#way back when they got “lost” (cut off from the rest of the steppe) in a valley

[duisarcusxiv]

Day 11: Duality~

You cannot control how people view you, only how you present yourself to the world. Sagra does his best, but there are times where violence is necessary.

[smellrain]

𝐧𝐡𝟏𝟑 - 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭

in which: nico and you had met years ago in a cold rink in canada but then lost touch for several reasons. It's hard, growing and correcting mistakes of your past but you try anyway.

tags: written, angst, hopeful ending, mentions of: depression, injuries, hospitals, doctors, etc. (masterlist)

notes: [5.1k] I have no idea what this is? I woke up, wrote the entire thing and passed out again for 2 hours. Tried polishing it through editing? Yeah. It turned out a lot different than the rest of my stuff so far, so it's scary posting this. Come & tell me if you liked it.

The ice was as harsh as it was unforgiving. 

The cold air of the rink has seeped into your bones years ago and the reddend tips of your fingers went numb a while ago, but you were used to it by now. Nothing really mattered when you got like this, too caught up in your head for anyone to reach. 

Not even yourself. 

You had been home and then suddenly not, your body already knowing what you needed before your mind caught up to it. 

The rink wasn’t open, not yet, but you had gotten a key years ago. The owner, David, had been the only one that had looked at you the same back then. There had been a knowing sort of look in his eyes when he had seen you waiting for him at the front door stepps, eyes red. 

He had given you a key, because he had seen you for who you were: a girl whose entire life had collapsed around her. 

Bronze at fifteen, silver at sixteen, gold forever out of reach. 

You could still remember the red pen tucked into your doctor’s coat. The ‘my condolences, but’, the white light, the letter in your hand, the sinking realisation that this was it. 

That you were going to be one of the several girls that had pushed their body too far.

The same way you had done everything back then you had followed the instructions of your therapist to the letter. Stretching, compressions, different exercises. Still, there was no full recovery, no chance of ever skating professionally again. 

That might be the worst part, still being able to skate but knowing that you will never be able to feel it anymore. That you were cursed to be in this limbo, never letting go of it but never being able to live for it anymore. 

The harsh sound of your blade cutting over the fresh ice was as pleasant as it was torture. You wanted more, but you had to settle for this. You had to learn that this was all you were ever going to get. 

These select few hours in the early morning, just before your classes started, before you had to start living your life. 

You could feel yourself drawing harsh breaths, but it didn’t matter. You had pushed through worse, hunger, hurt and feelings just to stand here for a bit longer. The ringing in your ear accumulated when you thought about all that you had lost, that you could never regain.

Suddenly the heavy door of the entrance fell closed. You slowed down, curious who it might be. The clock in the corner of your vision reflected a red 05:57 back at you. It was too early for it to be anyone aside from David or another person with a key, someone like you.

It was a guy, a bag in his hand and another slung over his shoulder. 

You would recognize the equipment anywhere, familiar with it in a distant way. It must be a hockey player that David had picked out out of the hundreds that frequented this place. 

For some reason you already didn’t like him. Maybe because unlike you, he had the chance of actually archiving his dreams. Bitterness was an annoying but frecent emotion that stained the back of your mouth. 

You wanted. You wanted more than this. You wanted the early morning practices, the ones after school, the rigidous schedule, the heavy monitoring. What were you without all that?

The static in your mind had been interrupted by his arrival but you hardly noticed, more focused on the way he walked down the stairs, casually like he had done so hundreds of times already.

It was almost six, which meant it was time to get off the ice anyways, so you circled a few laps, rotating your wrists and shoulders to feel if anything was off, and then made your way towards the outside of the rink. 

“You look pretty,” said the boy from where he was tying his shoelaces up on the benches. “Out on the ice, I mean.”

Something in you hurt at that, as if your heart started pulling at its own strings. It’s been a while since anyone has watched you skate,, since you let someone else watch you. There was a sharp kind of anger rising up in you that it had been him watching you which dissipated as soon as you looked back at him.

It wasn’t his fault. There really was something wrong with you.

You knew your parents didn’t approve of you being here, but they couldn’t look at you anymore when you skated, disappointed that this was how it had ended. Disappointed in you.

“Thanks,” you said, your voice completely scraped raw. You hoped he didn’t notice it. 

“I’m Nico,” he said, approaching you. He held out his hand. He wasn’t wearing gloves yet but his dark shirt had thumbholes that his thumb peeked through which was weirdly endearing on him. 

You looked back up to his face. There was a tired but polite smile plastered on it but you didn’t have the energy to give him one. Instead you simply told him your name and took his hand. Even through his layer of fabric it was warm beneath your icy fingers.

He didn’t flinch at the cold of your hand and instead started genuinely smiling which took you by surprise. People didn’t react to meeting you like this, not anymore. 

Then, without saying anything else, he took off his guards and stepped on the ice, skating around to warm up. You watched him for a bit while scraping off the excess ice and putting your skates away. 

His skating was differentthan yours; not as delicate. The beauty of it had been hammered into you from an early age on which didn’t seem to be the case form him. It was weird, not being on the ice, being the one to watch instead. 

You changed back into your shoes and walked up the steps. 

From the top, which wasn’t all that high because this rink wasn’t that big, he seemed small. You wondered if you looked like that too, if anyone had thought that when you fell down, when they had seen you sprawled on the ice at fifteen, not being able to get up again. 

A sick shudder passed through you. You wondered if you had ever gotten up from that ice.

Then you turned around, your back to him and left without saying goodbye. 

~*~

The next time you saw him again, was two days later, just after six. 

You knew you were going to be late for class but didn’t really care. Today you weren’t as cooped up in your own head, but it was still hard to let go of these stolen few hours of freedom and face reality. 

“Hey,” Nico said, “it’s you again.”

“Hello,” you said in return. He stepped on the ice and you fought off the urge to leave immediately. That would be impolite, a voice reminded you in your head, even if you didn’t want him to be here right now.

“Are you here every morning?” he asked you, falling into step beside you and therefore joining you on your cooldown laps. 

Your eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. Couldn’t he just do his own thing? Did he have to come talk to you? “Yes.” 

"Dedicated. I only come every second day,” he said as if it mattered to you. You might have to leave early every second day now to avoid talking to him, which made your scowl even worse. 

“Okay.” You said instead. 

He hummed in reason but dropped the conversation after. When you took a look at him from the corner of your eye he didn’t seem deterred at your attitude, seemingly just satisfied that he got a response.

After another lap in, you hated to admit it but companionable silence, you left, without saying anything but this time he waved back at you from below. You didn’t return his gesture. 

~*~

Despite your early judgement, the two of you formed some kind of routine over the next few weeks. You came early, and sometimes you left a protein bar for him in the stands and sometimes he brought  you a hot tea for when you got off the ice. 

Still, always without fail, he joined you for a few laps. He talked about his life and sometimes asked you a few questions. Sometimes you answered him, other times you didn’t. He never pressed for answers. 

Nico told you that he was from Switzerland, which explained the heavy accent. He just joined Halifax, and he came early to work on his technique, preferring to do so in silence without his teammates chirping at him. You, in turn, told him that you had skated, professionally, before your injury. He didn’t ask for details about either of these things and you didn’t share of your own accord. 

Slowly, so slowly that you didn’t even notice, you realised that he had become your friend. 

It was strange. You hadn’t made friends in a long time. Before, you had had school friends, but because you never hung out outside of it, always training, it never deepend. 

A weird sort warmth seeped in under your skin at the thought of the two of you being friends like a steady fire that kept you warm at night.

The friends you had made while skating splintered along with your knee. 

It was hard, you knew that, to see their worst fear reflected back at them, but it was still hard for you to reach out, so you simply stopped talking to each other. 

On your bad days you thought that it was all their fault, on your good you knew that it was a mutual mistake. 

The thing about Nico was that he was hard to pin down. He was hardworking, thrived under pressure and loved hockey. He was also afraid of falling and failing, he loved sitting under the sun in the summers, feeling his skin heat up and his favorite colour was green, but he admitted that it changed every few weeks. 

You knew that this friendship wouldn’t last, not really. Neither of you had any way of reaching out to the other, and neither expressed the desire to do so but it was still nice, this tentative kinship.

~*~

“Have you ever played hockey?” he asked you, once. 

It must have been a Saturday or Sunday because you were in no hurry to get off the ice, instead basking in his company. 

“No,” you answered, simply.

He grinned, “you are missing out.”

“Really now?” you asked, teasingly, when you turned around to skate with your front to him.

“Really. I wanna teach you,” he said, leaving the choice up to you without outright asking. If you wanted to you could just brush it off and the conversation would continue. 

Instead you said, “yeah, sure, why not.”

His smile was blinding, the adoration for his sport bleeding from every inch of his skin. It was a good look on him, happiness. Distantly you wondered if anyone had ever thought that about you.

It was different, skating with a stick in your hands but it was fun. He taught you how to shoot and aim at a certain spot which you weren’t half bad at if you stood still.

Hours later when the two of you stepped off the ice your tea was cold but you hardly noticed it.

~*~

Another day you asked him what he was reaching for. 

“Olympics,” he had answered immediately but after a beat of silence he looked up as if the lights in the ceiling were stars he could wish upon. “I think I want someone to look at me and think ‘I want to do that. I want to start playing hockey.’”

You looked at him and the only thought that crossed your mind was that he was the reason you could step off the ice again, that you knew you would always be able to come back, just one more time. 

“I like that,” you said because it was true. 

He tilted his head back to you, and the way his eyes glimmered with a rare vulnerability made your breath catch. Or maybe that was just the effect he had on you, standing still, alive and just in reach.

Oh. 

That was that feeling in your chest. 

~*~

Yet another day he joined you on the ice and you immediately kicked him off again. 

“What did I say about injuries?” you asked, frustrated in a way only he could make you. 

“That they were not to be ignored,” he parroted back, his gaze between his feet as if staring at his ankle would magically heal it. 

“Exactly,” you said. Then, gentler than before, “you need to give yourself time to heal, otherwise you will never get better.”

He looked back up to where you were hovering above him. “Okay.”

You didn’t want him to have the last word. “Okay,” you said firmly and sat down next to him. 

The two migrated up to the changing rooms  where he sat on a bench with his ankle elevated while you worked through your stretches, your knewww aching in phantom pain.

~*~

Today your mind was quiet.

It was your last time and you had wanted to take it all in again, one last time. You were moving, your father had gotten a new job somewhere in New Jersey. You knew it was good, a new start away from everything, a chance to start over. 

But still, you were going to miss this. The rink, the quiet, the place you had grown up in. The place that was your prison as much as it was your salvation. 

As you looked up towards the ceiling, the lights shining down on you, the dark gary that seemed black in contrast, you thought you should cry. This was the perfect moment to, and you hadn’t yet. 

Then, the door opened. 

You were surprised because he wasn’t supposed to be here today. Nico had been here yesterday and the two of you had argued about your favorite brand of cereal, and you selfishly had wanted to leave it at that. 

To leave your friendship without having to say goodbye, without having to ever really let go of him. 

“Nico,” you breathed, before you could stop yourself. 

“Hey you,” he said, as he came up to you. You didn’t even realise that you had stopped moving. 

“It’s late,” he stated. You looked up to the clock and sure enough, it was almost twenty past. 

“Ah,” you said, uncaring. It’s not like you had school today. You wondered when he went to school, if his just started later than yours had. In all your talks you had never actually talked about it. 

And you never were going to anymore, you had to remind yourself. Suddenly it was a lot harder to breathe through the ache in your chest. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, and you knew he meant it, “you look, I don’t know, sad?”

“I’m moving,” before he could ask anything more, “like tomorrow. This is the last time I’m going to see you in a while.”

“Oh.” The expression on his face was hurt, because he must have realised that you had intended to leave without saying anything. 

“I’m sorry,” you said. “for everything.” You weren’t really sure for what, but it seemed like the right thing to say. For your intentions, the way you acted, maybe.

“It’s okay,” he said, but it wasn’t, not really. You knew that and he knew that you knew.

“I’m moving to New Jersey.”

He was quiet for a bit.”America,” he started. Then, “do you want to exchange numbers?”

You ignored the sting behind your eyes. “I’m probably going to have to get a new simcard, but you can give me yours.”

The two of you skated back to the door, from where you had stood still in the middle of the open space. He got a piece of paper and a pen from his bag and then somewhat messily tore off the corner of a worksheet and scribbled down his number in blue ink and signed it with his name.

He looked up at you but neither of you said anything for a while. What was there to say, anymore? 

“Don’t forget about me,” he ended up telling you and you reached out to hug him. He was warm under your hands, steady and you were going to miss this, him.

“Don’t forget me either,” you murmured into the crook of his neck. 

Still, in the back of your mind, you knew that you were never going to use his number. You were going to cut off your old life before it could follow you to your new one. But for once you had told him the truth, you weren’t going to forget about him, probably ever. 

And that was that. You said goodbye, waved and you left him there. He returned the gesture, face unreadable and you were sad that the last time he looked at you he wasn’t smiling.

From the top you looked down at him one last time. He seemed bigger now, compared to that first time you had looked down at him, still filled with bitterness.

Maybe that was just your imagination, or maybe it was his confidence after playing with his current team, after seeing his results pay off. 

You turned and let the door fall closed behind you. 

Then, and only then tears started to well up in your eyes. You ignored them and moved on. Always looking ahead, never back. 

Still, you kept the number tucked away safely hidden in a small corner of your wallet. A piece of him that you would always carry with you. 

~*~

You made new friends, graduated and decided to attend college. Got diagnosed with chronic depression and mild anxiety, got a boyfriend and broke it off again after three months, cried, laughed and finally lived. 

But there was part of you hidden in the corner of your wallet, too.

~*~

If you were being honest, Nico didn’t really cross your mind when your friend asked you to go to a hockey game with you. 

In a way he did, because he had been one of your few friends that played hockey, but it was more of an oh yeah, the sport Nico loved and not oh yeah I’m going to a hockey game and I wonder if Nico is still playing, I wonder if he made it to the big leagues. 

Okay, maybe that was a bit of a lie, but still. You hadn’t expected this. 

The two of you went to the Prudential Center and you were excited despite your earlier apprehension. Your phone with the blocked tags of icehockey and nhl seemed to burn a hole in your pants but it’s not like anyone would know. 

Your friend had told you a bit about the team, but if you were being honest, you could not remember any of their names, much less which position and line they played. 

When the players got announced, the home team first, you froze. Suddenly the noise of the cheers around you were completely quiet until they flooded back to you, a harsh reminder of reality.

Because it was him. That was Nico. Your Nico. Or like your past Nico.

There, with a red thirteen and a small C over his chest, was Nico. He was all grown up now, and instead of thinking wow, he is kind of attractive when he smiled at the camera, you thought, holy shit, he is really, really handsome. 

Your friend picked up on your strange behaviour. “What's wrong?”

I know him, you wanted to scream. I think he saved my life without meaning to, and I think I loved him but I never told him. What came out instead was, “I think I'm going to be sick.”

“What?” she asked, suddenly even more worried, “do you need fresh air? Or do you just want to leave?”

You wanted to stay. You wanted to shoot a puck at his head and tell him to look up at you, the way he had done back then. 

“No, don’t worry about it,” you said and when didn’t change at your reply, you added, “I’m just going to get some water. I think it might be the crowd or something.”

“Are you sure? Do you want me to come with?”

You knew how much she had been looking forward to it, and besides there was nothing she could help you with anyhow. “No, really, it’s all good. Just need to breathe for a second.”

She gave you a look, and you smiled despite wanting to curl up in a corner and cry, “if you are sure. But if anything,” she took your hand in hers, “if anything is wrong call me. I’m gonna have my phone in my hand the entire time.”

You squeezed her hand the same way your heart did at her words. “Thank you, really, but it’s okay. I'll be right back.”

Then you fled up the stands and you couldn’t help but think about the first time you had seen him, how you had left without saying anything. You looked down, just once, and spotted him immediately, as if he was the north pole to your south, your eyes drawn to him. 

He seemed even bigger now, as if he had finally grown into the steady confidence he had had, even back then. 

You smiled. He deserved it, genuinely. You were glad that he did end up making it to the big leagues, even if some part of you hurt at that. You still missed ice skating, your rink from back then, David, but most of all you missed what could have been if you hadn’t been scared. 

What could have been if you had just texted him. 

Regret was a useless emotion to feel, but all of a sudden you felt yourself drown in and you coughed once, just to ease that feeling in your throat.

Then you turned your back to the ice and walked up the rest of the stairs to the stands to get yourself some water. 

It was useless trying to think about any of it now, so you pushed the thoughts aside for later. 

~*~

A week later you were drunk. It was a Friday evening and you had finally finished the gruelling lab you had worked on for the entire day. 

You were hanging out in your friend’s room, the same friend that had taken you to the game a week before. Two of your other friends were sat ob the floor, leaning gainst the opposite bed and a warm, content feeling spread through your chest. 

You had friends now. 

“What’s wrong?” she suddenly asked from where she was sat next to you on her bed, her back against the headboard, yours against the wall adjacent to it.

“Nothing,” you answered because nothing was. 

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me, tell me,” she said, “you've been quiet ever since we came back from the game a week ago and I’ve waited long enough for you to say something, so now I’m going to.”

Had you been that obvious? Or did she just know you that well? Either way, she deserved the truth, the full truth.

“I just,” you began and stopped again, starting to peel off the sticker on your beer with the blunt edge of your nail. 

“When I was younger, I skated.” You started. You knew that she had never expressed any kind of interest in skating so you elaborated further, “really well.” Wow, you were really eloquent tonight.

“Okay,” she said, no doubt wondering where you were going with this. 

Your mind was fuzzy around the edges because of the drinks which made harder than usual to focus on your words, but it made it easier to talk about it, too. These people didn’t know about anything that had been, only what was. “I was good enough to win. Olympics, I mean.”

Suddenly one of the other two friends from the other side of the room joined in. “The Olympics?”

“Yeah,” you said, staring firmly at the bottle in your hands, not looking at any of them. “I won bronze and silver, fifteen and sixteen.”

“Holy shit,” she said, as did your other friend, but one of them remained quiet, so you looked at her. 

From the look in her eyes you knew that she knew. “And then I fell, badly. Tried to get up again but couldn’t. Went to the doctor and you know,” you trailed off, “retired. Started physiotherapy, got a lot better but…”

“Not enough to ever compete again,” she finished for you. 

“Yeah,” you said, voice hoarse. “But I couldn’t let go of it, you know? So sometimes, before school, I snuck out to the local rink and skated around just because I didn’t know anything else.”

Your friend that was next to you on the bed made an encouraging noise, and laid a hand on your knee, so you continued. 

“Then I met a guy. I was in a bad mental place, not really talking to anyone unless I had to, but we somehow became friends.”

Then you looked at them, “I don’t know, it was a weird friendship because we only ever saw each other at the rink every few days, but I felt something for him anyway. It wasn’t quite love but could have been, maybe.”

The others were still listening, and the words rushed out before you could stop yourself. “Then I moved. Wanted to leave before saying goodbye because that would hurt too much. On the day I was leaving I saw him anyway. He gave me his number but I never used it.”

“You wanted to make a clean cut?” your friend asked. 

“Yeah. It was sefish, because it wasn’t just about me, you know? I should have told him how I felt, but I didn’t.” You shook your head, “but that’s not even the point. I saw him again at the game.”

“Oh,” your friend that had dragged you to it, said. 

“Yeah,” you answered, and your other friend asked, “why didn’t you talk to him?”

The other friend, the one that had never asked you about your skating, even though she had known, even though she had every opportunity to, said, “because he was playing, right?”

“Yeah,” you said and you wanted to cry. You could still hear his name announced by the speakers. “Funny, all the time we spent together and I never knew his last name.”

“Who is it?” she asked, gentle, and you knew you could just not answer. You could bury it deep down, once and for all. But that’s not what you wanted to do, not anymore. 

“Nico Hischier.” And your friend laughed. 

“Of course it’s the captain,” she said and you couldn’t help but join in, the effects of the alcohol cursig through your veins. What were the chances, really? That he ended up in the state you had moved to all those years ago.

The others joined it. “He changed his number by now, I’m sure.”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” one of them said. 

All of you were quiet for a second. “Wait, I have an idea,” she said and moved her hand from your leg and grabbed your phone. 

She gave it to you and made a motion for you to unlock it. You did and gave it back to her. From where you were sat you weren’t able to see your screen, much less what she typed on it. 

After a few seconds she gave it back to you. 

It was Nico’s instagram profile. You hesitated before clicking on his most recent post. Your other friends that had been sitting on the floor climbed up to join you. 

“Follow him,” one of them said. You could feel your heart thumping in your chest. This was not the account you had used to document your wins and training back then, but it still had your first and last name in the username, but it was on private. 

Underneath your thumb the button changed colour. “Fuck,” you said.

The other three laughed at your exclamation. “Wait, do I text him?” you asked, turning to the others. 

They all looked back at you, and one of them asked, “do you want to?”

You did. You really fucking did, but you had no idea what to say. “But what do I say? Hey, sorry for being a dick to you when we were like seventeen, I was half in love with you and didn’t know how to tell you, so I just cut you out before anything could possibly hurt me.”

One of them leaned her head on your shoulder. “If you leave out the half in love part, it’s not too bad.”

“You should also ask if he wants to meet and talk in person,” the other said. 

You opened your notes app and the four of you composed a message to him. 

Your hands were shaking and your heart was beating too fast. This was it, this was your chance and you weren’t going to let go again without a fight. This time you would stay and he could make the choice: to stay or to leave. 

Then, you hit the small blue icon and sent it and let out a quiet scream. You wouldn’t be able to take it back, not anymore. 

You threw your phone away from you onto a small patch where the blanket you were sitting on was still visible. 

Over an hour passed and you still hadn’t heard back from him. Soon after you pased out, but a quiet acceptance had settled in your stomach. He forgot. Or maybe he didn’t see the message or maybe he didn't want to talk to you again, which you couldn’t blame him for. 

But when you woke up the next morning, you had a single notification from him. 

For a second you debated not clicking on it, but that would mean standing still. It would be different this time. You would be different this time. There was an unfamiliar, new kind of determination that flickered up your spine and it reminded you of the steady ice under your skates, of the final hug the two of you had shared. Harsh, unforgiving, certain. 

You clicked on it and there was no going back now.

Nico Hischier Hello, it’s been a while.  Of course I remember you, didn’t I tell you?  For sure, I'd love to meet up and talk. Does next weekend work for you? I have a home game which makes it easier for both of us. 

notes: So. How are we feeling? Thoughts? Part 2? Please talk to me about this one because this lives in my mind rent free.

[longer-than-i-should-admit]

Okay but what if Solas gets freed earlier than the big bad final fight (like we speculate) and he uses his Dread Wolf form in occasional pinches of combat?

And what if he has a moment where he has to deliberately choose his commitment to Rook like he had to do with the Inquisitor? (I'll utilize mine for this case.)

Walk with me. (Spoilery drabble under the cut. Probably OOC tbh.)

They're in a darkspawn infested spot. The objective was to get something. They got it, but now they're retreating back to the eluvian because there are far too many blighted things for them to feasibly fight against—it has infested the place, and Davrin being the only one resistant to it does not accommodate the very real threat of the others possibly being tainted.

So Solas, as one with the most experience of command, calls for a retreat. The rest of the Veilguard have stumbled either through or to the eluvian, watching anxiously as the rest forfeit their hard-won ground to safely draw back to his position as he covers for them.

Rook does not agree.

"It is suicide to stay here!" Solas shouts at her from across the battlefield, his spells as percussive and punctuated as if the Fade was popping through the Veil at his summons. It makes her hair stand on end, raises frissons under her clothes, and the pressure in her ears reminds her of the air tensing before a lightning strike. "We must go!"

"We've almost got them pushed back!" she retorts, all the way on the other side. The steppe is the highest point in the mountainside, and she has been blasting off the darkspawn with shockwaves of arcane energy thus far. "We could recover other things from the ruins!"

"It is not worth it if lives are lost in the process!" Solas snarls, and Rook glances over her shoulder at him with arched brows.

In the middle of the fray, overwhelmed by the surge of darkspawn scuttling over the cliff face like swarming insects, Emmrich stumbles and falls with a yelp.

Rook struggles to concentrate between two points of focus. She is in the middle of her own combat, but her first instinct is to run to the necromancer's side. He's still casting, keeping the infected off of him, but they give no room for him to get back to his feet.

Solas moves, so quickly that Rook did not catch it. Magic surges, tingles on the back of her tongue, and in a flash the Dread Wolf falls into a sprint across the ground glistening with ichor and smattered with decaying flesh and rotting guts.

Rook blasts through the wave clambering to drag her down and watches, slack-jawed, as the great black wolf lunges over Emmrich with a snarl, standing squarely over him with enough room to spare the tall human to right himself and flee to the eluvian unharmed.

Fen'Harel's mighty jaws snap around darkspawn left and right, shaking them to shatter their bones and flinging the battered corpses like rag dolls. Soon enough his teeth are stained with inky, corrupted blood, bits of viscera wedged between his frothing gums, and his six lyrium-blue eyes meet Rook's, resolute and unflinching.

In that moment, Rook knows he will leave her there to save the rest.

A hurlock grabs her ankle. It is half disintegrated by her magic, yet it's still going, still gurgling, still strong enough to yank her foot out from under her. She lands roughly on her back and the air rushes out of her lungs in a pained whoosh, stunning her. Her vision blurs and swims. The steady drain of her mana had already weakened her, in addition to her wounds, but she had bashed her head on the ground, too.

The hurlock intends to bring her down the cliffside with it, she knows. She grits her teeth against the pain and vertigo and bashes the heel of her boot against its face, sending it careening off the edge. Her heart leaps when she rolls over to scramble back up onto her hands and knees and realizes—too late—how close it had dragged her.

Her legs drop out into open air. Her belly scrapes against the slickened stone. Her fingertips dig into the gravel, a biting anchor sure to leave her own blood behind. Her nails might not survive the weight of her entire body hanging on the precipice of a fathomless drop. When she peers down past her shoulder, eyes rounding, and there is nothing but mist and insurmountable depth.

She barely hears her cry of alarm over the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. She does not recognize her own voice. She certainly does not anticipate calling out to the bane of her existence as a means to preserve it. "Solas!"

The wind is deafening, rushing past her as though it, too, flees the darkspawn she could sense clawing their way up the mountainside by the dread building in the base of her throat. The wolf had turned to deal with another cluster of darkspawn, but his ears angled towards her before his great head whipped around to spot her where she fell.

Her grip slips. She skids further down in a heart-lurching, precious, hands-breadth of distance. Her shoulders ache with the strain. Her chin drags the edge of the jagged stone. She cannot get a foothold with how the rock curves away from the ledge. She thinks she hears someone hollering her name, somewhere behind the wolf. One of her companions, or multiple—she isn't sure. She can see nothing save the glow of his eyes and the whites rimming them as he stares at her.

"Harellan!" she screams. The insult turned barb turned nickname seems the least fitting thing to use to entreat the man whom she had treated with such utter disdain and irreverence for the first portion of their acquaintance. But it is who he proved himself to be: a rebel with a cause. A man who stops at nothing to do what he feels is right.

One who does not flinch at the idea of sacrifice in favor of victory.

Rook's grip fails her. She scrabbles for purchase to no avail. The stone arches away from her, it seems, and she falls.

She does not see how deep the gouges the Dread Wolf's claws score into the stone when he launches into a sprint aided by his magic, frost fringing the ends of his pelt. She does not see the full stride of his legs stretching and hauling the ground closer to project himself into a lightning-quick gallop across the steppe. She does not see him nearly careen clean off the side of the mountain, barely skidding to a halt in time—back feet digging into the skittering gravel—as his upper half lunges over the edge. She does not see the massive maw of teeth engulf her because she has already squeezed her eyes shut in hopes that she won't know when the ground reaches her.

But the ear-ringing snap of his jowls jolts her out of her shock. If she had died, she could expect it to be dark. Maybe even warm. But wet?

Rook gasps as she's clamped tight in the mouth of the great black wolf. Her orientation becomes muddled, then—she has no concept of what direction is up, where he's going, or even what's going on around them. Any sounds are muffled. She thinks she hears the roar of a beast too big for them to handle in their current state of exhaustion. Her heart hammers against the inside of her ribs, and the rumble that surrounds her sets her nerves alight with prey instinct.

Fen'Harel runs. He leaps. He lands, and it is a jarring, uncoordinated crash into the ground—hopefully across the relatively safe bounds of the eluvian.

"Solas! Where's Rook?"

"Did you catch her? Is she—"

"Did you eat her?"

To answer the clamor of questions ringing in her ears, the wolf's mouth opens. She slides out and collapses on the ground in a gruesome heap of bodily fluids and remains.

"Remind me never to ask you for help again," she croaks. She reaches up and swipes the saliva off her eyelids so she can glare up at the Dread Wolf staring down at her in turn, every last eye trained solely on her. She thinks he is assessing her for damage.

His fur shimmers and she watches, disoriented, as the man reemerges from the shape of the wolf. His armor is battered and his shoulders sag from what is likely too prolonged of a mana drain, but he seems no worse for wear. She is momentarily distracted from him as her companions cluster around her and pull her into a seated position, their hands as busy as their mouths as they fret and curse and express their relief all at once in a raucous cacophony.

Her eyes snap back over to Solas struts promptly over to a hedge, yanks off one of his gauntlets, and proceeds to press a couple fingertips into his mouth and—presumably—onto the back of his tongue. He then wretches into the unsuspecting foliage.

The others fall abruptly silent, stricken and perplexed.

"I feel like I should take this as an insult," Rook remarks, scowling. "Surely I don't taste that bad."

Solas' eyes are red-rimmed and watery when he straightens, and if it weren't for that he would look as composed and dignified as ever. He snatches a potion from his belt and gargles it thoroughly, swishes it around his mouth, then spits it out. He swipes the back of his hand against his lips and scowls at her. "Forgive me if I would rather not be tainted by those blasted creatures!" he snaps, thoroughly rankled.

She knows it's not simply from how terrible darkspawn must taste.

She is proven correct when he stalks back over and kneels before her, the tension in his frame wound so tight she wonders how close he is to snapping his own spine. "Disrobe."

The others part like water at his demanding tone with varying levels of skepticism and disquiet, brooking no argument. But Rook is nothing if not contrary—she opens her mouth to protest, but Solas only lets out a terse, angry sound and reaches for the buckles on her armor.

"Stop!" she growls, slapping his hand away. She swears she sees the vein in his temple throb as he rears back as though she offended him. "What are you talking about?"

"Your clothes have been contaminated," he explains harshly. "The taint binds to organic materials. Being as that you were thoroughly inundated in blighted essence since you were too stubborn to fall back when I said to and relied upon an unfavorable means of rescue, we cannot risk you becoming infected!" He gestures to her clothes. "We will have to burn them. That goes for the rest, as well. I am certain Davrin already knows this."

"It's not exactly something you can wash out," the warden agrees.

"Oh, you have got to be joking!" Rook scoffs. "This is not the first time we've faced off against those bastards! What makes it so different this go around?"

"Your wounds, Fenalan!" Solas snarls. The intensity of his conviction as well as the rattled, unsettled tinge straining his voice makes her clamp her jaw shut. "If any ichor enters your bloodstream, you are doomed! You already tread upon death's door in your obstinance, but now you risk falling victim to something far worse!"

She frowns at him. She has a few scratches here and there, nothing so severe as to warrant such a reaction. She had been battered far worse before, endured wounds much more likely to do her in than hese. Something else had caused Solas to go overboard.

Her mind recalls the memory she had walked here in the Crossroads. The agent in Ghilan'nain's laboratory. The set of Solas' jaw when he had accepted the inevitability of his duty. He could not save her. There was no cure. He had no other option save to put her out of her misery before she truly suffered with the invented abomination.

The same fraught, wild glint in the eyes of his younger image peer directly into her own now. He is angry, yes, undeniably. But he is afraid, too. He does not want to make a sacrifice this day, she thinks.

Her hands shake as she begins to work the buckles loose. The others seem to take that as a sign to follow suit, removing the pieces of their armor that could be salvaged while piling the rest away from the vegetation encroaching upon the old paths winding around the network of mirrors. The metals could be decontaminated. The fabrics crackle and stink when Solas lights them with a curt snap of his hands. They are reduced to ash in seconds from the intensity of his ire, and he contorts the fabric of the Veil to crush that into powder that drifts, inert and harmless, off the ledge of the island in the wind.

The others group loosely together and head toward the Caretaker's dock when Rook tips her head towards it, helping each other along if they were weak or disoriented. No one had suffered grave injuries, thankfully, upon careful inspection. Most of the ichor had stained the outermost layers, so not all of it had to be destroyed, fortunately.

It was tough business, dealing with a mutated double blight.

Rook hung back a moment, waiting for Solas to turn away from the singed, blackened space below his feet. He is still drawn as tense as a bowstring, and does not move until she steps close enough to touch his arm. He pivots away from her hand and his gaze is cold on her.

"Ir abelas," she says. "I did not mean to worry you."

If Solas is taken aback by her admission, he does not convey it. But his shoulders loosen, just slightly. "That mistake almost cost your life, Rook," he says grimly.

"I know. I will endeavor to keep my head next time." She gestures towards the others, their low conversations carried by the breeze despite their distance. "Let's go wash all this shit off, yes?"

Solas looses a heavy exhale. They began to walk together.

"'Ma serannas," she tells him. "I did not think you would save me."

His stride falters briefly, then slows to accommodate her attention. The furrow between his brows eases into incredulity. "Why?"

Perhaps she expected him to confirm that it had not been his intention, that he had only done so because she was somewhat necessary to their mission's success, in the end. That he seems shocked she would even ask unroots her perception of him slightly.

"I rejected your orders," she says simply. "I got carried away. You had every right to leave me behind, but you didn't."

"I did not." Solas studied her for a moment, pensive. "I would not allow you to perish if I have a say in it, Fenalan," he offers after a moment. It is careful. It is measured. Yet she still notices the lack of bite to the words he normally wields when speaking to her. She had cultivated that response, she supposes, with how often she had exchanged verbal jabs with him in the beginning.

"Even if I don't understand your motivations," Rook sighs, "I thank you nevertheless." She swallows. "Ir abelas."

"Tel'abelas, ean'din. I am pleased to see you still live."

"Despite the perpetual headache I pose?"

"Despite that." Solas shakes his head. "I...do not think poorly of you. I would not see you fall into danger unnecessarily. That you can be so reckless and negligent of your own well-being at times is...disconcerting."

Rook cast him a side-eye. "Pot meet kettle. You stop throwing yourself on the line for the rest of us and I'll do the same."

The god of lies, treachery, and rebellion huffed what could have been a laugh. And Rook wonders if Varric would have any light to shed upon why the Dread Wolf was so protective of his unwitting pack, if he would ever admit to such a concept.

[whispersafterdusk]

Lost in Time - ch 21

"You're certain?  Absolutely certain?"

Arlo nodded.  "I'm sure.  And even if I wasn't, he's definitely had enough time to earn enough gols to get himself home. There's no reason for him to still be in Portia if his story about being stranded here was true."

Eli leaned back into the sofa, rubbing at her face as she did so.

Mei and Erwa had released that special edition of the Portia Times and Arlo had been quietly posted at the Commerce Guild's windows to watch the reactions of those who were handed the paper.  He'd marked mostly expected reactions from folks: shock, worry, macabre excitement. But the knife-juggling man, while doing a fairly good job at keeping his expression under control, had grown steadily more pale as he read through the article's contents. ((Continued below cut))

Either he was their spy, or vandal, or he knew something about it.

"It's the best lead we've got at the moment... There just isn't enough evidence to go around."

Arlo nodded; it was frustrating -- they still had a small list of names they hadn't been able to fully prove were innocent both of spying or the graffiti, or of causing that cave-in.  The woman who had been killed had been one of those they'd been watching...it was awful to think of it like this but with her death she'd been proven "innocent" and they were no closer to finding their invisible person.

"All right, then."

He pulled himself out of his thoughts and focused back on Eli as she shoved herself up from the sofa and stood.  

"Call me crazy but I think Balance is finally ready to sic Judgement on our murderous little spy buddy and get our stories back on track."

Arlo smiled at that; it had been awhile since she'd mentioned anything regarding her religious beliefs.  "It'd be nice to wrap everything up, at the least."

"To wrap up this chapter," she corrected, wagging a finger at him.   "It's considered bad luck to not be specific when talking to the cosmos."

With a small chuckle he got up too.  "Would it really matter if that was how the story is supposed to end?"

"Eh. It doesn't mean you walk through life counting down the pages." She walked with him over to the door and rested a hand on the doorknob.  "You're off to tell Mali and the rest, right?"

"I am.  Why?"

"Let them all know with the hours we've been putting in that the towers and transmitters ought to be up within three days, five tops."

Arlo stared at her for a moment.  "--that's...considerably quicker than you'd- don't work yourself to death over this.  We need you fit, rested, and alert."

She waved a hand and yanked the door open.  "I know my-" both she and Arlo flinched, and so did Asher mid-knock on the other side of the door.  

"-good grief, you scared the crap out of me," Asher blurted out.

Eli huffed, lightly patting a hand against her chest.  "I seem to have incredible luck opening doors at the exact wrong time.  Or right time, depending on your point of view.  What's up?"

"Uh," Asher answered, looking between Arlo and Eli.  "Am I interrupting something?"

Arlo shook his head.  "I was just leaving.  Why?"

"I...wanted to see if you wanted to grab some dinner.  I guess we three could go if you like?" Asher asked, gaze moving from Eli to Arlo and back again.

Eli shrugged.  "I haven't eaten yet, fine by me."

"...I hope that means you haven't eaten DINNER yet, and not that you haven't eaten all day," Arlo said after a pause, crossing his arms as he looked over to her.

Again she shrugged.  "Bit of column A, bit of column B."

Arlo huffed out a sigh. "Eli..."

She held up her hands in a placating gesture.  "All right, all right, I'll try to be better about it.  You coming?"

Out of the corner of his eye Arlo could see Asher suck in a breath and hold it; it was pretty clear he'd wanted to have dinner with just Eli.  "--no, I don't think I will.  I should talk to Mali as soon as possible - you two go on ahead."

"All right, cool," Asher said in a rush.  "And by the way, no graffiti this morning."

Arlo nodded.  "Good."  

Asher moved out of the doorway and stepped off the porch with Arlo and Eli heading out behind him; the three moved together toward the fence gate and as he cleared the side of the house Arlo caught distant movement at the edge of his peripheral vision.  He didn't turn his head more than a fraction just to be sure he was seeing what he thought he was, then kept walking with the others up the road toward Portia.

"-you saw him too, right?"

"Yep," Eli answered.

"Saw...who?" Asher asked, looking between them.  "Where?"

"Don't look back but-" Arlo started, but then waited until they were through Portia's arches.  "-that big, muscled man that's been on a fishing trip was staring across the field at us."

"...really?"

Eli nodded.  "I don't think he had his line in the water with how he was holding that pole either.  He seems to stick around that bridge a lot though sometimes I've seen him roaming toward the beach."

"And he would be able to see your house from that stretch of the river too," Asher said after a moment, frowning heavily.

Arlo nodded.  "So, juggling man and muscled man...  I think we need to have a talk with those two." As he turned to split off from the two he noted a dark haired woman at the fountain who looked a little lost; she was looking up and down the road in each direction and pacing back and forth on the same three-foot stretch of stone.  "-are you all right, there?"

She fixed her attention on him and Arlo blinked in surprise -- she looked like Lily, if the girl were thirty years older.

"I'm fine, simply hoping to spot my daughter."

"Is her name Lily by chance?" Eli asked.

The woman nodded, a small smile inching across her face.  "Yes.  I guess that means you've met her."

"We have, yeah.  She's been in Portia awhile now.  Is...there an emergency?  We could help look for her," Asher said; when the man looked to him for confirmation Arlo nodded - looking for her wouldn't take long.

"No, no, that's fine.  It's nothing serious.  I was hoping to surprise her, is all -- do you know where she might be?"

"Well... She works on the farm outside of the Portia, and stays in those apartments behind you there.  In room twelve, I think.  I know it's on the second floor," Eli answered (Arlo was glad one of them remembered...).  "There's a sitting area just inside the door though and you can't miss anyone walking through the door if you wait there."

The woman smiled and pressed her hands together.  "Thank you so much!  You just saved me a lot of time and effort."

They waited a moment and watched as the woman walked over and then disappeared through the Happy Apartments' entrance.  When the door had closed Arlo let out a sigh and jerked his head toward the hill leading up toward the Corps building.  "I'll see you two later - I plan to talk to Mali and then come straight back.  Keep your eyes open for anything weird."

"Always do," Eli replied.  

She went with Asher toward the Round Table and Arlo began the trek up the hill - there was an equal chance that Mali would be either here or out at the sink hole so he may as well check the easier place first.

-----------------------------------------------

"So long as people are willing to throw money at me I didn't think it was a big deal, you know?"

Arlo nodded.  "It wasn't, until we had an unexplained death.  If you want to avoid suspicion I suggest you think about moving on."

The knife juggler, Windsor, grimaced and nodded.  "Yeah...read about that.  Scary stuff.  Are the uh, roads safe?"

"As safe as can be expected.  If you're worried we can provide you a Civil Corps escort as far south as Walnut Groove or, if you don't mind sea travel, there's a once-a-week boat from Portia to Vega 5, and then they have daily ferries to Walnut Groove and Tallsky."

"When's this once weekly ride?"

Arlo actually had to stop to think a moment; he'd so rarely traveled out of Portia that the schedules and methods of doing so sometimes slipped his mind.  "-three days from now."

Windsor puffed out a sigh and reached for the little leather satchel on his waist.  "Yeah, I think I got enough for that...or else, can probably scrounge up enough by then."

"How much do you have?"

As Arlo watched the man fidgeted with the clasp on the satchel -- he seemed trying to act like it was hard to open but Arlo had a feeling that the man didn't WANT to open it.  Finally it clicked and came away, and Windsor flipped up the top flap and began to rummage until Arlo heard the clinking of coin.

Windsor was muttering under his breath as the rattling and clinking continued, and then-

"-I got about 694 gols.  Maybe less, assuming I didn't count something twice on accident."

"That's enough for a ticket to get from here to Tallsky, but it'll be tight."  Arlo reached into his pocket - he'd come prepared for this, to give the man no more excuses - and pulled out a small bag with another 250 gols in it.  "This ought to cover food costs and a night's stay in Vega 5 if you need it, combined with what you already have."

He handed the bag to the man and waited for the reaction; to his surprise the man looked genuinely surprised and then relieved.

"Well all right then, that settles that.  You're awfully generous, man."

"I do what I can.  Be careful out there and I'll let Wuwa know you need a ticket."

"Wu...who?"

"Wuwa.  He'll be the one taking you to Vega 5."

"Gotcha.  Well, thanks!"  The man stuffed the bag into the satchel, flipped the flap over and latched it shut, then gave a little half-salute.  "Guess I'll-"

The door to the Civil Corps building flew open with a loud thud and Sam came rushing through.  "-Arlo?  You here?" She stopped abruptly as she took in the sight of Windsor sitting on the couch and Arlo standing over him.

"What's wrong?"

"Yeah, what the heck?" Windsor muttered, relaxing from having just almost jumped out of his seat.

"Sorry, I thought you'd be done by now. We have a uh...situation.  Need you."

"Right."  Arlo looked to Windsor.  "Maybe you ought to stay here."

"You know?  That sounds like a great idea."

Without another word Arlo followed Sam out the door but to his surprise she led him toward the clinic.

Inside was a small crowd of people gathered in a loose semi-circle around where Harrison and Xu were huddled over a still form on one of the beds - Mali, Gale, Eli, Selene, and Russo stood with their backs to him and Sam at the door.  Arlo noted a watery trail of blood - pale and translucent, almost like a spilled juice - leading from the door toward the bed, and there was a puddle forming on the floor beneath where water dripped off a limp hand.

"What's going on?"

Mali turned around then came over to talk, her voice lowered.  "We've had a so-called 'accident' brought to our attention by one of our main suspects."

Arlo frowned.  "...what?"

She gestured for him to follow and let him take her place in the circle.

On the bed was a man who was soaking wet; one side of his head was blood-soaked and torn open, and though he couldn't clearly see them through the blood he'd swear the man's lips were blue.  The hand that hung limply off the bed was bloodied and while it looked to have been missing for some time he also noted that the pinky finger was gone.

"Stewart is on the way but we're not expecting him to be able to do much," Sam added in a hushed tone.  "You can kind of already see there's no bringing him back."

Arlo glanced over his shoulder to where Sam stood.  "How long ago was he brought in?"

"Not very - that muscled guy came rushing up the road saying he'd watched a man slip and take a tumble off the falls.  Said he had to wait for him to float to a safer spot to fish him out, had him waiting on the shore in the grass while he ran to town for help.  Martha came running for me, I called for Mali and Eli-" Sam replied, pointing to her Hi-Def.  "Selene came with Eli, Eli notified Gale, Russo happened by and helped us carry the guy, by the time we got him to the clinic Mali and Gale had gotten here."

He took a quick head count - that explanation seemed to match up with who was here. "Why didn't you call for me?"

Sam tugged her sleeves down then crossed her arms. "I wasn't sure if you were done with that juggler yet and didn't want you to have to explain the Hi-Def to someone we suspect might be a killer.  How'd that talk go anyhow?"

Arlo stepped back from the rest and led Sam and Mali away into the far corner of the clinic.  "He agreed to leave but I couldn't get any definitive reason for him having stayed this long aside from him just wanting whatever money he could get."

"Not entirely unexpected..." Mali mused.  She crossed her arms and looked toward the door.  "At the very least this should rule him out as being behind this particular incident."

"Yeah - he COULD be innocent, but either way we need him out of here," Sam said.  "It's one less person to watch or bury and if everything goes back to normal with him gone we'll know who we need to track down."

"Where's the big guy?  Did we have any other witnesses?"

Mali shook her head.  "No other witnesses.  Once we retrieved the...injured man, the other went back to gather his fishing gear.   Paulie is keeping a discrete eye on him."

"We need to plan how to approach this man so no one gets hurt...   Let's go talk to Paulie, see if he noticed the man doing anything strange," Arlo said.  "You two head down, I need to tell Windsor he's free to leave the Corps building."

As Mali and Sam headed out the door ahead of him Arlo turned for a final look back at the man on the bed, just in time to see Xu and Harrison carefully covering the body with a sheet that immediately began to soak up the water and blood.

He pushed down the sudden bubbling of anger in his gut and walked out.

--------------------------------------------------

Between Xu, Harrison, and Stewart, they'd determined that drowning was technically the cause of death but there were other...questionable details they'd noticed, like bruising around the neck area and missing fingernails.

While the man may have drowned the bruising and missing fingernails seem to suggest it wasn't a simple slip and fall. And again they lacked evidence to prove anything because they had no witnesses and no surveillance cameras or patrol bots or ANYTHING to point them to the answer of this riddle.

Eli was beginning to HATE this time period.

--------------------------------------------

Time to come home, had been the woman's greeting when Lily had opened her locked apartment door.

Her mother had offered no explanations - not for how she'd gotten into the room or knew which room was hers - but Lily knew she really didn't need to; Xan had told her about who her mother was and what she'd been doing before that day where she'd come home and just...stopped.   No more "traveling" or attempts to hold down work.  Just her gardening and a helpless feeling that had driven Lily to find something to support them on.

They'd argued; Lily was careful not to say anything to tip her mother off as to why she was here but her mother having bothered to come all the way out to Portia was a pretty good indicator that she knew already... HOW MUCH she knew wasn't something Lily could, or would, guess at.  But she knew...that much was certain.

Her mother was opting to stay in her own room and had left that night with the "promise" of giving her time to rethink her actions and come home on her own, coupled with the threat that Lily was going to come home with her one way or another.  As soon as the woman had left Lily had checked within her mattress and-

It was gone.  The suit was gone.

As though she needed MORE troubles at the moment...  All hope (not that she'd had much fo it) that they could get the plan back on track was gone: with construction still delayed AND now the suit gone, there was no chance at all that Xan's plan would succeed.  That little twit Harrison would get off easy after all, and he'd get to live his happy little life without ever knowing what they'd initially planned to make him do -- at least until he spoke to his family, anyway.  Plan or no, once they'd gotten the AI back to Duvos there'd be no reason to keep the family hostage.

With her mother here (and without knowing where the suit was - Lily knew there was no way her mother would have it somewhere Lily could easily reclaim it) it would be really difficult to get a message out to the others to meet... Her mother would be watching her like a hawk but if she could just get word to ONE of the others-

-it would need to be Windsor.  He and Franklin were both equally close, staying at the inn across the river, but his room in particular had a window with a shoddy lock on it -- Lily could sneak out, over to and into his room, and either leave him a list of instructions or talk to him directly if he was there.  Then he could pass word along and they could meet tonight at the arch and form a plan to strike tomorrow night.

As for what they could do at this point... Lily didn't particular relish the idea of having to kill everyone out at the facility (though she had to admit she'd love some payback against Arlo for stabbing her) but that was really all they had left to them: a typical kill, smash, grab, and run mission.  Messy, tricky, but they were facing down certain failure if they didn't (especially as the longer this dragged on the more likely someone would spot the Sky Sharks - something ELSE she'd been concerned about before everything else had happened).

Lily opened the door and poked her head out; there didn't seem to be anyone waiting in the hall, and the sitting area on the ground floor looked deserted too.  Now, more than ever, she wished the apartments had more than just the front and back door - maybe she could break into another room, climb out a window...anything to keep her mother from seeing her leave.  She hopped the railing and landed heavily on the floor below then crossed over to the room in front of her; no one answered the knocks so she picked the lock and in she went -- thankfully, the room was empty.  The window slid open with only a minor creak and Lily slipped out and dropped herself into the narrow empty space between some bushes and the wall, waiting and listening.

...she didn't hear anything, or anyone.  Time to move.  If she stuck to the few alleys of Portia there'd at least be places to duck into if she thought she was being followed.

She'd need to do this quickly.

------------------------------------

Windsor slammed the door shut and locked it, feeling like his teeth were going to shatter with how hard he was gritting his teeth.

That stupid brat...uppity little shit.  How dare she-

He'd nearly skewered her when he'd come back to his room and found her unexpectedly inside it; then, he'd told her 'they're on to me and I need to leave.'

And her response?  'Take the fall.'

Ha.  No.  First of all, Windsor was a mercenary, not a murderer.  He wasn't going to own up to a crime he wouldn't have committed in the first place.

This job was supposed to be an easy one: in, grab, out, payday -- he'd already planned to lay low afterward and with the reward on this one he could afford, and likely would need, to lay low for the next couple of years.  The fact they'd had a solid plan was the only reason Windsor had even bothered with this one; he much preferred hunting down fugitives or escorting scholarly types or playing guard dog to whoever had the money to hire him, not get tangled in the affairs of an empire that no one on the continent cared for.

Not for the first time he silently cursed himself for being drawn in by the huge payout promised...

And, ALSO not for the first time, he found himself thinking back to his last conversation with that Franklin fellow.

He'd sworn then that he wouldn't snitch on the man -- mostly because he didn't think the man would do much more than bribe or tip off the law to get people out of the way; Franklin wanted this whole thing to fail and it would have been so incredibly easy to anonymously drop off a list of names of those who refused to cooperate with him at the Civil Corps building.  And sure, the job would be compromised and Windsor would lose all that money, but at least...

 At least he'd be alive and heading home, with none the wiser.

He hadn't actually thought the man would resort to killing the team off to cause this job to fail...  

That Franklin had blown someone up in the ruins, and now Portia was abuzz with the news of some poor soul who'd just happened to take a nasty tumble off the falls outside of town, that Franklin had just happened to spot falling and just happened to be in the right place at the right time to fish them out of the river... Windsor would bet all of the gols in his possession that it'd turn out to be yet another member of their little team.

And what if Franklin decided not to take Windsor at his word?

He paused that thought as there was a heavy banging on his door; opening it up just enough to peer out through a crack showed Franklin's sweaty face staring back at him.

"...what?"

"Meeting in two. Same as before."

And with that the man was gone, and good riddance too; he'd stunk like rotting fish and mud.

Oh lovely.  A meeting between the survivors the night before Windsor was supposed to leave.

He moved over to sit on the edge of his bed, debating with himself; at this point he didn't give one iota of a rat's ass about his teammates.  He DID, however, care quite a bit about his own safety.

And, as he'd already logic'd out, it would be a VERY simple thing to just tip off the Civil Corps folks to the others -- after all, Windsor may be a suspect but he'd already agreed to leave.  If he left like he'd promised then it'd be his teammates' words against his, but by then he'd already be gone and if he had to there were always plenty of clueless safari types who were looking for protection for forays into The Peripheries.  A year or two roughing it in the wilderness to shake off any heat wouldn't be so bad -- it'd be better than prison, that was for sure.

With a grunt Windsor stood back up and went over to his window; it was your typical window: two panes of glass, one slightly offset inward with a pair of locks at the bottom of the frame and the ability to slide up and down in front of the top pane.  He slid one of his knives free from its sheath and jammed it into the wood at the top of the frame so it would halt the window's upward motion.

There.  Now if the dumb brat decided to come back she'd have to come through the door and risk being seen breaking in.

----------------------------------------------------------

After having that talk with Bob Sam had had a look around and then come back into town, but then found herself heading back out there again even though she knew there hadn't been any footprints or anything that had seemed out of the ordinary the first time 'round.  

But, this time as she'd walked she'd found herself scanning her surroundings with a mind toward 'if I wanted to hide, where would I?'   There were a few dunes out here that were tall enough to block the view of the harbor and anything else to the north but what finally drew her attention was that gigantic rock arch that was about as far from the harbor as you could get while still remaining within Portia's territory.   It was a remote location (it took Sam nearly two hours to walk out to it from the harbor, moving as slow as she was while checking around), no one really went there because the tides could be a bit unpredictable so it was too dangerous to swim at that stretch of the beach, the dunes were choked with beach grass and weeds so walking out there was a pain in the butt, and...

Yeah, once you were out here, under that arch, unless you were actually OUT here and close, you had yourself a relatively perfect hiding spot.

Sam was careful not to get TOO close - if someone really was using this place as a hideout she didn't want to tip her hand or leave too many tracks to alert anyone that she'd been out here...but she did have an idea, of sorts.

They hadn't had their Hi-Defs for very long but once they'd gotten used to having one they'd all agreed that they were amazing tools that would prove invaluable and irreplaceable in Portia's defense.  So far they'd limited their imaginations to just the communication aspect but Sam already knew that wasn't all these things could be used for; with the towers not all up and operational yet she had to run Teddy out to the sinkhole until she got within range of its tower and could contact Paulina to ask a question:

 Can I record sounds or images on this thing yet?

It'd taken a few tries to communicate to Paulina what she was wanting; she didn't need a camera or music function, she wasn't trying to set a recorded automated greeting, and she wasn't trying to map anything.  It turned out that yes, she COULD record sound and images, and Paulina estimated her Hi-Def's onboard memory could hold about sixteen hours of footage before it would run out of space to store it.   It took some fiddling around with trying to follow Paulina's instructions and accidentally starting and then deleting a few false starts but finally, hours later, Sam was back out at the beach, wedging the Hi-Def carefully into a rocky cleft and packing it into place with mud and sand, with the screen angled so it could see both the area under the stone arch and also a short stretch of the beach beyond it to the east.

She doubted she'd get any clear audio at this distance but maybe, just maybe, she'd catch a glimpse of Bob's "ghost" on the thing, and while there was a risk of losing the Hi-Def Eli could still track the things, right?  So even if their spy found it and stole it -- huh.   Actually, it'd be a really good thing if that happened.

Teddy was getting crabby by the time they got back to the stables and Sam was ready to skip dinner and head straight to bed by the time she was done cleaning him up and feeding him.  Sometime tomorrow around midday she'd go out and check to see if the Hi-Def had captured something, and if not she'd erase it and set it and leave it again for another night.

[saffronwritings]

Be There

warnings: Parental in Hospital due to health, cursing

pairing: katsuki bakugou x reader 

A/N: I get very nervous thinking about posting my work on tumblr but I figured I'd give a whirl. Please be nice :)  Also I do not own the banner and if you want me to credit you let me know!!

Bakugou had noticed that you had been off from the moment you stepped into class this morning. Your normal cheerful demeanor had been shifted into one that was just complacent. Something about the way you forced yourself to talk to the rest of your classmates had bothered him immensely.

Although he would never admit it, he cared deeply for you. He had fallen for you little charms and even thought that you quirk was rather handy, being able to manipulate others with your hypnotic voice. There had been times where he thought you were using your powers against him, but plenty of times you had reassured the hot head that you only use it when necessary.

You had quickly found your way into the Bakusquad, as you had quickly bonded with Jirou and Mina. Not only that, but you seemed to not mind how ill-tempered Bakugou was. Even with his outbursts towards you at times, you seemed to just smile and act as if he had not hurt your feelings. He had noticed the times he had and made sure to apologize in solitude because he dared not show his soft side to the rest of his friend group. You personally enjoyed seeing these softer sides of the angry boy as you felt like he could confide in you. ‘

However, today was so much different. How could you have changed so quickly overnight and what was the cause of it? Did someone from another class say something to upset you once again? Those general studies students tended to say that your quirk was cheating and that you did not deserve your spot in class 1-A. Bakugou had time and time again scared away those sidekicks into submission. You had not said anything that was bothering you, and although the rest of the Bakusquad seemingly had not noticed, Bakugou did.

He stalked after you once class had let out and he had grabbed your wrist while in passing, dragging you into a vacant classroom. This had startled you enough to let out an embarrassed squeak. He closed the door behind him so no wondering eyes could disturb the two of you. “What’s going on Bakugou?” You asked confused, still seemingly dazed. “Tell me what’s wrong.” He bluntly stated, cutting straight to what was bothering him.

Your gaze suddenly shifted from confusion to acknowledgement. Of course, he was going to notice something was wrong. He was scarily perceptive. You waved your hand in front of you and attempted to fake laugh at his question. “Silly, Katsuki.” You teased, attempted to brush past him back out into the hallway. “Just tired from studying last night is all. We have a lot of our final tests coming up.” You lied, hand on the sliding door. He just scoffed and you could feel his eye roll even without looking at the blonde boy.

He watched you carefully as you stalked out of the classroom, avoiding the confrontation he was attempting to have. However, he was not going to force you to tell him anything you did not feel comfortable with. It was not his place to demand information from you. The last thing he needed was you pushing him as to why he wanted to know what was wrong. The thought alone almost set off tiny explosions in his hands. He wanted to squash whatever was bothering you to bring that smile of yours back onto your lovely face.

Kirishima had bothered him from time and time again about asking you out for a date. No matter how many times the explosive boy tried to correct him, Kirishima knew Bakugou was smitten for you. He kept it to himself, as much as he wanted to tell the rest of the squad. Bakugou scoffed and walked out of the classroom moments after you. He caught up with you and the rest of his classmates in the lunchroom. His apatite was gone though, watching you go about your day in a lackadaisical manner. Watching miserably from the sidelines had affected his own attitude.

“Jeez Bakugou, if you’re not hungry today, I’ll gladly take your food for you.” Kaminari perked up, staring at his uneaten lunch. “Piss off, Sparky.” Bakugou barked back immediately. “You’ve been so crabby today, so much so more than usual.” Kaminari replied, backing away from the blonde. He hated to admit it, but the stupid lightning bolt was right. Was he really going to let your bad day also affect him? Frustrated, he attempted to try and eat part of his lunch. When you gave him a concerning look, he just turned away and ate in silence.

Things really took a turn for the worse during your hero training. The two of you had been paired up together in a simulation fight. You had to retrieve a citizen from a collapsing building and fight off your other classmates. You were up against Momo and Ojiro. This normally would have been a cinch for the two of you, especially with how well you worked together. Even though your quirk relied on consciousness and influence, your combat skills were above the rest. Well, aside from Izuku and Katsuki that is. However, with your mind out of focus, you were easily overtaken by that Creation quirk of Momo’s. Aizawa had called the match and suddenly you heard multiple explosions go off.

“Bakugou, you need to chill.” Kirishima said, trying to lighten the mood up. “No! We lost because the Siren girl can’t get her head together!” He shouted, staring daggers over to you. You flinched back at his outburst. “Why can’t you just get over whatever it is you’re upset about and do your damned job as a hero! You can’t be this out of focus in the field or no agency is going to take you!” He barked more. There was silence throughout the entire class. You turned away to head towards the changing rooms when Present Mic had arrived at the simulation grounds, calling your name. The look of concern only etched itself further on your face seeing the look in Present Mic’s face. Everyone’s attention then turned from Bakugou to you. Watching as Mic whispered something to and watching your face change from upset to distraught.

Immediately you were quickly following Present Mic out of the training arena. The class erupted in questions, wondering what was going on. Aizawa quieted the class and tried to get the rest of his students back in order. “Listen, we need to finish this lesson. Unless you all want extra homework.” He threatened. The class quieted and returned to the lesson. However, something was not sitting right with Bakugou. Almost instantly he was regretting taking his anger out on you. “What do you think Y/N was taken away for?” Jirou asked quietly while watching Todoroki and Ochaco go against Hagakure and Iida. “I don’t know, it looked serious though.” Kirishima noted, with Kaminari nodding along to his statement. “I hope she’s okay.” Mina whispered. “She will be. At least I hope she will be.” Bakugou thought.

The next morning was even worse. Bakugou had barely slept a wink. He had texted you after school apologizing for exploding on you, and that he was just worried about you. You did not respond to his message. Even worse, the text message was not even opened. When he arrived in class, you were missing from your usual spot. If there was anyone who was almost as stubborn as Iida about getting to class early, it was you. “Is Y/N not here yet?” Kirishima asked from behind Bakugou. He had not even noticed he was standing and staring idly at your desk. “No.” He answered before going over and sitting down at his own desk.

The rest of the squad had arrived and found themselves gathering around Bakugou’s desk like they did every morning. Usually he hated this, but when you were around, he did not mind it as much. Your presence was clearly missing, and it was obvious that it bothered him. “Had no one heard from Y/N? I tried texting her last night, however, she didn’t answer me.” Mina had asked, looking at her phone once again. “Nothing on my end, I sent her a text as soon as we got out of school.” Jirou interjected. “Same here.” Kirishima chimed in. Bakugou stayed quiet, only getting more worried. He had tuned out their continuing conversation until Aizawa had entered the room. The Bakusquad had quickly dispersed and sat in their assigned seats.

There was a grim look on Aizawa’s face, and it had sent an unsettling feeling into Bakugou’s stomach. Once the class had quieted down, Aizawa had taken in a deep breath before addressing the classroom. “Y/N will not be attending school for the rest of the week. Yesterday her mother was admitted into the hospital and is in critical condition. She will be staying by her side in the hospital.” He stated, making the class gasp in surprise. Bakugou’s heart could have leap out of his throat. You could hear a pin drop from the class being so quiet. “We will write a condolence card for her and send it to her address by the end of the week.” He continued to speak but all Bakugou could hear was ringing in his ears. Had he heard his teacher correctly? Your mother was extremely ill. You had to have seen her health declining and had not said a word to anyone. Up until yesterday, you had played it off as if everything in your homelife was okay.

Aizawa had changed the subject back to what he was teaching yesterday. He was reviewing the material that was covered the day before. However, Bakugou could not stop the crackling in his hands. He slammed his hands on his desk and stood up. The eruptions in his hands going off, burning a spot on his desk. A few students jumped, however, most of them were used to Bakugou’s outbursts. Except, this time he was dead quiet. Everyone turned around to look at him, but before Aizawa could say a word, Bakugou was walking out of the classroom. “Bakugou! Where are you going?” Kirishima yelled after him. However, Bakugou tuned him out. His pace quickened as he traveled through the school. He did not bother to stop at his locker or change into his normal shoes. As soon as he stepped foot outside of the school gates, he broke into a sprint.

You had invited him over to your house once. Asking him if he could help you study for one of your exams. He found his feet doing all the work as he raced towards where he knew you lived. He was not sure what he was going to do once he arrived, but he knew he had to be there. Before he knew it, he noticed the street coming to an end and he knew around the corner was your house. Suddenly, he got extremely nervous, just leaving school to go comfort you. Would you even let him after yelling at you yesterday? He had to try. He slowed his pace as he approached your house.

You were sitting on your front step, weeping quietly with your head in your hands. His heart broke in half seeing you in such a state. You were just beyond the gate, but he was so hesitant to push the gate open. When he heard your soft crying turn into full on sobs, that is when he found the courage to push the gate open and was by your side in the matter of seconds. Before you could even process what was happening, he had pulled you into his embrace and held onto you tightly. “Katsuki??” You asked in surprise. “I’m sorry. I should not have yelled at you yesterday. You needed me to be there for you. So, now I am. And I want you to cry. I want you to feel safe around me. I’m never going to let you feel that way again.” He explained, holding onto you as if he was afraid to lose you too.

You started to cry harder and gripped onto him tightly. The two of you had stayed like that for a while. He just let you cry because that is what you needed. He dares not judge you for feeling the way you did right now. He was going to be there for you from now on. “Thank you.” You finally whispered once you had caught your breath from heavily crying. “Don’t thank me, dummy.” He answered back, “It’s what I should have done from the get-go. When Aizawa told the class what happened, I flung myself out of my chair to get my ass here.”.

“But why?” You asked, almost bewildered. You had pulled away from his embrace to wipe your wet eyes. You felt his calloused hand carefully caress your cheek, wiping away a stray tear that had fallen from your bloodshot eyes. “Do I have to spell it out to you?” He huffed. In that moment, you had noticed his face turn a bright red. Even though you had just lost your mother and your heart yearned for her, for just a moment you had felt it flutter. “This has to be the shittiest timing, Y/N. I don’t want to take away from your pain, in any way…” He started to say, tripping over his words. You immediately pulled him into another embrace, throwing him off guard.

“You will never take anything away from me. Thank you for being here for me. Thank you for always caring about me, Katsuki.” You whispered, making the boy even more flustered. He huffed in protest, but he knew he enjoyed the attention. The two of you separated from the embrace and Katsuki felt bold enough to lean in to kiss you, softly but a bit forcefully on the lips. This action truly shocked you for a moment. He quickly pulled back realizing what he had just done. “I shouldn’t have done that. I should go.” He said quickly, standing up from his seated position. Before he could bolt out the gate, he heard you say his name. He turned around only to find your face inches from his, making him blush immensely. You pecked him on the cheek and grabbed his hand. “Let’s go inside, yeah?” You asked. And although your eyes had been puffy and bloodshot from crying, snot was dripping down your nose, and it looked like you had not slept in days, he still found you so incredibly beautiful.

“Tch. Fine.” He grumbled, following in your lead, but not letting go of your hand.

[alltheworldsinmyhead]

                                          time, wondrous time

                                           elain & azriel & lucien  //   ao3

Time, curious time

Gave me no compasses, gave me no signs

Were there clues I didn't see?

And isn't it just so pretty to think

All along there was some

Invisible string

Tying you to me?

Bright sunlight wakes Elain up, relentlessly tapping on her closed eyelids until she groans softly; making her clammy skin sizzle. She cannot escape from it, not sandwiched naked between two bodies the way she is. Flushed all-over, not an inch of her untouched; her cheek pressed to one male’s back, her legs tangled up with another’s. Some minuscule human part of her left weeping in shame, quietly, somewhere too deep inside her to bother with it.

Instead of hiding underneath thin sheets, she spits out a strand of hair stuck to her lower lip and begins grounding herself. It’s a slow, meticulous process, boring and alike to fishing out pebbles of a certain shade from a riverbed full of all kinds of rocks – but then, Elain’s well versed in it for now. Last night’s memories are a bit brighter, a bit more solid than all of the other images blooming in her head. There is laughter and auburn wine, the taste of it on her tongue, pomegranate juice dripping down her neck until it was licked off. Sand-colored marble kissing the bare soles of her feet when she was running through the corridors. Sheer silk swishing around her calves.  Sweet ache coiling deep in her belly, between her slick thighs, the release hard enough to leave her feeling breathless, almost empty. There’s snow falling in the Steppes,  chubby cheeks and round, silver-blue eyes of her mother-

Which don’t belong to yesterday, nor to any of the yesterdays before. Elain indulges herself though; let’s happiness and adoration fill her to the brim when she stays with this image for a bit longer. Those tiny fingers locked around a lock of her sister’s hair, Nesta’s cooing, a lullaby falling from her lips soft like a caress…  It’s too nice, too delicious to not melt into this vision.  

But then - a rough hand slides up her thigh, fingers tracing the arch of her hipbone. Quiet laughter echoes when she trembles in response.

The future bursts like a soap bubble in the air and Elain falls painfully into here and now. She bares her throat to rest the back of her head on Azriel’s chest, smiling brightly with her eyes still firmly closed when he presses a kiss underneath her jaw.

‘’Good morning, Elain.’’ He whispers.

Before she can reply, a familiar warmth spills deep inside her belly – happiness and annoyance and pleasure mixed up in equal measure – and Lucien huffs, his voice muffled by the pillow:

‘’Why do you always have to wake up so early?’’

It’s the sun. – Elain wants to say, want to sing-song into his ear until he fully awakens.- It’s the sun and you are the one responsible for it.

But she’s too content, too comfy – so he blindly moves her hand from Lucien’s waist to his back, traces loopy I love you-s on the bare skin with her fingertips as the bond inside her purrs like a cat in response. She can feel the silky strands of his hair brushing her knuckles and, for the thousandth time, she vows she’ll never let him cut them.

‘’Good morning.’’ She lets out an exhale. ‘’The sun’s telling you to rise and shine, my lord.’’

Azriel’s near-soundless laugh makes the bed shake a bit. It’s her favorite sound in the world – as beautiful as her future nephew’s shrieks of joy, as beautiful as Nesta’s singing voice.

As beautiful as Lucien’s fond, irritated groan.

‘’You two will pay me back for it, you know.’’

Oh, she knows.

Lips and hands and cocks and wings and starlight underneath her eyelids; and moans and names and curses; in the daylight, in the moonlight; on the soft grass in her personal garden, bees buzzing around them as they make love, her knees scraped raw, teeth-marks on her neck, finger-shaped bruises on her thighs.

Before now – before them, she didn’t know it’s even possible to feel such ecstasy, that sex can be like this. She doesn’t know how she was managing to live without it, how she did not crave this connection as one craves air every second, every heartbeat of her life.

‘’Is that a threat or promise, oh mighty High Lord?’’ Azriel snickers and Elain hides her face in Lucien’s hair to suppress her giggle. ‘’Be careful not to bite more than you can chew.’’

‘’I think we all know I can chew plenty.’’ Lucien shoots back, unflinchingly. Just enough bite in his tone that she squeezes her thighs together, that she feels Azriel’s hand climbing up the ladder of her ribs to brush her breast.

‘’Shush, both of you.’’ She whispers. ‘’It’s too early for that.’’

She can almost feel Lucien’s grin on her own lips.

‘’It’s never too  early for that.’’

Like a cat waking up from a nap on a sunny afternoon, Elain slowly stretches her body- brushing, caressing, electing hisses and groans left and right in process, her bones and muscles re-forming from their half-molten state when she yawns.

And then she opens her eyes.

Lucien has turned to lay flat on his back, smiling at her in the light of the morning. There are pillow creases pressed on his cheek and she almost manages to reach out and touch them before Azriel throws his arms across her torso and beats her to it.

Darling, terrible Azriel, all the impossible contradictions of him. All brutality and goodness, quiet agony, dark humor.  How delicately his hand caresses  Lucien’s cheek.  How delicately he touches her, every time, until she tells him not to – as if she was something holy and precious, and worth living for.

Life’s – life’s just this, being tangled up, tied into a knot with her mate and her beloved, her glorious, gorgeous, grand lovers keeping her tethered, keeping her safe. Not for the first time, Elain feels a quiet glee at this thought – oh, let her sisters’ keep their mates and their great love stories full of heartbreak and pain, and impossible choices. Elain refused to go down this road. Elain refused impossible choices.

Elain, for the first time in her life, took a stand for something, refused to let the tide of fate to carry her from one place to another as if she was a petal on the wind.

And Elain is adored.

And Elain adores in return.

She wants to melt in-between them, slither underneath their ribs, bind them together for all eternity. Time is a river and she has long ago stopped drowning – now she’s swimming like a fish, no longer gasping for air, no longer cold and lost. The Cauldron’s power hums in her, this horrifyingly ancient beast Nesta has conquered and Elain has tamed: you’ll go first, you’ll go first into this ageless dark, sweet doe.

And how exactly does it matter?

Lucien turns his face slightly to press his lips to the inside of Azriel’s hand. His own hand grips her waist to press her closer, closer; the three of them, hips pressing together, legs entangling, until their heartbeats sound like one perfect harmony in her ears.

How does it matter, when they will have each other even when I’m gone?

Her human life, brief and long evaporated like a puff of an exhale on a frost morning.

The centuries of love she got in exchange.

Feyre,  her little sister always so nosy beyond measure, burning in curiosity when she asks, time and time again, how does it even work, as if the three of them sat down around the business table the way Nesta sits with foreign traders to discuss terms and conditions; Mor biting the inside of her cheek not to laugh whenever Elain just shrugs in response. It’s not strange for her, loving them both, sharing and being shared. She has always had too much love inside her anyway, too much to know how to use it properly – wasting it on undeserving human men and pretty, petty things, this love without a purpose that she has now. Enough love for both of the best men she has ever met, both of them always so hungry for love, starved for it.

Elain has shed her humanity and all her human inhibitions the way silk dress slides to the marble floor, exposing skin and flesh begging to be touched – kept them on her and then got rid of them all at once, instantaneously.

Future rushes through her mind like a waterfall, all the good things: roses blooming, stars falling, Feyre’s rounded belly and her son’s first word, Lucien’s hungry gaze, Cassian’s deep laughter and Nesta’s silver one, rows and endless rows of books in the thousand libraries all toppled over, Azriel sleeping peacefully by her side-

Elain rests her head on Lucien’s shoulder and tangles her fingers in Azriel’s hair when he hides his face in the crook of her neck. The Day Court keeps them warm and safe when they drift back into dreams.

Oh, how truly blessed she is.  

[the-reaper-of-maidens]

Deep Winter Hunt

Lady Dimitrescu x OC~  I wrote this to this song, because I have Destiny 2 brain rot sometimes, lol, so it’s my excuse to show you this song. Also, huuuusssh, I love soft Alcina with all my heart. 🥺 TW: injuries, sex mention

Snow crunched beneath the Reaper’s boots as she scanned her surroundings, each breath manifesting as a frosty puff. It was overcast, so it made the winter’s morning look even drearier than would be typical, and it was lightly snowing. This wild hunt was starting to drag on a bit too long for her liking, but her stubbornness refused to let her return home empty handed.

Two weeks. That was how long the hunt was going on for, taking the Reaper all over Romania, from the steppes to pine forests. She even almost wandered off to Serbia when she temporarily lost track of the maiden she was after. This is no ordinary maiden, the Reaper thought to herself as she settled down for the night, starting a small campfire to stave off the cold as she rested. Her heart ached for her love, Lady Alcina Dimitrescu, but she had to forge on so as to not disappoint her. “I’ll be back soon, don’t worry,” she said out loud as if she was on the phone with her.

The last time she contacted Alcina was two days ago, and the Reaper was wrestling with if she should call her beloved. “No… gotta conserve my phone’s battery,” she muttered to herself as she had a tight grip on her phone, decided to wait until the morning. Normally, she’d call every two days if the hunt was long, but… her power bank was running a bit low, and her phone’s battery was just as low. She breathed, leaning against a tree as she looked up at the night sky, the stars shining especially bright on this cloudless night. She wondered how Alcina was doing, hoping the lady wouldn’t fret too much.

Naturally, the opposite happened. Alcina was just constantly wringing her hands in worry. “Oh, damn, I knew I should have let you three join her…” she hissed in worry, her daughters watching.

“Shall we go after her, Mother?” the oldest, a brunette named Viorica, asked.

“I… I don’t know, Viorica,” Alcina reluctantly admitted. “That damn tenacity of hers, she could have easily called off the hunt, but no… this maiden was just too pretty to pass up, and she just had to try to bag her for my wine.”

“Where could she even be?” Daniela, the blonde one, the middle child, mused. Of the three sisters, the Reaper was the closest to Daniela, so the witch was understandably concerned. “Last she told us, she was somewhere in Țara Românească, yes?”

“And that’s why I’m worried. The prey could have easily made off into București, if she’s smart. It’s only the largest city in Romania, after all… not to mention others would try to follow the Reaper back to us if she made one mistake this deep into her hunt,” Alcina wanted to send her daughters off to track the Reaper down, though she had no idea if the trail would be still warm enough, with the snow coming and going. No… she couldn’t risk her daughters; she just had to trust the Reaper to manage to get back. “Leave… for now, at least. We’ll just have to wait for her next call.”

Daniela and Viorica, swarmed away, though her youngest, a redhead named Aurelia, stayed behind. “Why are you so worried about… her, Mother?” she almost growled. Of the three, the redhead was the least trusting of the Reaper, though she didn’t directly antagonize her. 

Alcina’s lips almost curled into a grimace. “My reasons are mine alone, Aurelia. You don’t need to know why, you just need to respect it. The Reaper has given us many gifts, has she not?”

“But she’s still just… some girl you picked up from the streets,” Aurelia almost spat. “All it took was a ‘boohoo, my life is sad, can you please take me away’ to get you to cave in, Mother.”

“Aurelia, you’re being rather mouthy, and you know I hate those who sass back to me,” Alcina glowered, as if threatening to revoke her daughter’s privileges. “Now, go back and relax with your sisters as I told you to. I won’t repeat myself, you hear me, young lady?”

“I just need to know why you care so much about this silly little girl! She’s… just an intruder trying to ruin our lives… A foreigner who thinks she’s all that!”

“Because I love her!” Alcina finally snapped. “I… love her,” she repeated, quieter this time and with more deliberation. It was rare that the good lady lost her composure, but… emotions flared up. She held a hand to her chest, slowly realizing her romantic feelings for the Reaper.

“I… I see how it is, Mother,” Aurelia swarmed away before her mother would actually punish her. It would take a while for the youngest to process her feelings about a new vampire among their ranks...

She supposed it was a bit strange, finally feeling a flicker of romance, despite the many trysts between her and the Reaper, but it felt amazing when she came to terms with it. “Oh, my darling Reaper… you better come back home soon.”

And after a day and a half, return, she did, though wounded. “Sorry… I got attacked by a feral one. Wanted the prize, I think,” the Reaper said as her teeth chattered. Her bones were ice cold, and some of her wounds were caked with ice and dried blood. Her breathing was ragged and exhausted, exhaling frosty puffs with every breath. It was clear that she had not stopped to rest and warm up ever since she bagged her prey.

Alcina didn’t care about that, though; all that mattered was her beloved was safe, she would handle this feral monster soon enough. “Let us be,” she simply said to the servants as she carried her beloved in her arms, being her caretaker for the next week or two.

“Aaaaah,” the Reaper relaxed in a tub of hot water one day during her recovery. The water was a slight red tint, undoubtedly from her own wounds that were still open. It stung, but… having something nice and hot to clean those gaping injuries felt amazing. She hunkered down with a book to read when Alcina carefully stepped in with some clean clothes and tea. “Lady Alcina,” the Reaper grinned, revealing a row of shark-like teeth.

“My dear Reaper,” the castle’s mistress smiled warmly, setting the tea down next to her before kneeling down to plant a kiss on her lover’s cheek.

“Ah, thanks,” the Reaper eagerly took a sip. “Earl Grey, sweetened just right...~” she kissed Alcina back. “Sorry the tub is pretty… normal-sized, I’d invite you to join me,” the brunette vampire mutant giggled.

“Oh, don’t you worry. I’m just glad you’re safe,” the gargantuan woman held her love’s hand. “What an interesting book you have there. What’s that about?” she immediately knew it wasn’t from the castle’s library, it looked way too new.

“Oh, just stuff about Las Plagas. It’s always a fascinating topic, I really think you should at least check out some books on it,” the Reaper explained. “Even back in my mortal days, I was… always intrigued by the horror of parasites taking over your body. Reminds me of this one movie…” she was cut off by Alcina’s lips touching hers.

“You talk too much,” Alcina purred when she broke the kiss, “but no, really… tell me more. I know you like to hold strong on your little Los Iluminados and Umbrella Corporation conspiracy theory, so I’ll lend an ear this time to seriously consider the merit behind it.”

“You’re being awfully cuddly today, Lady Alcina~” the Reaper nuzzled, though she didn’t mind the extra special attention.

The lady of the castle gently squeezed the Reaper’s hand. “I love you, my darling,” she admitted. “I know, I always say that to you, but… this is different,” she leaned in to kiss her love on the cheek again, leaving behind another kiss mark.

“I know. It feels different than how you usually say it,” the Reaper nodded. “You really have no idea how happy it makes me hearing that from you, Lady Alcina.”

“I know, since you’re such a hopeless romantic,” the giant woman snorted in laughter, her crow’s feet bunching up. “Once you get patched up, we’ll enjoy a nice dinner… and, well, let’s just say, I missed having your tongue wiggling around inside me.”

“Hehe, I hope dinner’s as spicy as you’re being right now, Lady Alcina. I just miss being in your arms after sex, I feel… safe and comforted.”

“Are you sure it’s not because of my chest?” Alcina playfully rolled her eyes, knowing how much the Reaper loved sleeping on her breasts. “But really, not until you’re healed up. You look like you still have much healing to do,” she pointed at the slightly pinkish water and one of the Reaper’s rib wounds. “...Whoever attacked you deserved what they got. You’ll be pleased to see their head hanging on a mount by the castle door... No one gets to hurt what is mine and live.”

[emeraldembers]

Fic: Habits, Old and New (Artemy/Daniil, NC17)

Title: Habits, Old and New

Fandom: Мор. Утопия / Pathologic

Pairing: Artemy/Daniil (mention of past Daniil/Others)

Summary: In which Daniil hasn't had the healthiest relationship with sex in the past, and Artemy tries to help him fix that.

Warnings: The references to Daniil’s past mention alcohol abuse, dubious consent, and bad BDSM practice.

Author’s Notes: Originally written for the prompt “During his university days, Daniil made reckless choices out of desperation and self-hatred. Either he's fallen into old patterns in the Town-on-Gorkhon, or he's with someone who breaks them, and he's reflecting on it. Lots of introspection, please!“ over on the Pathologic kink meme.

Comments loved and encouraged!

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24252691

* * *

The Broken Heart's twyrine tasted awful, and Daniil had enjoyed bonding over its awfulness with friends old and new when the atmosphere changed and the pit of his stomach dropped out. He could see how Artemy was looking at him. He could see the laughter in Andrey's eyes, recognising that look.

Artemy wanted to fuck him.

Daniil figured he might as well get the hassle of sex over and done with, downed the contents of his glass in one go before pulling on his coat, and waited for Artemy to join him for the walk back to the Stillwater.

"I enjoyed tonight," Artemy said as they left the Broken Heart, and Daniil forced a smile, knowing the script off by heart.

"Will you walk me home?"

Artemy looked at him for a moment before taking his wrists, tracing his thumbs over Daniil's pulse points and waiting for something Daniil couldn't guess at. After an awkward pause, Daniil cleared his throat, if only to break the silent.

"Another time," Artemy said before letting go and walking off in the direction of his own home, looking back over his shoulder just once before disappearing into the night.

Daniil wasn't sure whether to be offended or relieved. Mostly, he was just confused.

Sex in the Capital was a simple affair. Andrey had introduced him to the process at university, once assured that Daniil had lost his virginity the 'natural' way - blind drunk with a stranger at a party. Andrey would talk their way into clubhouses where Daniil would strike conversations up with other men, wait for them to stop pretending to listen to him, and drink whatever they offered before he would be taken into a back room and fucked.

Sometimes they only wanted his hands or his mouth, but more often than not they wanted him bent over. For a few hours he would hear his praises sung for being small, soft-voiced, and pretty, and there seemed no shortage of men willing to provide that service, just as Andrey had promised him on his first venture into that world.

"You're a born entertainer, my friend. Anyone would love you for an evening."

Another night, Artemy invited Daniil to come with him on a herb picking walk. Daniil knew by now to wear boots and warm clothes when leaving town for the steppe, and Artemy was similarly well-wrapped up for the occasion.

Cold air and marshland weren't exactly known for their erotic potential, and once he found somewhere he could stand on without his boots sinking into mud, Daniil asked, "What am I doing here?"

Even in the dark, Daniil could see Artemy's frown. "I've given you plenty of reasons to be scared of me. I want to fix that, before anything else changes."

Daniil sneered. "And you thought taking me for a walk in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, would help?"

"If I bring you home safely, yes."

As fundamentally flawed as that logic was, Daniil could understand it. "I have a gun, you idiot."

"I don't want you to need it if I kiss you."

Daniil was struck by the image of holding a gun to Artemy's head while kissing him, and laughed despite himself. "No, I suppose you wouldn't."

Artemy's frown softened, and Daniil felt something inside himself soften with it.

Daniil didn't remember losing his virginity. He remembered the man he'd lost it to, if only just - a tall and slim figure with mousy brown hair, and a long but attractive enough face. Daniil had drunk too much to remember the night's events, but the evidence of them had dried on his stomach, and remained dried under his clothes as he was briskly shown out of the stranger's home.

The few friends who knew Daniil's preferences cheered for him when they found out, but it was hard to feel proud of something he didn't remember.

The news spread quickly, Andrey and others teasing Daniil for no longer being forbidden fruit, and Daniil soon found he could have his pick of men as long as he didn't ask too many questions.

He could save being clever for university. If he wanted company in his free time, that demanded a different kind of clever mouth.

"You don't have to fuck me if you don't want to," Daniil said, once he was sure the children were out of earshot.

"Boleesh!" Artemy snapped, setting down his tools. "Oynon, Daniil, you're not ready. I'm not ready. I don't want to hurt you."

"Why should it matter if it hurts? It's just sex, if we just get it over with and go back to being friends -"

"Of course it matters!" Artemy shouted, and Daniil's blood ran cold, froze him in place. Artemy's face fell. "Of course it matters," he repeated, softer.

"Don't touch me," Daniil spat.

"I won't," Artemy said, sitting down, and Daniil willed his body to do anything but cry in response to the small relief of Artemy removing the threat imposed by his height.

"I don't know what you want from me."

"Neither do I."

"I'm so fucking lonely. I wanted - I thought -" Daniil grit his teeth, pained by the admission. "I thought you actually liked talking to me."

"I do." Artemy had the decency to look somewhat abashed when Daniil narrowed his eyes. "Most of the time. When you aren't being insufferably pretentious."

Daniil snorted, figuring he probably deserved that. "I don't want you to tire of me."

"I haven't tired of you yet. What makes you so sure I'd tire of you now?"

Artemy held up his hands and Daniil stared at them a moment before remembering that strange night at the Broken Heart, placed his wrists into them so that Artemy could trace his pulse points again.

Daniil let himself relax, finally understanding what Artemy had been searching for that night. After a few minutes of calm Artemy stood up, chest to chest with him, close enough that Daniil could feel his warmth. Close enough that Daniil could feel the rise and fall of every breath he took.

Daniil wanted him, and closed his eyes to memorise that feeling.

As irony would have it, the problem with fucking strangers was that it got so repetitive after a while. People still wanted him - he was still young enough and still pretty enough - but their desire had grown as mind-numbing as alcohol. Besides, Daniil had seen men who'd aged out of the role he filled, some plastered with makeup to try and hide their lost beauty, and the thought of that as his future made him feel ill.

Andrey always knew where there were boundaries to be broken, and introduced Daniil to new friends and new experiences; mixing pain and pleasure was the order of the day in these clubs, and Daniil's skin, which had always bruised like a peach, was the perfect canvas for so many artists.

They taught him new words for "no" and "stop", and he did all that he could not to use them. He wanted the admiration of those testing his limits, he wanted to prove to himself he had nothing to fear.

When Daniil woke with a blinding headache, bruised throat, and someone with a knife cutting him free from the ropes that had choked him, he knew he had grown addicted to danger.

But that danger made him feel something, and the addiction to adrenaline kept bringing him back.

The air had felt heavy from the moment Artemy put Sticky and Murky to bed, heavier still when Artemy took him by the hand and led him to his own bedroom, leaving Daniil lightheaded. He wondered if he had felt this sort of excitement back when he lost his virginity, or if the alcohol would have dulled the experience, then decided it was better not to dwell. He had lost that memory; he had a chance to create a new one now.

Artemy closed the door, locked it, and led Daniil to the bed to lie down.

"We don't have to do anything," Artemy said, and Daniil, tired of waiting, kissed him.

Artemy's lips were softer than he had imagined, giving way easily as Daniil nudged them open, wanting the heat of his mouth.

It was the permission Artemy had needed to touch him in return, grabbing at Daniil's sides with those warm, rough, beautiful hands, searing everywhere he touched. Daniil slipped a hand under his sweater, over his stomach, marvelled at the heat of him. It was like a furnace burned inside him, and Daniil thrilled at the thought of stoking that fire.

Daniil knew they didn't have to rush things, but the temptation just to know got the better of him as he reached down, feeling the shape of Artemy's cock through his pants, and that earlier lightheadedness returned with a vengeance when he found it hard.

"Don't let me ruin you," Daniil said, "God, please, don't let me ruin you."

Artemy rolled on top of him, kissed him again with those soft lips, framed his face with those warm hands. "You won't."

Daniil could barely breathe, a knot tight in his throat, and Artemy's eyes widened with recognition.

"You aren't spoiled."

Daniil thought about hitting him, biting him, kicking him, doing something to prove him wrong, but Artemy's hands held him steady. His eyes, so sure, so unwaveringly certain, kept Daniil pinned, and Artemy stroked through his hair, blunt nails scraping blissfully against his scalp.

Daniil wanted to believe him.

"Can we just sleep?" Daniil asked, and Artemy nodded, shifting down the bed to rest his head on Daniil's chest.

Artemy fell asleep quickly, or at least feigned it well, and with the weight and warmth of Artemy covering him, it wasn't hard for Daniil to follow suit.

The first time Daniil had a panic attack during sex, the man fucking him had left.

He just got up, dressed quickly, and left.

Daniil still remembered the exact sound the door had made when it slammed shut.

Daniil woke up underneath Artemy, unsure how long he had slept for. Artemy's head was still a heavy, almost uncomfortable weight on his chest, and he wore an endearingly determined frown as he slept, as if his dreams required concentration.

Daniil reached down to press his thumb between Artemy's eyebrows, stroking away the frown, and smiled when Artemy stirred at the touch.

The smile turned into a laugh when Artemy sat up, and Daniil could see the indents his shirt buttons had left on half of Artemy's face.

"I branded you in my sleep," Daniil teased, and Artemy rubbed his cheek before looking down at Daniil's shirt and groaning.

"That's enough of that," Artemy grumbled, starting to unbutton Daniil's shirt to prevent any further 'branding'.

It was only when Artemy's fingers brushed over Daniil's stomach that a spike of arousal shot through him. Daniil's morning erection, previously disregarded, twitched with purpose, and when Artemy finished opening his shirt, Daniil took Artemy's hand and pressed it between his legs. Even through cloth, the strength of that hand felt good.

Artemy didn't ask any questions, palming Daniil roughly before unbuckling his pants, Daniil arching his hips to let Artemy pull them down just enough.

He could have cried when he heard a knock at the door, but Artemy didn't take his eyes off him, or his hands.

"Give me ten minutes," he shouted, the rough skin of his palms making Daniil shiver, and Daniil almost, almost forgot to bite his tongue when Artemy bent to take him in his mouth.

It was the sight of him as much as anything else that made Daniil's pulse race, even if Artemy was still fully clothed; Daniil loved the breadth of his shoulders, the width of his arms, and the way his long dark eyelashes fanned against hollowed cheeks.

Any other time he would have wanted to last longer, but the threat of further interruptions meant there was little point in trying, and the rough skin of Artemy's hands and wet heat of Artemy's mouth felt so good. He tugged on Artemy's hair to warn him, but Artemy only took the warning as a cue to suck harder, to gently squeeze his balls, and Daniil spilled into his mouth with a harsh gasp.

Daniil wished he could read Artemy's face better, but he seemed satisfied enough as he pulled away with red, wet lips, tucking Daniil back into his pants and buttoning his shirt up enough to be decent. "Come on. Sticky will get cranky if we miss breakfast."

Daniil sat up and rested a hand on Artemy's thigh, feeling pleasantly drained. "I haven't done anything for you, yet."

Artemy shook his head, pressed a kiss to Daniil's shoulder. "You're wrong about that," Artemy said, squeezing Daniil's hand before removing it from his thigh, getting up, and unlocking the door, leaving it open for Daniil as he left.

Daniil sat a moment longer, taking in the room's modest furnishings, the smell of sweat and coffee, the knowledge he was welcome to stay. He could get used to this lifestyle, if he tried. Artemy clearly wanted him to.

Artemy's world was so much smaller than the Capital's.

But Daniil hoped it was one he would never tire of.

[casualcatte]

RP Journal: 08/03/2020

The hunt… was not as clean as I would’ve wanted, but we got the job done. My shoulder still hurts like the blazes, but at least it’s not infected. I underestimated how difficult this hunt would be and I wasn’t as prepared for it as I should have been. I don’t know where my head was at.  Too much of the nonsense in Ul’dah, I suppose. Too many distractions.

[ Courtesy Cut for Length -- Are these ever short?! ]

I should’ve been out in the Azim Steppe days ago, reconnoitering, getting to know the temperament of the environment. The Steppe is a nearly flat expanse with some low scrub brush and rocky outcroppings. There’s almost no windbreak and it changes constantly. I’d set up my shots only for a sudden gust of wind to sweep them off target. It was aggravating. What should have been a number of easy shots for me ended up with me looking like a rank amateur in front of Lorrendor.  Of course, he didn’t do much better; I think the wind gusts got to him as much as I.

Still, the beast was dead by the end of it and only I took any injury, which I was grateful for. The last thing I would’ve wanted was for Lor to get injured on a hunt I drafted him for. He fretted though. And he did that thing I hate.  Gods.  What is it with men that want to treat me like I’m made of glass?  That I’m some delicate thing that they have to protect and save?

I know Lor has a checkered past with the people he cares about.  I know he lost someone he loved. Gods only know I have too. I know it’s what drives him to be so overprotective. I know that, but it still irritates me. It’s the same nonsense that got Tristane killed.  I don’t want someone else dying over me or for me. Fight with me and beside me, treat me as an equal. If I mess up and get myself injured, call me out on it so we can fix it for next time. Treat me like I’m your partner, not just some defenseless tag-along.

Once the bounty was collected, we went back to Kugane and Lor continued to fret, saying he failed me, and that it should’ve been him that got injured. I’m not going to lie, it rankled. It got under my skin worse than Edgard. Time and again, I see the flashfires of memory, Tristane throwing himself at the Alpha in order to keep me out of it. Going against the entire plan that we made, trying to ensure that I wouldn’t get hurt. I suppose it’s supposed to be endearing, it’s supposed to mean that they care /so very much/ -- but by every god in the Twelve I hate it.

The hunt wasn’t a failure, but it wasn’t a shining moment either. Lorrendor was being overprotective and… and… I don’t even know.  /Emotional/ about it. The last thing I wanted was Edgard to show up, but /surprise/ he did. He’s staying at the Bokairo like the rest of us, so I suppose we were bound to run into him a time or two. But ye gods, couldn’t he have had better timing? It seemed the Fates were against me on all sides today.

Edgard was Edgard, although, also not Edgard. He didn’t tease me as much about the hunt as I expected, despite the fact that he overheard I’d missed four shots. I told him I wasn’t in the mood for his antics. He listened, somewhat.

Then he asked me out to dinner.

Supposedly to make up for the terrible offer of drinks he’d made in Ul’dah, then subsequently abandoned me in order to deal with his brother. Considering Edgard didn’t know anyone in Kugane but me, I thought it was a low-risk proposition of having a repeat occurrence. I agreed, then went to clean up and change. It wasn’t the soak in the hot springs I’d longed for since the hunt ended, but I found I was starving, so the offer of food wouldn’t go unappreciated.

We adjourned from the Bokairo once I was presentable and went to the Shiokaze. I adore their steamed dumplings, and Edgard said I could have anything I wanted.  And that he was paying. And, thankfully, /not/ calling it a date. All of which would’ve been fine, if Kotokaze behind the bar hadn’t been encouraging him. Gods, I swear everyone wants to encourage him. Why does no one say, Edgard, you are a cad and a lascivious fiend, you leave that girl alone at once! 

Once you get him away from an audience and a peanut gallery, though, Edgard becomes a vastly different person. It only solidifies my thought that the debonair, devil-may-care ladies’ man is just a smoke screen so that no one gets close enough to get to know the real Edgard. So no one gets close enough to hurt him.  So no one gets close enough for him to care for.

Just like Lorrendor’s loss affects how he acts, so, too, does Edgard’s.  Except Edgard uses his as a reason to push people away, to keep them at bay so they never quite reach his heart. He doesn’t want to be hurt again, like Lorrendor, so he just tries not to have anyone to care about. And yet, he still does. He’s admitted as much in his own way. 

I think that’s why I indulge his verbal games of parry-and-riposte with me, because it’s the closest he allows himself to any sort of real friendship. Every once in a while, though, I see a crack in the facade, a moment of vulnerability when the real Edgard peeks through. Or moments like on the Airship Landing before I left for Kugane again. I don’t know if he’ll ever be that real and genuine with me again, but it’s nice to know that version of him is in there, somewhere. It makes the insufferable version of him easier to bear!

Still, dinner was nice. Lorrendor eventually showed up, which I hadn’t expected in the least. Given the conversation I’d had with him the night prior, how much he disapproved of Edgard and his attitudes, I never thought I’d see the two of them sharing a drink. Yet, here they were.

I’ll likely regret them ever getting on friendly terms, Oschon only knows Edgard never needs to hear about Lorrendor joking about taking flirtation lessons from him.  Even if Lor said it in jest, Edgard would never let either of us live it down. The two of them seemed to get along well enough, though, mostly through teasing and picking on me. (Again, adding to my regret at this bread-breaking.) I say that mostly in jest, though. I’m glad they can be friends, given their colorful history thus far, as I understand it. I still laughed and it would have made for a nice nightcap to the evening.

Until Edgard left. It was like the sun had disappeared behind the clouds, because the mood in the room changed that drastically. Lorrendor took me to task for the jokes I’d made about him marrying Edgard. I knew it was a sensitive subject for him, I would never make the joke about a woman, but I figured a man -- Edgard of all of them -- would have been safe enough territory. It wasn’t and that was a poor error on my part. I told him I wouldn’t joke about it again. Gods, I won’t joke about relationships at all, if it gets me admonished like a little girl. I apologized, though, it was thoughtless of me.

Perhaps it was the wine, I’ve never had much of a head for it, but I felt tired. Bone-achingly, mind-numbingly tired. Lorrendor hugged me at some point again going on about how he’d “nearly lost me.”  I suffered some claws, it wasn’t as if the thing had torn a chunk out of me with its teeth!  Either I was going to stab it to death or Lorrendor was going to shoot it. I had faith enough in that to not have my life flash before my eyes. Menphina’s Light, after losing Tristane to the Bandersnatch Alpha, I wasn’t about to let myself get eaten by the Bara Alpha!

I just felt numb and like I’d just done everything wrong today. Nothing had gone at all like I planned, my shoulder hurt unbearably now from where Lor had leaned into it for his hug. I just wanted to sleep, get this day over with, and try for a better day tomorrow.

I thought about going for a soak in the hot springs before I slept, but I’d either fall asleep in the water and drown -- or I’d find Edgard there in naught but his birthday suit.  Neither option appealed to me, so I opted for bed.

Oschon’s Weary Soles, let tomorrow be a better day.

(Bonus screenshot, just cuz I liked this one)

[autumnslance]

Tumblr Writing Prompts

A Master post for my writing that starts here on Tumblr. The FFXIV Writes have their own Master posts (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), and my lore/speculation posts have their own page, so this is for blurbs, scenes, microfics, and the occasional proper story about my characters and various NPCs.

Most of these are also on my Ao3, but for Tumblr, this is a little more organized than tag diving, and rebloggable. This post is also linked in the fic writing page and my pinned post.

In roughly chronological order, with listings for what patch/expac it’s set in for spoilers if necessary. Divided by NPCs, Unnamed WoL, fics with 2 or more of my OCs, individual OC stories, ship fics, AUs, and the rare adult-only stories at the bottom. Below the cut:

NPCS:

Chin Up - Thancred and Yda chat in the Sharlayan Colony. Pre-game.

Not a Hero - A young girl encounters Ardbert. Heavensward 3.x

Never Gets Easier - Count Edmont takes a walk. Post-HW 3.3.

Sigurista - Urianger and a letter from the Arcanists. HW 3.4

Meraki - About Dragons and Dragoons; HW 3.5-ish.

Punctual - Conjurer Crew, post-Stormblood 4.0.

Random Headcanons - Scion HCs through StB 4.5.

Cid Headcanon - Led to my “After Omega” story. Post-ARR 2.0 (for this post).

Warning - Urianger’s trustworthiness is questioned. Pre-Shadowbringers 5.0.

Harsh Whisper - Estinien infiltrating the Empire with allies, ShB 5.0

Not a Savior - The Shadowkeeper. Role Quests capstone, ShB 5.0

Getting Used To - The Oracle and her Guardian, post ShB 5.2

Unnamed WoL:

Rules - For a Warrior of Light.

Fireworks - Thoughts about fireworks. WoL’s got issues.

Dust Motes - Rest after the Praetorium. Post-ARR 2.0.

Tomorrow - NOAH’s attempts to open the Crystal Tower. Post-ARR 2.5.

Shimmer - Thoughts on Revenant’s Toll. Post-ARR 2.5.

Silence - Nighttime thoughts in the Falling Snows. Post-ARR 2.5.

In Dreams -The only place to meet someone. Post-HW 3.0.

Savior - Immediate aftermath of the Final Steps of Faith. HW 3.3.

Left Behind - Partings throughout Heavensward. Through 3.5.

Trusted - Betrayal. ARR 2.5, Heavensward 3.5.

Jealousy - In the sense of guarding something. Post-HW.

Diary - Dark Knight journal entries. StB 4.0.

Crave - Why does the WoL hang with Hildibrand? StB 4.2-ish.

What Happens on the Steppe... - Telling Lyse about ‘Little Sun.’ StB 4.4.

Stars - Red Mage apprentices take a break. StB 4.4-ish.

Dusk Motes - Dustiness on the First. ShB early 5.0.

Heartbeats - Ancient memories, Shadowbringers 5.0 finale.

Seductive Kiss - Not naming names. Just a couple being a couple.

MultiMuse:

Similarities (Dark/Aeryn) - OOC Rumination on my mains.

Backstory (Dark/C’oretta) - Short blurbs on backstory moments.

Childhood Memory (Dark/C’oretta) - More backstory moments.

Gold Saucer - Blurb on the ladies’ Manderville Saucer preferences.

Family - Memories of family members.

Meeting - Dark and Aeryn meet at the Lancer’s Guild. Early ARR.

Calamity Plans - Dark/C’oretta/Aeryn discuss if another Calamity is imminent.

Sunbathing - The chocobos of Gage Acquisitions wait in the sun.

Gifts - Starlight gift reactions, nebulous Shadowbringers timeframe.

Reactions - Multi-prompts for Multiple alts.

3 AM - C’oretta calls on Dark for help.

Fashion Issues - Aeryn & Iyna have different ideas.

Year of the What? - Iyna & Aeryn, Heavensturn 2020. StB 4.5 mentions.

Escape Plan - C’oretta’s going to turn Iyna and Dark grey before their time.

Unsupervised - Aeryn regrets asking C’oretta’s help on behalf of a friend.

Convalescence - Iyna takes care of an injured-and bored-C’oretta.

C’oretta Khell:

A Long Way To Go - some backstory, from Hamon Holyfist’s PoV.

NPC: Hamon - Blurb about Hamon’s place in C’oretta’s life.

A Boy I Knew - Blurb about one of C’oretta’s casual youthful affairs.

Filthy - Violet the “piggy” is a troublemaker.

Crave - Beating bad guys is appetite-inducing. HW/StB MNK spoilers.

Walking on Ice - Literally. As a desert girl. She’s not a happy cat.

On Purpose - C’oretta is good at what she does.

Dear Future Me - Starlight silliness.

Iyna Cauld:

Simo and Tyrsis - Blurb on Iyna’s past Garlean interactions.

NPC: Fran - Blurb on Fran’s place in Iyna’s life.

Soft Prompts - General get to know responses

Nostalgia - Missing things you never want back.

Dark Autumn:

It Runs In the Family - A family legend on a lack of magic.

NPC: Cold Autumn - Blurb about Dark’s oldest brother.

Rampage - The Seventh Umbral Calamity.

Post-Traveling - Sensory prompt of returning home.

Chocobo - Bandit is also a troublemaker.

Morning - Dark is a morning person.

Formal - Certain preparations made before formal Twin Adder events.

Protector - Dark doesn’t like bullies.

Notebook - Journaling while there’s a lull in fighting, end of StB.

Rumors (Last Dragoon AU) - In a friend’s Eighth Umbral Era AU.

Shy Kiss - Starlight Celebration 2019 RP Prompt.

Long Lost - Finding an old, lost item.

Aeryn Striker:

The Other Warrior of Light - Meta inspo for Aeryn’s appearance & story.

Aeryn’s Magic - Meta on why/how magic was difficult & what changed.

seaswolchallenge May 2020 - 30 prompts, all over the timeline.

Febhyurary 2021 - 28 screenshots & blurbs, all thru the timeline.

About Kai - Blurb about one of Aeryn’s stepsiblings.

Sick - Backstory about a difficult time.

Unwell - How does Aeryn handle being sick herself?

Preparation - Backstory, about leaving home.

Dragoon’s Memory - Ser Alberic comments on knowing Aeryn

Hard Lesson - Blurb on learning/changing over time.

Wanting - Dark Knight questions. End of ARR/Early HW.

Cuddling Type - Tataru teases Aeryn about a knight. End of ARR/Early HW.

Clouds - Odd weather makes a mage uneasy.

Feather - Chocobo hunting for charity.

Garden - Just a breather.

Red - The color she wears most often.

Sanctum - Taking in the ambiance at the Sanctum of the Twelve.

Love - Contemplating religion.

Fast Learner - Lessons learned from Ilberd Feare. Through end of HW 3.5.

Blood - Thoughts during the assault on the Reach. Early StB 4.0

Gritty Eyes - Memories of a campfire shared with Gosetsu. StB 4.0.

5 Intimate Moments - Platonic times with friends, through Stormblood.

Blush - It’s easy to make Aeryn blush. Post-StB/Pre-ShB.

Heart - Talking to a departed friend. Post-ARR 2.5, thru StB.

Sanity - Shigure and Aeryn discuss Hildibrand. StB patches.

Friends - Offered support. Red Mage spoilers, StB 4.5.

Loyal and Stubborn - The scene before facing the Ascian. StB 4.55

Safe - Estinien getting Aeryn off the battlefield. StB 4.55

Notebook - Waiting for word of the Beacon. Post-StB 4.5/Pre-ShB 5.0.

Connected - A gift from Lyse to keep Aeryn’s BFF close. StB 4.5/ShB 5.0.

Comfort Food - Aeryn and Alisaie discuss food. ShB 5.0

Memory - Another’s memory is her nightmare. Ardbert listens. ShB 5.0.

Seven Devils - A brief alternate take on the battle for Eulmore. ShB 5.0

Waiting - Aeryn maintains an old tradition through the night. ShB 5.0 end.

Omelets - Aeryn vs F’lhaminn and late night snacks. Sometime in ShB.

Common Arguments - Prompt; Aeryn vs her fellow Scions. Through ShB.

Dear Future Me - Post 5.1 Journal Entry.

Shippy Nonsense - Aeryn/Thancred clean relationship fics:

Romance Rambles - Blurb on Aeryn’s relationship with Haurchefant. HW.

Literary Interests - Blurb on how Thancred & Aeryn connect & spend time.

Flirtatious - A response to being flirted at. Early ARR 2.0 timeframe.

Humidity - A dance in Revenant’s Toll. ARR patches.

Sparring - Tensions run high ‘twixt Aeryn and Thancred. HW 3.2.

Flowers - A gift left in a locked room. Sometime during HW patches.

Make it Better - Important talk night before Ala Mhigo. End of StB 4.0

Betting Pool - Everyone has noticed. StB 4.4.

Description - Young Minfilia asks Thancred about Aeryn. Pre/Early ShB 5.0

Market Conversation - Thancred and Emet-Selch have a chat. ShB 5.0

When the Time Comes - Aeryn asks a favor of Thancred. ShB 5.0

No Defense - Forgetful Aeryn influenced by C’oretta. Sometime in ShB.

2 AM - Trouble sleeping before calling the final element with Eden. ShB 5.2

What If? - AU Scenarios:

Bad End Iyna | Bad End Dark | Bad End Aeryn | Bad End C’oretta |

NOT SFW Lemons:

Plans - Iyna backstory; an affair that wasn’t all it seemed.

Afterimages - Thancred the morning after “Sparring”. HW 3.2.

Please - Aeryn & Thancred post-Throne Room Summoning. StB 4.1.

Rak’tika Rendezvous - Aeryn & Thancred post-Qitana Ravel. ShB 5.0.

Night In - Aeryn & Thancred, followup of another prompt. Sometime in ShB 5.x.

[purpletigertaetae]

Back and Forth (Part 1?)

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

Word Count: 1874

Genre: Dancer!Yoongi x Dancer!reader

Rating: Pretty PG

Warnings: Lots of angst. Sorry Wistful glances, pining, unsaid thoughts

Notes: So this is my first BTS story ever written. @taetaesbaebaepsae this is for you, because you always put me in my Yoongi feels. @illneverrecover you make a little cameo here as does the rest of our beautiful cirque. Cirque, I love you guys! Thank you for encouraging me to write! 

You danced for a prestigious hip-hop company, and this year you had gotten the lead for the newest production your troupe was putting on. The Cirque was the name of the production and had a mix of all dance types, from ballet to contemporary to some Asian classical dancing too. Every routine had at least two dancers to partner up, but you had asked for a solo. The only other dancer who could keep up with you was Yoongi, and you didn’t want to have a charged performance with him. It would confuse you even further.

Yoongi and you had history. A back and forth, complex than most dances, that most people didn’t understand. Forget most people, you didn’t understand it either. You had met over two years ago and the dance had begun. Six months ago, you had to break it off, stop the dance abruptly, not because you had fallen out of love with him, but because it became too much. You told yourself that it was because you worked better as friends, but deep within, you knew it was because you were scared. Yoongi had pulled out the softness within you, and destroyed the hard outside shell you portrayed to the world. He created a safe haven where you didn’t have to worry about anything and your insecure self, ran for the hills when he opened up.

For six months, you pondered if you had made the right choice, losing sleep every night because of the way Min Yoongi made you feel even now. Every night it took longer than necessary to fall asleep, because his steady breath, his warmth, his arms wrapped around you were missing from your bed. He would come watch your performances, being friendly, but never engaging in conversation. He’d throw a small tightlipped smile your way, and your heart would ache, hoping to catch a glimpse of his bright gummy smile. But, you guessed, that was reserved for girlfriends or more. You didn’t hold that title, never had and probably never would.

In those six months, the Cirque main lead had fallen into your lap. You threw yourself into the solo, focusing all your energy into putting on the best performance possible. You entered a dance haze, alone and determined to not think about a certain blond haired gentleman. You isolated yourself, spending the most time at the studio but not interacting with anyone or anything besides the music. Your other friends in the production grew worried for you, begging you to eat, take a break, not strain yourself, and those moments were the only times you arose from the haze. Even the other boys saw the strenuous rehearsals you were putting yourself through.

However, you had noticed one thing. In the three months since you had requested a solo, Yoongi hadn’t come to watch you rehearse. Your eyes would look for him every day, but he never showed up. Everyone, even Jin, would watch every day as you would scan the studio with expecting eyes and a small frown on your face when you realized he wouldn’t come. That frown, the pain in your eyes, the hurt across your features sure portrayed beautifully in your dance, but were breaking your heart.

Yoongi finally showed up on the last day of rehearsals, but you hadn’t seen him yet. Taehyung, Jimin, Jungkook and three of the girls finished their contemporary performance and stepped off stage when Yoongi slipped into the theater and took a seat in the front row. You were next, waiting backstage for the music to start so you could enter. As you did, Tae took a seat next to Yoongi.

“Hyung, you won’t go up and say hello to her? She missed you, you know?”

“No, she wanted space. I’m giving her space. But I’m here, if she wants to come say hello.” Yoongi clenched his jaw, unyielding.

“Hyung, please don’t be stubborn. You haven’t been here in almost three months. We all missed you. Y/N noona especially.”

Yoongi took a big sigh, his mouth turned down into a pout, “I missed you all too Tae, but I had to take some space. But I’m back. I’m here, whenever and wherever she needs me. If that’s as just friends, then I’ll do it or I’ll learn. I don’t like being away from her.”

“Then go say hello, Hyung. Nothing wrong with hello.”

“Maybe after her performance. Look it’s starting.” Yoongi cut the conversation short as the music began and you started dancing. You had gotten thinner, he noticed, the bags under your eye evidence that sleep evaded you too. But your dancing was incredible. You didn’t miss one beat, the practice evident with every flick and every move. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you.

You, on the other hand, for the first time didn’t scan the seats. You didn’t look for Yoongi. He hadn’t showed up for anything else, why would he come now. You lost yourself in the music, muscle memory taking over as you wiped your brain of everything, until you turned. When you turned to face the front, your eyes caught sight of the blond wavy hair you hadn’t seen in months. He looked at you, his face showing no emotion, his brown eyes deep pools you couldn’t read, and for the first time you lost concentration. You meant to twist, but your body wouldn’t cooperate. Your ankle gave way, and with a cry you stumbled.

Yoongi watched you snap out of concentration as you linked eyes with him. He saw the twist that was supposed to happen but didn’t. He heard your cry, it echoed in his heart, ringing in his ears. He saw you stumble, but he knew had to be there before you crashed into the ground. His eyes widened and he bolted out of his seat, jumping up onto the stage before Taehyung, or anyone could move.

“Princess!” The pet name escaped his lips before he could stop. He ran, and slid himself under you so your weight would be on him, his arms coming to wrap around you in comfort.

“Yoongi… I-” You went to speak.

“I know you don’t want me to be here baby, but you were about to break your foot. I couldn’t let that happen.” He shushed you gently, cutting you off.

“Yoongi, it hurts…” Your attention finally went back to your ankle. You whimpered into his chest as he cradled you.

“Come on, let me take you to the green room so you can stretch it out.” The rest of the crew looked on as Yoongi slid his arms around and under you and lifted you bridal style to the green room. It was empty when you both got to it, so Yoongi gently set you down on the couch and closed the door giving you two both privacy.

Yoongi knelt down to your ankle inspecting it before getting back up and rummaging around in the cupboards looking for bandages and ice. Your eyes followed his figure, your heart racing, missing the warmth his embrace had given only moments ago. He looked thinner, his hair long and untrimmed. You mused to yourself, had he missed you like you had missed him? As he turned around, you quickly looked away, not wanted to get caught staring. He walked back to you, and knelt back down, his hands full of first aid materials.

He worked quietly, while you looked at his blond mop, almost wanting to run your fingers through it. The silence became stifling, but he didn’t seem to notice. Taking a deep breath, trying to calm your pounding heart, you opened your mouth to speak.

“Yoongi, I-”

“You-”

Both of you stopped and stared at each other, you registering the redness in his eyes, the bags under his eyes. He looked tired, the realization that you had hurt him setting in.

“You go first,” he said

“Nuh-uh. You first.”

“Aish, woman you’re going to kill me.”

You stared at him unyielding.

“Ahhh, fine.” He exhaled deeply through his nose, and then spoke. “You need to get this ankle checked.”

You stared at him incredulously, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Really? That’s all you were going to say?”

Yoongi widened his eyes in surprise. “What did you want me to say?” he stated frankly, not willing to start the dance between you two over again.

You stared at him for a beat longer, hoping he would say something more, anything at all. But, no. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” You looked away, willing yourself not to cry as your eyes welled. You would not show him this weakness. You would not show him the heartache you had caused yourself.

Yoongi stared at your profile, wanting to say more. In his head, he had a whole soliloquy planned out. He wanted to tell you that he loved you. He still loves you. But you had wanted space. You did. He didn’t. Now what? What could he do? He had to draw the line somewhere. You looked back at him and he stared at you, so much love in his eyes, just unable to express it.

You kept thinking about his pouty lips. You wanted to kiss them so much. You wanted to tell him how wrong you were to break this off. You wanted to tell him you loved him then. You still love him now. But you were so incredibly afraid. So afraid to say something. So afraid to be with him. So afraid to open up. What if he didn’t like what he was met with? You looked at him with a mixture of doubt and love, but the words kept getting stuck in your throat.

You two stared at each other, the silence charged, the sore ankle forgotten. Words stuck, eyes speaking to each other. The dance had started again, hesitant steps, nothing more.

BANG! The door to the green room crashed open, and your charged tension, the bubble you two had created vanished. Popping away into inexistence. Those words would not come out. The entire dance company crowded into the room, headed by the maknaes. They ran in and stopped suddenly, the tension still lingering in the room. Yoongi stood up and took a step back while the girls crowded around you. Jackie, the nurse in the group, came to your ankle while everyone else pushed their way in. In the hubbub, Yoongi stepped even further away.

He whispered, “I guess I’ll see you later…” and escaped the room before you could even notice. As everyone fussed over you, you looked around trying to catch Yoongi.

“Babe? Are you okay? Why was Yoongi here?” One of the other girls asked as everyone stared at you quietly while Jackie looked at your ankle.

You sighed deeply. “No reason. He was here for no reason at all.”

Your face fell, and the company looked at each other, worried for you even more.

“Luckily he saved your ankle. You should rest today with ice and take two painkillers, but you’ll be fine for tomorrow.” Jackie made her judgement.

You took a resigned sigh, while Taehyung, Jimin and Jungkook looked at each other. Yoongi would be there tomorrow. Tomorrow, they would fix you and Yoongi. You two belonged together and they would make sure it would work out.

A/N: AHHHH okay okay, I’m so nervous to post this because it’s not usually what I write. But I hope you like it! Send thoughts okay?

[throneofglassimagines]

Dorian Havilliard - Arranged

**A/N you are y/n Ashryver, younger sister of Crown Prince Galan Ahryver

You were less than thrilled about your current situation.  You had just arrived at the Glass Castle in Rifthold to meet your new fiancé, Crown Prince Dorian Havilliard.  You were escorted to your rooms immediately upon arrival to change for dinner, where you would meet him for the first time.

Servants quickly dressed you in a sapphire blue ballgown, and you spent a moment admiring yourself in the mirror.  Though you weren't excited to be in Adarlan, they did have beautiful clothes.  You'd have to pick some up before you went home.

You were planning on going home.  Perhaps not to your family, not to the luxurious life you'd grown so used to, but still back to Wendlyn.  You didn't want to marry a stranger, and your father knew this.  He'd told you over and over again, you would never be traded for peace or gold, or anything in between.  

Your head servant led you through the lavish halls of your father's castle, into his majestic throne room.  There he sat, atop his golden throne, Galan at his side.

A smile spread across your lips.  You hardly ever saw your brother anymore, so it was always a treat when he returned from an adventure.  "Father," you said, bowing low to your father.  "Brother," you added once you were upright, offering Galan a pearly white smile.

"Sister," Galan said, though he did not smile back at you.

"Galan has returned from a trip to Adarlan," your father said.  "They have something we need, desperately.  And apparently, we have something they want."

You brushed your hair out of your face, unsure of what else to do.  Normally, you were never involved in politics.  It must be important if they brought you in on it.  "What do they want?"

There was silence for a moment.  So filling, so complete, you could have sworn you heard your own heartbeat ringing in your ears.  

"Their Crown Prince is growing older, and has no signs for choosing a bride," your father said to break the silence, "and they want to make sure that if they give us what we want, we will not betray them."

You got a sinking feeling in your stomach at the word bride.  "Father, you promised," you said.  Your heart began pounding in your chest, your face twisting into a snarl as you realized what he was talking about.  "You're a liar!" you yelled.  A servant tried to grab your arm to calm you down, but you pushed them away.  "How on earth are you expected to be loyal in an alliance when you cannot even keep a simple promise to your daughter?"

Your father's face became red as he looked down at you.  "This was not some simple promise, girl.  You asked me to step away from one of my duties as King, and I said I would try.  I never made any promises, and I will have no more of your foolishness.  You're leaving for Adarlan tomorrow."  He stood up and descended the stairs that led to his throne, but did not step towards you.  "That is final.  I may be your father, but I am also your King."

A light knock on the door startled you, and you turned to see a man standing in your doorway.  His brown hair was neatly combed out of his face, and he was dressed in a uniform similar to that of the guards that escorted you upon your arrival.

"You're y/n?" the man asked you.  You knew that he already knew the answer.  It was not a question, but a statement posed as a question for formality.

You nodded, swallowing your fear of the beautifully menacing man.  "Yes.  Are you-"

"No," he said, cutting you off.  "I'm Chaol Westfall, Captain of the Royal Guard.  I'm here to escort you to your dinner."

Part of you was disappointed, but yet part of you was relieved.  You hadn't yet prepared yourself to meet Dorian.  "I'll just be a moment," you said as you turned back to your mirror.  You took a deep breath and stepped closer to it, looking into your own eyes.

You can do this, you told yourself.  You took one more deep breath before turning around and facing Chaol.  "I'm ready now."  You held out your arm for him to take, but once he saw it he shook his head.

"I shall not touch my friend's woman," he said plainly.

You were baffled.  He talked about you as if you were an object.  You hummed in annoyance and rolled your eyes as he motioned  to the doorway.  

"After you, Princess," he said.  Once you steppped passed him into the hall, he closed the door to your rooms.  He led you through the many stone halls, and you looked around as you walked.

"Why am I not in the Glass Castle?" you asked him.

He didn't turn to you when he answered.  "Because Dorian prefers to live in the stone portion, so you will as well."

You hated everything about this.  You had lost control of your entire life - you didn't even get to choose your gown for dinner.  Though they had chosen a beautiful one, you wished you had options.  You didn't get to choose your rooms, your gown, most likely not your dinner, and most infuriatingly of all, your husband.

Chaol opened a large wooden door for you, and it led into a large room the size of the biggest ballroom back at your Castle in Wendlyn.  He escorted you through the door and through the many tables, filled with Lords and Ladies whom you couldn't recognize if your life depended on it.  Finally you arrived at a secluded table, and Chaol pulled out your seat for you.

"The Havilliards will be here momentarily," he said once you were seated.  "In the meantime, is there anything I can get for you?"

You looked up at him.  "A way out of this?" you asked, only half-joking.

He opened his mouth to respond, but his voice was replaced with another.

"Chaol," a smooth voice said, and a young man approached.  You caught his eye for a second, and your heart began beating rapidly once you noticed their color.

Sapphire.

You looked down at your dress, and suddenly you hated it.  The aura of confidence and authority around that man, there was no mistaking who he was.  This was Dorian Havilliard.  Your dress was chosen to match his eyes, and you wanted nothing more than to tear it off your body and stomp it on the ground.

Dorian turned and looked at you, and he smiled.  Though you would admit that he was a very handsome man, you wanted nothing more than to turn and run away.  "You must be y/n," he said.  He approached you and gently took your hand in his, placing a light kiss on your knuckles before releasing it.  "I'm Dorian Havilliard, Crown Prince."

You tried your hardest to swallow down your disgust.  "N-Nice to meet you," you said.  You almost cried when he pulled out the chair beside you and sat down.

"I hope your travels from Wendlyn were smooth and easy, this whole thing was arranged rather quickly."

You looked down at your hands.  "More like deranged," you said quietly to yourself.

Dorian let out a sigh, and you looked back up at him.  "Look, y/n, I'm not too excited about this either.  But we don't have much choice in this, it's for the good of our kingdoms.  So please, can we just be civil?"

Civil.  Civil?  This was the man you were being forced to spend the rest of your life with, and all he wanted was civil?  You didn't want civil, you wanted love.  

"y/n," another voice said, and you turned to see another man approaching.  You could tel just by his appearance that he was the King.  He gave you a small smile before sitting down across from Dorian at the table.  "How was your journey?"

You met the King's eye, and you internally recoiled in fear.  The hardness in his dark eyes was menacing.  You didn't want to get on his bad side, no matter how much you already hated him.  "It went very well," you said, in the most polite tone you could manage.  

"That's good to hear."  

You turned to Dorian, and gave him an obviously fake smile.  "So Dorian, tell me.  What made you decide to partake in this arrangement?"

Dorian only gave you a side-glance.  "My parents," he said plainly.

Perhaps you could anger him enough to convince thee King to let you out of this.  If you made him dislike you, maybe he could talk his parents into calling off the engagement.  "Me too," you sighed.  "I always dreamed of this big, fancy wedding that I got to plan and design, with the man of my dreams."  You looked Dorian up and down, then shook your head before turning your attention to your empty plate.

"Well big and fancy is guaranteed," Dorian said.

You chuckled and gave him a side-look.  "Fancy, yes I'll expect.  But big...?"  You looked at him and smirked, and his face blushed red slightly.  "We'll have to see about that."  Or not.

Another chair was pulled out, and you turned to see a woman sitting down beside the King.  Presumably, this was Queen Georgina.  "Are the kids getting along well?" she asked.

"Well enough," Dorian said, and his mother scoffed at him.

"Dorian!  Be polite!" she chided.  

Dorian turned to you and gave a fake smile.  "Did you have another suitor lined up at home?  Perhaps four or five of them, just waiting their turn?"

Your eyes widened, and you stood up.  "Do not insinuate that I am a whore, Havilliard!"

"y/n!" Queen Georgina said, baffled.  

"Have a servant bring my dinner to my rooms," you said.  You picked up the skirts of your dress and walked out of the dining hall, and you could feel every pair of eyes watching you.  Tears slid down your face as you wandered the Castle halls, trying to remember the way back to your rooms.  

After what felt like hours, you finally stopped and asked for help.  You were guided back to your rooms and changed into a nightgown before finally, you laid down on the bed.

You looked out the window, up at the dark night sky.  "You will pay for this, Father," you said to yourself.

And you intended to follow through.

[zenithlux]

Cadence Update - CH 13

SURPRISE

I know I said I was going to lower my updates, but then I went on a writing spree and my backlog is back up to a good level. So here we were! With a random Sunday update! Hope you enjoy  🥰 🥰

In which Nero and Vergil finally talk for longer than a minute and Roxy shows off a special talent.

Catch up on the story here!

------------

Ain’t nobody bring us down, down, down down, down, down They could try but we’re gonna wear the crown You could go another round Round, round, round, round, round, round Wish you luck, but you’re not bringing us down

POP/STARS - KDA

------------

Nero visited Devil May Cry two hours before Vergil planned to move out.

It was spectacular timing on his part for a multitude of reasons. Vergil had had every intention to leave that morning instead, but Dante had practically begged that Vergil stay one more day to “leave things in good shape”. Then, just a few hours after that, Vergil had unplugged the phone, ensuring no distractions that weren’t personal, and forwarded half a day's wages to Dante instead so his brother wouldn’t complain. (At least, not more than he was going to already). The only reason Vergil hadn’t left yet was because he was waiting on Roxy’s return message and had gotten distracted reorganizing the admittedly meager pile of books in Dante’s old duffel bag. 

So, when Nero walked in with the confidence of a skittish feline, Vergil assumed the best thing to do was get the disappointment out of the way first. “Dante’s not here.”

Nero’s eyes narrowed, but he did stand a little straighter. Vergil wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. “I’m not here for him, jackass.” 

That gave Vergil pause. And, for a long moment, he simply stared into the abyss of the half-empty bag before him, as it was marginally easier than meeting the eyes of his son. Thankfully, regaining his composure took only a few seconds, and he turned with his usual, indifferent grace. “Is that so?”

“Crazy ain’t it?” Nero muttered as he plopped down on the couch. “But I promised Kyrie I’d come, and I’ve been pummeled by Nico more than enough for the year.” He glanced at Vergil without really looking at him. “So let’s talk, old man.”

That was the closest thing to ‘father’ Vergil had ever gotten from Nero. He was also painfully aware of what that said about the current state of their relationship.  “What about?” Vergil said carefully. The last thing he wanted was for Nero to storm right back out the front door and proclaim him a lost cause (or something like that). Though, given the sound of the van that had to be lingering about a block away, he had a feeling that Nico would run Nero down before letting that happen. “We’ve attempted this before.”

“Yeah we have,” Nero said, his confidence returning as he stretched out on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. Except that only made Vergil tense up even more. This was the first time he had ever seen Nero in this relaxed state without Vergil himself being banished to another room. What did Nero want from him? What was he expecting him to do? It could be anything, really. Kyrie had mentioned the children at the orphanage. Nico had mentioned the influx of silly jobs that had kept Nero from the more important things. Dante had mentioned a potential clean up and rebuilding of Redgrave City. And while all of those things were important, Vergil knew he couldn’t agree to any of it. Not right now. Not when he finally had someone who needed him. Someone who wanted to rely on him. Not someone who felt obligated to.

So what would he do if Nero asked? If he said no… would things go back to the way they were?

“Nico told me you’ve got a new job.”

Vergil blinked, momentarily stunned before he caught himself. “And where did she hear that?” 

Nero snorted with a rather dramatic, Dante-esque eye roll. “Where do you think?”

“Dante had no right to…”

“It’s that woman, right?” Nero said. “Roxanna or something like that?”

Vergil resisted the urge to sigh. “Yes,” He admitted, impressed at how even his voice was. “I am assisting her for the time being.”

“That’s a whole lot of words for ‘babysitter’”. 

That time, Vergil didn’t bother hiding his annoyance. “Do not patronize her,” He said. “It was difficult enough for her to request anyone’s help. The last thing she needs is my family belittling her for her courage.”

At first, Nero said nothing, but Vergil didn’t miss the way his son’s jaw dropped before he thought to clench it. “I’ll admit,” Nero said, his voice as stiff as his posture. “I expected you to defend yourself.”

Perplexed, Vergil said, “for what, exactly?”

Nero shook his head. “Look,” He said as he practically jumped off the couch. “I know you and I started off on the wrong foot. Most dads don’t greet their sons with a sword to the gut.”

“Neither do most sons.”

Nero shrugged. “You deserved it.”

“And I knew you’d live.”

“Bullshit,” He snapped before taking a slow breath and continuing. “You’ve done a lot of pretty terrible stuff, and I ain’t quite ready to forgive ya.” He bounced a little from foot to foot but met Vergil’s gaze with perfect clarity. “But I’d be an idiot to wait for you to make up for all of that.” When Vergil didn’t respond (what did one say to such a statement?), Nero continued. “I came here to ask for a favor. Something you could do to prove that you really have changed or aren’t the bad guy or whatever.” Nero shrugged again; a nervous tick? Maybe. Vergil hadn’t observed him enough to know. “But then Dante mentioned that job, and Nico confirmed it and I just…” He sighed. “That’s proof enough, right?” 

“That isn’t for me to decide.”

“Course not,” Nero said. “But I need to stop being an ass about it and give you a chance.”

And of all the things Nero could have said, that shocked Vergil the most. And for the first time in as long as he could remember, he didn’t have a clue what to say. “You… what?”

Nero huffed. “You heard me.”

“Yes, but…”

“Look,” Nero said as he jabbed his finger into Vergil’s chest before Vergil realized his son had even crossed the room. “All I’m asking is that you prove to me and to everyone else that you’re serious about this. Got it? No more towers or giant trees or whatever it is that demons try to raise nowadays.” Vergil started to speak, but Nero cut him off. “Sure. You have that half-demon form of yours, and I’m sure as hell not telling you to stop using it. But for now, you’re human, just like the rest of us.”

Vergil felt numb. Yes was the obvious and easy answer. Yet his heart seized at the thought. Human. He was human… did he even know what that meant anymore?  He’d never had a chance to be human before. He’d never wanted to be.

But that’s what he was doing. These jobs. His friendship with Roxy. This entire conversation…

Slowly, he nodded. “That’s all I’m trying to do.”

That, at the very least, was the truth.

Nero sighed as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Then I have one more request.”

“And that would be…”

A sudden HONK startled them both, followed by the screeching of tires. Dante’s voice echoed into the building, “are we going kid or not?”

Vergil’s eyes narrowed. “Going where?”

Nero chuckled sheepishly. “To see your new pad.”

“And why is Dante in the van?”

“Nico’s already there,” Nero said. “Dante had planned to go ahead of us but Nico wasn’t too keen on that so…”

“Why would Dante go first?”

Now, Nero’s face was scarlet. “Something about buttering her up or enjoying dinner or something. I’m not really…”

He trailed off as Vergil slung the bag over his shoulder, and grabbed a spare backpack as he stormed past Nero with murder in his eyes. 

-----------------

The van was the only reason all three of them got there in one piece, as Vergil had no interest in paying Nico to fix it. 

Dante’s jacket, however, wasn’t so lucky.

“That was my best one,” Dante sniffed as he shivered despite the almost sweltering heat. The jacket itself was in the van’s trash can, shredded to unwearable pieces. Of course, Vergil knew he had another one to replace it. He wasn’t that cruel. But his brother had to learn somehow.

Learn what exactly, Shakespeare? Griffon huffed.

Vergil didn’t have an answer to that.

“I didn’t even do anything wrong!” Dante said as his expression twisted into a goofy grin. “I was just going to be nice to Sunshine Verge! I’ve gotta cheer her up before she has to deal with you for the rest of however long.”

“Shut up,” Nero said as he kicked open the door of the complex and practically yanked Dante inside. “I have to clean up enough blood as it is.”

“At least you two are talking again,” Dante said. 

Both Nero and Vergil paused, exchanged glances, and looked away. “Guess you could say that,” Nero muttered.

We got it all in our hands now, So can you handle what we’re talking about?

All three of them paused as Vergil’s eyes drifted to Roxy’s doorway. “Is that music?” Dante said as his nose wrinkled. “Some pop nonsense.” 

We’re so tough Not scared to show you up Can you feel the rush now?

“The kids love this song,” Nero said with an odd sense of nostalgia. 

Dante snorted. “The kids, huh?”

Nico’s groan echoed down the hallway. “My word Rox, you’re way too good at this.”

When Roxy spoke, Vergil thought she sounded breathless. “Stop distracting me.”

“But I want to win!”

Wish ‘em luck but they’re not bringing us down…

“Well you’re not going to!” Roxy said. 

“I can see that!” A thud cut her short. “Did your dragon just throw a pillow at me?”

Dante snapped to the doorway and put a finger to his lips with a dramatic wink as he reached for the knob. He pushed it open with shocking tenderness as if he planned on sneaking up on a demon on the other side. Instead, he stepped far out of the way and gestured to Vergil, mouthing “come look.” And, for the briefest of moments, Vergil considered walking away. He knew where his apartment was. Roxy had given him a key a few days ago. He hadn’t seen it yet, and that sounded like a better idea than entertaining Dante. 

But then Nero peered in and gave a low whistle. “Damn,” He whispered. “She’s pretty good.”

So, Vergil stepped forward with a quiet huff, more than aware that Nero didn’t have a clue what Dante was trying to pull. 

And while Vergil didn’t know what to expect, Roxy swinging small, black devices of some kind around in the air in front of the television was not it. 

A part of him thought the scene should have been a lot funnier than he thought it was. Nico was sitting on the arm of the couch behind her, glaring at Kuro. And Kuro, a bit larger than his usual child form, was glaring right back, tail wrapped around a bright red pillow as a gray one lay discarded at Nico’s feet. Aki was sitting between them, head bobbing back and forth either confused or excited at the potential pillow war that was about to unfold.

Then there was Roxy herself. The device on her head was massive, pushing her ponytail up far higher than she usually put it. She was swinging into nothing, but he could hardly call it flailing. Her movements were strangely controlled, and it took Vergil another second to realize she was moving exactly on pace with the song that was playing. Then, he saw the katana like swords on the TV, swinging perfectly in time with her. Boxes shot forward from black nothingness, but she didn’t miss a single one. Her movements were fast. Controlled. Calculated. Precise.

Nero groaned beside him. “Holy shit,” He said as he glared at Dante. “You were actually serious.”

Dante snorted. “Of course I was. Your old man is…” 

A summoned sword appeared as Vergil glanced behind him. “I’m what, Dante?”

Dante grinned as he flicked the sword. It didn’t move, but he didn’t seem to care. “Infatuated.” 

Vergil scoffed. “I’m shocked you know what that word even means.”

“And you’re not denying it.”

“I am not…”

Only winning, winning now Ain’t nobody bring us Down, down, down, down.

With a final, clean slice, Roxy spun toward Nico, tore the headset off, and grinned triumphantly. Behind her, a series of numbers flashed on the screen: 733/733; 630,280 Points. Vergil assumed that score was adequate, as Roxy loudly proclaimed “Beat that, Nico!”

The younger woman burst into laughter. “A perfect score at that speed? You must have been practicing that for days!”

Roxy’s demeanor turned sheepish. “I have a lot of free time.”

“Clearly,” Nico hopped off the couch as she took the controllers. “Did you like what you saw, V-man?”

Roxy jumped, her face flushing in that way it always did when she was caught off guard. Though Vergil noted that she never blushed when the others surprised her. At least… not as far as he had seen. 

He found that oddly endearing. 

“Hello,” Roxy said with an awkward wave. “I forgot how quiet you are.” 

“Alright kiddos,” Dante said as he shoved his way through the front door. “Move aside.” He swung his arm in front of him and pointed his thumb dramatically at his chest. Then, after a quick wink, he said, “Uncle Dante is here.”

The awkward silence that fell at the proclamation was almost enough to steal Vergil’s composure. It didn’t help when Roxy and Kuro exchanged glances, as if uncertain whether to invite the younger twin in or kick him out. Aki was the only one who responded, chirping excitedly as he hopped up on his back paws and yanked one of his wings in toward his chest; an attempt at imitation. It was enough to make Roxy giggle before she could stop herself, and that alone opened the floodgates for everyone else. Vergil could only stare, perplexed, as the rest of his family nearly collapsed with laughter. 

“You’re…” Nico said as she tried to catch her breath. “The worst.”

“What is he even announcing himself for?” Nero said before forcing a long gasp to try and control himself. It didn’t work. “And the bird… what… why?”

“Imitation is the best form of flattery,” Dante said as he scratched the bird's head. Aki toppled with a startled cry, but rolled over and landed on his feet with astounding grace. He purred as he rubbed his face against Dante’s hand, and his tail flicked excitedly back and forth. “See?” Dante said as the room finally started to calm down. “He gets it.”

Roxy rolled her eyes as she dropped the headset into Nico’s lap. “He just likes to be pet.” She held her hand out with a quiet whistle. Aki’s head spun to her, startling Nico as he burst from the couch and landed on Roxy’s arm.

Dante coughed loudly as he brushed a pair of feathers out of his hair. “Alright Nico,” He said as he held his hand out. “Let the master show you how it’s done.”

“Hell no!” Nico snapped as she yanked the device away. “It’s my turn!”

“And you honestly think you’re better than both of us?” Nero said as he stormed his way past Vergil and stuck his finger into Dante’s chest. “You’ll trip over the cord sooner than you’ll beat that score.”

“Try me,”

“Vergil?” Roxy said.

Vergil twitched, eyes snapping downward. When did she get there? He hadn’t even seen her move. Yet there she was, standing right by his side as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “I finished up the apartment today,” She continued with a smile. “Wanna go see it while they’re distracted?”

“Are you not worried about your home?”

She shrugged. “Your brother wouldn’t risk losing his pizza money.”

“Money for the bills, you mean?”

She chuckled. “That’s what I said.” Aki chirped as she slid into the hallway. “I think you’re going to love the place, Vergil.”

After one last glance at his family, whose argument had turned into a literal pillow fight with Kuro tossing smaller pillows in pure amusement, Vergil moved to follow her. 

Nelo…

He jerked back as pain shot through his skull. That name… that voice… Why was it tormenting him so?

Open the portal.

His hand reached for Yamato before he jerked it away. 

Open. Open. Open.

“Vergil?” 

He blinked as the voice slipped away. Roxy’s hand hovered close to his chest, and he was certain she had barely stopped herself from touching him outright. Beside him, the apartment had gone silent, and Vergil didn’t dare look at any of his family lest he give it all away. 

“I’m fine,” He said. “I was just…” His mouth went dry at the impending lie. “I’m fine.”

She pulled her hand back to Aki’s head, but the concerned look on her face was almost too much to bear. Vergil hated it with every fiber of his being, especially when he knew it was all his fault. “If you need someone to talk to,” Roxy said. “I’m here.”

Vergil stared at her as she moved down the hallway. Slowly, the world went back to normal. Dante, who had rightfully decided to not ask Vergil what had happened, restarted the argument with the younger hunters, yanking all of their attention back to himself. Kuro, however, hopped off the couch and slid over Vergil’s feet. As his tail brushed Vergil’s ankle, the dragon glanced over his shoulder. “She cares for you, Son of Sparda,” He said with an irritated flick of his tongue. “Do not squander it.” 

Then he was gone. A dozen snowflakes lay in his wake before vanishing completely as if neither they nor the dragon had existed at all.

Ko-fi – Master List – AO3

[queen-archeron]

A Peculiar Canvas

Alright, I promised more fics so here’s a Feysand one! And yea, I know, I suck at coming up with titles lmao.

Rhysand had already had a long week and it was only Tuesday. Despite the Illyrians coming to an agreement months ago, there were a few who still liked to make his and Cassian’s life a living Hell. They refused to abide by some of the rules Nesta had come up with during her year in the Steppes, which, of course, required him to fly up every now and then to sort things out.

Cassian had been more than ready to leave once they dealt with the three warriors who didn’t think training with females was necessary. With a pregnant wife across the mountains in Velaris, Rhys could see why. He had gone through the same before Feyre gave birth to their son, Caden.

Just the thought of his son made Rhys fly faster, Cassian flapping his wings next to him. As Velaris came into view Rhys turned to his brother and grinned.

“Only a week left, right brother?”

Cassian’s eyes shined and a small smile formed on his lips. “Only a week.”

Rhys could only imagine how nervous Cassian was to welcome his first child into the world. It had been a long nine months, but he knew his General would make an extraordinary father and prove himself wrong. Nesta would always complain about Cassian’s lack of confidence when it came to fatherhood, but she loved him more than anything.

The day they had returned from the Steppes hand in hand, no one knew what to do. They had expected something to happen between the two during their year away, but seeing it had been different. Seeing Nesta happy had been different, but whenever Cassian was around her she became a ray of sunshine.

Rhys bid his brother farewell and angled his wings to aim for the large estate that sat on the edge of the Sidra. The sun was inching its way toward the horizon, painting the sky in soft pinks and oranges. There were a few lights on upstairs and as he neared the front door he could see the entryway lit up, too.

With a final flap of his wings, he lowered himself to the marble steps in front of the door and landed. Before he could reach for the handle, his wife swung open the door and peeked around with a grin.

“Don’t be mad,” she said.

He rose a brow and tried to look past her into the room, but she blocked his sight by lifting herself onto her toes.

“What’d you do?” He chuckled, taking a step towards her until he was towering over her.

She lifted herself a little more to peck him on the lips and opened the door.

He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but this wasn’t it.

The stairs were covered in paint, along with the floors and the walls. Blues and greens and reds were streaked across doors and as he looked closer he could make out small pictures painted on every space. On one wall there was a beautiful sunset, the water painted with so much detail that he knew it belonged to his wife. Next to it, there was another painting of a sunset, but it looked more like a child’s.

He opened his mouth to say something but was cut off.

“DADDY!”

He watched his son come running around the corner from the kitchen, his small wings trailing behind him. With a tiny flap, he pushed himself off the ground and swung himself into his father’s arms.

“I missed you,” Caden giggled.

Feyre watched the two with a large smile, eyes glowing. Rhys pressed a kiss to Caden’s head and murmured, “I missed you, too, buddy.”

Caden lifted his hands and placed them both on Rhys’s cheeks with an evil grin. It took a moment for Rhys to register the dampness, but as soon as he did he set his son down and his eyes widened.

“Uh oh,” Caden whispered. Feyre laughed from where she was watching and Rhys looked into the mirror hanging next to the front door. His cheeks were now covered in yellow handprints.

He glanced back at his son slowly and smiled. “You’re on.”

Without warning, he lunged for Caden and chased him into the kitchen. A palette of paint sat on the counter wide open, so Rhys took advantage and ran a hand through it with a grin. He turned around and caught his son with one arm, smearing purple paint through his black hair with the other.

“Ahhh, Mommy help!”

Feyre winnowed into the room behind Rhys and suddenly wove her arms around his front, leaving streaks of green down his clothed chest. He growled and whirled away before she could get more. Unfortunately, he ended up in a corner and had no choice but to cover his face as his wife and son came running at him with paint covered hands.

Several minutes past before Feyre finally decided Rhys had been covered enough and tugged Caden back to assess the damage.

Lifting his hands away from his face, Rhys glared at the two devils in front of him but smiled nonetheless.

His black hair was now pink and blue, and it looked as though he had jumped into a rainbow. Feyre was desperately trying to keep a straight face but when he looked down at himself with wide eyes, she lost all control. Her laughter filled the house and soon Caden was joining her, the two bending over with tears in their eyes.

“You two win,” Rhys chuckled, lifting himself from where they had shoved him to the floor. “But mark my words, this is not the end.”

The rest of the night was spent cleaning Caden’s hair and clothes. The bathroom in his room was a spiral of colors as the water slowly drained. Feyre carried their son to bed and Rhys, still covered head to toe in paint, pressed a soft kiss to his head, followed by a good night.

Once they were in their room, Feyre started to walk towards the bed with a yawn, but Rhys grabbed her around the waist and tugged her against him with a growl.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

She rose a brow but he could hear her heart race faster at his proximity. “I was going to bed.”

“You,” he murmured, pressing kisses on her neck and shoulder. “You’re going to join me.”

She shuddered when he slid the corner of her shirt down and gave her an open-mouthed kiss on the exposed skin. “You’re covered in paint, I don’t want to get dirty.”

He grinned. “It’s been quite some time since we’ve had paint involved.”

She hesitated for only a moment before turning in his arms and capturing his mouth with her own. With a few shoves, she had him standing before the tub, filled with warm water thanks to his magic.

“I suppose I could stay up a little longer,” she teased, mirroring his wicked smile.

Neither of them got much sleep, but the next morning they were awoken when Cassian contacted Rhys, letting them know Nesta was in labor. And that afternoon, their niece was born.

[starswornoaths]

📔

I wrote these a bit lengthy, so I’m sticking a cut here bc spoilers for 4.5 but I was an indecisive bean and there’s an entry for Serella, Uthengentle, and just because I write him enough that I might as well, one for Aymeric as well! Thank you for the ask! \o/

(edit: OR IT JUST WON’T LET ME ADD A CUT WHAT THE ACTUAL SHIT TUMBLR I’M ON THE DESKTOP SITE SO FAIR WARNING SPOILERS FOR 4.5 AFTER THIS EDIT OKAY THANK YOU I’M SO SORRY WTFFFFFF)

Serella:

My name is Serella Arcbane. (her name is underlined)

Not so long ago I would have found it ridiculous that I needed to remind myself what my name is. Given that I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been referred to by my name instead of a title, however, I think I’m allowed. Now that I have another one, however temporary...it seemed a good time to remind myself.

Antecedent...the title carries with it too much pain. Too much loss. The remaining Scions approved of my accepting the title for lack of anyone else with any seniority willing or able to take it. I remind myself that it’s temporary, that the second even one of my companions wakes up, I get to just be the Warrior of Light again.

Just, I say. As if it were an inconsequential thing in itself.

At least then, when I was naught more than the Warrior of Light, I was able to still be Serella. I wasn’t made to isolate myself from everyone I know and love. It hurts, knowing that I had finally found family amongst so many people, so many I hold dear, who now can’t see me, either because they are unable to make the journey or because it would be improper of them to do so.

Ma came to visit me today. Her visit...I don’t know. When she called me by my name...I didn’t even respond to it at first. It was as if I had just...forgotten it. Perhaps I did. Perhaps I will again. She suggested I write it down. Said it’s how she remembers the little things about Da. I don’t know if it’ll help. I wish he was here, too. Of all the things I’ve forgotten, that I can’t remember what he looked like hurts me the most.

I’ve forgotten so many things I took for granted. So many little things about those I love. In writing, I hope I can remember at least a few- or at least, be reminded of them.

Raubahn has this deep belly laugh when I crack jokes with him- and really, he is the one constant patron of my puns, readily exchanging more with me for as long as we both have jokes to spare. Says it’s from years of being a father. I can’t remember how his laugh sounds.

Merlwyb would refuse to admit it- and if she ever catches wind of documentation of it, she’ll throw me to the Sahagin, of that I have no doubt- but I miss her singing. Low and rumbling as thunder, textured like velvet but fills the room like smoke. I’ve forgotten how the tune goes, which is ridiculous. I’ve heard her hum it a thousand times.

Aymeric...gods, for how he haunts my dreams you would think I would remember his smile. I should. I remember the things that made him smile. When I would bring sweets from that one chocolatier in town, or sweets from somewhere I had recently traveled. When I would move his bangs to kiss his forehead. Or sometimes...just when he looked at me. 

What shade of blue were his eyes? Were they a deeper shade like the night sky over the Steppe? Or was that the blue of his coat that I’m remembering? 

Why am I forgetting everything so quickly?! I have object permanence! It’s only been some moon and a sennight since I last saw everyone! I’m not some geriatric invalid rapidly losing who I am! I’m not some tempered thrall of a primal, adrift in want to serve my master and bereft of all concept of self! I am not-

(The following lines are writ with words made illegible with scribblings of ink and lines frustratedly crossed through them with enough force to nearly tear a hole in the paper. At the bottom, as if in triumph, there are only two more legible sentence:)

I am Serella Arcbane, and no one can take that from me. Not even a god.

Uthengentle:

Visited Ma over coffee this morning. I went fully intending to just say goodbye then and there. Made sense, I figured. We were leaving tomorrow.

I couldn’t say goodbye. I tried, Rhalgr knows I did. 

Had written a letter ahead of everything just in case. Only makes sense, given our line of work. Left that instead. Didn’t even have the stomach to say goodbye at the door. I left while she went to make another cup for me. I’ll have to apologize to her later. If we make it back.

...When. When we make it back. No sense in the doom and gloom; we’ve been through such shite before. Doubt this would be the end of it, either, but I can hope.

Ellie’s been having worse episodes with that voice, nearly passing out a time or two from what F’lhaminne told me. I hate I can’t be more help. I wish I could at least understand what she’s going through. All I get is headaches, sometimes a flash of an image, but it never bothers me. Krile suspects that has to do with Serella being more sensitive to aether and the Echo than I am. 

I just hope they stop once we leave. They should, right? If we’re going where we’re being called, they have no reason to keep callin’, I’d assume. Or their arseholes, and will do it anyway. Won’t matter. Let ‘em. We’ve got our family to save.

...Well. Some of ‘em. Still feels wrong to abandon everyone on the front lines. We should be there. The closer we get to leaving, the more ill I feel about it. From what Ellie said, she’s not faring much better in that regard. Said Aymeric told her to let them handle this fight, but he’s gotta know without us it could go either way. The man’s not stupid- none of ‘em are. Raubahn promised he’d defend the camp with his last breath...but I don’t want it to come to that.

Riol’s been scouting in Thancred’s place- from what he’s been able to gather, the Garleans are holding their cards to their chest. They have something big planned, and they’re just waiting for the right time to use it. Is that time when we’re out of the picture?

I hate that I don’t know, and I can’t find out before we leave.

I hate even more that we have to leave at all, but it’s clearly not something we have a choice in. Either we go to them, or we’re pulled to them. Better we still have our bodies and our senses and just bite the bullet. 

Warned Hilda to up the Watch with the Templars out of Ishgard. Not that she needs that warning; woman’s an unstoppable force already. It could be her and her alone standing at the gate if the Imperials march on Ishgard, and the safe money would still be on Hilda, far as I’m concerned.

I know my friends are capable without me around. I know they don’t need the Warriors of Light to keep them going. Doesn’t mean I don’t just want to be there to protect them- or failing that, die with them- and just fuck off to some far flung wherever.

We’ll be back before we know it. I’ll see to it myself if I have to.

Aymeric:

The battle continues into its fifth week, now. Though we have not lost an ilm to the Imperials, nor have they lost ground to us. Losses on both sides are mounting. We are hitting a breaking point, everyone can sense it. That there is a turning point fast approaching is not in question, but to which side the tide shall turn. 

O Halone shield your children from the encroaching dark, I beseech thee. 

The Warriors of Light make to leave in search of the Scions. The Alliance had to all but force them into leaving this battle to us, a turning point that came with the fear that (there is a name crossed out) the acting Antecedent had fallen to the same affliction that had claimed the rest. With her restored, however, they yet have hope to find those whose souls have been set adrift from this star. I only hope their path leads to victory, and then to home.

(the remainder of the entry is written in a different ink, presumably at a later point in time. The letters are splotched in places with drops of water.)

I nearly lost her. When Estinien laid her lifeless body in front of me, I feared the worst. We bore her to Ishgard with the full expectation that she would not wake. By the Fury, but when she did...

We are...no longer courting. I remind myself of this every time I am made to respond to one of her missives. That we are only separated by temporary obligation is beside the point: whatever relief I might have felt, whatever ache I carry in my chest will have to stay there, so long as she holds the title of Antecedent. 

Only for now. Another reminder to myself.

She yet shields me, even now, so far from the battlefield as she is made to be. Her promise still sits upon my hand. It shall do so unto death, and longer yet. I have already requested she not be allowed to take the ring from my finger. I have no need to be freed from it in Halone’s halls; regardless of her own heart, if I am the first to fall, then I will wait. I had long since decided thus, even before we were betrothed. 

I only wish I had not been so reserved with her for so long. I should have made more time for her. I swore to her I would never take her for granted and yet to dwell on our courtship, I always took her return as given. Now...now I only pray, and continue to fight that I might live to see her return.

(there are entire swaths of sentences scratched out, only some words such as, “promise,” “love,” and, “forgive,” are barely legible)

She must return. I know not what to do without her otherwise.

O Halone guide my beloved home in victory. 

[thedarkestdragonknight]

Blood on the Steppe

Content Warning: This story is very visual and detailed, it contains the following things that might be disturbing to viewers. This includes Gore, Blood, Violence, Character Death and disturbing actions taking by one character. Please keep yourself safe and read at your own risk.

I won’t lie and say that I am scared to post this up but it’s something I’ve been wanting to write for awhile now. A lot of these thoughts came from a few ideas and some thoughts on activities that could be possible in this world. Note, this is a story and none of this reflects on me as the Mun. Again, this is a story and purely for plot and character development for Jacques. 

But for the most part this story pulls on the thoughts of how people will usually kill certain animals (Think Rhinos, Gorillas, Sharks, etc.) for very specific parts and then leave behind the rest, you can also think of things like Hannibal Lector but without the cannibalism aspect to it. That is your big warning for what details you are likely to come across reading this should you choose to, alongside the Content Warning. Please keep yourselves safe and once again, please read this ONLY if you are comfortable with these things.

Slowly the Au Ra's tail coiled and curled around behind him as he walked... why had he come here again? Usually he never came out to the Steppe because most of the Xaela that were there would tend to give him the most puzzled or questioning looks. Some, due to his appearance and most because they had come up to speak with him and found that he wasn't in any of the clans on the Steppe. The recoils he often got from a simple statement such as 'I was never born here' or 'I am not from the Steppe' were sometimes amusing but most of the time they made him worried that he was... well causing them a bit of a panic because of it. But, the Steppe had its beauty and he had to admit that the dead of night was always the most pleasant time to go through and explore. To see the things and to also just find some place on one of the cliffside areas where he could sit and just stare up at the stars and moon. Which was something that the Au Ra did often when he was alone and needed to find something to keep his mind from wandering to darker thoughts... to keep himself from hating himself and from the constant mentality that he was a monster in this world.

Jacques was slowly leaving from the area of Reunion... one thing he always did when coming to the Steppe was go there and get several of the different types of Buuz so that he could enjoy them while just... sitting and enjoying the peace. Once he had them the man had taken his leave and he already had an area in mind where he was going to rest and relax. Not far from the area was a large cliff that jutted out from where the Steppe bordered Yanxia and that was where he always found himself sitting and relaxing on his visits there.

Giving a slight glance around the man was making sure no one was around to see him before he started on his way with the destination in mind. And once he was a safe distance away that form shifted and the dragon was taking to the air and flying slowly to where he wanted to spend his night... some usually saw him like this but he always made sure that no one saw him transform. He didn't want to scare anyone nor did he want his... secrets known. Especially because he didn't know how any of the tribes of the Steppe would react to knowing that this heavily scaled Au Ra who wasn't FROM their home could also use some 'strange magic' to turn into a creature they've never really seen before. At least like this he could make it to the cliff and be ready to rest in little time, which meant he had more time to spend watching the stars in the sky. Jacques carefully tilted his wings so that he could pivot himself once he got close to the area but something caught his attention on the ground below. Those wyrm eyes of his caught the faintest of things on the ground that looked like someone needed help and he keened in on it quickly, spinning in a motion midair before he dove down and landed behind some tall boulders so that he could change back without being seen. Slowly stepping out the Au Ra looked out and he saw a thick trail of blood leading in from the cave that lead to the other side of the Yanxian area. A slight grimace coming across his features as he was making his way out to investigate... maybe it was just some animal that got injured fleeing? It was quite a large amount of blood that he was seeing and that seemed the logical thought because there were hunters in the Steppe and perhaps something tried to flee but ultimately got caught. Once he was close the man knelt down and brought his hand close to one large patch of blood... it was fresh. The crimson liquid still had that gleam to it... and it hadn't fully soaked into the ground yet. Slowly Jacques scanned over the area more before he saw something that caught his attention... footprints... at least two sets... and they looked to be heading into the Steppe. What worried him is that they were bloodied and that could mean that whoever left them behind were injured... but at the same time it was possible they just walked through the blood while hunting whatever left it behind. Regardless of what it was, Jacques was getting up to his feet and he was following the trail. Slowly the bloody trail started to get smaller, the footprints fading as the blood was being lost to the ground that whoever left them behind had walked on. That's when he took note of... another set of footprints, these more heavy... armored slightly... while the others had been bare. Gritting his teeth ever so slightly Jacques doubled up his pace and soon he saw a little broken down tent. It wasn't uncommon for the Steppe to have these areas scattered about because he'd seen the remains of several villages that had been lost to the Steppe's ways. As he approached however he saw someone that was crouched down... and looked to be... doing something. Those eyes keened in on the man who was at work and he saw the heavy amount of blood that was around the bastards feet. He couldn't see any sort of animal and they guy certainly didn't look like a native of the Steppe. Silently the Au Ra was approaching, slow steps to mask any noise that he might make and once Jacques got close... well... silence was out the window. The body of a young Au Ra, a Raen, maybe in their early twenties was seen and the guy who was hovering over it was using a sharp knife to pry off the scales. Slicing through areas and setting each set of scales to a side in a pile. Jacques growled out sharply, the noise causing the guy to jerk sharply and spin around. Of course, being caught meant the bastard lashed out... jerking up to his feet and trying to rush Jacques with that bloodied knife. Which, of course wasn't really going to do much... Jacques saw it coming and as the man tried to run that knife through his gut the Au Ra grappled his wrist and twisted it earning a howl of pain as several pops and snaps were heard. And he didn't stop there... Jacques twisted that wrist even more causing the bones to crackle before he lunged his other hand forward to grip the bastards throat and squeeze. This bastard didn't deserve to live if this was the living he made... Slowly those claws sank in and Jacques would continue to tighten his grip as the guy struggled and flailed. Kicking his legs, and trying to grab at the hand that was around his throat and cutting off his air. At least the Au Ra showed him some mercy... and with a quick jerk of his arm the sounds of those vertebrae snapping could be heard and then well... Jacques just tore out the front of the guys throat before he tossed the body aside. Let the beasts of the Steppe have a meal. Frowning Jacques moved around to check out the body... kneeling down and bringing his hand to gently graze over the youths cheek. Every scale had been cut away from the body and he could see that the death was caused by a blow to the back of the neck... especially because where the scales had been removed there was heavy signs of trauma and bruising "...... you should never have had to suffer this..." he muttered out, though his attention jerked as he heard shuffling from inside the broken down tent... and he noticed more blood had been around the front of that. Narrowing his eyes more Jacques carefully got up again and he was making his way over... and slowly he was drawing the rough leathers of the tent back. Another body... but this one was older, slightly older than him perhaps... but the body was in the same shape as the youth outside. Scales completely removed and chopped off... and this one was missing the tail... what sick asshole would do this to anyone? The noise however caught his attention again and now he heard sniffling... frantic sniffling... and that's when he saw something that was curled up under the body clinging onto it. And that's when the Au Ra's heart dropped into his stomach... a child. A family... Jacques knelt down as he moved the tent remains away... and he heard the sharp squeal of fear coming out of the young Au Ra who had noticed that he was there. The frown grew more evident as he looked to the little boy who was absolutely soaked with blood... "It's okay... I'm not going to hurt you." his words were gentle, his voice soft... "The bad man is gone... you're safe." had he been any later... had he not seen the blood... Curling his tail around Jacques stayed where he was, allowing for the youth to decide on what he wanted to do. The boy was barely over four years old at the most... and this... by the twelve. He was watching the boy carefully, not making any moves and doing everything to keep himself from looking all that intimidating. Jacques wanted the boy to feel safe... secure around him... and he didn't want to scare him anymore than he already was. Some hours passed, Jacques would offer gentle words to the boy and after what seemed an eternity in his mind the boy slowly came out to him and practically latched onto him. Sobbing and wailing... wailing until his throat was hoarse and he was coughing because of it. The larger Au Ra gentle wrapped his arm around the boy... hugging and holding him close... a protective nature in the way he did so. He would tend to the bodies... make sure they were buried and laid to rest, but for now... he was focused on the boy that was now clinging to him. "You're safe now... no one is ever going to hurt you." there was a tone that Jacques took as those words left his lips... a protective tone. Of course... now he had to figure out a way to even explain this to his companions. Where would he even begin? How would he touch the subject that the boys father and sibling were killed in such a horrific manner? A low sigh came out of Jacques as he carefully pulled the child up ever so slightly so he could rest his chin on his head. The poor thing had practically cried himself to a mute state... and to exhaustion... Right... it was time to tend to the bodies and to get the boy back to his home in the Mist. And hopefully have no one there so he could get the child settled in before having to explain to his companions.