#until even the viscera bleeds; until even we can close the distance;

[freakinator]

[captain-tch]

All That I Can Give

summary: kiko is a struggling business owner thrown into the chaos of the borderlands. when she makes a mistake that will threaten her life, she learns just how far she will go to keep herself alive. 

TW: DEATH, MENTIONS OF ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, MENTAL HEALTH, TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS, VIOLENCE

chapter 10: little firecracker

previous chapter

Kiko bolted upright. Her hand flew to her chest as she cast a panicked gaze around the room. Tetsu was still asleep on the sofa, a light snore filling the silence around them. The door was still firmly locked as it was last night. From what she could tell everything looked normal. 

So why did she fly awake so suddenly? 

She shrugged it off. Maybe something in her dream startled her so much her brain pulled her back into reality. Not that she was sure what it could have been. Her dream had been polluted with a never ending cycle of her hands slamming the paper weight into Ryuk’s face. The loop brought a slight frown to her face. If she thought hard enough, she could still feel the ghosts of his blood and viscera on her skin. 

Lying back down, she tried to turn her thoughts away the dream she was having. She prayed she wouldn’t return to the world where she could relive one of the greatest moments, and greatest shames, in her life. Her eyes had started to drift close when she heard it. 

Voices. 

Kiko jumped to her feet. Her heart raced with each passing moment. She tried to gently shove Tetsu awake, going as far as lightly slapping his face. All he did was turn around in his slumber. Kiko muttered a strong swear word under her breath. 

She lunged for a nearby pan, holding it in a vice like grip. Creeping her way to the door, she sneaked a glance at the pharmacy. Inside, there were a group of five people. Men and women poked around their supplies, sweeping their arms along the shelves and stuffing as much as they could into their bags. All of them carried a weapon of some sort. 

Kiko couldn’t contain her gulp when she saw the sniper rifle. 

These people weren’t playing games. 

She turned back to look at Tetsu. The bruises looked even worse today. Her heart ached as her mind flashed to the game the night before. She wasn’t going to let anyone hurt him ever again. 

It was only going to be a matter of time before they started searching the entire pharmacy. These people take what they need, then steal everything they want. Kiko had a unsettling instinct that that included people too. Maybe she could distract them, or scare them away? Not that the latter was likely, her only weapon being the kitchen utensil gripped tightly in her hands. 

Kiko placed her hand on the door handle. Sending a silent prayer to whatever higher power was mocking her, she opened the door and slammed it shut behind her. 

All five intruders spun in her direction. Kiko suppressed the urge to shudder as the sniper rifle sight was trained on her. The man holding it leered at her, his pierced tongue darting out of his mouth. 

“What do we have here?” 

In the strongest voice she could muster (which was still riddled with a scratchy rasp), she commanded the room. “Take what you need and leave.” 

No one moved. 

Kiko raised her pan in an offensive position. She couldn’t imagine how pathetic she looked - a kitchen appliance against one sniper rifle, a katana and semi automatic weapons. The bruise on her neck and bandages covering her hand and elbow did nothing to support her case. Still, she stood her ground, trying to ignore how her knees shook. “I told you to leave.” 

“We’re not going anywhere.” The man nodded to one of his friends. Immediately they surged forward, stepping closer to Kiko. 

She spun around to face them. “I’m warning you!” 

They ignored her, moving forward and reaching for her. In one smooth move, she slammed the pan into her attackers head. They stumbled backwards, gripping their bleeding forehead with a curse. 

Simultaneously, Kiko heard the sound of three distinct clicks. 

“Leave. Now.” She prayed her words were as solid as her resolve.

“You’re a little fire cracker, aren’t you?” The man with the pierced tongue laughed. 

From the corner of her eye, she could see the man with the katana moving towards her. She subtly took a step back. Her weapon was nothing against his katana. The distance he had meant she would be skewered the moment she tried to attack him. 

“I’d be careful if I were you.” Kiko tensed her muscles. “Get too close and you’ll get burned.” 

With those words, she darted forwards. She ducked out of the way of her attackers, flying behind the shelves as a shield. Without a second thought she flung herself out of the shattered window, glass slicing into her legs. 

A shot rang out. 

Kiko fell to the floor. She groaned, pulling her head off of the concrete. She tried to pull herself upwards, only for a foot to land on her back. A cry ripped out of her throat. 

“Careful little firecracker.” The man whispered, metal pushed into her spine. She froze. “You’re coming with us.” 

“Hey, Niragi!” A new voice shouted. Kiko tried to crane her neck to see, wincing at the pain igniting in her body. “Guess what we found.” 

Kiko’s blood turned cold. It wasn’t long before Tetsu’s broken body was thrown besides her. Her eyes scanned him for any new injuries, struggling to differentiate between the old and the new. His chest was rising and falling. 

Kiko sighed a breath of relief. At least he was still alive. 

“What should we do with them?” 

Kiko clenched her jaw. 

“Let’s take them back. We could always use some fresh meat.”

With those final words, the butt of a gun slammed into the back of her head. The world around her melted away. 

                                                             *

Kiko awoke with a start. Her head banged with a blinding pain. Liquid was running down her arm. The bruises on her neck pulsed. She groaned, rolling her head to the side. 

She caught sight of Tetsu, his body limp in a chair. His hands were tied behind his back and his legs roped against a chair. The events of the last day came rushing back to her. 

Kiko thrashed against her bonds, groaning as more liquid moved further down her arm. The looters. The gun shot. The darkness. 

“Where the fuck are we?” Kiko muttered. She finally looked up to take in the rest of the room. Two of them tugged at a memory of the back of her brain. She swore she could remember encountering someone with those muscles, and that hoodie at her spades game. The more she tried to think, the more intense her headache got, until she was nearly crumbling in her seat. 

Giving up on those two, she surveyed the remainder of the room. She recognised some faces, sneering at the memory of them looting her temporary home. She couldn’t hide the smirk she saw at the cut on one of their foreheads. At least she managed to do a little damage. 

“You’re awake!” An eccentric man appeared in her line of vision. She had to control her expression, feeling an urge to raise her eyebrows at his robe and sunglasses adorning his face. “My name is Hatter, pleasure to meet you. How are you feeling?” 

Kiko remained silent. 

“Niragi here tells me he found you while they were on a supply run. Living in a pharmacy?” 

Her lips remained sealed shut. Hatter sighed, a dramatic hand falling to his forehead. He spun away from her, his robe swishing with the action. Already she got the vibe he had too high of an ego. She was itching to put him back in his place.

“How am I expected to help you, when you don’t speak to me?” His gaze turned to somewhere she couldn’t see. He gave a small motion of his hands. 

Kiko’s mind raced with the possibilities. Was that him delivering a silent kill order? Was that code for torture? 

She quickly found out as a finger pushed into her shoulder blade. Kiko’s body instinctively doubled over, a high pitched shriek forcing itself from her. More liquid rushed down her arm. She saw her own life drip to the floor, marking the carpet an ugly red. 

The gun shot. 

It hit her then that she must have been shot. The adrenaline of the attack must have diluted the pain. That, coupled with a constant, low pulsing agony all over her body, must have erased the injury all together. She was definitely feeling it now. Kiko clenched her jaw to stop herself from screaming - in pain or fury, she wasn’t sure. 

The pressure left her wound. Kiko gasped for breath, her body still crumpled. Hatter crouched down so he could meet her eyes. She fixed him with a steely glare. “You were living at the pharmacy, am I correct?” 

The memory of the blinding agony lingered as she reluctantly nodded her head.

“My men found some playing cards there.” Hatter pulled out an array of cards, including the seven of diamonds and two of clubs. Amongst the pile, she spotted a hearts card. Kiko’s interest piqued - that wasn’t one of hers. “Are these all yours?” 

“They’re ours.” Kiko cleared her throat. She jutted her head to Tetsu. “Some of those cards are his.” 

“I have to say, it’s quite an impressive collection.” Hatter flitted through them, assessing each one as if it held the secrets to life itself. “Can I ask you a question?” 

“Go ahead.” 

“How are you still alive?” His gaze wandered over the wounds littering her body. Compared to Tetsu, she was perfectly healthy. This didn’t go unnoticed by Hatter.

“Because I have to win. To get back home.” 

Hatter’s face lit up in a bright smile. “We need more people like you. Niragi, you were right to bring them here. I don’t necessarily, um, agree with the method.” He looked at Kiko’s bleeding shoulder. “Try not to shoot them next time.” 

Kiko resisted the urge to make a smart remark. It wasn’t like they were brought here by choice. 

“I have a proposition for you and your friend. If you’re willing to accept it.” Kiko subtly leaned forward. “I want you to stay here. You play games for us, and in return, we provide you a safe haven where you can do whatever you like.” 

“What’s the catch?” 

“We have three rules here. To maintain order, we all need to follow them. One - everyone wears beach wear. It’s harder to hide weapons.” Kiko’s eyes must have involuntarily moved to the muscled man’s gun for him to continue. “Only the militants can carry weapons.”

Once again she had to bite her tongue. It clearly wasn’t the best idea, considering her attackers seemed to have an addiction to spilling blood.

“Rule number two - turn in all playing cards you earn. And three... death to all traitors.” 

Kiko gulped. She had a feeling if she rejected this offer, she would be deemed a traitor. It was clear by the rules he was clearly unhinged - what other options did she have? 

“What is it you want with the playing cards?” 

The man spun around, pulling open a curtain Kiko didn’t notice earlier. Along the wall, was a diagram of all the possible playing cards. Some had crosses through them, while others remained unmarked. “Once we have a full set, one person can go back to the real world.”

Kiko glanced at Tetsu, still unconscious. The only thing reassuring her he was still alive was the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Her mind flashed back to her own brother, the cheeky glint long gone. Now with Ryuk out of the picture, she was determined to get that back. This was a chance to go home. A chance to see Riku again. 

“We accept.” 

She wasn’t sure how Tetsu would feel about her agreeing on his behalf. He was the one to say do anything you can to find your way home. They just had to follow the rules, and everything should be fine. As she told herself this, an uneasy feeling settled at the bottom of her gut. 

The man’s smile grew tenfold. He clapped his hands together. “Welcome to the Beach!”

[elderkale]

like a statue, like a wave

Andromaquynh Secret Santa gift for @andy-the-scythian​!

ft. sad coffin hours and excessive use of parentheses

AO3

Everything is subjective. The noise that rushes past her ears turns white and meshes with the rumble in her mind; hollow thuds like distant echoes in waterlogged ears.

There’s no time for thoughts when you’re drowning.

She thinks she screams. She thinks she doesn’t. She should be kicking, but maybe she can’t.

She heard, once—in a dream, perhaps—that the mind needs air to function. Maybe that’s why she feels like she’s lost hers.

She sees things, sometimes; blue skies through foggy gazes, black shores painted white with snow, steel that burns and cries and leaves her throbbing when she wakes.

She moves, or the water does, or maybe neither of them do and her rotting mind is just rocking in her skull.

She’d forgotten the word free centuries ago.

The water has been red for years. It’s an excellent spot for sharks.

The air escapes her before she can even manage to savour it and she’s drowning again.

.

It had not been, by any reasonable metric, the worst battle they’d ever fought in. Far from it, really. It had hardly even been a battle. She hadn’t even died.

Andromache had, though, and that was almost worse.

She’d been shot; she remembered that. Remembered tearing the arrow from her thigh with a scream she didn’t bother to stifle, and standing with a grimace. She’d grimaced as she stood, and bent her knee carefully against the itch of muscles knotting their way across their bones, felt the tingle of new, unmarred skin knitting itself together over fresh pink sinew.

She had, all of a sudden, realized just how very quiet it was.

(She’d marvelled at it, afterwards, in a way she hadn’t since the first time she’d pulled a blade from her throat, drawing her fingers again and again over unbroken skin until Andromache had taken her hand and pressed her lips to her palm, drawing her into her warmth.)

Still, too still, and cold to the touch.

She’d seen warriors, mortal, human ones, pull steel from their wounds only to collapse in seas of viscera and drown in floods of their own lives.

(Before, when it had been but an afterthought to her. Before, when there had always been the guarantee that they would come back.)

The blood beneath her fingers had been warm, still flowing sluggishly over skin that had felt like stone.

And she’d been so still—

(She’d confessed, once, in a whisper lost in the night to the desert winds, that there were times when she almost regretted their gift; times when she wished, somehow, that the healing were not quite so complete. Scars are promises—she is untethered.)

Andromache had spasmed beneath her and she’d jerked back, the arrow coming free in her hand. Andromache had surged up with a ragged gasp that had almost been a scream and she had let out a sob, collapsing into the heat of her embrace. Andromache had caught her, arms firm and strong around her, despite the glaze she had still been blinking from her eyes.

“Quỳnh,” she’d gasped, breath hot in her ear. “Quỳnh.”

.

Sound, she decides on good authority, doesn’t travel well underwater.

She speaks to the silence, screams for her blood, sobs for herself. What’s a little more salt in an ocean full of it?

Her words do not weave magic through the air, or deliver hell to damned doorsteps. She and Andromache were always joined in that; honesty over mystery, strength in hand with intensity. Her words are not a final blow; they are needles of rain and wayward winds, and grains of sand pressed into little cuts. They are blunt like rounded edges of broken glass and as smooth as the waves above her.

Poetry was for her to hear, not to weave, as music was for her hands, not her throat. Every strike of her knees against the cursed shell rips through the broken melody around her like a drum in a flood.

Her words don’t move anymore.

Her mouth opens, and her wail drags her back down into the darkness.

.

Andromache had been absolutely giddy with amusement. “Don’t pout, Kleanthe,” she’d chided, a grin tugging at the curve of her mouth.

Kleanthe. She’d been called Kleanthe, then.

“I’m not pouting,” she’d said with a scowl. Andromache had smiled blithely, rolling onto her side and propping her head up on her hand. “I’m not.”

“It’s just a model,” Andromache had said, “and the boy needs practice. It’ll be done in no time at all.”

Kleanthe had huffed and shifted her foot. Phidias had cleared his throat and tapped the end of his chin. She had rolled her eyes and craned her neck face turned towards the sun. “I never thought I’d tire of holding a bow,” she grumbled, “but it seems that today is the day. I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for throwing rocks from now, Andromache.”

Andromache had hummed. “I’m sure I’ll manage.”

Kleanthe had snorted. “How you talked me into this, I still can’t understand.”

(Andromache had been the face of more goddesses than she could count; she saw a labrys when she closed her eyes, a tablet, a spear, a queen draped in fleece. She moved like a figure carved already of gold, every rise and fall of her chest a surge of fire in a forge. She had never managed to master the same gift of stillness her love had been blessed with.)

“Have you never wondered?” Andromache had asked softly, slipping, perhaps without even noticing, into the private tongue that only they shared; words that flowed like honey down a sweat-slick wrist in the summertime, carried on a voice that bobbed and rippled like a trickle of rain down a stone in drought. “To be immortalized, some way else?”

She’d curled her fingers tighter around the polished grip of her bow. “We will outlive this statue,” she’d said. “It will be dust before we ever grow old.”

“Maybe.” There had been a distance in her voice, the kind that promised bliss and tragedy in the same breath, that offered a smile the way mourners folded themselves onto their knees before shrines.

“What is it?”

(She remembered the smile in her heart’s voice, remembered the twitch of a slender lip beneath her palm, remembered swollen lips and lines of red that vanished before her very eyes.)

“You’re beautiful,” Andromache had said.

.

Yusuf had believed in truth. Nicolò had believed in destiny. Andromache had believed in the world, and its endless capacity to disappoint.

She believes the universe simply likes its jokes.

She dreams of her homecoming, sometimes; imagines dragging herself across a shore of sand hot enough to sear her skin, sees herself crumple into her family’s arms. Andromache would wash the grit and salt from her hair, she knows, and run her fingers through it until it was as soft as silk, softer than when she’d found her and when she’d lost her. She’d rub her cheeks with the heels of her thumbs and kiss the ragged scabs from her knuckles and her knees.

There are no cuts, no gashes, no ragged fields of skin. There’s nothing for her to fix.

Is she healing? She doesn’t know.

.

The first time Andromache touched her, her skin had flaked away on her hands.

She doesn’t remember what she’d said, doesn’t remember if she’d said anything at all. It was as if she’d always been beside her, a silhouette formed by communion through sights and stars and sensations walking alongside her shadow. She’d known her name the way Andromache had known it herself, known intimately the lines on her palms and her distrust of shellfish. She’d known her annoyance every time her hair was tangled by the wind, and the way she lost knives the way birds shed feathers but would never fail to polish her strange, rounded axe every knight, starting at the handle and working her way up to the blades. She’d known everything and nothing, and Andromache had known the same.

She remembered the first beat of her heart when Andromache’s shadow had passed her, remembered the way she’d nearly sobbed at the relief from the merciless beating of the sun.

Andromache had crouched, placing her labrys by her head; the blade had flashed in the midday sun, nearly blinding her for the third time that day. She had hesitated, or maybe she hadn’t—she couldn’t recall, or perhaps just hadn’t seen.

She remembered the first touch of fingers to her cheek, remembered feeling muscles flexing and twitching beneath new skin as it bloomed from burning red salt. She’d spoken like a carrion bird learning to sing, cradling her head in her lap like she was something precious, something wonderful.

“What did you say?” she’d asked almost two hundred years later.

“What?”

“The first time we met,” she’d said. “When you held me. What were you saying?”

Andromache had hummed, nose pressed into the side of Quỳnh’s neck. “I asked you if you could see me,” she’d said, “the way I could see you. I thought I was just dreaming; I’d seen you for so long—”

Quỳnh had taken her hands and brought them to her lips. She’d pressed a kiss, feather-light, to the tip of one finger, then the next, and Andromache had flushed. “Me too,” she’d murmured against her skin. “I thought I was dreaming, too.”

.

She sees Andréa scrubbing blood from torn blue silk on the banks of a silver river, and feels her fist break her nose from a thousand miles away. Andrew tosses a star-striped flag into a flame, and twitches beneath a cloud of poison in a furrow carved through the earth. Andy shoots her in the back of the head, and bleeds on a carpet in front of a wall of triumph.

Victory is a pyrrhic thing.

Everything blurs. She is Quỳnh, and Kleanthe, and Quintina, and Anya. She is Sebastien, and Booker, and Nile, and Quỳnh. She is Andromache, and Yusuf, and Nicolò, and she is Quỳnh.

There’s so much she doesn’t remember.

She wants to remember.

She opens her mouth, and her next breath comes out as a cough.

.

“Have you seen this, love?”

“Hm?” Quỳnh cracked one eye open to peer up at the tablet Andy was brandishing at her. “I’m afraid not,” she said, closing her eyes again. “You’ll have to read it to me, my heart; you know how those screens make my head hurt.”

Andy scoffed. “Please. I know Nile helped you download Candy Crush.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Why would I crush candy? And the ads are infuriating.” She nudged Andy’s hip with her cheek and idly stroked her fingers along the other side of her wife’s stomach. “What is it?”

“Someone broke into the Met,” Andy told her.

“Ah,” said Quỳnh, wrapping a hand around Andy’s wrist. “The Met. Of course. Which one is that?”

“Oh, you know,” said Andy, grinning openly as Quỳnh tugged at her to lie down. “Big one. Kind of ugly.” Quỳnh chuckled as she slid a leg over Andy’s and sat up, straddling her hips. “Joe took you last week.”

“Did he?” Quỳnh asked, pressing a kiss to Andy’s clavicle. Andy hummed, arching her neck. “I can’t recall. My memory must be going in my old age.”

“Huh.” Quỳnh smiled into Andy’s neck, nipping lightly at the skin over her pulse. “Thing is,” she said, voice faltering only slightly when Quỳnh’s lips brushed the sensitive spot beneath her ear, “the thief only took one thing.”

“Sounds sensible,” murmured Quỳnh, dragging her lips down Andy’s shoulder. “It must be difficult to carry many things through a window.”

Andy made a small, pleased noise in the back of her throat. “You don’t want to know what they took?”

“Hm.” Quỳnh leaned back on her heels, putting a finger to her chin. Andy growled, and she grinned. “A vending machine?”

“Funnily enough,” said Andy drily, lip curling as Quỳnh leaned down, hands lightly circling her wrists. “Those were emptied, too.”

“Have you ever had a Cheeto, Andromache?” asked Quỳnh, stroking the insides of Andy’s arms. Andy groaned, wriggling beneath her. “They’re remarkable.”

“We can buy snacks, Quỳnh.”

Quỳnh pouted. “Where’s the fun in that?”

(She hadn’t hidden it in the apartment—she’s not an idiot. She’d rented a storage unit.)

Andy snickered, then turned her head and bit playfully at Quỳnh’s hand. Quỳnh yelped, drawing it back on instinct, and Andy lunged, sending both of them tumbling across the bed. Quỳnh let her head hit the pillow with a laugh, and Andy collapsed on top of her, snickering uncontrollably.

“I thought you didn’t like it,” she said when she’d finally calmed down. Quỳnh hummed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

(There was a bruise on her shin from where she’d banged her leg on the door last week, and smaller, private ones littered down her chest. The cut on her cheek was still fresh enough to be tender, though it had already closed, and, beneath her fingers, Quỳnh could feel the raised edge of a scar she knew to be thin and white.)

She shrugged lightly, and Andy moved with her. “You did,” she said simply, brushing a strand of hair from Andy’s eyes. The black was beginning to recede, and she could see the tips of time-bronzed gold at her roots.

(They hadn’t stayed in Athens long enough to see the sculpture finished; it’s still just a model. The tip of the bow had broken off, as had all but the bridge of the nose. More scratches had Quỳnh found in the plaster than she had ever counted in her own skin at once, and there was a crack snaking its way down the spine like a viper through the sand.)

Andy smiled and pressed their lips together.

.

(And carved carefully into a weather-worn heel:

I was here.)

[gyromitra-esculenta]

‘Jack the Stag, and Other Works Penned by the Esteemed Songstress Sombra’. It’s an inside joke, probably. Kind of Part 3. Unedited. Personally, I’m liking this story more and more.

Otherwise: a bad Witcher AU but not because of the TV series (rest is somewhere here either under totally not witcher au or murder-deer tag)..

Warnings: blood, animal death (implied but not really), Jack has a thing against dryads only he does not, discussions of the price. Bad puns. (also, we are nearing towards one of the resolutions \o/)

*

Gabriel broods foregoing any further attempts at having a conversation and this time he's thankful for Jack ignoring him - until the brief vibration of the medallion when they pass through the boundary of the dryad grove brings him out of the dark reverie.

The air Gabriel inhales is rich with the smell of berries and coniferous trees, the light comes from no obvious source, and in front of him Jack suddenly whips back as an arrow flies past him.

"Oi! You stupid bitches," he screams in retaliation, "at least hit or miss proper!"

True to his words, some blood trickles down from the gash on his arm, and Jack almost dives forward to evade the other arrows fired at him while still shouting profanities, at least until a sort of a reverent whisper carries on the breeze as dryads emerge from their hiding spots.

"Wasn't that hard, was it now? I want to speak to your tree-mother." Jack strides forward, ignoring the way the dryads congregate around and try to touch him in passing - which absolutely has nothing to do with the patch of blooming flowers springing up from the bloodied stone.

Only it does have everything to do with it, and Gabriel pauses on the way to pick two of the cornflowers not sure what he intends them for. When he catches up, Jack sits in the grass surrounded by a circle of the adoring dryads responding to his every question.

He finds a spot away from them but close enough to hear the indistinct chatter, some of Jack's words carrying over the murmur of the other voices.

Gabriel turns the flowers in his hand, a gesture to keep himself busy paying only the nominal attention to his surroundings.

The touch sliding over his shoulder and fingers wedging below the hardened leather comes as a surprise. He glances at the dryad tilting her head now at him, her eyes half-lidded and parted lips stretching in a little smile. Gabriel just raises his eyebrows as she moves closer.

Soon, her arms circle his neck and she almost sits on his legs.

"Hands off and where I can see them, you tree harlot," Jack almost snarls from where he stands above her and the dryad shies away with haste, coy and supplicant, stealing glances and them both. "Scram! Now!"

"Fucking tree whores thinking they can touch anything they want only because they want to!"

Gabriel slips the flowers behind the pack as Jack sinks to the ground next to him, still ranting, keeping his eyes steady on the visibly pouting dryad slinking back to her sisters.

"The pond is there, you need to clean yourself so I can dress your back properly."

This grabs Jack's attention and he tries for the same sultry expression the offending dryad wore on her face. It's ridiculous, even without the dried insect viscera in his hair.

"I remember someone offering to wash my back in exchange for his sword?"

"Not like this. I'm serious," Gabriel adds seeing Jack bat his eyes, adding whole layers of absurdity to his attempt to act seductive. "Stop it, you look about as captivating as Sombra put in a gown."

"There's really no making you happy, is there?"

"I'll be happy when your back is taken care of." He nudges Jack's arm with his hand. "C'mon. You can tell me all in the meantime."

"All?" There's a flicker of darkness swiping over the blue and white of his eyes and Jack smiles.

Gabriel doesn't deign to answer and points in the direction of the pond, watching Jack get up with a groan and plod to the bank where he proceeds to make a spectacle out of losing his boots and pants. Several of the dryads hiding in the reeds are certainly appreciative of it.

"Get into the water, no stalling," Gabriel mutters gutting the bag to find everything he needs. Truth be told, he could use a bath too but he's not going to risk it, especially not with the same dryad slowly inching closer. "Vatt'ghern. Infertile," he tells her in low voice.

Any pretense of interest she might have carried is immediately extinguished by an expression bordering on offended. The scoff coming from her is drowned by the sound of water splashing and a scream.

"Melitele's tits, it stings!"

"And if you don't do it, it will get worse!"

"I'd rather sleep in an ant nest!" Jack sputters between dunking himself under surface and vigorously rubbing his hair to get the crusted remnants of the centipede out of it. "Or have my mouth stung by a bee!"

"Do I want to know?"

"No. It was embarrassing, the honey didn't help."

The image of Jack with his lips all swollen and puffy is enough to elicit a snort out of him. When he looks up, Jack's staring back at him from the water with an amused tilt to his head.

"Made you laugh, little cub."

"Are you done?"

"Oh, I don't know about that."

"You're crazy if you think I'm going to look." Gabriel turns his head back down to the preparations, mixing the crushed herbs with the lard.

"Fine, be this way," Jack huffs, splashing some more before he decides it's enough, and he marches out of the pond.

Without any additional prodding he sits in front of Gabriel with his back turned to him. Droplets of water and some duckweed stick to his skin and Gabriel brushes them off with the cloth before he starts applying the ointment.

"So why did they let the bugs run off the leash?"

"Tree-mother's been asleep for generations, and now she's dying, so their control over the grove is slipping."

"They're not true, are they?"

"Mixed. They have a cozy agreement with the men in the village, once a year they get a kid or three out of it, some other in-between."

"You'd think there would be more of them." Gabriel puts finishing touches to the burn and moves to the graze on the arm.

"Do you see any boys here, cub?"

"This much, I've guessed. They're not going to keep this place for much longer."

Jack turns around and shifts to his knees.

"I could give them time. A lot of it, to last for generations more."

"Could, not would," Gabriel notes while slicking back blond hair from Jack's face to inspect the wound on his cheek, reddened and hot but bleeding no more.

"They have nothing to offer in return that I'd want."

"You could ask some to lie with you, they'd probably fight one another for it."

"The key is want. But," Jack looks at him expectantly, and his palm covers Gabriel's fingers resting on his cheek, "I could do it for you, little cub. Do you call upon the Covenant and pay the price?"

"I do," Gabriel answers after a moment of hesitation, remembering the last time Jack had asked him the same. "Wait."

He reaches for the cornflowers and fits them behind Jack's ear - making sure the stems hold in place. The smile he is given in return is full of unspoken words.

"You'll make me think you care, cub," Jack drawls in content tones. He moves closer and splays his fingers on Gabriel's thighs, their noses almost touching.

"Pants."

"Do I have..."

"Yes, you do," Gabriel cuts short the petulant whine by thrusting the bundle of cloth in his face.

"Since when do you always have a spare pair?" Jack grumbles under his breath - backing off and getting his feet into the pant legs.

"Since you insist on promenading buck naked all the time."

Jack freezes with the trousers around his knees and stumbles a bit.

"Was that a pun?"

"Maybe."

"Commit to it, then, so I can hate you proper for it."

"No." Gabriel raises his eyebrows.

"Careful, cub, you're like a spring's fawn on November’s ice." Jack pulls up the pants, ties the strap, and stretches before turning on his heel. "Coming?"

"Wait," Gabriel calls out after him, following closely behind, "you didn't name the price."

"And you had not asked before agreeing," Jack flashes him a wry smile over his shoulder. "I'm trusting you to keep the word given and pay back what is owed, little cub."

"I can't do that if..."

"Hush, little cub."

Jack leans down and picks up a broken stone barely breaking his stride. The dryads flock to the sides but keep their distance as he stops in front of a wilted tree, looking at it attentively with his head tilted back.

The gnarled branches spread in canopy above the clearing, the aged roots pierce the ground around the massive trunk except for the path free of any growth on which Jack stands with his bare feet braced on dirt and stones. His left palm smooths over the cracked bark.

The impression Gabriel has that Jack in his vindictiveness aims to teach him a lesson evaporates when he begins to speak.

"You're so old that you remember the time before them. You've earned your peaceful sleep, many times over. But you left the children alone without guidance."

He grips the stone in his left hand and with a wince cuts the inside of his right palm with it, slow and deep.

"So sleep longer and dream, and from those dreams let the seed come that will grow a sapling to continue in your stead so the children are taken care of."

Fingers smear the blood on the trunk before Jack presses his hand to it. Into it.

Gabriel's medallion jumps violently straining against the cloth of his shirt and the chain - trying to break free before it falls slack as suddenly as it had started to react to the magic.

Gabriel finds himself moving even before the bloodied stone slipping loose from the grip Jack had on it registers fully in his mind. He almost slides, ending in a crouch with his arms outstretched and catching Jack's full weight before he hits the ground in a dead faint.

He's cold, so cold, wracked by shivers, and his breath burns Gabriel's cheek.

"I need something to warm him up," Gabriel barks an order at the surrounding dryads, undoing the buckles of his armor with one hand while he cradles Jack to himself with his other arm.

He throws the chestpiece awkwardly to the side and strips his shirt - hands are holding out furs and worn out blankets. Gabriel grabs as many as he can and wraps them around himself and Jack, pulling him closer, tangling their legs together before he lies back on the ground.

Jack, with his face cradled in the nook of his neck, is still running hot and cold, skin frigid to the touch and each exhale scorching, trembling with no respite in sight.

"Fuck." Gabriel purses his lips unsure if anything he does, and could do, is even helping.

Above them, the dead branches sprout green leaves and flowers bloom filling the air with sweet aroma but he can only think about running his hands over the hair on the neck of a great old stag gasping painfully for its breath, of curling his fingers around the arrow shafts.

He remembers the weight of the knife he had plunged into its flesh, no, not the swiftest of deaths, and the blood pooling beneath them - seeping into the ground to give birth to a miracle - and it is the knife he feels between his fingers twined into blond locks.

Where he sat at the edge of the river, Jack had laid with his head in Gabriel's lap unaware of the attentions of rusalkas and nymphs focused on him as he trembled with the same kind of chill clinging to his skin, lips blue at the edges and warmed on the inside by his breath.

Gabriel had asked then, bound by the curiosity, and the one with the crown of water lilies in her damp hair almost laughed at his question.

"Silly man," she whispered with the shimmer of a stream spilling over the rocks, her dark eyes glinting, "it is no fun when he sleeps."

As enigmatic answer as ever, and no less he came to expect from creatures of her ilk - speaking in riddles unless they want something - but one that explained enough. He had spent the rest of the night with fingers tracing the jagged grey scar under which a steady pulse ran.

And in the same fashion Jack's skin slowly warms as his breath cools and shiver subside. Soon, the hand resting on his chest shifts slowly to touch the leather pouch on the string.

"Never take it off," the voice in which Jack speaks is barely audible. "Never tell anyone."

"I won't. I wouldn't." Gabriel looks at his face where under the lashes only a sliver of blue glimmers. "What did you take for it?"

"I wanted you to catch me," Jack murmurs against his skin.

"You couldn't have..."

"I trusted you to catch me, little cub. And you did."

"That's fucking ridiculous, you twat," Gabriel laughs - it's strained and leaves his throat raw and hurting. "And I was asking about the flower. What was the price for the flower?"

"A kiss."

"A kiss," Gabriel repeats after him because it is even more preposterous than anticipated

"Now," Jack puts a finger against Gabriel's lips, stopping whatever he might say, "a kiss had been asked, and a kiss had been given. It is not for you to decide what makes a kiss."

"A kiss. Was it worth all of that?"

Jack shifts and moves so that his elbows rest on the sides of Gabriel's head, and he looks down at him.

"Why do you want me to tell you it was not?"

"Because when you get what you want..." Gabriel swallows past the dryness in his throat. "You will leave, won't you?"

Jack chuckles with his lashes lowered and his head inclined curiously to the side, lips pushed forward almost in a pout.

"My foolish little Gabriel, why, oh, why would I leave if the only thing I want is you? Have I not made myself known?"

[swilmarillion]

A Love That Bleeds | read on ao3

Written for @terrifyingtolkien week 2019.  Heavily inspired by the incredible way that @imindhowwelayinjune writes these two.

               Celegorm moves with easy, practiced grace.  His steps make no sound in the underbrush, though he is less certain these days that this is by any virtue of his own. These woods are strange and silent and still, and he thinks perhaps there is no sound in them their lord does not allow.  Still, he is not frightened by the stillness, or the eerie sense of being watched.  He is welcome here, has always been welcome here, and he walks on, unafraid.

               Unafraid, yes, but also, though he little cares to admit it, uneasy.

               Things are different since the Oath. Stranger.  Wilder.  Less certain than they had been all his life before.  Paths that once seemed straight and true and yielding twist under his feet, leading him in ways he is not sure he wants to go.  Lesser hearts might have turned away, might have fled for the safety of the fields beyond the wood, away from the silent, judging eyes that surrounded him, unseen and unheard, but not un-felt.  

               But Celegorm’s heart is mighty, bold and unyielding, and he walks on toward the forest’s heart.  He is welcome here.  He has always been welcome here.

               He does not yet know that always can be a thing of the past.  He will know it one day soon.

               He steps out of the trees and into a clearing he knows by heart.  He has seen it countless times before, roamed its impossible boundaries and lain in its soft, green grass.  He knows it in sunlight as well as in shade, and he knows it now in the dark and moonless night.  There is a fire burning in its center.  There is always a fire burning there.  He has fed it himself in days past, with wood gathered and split by his own rough hand.  Its eternal flame has warmed him, dried his clothes, fed his belly with spit-roasted flesh, and taken his offerings and thanks.  

               It burns low tonight.  He is not sure why.  He passes the low-banked flames and tries not to wonder.

               The tent is where it always is, just past the fire’s dancing light.  It is white like bone and splattered with shifting red.  Celegorm has never noticed how much the flames look like blood on the seamless, faultless cloth.  He tries not to notice it now.  Steeling himself, he reaches for the fold of the entrance and ducks inside.  

               He has known Oromë for more years than he can count, and yet the sight of him still takes Celegorm’s breath away.  There is a quality of wonder to all the Valar, for they are something Other, something ancient and strange and fey.  Yet he has always loved Oromë best, loved the smooth black of his flesh, the bone-decked braids of his hair, the tattoos that shift and change before his eyes.  He has always loved the warm gold of Oromë’s eyes, the blinding white of his smile.  

               (His mind strays unbidden to the memory of the feel of Oromë’s hands, the rasp of his voice in the dark, the searing satisfaction of his own pleading, brutally answered.  He pushes these thoughts away.)

               Oromë isn’t smiling now.  His face is grave, though not angry, and Celegorm takes heart. “Lord Oromë,” he says, inclining his head.

               “Tyelkormo,” Oromë says in return.  His lips do not move.  They do not have to.  Celegorm hears him all the same.

               There is silence between them for a long moment.

               “You are leaving me,” Oromë says.

               “I am leaving Aman,” Celegorm says.  “I am not leaving you.”  Oromë tilts his head, a familiar gesture of interest that makes Celegorm ache inside, and he pushes on.  “What is distance to a god?” he says, a lightness in his words that he does not feel.

               “The leagues of the earth are nothing to me,” Oromë says, and Celegorm knows that this is true.  “But there are other kinds of distance, Tyelkormo.”

               Tyelkormo.  Hasty-riser. He has always loved the sound of his name on Oromë’s tongue.  What others despise, Oromë has always cherished—boldness, action, impulse without fear.  It is what has always endeared him to the Vala, and Celegorm hopes it will do so now.

               “If I have offended you,” he says, striding forward to close the distance between them, “then I beg your forgiveness.  It was not my intent.”  He bows his head, respectful if not contrite.  “I have loved you well these many years.  I have learned your lessons and kept your ways.  I have given you the first blood of my hunts and the glory of my skills.  I have sought your pleasure and your blessing in all things, and if I have lost it through this oath, then I am sorry.”  

               “It is not my blessing you should fear to lose,” Oromë says.

               “Yours is the only blessing that matters,” Celegorm answers, bowing his head low.

               Oromë reaches out, rough palm cupping Celegorm’s chin, raising his face and looking into his eyes.  “Tyelko,” he says, his voice low, reverberating in Celegorm’s chest.  His thumb reaches up to stroke Celegorm’s lips, and Celegorm turns his head to kiss Oromë’s palm.

               “What do you want of me?” Oromë asks.

               “Your love,” Celegorm says, heart aching in his chest.

               “You have had it many times before,” Oromë says, feeling the warmth of Celegorm’s blush beneath his hand.  “You do not come to seek it now.”

               “Your blessing,” Celegorm says.

               “You have that too,” Oromë says, “though you grieve me by the swearing of this oath. Tell me what you really seek, son of Feanaro.  My patience is a brittle, and it wears thin.”

               “I have no right to ask,” Celegorm says, eyes downcast, unwilling to meet Oromë’s gaze.

               “It has never stopped you before.”

               Celegorm breathes in, breathes out, steels his courage. “You have always shown me kindness,” Celegorm says, looking up at him at last.  “Though I have been angry and impetuous and unworthy.  I ask your kindness one time more, though I stray far from where you would have me be.  Grant that I may always find that which I seek, and I will give you the glory of my success.”

               Oromë withdraws his hand, and Celegorm mourns the loss of his warmth.  Oromë’s eyes are hard, and Celegorm fears he has gone too far.  

               “I may not have my brothers’ gift for prophesy,” Oromë says, “but even I can see you ask me for a curse.”

               “You could never do me ill,” Celegorm says.  He wants to believe that this is true.

               “The things we seek,” Oromë says, “are not always the things we wish to find.  I fear you’ll learn this, to your sorrow.”

               Celegorm is afraid now.  He has never liked to be afraid.  He reacts the only way he’s ever known.  “Ask of me what you will,” he says, lifting his chin defiantly. “I will do it.”

               Oromë’s face is hard; his voice, when he speaks, is cold is ice.  “Bring me a white stag’s heart,” he says, “and I will grant this thing you ask.”  There are rules that even he must follow, though he loves them little.  He turns away.

               Celegorm takes his leave, and heads back into the forest.

*****

               It takes him three days.  He eats what little he can forage and drinks the cold water of the streams he comes across.  He sleeps little and wanders long, following tracks and scents and fleeting glimpses through the trees.  The white stag is rare, and it is sacred.  It is not a thing killed lightly, and Celegorm feels the weight of it as he stalks the cunning beast through field and stream and clawing underbrush. He wastes arrows and shatters a spear, curses and despairs and hardens his heart.

               It takes him three days, but he kills the thing at last.  It is not an easy death.  The stag is larger than any deer he has felled, and fights with every ounce of its inhuman strength.  An arrow pierces it, but it does not fall.  A spear makes it stumble, and Celegorm gains.  It is a knife that finally finishes it, stabbed through the shoulder and the chest, slashed viciously across the throat.  It does not give its spirit willingly.  One great, shining antler pierces Celegorm’s side, and he grits his teeth against the pain of it, hacking at the shining down of the throat until the knife falls from his hand, greased with hot blood and gleaming viscera. The stag falls not long after, crashing to the bank of a stream and lying still at last, still at last.

               Celegorm falls with it, knees buckling beneath him, hands shaking as he peels up his shirt.  The wound is deep and jagged, his own red blood seeping through the fabric to mix with the golden gleam of the stag’s.  Celegorm peels off his shirt and tears it, shaking hands methodically folding it and pressing it into place.  Two more long strips bind it to him, and he pants, dazed and shaken, the world spinning before his eyes.  He kneels in the dirt and thinks how easy it would be to sleep, how soft the grass beneath him, beckoning.

               He grits his teeth and crawls to the beast, heaving it onto its back.  He hacks the heart from its chest and pulls it free, watching the golden blood spill through his fingers and down his arms.  It beats against his palm, and he thinks it must stop, it cannot go on, the beat of it louder than the stream, the birds, the cry of the cicadas in the trees.  

               It does not stop.  Celegorm cradles it to his chest, shivering as it touches his chest. He wipes the gore-soaked knife on his breeches and slides it into the sheath.  Then he steels himself and stands, wincing at the searing pain in his side.  The world swims before him, and he closes his eyes, breathing raggedly.  He takes a deep breath, then another, then another. He opens his eyes and begins to walk.

*****

               When he reaches the clearing, Celegorm is exhausted. He is ragged and battered, feet stumbling beneath him.  He has bled too much; his skin is cold, and the trees spin dizzily before his eyes.  The earth calls to him, bids him to fall on the soft grass, to rest his head on the moss.  He does not heed its call.  He staggers past the fire and pushes his shoulder against the entrance of the tent.

               Oromë is there, as he is always there.  Celegorm has suspects he is there even when he is not. The thought makes his head spin, and he pushes it away.  He stumbles forward until he reaches Oromë, until the sight of him fills his vision and the smell of him makes him weak.  He falls to his knees and holds the heart in his outstretched hands.  It beats against his palms, strong as the moment he plucked it from its cage of bone.  “The heart of the white stag,” he whispers, almost too weak to speak.

               “Eat it,” Oromë says, and Celegorm obeys.

               It is a terrible thing that he does.  He will do many more terrible things in days to come, and some will be much worse, but none will fuel his nightmares more than this. The heart is warm, and the flesh beats against his teeth as he chews is.  The blood is bitter and hot, burning his lips.  It gags him when he swallows.  A lesser will might have given up, but Celegorm is nothing if not persistent.

               When the last chunk slides heavy down his throat, Oromë kneels and takes Celegorm’s face in his hands.  He kisses him, and the blistered flesh of Celegorm’s lips screams at the pressure.  He shivers as Oromë’s hand caresses his tired flesh, sliding smoothly through the gore and mingled blood that soaks him.  He lets Oromë lift him, moaning softly as the torn flesh of his side rips anew.

               Oromë carries him to his bed and lays him on the furs, soothing Celegorm’s hiss of pain with a kiss to the hollow of his throat.  “I feared the beast has killed me,” Celegorm says, turning his head to the side to see Oromë’s face.  

               Oromë kneels beside him, stripping the sodden fabric from his wound.  Celegorm cries out as the fabric tugs at his flesh.  Blood spills from the gash and stains the fur beneath him.  “It is not yet your time,” Oromë says, pressing a warm, damp cloth to the wound.

               “I have done the thing you asked of me,” Celegorm says, his teeth gritted against the pain.

               The cloth in Oromë’s hand is soaked with crimson and gold.  His touch is gentle, but the pain is intense, and Celegorm bites his tongue to keep from crying out.  Oromë wipes away the blood, and when he pulls back his hand, the wound ceases to bleed. He does not look at Celegorm.

               Celegorm reaches for Oromë’s hand.  “Oromë,” he says.  “Please.”

               For a moment, Oromë is silent, and Celegorm’s heart is in his throat.  Then Oromë lifts Celegorm’s hand to his lips and presses a kiss to his knuckles.  “I will do the same,” he says.  There is sorrow in his voice, and Celegorm, spent as he is, cannot fathom why.  “Rest, now,” Oromë says, leaning down to press a kiss to Celegorm’s forehead.  “In the morning, you must go.”

*****

               It is daybreak when Celegorm wakes, warm and contented and blissfully free of pain.  He sits up and runs a hand over the jagged white scar on his side, the only sign of the wound that nearly killed him.  He looks for Oromë, but the Vala is nowhere to be found.  Celegorm sighs and picks himself up.  He casts a last, longing glance around the tent and pushes his way outside.  

               It takes him a moment to realize what is strange about the clearing where he stands.  The fire, ever-burning, has gone out.  He kneels beside it and presses a hand to the coals.  They give no hint of the flames that outmatched his own height only the day before; the embers are cold and crumble beneath his hands.  He stands up, uneasy, and startles at the rattle behind him.  He turns to find the tent has collapsed, falling in on itself in a heap.  He goes to it, watching in dismay as the fabric twists and tears and crumbles, aging an eon before his eyes.  

               He backs away, eyes darting uneasily around the clearing.  He is beginning to understand the sorrow in Oromë’s eyes, the regret in his voice. Later, he will share it.  For now, he turns and runs.  

[doorsclosingslowly]

Your Death is a Number but I Cannot Count that High (2/?)

In which Maul has a weird dream, and also some soup.

canon divergent after Son of Dathomir | 2.6k | read on AO3

“I am an unworthy apprentice,” Savage grinds out. He’s nothing but wet gasps and sounds and blood on the dirty floor. “I’m not—”

Maul forces his brother’s mouth shut then, violently violently enough to make teeth crack. His right hand wraps itself around Savage’s face, around the lower half, and Maul pushes the jaw closed with enough desperation that he almost overbalances, almost tumbles down onto his brother instead of kneeling by the fallen body and bending over it. Barely in time, he manages to brace himself against the floor with the free hand. His ingernails dig into the soft skin of Savage’s cheeks with enough pressure that they scrape the skin off, warm trickles of blood, and Maul’s thumb slips into the fleshy spot between jawbone and neck. Deep bruises, tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow for them. The whimpers are muffled. The apology is silenced.

He will not have his apprentice (his brother, his dying brother) waste his last few breaths on frivolous words. Instead, he traps air and the green icy twisting magic—traps life—inside.

(It’s true, Maul had resented his bumbling apprentice. It always seemed unfair that Maul had tried so hard and suffered so much punishment and failed, and yet Savage knew nothing and he wasn’t hurt. A wrong impulse: there is no fairness but the Master’s will. Besides, the imbalance could have been corrected, but…)

None of this matters now, and there are so many words—I’ll never leave you, brother, because this is a wish after all, I will not leave. I am not dying. This wound is not real—so many words that he wants to hear, and won’t. He will not allow Savage to speak.

Desperately, he holds the green light inside Savage’s jaw.

Some of it escapes, drools out like spit: icy green ethereal burning saliva. The magic spills down over Maul’s fingers and elbows, rears up angrily—it is not his; it does not like to be held—and it flows up Maul’s nose and takes away the air until he’s lightheaded, but still, he holds Savage’s mouth shut. Still, he wraps his mind around the threads that have already slipped out. He tugs. He gathers and stuffs them inside every hole he can find, ears and mouth and nostrils and the charred spots where Master impaled Savage on his red blades. He pushes magic and whatever else he can find deep inside twin damaged loving hearts. Into lungs. Into muscle tissue and gristle and arteries.

Maul’s hands are not a barrier: the green light is not physical. He shoves it through his own flesh. It hurts. Something scrapes against Maul’s skin, cutting through his index finger: a piece of shrapnel, detritus from broken stained-glass windows that must have been caught in his concentration. It wriggles inside his hand until it slips below and then disappears. It must have hurt Savage too, he’s writhing in Maul’s grasp and then he spasms and his gentle eyes roll and he almost manages to tear his mouth away. He bites Maul. Whatever it is, it hurts Savage, but the magic burns Maul. It feels like Naboo, like Kenobi’s ‘saber tearing through Maul’s viscera, only higher: the lightsaber is now stabbing Maul’s hearts—brother, how are you using the Sisters’ magic, what is—stabbing Maul exactly where Master skewered Savage, and distantly, he wonders whether Lord Sidious has used the distraction to dispose of Maul the same way he did his brother. Then the question is swallowed again, by a churning sea of pain and concentration and terror.

None of this matters, not the pain and not death. Savage is pathetic and scared and weak, and if he cannot ensure his own survival then he deserves nothing, but—Maul knows that Savage will lose more breath, more magic, if he lets go. He cannot let go. He doesn’t. The light is so cold that it scalds him, it sizzles off his flesh and leaves itchy wriggling trails wherever it touches him—did Talzin’s magic hurt this much when it restored Maul or does he just not remember—the magic writhes and durasteel scraps volley and beat against his back and pound his head and the holes in his chest burn and then—

It stops.

There is no magic. No light. No pain.

There is warm air puffing gently against Maul’s palm. Yellow eyes look up.

Hastily, Maul tears his hand away. Tears his body away. He rears up from where he’s crouched over Savage, up and away, until he’s sitting on the floor, and then he crawls backwards, keeps pushing his unfeeling feet against the floor till he’s put some distance between them, if only a few centimeters.

Savage sits up.

He looks—healthy, Maul thinks. Strange. Alive. Whole. The skin that stretches over his chest isn’t free from burns or scars, from holes, as if Savage had never been stabbed. The green light isn’t gone, as if he’d never been cursed. Faint magic lurks around him, and there are holes, twin massive gouges burnt into Savage’s chest, filled up with shrapnel. A button lurks in there, like a… Like the ignition button of a lightsaber handle, of Savage’s saberstaff, scavenged and stuffed inside as a quick patch for what should have been a mortal wound. Next to it, a scrap of the emitter guard’s edge sticks out. There’s a torn-off piece of Maul’s own prosthetic foot in there, too, and the whole situation reminds Maul of his own prosthetics, of the new legs that Talzin conjured. Only much worse. Ramshackle. Whatever’s inside Savage wriggles slightly with every breath.

Then, the light sucks itself in and the metal smooths out.

No injury.

No death.

Just a brother, now, and he is smiling.

“Brother, are you alright?” Savage asks, and then he flickers, growing pale and then present again. “Maul? How are you here? I thought you were—”

It did not happen this way, Maul realizes. This fight took place weeks ago, and it didn’t happen this way. Savage isn’t alive, the magic hadn’t worked, and Maul is not on Mandalore. He’s on a barge headed away from Dathomir, now, taking random jumps to evade Master’s scanners, or maybe that’s stopped now. Maul doesn’t know. He knows one thing, though: This did not happen.

This is nothing but a dream.

Savage is dead now.

Maul hadn’t managed to keep him alive. Outside of this dream-world and in the real Mandalorian palace, weeks ago, Master’s laughter had echoed quietly in the empty hall, and Maul had let go of Savage’s mouth. Had let the head drop. He’d lost control—given up control—of the green light that he’d been forcing back into his brother’s body, the magic that he’d wished could be his brother’s salvation. He’d ignored the choking, the spasms, the death rattle. He’d let go.

Master had come, and Maul had stood up, choosing survival—choosing revenge—over futility and his brother’s dwindling life force.

He’d let Savage die.

It had been the only correct choice. Magic is fickle and primitive, and it was wrong, below any Sith, to seek to prolong a weakling’s life. Letting go had been the right choice, but one that had been irrelevant, in truth, like any choice that Maul has ever made. Spoilt by his impotence. None of them have effected anything, and the decision to leave Savage choking on the ground didn’t either. In mere seconds, Maul had been on the floor, dumb and whining and begging for mercy that would never be his. In minutes, he’d been unconscious, and loaded on the prison transport.

Savage is dead, now, but he’s also patched up and crawling closer through the half-remembered nightmare corridor, and it did not happen this way. It wasn’t even a corridor. Savage touches Maul’s shoulder, and then, as always, he draws the hand back after a fraction of a second, afraid of the instinctive violent retaliation that doesn’t come, this time, if only because this is not real.

“Are you alright, Lord Maul?” Savage asks. Shakes his head, frowning. Something wriggles in his chest, and it’s not smooth anymore: the emitter guard sticks out again. The gouges on his cheeks have scabbed over, suddenly. “Where did you go? Maul, is that really you? Is this a vision? Tell me where you are, brother. You weren’t on Mandalore. Please—”

“We need to leave, Savage,” Maul says, “This place is dangerous.” He offers his bleeding hand.

Savage looks concerned, briefly, and then he takes it and hauls himself up, and he smiles gently. “You’re shaking. Do not be afraid, brother. It’s good that you knew how to use the Dathomiri magic, isn’t it?” he says. “You kept me alive. Thank you. If you hadn’t known how to use magic, both of my hearts would have failed. I would have died.”

Maul’s grin is empty. “You did.”

This is nothing but a foolish dream, a nightmare that taunts him and that’s pretending that Lord Sidious is gone, somehow. That He would have given Maul enough time to talk to Savage. It’s pretending that Maul is proficient enough at Dathomiri magic to save his brother, when he’s never learnt the skill. He’s spent his whole life immersed in Sith teachings and yet Maul still failed as a Master, as an apprentice, too. Seeing magic used once could never have been sufficient. Maul never could have used Talzin’s tricks to save his brother. It had been an insane, helpless attempt, that’s all. Savage is dead. Also, the dream doesn’t understand his speech patterns, and when it gets them right, his brother makes no sense at all.

“I didn’t, I… Maul, please tell me where you are.”

This is nothing but an empty simulacrum, a torture dreamt up by Maul’s unconscious mind, and the details aren’t even correct. Savage is dead, and Maul doesn’t know where his corpse is.

Still, it takes an embarrassingly long time until Maul manages to make himself wake up.

Finally, he blinks.

The floor is real, now. It’s much cleaner.

Maul blinks again, angry—why did he want to stay there—and he wipes the gunk out of the corners of his eyes. His fingers come away empty. The next thing he notices is the pressure in his back, the muscle cramps and pressure sores where flesh meets durasteel as if he’s been asleep for too many hours, and kneeling in this spot for days.

Maul hasn’t moved at all for a long time. How pathetic.

Then, he smells meat. There is a bowl of bone broth next to Maul’s knee, in the same place where there has always been a bowl or plate, ever since he was brought into this room. Kast or Saxon always bring them. It doesn’t smell appealing or repulsive; it doesn’t smell like he should eat it. Nothing has smelled that way, ever since he was brought aboard. Ever since Dathomir, but—Maul remembers the choice he made. The choice to drop Savage’s head. He’d chosen survival over clinging on to his brother, then, and he should honor this choice now. He has nothing left but survival, and part of that is sustenance. He can force himself to believe he is hungry. He should eat.

Maul picks up the bowl. He tips it against his mouth and his stomach aches, hurts more when the first few drops of soup hit it. Greedily, he slurps it all down.

It tastes of nothing.

This is both expected and irrelevant. Maul licks the bowl clean.

“Are you feeling better, Lord Maul?” the watcher asks. Apparently, it’s Kast’s duty for today.

“Yes,” Maul replies. He didn’t hear her approach, and he doesn’t flinch. It is bad enough that she’s seen enough to ask this question, but it’s also immaterial what she has witnessed. Useless vanity. What these people think of Maul does not matter, or—they are loyal to him, apparently, in spite of it. A strange thing. This is the only plan of Maul’s that ever succeeded. He should make use of their loyalty. “Can you procure another soup bowl?”

“Yes, Lord Maul.” She types something on the comm on her wristband.

Maul hands her the bowl, then, and he shakes out his hand. It doesn’t help: there’s still the imprint of another hand holding onto him. The dream hasn’t left yet.

(“Is this a vision? Tell me where you are, brother.”)

“Do you...” Maul looks up at Kast. “What did you do with Savage’s corpse?”

Different cultures have different funerary rites. They are feebly attached to dead things. They honor their remains, touch and think of those they have lost forever, and they let go. The Jedi like to burn their corpses, pile them high with timber and straw and set them on fire, a sign of their intrinsic weakness. They want the body gone, so that its rot does not show them their own future. Their inevitable fall on the blade of the Sith. Other cultures like to… Maul doesn’t know any other rites. He’d never thought it particularly important what happens to cadavers. He himself was going to be disposed of in the least obtrusive fashion, most likely, when his time came. Dissolved, perhaps, or left for the flies.

“There was no body on Mandalore. Not your brother’s body, anyway. We don’t know what happened to it,” Kast says. “I’m sorry, Lord Maul.”

Maul doesn’t why this feels wrong. It shouldn’t matter—it doesn’t matter, and even the question was superfluous, a leftover urge from his pointless nightmare.

If it had been recovered, his brother’s corpse would have been a relic of warmer times at best, of the future criminal empire they could have had, of the future they could have had. At worst, it would have been an indictment of his own abject weakness. Regardless of its significance to Maul, it would have been dead. Empty. A slowly rotting thing with no spark of Savage’s gentleness left inside.

“You searched the palace?” he asks, anyway.

“Yes,” Kast says. “As soon as we realized you were gone we entered Sundari. We looked in every room, but you weren’t there. We found nothing but stale signs of carnage, and we knew that you had been taken. We sent out spies into the Separatists’ armies and many other locations to find you. It’s—finding you was time-sensitive. We prioritized. It’s possible that we didn’t inspect the palace thoroughly enough to notice his corpse. Do you want me to order another search?”

Savage is dead, and this doesn’t matter.

(“Brother, where are—”)

“Do that,” Maul orders. “Find his body. Bring me more food. Where are we going?”

They will find the corpse, and Maul knows nothing of mourning or pointless rituals, but he knows Savage—knew Savage—and his brother valued the nightbrother way of life. Their way of death, too, most likely, and Savage would have wanted to have those rites, whatever they are. He was feeble enough to care about that. Nightbrothers’ rites… everyone that Maul could have asked is dead now. Mother Talzin has been slain, and Dathomir lies in ruin. Everyone is dead now. Everything that was left of Savage is gone. Everything but the body they will find, and soon it will rot, too—or burn, maybe.

Every last part of Maul’s history that wasn’t Sith is gone. Master has taken all things, even those that Maul hadn’t known he owned. Only Maul’s life is left, and Master will not take it. With the aid of his loyal soldiers, he has escaped. A hollow triumph—pretending that Lord Sidious would waste his anger on his former apprentice’s survival is nothing but vainglory and delusion—but a triumph nonetheless.

The only victory Maul will ever have.