune was so fragile that it would break as soon as he turned his eyes away.

Eventually, practically forcing himself, he went to retrieve the primal stone, eyes darting between Rayla and the egg and his brother all the while, thoughts still having a hard time catching up with all the implications of the last few minutes. Yes, his little brother could somehow commune with an unborn dragon, and yes, there might actually be hope for Rayla’s hand now, and yes, he was going to be shooting lightning at an unbelievably precious dragon egg in short order…

While he was going for his bag, Ezran took the egg carefully back from Rayla and laid it delicately on the ground a good distance away, whispering something to it that Callum was too distant to hear. He returned with the primal stone after a few seconds, fingers trembling a little. He glanced to the side and saw that Rayla was touching the binding, staring at it with a strange, fragile wonder. His heart hurt a little to see how – how wary she looked, as if the binding might suddenly tighten all the way again at any moment, as if this hope might be snatched from her. And, actually, now that he thought about it, he was kind of worried about that, now. Great.

He shook off the thoughts and turned his attention to the egg, which Ezran had very sensibly backed away from. He hesitated, but only for a second, before drawing the rune and unleashing the spell “Fulminis-“ in an incandescent second of light and power. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end from the static discharge, felt the eddies of the electricity tingle over his skin – and then the spell connected. The lightning disappeared in a split-second, utterly swallowed by the egg. The egg, which was suddenly growing a great deal more brightly.

“That was definitely a good idea, wow!” Ezran declared, from across the clearing, scampering over to gather up the Dragon Prince. “He’s still tired, but that really helped.”

Callum’s eyes rested on the egg for a second, then went over to Rayla. Rayla who’d looked up at the spectacle, fingers still hesitant and delicate upon the binding. He cleared his throat, a little awkward, and said “So…um…do you think you’ll be able to – you know, do the thing with the binding? Again?”

Rayla went unusually still, eyes fixed on Ezran with a rather understandable tension as she waited for his answer. He blinked, hands on the eggshell, and closed his eyes briefly to – presumably – confer with the dragon. “Yeah.” He said, after a moment. “Yeah, I think we can.”

The breath that gusted out of Rayla at those words was practically explosive. He looked over, and saw her cradling her hand against her chest, head bowed and shoulders shaking a little. “Rayla?” He asked, alarmed, and hurried over to her, crouching down at her side. “Are you alright? Is something wrong with the binding?” Ez looked up at that too, worried, and hefted the egg as if preparing to run over to them.

“No, dummy.” She mumbled, with a noise that sounded like it had started life as a laugh, but came out more like an aborted gasp. “It’s not doing anything. It’s still – it’s loose.” There was, he realised, a wealth of feeling in those words – disbelief, and a kind of relief that sounded almost desperate – and all at once he realised why she was shaking. He looked past the hair hanging in her face and saw her eyes looking suspiciously wet.

“…Oh.” He said, more softly, and settled himself onto the grass at her side. “That’s…yeah. That’s really something, isn’t it.” He looked at the hand she was holding so carefully against her belly, looked at the – looser – binding, and the abrupt realisation hit him like a punch to the face. The binding was looser now. Ezran said he – he and the dragon – could do it again. So if it got tighter, he could fix it, and maybe with time they’d be able to make it loose enough it wasn’t hurting her at all, and they’d have all the time in the world to find a way to take it off for good-

She didn’t have to lose her hand. She didn’t even have to lose any fingers. Maybe in a couple of days she wouldn’t even be hurting much anymore. Maybe – maybe it was going to be fine, after all. He wouldn’t have to help her cut her hand off, he wouldn’t have to use Marla’s awful instructions about how to care for the wound left over, he wouldn’t have to disinfect and dress the stump of her wrist every day, he wouldn’t have to watch – she wouldn’t need – he wouldn’t have to cut her hand off, he didn’t have to, he really didn’t have to do it. She got to keep her hand and he wouldn’t have to cut it off, wouldn’t have to see how much it hurt, he wouldn’t have to – wouldn’t-

“…Are you crying?” Rayla asked, voice incredulous, and he looked up at her to find the world had gone mysteriously blurry, and so had she. He could just about discern the somewhat bewildered expression on her face.

“What? No, of course not.” He denied, even as he blinked to clear his vision and felt mysterious droplets that felt suspiciously like tears leaving his eyes and falling down his cheeks. Um.

“….You’re crying.” Rayla refuted, still bewildered, turning towards him and tilting her head as if to inspect his face. He blinked a few more times to look at her, finding at least one tear track on her face, too, but it didn’t look like she was likely to do much crying herself. Apparently, general astonishment at his reaction had distracted her from whatever feelings she’d been having.

“…Yeah, okay, maybe a little.” Callum admitted after a second, and raised one of his hands to wipe up tears on the back of his glove. “It’s just…you know-” He cleared his throat, suddenly embarrassed, and muttered “-I’m really glad.” more to the grass than to her. He blinked twice, exorcising another remnant tear from his eye, and chanced a glance up at her.

She was staring at him, head tilted just a little, eyes just a little wide, and wearing that same look of bewilderment – as if he’d surprised her. Then, abruptly, she huffed, a particularly warm smile breaking over her face. “You dumb human,” She said, very affectionately, and reached out to wipe the errant tear from his cheek with her thumb. He stilled, somewhat startled, and was watching her closely enough to see the precise moment she realised the intimacy of her reflexive motion; she startled slightly, and withdrew her hand a little too quickly for it to be casual. There was a hint of pink on her cheeks. “…You don’t need to cry over me.” She added, a second later, voice a little strange.

Finding himself strangely unable to look away from her face, Callum said, somewhat petulantly, “Well, it’s not like I felt obligated.” She snorted, amused, and with that encouragement he continued “I didn’t exactly sit here and decide, ‘you know what, I’d better cry about Rayla’s hand, that seems smart and logical-‘”

She mock-slapped him on the shoulder, gently enough it was barely a tap, and snickered. “Alright, I get your point.” She said, humour turning her smile lopsided. A hint of warmth fluttered in his gut at the sight of it, and he found himself feeling oddly pleased. She cleared her throat after a second or two of eye-contact and looked away. A second later, oddly defensive, she asked “what?”

“What?” he echoed, taken aback. Then he noticed she wasn’t looking at him, and turned his head to follow her gaze, finding Ezran watching them from a short distance away, hands on the egg and a smile on his face. Callum abruptly realised that they’d sort of been having a bit of a moment. Not like, a moment moment, but, definitely a somewhat embarrassingly sincere emotional exchange.

And, as he was aware, Ezran was a big fan of embarrassingly sincere emotional exchanges. “It’s just really nice how much you care about each other.” He answered contentedly, and directed his happy smile at them with the force and subtlety of a sledgehammer.

“Er.” Callum expressed, face feeling oddly hot, and he carefully avoided looking back at Rayla.

“….Yes.” Rayla agreed, awkwardly, after a few moments. Then, in an extremely blatant effort to change the topic, she announced “So, now that I’m probably not going to lose my hand, I think it’s time to get going again.”

“…We should be looking for a place to camp soon, right?” Callum agreed quickly, and went to find where he’d left the primal stone to pack it away.

And, just like that, a horribly stressful chapter of their lives was closed.

---

End chapter.

One small step for piaj, one giant leap for the slow burn.

Timeline: This chapter takes place on 19.05, day 9. The kids continue to ascend, and will conclude the day at an altitude of around 1500m.

Now, for chapter notes, let’s get the big one out of the way first:

The Zym-Ez Machina: this, by the way, is what I’ve been calling this in my notes for ages now. I’m delighted to finally share it with you. This solution to Rayla’s hand problems occurred to me fairly early on in the story’s development, so I’ve been able to foreshadow it a good bit.

In piaj, Ezran has had a lot of time to spend with Zym’s egg, and has slowly learned to use his abilities to communicate with the unhatched Dragon Prince. He has been very quiet and secretive about this, because he knows that if Callum doesn’t believe him about being able to talk to animals, being able to talk to an unhatched dragon wouldn’t go over any better. You could probably find the foreshadowing in pretty much every chapter – Ezran sitting with the egg for long spans of time, quiet, reaching his hands into the bag in breaks during travel, that dream he had, the moment in ch8 where Rayla brings the binding near the egg, the bit in ch9 where he’s plainly talking to the egg…so, hopefully, this is a surprise to you as it was to Callum and Rayla, but one that works well.

Basic facts: through the shell, Zym cannot completely remove the binding. He can only loosen it. He can only do this much because of Ezran working with him – without him helping, he wouldn’t be able to manage it at all. You can expect a good stretch of time with these two baby princes working together to repeatedly loosen Rayla’s binding, allowing her hand to reperfuse and avoid further lasting damage. And there has been damage.

Ezran’s empathy, and his bond with Zym, are going to get a lot of development in this story. This works well with the extended egghood of the Dragon Prince here in comparison to canon.

Also, a note: Azymondias knowing his name because of his mother whispering it to him through the shell is semi-canon. One of the creators mentioned it in an AMA.

Other chapter notes: Rayla tries to pull herself up a tree one-handed in this chapter, but fails. She does this successfully in canon, but doesn’t manage it here because (1) it’s not a matter of life-or-death to get up the tree and (2) this Rayla has had her hand bound for considerably longer than her canon equivalent, and the pain is correspondingly more debilitating. Also I guess (3) the tree in canon seems kind of slanted, so gravity isn’t as much of a pronounced bitch.

Canon-compliance note: If we learn details about Rayla’s parents incompatible with them having been introduced to the egg of the Dragon Prince, this chapter will be modified.

Afterword: This chapter blocked me even harder than chapter 7, I guess because it’s an important one, and I didn’t know how to bridge the early scenes with the Zym Ez Machina scene for a fair while. But it’s done now, and most of ch11 is already written. Hopefully it won’t be as long until the next update. Mind you, I’m working now, and I’ve had to cut back my daily writing quota, so it’ll be more slow going, but…yeah.

This is a really important chapter that I’ve agonised over for literally months (I started this chapter in May), so I would really appreciate it if you could leave a comment.

[beckytailweaver]

Avatar: The Last Airbender (fic stuff)

Since I’m trying to work on something (ANYTHING!) and I seem to be in an Avatar mood of late, I’ll throw this up here.

These are fics, potential fics, and mostly-concrete ideas that have existed in the back of my closet for a very long time, since the good old days of watching ATLA when it was shiny and new and cool. Most of them are also so old that LOK didn’t exist yet or was in its infancy.

Note: These are mostly gen fic. If pairings come up they are not the central goal of the piece; they will be mainly canon as it existed at the time the fic was outlined. Treat them like the scenery (no ship war drama allowed in my workroom, that’s what stopped me participating in the fandom years ago).

I’d kinda like to put some feelers out and see what folks think would be most interesting to work on.

Read on:

The End of the Circle Post-canon continuation, my oldest ATLA fic, conceived and outlined before comics or LOK existed. Does some headcanon worldbuilding based on what was available at the time of the original series. Dragons and spirits and legends coming to life, oh my!

Status: outlined, some scenes written, firm endpoint, world built.

Summary: Roku warned Aang that he could not die in the Avatar State, or the cycle would end. Azula’s lightning killed Aang in the Avatar State. To their good fortune, Katara’s spirit water was able to bring Aang back to life, but there are Consequences—for the Avatar and for the world.

Wild Fire Canon AU/semi-rewrite. Also born before LOK was a thing so Druk doesn’t exist. It borrows some concepts from the idea of Toph and her badgermole family. It breaks some TLA canon around the edges but it’s all in good fun.

Status: outlined, many scenes, ending fully plotted.

Summary: The young Fire Prince was burned and disowned by the Fire Lord, cast away and abandoned on the hostile shores of the Earth Kingdom before his kindly uncle could aid him. Disfigured, angry, and lost, young Zuko finds solace in the wilderness when he is taken in by a most unusual protector: A dragon.

Phoenix Legacy Not-a-time-travel “time travel” fic. It was born after seeing Season 1 of Avatar LOK and...kinda liking it but not? (I mostly lost interest in LOK after S1.) And wanting to add some more classic feel to the season. No information from subsequent seasons was used to outline it (thus there is no Druk) but recently I have gone back and “fixed” Zuko’s daughter (giving her the correct name and appearance), and added her nameless daughter (Iroh II’s sister) for lulz. Basically a rewrite of LOK Season 1 with a TLA character along for the ride to shake everything up, because at the time I was disappointed that there was only Katara and no other Gaang members out there kicking the new Avatar into shape.

Status: outlined, a few scenes written, ending plotted; not to be a rehash.

Summary: A phoenix cannot die by fire—it can only be reborn. When Ozai claimed the title of Phoenix King, he had no idea what sort of spirit he might be invoking. When he lost his ancestor’s war and his crown, the spirit’s blessings were unknowingly conferred upon his heir: The hapless Fire Lord Zuko, determined to bring his nation to peace. Seventy years later, there’s a tragic explosion in a tea shop in Republic City, and exiled traitor Fire Prince Zuko wakes up to an unfamiliar world full of unfamiliar faces. The last thing he remembers is an Agni Kai under a Comet, catching lightning to protect a friend.

The Prince’s Prisoner Another ficling born before the comics or LOK were really a big deal and/or I didn’t know about them. Basically during TLA S1, rather than fleeing Prince Zuko’s clutches, Aang decides to remain his prisoner. The original reasoning for this was a kind of modified Peggy Sue: Aang effed up his final battle with Ozai for reasons, his soul is sorta sent back in time to do-over from his iceberg wakeup. The problem is that this is not a perfect process and he doesn’t actually remember everything, only some very important faces, feelings, and concepts. The idea of Zuko as a dear friend/teacher/trusted person is one of these things. Thus, in defiance of all visible logic, Aang trusts S1!Zuko with his life and keeps his promise to go with him. In spite of his Water Tribe friends continuously trying to rescue him, Zhao continuously trying to capture him, and Zuko himself continuously trying to avoid being befriended by his ticket home. (”I’m your prisoner, not anyone else’s.”)  Intended to be a funny and heartwarming friendship/journey story taking a different angle at the series.

Status: tentatively outlined with very few scenes skeleton’d out, season 1 definite, endpoint undecided but can continue throughout the series. The premise mechanic is a bit flimsy; it’s less concrete since it’s supposed to be fluff, angst, and friendship.

dragon!Zuko AU fic Everybody has to write one of these, it’s like a law. Here’s mine: Ozai’s cruelty during the Agni Kai with his young son invoked the wrath of Agni, bringing down a magic from a time before memory and no one knows if it’s a blessing or a curse. When Zuko’s face burned, the fire didn’t stop there, and when the flames went out a young dragon was left on the floor of the arena. Uncle Iroh came to his rescue before the rest of Court could gather their wits, and then had to get him on a boat and out of the Fire Nation before Ozai could decide whether to make him into a pet or a trophy. Part 1: Rather than going on a mission to hunt the Avatar, Zuko and Iroh are on a road trip to keep Zuko alive and secret from the world (Ozai wants to usurp his brother’s title of Dragon). Iroh and his crew end up raising this stubborn angsty dragon prince; since he can’t turn back into a human he has to come to terms with being a dragon most of the time (which can’t talk), and he can often be Very Dramatic about it. Part 2: Years later, there’s rumors of the Avatar’s return and Zuko (who has sort of learned to take a human shape again) sees an opportunity to spare his own life and go home by offering his father a bigger prize than a dragon’s head...

Status: very general outline, some scenes conceived and a general plot/endpoint. Part 1 is in the 3 years pre-canon, Part 2 is during canon, including the grumpy dragon hiding out in Ba Sing Se.

Years Gone/Avatar kids AU S1/pre-canon rewrite. Some whim of fate cracks open Aang’s iceberg three years early (a storm, a passing boat, pure chance?) and he tumbles out into the world in the same year that Prince Zuko was banished. Despite befriending some Water Tribe children who would love to go adventuring with him, he’s got to get home to the Southern Air Temple and that’s where he runs into young, angry, raw-wounded Prince Zuko on his first visit. The tiny chase ensues up and down the entire temple. Aang will of course be friendly but escape. And this begins a probably-ill-advised adventure with a lot of kids who are entirely too young to be camping across the world on a bison (but it’s exciting!), chased by another kid entirely too young to be leading a manhunt. The Comet is three years away so there’s plenty of time for adults to tear their hair out over this. Zuko is a tiny ball of determination, rage, and tears. Aang feels bad for him and tries to make with the befriending even as he’s dodging the fire tantrums. Occasionally during adventures Zuko just gets scooped along for the ride in Appa’s saddle, no one’s sure how these weird truces get called, but Iroh sips tea and directs the crew on a new heading and they’ll pick up their prince at the bison’s next stopover most likely after the kid pendulums back the other way and remembers he’s trying to nab the Avatar again. So Zuko spends 50% of the time yelling and chasing the Avatar and 50% of the time sitting in Appa’s saddle learning tentative smiles and being offered berries and seal jerky, all the way from the South Pole to the North. (It’s slightly terrifying to realize that Aang and Zuko are currently the oldest kids in the party and are actually in charge of this terribly irresponsible expedition.)

Status: general outline, a couple of scenes written, particular S1 plot points, no endpoint yet. Possible bonus content: Toph and/or Suki come along for the ride because why not.

The Blacksmith of Ba Sing Se This is a very old Lu Ten Lives! story. Lu Ten always knew Uncle Ozai envied him, but secure in his position he didn’t really care about it until he took an arrow in the back during the final battle of the Siege of Ba Sing Se. With unknown assassins among his own ranks and no safe place to retreat in the melee, the wounded prince decides to fake his own death by hiding in the rubble, and then swapping clothes with a slain Earth Kingdom soldier half crushed in the ruin. At first, it’s only to get to safety until he can get to the bottom of this. But Lu Ten is picked up by the EK medic teams after the surprising withdrawal of the Fire Nation troops, and ends up spirited away into the heart of Ba Sing Se—where he discovers that it’s hard to escape. He also discovers a whole new world, and a whole new perspective, and, keeping out of the authorities’ notice, eventually manages to make a life for himself as Chang the Blacksmith, a humble craftsman with a wife and kids. This...is much nicer than war, death, and Court politics. Years later: refugee Zuko walking home from his job at Pao Family Tea Shop runs across a little boy crying over his broken toy in the dusty street...

Status: nebulous outline with a few particular sketched scenes. Takes place mostly in Ba Sing Se, outcome indeterminate. It could be mixed with the Lineages concept from below.

Lineages / not Ozai’s kid AU Not really a concrete plot so much as a campy idea from long before the Avatar comics blundered through Ursa’s backstory. There was a phase in the fandom (I think the Search comics drew off of that) where it was popular to imagine almost anyone else than Ozai as Zuko’s Secret Real Dad (the boy deserves a better father) and Iroh was often selected as primary candidate. (I know, Iroh is already the real dad and stepped into Ozai’s cold empty shoes like a pro.) Me, deciding that I had to be different, decided to offer up Lu Ten on that altar. Justifications: Iroh and Ozai looked to have a pretty extreme age difference and there was no solid age for Lu Ten at the time of his death, but his picture looks mature enough. Deals with family secrets and the political issues of muddying the lines of inheritance in the middle of a war. Also takes a crack at Ursa having a clever hand with Azulon’s last will and testament on Ozai’s behalf, with provisos.

Status: nothing really more than a vague concept without enough plot to stand on its own. Without a viable framework, it could work better/well folded into The Blacksmith story, above.

I’m open to opinions and/or asks about these. Trying to get a spark going! (I need to be working in a fandom, ANY fandom at this point! ^_^;; )

[damienthepious]

i am running out of unique ways to say how Excite i am for Lizard Kiss Day, please understand that i am still SO EXCITE

Made A Garden (Chapter 2)

[Chapter 1] [ao3]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Rilla

Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Rilla’s Parents

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, (categorized as ‘other’ bc arum is nonbinary when i write him bye), Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, POV Alternating, canon typical Arum ignoring feelings

Fic Summary: Rilla’s parents take her out when they do field work. She’s a smart kid, and she knows how not to get in trouble when they’re caught up with their experiments and research. This time, they’ve taken her to an enormous, beautiful swamp, and their theory is that the monstrous presence in this place should be entirely dormant- which is why Rilla is so surprised, when she meets a monster for herself.

Chapter Summary: Little Lord Arum tries his best to keep his distance, despite his curiosity.

Notes:hehehehehehehe i am ENJOYING this fic IMMENSELY and i hope y'all are right there with me <3

~

Arum is absurdly careful to ensure that the human - Amaryllis - does not see him the next day, when she returns to the pond. He hides among the trees above, hoping that she will assume him more aquatic than he actually is. She seems… nervous, perhaps? Or at least expectant, for the first hour or so. She keeps scanning her eyes along the shore, among the foliage, and whenever there is a noise fairly close she perks up, her eyes lighting with… excitement?

Arum does not understand. Humans have not invaded his swamp before (not while he has been alive, at least) but he has read about them, in the coded journals and memoirs of his predecessors, and he has heard stories from his Keep. Humans are supposed to be… different from this. Different from her.

They are supposed to be weak, brittle, fallible, inflexible and slow-minded. Easily frightened. Easily drawn to violence by their fear, and even more vicious when frightened in a group.

Amaryllis appears neither fragile nor fearful.

She swims for hours, intermittently singing to herself (her song was what had drawn him towards her the day before, a strange, out-of-place warble among the frogsong and birdsong, a foreign sound in his wider home), and then when her strange, soft skin is over-soaked by the water she pulls herself out to sit on the bank. She finds a wide bed of moss and spreads out upon it, murmurs sphagnum girgensohnii in a pleased singsong as if she is greeting the flora. She carefully drifts her fingers across the softness before she sinks herself into the mound, and then she just- lays in the sun, for a while.

Arum is surprised to learn that humans enjoy basking, too.

Once she’s reasonably dry she pulls out a book from the little canvas bag she left on the shore and starts to write, starts to draw, and Arum creeps closer above so he can see the work of her hands. Her handwriting is clean and even, and too small to be read at a distance, but her sketches are curious. She scrawls out careful imitations of the curves of nearby ferns, then devotes some time to dragonfly wings, watching as the creatures dart along above the water, laughing her strange, high laughter when they come close to her.

When she grows tired of her book and returns to the water, Arum slinks down from the branches to the bushes, and pulls the book quietly from the bag during a long moment when Amaryllis is drifting in the water with her eyes closed.

Up close, her handwriting is full of interesting curls and curves, but it is still not quite parsable to his eye. He understands the language, certainly, but she seems to be employing a sort of shorthand he is unfamiliar with. He is still more interested in the sketches, anyway, and he nearly drops the book entirely when he sees-

Himself.

It’s a drawing of only half his face, really, from the snout up with his jaw and lower hidden beneath the surface of the water, and she captured the exact curve of his horns from memory somehow, and his eyes are glaring out from the page with wariness and- fear.

… she saw that? She saw that he was afraid?

No. He closes the book. No, of course she hadn’t seen- how could she have seen fear that was not there? Lord Arum has no reason to fear a single weak human, especially not some human child with an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation.

Arum tucks the book away again, back into the canvas bag, and while Rilla sings quietly to herself, he beats a tactical retreat.

The next day it rains, hard and relentless and cool, and Amaryllis does not return to the pond. Arum finds the large tent the humans are sheltering in after minimal searching, though.

Apparently humans are not so fond of rain. They remain inside the tent for most of the day, and he can see them in half-obscured silhouette through the cloth, through the flaps that ruffle in the wind, apparently sketching and writing in more books like the one Amaryllis keeps. They speak to each other in easy, fond tones about how certain ‘research’ should be ‘organized’, until apparently that begins to bore them.

One of the taller humans (Amaryllis’ parents? Was that what she said?) pulls out an instrument, a short-necked, pear-shaped thing with an abundance of strings, tunes it with skillful speed, and then he begins to play.

The song is adeptly performed. There are so many strings, and the human’s fingers move so nimbly Arum can barely keep tabs on them (they must have to, since he has so few digits with which to work), and then Arum is distracted from the effort of watching his playing when the three of them start to sing.

Amaryllis singing on her own was… pleasant. In a simple sort of way. A childish sort of way. And Arum is quite familiar with harmonies, of course. He hears the things the Keep is saying underneath its song, but he does still hear the song as well, and on occasion it will sing him a song he enjoys enough to sing along with. At night, typically, when he is close to sleep.

The harmony the three humans create is-

It feels familiar. It feels precisely how singing with the Keep feels.

It disquiets him, these humans and their strange-familiar song. He slips away in the rain, scrambling quick until he can no longer hear them, and then he calls for a way home.

The third day after he meets Amaryllis, he watches her as she picks her way around a patch of berry-laden bushes (not eating any of the berries, thankfully- they may look like an edible fruit, but magical flora can be quite tricky and not even Arum knows for sure if this happens to be a patch of something that would kill the human on ingestion or not), and as she wanders she becomes distracted by a grouping of overlarge purple-and-gold butterflies flouncing over her head.

She is too distracted. She does not see the danger.

Arum panics. He whips his tail down below the leaves, slips it around Amaryllis’ waist and jerks her back, just barely in time to keep her out of the way when the sickly gray-blue flower hanging from the branch ahead of her belches out a cloud of vicious, poisonous orange spores.

“Watch where you’re going,” he barks in alarm, “you stupid little human!”

He sees the moment when she recognizes his voice, and then- he panics again. He unwinds his tail from around her midsection (humans run unreasonably hot, he thinks) and clambers higher into the foliage, where she will hopefully be unable to see him.

Arum watches from his new perch as Amaryllis takes a large, careful step away from the still-hanging orange cloud, and then she aims her eyes upward, searching for him. He growls automatically, which- was the wrong thing to do, because her attention hones in close to his position and he feels compelled to scramble another branch or two away until he feels safe from her gaze.

“Ah… Arum?” she calls out, her eyes still scanning where the leaves are swaying in his wake.

Arum’s mouth curls into an unhappy frown, and he keeps deliberately quiet and still. Perhaps he can fool her into thinking that he has already gone away, and then he can leave in earnest when she runs back to her little family.

“Well…” she is still looking upward, still looking for him. “Uh… thank you for that, I think?”

“Don’t-” Arum snaps before he can stop himself, furious that she would do something so horrible as to- “Don’t thank me!”

He is still hidden from her, but obviously she knows generally where his voice is coming from, and she turns slowly on her heel as she continues to look for him, a slow half-smile curling her mouth. “I mean… I don’t know exactly what that plant is, but I figure it probably would have been pretty bad for me if I breathed any of that orange stuff in, right? And I definitely would have just walked right into it if you didn’t… kinda… you know… save me-”

“S-stop that!” Arum drops back down, just enough that he can stick his head through the leaves and scowl at her upside-down, his frill flaring with irritation and with gravity. “I did not save you, don’t be ridiculous-”

“What would you call it, then?” she asks, crossing her arms and looking up at him.

He opens his mouth to answer and- does not know. His jaw snaps shut. He tries again, with equal success, then settles for a glare as she raises an eyebrow at his lack of explanation.

“So…” she says, her voice musical, “I think you might deserve, y’know, just a little thank-you for-”

“No, I most certainly don’t.”

Amaryllis giggles, apparently unable to contain her mirth as she looks at him, and he glares automatically in response, his teeth snapping together, but then he feels his cheeks twitch and he- chokes out half a laugh of his own in response, completely unable to stop himself. He feels his his frill pull tight to his neck with mortification, and he pulls his head back up behind the leaves, where she cannot see him bury his face in his hands as he starts to scramble away.

Ridiculous ridiculous ridiculous- of course he laughed with- no, he was laughing at her, of course he was, because she’s just a silly little human, wandering and nearly getting her stupid self killed-

“Wait, don’t go!”

Scowling viciously, he pops his head back down, and Amaryllis has to turn to spy his new position. “Why not?” he snarls.

“Because-”

Arum waits. Amaryllis stares at him, and now it is her turn to work her jaw without giving an answer. After a moment, she clasps her hands together in front of herself and bites her lip.

“I… I don’t know. I just don’t want you to leave.”

Arum stares at her. He stares at her for what feels like a long time, but she does not say anything else. She does not look away from him either, her dark eyes catching the light drifting through the foliage and turning intermittently molten and deep amber, like buckwheat honey backlit by the sun.

“Don’t be foolish,” he says, his voice scratching low. “Run back to your family, little human. Clearly,” he growls, “clearly you do not belong here.”

Then, before the frown furrowing her brow can grow any further, before she can retort or respond, he bolts. He darts from branch to branch and away, his heart hammering with shame and confusion at his own actions and Amaryllis’ words, and this time she does not call after him.

He is confused by that, as well. Confused by his disappointment, when he does not hear her voice again.

[tibbinswrites]

06&26 please! I will never pass an opportunity to read something from you :)

It has taken me days longer than it should and it was supposed to be short, but here it is, finally. Thank you so much for your patience, I hope it holds up.

Prompt #06&26 - Wings and Protection from this list

Inspired by this fantastic fic (seriously, it’s so much better than mine, go read it).

Love Tibbins xx

How I Met Your Brother

Cassat with Sam on the hood of the impala, watching Jack throw stonesinto the lake, twisting his wrist low to send them skipping over thewater like Sam had shown him. Dean was asleep on the picnic blanketto their right, one elbow sticking out from under his head, kneestucked up slightly. He’d probably be stiff when he awoke, and cold;the sun was beginning its slow descent towards the horizon andalthough the temperature hadn’t dropped dramatically yet, the windhad picked up from slight breeze to more constant chill. Not that Casfelt it beyond his intrinsic knowledge of what the temperature was,but Sam and Jack had already put on their jackets. Still, they alllet him sleep. He needed the rest and Cas could always heal his acheswhen he woke.

Thislunch outside had been a great idea of Dean’s, getting them all outof the bunker for some sunshine and quality time, something whichnone of them had been able to appreciate lately, particularly Sam. Hehad taken the loss of the Apocalypse World survivors hard, and theambiguity of Jack’s current state harder still, so seeing him smileand joke and gently poke Dean with a long branch until thestill-sleeping hunter batted at the offending weapon and rolled ontohis side, making Jack hold his hands over his mouth to try and stopthe laughter from waking the angry bear.

“I’mreal glad we did this, Cas,” Sam said quietly, watching thebranches of a willow tree where they trailed lazy patterns in thewater, “I don’t know how he knew that this was what I neededbut…” he gestured at the beautiful scene around them, thebeginnings of spring making itself known; flowers beginning to emergefrom the earth, greenery budding on branches, the sound of demandingchicks hassling their poor parents for food.

“Areyou surprised?” Cas asked, a smile in his voice, “He knows youbetter than anyone, as you know him.”

“Ithought I did,” Sam replied, a shadow crossing his face, “Ithought I knew what he needed, but when he- last time he neededsomething I just couldn’t figure it out. I let him be Agent Pageand I gave him beer at breakfast and I tried to take him to a stripclub. I felt like a kid, like I was trying to cheer him up in thestupid little ways that kids do. I didn’t know how to fix theproblem so I just tried masking it with stuff he liked. It didn’twork.”

“I’msure he appreciated the effort nonetheless,” Cas saiddiplomatically, “as you appreciate his efforts in cleaning up thebunker and doing your laundry and suggesting this. Isn’t it thesame? It doesn’t fix the problem, but it helps.”

Samsighed, a long, deep sigh that seemed to come from his very core, hiseyes fixed on Jack’s next stone that was too heavy to make a goodskipping stone and the corner of his mouth twitched up as it hit thewater with a disappointing plop. Jack wasn’t deterred though,searching through the pebbles on the very edge of the shoreline,muddying the water by stirring up the sand. Cas saw worry in Sam’shazel eyes, even through the stress and pain of loss there was aconstant, gnawing worry. Cas knew it, he felt it too.

“Whatdoes fix the problem?” Samasked him suddenly, “We’ve still got so much going on; I need tobe there for Jack, for everyone that’s left, for Dean, but I don’tknow how. I can’t even go into the library anymore. I stood outsideit for twenty minutes this morning, but I couldn’t go in, couldn’teven look. I just kept seeing Maggie-”

Heburied his face in his hands then. Not crying, like would be expectedof someone in this position and in this much raw pain, probablyforcing the tears down because of the boy skipping stones only yardsaway. Keeping up appearances, a lifelong habit.

“Ifailed them, Cas,” he mumbled through his fingers, “I failed allof them.”

“Whatcould you have done differently?”

“Something.”

Cas’heart went out to the man. Sam had grown so much in the last fewyears; ever since Cas had returned from the Empty Sam had beendifferent, he had taken on the parental role in Jack’s life whileDean had kept his distance, trying his absolute best to make surethat Jack never felt the same loneliness that he had as a child. Caswould be forever grateful to Sam for fulfilling his promise to Kellywhen he himself couldn’t. Not that that was why Sam had done it, ofcourse, he was just kind.

“Doyou-” Sam began, then he dropped his hands from his face and shookhis head, expression closing in on itself, “never mind.”

“What?”

“Nothing,it’s… it’s stupid.”

“Tellme anyway.”

Samshot him a look, cautious, like he was worried Cas wouldn’tunderstand.

“Doyou think maybe Dean was right? That we should’ve let him go whenhe asked us to? We lost over twenty hunters, Cas. Good people whodidn’t deserve to die. And Jack had to burn off who knows how muchof his soul to save us. Would it have been better to let Dean get inthat damn box?”

Caschewed on his bottom lip; his immediate reaction was no,of course they were better off for having Dean here, how could Sameven think otherwise? But he knew that would be unhelpful, it wasclear that Sam already hated himself for thinking it.

“Perhaps,”he said instead, “but could you have lived with yourself if youhad?”

“Liveswould have been saved,”

“Butnot you brother.”

“Itwas what he wanted,”

“So?”

Sam’slips quirked at that. “I know,” he said quietly, “as wrong asit is, even after everything Michael did, I would rather have Dean.”

“Metoo.”

Theyfell silent for a little while, watching asJack eventually grew bored of throwing pebbles and began inspectingthe insects that gathered around the roots of nearby plants.

“Iknow what it’s like to lose people under your command,” he saideventually, “to be the only one left and feel like you failed thembecause of that.”

Samlooked at him, pushing his hair back from his face and tucking itbehind his ear.

“Bummission?” He asked,

“Quitethe opposite. It was the most important mission of my life,” hepaused a moment, “I never did tell you the story of how I raisedDean from Hell, did I?”

Samstarted at that, twisting his torso around to face him, “No. I- youdidn’t.”

“Iwas desperate to prove myself,” Cas said with a sigh, “Anna hadfallen only a few decades before and I had taken her place asgarrison leader in all buttitle, our reputation hadtaken a hit because of Anna’s rebellion but there was littleopportunity for any significant victories to try and rectify that.Still, our garrison was the most disciplined, the most tenacious inpursuing a goal. We had never failed a mission for Heaven. At thetime, I thought that was why I was chosen, but now I’m not so sure,perhaps they thought I would be a good decoy, or maybe they werehoping to get rid of me because of my reputation as a rebel among thehigher-ups, though, of course, I wasn’t aware of that.” Histhroat tightened, as it always did when he thought of Naomi and theparts of himself that he had lost thanks to her… treatments. Hewondered if he would ever regain those memories, he wasn’t sure hewanted to. “Regardless, they placed me with fourteen other angels,the best of the best, leaders of their own garrisons, and they gaveme command. There were three other groups sent as well of a similarsize. An army. We hadn’t been needed in such numbers sinceLucifer’s fall. We seemed to be much harder to kill back then.”

Hesmiled wryly at Sam, who was watching him, rapt.

“Assoon as we got word that the Righteous Man had arrived in the Pit, wewere sent to retrieve him. And so we laid siege to the gates. Mygarrison were strong, we worked well together and they trusted me aswell as any angel trusts their superior. Implicitly, whether or notit’s wise.”

Heremembered it well. A lot of his memories of his time in Heaven hadgone fuzzy around the edges—probablythe result of his bouncing from angel to human and back again, theloss of his grace and its diminished power—butthat war… every detail was as sharp as the day it happened, likeeach moment had been painstakingly sketched onto glass, preservedforever.

Theywere the last of the groups to arrive at the gates, Castiel had hopedto use the distraction at the main point of entry to see if he couldfind another one but Hell had closed all other ways in and out, would have closed the main gates too if that action was reversible.So they threw themselves into the assault; demons and almost-demonsand hellhounds and twisted creatures that had once been human souls,tortured into madness and forgetting their human forms, all of themfell before his blade. But there were always more; perhaps some wereeven the same ones, they were still in Hell after all, torment waseternal here. He and the others pushed forwards, breaking through thegates after only a year of fighting, but that was barely the firsthurdle, on the other side, as expected, was a veritable wall ofdamned creatures, all intent of destroying them. 

The bloodshed wasunending, angels didn’t tire and neither did demons, though whilethe latter revelled in the violence and chaos of it all, after adecade the angels began to flag. Hell was oppressive to their verybeings, everything that it was made of repelled them. The power ofsuch a place attacked more than just their physical forms, once pastthe threshold of the gates, they were bombardedwith the prayers. The walls of Hell kept them in usually, but oncethey were inside the bubble popped and the screams began. Thousandsupon thousands of them, praying to God, to His angels, to anyone whowas listening to help them, save them, stop the torment that theirhad brought upon themselves, either with a deal or a lifetime ofvice. 

Some angels fled at the onslaught and Castiel couldn’t blamethem. Whether or not you believed the souls here deserved their fate,it was another thing entirely to hear it. Noneof his retreated though and Castiel redoubled his efforts to make anopening, using the screams as motivation. He couldn’t aid all ofthem, but there was one, one voice in the millions that he could helpsave. He tried to pick it out, to focus on it, but as he had no ideawhat Dean Winchester��s voice sounded like, it was impossible. Buthe did pick one voice, a young American male, and pretended that itwas the Righteous Man. He fought for that voice, even as Kevial wassurrounded and torn apart, his grace shredded and tossed aside withno hope of retrieval. It was the first loss of the battle and it washis, but he forcedhimself to press on. He had sent Kevial up to scout from above, totry and see if they were almost through; a reckless decision, theywould know they were through when they got there, and it had costKevial his life.

Hesent Lanariel back to the edge of the fighting to recuperate after ahellhound had badly rent one of her wings and there she was caught bya group of demons who dragged her, screaming, back into the Pit.

Sherejoined the battle twelveyears later, her eyes flickering with corrupted grace, and Castielcut her down himself.

Hetoo was beginning to weaken, his grace starting to compress under thepressures of this place, where everything was blood and sulphur andbile. In a way to combat this he changed his form to a more compactshape; his earthly vessel, James Novak, onlywith the dimensions skewed so he was larger than the average human.He kept his wings, of course, mostly for practicality’s sake butalso so that he would be recognisable as an angel in the way that theRighteous Man thought of them, if he was still human enough torecognise anything. It had been sixteenyears on this plane since Dean Winchester had died on Earth, no doubthe was being given special attention by Hell’s best torturer,Alastair, to break him, to break the first Seal, if he hadn’talready.

Perhapsit was that desperate thought that caused him to dash through a briefcrack in the defending forces the second it opened. Itwas pure luck that he had been right next to it, slicing through ahellhound to reveal it and his just acted. The openingclosed behind him just as quickly, and although he hadn’t gonecompletely unnoticed, the distraction at the gates proved too largefor more than a few creatures to peel off and attack, though once hehad dispatched them, he knew that he wouldn’t have long before thevery presence of his grace drew attention like a beacon.

“SoI fled into Hell. I abandoned my garrison, left them to face thehoards of demons without me. It shouldn’t matter, they were allcommanders, one of the others would have been capable of leading, butit felt like a betrayal. I knew when Hell sensed my presence, I knewit because I heard my garrison, my siblingscrying out for mercy as they were overwhelmed. Hell had been contentto keep us fighting at the gates eternally, it has enough creaturesto spare, but the moment it knew that one of us was inside it endedthe battle.”

Casfelt his face twisting as he remembered the voices in his head, greatwarriors, pleading for a quick death.

“Ithink they were hoping to draw me back out if they tortured theothers,” he continued, taking a deep breath and comfort in thedelicate scent of honeysuckle and lilac and damp earth thataccompanied it. “Dozens ofangels crying out for me specifically to help them. Someof them lasted for years.I could have followed theircries, I might have saved even some of them. Instead I turned away.”

“Oh,Cas,” Sam said, it wasn’t the beginning of a longer thought,merely the reminder that he was there and that he was listening. Cashad never told this story before. Neitherof the brothers had asked aboutit and Cas hadn’t wanted toreopen old wounds. Still, it felt right that he talk about it now, toSam.

Itwas not the Hell of Crowley’s reign that greeted him; stone halls,demons confined to meatsuits, ego and efficiency;the Hell of Azazel’s rule was a labyrinth. Or it may have been theopposite. There was so much empty space it felt like flying through ablack hole. Even the constantbackground hum of the angels backin Heaven had been cut off, only those screaming for mercy;he had never felt so alone.There was nothingto see butflashes of demonic energy,the stench of rot and pain andsulphur, prayers like acacophony in his head and nowhere to hide fromthe occasional demon patrol that would attack him on sight.He followed the gentle tug of the Righteous Man’s soul, they’dbeen given that much by their superiors at least, animprint, not enough to visualise, but enough to be certain when helaid eyes in it.

Itwas a strange descent. Not only was he getting weaker each day, hiswounds taking longer to heal, the power of Hell beating down on himrelentlessly, but it felt… empty. It was draining, more drainingthan he would have expected. Constant battle would have kept himalert, finding his way through twisting paths would have engaged hismind, but as he flew towards Dean Winchester there were no landmarks,no walls, nothing to indicate that there was anything except for theprayers and that tug and the infrequentencounter with a feral creature. He was beginning to get anxious; hehad left his siblings to die all so he could complete the mission,but would he even make it that far?Angels were not supposed to be in this place; it was everything theystood against, concentrated and acidic and it was grating on his verygrace.

Itwas almost threeyearsbefore he reached the cages and by that time he was fatigued in a wayhe had never been before; the prayers hadgrown louder and now actualvoices joined them, hands grasping through bars, some to claw, othersto beg. He ignored them. These souls were damned for a reason afterall, none of them had been deemed worthy of salvation, so there wasno point even acknowledging them.

Still,striding through the rows of cages was… uncomfortable, it was hardto ignore the prayers when the ones praying were so close, it washard to turn his head from a sobbing child—what had theydone to deserve eternity here?—from a woman half-deranged withpain, from a man convulsing on the ground. The not-air around themall was thick and cloying, those in the cages might not need oxygen,but most of them probably weren’t aware of that yet. Indeed, manyof those he passed had scars on their throats, some still drippingopen. His hands balled into fists as they longed to reach out andtake away that pain; thatis what angels were made for, to heal, to help, to aide humans. Ofcourse they were warriors, but if he stood aside and did nothing, howwas he better than the demons who had trapped them here? What was hefighting for if not for them? He had to shake himself at thattraitorous thought, focus, you have a mission.Heaven needs you.

Sohe spread his wings once more and flew past the remaining cages,towards the source of the tug. Attacks from Hell’s swarms werebecoming more frequent now as he delved deeper, more twistedcreatures lunged at him from the dark, those that had forgotten whatlight was. He reminded them with a flash of grace; eyes burned,demons howled and alerted others, they were all searching for him, heknew it. They knew that he was inside and they knew what he was therefor, it was only luck that the very nature of Hell made it difficultto find anything at all, including an angel actively trying to avoiddetection.

Hewondered if Heaven had sent more angels after him, or if they hadsimply given up the mission as a lost cause. Dean Winchester hadbroken the first Seal after all, he had felt the snap inside hisgrace as the Seal splintered, a warning of something new, somethingonly spoken of with an air of reverence and skepticism in Heaven.There was no turning back, the Apocalypse had begun. Dean Winchesterwould be needed to house Michael, but that need was much lesspressing than protecting the other seals. He should be with them.Instead he was here, in this festering space of pain and despair. Andhere he would stay unless he could find the Righteous Man. He knewthat as surely as he knew the names of all the prophets. He would notleave Hell without Dean Winchester. He had abandoned his own for thismission, he would see it through. The tug had grown clearer over thepast few days, a more solid directional pull than just vaguelydownwards and the singular demonic entities became groups, leavinghim weaker with every pulse of grace he had to expend.

Fortyyears since Dean Winchesterhad arrived in Hell, Castiel found him. Or at least, he found a heavyfortification of demons and hellhounds and other monstrosities. Theywere clearly guarding something, and Castiel knew what. He kept hisdistance, scouted out the defences, staying out of sight. But he knewthat there would be no easy gap to slip through thistime, he was going to have toforce his way in. He dropped back for a moment, feeling the strain inhis wings, even his limbs were beginning to shake with the tremendouspower that Hell exuded. He could turn back. As soon as he left Hellthe security measures would become laxer, making it easier foranother group of angels to retrieve the soul later. He had not beenmade for a battleground such as this, there had never been shame inretreat.But thesoul had been in Hell for a long time already, Dean Winchester mightbe pure demon by the time Michael was ready to claim his vessel, andthat just wouldn’t do. It called to him, now he was close enough tohear it, though his view was blocked by the demons. It sounded…angry. Anger, guilt, pain and… was that relief? Was the soul awareof his presence?

Gatheringhis grace he shottowards the wall of demons, hoping that the element of surprise wouldgive him an edge. Well… they were definitely surprised at thearguablestupidity of his move but they rallied quickly and the battle beganin earnest. Castiel fought with everything he had. His wings wererazors and shields, his blade sangin his hand and his grace whipped around him, boiling eyes in theirsockets and leaving only husks behind; the soul became agitated,probably distressed that his saviour was outnumbered and alone.Castiel sent a surge of grace towards it, burning demons in the way,aiming to soothe, to show the soul all the might of his Heavenlypurpose.

Theprotective ring around Dean Winchester broke and the would-be guardsscattered; some fled, most died. When the last of them had been cutdown, before more could come, Castiel got a look at Dean Winchester’ssoul for the first time. It was… horrible. It wasn’t bound byrack or chains, thought there wasa rack, and a screaming soul was trapped on it. The Righteous Man wascarving strips of the soul’s imagined flesh but his head snapped upwhen his guard vanished and he whirled around to face his salvation.

Castielapproached slowly and the soul mirrored him in retreat, ananimalistic snarl rippling from its throat. It looked human, thissoul had not yet forgotten its earthly form, though it had apermanent bloody stain streaked across its naked skin and its facewas twisted in feral distrust and malice – probably a result of thebarely-healed scars and open wounds criss-crossing its entire form:bite marks and the lashes from whips, knife wounds and ragged slashespossibly from some kind of saw. In some places the skin hung inflaps, in others it was tight and shiny with burns. Castiel would becapable of healing that once they got out of here, but it was adisturbing sight all the same. He extended his hand and the soulflinched back.

“Comewith me, Dean Winchester.”

Thesoul bared its teeth, tinged orange with blood diluted with saliva.Castiel tried not to show his disgust. This is the creature thatHeaven deems worth saving?

Still,there was something about it. It didn’t shrink away from him or runto him, it just glared at him defiantly, there was somethinginteresting in that.

“Iam an angel of the Lord, I will not harm you.”

“Alastair!”The soul screeched, suddenly frightened, “Alastair!”

Itcalls for aid from a demon? Curious.

Heknew he did not have the time to talk this wretched soul into comingquietly, not with a thrum of power appearing in his periphery;Alastair probably, even among angels he was known, and feared.

“Iapologise for any discomfort,” he said instead before using hiswings to propel him forwards quicker than the soul could retreat. Hegrasped it by the shoulder and the Righteous Man screamed as hisflesh sizzled from the contact with his grace.

Almosta full demon, he thought, butnot quite. Not yet.

Heshot upwards, Dean Winchester thrashing in his grasp. Castiel pulledhim in tight, after all this he would not risk failing Heaven becausehe simply dropped his prize.It was a few days before a demon found them, despite the flurry ofactivity he could feel pulsing from the place, and all that time thesoul fought him. Growling disjointed words like ‘No’ and‘Alastair’ and ‘back’, also a few choice curse words thatCastiel would not repeat.

Castielcurled one wing around his writhingcharge as he fought thedemon. He didn’t need both to fly. He actually didn’t need to flyat all. Anywhere in Hell was floor if you demanded it be, though notall of Hell’s residents had figured that out yet, but fortravelling directly upwards flying was necessary, it was alsoquicker.

Thesoul had crowedwith delight when the demon appeared, but hissed when Castiel blastedit with grace and it disintegrated.

“Whydid you want it to win?” Castiel asked. It didn’t really matter,it wasn’t relevant to the mission, the wants of the creature in hisarms had no bearing on its fate but still… Castiel was curious.

“Back,”wasall the Righteous Man said.

“Youwill go back.” Castiel said. Deeming now as safe a place as any torest. He shouldn’t need it, but he did. So he dropped onto asuddenly solid surface and for the most part let Dean Winchester go,holding on only by the soul’s wrist. “You will be returned tolife on Earth. You have important work to do for Heaven.”

“Screwyou.” It said, trying its best to wrench itself from Castiel’sgrip, but even in his weakened state, Castiel held on easily.Ignoring the soul for the moment, Castiel gingerly spread his wings,wincing as the lacerations and would on them were stretched. Heseemed to have stopped healing almost entirely now. The pain waseasier to ignore when they were moving, but it would benefit him inthe long run to keep track of the damage, knowing his limitations ina fight was vital, and he knew that there would be a lot morefighting before the mission was done. The human watched him,suspiciously, eyeing his wings.

“Angelsaren’t real.”

Thiswas perhaps the most perplexing thing the human had said. Castielturned his attention from his wings and back to the soul in front ofhim.

“Yousold your soul to a demon.”

“Demonsare real.”

“I’man angel.”

Deansaid nothing to that. Castiel gestured around them, to the sicklyred-grey dimness and the screams of the damned.

“Weare literally in Hell. You didn’t think there might be anopposite?”

Deanjust shrugged. “Take me back.”

“Ialready told you-”

“Alastair.”

Castielsquinted at the soul, “I don’t understand.”

Deanscoffed and turned away from him as much as Castiel’s grip allowed.Clearly, he wasn’t in the mood to explain himself and Castiel wastoo tired to push. Tired… that was a new feeling. One that didn’tsit well with him given his current location. He might not need tosleep but he did need to rest, he needed a few hours to not expendany grace or use his wings. That was… not ideal. But if he wasgoing to recover enough strength to get the Righteous Man out of herethen it was necessary.

Hegot forty minutes before a patrol of three demons found him. Heburned one of them with grace but that left him feeling drained andweak. His fighting the others was sloppy and resulted in a few newinjuries, one of them almost grabbed the soul in his arms but Castielused one of his wings to slice through the creature’s flesh,removing its reaching arm and causing it to stumble backwards. Headvanced, suddenly furious that this thing had dared try to harm hischarge.

Castielwas not fool enough to think that they could linger after that, nomatter the protestation of his wings. He flew, more slowly than hewould have liked. For once, Dean Winchester didn’t fight him, andfor that he was grateful.

Itwas only a few days before he had to stop again. The demons werestarting to pinpoint his location and trajectory out of Hell so henow had to fly horizontally as well as vertically just to keep themfrom swarming him. It was taking more time and energy than he had tospare and he was starting to think that he would be unable tocomplete his mission. He also had to keep hold of Dean at all times,he had lunged for Castiel’s angel blade more than once, though hadyet to be successful.

“IfI let you go, will you try to run or attack me?” Castiel asked himas they alighted on the non-floor once more. Castiel’s legsactually gave out from underneath him as they hit a solid surface andhe crumpled ungracefully. That was embarrassing. Hiswings trembled with strain and he let them relax behind him, notfolded tightly into his back or stretched out. Dean eyed them, theneyed him, and shook his head.

Dean’seyes were strange things. They were green, which was not unusual,though they had flickered black a few times since Castiel had takenhim. Again, considering the position Castiel had found him in, thatshould be unsurprising. But while a lot of the souls here had hadeyes glazed over with pain or apathy or fear or even acceptance oftheir fate, Dean’s were sharp and alert. They calculated everythingand projected nothing and he seemed suspicious, guarded and careful.It was intriguing to say the least. Perhaps there was indeed more tothis human soul than he had first thought.

Castiellet Dean’s wrist fall from his grip and Dean jumped backwards,snatching his arm up to his chest and scratching at where Castiel hadheld him until he began to bleed. But he didn’t run or attack, soCastiel left him to it. His self-inflicted wounds would only re-healwhen he stopped scratching, only the damage intended for the soulitself would remain.

Timepassed and still Castiel did not rise. They were as safe as theycould be at the moment and he felt the sluggish pull of his gracetrying to knit together his many wounds. He sent it towards hiswings; those were what he needed most, and what the demons tried totarget when they attacked, but it was an increasingly slow process.In the meantime, Castiel watched Dean. The soul kept a distance fromhim but didn’t stray too far. After a while he began to pace in acircle with Castiel at its centre, his posture tense and aggressive.It almost felt like Dean had set up a perimeter around him and wasscouting for danger. This amused Castiel, a human guarding an angel.The whole thing was so absurd he actually laughed. Dean flinched atthe sound and whirled to face him, staring at him in outright shock,asthough he hadn’t heard a laugh not tainted with evil in decades. Heprobably hadn’t. Come tothink of it, neither had Castiel and he hadn’t realised how badlyhe’d missed the sound. Not that it was a regular occurrence inHeaven but Uriel got a few laughs on occasion.

“What’s funny?” Dean snarled at him.

“That you seem to be protecting me. It’s humorous.”

Dean looked unsure at that, downright unsettled even.

“Fine, die then.”  he spat, dropping to sit cross-legged on the‘floor’, arms tightly folded. “See if I care.”

Castiel tilted his head at the strange soul. He does care,he realised suddenly. Even though he hates me, he recognises thatI’m trying to help.

“Apologies,” Castiel said, “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Take me back.” Dean said after a pause.

“Back to Alastair?”

Dean jerked his head.

Castiel tilted his head.

“Why?”

“Why does it matter? Take me back and go home.”

“It matters,” Castiel said calmly, “because my reason for beinghere is to retrieve you. God commanded that you be saved. If I wereto return you to your torment, I would be going against God’s will,against Heaven and my purpose. I would also be forfeiting my life, asI do not have the physical strength to return you and then escapeHell. If I am to die, I would like to know if it would be worth it.”

Dean stared at him for a long time, those eyes seeming to search hisvery grace as they mulled over his answer.

“Not worth it,” he said eventually, turning away, “not foryou.”

Castiel frowned at the soul in front of him. This was nothing like hehad expected. He had had images of a pitiful creature that would sobits gratefulness for rescue, glad for an end to the tortures ofHell’s most depraved. Instead, this one wanted to go back.

“You don’t deserve to be here, Dean Winchester.” Castiel saidgently.

Dean flinched.

“Shut up.”

Castiel didn’t argue the point, he didn’t have the energy andthey had lingered too long as it was. He stood and stretched hiswings; some of the deeper claw marks had begun to close and thedeeper tissue damage had mostly healed, it was the best he could hopefor.

Surprisingly, when he saw Castiel stand, he didn’t try to bolt.Instead he walked towards him and extended his arm.

Castieltook it and flew once more.

***

“Behindyou!” Dean yelled mid-flight. He had been pressed against Castiel,his head hooked over Castiel’s shoulder. The more Hell’sinfluence faded from his soul, the more of what Castiel liked tothink of as the real Deancame into view and themore of Dean Winchester that he saw, the more intrigued he was. Deanwas surly and irritable but he had anintelligence and a razor witthat Castiel liked. Apparently,Dean did not like flight, andso had begun to cling as though afraid that Castiel would drop him,despite his attempts at reassurance. Truthfully, Castiel did notmind. And seeing as Castiel’sown senses had dimmed to a dangerous level, he was grateful for theextra pair of eyes, especially seeing as Dean seemed to have changedhis mind regarding demons and whether or not he wanted Castiel towin.

Castielspun, bringing one wing around to shield Dean as he swung with theopposite arm, his blade sinking into the neck of the attackinghalf-soul. It shrieked and hissed unpleasantly and scrabbled itsclaws along the wing that was covering Dean’s form. Castiel criedout but did not pull it away, to do so would expose Dean, and hewould not see the Righteous Man harmed. He kicked the almost-demonaway, ripping the blade out as he did so, yanking it across. The bodyfell into the depths of the Pit,its head flapping unnaturally on the remaining sinew keeping itstrung to the torso. Anotherdemon lungedat him from behind, landing on his back and sending him spinningoff-kilter, grace now pouring from the joints where his wings met hishuman-shaped back. Castielcurled himself around Dean, wings in tight as thedemon tore at his back andbit at his neck, it was a sign of how weak Castiel was that thoseteeth could even break his skin. He endured the onslaught until therewas a slight pause in the attack, then he acted, swinging one of hiswings out with force to dislodge the demon and following the momentumaround, blade aimed for the creature’s heart. The blade hit trueand the demon screeched as it died, following its brethren in a fall.

Onlytwothis time, he thought as hedropped Dean on the now-floor and collapsed ina heap where he landed, thatwas unusual these days. Hewas more likely to come across groups of three or four lately.They were closing in on the gates, he knew, buthe didn’t know what awaited them there. An army of Hell-spawncertainly, but would there be any angels to help him, tofinish the task of saving Dean Winchester? Castiel was fully awarethat he might not make it out the other side of this mission. Infact, he had almost hoped for it. The guilt of sacrificing hisgarrison weighed heavy and the idea of returning to accolades andpraise disgusted him. He had to finish the mission, and then he coulddie of his wounds. There was honour in that.

Butnow… he wasn’t even surehe could make it that far. The stench of Hell was all around him,seeming to feed on his very grace. Hecouldn’t endure it anymore, he wasn’t strong enough, he-

“Hey,open your eyes, you wingeddick,” came a ragged voicefrom in front of him. Automatically Castiel obeyed and the hard edgesof Dean Winchester’s face swam into view.

“Dean,”he said, as though he were pleasantly surprised by the soul’spresence, “are you hurt?”

Deanscoffed and ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit that hadreplaced the scratching, for which Castiel was grateful.

“AmI hurt? Your wingslook like a freaking beadcurtain right now.”

“Idon’t know what that means.”

“Itmeans they’reshredded, idiot. And I left my emergency surgery kit in my othersoul so unless you can mojoyourself better we’re grounded.”

“Theywill heal,” Castiel said, strugglingto push himself to sitting, “itmay take some time before I can fly again. I apologise for thedelay.”

Hiswords came out more biting than he meant them but astonishingly, Deansmirked until he walked out of Castiel’s view and around topresumably inspect the damage.

“Sohe’s got some sass in him after all, good to know,” he said,“hey, why do you bleed blue mist?”

“It’smy grace, it’s what I use to heal myself, what makes me an angel,”Castiel explained between heavy breaths that he shouldn’t need.

“Soit’s probably bad that it’s floating away then.”

“Itwill replenish.”

“Andhow long will that take?”

Castielgrimaced as Dean poked at a deep scratch on his back, “I’m notsure.”

“Great.”

Theylapsed into a long silence, hours passed and Castiel was still losinggrace faster than it could restore itself. That was worrying. If hedied here, what would Dean do? He could not escape Hell on his own,he couldn’t even hide. Castiel had toget him out, or at least keep him safe until his siblings launchedanother mission. He would not allow Dean’ssoul to be returned toAlastair, no matter what. Hehad only just begun to heal, purely from the lack of constant tortureand an angelic companion, freckles previously hidden by gore nowdotted Dean’s form, his eyes now sparked with emotion whensomething amused or frustrated him, he spoke in confusing slang andno longer jumped away from Castiel as soon as they paused to rest.Castiel could not let that light be dimmed again.

Thatwas all that mattered. It was more than his mission now, it wassomething he wanted desperately, to keep Dean Winchester safe.

“Dean,”Castiel said, his voice measured, Dean,who had taken up his pacing again, stopped and backed up so he was inview.

“Ithink we are going to have to delay your return. I’m sorry.”

Deanrolled his eyes, “Whatever, man, take the time you need, it’s notlike I’m going anywhere without those flappers anyway.”

“I’mnot going to make it out of Hell,” Castiel continued, ignoring thechange in Dean’s expression, aslight tightening around the mouth,“but I can protectyou. I can change my form, concentrate my grace into a shield aroundyou. It won’t be using energy on flight or movement so it will notweaken and my grace will replenish more quickly. No demon will beable to get through. You willbe safe until my siblings come for you.”

“Okay…”Dean said, “And if you get back to full power before that happens,you’ll just pop back out, right?”

Castielsmiled, suddenly sad that he would never see Dean Winchester restoredto life. “No, Dean. Mywings are too deeply damaged, it would take more grace than I possessto heal them enough to fly again, andchanging my form into something non-sentient would be permanent.”

Deanwas shaking his head violently, “No, hellno.”

“Dean-”

“I’mnot gonna just sit in some angel-bubble for who knows how long justso that you can get out of babysitting duty. You are notleaving me here alone, you understand?!”

“Mysiblings-”

“Theyain’t here!” Dean yelled, “I’mnot pinning my hopes on somefeathered assholes who don’t evencare where you’ve been for the last decade.”

“You’drather pin your hopes on a dying angel who can’t fly?”

“I’mpinning my hopes on you.”Dean snapped, “You’re the most stubborn son of a bitch that Iever met. You just took out two demons and you’ve been flying onfumes for weeks straight and you wanna give up now?”

“I’mnot givingup,”Castielinsisted, trying not to give sound to the frustration that only Deanhad been able to bring out in him, “I’m being practical. Thereare other angels, Dean, and I can protect you long enough for them toget here. Thisis the only way I can think of that will make sure you never end upin Alastair’s hands again. This is the only way to saveyou.”

Castielsensed rather than heard Dean’s flinch,

“Inever asked you to save me,” he said, his voice shaking with rage,“I never asked anybodyto save me. I’m not some freaking damsel in distress princesslocked in a tower, I got myselfhere. I made a deal and I knew where it was going, so don’t actlike I didn’t sign up for this, likeIdon’t deserve everything that I get.There are people here who were tricked into their deals, or were tooyoung to know what they were selling, that ain’t me. Youwanna go out in a blaze of glory? Go die for one of them instead.”

Hestepped forward and prodded at Castiel’s back again. “NowI’mnot anangel surgeon but I know a little something about first aid, so Iguess the first step is to stop you from bleeding, leaking, whatever,right?”

“Dean,wait-”

ButDean had already pressed his hands directly onto what was probablythe wound losing the most grace, right at the joint of his wings.Castiel cried out. Painlanced through him, then horror ashis grace began to pull at the soul so valiantly trying to help himas though attempting to steal its energy. Castiel jerked forward,away from Dean’s touch, and rolled to face Dean, holding a hand outin front of him, “Stop!”

“Don’tbe such a baby,” Dean scoffed, “I know awaddedshirt would be better but-”

“Thatwas incrediblydangerous.” Castiel said, a growl leaking into his voice. “You’relucky you didn’t explode.”

Ithad been like a shot of adrenaline in a human brain, a sudden rush ofenergy, intenseand overwhelming.

“Dramaticmuch?”

“Fora human soul to come in direct contact with grace is notsomething to take lightly.” Castiel admonished, “I don’t evenknow what would happen, it hasn’t been done in eons.”

Deancrossed his arms, sceptical, “I’lltell you what happened,you’ve stopped leaking.”

“What?”

Deanjust raised an eyebrow so Castiel craned his neck and tested hiswings. Dean was right, the superficial damage on his wings had closedover, even if he could feel the deeper tissue trauma. It would takeless time for his grace to replenish now. Thatdidn’t mean he wasn’t angry.

“You’rewelcome.”

“Icould have destroyedyou.”

“I’malready dead.”

Castielclenched his jaw, “AndI would be unable to reverse that if my grace had absorbed you.”

“Thatsounds like a you problem. Myproblem is making sure that no one else dies for me, you got it?”

“You’re…infuriating.”

“Hey,I never claimed to be an angel, pal. AndI just saved your feathered butt, so maybe stop with the name-callingand make with the healing so we can get out of here. Look, whateversoul damage I got from that weeny little shot you’re gonna fixlater anyway, right? So we might as well use it. And no more stupidtalk about becoming a shield or whatever. We get out of this togetheror not at all, because I’m telling you right now, if your‘siblings’ show up, I ain’t going with them.”

Castielgrumbled but refrained from mentioning the fact that Dean would havelittle to no say in the matter if it came to that, but his angerdimmed into a warm glow that he didn’t quite understand,unexpectedly touched at Dean’s obvious wish for him to stay alive.

***

Thingsbecame marginally easier after that, Castiel regained his ability tofly within a few hours and they set off once more, energy restored.Dean was generous with his soul energy, though never more than oneshort burst at a time, Castiel had been explicitly firm on thatpoint, and he had to admit that Dean had been right, it gave him anextra edge in battle and he was going to need that it they were everto make it to the gates. Even if it made him tainted in the eyes ofHeaven, even if it meant thathisgrace was so weak he needed to tangle it with a human soul; it wasfilthy, it was unheard of, it wasthe most beautiful thing Castiel had ever experienced. For onreceiving Dean’s gift, he saw,he truly saw what was under the layers of trauma and guilt anddespair and rage that Dean gathered around himself. He felt his soulas pure and glorious as it had been before Hell, not unmarked truly,but bright and delicate and good. Castiel kept those thoughts tohimself. They were not right, they were not related to the mission.But Castiel took to staring at Dean when they paused to rest, tryingso hard to see what he could feel when Dean touched his wings.Sometimes he did, when Dean smiled at him one time without sarcasm ormalice, he saw it then and it caught his breath.

Deanslowlybegan to open up about things that he missed onEarth. He talked about food, and women, and his car, andalcohol. But it took him almosttenyears of travelling together to ask about his brother.

“Hey,so you know a bit about me, right?” Dean said, shuffling his feeton the not-floor.

Castielcocked his head, “I have learned much since meeting you.” Theywere waiting for his grace to rally once more, he had taken a set ofclaw marks to one of his wings, perfectly placed to sever one of hismain tendons. It was excruciatingly painful, but Castiel did not letit show. Pain was just a thing he could ignore and it was worthignoring it so long as Dean didn’t think he needed some ‘souljuice’. Castiel was worried about how much soul was now blendedwith his grace. He would return it, of course, when the oppressivepressure of Hell was gone, allowing his grace to replenish as quicklyas it could, but it was weakening Dean day by day and he didn’tknow how much more he could give without doing something irreparable.

“Imean, from before. You know about my life, right? That I was a hunterand we killed a lot of bad things?”

“Iwas given a summation.”

“Right.So… you know about my brother.”

“Ofcourse.” Castiel didn’t elaborate. He didn’t like thinkingabout the boy with the demon blood. Theyhad gotten word on the battlefield of what Sam Winchester wasbecoming without his brother there to guide him, and it had beenprophesied as to how it would all end. Hedid not like to think of Dean becoming a vessel for Michael anymore, it felt less like the natural order of things and more like apreventable loss.

“He’sdead, right? I mean it’s been, what, nearly fifty years? Huntersdon’t live that long.”

“Actuallyit’s only been a few months on Earth.” Castiel said, “yourbrother is alive.”

Thatput a light in Dean’s eyes like Castiel had never seen before,“Really? You better not be screwing with me, man.”

“I’mtelling the truth. Or at least, he was alive when I entered Hell, Idon’t know what’s happened since.”

“He’sokay,” Dean told him, “Sammy’stough, tougher than me. He’s fine.”

Castielsaid nothing. It was clear that this was important to Dean and hedidn’t want to ruin it by informing him about the demon that wascurrently his brother’s only companion.

“We’regonna get out of here,” Dean said, a small, hopeful smile on hisface that buried itself deep into Castiel’s chest, “I’m gonnasee him again.”

“Yes.”

***

“Andhe was right.” Cas concluded, smiling atthe sun now restingon the horizon, glancing at Sam to see tears in his eyes. Jackwas back to skipping stones in the lake, concentrating fiercely, “Wegot through. We got close enough to the gate that I began to hearsnatches of angel radio again, I sent out a signal, told them that Ihad the Righteous Man but I needed help to get him out. Heavenrallied, sent all the angels it could spare, including my originalgarrison. Hell’s army was as numerous as it had ever been and welost even more angels in the fight. But Dean leant me his strengthand we managed it. Together.”

Hefelt pride welling up in him, as much as he had felt when he hadflownthrough the hoard of demons like a bullet, ignoringthe demons that harried at him,and come out the other side, unfurling his singed and battered wingsto reveal Dean’s grinning face,

“Didwe make it?”

“Yes,Dean,” Castiel had said, his arms holding the human soul just astightly as his wings had, “we made it.”

Ithad taken several days for Castiel to recover enough to be able totake on the task of healing Dean. The other angels had tittered aboutthe presence of human soul intermingled with his grace and Naomi hadrequested a meeting for once Dean had been returned to Earth, ameeting he would not be able to attend because of Pamela Barnes’and then Dean’s own interference. But he was praised by hissuperiors and promoted to official commander of his garrison, despitethe fourteen angels in his charge that he had allowed to die. Thoughthe garrisons of those fourteen did not forget as quickly.

Deanhad not allowed any other angel near him while Castiel was healing.Zachariah tried and even Michael paid a rare visit but Dean sent themboth away without a conversation and certainly without a healing.When Castiel was deemed well enough, he was instructed by an annoyedZachariah to begin the process himself.

“You’rethe only one he can seem to stand,” he huffed, practically shovinghim into the room where Dean was being kept and closing the doorbehind him.

Deanwas crouched in a corner defensively, but he stood when he recognisedCastiel.

“Yoursiblings are all dicks.” He said by way of a greeting, “All theywanna talk about is the Apocalypse and using me as a meat suit, it’sgross.”

“Wedon’t interact with humans much.” Castiel said, “I’m afraidwe are very practical creatures.”

“LikeI said, dicks.”

“Iam one of them, you know.”

“Nah,”Dean said, “you’re different.”

“Thankyou?”

Deanlaughed, it was small and shaky but it was real. “So it’s timenow, right? E.T. goes home?”

“Thoseare not your initials.”

Deanlaughed again, Castieldecided that he liked the sound very much.“Heal me up, doc,” Deansaid, spreading his arms out.

Castielstepped forward. “My name isn’t ‘Doc’,” he said, raisinghis hand to begin sending healing grace pouring into the soul infront of him, but before he could, Dean grabbed his wrist andmet his eyes.

“Whatis it? Your name? You never said.”

“Castiel.”

Deannodded and released his wrist. “Cool. I’mma call you Cas.”

Baffled,Castiel blinked at him, “Why?”

“’Causeit’s shorter,” Dean said sardonically, “and it suits you.Sounds less stuffy.”

“Myname is not ‘stuffy’,” Castiel huffed, flickinghis fingers in quotation,though he wasn’t opposed tothe nickname.

“Nah,it’s not so bad. But I mean, you’ve got a better nickname from methan Junklessout there,” he jerked his chin towards the door and grinnedconspiratorially at him. Cas couldn’t help but smile, even thoughZachariah was a well-respected and high ranking member of Heaven andhe had no authority to poke fun.

“Alright,stand still,” Castiel instructed, raising his hand once more. Deanshuffled a little but did as he was told.

Castielbegan on Dean’s face, healing away the scratches and the red tintto his skin, remnants of the blood he had shed. Under the healing,Dean’s hair lightened to sandy brown and the freckles, which Cashad only caught glimpses of before now, came into glorious view. Evenhis eyes grew more vibrant incolour.

“Theylook like peas.” Castiel mused aloud.

“What?”

“Youreyes, they look like spring peas.”

Deansnorted, and a new red tinge appeared on his cheeks, though it wasfar more endearing than the one he had just healed, “That’s gottabe one of the worst pick-up lines I’ve ever heard.”

“Idon’t know what that is. I have picked you up many times.”

Deanmade another amused sound but said nothing.

Theritual continued. Molecule by molecule, Dean’s soul was re-shapedinto what it had once been, although Castiel knew that he could noterase all of what Alastair had done.

“Areyou getting rid of all my scars?” Dean asked suddenly.

Castielblinked at him.

“Ihad a long white one here,” he pointed to his right elbow, “froma werewolf hunt when I was fourteen, and I had somehere,” he gestured to his abdomen, though he didn’t meetCastiel’s eyes, “from the night Sammy left.”

Castieldid not enquire, but he recognised the point about scars. They wereimperfections on Dean’s soul, true, but Castiel had found that theyonly added to Dean’s beauty. They were a testament to what he hadbeen through, a story told through puckered skin and raised tissue.Perhaps they were important to him.

“Doyou want to keep them?”

Deanconsidered, then shook his head, “I don’t need to be remindedanymore.”

SoCastiel erased them and, oneby one, Dean recounted thestories of how he had gotten them; most of them anyway, there weresome that he wouldn’t talk about. He was passing over Dean’s leftshoulder when Dean stopped him,

“Leavethat one.”

Castielactually took a half-step back, “what?”

“Youcan leave ’em, right? Leave that one.”

Castielplaced his hand over the raised mark on Dean’s arm, his fingers fitperfectly, “You’re sure?”

Deannodded, “Junkless told me that I’m not gonna remember you. Hesaid that I ‘needed to be introduced to angels properly’. Bastarddidn’t say anything about making me forget the rest though.”

“Ican make you forget it all if you want.” Castiel offered. That wasdangerous, he had been given strict instructions to only erase thememories of himself and their escape from Hell, but Castiel had seemhim down there, revelling in doling out the torture that he himselfhad endured. The person that Castiel had come to know would not beable to abide what he had done, perhaps it was best that he forget.

“No,”Dean said softly, “I need to remember. I need to know what I canbecome.” After a moment, heshook himself, “so leave that scar, okay? If there’s one thing Ididn’t hate about thatplace, it’s you.”

“Verywell.”

***

Oncethe healing was done, Castiel raised his palm to Dean’s head. Hefelt an intense sorrow that Dean was not going to recall anythingabout him, but Heaven had a plan, and Castiel was made to follow thatplan.

“Bye,Cas.” Dean said with a wobbly smile that Castiel tried to return,“Drop by some time, okay? I’d like to meet you again.”

Castielnodded, though he had no idea if he could keep such a promise.

“Goodbye,Dean.”

***

“Ittook me moments to restore Dean’s body and place his soul inside.Heaven told me that it was important he be returned exactly where hisbody lay, but now I think they were just being petty. I should haveleft him somewhere beautiful.”

“AndDean doesn’t remember any of it?” Sam asked, glancing at thestill-sleeping figure, though he would probably wake soon, he was alight sleeper.

“No,but sometimes he’ll say things, turns of phrase that soundfamiliar, that kind of thing. Perhaps part of him remembers. Memoryis complicated, it’s impossible to erase everything.”

Theylapsed into a comfortable silence for a few minutes, just taking inthe scene, the shadows were getting longer, the temperature wasdropping incrementally butdespite all that it was serene.This place was truly calming.

“Iunderstand your feelings of failure, Sam,” Cas said eventually,“you weren’t there for people you felt responsible for and theysuffered because of it. But if I had turned back to try and save mybrethren, I would not have saved Dean. And the only way to haveprevented Maggie and the others from dying would have been to lockDean in the Mal’ak box and drop him in the ocean. Butyour choice wasn’t so clean-cut as choosingwho to save. Andit’s hard, because you cared about them, but you have to forgiveyourself. Dean is here, and Michael is dead and those are good thingsand we will deal with therest. You proved yourself awise and capable leader, Sam. Don’t let this discourage you fromtrying to help those that survived. Don’tshut yourself off to the possibility that this time, things mightjust work out.”

Deanstirred and groaned, loudly stretching out on the blanket. Samflashed Cas a quick smile and wiped at his face.

“Thanks,Cas,” he said, nudging him gently with his shoulder, “I think Ireally needed to hear that.”

[tcstu]

January’s Honorable Mentions

I receive incredible entries for this month’s contest, so I definitely have to share these. I really want to thank the writers below who took the time to participate. Each one of them had a completely unique take on this piece of art and I think they all deserved to be read. I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I did. :)

As a reminder, the artistic piece for this month’s contest is a digital sketch by Virginie Juteau @hydraart titled “It wasn’t that long ago, apparently.” Please visit this page to see more incredible work by this artist!

FYI - These entries are listed in the order that I gathered them and does not reflect any particular ranking.

Untitled

Written by: Ellie Brie @elliebrie

It wasn’t that long ago that the beasts had walked the land.

Grandpapi had always said that they were so freshly in the ground that the ground ain’t ate them up yet. I never believed his innane ramblings—no one did. He was old, the eldest of our compound, and he was forgetting himself. One thing that stayed true were the ramblings, though.

“Swear to you, boy,” he had told me one quiet evening when I was putting him to bed. “West of here, along the Table Plains, you’ll see—it’s a big blotch on the horizon. It looks close enough to touch—but that’s only because of the size.”

His words had stuck with me, even if he had been eaten by the ground this last spring. So when I turned of age, when the snows had melted enough that travel was able, I took a job out towards Huddard, past the Table Plains.

Grandpapi had been right. Seeing that thing up close chilled me to the bone, worse than the winter storms that came through Hubbard, and I knew I would never go back.

I couldn’t stand the feel of the beasts eyeless sockets. It may just be a splotch on the horizon, but I knew better now.

   “From Hibernation”

Written by: @evanthenerd83

Something entered the territory.

The predator could see. Its optical-processors had been assaulted, blasted by snow, but the shape was still visible. If not somewhat muffled.

A thought passed through the wires that ran from its processors to the bank of circuitry. It didn’t know why or how. Rats had chewed them up. Over time, some functions had been lost.

But the predator could still think.

And if it could think, it could recognize the shape.

And it did. The shape was bipedal, two arms raised in a protective stance. A singular head tilted back.

Familiar.

Prey.

Another thought. Instantaneous as internal-memory awakened.

Purge.

Motion-oriented circuits engaged. Onboard commands were sent, relayed to lower level mechanisms. The psychosonic incapacitator reved up.

And the predator began to—

Scream.

   Ashes remain.

Written by: @littlewriterling

Ashes to ashes, they said.

The Holy Fire is supposed to consume everything, wood and metal and wind, blood and bones and skin. It’s supposed to eat through dragon scales as well as mountain sides, through everything, alive and dead.

It’s supposed to destroy and leave nothing behind.

This isn’t nothing.

Ma'lee stands there, eyes burning with tears, in her mouth the acrid taste of smoke, her clothes covered in white-flaked ash.

The Holy Fire failed.

It was supposed to save them.

Instead it took and took and took and left behind what should have been gone.

She looks up at the creature, the monster. The one great enemy.

Ashes to ashes, they said.

It looks like it’s immortal now.

Ma'lee wraps her coat tighter around herself, to protect against the wind that still bears the heat of the Holy Fire, that will from now on always carry it in its breath. Shudders, bites her lip. Blood joins smoke, a tang of rust and death.

She steps closer, and her feet make no sound. She doesn’t want to think about just how thick that layer of ash has to be now, doesn’t want to think about what it once was, what it once belonged to.

Doesn’t want to know if it used to belong to the whiskers of a cat, the bark of a cherry tree, or maybe the hair of her own mother, the cinder that landed on her cheek just now. Or if maybe she’ll get to be closer to whatever it was if her tears mix with the ashes now, as they slip along her cheek, a mockingly clean trail through the dust on her face.

Another step.

She banishes her thoughts.

They have no place here, in that strange land of things that have been, that never will be again.

Holy Fire is supposed to erase every last bit of it. It was supposed to be controllable.

Ma'lee was supposed to be able to control it.

A moment of distraction has been enough to negate that, to ruin everything.

A split-second of wondering if there’s really no other way. If what she’s doing is right.

And the Holy Fire has taken the chance to show her that it’s only ever been wrong.

The last step now. Her boots feel heavy, filled with lead.

Her heart beats steady in her chest.

She’s not angry or scared or nervous, not anymore.

She’s just curious.

She reaches out her hand.

Close enough to touch it.

Curls her fingers.

The creature’s skin feels rough under her fingertips, just for a moment.

Ashes to ashes, they said.

They weren’t lying.

 And Ma'lee is alone.

  Something Lived Here 

Written by: Stress Ball @unendingballofstress

There used to be something here

Something big

And old

And powerful

Something

That towered to the sky

Something

That lived among the clouds

Something

That inspired fear and awe

Something

That left nothing behind but bones

And mysteries

There used to be life here

Now its just snow

And ash

[scribefindegil]

Cycle Eight--Week 3

[Ao3]  [Week 1] [Week 2]

Day 15

Went into the forest again today. This time Barry and Nita both came with us, with Nita levitating over the mushrooms. Barry has been examining the forest from the village, but this is his first time out into it. It was good to have him there and to confirm my own suspicions: while many of these mushrooms superficially resemble flora from home, every biological and magical test he subjected them to confirmed that they were different from the native fungi of our own reality—and of this one.

Nita and Frelya merely shrugged when we asked them how the mushrooms had arrived on this world. It is past living memory, even for the longest-lived of the surviving races. There are only the vaguest legends. Some say it was a great spell gone wrong. Some say it was a comet of ill-omen that streaked across the sky and brought the first Keepers with it. Some say that the Keepers were already living in stone prisons deep below the Earth, and it was only a matter of time before they awoke.

"Doesn't matter," Frelya said, and grunted.

Nita shook her head and smiled at me. "Of course it does!"

She told us the names that the villagers use for the mushrooms. Most of them don't care much; all of the forest is deadly, so it doesn't matter if you call the blue parts and the red parts something different. But the herbalists care.

(The next several pages are filled with exactingly labelled pen-and-ink drawings with small color swatches next to them. Some of the drawings also have additional notes in a different, heavier hand.)

Dangerous as the forest is, the people of Fungston are forced to rely upon it for many things. Nita explained which mushrooms can be dried, cleaned of spores, and used as material for anything from the canes she uses to the walls of their houses. The universal veils can be washed and hardened and turned into the tough, thick fabric that the villagers wear. Certain species can be cut into thin strips and spun together to make a sturdy rope that is then cured on racks above the bonfires.

"You're extremely resourceful out here," Barry said admiringly.

Nita shrugged. "We do what we have to. If we weren't resourceful we'd all be dead."

It's true, although I don't think we're used to hearing it so bluntly.

Barry took samples from several of the mushrooms and was discouraged from taking them from others. There's one pale species that produces beads of ruby-red sap that burn like acid, which ate through his container almost before Nita could warn him away.

"Be careful of that one," she said, speaking to Barry but looking at me. "We call it Miser's Blood. It can burn through your mask before you realize anything's wrong."

Barry backed carefully away, apologized to the mushroom for disturbing it, blushed, and then tripped over his own feet. Fortunately he didn't land in anything dangerous, but we did take it as a sign that we had probably done enough exploring for the day.

Day 16

We have all been recruited into assisting with the movement of the bonfires. It is a gradual process: first the inner ring is put out and new fires are built around the outer periphery. The plan is to maintain those for a few days to ensure that the scorch teams can keep the forest back around a wider perimeter even without Lup's evocation magic assisting them.

It means that we have to burn some of Merle's green sward, which the villagers were upset by at first. But today Merle was up uncharacteristically early, sitting in the center of town. He said it was too early for singing, but he poured out two portions of his breakfast tea—one for himself and one on the ground for Pan.

Merle knows all the traditional services. I've seen him use them more than once, but more often when he talks to his god he goes off on rambles that sound more as if they were directed at a beloved but ornery relative.

"Now Pan, I know this is a tough situation, but can you help a brother out here? You saw how much these people loved those little plants you helped me grow, so I'm thinking maybe we can get you a congregation going here. What do you think? Got a problem being the god of a weird mushroom world? Yeah, I didn't think so."

As he talks, plants and flowers grow around his feet.

It's certainly not traditional, but I feel that the people of Fungston could do far worse when it comes to spiritual leaders.

The villagers began to emerge from their houses—some with curiosity, some with frightened squeaks. They're still (I say still and betray my own prejudices. There’s no way that a few days would make a difference after a lifetime) unused to wild plants that aren't somehow sinister, so when the shoots emerge through the ground their first instinct is to draw away. But soon they see that what Merle grows will not hurt them.

The entire circle between the first circle of bonfires is green.

It made it easier to move the first circle outward. We worked all day. Lup helped to rekindle the new bonfires, since she's agreed not to go out with the scorch teams for a few days so they can test their efficacy against these new borders. Magnus enjoyed excavating the new fire pits—it gave him an excuse to show off his strength, and of course the villagers were duly impressed. Taako decided to take advantage of the Starblaster's larder and surprised everyone after dinner with trays of tiny star-shaped cookies. There were enough that all the villagers could eat their fill. They're amazed at the concept of flour, which they’ve never seen before—who knows how long it's been since this world could grow wheat?

Day 17

We've begun to make plans for the expedition. Captain Davenport called a meeting, moderated by Merle, to discuss what we need to do to prepare. The biggest problem is how much world we have to explore. Lup and Barry have been trying to find ways to track the Light, but so far they have no definite answers. We know that if a civilization takes in the Light of Creation it tends to spur them to new heights of science and creativity, and sometimes we can use that knowledge to determine its location. But on this world, the chances of it landing somewhere where people can find it are slim. We'll be looking for a needle in a deadly, glowing haystack.

It could well take our entire time on this planet to locate the light, if we do so at all. Mico tells us that the forest outside the borders of the town is actually quite sparse compared to the deeper groves that lie to the South. The Starblaster will take us part of the way, but most of the journey will have to be done on foot.

We have left the final determination of who will be going on the mission for a later date. Magnus intends to lead it, and Davenport will go along and stay with the ship. I have volunteered to go as well. We won't be leaving for at least several more weeks. It's not long enough to gather all the stories I want to tell from this village--it never is--but I should be able to talk to more of the citizens. Those who were shy at first have begun warming up to us. Their eyes are brighter now, and I think they are smiling below their masks. Merle and Lup together have given them hope.

And this mission--it is a story, too. All stories deserve to be told but my first duty is always to the mission and the crew. I hope that, eventually, someone else will read what I have written and remember us. I hope that, eventually, this is a story of a mission that was completed. Of a world that was truly saved. But until then, all I can do is write.

Mico tells us that the "rainy season" is coming, and we would do well to delay our departure until afterwards. As it has been raining nearly non-stop since our arrival, I hesitate to think what sort of weather is approaching that would be so much worse. Mico shook their head when they spoke of it. It's a dangerous time, they said, the time of year when the village is most likely to lose people. Most likely to be lost itself.

"We won't let that happen," said Magnus, and the rest of us nodded.

Day 18

I spent today among the weavers, trying to get them to explain their processes or other stories of the town, but came away with very little. They're extremely polite and not what I would call tight-lipped, but they want to hear stories, not tell them. I suppose it's understandable; to them this way of life is everything they know, but our crew descended from the stars. They want to know about our home. It pains me to tell them. It's been seven years since we left. Seven years since we lost our home.

I don't have a journal about that world. Rather, I had many. The biographies I wrote or ghost-wrote. The piles of blue leather volumes I bound and filled with the stories of other people's lives. But those remained planetside. There was no reason to bring them--no reason to suspect that the seven of us would be the last survivors of our reality.

But I still have notes. Stories. Songs. When we have time, I still ask the others. Magnus is the most eager to talk. He's younger even than I am, and than I was. He should be twenty-eight years old by now, but every time we enter a new set of Planes he returns to the round, boyish face of a man barely out of adolescence. I wonder if the pride he takes in his sideburns is at least in part because they make him look older. It was important at the beginning because he really was so young, and it's important now because he isn't.

I brought a pile of my books out from the Starblaster. They are the right-handed copies, with writing that is slightly less smooth. The backups. If something happens to them, the first copies will still be safe on the ship. So I brought them out and read from them. Showed the villagers the sketches I'd done of our lilac sky with the two suns, of our trees and our clothes and our cities.

They muttered and nudged each other at the images of people going about their daily lives with no masks on, stared at the drawings of trees in disbelief.

"You just . . ." Jarrus asked. "You can just breathe?"

I nodded, and the look on her face broke my heart.

"Do you remember?" I asked. "Do any of you know stories about what it was like before the mushrooms came?"

They all shook their heads, and Riki, a halfling with pale eyes and a particularly long trunk-like mask, said, "I reckon there never was a before. They say there was, but some of 'em also say there'll be an after. And that's just mad. 'Slike you people coming in here, all mad with hope. It's not going to get better. Don't think it ever was."

"That's not true," Jarrus said. "My grandmother's mother was part of the first generation born in the village. And she told my grandmother, and she told me, that things used to be different. You used to be able to see the stars. You used to breathe free. But you know what? When they first came, the prophets said that the mushrooms and the Keepers would end the world, that it was the end of everything and no one would survive. But we did. We don't have much but we're still here, and I don't know about the rest of you but I'm going to hope that some day my daughter or her children or their children will be able to look back and say, 'We survived. We survived and we won and those damn Keepers still haven't beaten us.' Maybe they won't need these masks. Maybe they'll see the stars again."

Such speeches are uncharacteristic—for any of the villagers, but especially for the usually taciturn Jarrus. Riki refused to meet her eyes and went back to his weaving.

Soon afterwards, Vetch ran over to tell us it was time for dinner. Jarrus caught her up and pressed their foreheads together. It's a common greeting here among loved ones, perhaps an alternative to kissing since the lower halves of their faces are always covered by their masks.

The hymn to send off the scorch teams gets fuller every night. The entire village knows the song by heart and sings along. Tonight, Magnus and Barry attempted the baritone harmony. Their voices are enthusiastic if not always in tune, but I heard gasps from around me. Vetch watched the teams roll out from her favorite perch on Magnus’s shoulders, and when she ran back to her mother afterwards I saw that Jarrus was crying.

Day 19

(The first several pages of this entry consist of watercolor paintings of mushrooms. They are more brightly colored than the previous paintings. Notes to the side of the images read, ‘Pigment help from Barry and Lup. Red and yellow magically derived, others adapted from the distilled juice of the mushrooms’)

The new town border remains stable. The center of town remains green. To Captain Davenport’s chagrin, there are vines growing around the Starblaster, but none of them go near the engines so he can’t yet claim that they’re a safety hazard.

Spent another day in the forest with Frelya. My sketches are now nearly true to color, thanks to the scientific expertise of my crewmates.

As we were walking back, Frelya stopped shortly outside the first set of bonfires.

“I . . . haven’t asked for anything in exchange for taking you out here,” she said.

“I know,” I replied.

She turned and thrust an extra mask into my hands. One of the bulbous ones, made from the cured and waterproofed universal veils.

“Use your paints,” she said. “Make it . . . brighter.”

It make take more consultation before I can find a medium that will adhere to the mask’s material, but I know how I will be spending tomorrow.

Day 20

Have spent the day in painting and experimentation with Barry. The slick surface of the veil-cloth resists my standard preparations. If I knew less about the material I would be tempted to sand it to give quill and brush more tooth, but even though the process of curing it kills the spores I know better than to risk it.

It is refreshing to work on the ship and be able, at least for a while, to remove our own masks. It’s air-tight inside—as something designed to travel between realities should be—and we’ve established a system of knocks and small blockades to make sure no one opens the door to the outside when we aren’t expecting it.

It is strange how quickly we adapt. For our first few days in Fungston the constant presence of the mask was almost intolerable, but I find that I’ve become so used to it that going without makes me feel strange and vulnerable. Despite how little sunlight makes it through the clouds, Barry has a line running across the bridge of his nose with paler, sun-starved skin beneath it.

(The rest of the page is a careful experimental table of substrates and additives. Glued in next to it are narrow strips of thick, waxy cloth. All of them have been painted green. Most of the paint is chipped and flaking; some is translucent and uneven; some is discolored and has bit into the cloth. On the final strip, the paint is vibrant and flexes with the cloth when you move it. Around it are scribbled words in a circle: “Huzzah!” and its synonyms in Elvish, Dwarfish, and Draconic, as well as words in several other languages you don’t recognize but assume from context are further exclamations of excitement.)

Day 21

It took most of the day and most of the night before we found a medium that would work. Lup brought us coffee and laughed about how silly it is that humans need to sleep. It reminded me of our time back at the Institute. I still hope to find something readily available on this planet, but for now we rely on transmutation magic and egg-yolk tempera.

I suspect Lup of casting Sleep on the two of us shortly thereafter. She refuses to admit to it, but doesn’t deny it either. Bolstered by the excitement of our discovery, I had planned to stay awake through the remainder of the night and make some progress with the painting, but the next thing I knew Barry and I were both raising our heads from the table, having missed breakfast and made a spirited effort at missing lunch.

The twins were in the kitchen, and as soon as they saw us stirring they grinned and descended on us with two massive omelets, doubtless made from some of the unused experimental eggs.

I spent the rest of the day painting. I finished in time to meet Frelya as she returned from scorch team duty. She took the mask, now covered in images of delicate flowers and intertwining vines worked over a field of tiny truesilver stars, and turned it over and over in her hands. She was silent for a full minute.

“Thank you,” she said at last. “You’re . . . a real weirdo, but I don’t mind taking you to look at mushrooms.”

[marvelandponder]

I ❤ Comics

Because I’m so incredibly creative, this month of Year of the Pony has been all about lurve. All kinds of the stuff! Self-love, romantic love, familial love, and, of course, some good ol’ fashioned friendship/platonic love.

But, we all know there’s one love to rule them all: dorky/fanatic love!

The obsessions and ideas that rule our hearts and, in MLP’s case, drive us ponies. 

As much as I don’t want to take all this too seriously, this kind of love really is something special. For many of us, it’s the reason characters stick with us for so long, through any kind of mood you can imagine. It’s why we get lost in fantastical worlds on our screens and pages, and come back feeling like we’ll never forget the adventure we went on. It’s common ground to socialize in if we wish, or a quiet comfort that yours and yours alone. 

These things mean so much to us that it becomes a part of our identity. I’m a Brony, I’m a Rainbow Dash fan, I’m a this that or the other. We want people to see us for things we love because we’re just that proud of them. So long as there’s a healthy dose of perspective in the mix, I think that’s a good thing.

And one of the nerdiest, if not the nerdiest MLP topics I could think of to geek out over is the official IDW comics (the Enterplay trading cards, Star Trek cast members voice-acting for the show, and upcoming table-top RPG, Tails of Equestria, obviously deserve some honourable mentions here, but the comics just gave me more to talk about on a technical level)!

I figured the best way to go about this would be to go by artist (sorry colorists, letterers, and editors; you’re necessary and appreciated but apparently not glamorous). Last month, when we dove a little into Design and Animation, I didn’t really get to talk about the teams behind the work---which is mostly because MLP is a script-driven show as opposed to a storyboard-driven show, so the same animation teams and the same style goes into every episode (unlike Steven Universe, for example, which is ‘board-driven)---but here, who’s working on a comic makes a massive impact on how it’ll turn out.

With that said, we’ll stick to the most reoccurring artists (and gloss over the writers to save on time); if you’re ever curious, you can check out this page on the wiki for a full list on who did what, but I really ramble on too much as it is. 

Artists 

Here’s a big name! Andy Price, the man with the shadows and long, bendy pones. Price excels a quite a lot in terms of expression, and I think it’s because he adds such a sense of drama to these characters without taking away the cuteness or light-hearted personalities we’ve come to love. 

If anything, he’s gotten to add personality, especially to characters like Celestia and Luna who express their emotion much less visually in the show. Just take a gander at the sketches he gives out at conventions!

And as to the shadows, look at how involved the shading is in these inked panels:

Just look at how much of his panels are darkened, and just how much more dramatic it looks than it would with flat or lightly shaded colours.

Even a simple scene can benefit from Price’s style:

See where the shadow draws your eye (even when the shot is coloured)? To the sinister looking rat emphasizing the books, to Sunset, and to the shocked librarian who would know these books best. If you’ve read this issue, you know Sunset’s reading some books she’s really not supposed to---and in fact this is what leads to her downfall.

It’s a simple panel, there’s not even a lot of dialogue on the finished product, but you can tell Price uses shadows to compose his shots in a way that tells the story visually. 

Also, a word on page layout (this isn’t necessarily exclusive to Price, but since we’re talking about layout in terms of one panel...):

This is one of those things that I had a hard time finding a place for in this post that I would kick myself for if I didn’t talk about. It’s something exclusive to the medium and something that’s extremely impactful (as comic fans know).

It’s the flow of the page. How your eye moves from one panel to the next, and how different movements are expressed.

Price is one of the many MLP comic artists who do this effectively. In the first example there, you can see how the emotion shifts as we go down the page, how Celestia’s mane both transitions us into the next panel, and seems to hide her reservations from Sombra, Luna, and Starswirl.

And in the next example, there’s this wonderful transition mid-panel at the bottom there that takes us from the interior of the train to an exterior shot outside of it for Applejack’s final line of the scene.

It’s things like this (and even the layout of the word-bubbles, because those take a surprising amount of consideration to place in a panel) that shows you the artistry and thought behind these comics, and Price’s art in particular.

A personal favourite of mine, for sure.

What’s special about Amy Mebberson’s art-style is how it’s tweaked just so from the show, but certainly stands on its own as it draws emphasis to the roundness of these designs.

You’ll probably notice the simplicity of Mebberson’s designs, especially compared to someone like Price, but look how that works to her advantage:

Check out how close to the show it is, but just a touch rounder. Cute, right? The eyes are cartoonishly big, the heads closer to perfect circles than we normally see even in a 3/4 angle shot, it just brings your attention to how sweet these characters are.

Then there’s the fact that her work will often be coloured with a really soft, soothing texture to boot:

That powdery softness only makes these ponies cuter---and here I thought they had laws against that kind of thing!

Another awesome big player!

The thing about Hickey’s art is that it’s often coloured so that the manes are especially shiny, making the characters draw focus and pop off the page.

And even when things aren’t especially shiny, she still often finds ways to use the background to emphasize the characters:

(Underrated moment in the comics award might have to go to this, by the way)

It’s a very simple snowy scene, but that matches the tone so expertly, so isolating Applejack, her breath, and the snow is an excellent choice to get the emotion across.

And when things are glossy, it strikes me how energetic the characters can still look.

When things look this polished, the worry tends to be that you might make the characters look stiffer, but Hickey’s style strikes such a great balance between polish and flexibility.

This art style comes with its pros and cons, in my opinion, but it can still serve MLP pretty well. Garbowska’s art is often coloured as if with coloured pencils, which gives everything a really soft, soothing finish, and in addition can make for some pretty cute pones.

The downside is two-fold: The characters can seem like they all have Same Face syndrome, if you know what I mean; and the ponies are often posed in needlessly anthropomorphic poses (we’ve certainly seen a few more human-like poses throughout the series---yes, Lyra, we love you, you oddball---but there are some poses that just seem uncomfortable and [to use a slightly redundant word] unnatural for them to want to be in).

Still most definitely a great part of the team, just with a few quirks that come along with the sweetness.

Welp. Guess I couldn’t steer clear of controversy entirely. Jay Fosgitt’s art style in and of itself is divisive among fans---like, really divisive.

The reason being the drastically different shape to everything. Compare a Fosgitt head to a Mebberson head, for instance, and you’ll see there’s a lot more emphasis on the foreheads and cheeks than on the muzzle or an overall roundness.

It’s a very distinct style that comes with its advantages and disadvantages. Fosgitt’s not afraid not go for some extreme expressions, for instance, and that can really serve the story well in chaotic and/or comedic situations, but he’s also had that same problem of putting ponies on their hind-legs when it doesn’t seem organic for them to do so, and combined with the proportions exaggerated the way they are (like sometimes I don’t know how those necks keep their heads up), that can make for an off-putting panel or two.

It’s definitely cartoony. I’ve never been able to place exactly what artstyle it reminds me of, but cartoony is a good word. It’s grown on me, personally, especially considering the improvement from issue to issue, but I thought I’d mention this never-ending debate so you could make up your own mind.

Tony Fleecs is a great addition to the team. He’ll often give the eyes a point or just a different shape, which takes some of the cartoonishness out, but still allows for some great expressions in a way we don’t normally get to see, with our bulbous-eyed characters.

It can especially work if he’s trying to capture something menacing:

So, I think he’s among the better ones.

On the other hand, there have been a few times Fleecs’s art has lacked depth solely because of how things are shaded, like here (I can obviously tell where everyone is in relation to each other, but it’s flatter than if there had been some shadows to it):

But overall that feels more like a nitpick.

Now, we’d be here all day if I started going into all the cover artists (as much as we appreciate their work), but there’s one in particular that’s done enough that I’d feel remiss leaving her out.

Sara Richard is a good name to know because once you know it, you’ll always be able to point out her art. She’s got some of the only traditional art in our little roster, and it’s often got some gorgeous swirls. So many swirls.

If I wanted to be crass, I could call it colour and swirl porn... so I will. It’s colour and swirl porn, and I love it.

Writers

To preface this section, I’d like to take a moment to steal a catchphrase from the ever insightful MovieBob, previously of Escapist fame: comics are weird.

Really, even the best and brightest of the medium will occasionally have some really out there arcs or issues. For every intellectually stimulating, deeply meaningful story you can tell with these characters, there’s a silly rendition of them that’s just... odd. The same Batman who comes to grips with the death of his second ward, Jason Todd, is the same one who later owns a Batcow, thanks to his son Damien.

Yes, Batcow is canon.

So, if genre-defining superhero comics have been known to divulge into stranger stories from time to time, it absolutely follows that we’d see the same from colourful, pony-based children’s comics. Basically, that shark-jumping weirdness just... comes with the medium.

You can make all sorts of arguments about the origins of that oddness---the creative freedom available, attention-grabbing to boost readership, the Comics Code Authority heavily censoring violence and delinquent behavior in the 50s and 60s which forced writers to come up with tamer but also more creative stories, etc---but one thing is clear, if you’ve noticed some interesting choices mixed in there, it might just be a comic book thing.

But, then again, there are also issues that go way more in depth than you would think!

In particular, I have to make mention of my absolute favourite arc (I never claimed to be unbiased): Reflections. For the details, the comedy the lore, the immaculate world-building, and the emotions---but most of all the character-building.

Starswirl is an absolute delight, the good King Sombra breaks your heart, Twilight faces exactly what I wanted her to face once she became a princess, and the Princesses and their sisterhood get to be developed even more here than they have been in the show (especially Celestia; here’s hoping season seven really will break that streak).

Okay, example time. 

Here’s a detail that was just pointed out to me recently that really nails all of this on the head (and granted, I don’t know whether this came from its writer Katie Cook, or the artist Andy Price, but if nothing else it shows you what they can do together):

Two silent frames that tell us so, so much. 

It’s a simple idea, that these parallel universes have developed in different ways, but that tells us so much about why Equestria’s technology is the way it is. Having the power to jump to more technologically advanced universes has allowed our Equestria to be as anachronistic as it has been---to have arcade machines and silent movie theaters, but not automobiles or light bulbs in common use.

But this is what the comics can do: contextualize. 

Take characters and worlds we love and expand on them in new lights. Some weird, strange, or just cute for the sake of being cute, but some more involved and some even inspired.

The comics, overall, can be pretty divisive in this fandom. There are fans who frequent them for every new issue, and those who have sworn off them entirely. Artists and writers we revere and some we outright revile. But when all is said and done, being able to take on this new perspective of MLP in an entirely different medium is something I for one really appreciate---especially when it’s this good.

Here’s some more pony analysis for you! The whole compilation post here, or three of the latest/most relevant, just for you:

EMLP: Design & Animation, Pinkie Pie’s Editorial, and Top 10 Cutest Families

Year of the Pony

Header Image and Art Wouldn’t be Possible Without...

Luna and Celestia by dSana Elements of Harmony by SpiritofthwWolf Elements of Harmony by TechRainbow

There’s of course all those great comic artists and writers to go check out, but aside from the official art in this post, there’s some hard-working fan-artists who made some stellar vectors! Check ‘em out!

Love Me Some Comic Books