#zisra rp

[cedarmoons]

pt. 3

@4biddenleeches is the best y’all js :3

--

She has been in Vesuvia for little over half a month, and it has been storming for the past three days. She lies in the nest of blankets and pillows on the ground, which passes as a bed in her work-in-progress home, and stares at the ceiling. Her left hand does not hurt, thanks to Asra’s ointment, though with the thunder comes difficulty sleeping. Despite the rain, it is humid and hot, and she tosses and turns, trying unsuccessfully to rest.

When she does finally sleep, she dreams of the Devil’s prison, and sees only empty chains. Broken manacles litter the walls and the floor; posts holding irons have been ripped from the bedrock they are embedded in. Blood gleams slickly on the cobbles, and the room smells of smoke and ash.

The Devil is gone.

“No,” Ziah whispers. “No.”

She looks up and sees her name written across the wall in blood. Hot air that smells of the desert brushes the back of her neck, and she turns around.

She gasps, jerking awake, sitting up in her nest of pillows. She rests her head in her hands and breathes, focusing on the beat of her heart, the drag of breath through her teeth. It had not meant anything. It had just been a dream.

The room flares white as lightning strikes outside. Thunder booms the moment after, so loud it rattles the windows in their panes. Ziah stands, gooseflesh rippling over her bare arms and legs, and walks on unsteady legs to the window. She stares at the rain running down the glass in sheets, absently massaging her left hand.

After a few moments she turns around and goes into her near-empty kitchen, which, other than the necessary amenities of gas stove, ice box, and countertops, has nothing but a vase of tithonias and Asra’s arthritis ointment.

Downstairs, her protections break with a screeching alarm. Ziah winces, instinctively moving to cover her ears before catching herself, lowering her hands. She senses the shadows shift behind her and turns on her heel, focusing on the darkness behind her phonograph. Something is watching her there, hidden as before, yet somehow more menacing in its silence.

“I said before that you are not welcome here,” Ziah warns. There is not much she can do against a creature from the other plane, other than shore up protections, which is apparently useless.

The Master is very angry with you, the creature says in reply. A chill runs down her back. He misses his traitorous beloved. It inhales, deeply, as one sitting at a feast inhales the aroma of the proferred food. Your power... ohh, I’m so hungry.

Her whole body tingles. Ziah ducks and the window behind her shatters, thunder booming and rain blowing inside. Glass sprays across the room, glinting from the water droplets on their surfaces.

She puts her hands together and rests them over her chest, fingertips and thumbs forming a triangle over her sternum. The flash of summoned light catches the creature by surprise — it shrieks and turns away, the light briefly revealing only an opaque, strange outline of a white shape with curling horns. She sprints downstairs, cursing viciously when she accidentally steps on broken glass, cutting her feet.

Ignoring the sting, she yanks on her traveling cloak and steps into her sandals by the door, and despite how quickly she moves she feels sluggish, slow, as if it had actually managed to siphon energy from her.

That thought is alarming. The moment her sandals are half-on she yanks open the front door.

No, the thing shrieks, both petulant and furious. Something splinters upstairs. No, the Master wants you! So hungry...

Ziah steps out into the rain and slams the door shut behind her. She reaches out, finding her protections not broken as she had thought but drained of energy and rendered inert—which should not be possible. She had charged them with a full year’s worth of power.

She thinks of the creature, and its whine: I’m so hungry.

Something collides with the other side of the door. Ziah stumbles back from the threshold and brings her palms together, recharging the lines of dragon lily ink and weaving a steely net that will prevent anything—anything—from leaving the house. It is not permanent, especially if this thing can consume magical energy as she suspects, but it will give her some time to get away.

The creature screams in rage and despair as she turns and moves as quickly as she can, limping on her right foot as pain stabs up from the arch to her ankle. Rain beats down upon her, but she is more exhausted than she had first thought, and her magical reserves feel dangerously low. More than once she steps into ankle deep puddles that splash her to her naked knees. She allows a brief moment to regret not having time to change out of her pajamas before pulling on her cloak.

The constant storms mean the streets are flooded, the canals too swollen with water to prevent the stone levees from overflowing. At the next bolt of lightning, followed by a clap of thunder, she sees a dark shape moving in the floodwater—a vampire eel—and grits her teeth.

She is still strong enough to walk upon its surface, wincing at the pain in her right foot, and pretends not to notice the vampire eels that follow her under the water, drinking every drop of her blood that runs into the floodwaters.

The bigger problem is finding the Mooney house. She had not bothered to learn the way to Asra’s. Vesuvia is transformed at night, she finds, especially at so late an hour when not even the gas street lamps are burning. The fresh unfamiliarity makes her task all the more difficult.

She finds the floating markets and the baker’s stall, and, soaked and shivering from cold, finds a canal she remembers crossing with Asra. Ziah gathers her cloak closer to her and looks over her shoulder.

When she finally finds the Mooney house, she is certain she looks like a drenched rat. She is exhausted, soaked to the bone, too concerned with her limited power to shield herself from the rain, and she has by now put all of her weight on her left foot. Her stomach cramps on emptiness and twists, because her body thinks she has used too much magic, too soon.

She sniffs and approaches the door, reaching out to the knob before she senses the energies of various protections and curses. Asra had been thorough — it is multilayered, complex, the work of a magician who had had months or years to perfect his craft. She senses spells to shove an intruder away, curses that wither entire arms, hexes of burning pain and more. If she was not in such a hurry she would find it all incredibly impressive, considering Asra’s youth. Or perhaps this work is not Asra’s alone — perhaps others had contributed to this web of magic as well.

The house, too, is bristling. It considers her an intruder at this hour, and she is unwelcome. This it makes clear to her.

Ziah suppresses a shiver and sniffs again. If she gets a cold because of this... “I have no time for this,” she says. “Let me in.”

The house remains adamant and hostile. Ziah scowls, then closes her eyes. She reaches out, fingertips inches away from the door, and feels for the network of energies that wrap around the house, like a cluster of thick ivy and other vines that protect and conceal everything beneath. But there, on the second story window, a weak link, a place where the tangled layers of hexes and protections and spells is thinner than the rest. That would take less effort.

One cannot rip out a single section of ivy without taking at least some other section of it as well. One cannot snag a web string without destroying the rest in turn. “Stubborn fool,” she mutters to the house, and reaches in, focusing her will and her remaining on that weakest link.

The house resists, fighting her tooth and nail, screaming in her ear as it tries to prevent her from ripping out the protective magics that it has had for ages. She manages to uproot the weakest section, unraveling the surrounding areas in turn, before the door swings open. She pulls back at once and steps inside, shutting the door and breathing heavily.

That had taken more effort than she had anticipated. No matter whether Asra had contributed to the spells protecting the Mooney house or not, she should not underestimate him.

The first floor is pitch black, and the rain is loud outside. Ziah rests her forehead against the wood, catching her breath, and hears a soft glide behind her. She turns around just as lightning flashes, bleaching Faust of all color for a single heartbeat.

As her eyes adjust to the darkness, because she does not have the spare magic to even summon a witchlight, she sees Faust tilt her head at her, tongue flicking in curiosity. She cannot imagine what she must look like—soaked, shivering, putting all her weight on her good foot.

She listens. Asra’s heartbeat is upstairs, steady. He is asleep, then. At this hour of the night she is not surprised. That he can somehow sleep through this storm... that is more surprising.

“Faust,” she says, finally, her words punctuated by thunder. She shivers, cold rainwater running down her legs under the cloak, teeth chattering. “Please wake Asra. He and I must speak.”

[cedarmoons]

The familiar’s name is Faust. Ziah tucks this knowledge away as she watches Asra settle beside her, plucking a blueberry easily from her offered palm and the snake, Faust, slithers silently over the ground to sun herself on one of the wide, flat rocks. She has never seen a snake in such an odd color.

“Delicious,” he says, with a small smile. His pronouncement draws her attention back to him, to he is already leaning forward in a different spot near to her, reaching deep into a verdant bush, uncaring of how its branches may scratch his naked forearms. She joins his side, watching as he pushes past several pinkish orange berries she has never seen before, all while explaining they are better off as jam than fruit.

She does not know how to make jam from berries, but holds her tongue. Asra sits back with a satisfied sigh, two ripe salmon berries in his palm. He plucks one and pops it into his mouth with a playful look. She takes the other one from him, careful to keep her skin from brushing his.

“Sooo, how’ve you been? Nothing out of the ordinary has happened, has it? Nothing… weird?” he asks her. She lowers the berry to her lap and looks at him. He winks at her, smile widening, but he does not seem as carefree as he perhaps would like to appear. He says, “I’m sure you can handle yourself, but humor me. I’m curious.”

Ah. He wants information. But to what end? That, she does not know. She looks away and bites absently into the small berry, more a nibble than anything else. She licks the juice from her lip and pauses, thinking.

“I am a stranger to you,” she finally says, and sees a ripe black berry on a bush. She reaches forward and plucks it. “I wonder, are you as interested in everyone else’s welfare? Or,” she looks up, meeting his gaze, “is it only with me? I’m curious.”

melancholy hearts pt.2

AU of an AU with @cedarmoons

It is small, the smile she favors him with. Tight lipped as it is, though, it does not seem insincere, nor bitter. She even says hello to Faust. His familiar watches Ziah as she had in the floating market, with the same unflagging curiosity.

It’s not the warmest welcome he’s ever been given, but that’s okay. In any case, Ziah does not seem decisively displeased to see him. Though it isn’t quite warm, neither is it cool. Above all, her greeting seems cautious.

Asra does not hold this against her. If he could keep his wits about him for more than a few seconds without being bowled over by the mere sight of her, he might be cautious, too. But what fun is caution? he finds himself thinking, though his boldness surprises him. But he’s twenty-three, and he wants to be hopeful again, reckless. What use is caution to him, under those circumstances?

(Of great use, a sinister voice reminds him. It was a lack of caution that led you to cast untried magicks on someone you once considered a friend; it was a lack of caution and care that drove away your teacher—your lovers.)

The smile on his face wanes.

But when she offers her company—asks him to join her as she forages—he cannot refuse. It is an act of caution: to grow close to her, watch her, figure out what she’s hiding. If for no other reason than to make sure she’s not disturbing whatever it is that has been growing in these woods. Which, honestly, now that he thinks of it, he shouldn’t be too pleased to find her here, of all places, where the specter so often haunts.

Asra considers whether this presence might have anything to do with her, her secretive nature. Ziah may have drawn it here, to Vesuvia; she may have even nourished it. It’s possible that the thing in the woods has nothing to do with Aredhel or Ilya at all. And though that would leave him with far less information to work with, trying to ascertain what it is and what it wants, that would almost come as a relief.

(They have left him. He has tried not to be too bitter about it. But if it can be avoided he’d prefer to not have to clean up after the mess they left in their wake. Gathering up the pieces of his own life has been work enough.)

He puts the thought out of his mind. The spirit, phantasm, energy—whatever it is—has a distinct malevolence to it, and he does not sense such intent in Ziah. She could of course be hiding it—that trick with the coins had been very convincing—but he doesn’t think so. For now, there is no reason for concern; nor is there any compelling reason not to join her, if he so desires.

(And he does.)

“Thank you,” he says, inclining his head slightly to accepts her invitation. “I’d like that. This is a great spot. Faust loves it.”

He approaches Ziah, pausing only to bend into a crouch beside the stream and let Faust slither into one of the flat, sun-warmed rocks. She does, but instead of curling tightly around herself and enjoying a quick rest, she coils loosely, keeping her eyes trained on Asra and Ziah.

Mostly, Asra thinks, this is out of curiosity. Like Asra, Faust has only known one other magician, and though (in the end) Faust had not felt particularly warm to Aredhel, she’d always had a surprisingly good relationship with Malak. Without him, the past two years have been a little lonely for Faust, too. She’s probably wondering where Ziah’s familiar is, if she even has one, Asra thinks, discretely passing his eyes over Ziah’s clothing, wondering if some small creature hides in the folds. Sensing his curiosity, Faust turns her eyes to him.

‘Friend?’ she asks Asra, hopefully. But he has no answer for her.

Asra comes up alongside Ziah. He peers into her palm and picks one of the blueberries out of her hand, popping it clean into his mouth without bothering to check for loose dirt.

“Delicious,” he says, with a smile. “But here, these berries—the little salmon colored ones—they’re at the end of their season. Better to get them while you can and turn them into a jam, if you want. They’re fun, too—they taste really different from bush to bush…”

He makes his way to the bush, his fingers hunting between the green leaves and plucking two swollen, orange-pink berry from its folds. He pops one in his mouth and holds the other out to Ziah, flat in his palm.

“Sooo, how’ve you been? Nothing out of the ordinary has happened, has it? Nothing… weird?” Then his smile widens, and he adds, with a wink, “I’m sure you can handle yourself, but humor me. I’m curious.”

[cedarmoons]

melancholy hearts

@4biddenleeches​ thank u for letting me steal ur asra

Vesuvia is a collection of scar tissue, Ziah thinks. Perhaps once it was unmarred, prosperous, even, but the twin disasters of plague and untimely death of the count — either (un)righteous assassination, accident, or murder borne of passion, according to various conversations she has overheard — but now, all that is left is a city struggling to recover. 

Its wounds are still unhealed; its difficulties are still laid bare.

She does not want to stay here, in this city that is nothing but a collection of walking dead — that is what they look like, Vesuvia’s locals, wan and shocked and aimless — and remnants of mourning. But it is a city by the ocean, and Tiamat wishes to stay, and so in Vesuvia they shall live.

She buys a small house, a placid two-story which hosts all of its amenities on the second floor, leaving the ground floor bare and empty and consisting of one open-floor room. She cannot recall if she has ever owned a house before. If she has ever had a place to call home.

She thinks, perhaps, that this had once been a business rather than a family home, and it makes her think of what, precisely, she will do in this healing city. Listlessness has never been a good thing in her experience. It tends to lead to darker forms of boredom.

So she occupies herself with changing the house to suit her taste. She buys a phonograph simply because she has money to spend, and as backup she can always turn a handful of pebbles into the most valuable coins. She transforms the brown and cracked space behind the placid little house into a vibrant garden of lavender and forsythia and roses and herbs. She coaxes an infant wisteria vine to take root in the walls of her house, and spents the better part of six hours shaping it to form a purple archway above a red door. She spends days listening to scratchy records on the phonograph as she paints various rooms golden yellow, and fills the rooms with greenery and antique furniture she likes.

And then, on the fifth day, she gets lost. She had been exploring the city, and taken a wrong turn, and suddenly she recognized none of the streets. She is too unwilling to approach a stranger for assistance, so she ends up wandering the city for at least an hour.

It is during this wandering that she finds Albert Mooney’s Apothecary, and feels a magical energy other than hers for the first time in decades. Not only one, but many — chaotic and fluid, incense and greenery, a forest and a prison. This is a house that has seen much magic in its life.

She goes inside at once. The little bell above the door rings, and someone emerges soon after from what looks to be a backroom. His skin is golden brown, and his hair is the exact shade of saltwater pearls.

That is her first observation. The second is that he stops when he sees her, and watches with a coolly neutral look. Not quite resentful, but certainly not unguarded. It is an odd look on someone who looks so young.

He is weary, she decides. Weary and wary.

“Albert Mooney?” she ventures.

“Several years dead,” he replies. He does not offer his own name. He asks instead, “How can I help you?”

“Do you have power sources?” she asks. A moment later, she thinks perhaps that her question had been too strange, too direct.

His expression is very, very still. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“Do you have something,” she says, “that could provide a source of power to prolong the life of a dying creature? An artifact, perhaps?” There are no rituals that can restore Tiamat’s former strength; only ancient creations meant for ancient, dead beings, whose power could be broken down and transferred to another. They are scattered everywhere throughout the world; it cannot hurt to ask.

His answering laugh is bitter, and his smile does not look very pleased. “No,” he says. “We’re an apothecary.”

“I see,” she says. He is lying to her; she does not press. “Then do you have something for arthritis?”

His brows quirk in surprise, before that age-old weariness and wariness return to his face. He draws closer, moving around before her as he rifles through their stock and returns with a jar of ointment. He slides it across the glass and Ziah opens the lid. It has a faint, clean scent, and its energies swirl with cool, soothing magic. She replaces the lid and nods.

“Rub it into the skin,” he says. “It should start working its magic within five minutes. If not, come back and I’ll give you a refund.”

“‘Working its magic,’” she repeats. 

He smiles at her, not unkindly, but not particularly warmly, either. “Turn of phrase.”

“I see.” She will bother him no longer, then. She pays him and waits for him to wrap the jar in delicate tissue paper, then put it in a small, discreet bag. All the while, she debates asking him for directions to the floating markets.

He pushes the bag over the glass and thanks her for her visit. Just as he turns away, she says, “How do I get to the floating markets from here?”

He turns back. “Do you not know?” he asks, bemused.

Ziah swallows her embarrassment. “I have recently decided to make Vesuvia my home. I have been here less than a week, and am still adjusting. This city’s infrastructure... leaves much to be desired.”

He blinks at her. “It’s a long walk,” he says. “I can take you there. There aren’t really street names in this part of town.”

“I would not impose.”

“No, it’s all right.” He turns fully away, and she becomes aware of movement on the floor. Across the room is a lavender-shaded snake, with diamonds of deeper purple all along her back. He bends down, and she slithers onto his arm, coiling around his shoulders and neck. A familiar, then. Interesting. “I was about to close the shop, anyway, and I have to do shopping for dinner.”

Ziah steps outside and waits for him to join her. He offers her a small smile that does not reach his eyes. “I’m Asra,” he offers, and starts off down the street. Ziah follows, drinking in the features of the streets, attempting to remember something that will help her in the future. “Just in case we meet again. Vesuvia’s a considerably smaller city nowadays.”

Ziah looks toward him. He is not looking at her, and his lips are pressed into a line once more, his expression distant, lost in thought. “I am Ziah,” she offers. “Well met, Asra.”

At that, one of his pearl-colored eyebrows rise, and he looks at her out of the corner of his eye. “Well met, Ziah,” he replies.

[cedarmoons]

@4biddenleeches

She opens her eyes chained to a dungeon’s wall, which, honestly, she should’ve expected. Her arms are lifted high above her head, but her back is to the wall, and the chains—other than biting into her wrists—do not yet put undue pressure on her shoulders.

“I’ve missed you.”

Ziah closes her eyes. “Considering you haunt my dreams at least once a week,” she says, “I cannot fathom why.”

“Aw, Ziah, don’t be like that. Look at me.”

She opens her eyes and looks. A man sits in the corner of the room, half-draped in shadows that do nothing to hide his golden hair or his golden arm. She cannot make out his eye color, but his sclera are a dull red, just like the woman from her dream—Red who was not Red. He must be important somehow; the Devil would appear to her as he did in her card otherwise, skeletal and golden.

Perhaps this was the form of the servant? Though it is different from her memory. Ziah frowns. “Oh, I’m not wearing this form for you. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Who, then?”

The Devil stands, smirking, unfolding a red cape topped with ermine fur and draping it around his shoulders. He looks regal, elegant, but there is something odd about the image. Something not quite sincere. Something hollow.

He crouches in front of her, resting his arms atop his knees, watching her with a slight, cold smile. He reaches out with his golden, clawed hand. She tenses, holding herself still. He tucks some hair behind her ear, his clawed fingers cold against her skin, a mockery of Asra’s own actions.

The Devil sighs, clucking his tongue in sympathy. Something twinges hard and painful in her chest. “Poor Ziah. Haven’t been touched in so long, and it shows. You must be half in love with him already, aren’t you? And all he had to do was be nice to you.” He shakes his head, laughs. “That’s so... pathetic, sweetheart.”

“You know nothing of me,” she hisses.

The Devil looks unimpressed. “I’m in your head on a regular basis, dove.” She flinches at the term, and he grins, showing a gleaming smile with too-sharp canines. “See? Knew that’d get a reaction.” He laughs, chucking her chin with his clawed fingers, and this time Ziah does flinch away, jerking her head to the side. He strokes her cheek and her jaw instead, and she bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood. “Aw, nothing to say? I’m disappointed.”

Ziah holds her silence.

“Fight back,” the Devil sneers. His claws dig into her cheek; she squeezes her eyes shut when he draws blood, breathes through the pain. “Don’t be weak.”

Ziah breathes and says nothing. When he turns her face back to him with a single pointed fingertip, she meets his gaze and keeps her silence. His displeasure is naked on his face, his expression twisted in anger. It is an ugly expression on him. But a moment later, the expression smoothes over, and his small, cold smile returns—a smile, she thinks, would be charming on any other face.

She blinks, and Asra is smiling at her instead of the golden red-eyed man. Though the mask flickers, revealing the servant’s face among a host of others—Lina, a skeleton, Sheriza, a goat-like creature, more—it is Asra’s face the Devil ultimately chooses to show her.

“No,” she snarls, and the Devil laughs— pfahaha, Asra’s laugh, which she had not yet heard. He reaches out again, brushing his fingertips over her ear exactly where Asra had touched her a few days ago. She flinches away again, and he grips her throat instead. His touch is warm enough to burn. Tears prick her eyes, and fall down her cheeks when she blinks. Seawater begins to seep in from the cracks in the dungeon walls.

“Pathetic,” he mocks, even as he wipes away her tears. Asra’s face changes, shifting briefly to Sheriza, whose gentle eyes and soft voice had been as much a mask as the different faces of the Devil. “Have you forgotten your place, little dove?” Sheriza croons, leaning forward. She smells of the Waste, of death and dank and dust. Ziah swallows, steeling her body so it does not betray her fear. “Should I remind you what I saved you from?”

Her face shifts to Asra’s once again, and underneath Asra’s face are dozens of others, the blond man first among them. He smiles at her, cheeks dimpling, and she blinks back tears.

“Don’t,” she whispers. “Please don’t.”

Not him.

“Do you think you deserve gentleness?” the Devil asks, delighted. “Kindness? After what you did? Let me remind you.” Ziah’s stomach hollows at the sight of her, some ancient, young part of her shrinking in fear.

“No,” Ziah chokes out, twisting away, but the chains—the Devil’s own chains, his way to remind her of her broken promise—hold her fast. “No, please—”

She squeezes her eyes shut as the Devil leans forward and kisses her, muffling her scream as his magic rips open her scars.

[cedarmoons]

PROMPT: "Fucking with the window wide open." Asra and Ziah, maybe in Nopal?

They have been together—not courting, but a couple—for a handful of months when the heat wave comes to Vesuvia during the dry season. Their rainfall is erratic, and often the storms do nothing to break the humid heat.

In the aftermath of one such storm, when the streets are lit and the sun is set, Ziah sits cross-legged on the bed, undoing her braid and piling it instead in a thick bun atop her head. She has only spare ribbons she had found atop Asra’s dresser, half of which is full, now, of her clothes (and that thought thrills through her, that she has made a home in Asra’s house and he a home in hers)—she ends up using more magic than she should, keeping most of it from falling out.

It is as hot inside as it is outside; the gas lamps are unlit, as they give off heat, and the room is lit by candles instead. She wipes her wrist across her forehead and sees it gleaming with her own sweat. Exhaling hard, she kicks all of the blankets to the end of the bed, leaving only the topsheet and mattress and pillows. She even opens the window beside the bed, knowing the risk of rain starting up and blowing into the house, and breathes in a lungful of fresh air.

She hears Asra emerge from the washroom and sits on the bed, breath catching when he walks toward her, halfway through putting on a shirt. He pulls it over his head and tugs it down, smiling at her, crossing the room when she lifts a hand toward him.

“I like the bun,” he says, cheeks dimpling, and her heart flips in her chest. 

He takes her hand as he sits on the bed and she bites her lower lip, worrying at it before she takes a deep breath and moves, swinging a leg to straddle his hips. She rests her hands on his shoulders, shivering when his hands move to cup the backs of her thighs, thumbs stroking soft skin.

“Okay?” Asra asks, quietly. His eyes are locked on her face.

“Okay,��� she replies, and his mouth curves into a gentle smile. She swallows past the dryness in her mouth, worrying at her lower lip with her teeth before she lifts her hand, carefully dragging her fingertips up the curve of his jaw. He enjoys touch, she reminds herself. It has been some time since she has been overwhelmed by his touch, since she has wrenched herself away from his embrace and his warmth and sought out solitude, but that familiar anxiety in her chest and stomach lingers tonight.

“Can I kiss you?” Asra asks, nose brushing against hers. The words are breathed across her mouth, and she smells the scent of his toothpaste.

She nods, but moves before he can, shifting in his lap to rearrange her legs, until they are wrapped around his hips, her ankles crossed and her heels pressed against the small of his back. Then she rests her forehead against his and, closing her eyes, presses her mouth to his.

There are many things about Asra that she loves—his kindnesses, his compassion, his cleverness. How gently he touches her. The way he’d once told her in Nopal, during their first night sharing the same bed, this is enough.

But she also loves kissing him. She enjoys the softness of his lips against hers, feeling his nose press into her cheek, hearing his heartbeat pick up and the way his hands tighten on her body, fingers digging into her thighs.

As she kisses him, that old anxiety building in her stomach—the unwelcome voice that insists she is not worth his love, that screams at her when she feels overwhelmed by his touch and drives her away from him—melts away, and is quickly replaced by flutters of anticipation.

She breaks the kiss, and Asra blinks up at her, a syrup-slow smile spreading over his face. She traces the shape of his mouth with her thumb, and he kisses it, eyes locked on her face. Heat shivers down her spine, spreading from the top of her scalp all the way to the tips of her toes.

“Will you love me tonight?” she blurts out, cheeks burning. Asra’s lips part in surprise, and she watches as his pupils dilate, purple irises darkening.

(Many, many months ago, she had been too fearful to even ask for a kiss.)

He nods, slowly, eyes lidding as he looks at her. His entire being is sheened in sweat and gold, and he is beauty. His hands lift from her thighs to her waist, playing with the navy laced hem of her satin nightshirt, watching her until she nods and he pulls it over her head.

He tosses her shirt to the floor and holds her face between his hands, thumbs stroking her cheekbones. The touch grounds her, distracts her from the warm air on her naked back, and she closes her eyes, leaning into his touch.

“Every night,” he promises, lowly, “if you let me. I promise.”

It is hard to breathe. The air is thick, humid. But she nods, sighing into his kiss. One hand curves around to cup the back of her neck, but he drags the other down, cupping the weight of one breast in his palm, thumb circling her nipple until it stiffens under his touch and she is arching into his hand.

She can feel his hardness between her legs, hot and insistent against her body.  Heavy arousal coils in her stomach and sinks, bringing with it a trickle of wetness between her legs.

Asra pulls off his shirt, cradling her in his arms as he gently lays her down, sheets warm against her back. He kneels between her legs, hands running down her sides to the waistband of her pajama shorts. He arches an eyebrow and she nods, breathless and burning everywhere, everywhere. She lifts her hips for him, and he kisses her as he hooks his fingers under the waistband of her shorts and underwear and draws them down her legs, tossing them to the floor.

The wind whistles through wide-open window, and outside she hears a group of drunkards making their way home. Asra pulls away to remove his last pieces of clothing, and then he is back between her legs, settling slowly over her. Ziah pays the outside world no mind, focusing instead on the shape of his body, its shadows—of his ribs, his collarbones, his narrow hips—exaggerated by the play of the dim candlelight.

He kisses her, parting her lips with his tongue, bracing himself on his forearms above her. He kisses her until she moans, until she hitches her hips up to grind against him and make him hiss, breaking the kiss. Then he smiles at her, and begins to trail kisses down her body. He tastes the sweat at her throat, between her breasts, on the little hairs that ring her navel, and with every inch he draws away the harder it is to breathe.

“What do you want, Mizi?” he asks, resting his cheek on the gentle curve of her stomach. His hands cradle her hips between them, stroking their gentle juts under her skin. She swallows, hard, ignoring the flush in her cheeks—hoping he cannot see it—as she reaches out and brushes his hair away from his forehead.

“You,” she replies. “Just you.”

Asra kisses the curve of her stomach, then curves his hands under her thighs and spreads them wide. She gasps when he buries his face against her sex, parting her folds with a single lick that somehow conveys all of his hunger, hips jerking against his face as he eats her out, making no effort to muffle his wet, pleased sounds, all of which vibrate through her.

She collapses on the mattress, wanting to stifle her moans—the window is open, and it is not yet late enough that the city sleeps—but knowing that Asra enjoys the noises she makes. Her left hand buries in his soft curls, and she tries to hold rather than grip, or tug, and the other fists in the sheets, seeking something to hold on to as his tongue traces her clit in insistent circles.

“Yes,” she gasps out (and she wants to praise him, love him, as well as he praises and loves her), “yes, sweet, I love this, I love—oh, yes, good, so good, Asra—”

He sucks on her clit at the same time he presses a single long finger into her, and her mind blanks. Her stutters stop and she whines, back arching until she thinks her spine might snap. She stares at the ceiling wide-eyed and open-mouthed as his finger, soon joined by a second, twists and presses against the soft spot inside her that makes her toes curl against the sheets.

Her lungs are tight, full of air, and yet she can’t breathe. She hears her breath inexplicably hitch, hears herself gasp out his name and other pleadings (so good please don’t stop don’t don’t I’m—I’m—) until the pleasure coils tight between her legs and she feels herself on the verge of climax—

“Stop,” she gasps. “Stop.”

He does, looking up at her in alarm, but all she does is shake her head and say, “I was close, but I… I want you in me, when I come. I want to feel you.”

She can feel the heat in her cheeks, though this is nothing to be embarrassed about, not really. Asra’s relief is evident; the tightness and worry around his eyes eases at once, and he laughs, nodding, settling between her legs, pushing one thigh to the mattress to leave her more open for him. 

“Can do,” he murmurs, grinning at her.

She lifts her head, kissing him, and he groans above her, hips shifting, cock sliding between her wet folds. He breaks the kiss to pant against her throat, taking himself in hand and guiding his cock into her.

“Slow,” she requests. “I want to feel all of you.”

“’Course,” he whispers, kissing the curve of her jaw. Her head tips back when she feels him begin to press into her, breath hitching at the stretch of his cock. Asra’s hands grip her hips and she wraps her legs around him, biting her lip and swallowing hard as he enters her. She is so wet for him that it is an easy glide, and he moans when he is all the way inside her, eyes locked on her face.

The look on his face—heavenly.

Gods have warred for less.

“So good,” he murmurs, sounding as wrecked as she feels. “You feel so good, Mizi. Incredible.”

She shivers at the praise, clenching around him. He curses, and she laughs, wrapping her legs around his hips, ankles crossing. He rests his forehead against hers, breath hot against her face. Her hands smooth up his back as he begins to rock into her, and it’s good, so good, all of her nerves are alight and she wants everything he will give her.

“Slow,” he reminds her, and she nods, unable to manage much of a reply except a soft whimper as he fills her over and over. She swallows, mouth dry, watching his face—she holds his gaze, observing his dilated pupils, black nearly swallowing plum purple.

(She makes him feel this way; the hunger in his eyes, on his face, is because of her. The thought is thrilling.)

He thrusts into her until their hips are flush, and then he grinds himself against her as if he has more to give, but it is a perfect pressure against her clit. “Oh,” she moans, head tipping back into the mountain of pillows behind her, and Asra drops his forehead to her collar as she shivers, delicious sensation skittering down her spine, making her toes curl. “Oh, Asra, keep doing that, please.”

“Like this, love?” he pants, repeating the motion, and she whimpers, nodding, helpless in her pleasure. Her hands roam, unable to settle anywhere. They slide over the sweat on his back, grip his shoulders and the tops of his arms, roam down his body to grip his ass; Asra gasps and curses at that, one hand reaching behind him to grab her right hand and press it to the mattress, beside her head, fingers intertwining.

Ziah grins at him, nipping at his lip when he kisses her, and he laughs. “Want something?” he asks, eyes lidding, and oh, he is teasing her, even as she is tipping her hips up to meet his languid thrusts, even as the drag of his cock inside her is making her see stars.

“More,” she whimpers, and he nods, kissing her with a starving desperation she matches, tangling her free hand in his hair, squeezing the hand linked with hers, pressed into the mattress. His thrusts come harder, faster, just the right speed to catch on the kindling within her and make it burst into flame.

She breaks the kiss with a keen, turning her face away but holding him close. This is what she had wanted—Asra’s body slick with sweat above hers, Asra gasping curses and praises in the same breath (fuck, Mizi, feel so good, beautiful, I love you, I love you, I love—), his hand gripping hers as he rocks into her, muscles quivering under her touch.

The window is wide open, and the house around them is scarred with old memories; let the cries he draws from her spill out into the street below, and let their love supplant old pain.

His hand pulls from hers and he shifts above her, the hand snaking between them to press at her clit, and Ziah’s back arches, her thighs beginning to shake.

“Are you close?” Asra asks, and she nods, helplessly, eyes fluttering shut. “No, Mizi, look at me—I wanna watch you—”

And she obeys, of course she obeys, she opens her eyes and watches him as he circles her clit, as that knot of pleasure unravels and she comes. She cannot stop herself, then, from shaking underneath him or hiding her face in the crook of his neck or pulling him as close to her as possible.

When the pleasure subsides, leaving her trembling with aftershocks, she realizes that Asra is also shaking above her, breathing hard, hands clenched in the sheets on either side of her. “Did you…” she starts.

“Yeah,” Asra mutters, hands flexing before he shifts his weight to one arm, lowering his hand between them.

“I have a sigil,” she says. He lifts his head, looks down between them to see the mark she’d drawn upon her skin many years ago, glowing white in the dim light. He laughs, the sound rough, rasping.

“Just in case,” he says, and his fingers glow with magic anyway as he presses them over her mound. When it is done, he slowly pulls from her and settles at her side, and she winces at the immediate soreness that follows his absence. Asra notices, of course he notices, and cups her sex, easing the ache. She thanks him with a kiss, but does not miss the smugness in his smirk afterwards.

“How’s your hand?” he asks.

“Fine,” she says. He nods, lifting her left hand to his face so he can kiss the knuckles, and though she feels no magic from him, warmth rushes through her nonetheless.

Before she can say anything else, the house groans, echoing with the wind of the storm that is just now beginning anew. Ziah and Asra both listen to the rain begin to pour down outside, and neither of them move.

She does not think the house is haunted: she thinks it misses its old master, the man who had given the apothecary its name before Asra came to operate it. She thinks its memories carry more pain than joy.

She runs her hand down Asra’s sweatslick back, enjoying how he shivers and how his muscles quiver underneath her touch, and turns her head to kiss him.

She does not want to live in this house, haunted by memories than ghosts, but she will do what she can to help it—and its lone, lovely occupant. She will do what she can to heal them, and in turn, she will let herself be healed.

“Still staying the night?” Asra asks, and though his eyes crinkle in the corners, though his tone is jesting, she can read the worry in his face. He knows that she and the house do not quite get along.

“I will not leave you,” she says, and seals her promise with another kiss.

[cedarmoons]

The boy is a beautiful view. You keep opening the windows. Keep devouring the night.

*

She is in the bath when he returns to the apothecary. “Morning, Ziah!” she hears him call, and the joy in his voice makes her breath catch, makes her sink further into the clouded, oil-slick water of the bath, the tops of her knees poking through. “Did you see my note? I bought you some pumpkin bread—”

He stops, the floorboards groaning under his weight outside the washroom, and she swallows, her heart hammering in her fingertips and her throat. She hears the creak of the bedroom door, as he looks inside and sees a made bed, a room free of any evidence she had spent the night.

“Oh,” she hears, and Asra sighs.

She forces herself to breathe, to close her eyes and think balance. “Asra, sweet,” she calls, “I am in the washroom.”

“Oh!” he says, and the relief in his voice breaks her heart. She hears his footsteps as he draws closer to the door, and tenses in the bath, her gaze moving to the towels she had rested on the sink across the room. The water is clouded, but she is not certain it is enough, she does not want him to see her like this, naked and vulnerable, but she also wants—

“I’ll be outside when you’re done,” he says. “I got you some pumpkin bread. You want some breakfast?”

She closes her eyes against the lace of tears on her lashes, fingers curling against her heart, and she wonders what she has done to deserve him. “I would like that,” she says, thickly.

Asra hesitates. “You okay?”

She clears her throat. “I am well,” she says.

“Okay. Just shout if you need me.”

He moves away, and she sinks into the tub until the water laps at her earlobes, until the long strands of her hair float atop the water, scented of rosemary and peppermint, and she wonders why she had wanted, however briefly, to see him see her.

She wonders why her quietest wish and her quietest fear are both that he will touch her.

*

When she emerges from the washroom, dry and clad in a fluffy robe, Asra is already at the stove, stirring cooked rice and mixing in soy sauce. Two slices of pumpkin bread are already set out on plates, as are two cups of tea and an enamel teapot. Sunlight streams through the open window, the breeze ruffling his golden-lit hair.

He looks over his shoulder at her, offering a gentle smile. “Morning,” he says. “Did you sleep okay? The house didn’t keep you up?”

She looks down at her hands, unable to fight her small smile. “I slept well, thank you. The house was on its best behavior.” She brushes her fingers along the wallpaper after she speaks, and the ceiling above her groans.

“Good. I’m glad.” He turns back to his cooking, smiling to himself, and turns his attention to a second pan, the contents of which are sizzling. She slowly sits at her place—and she thinks it strange and thrilling, that she has visited him enough to have her own place at his table—and watches him cook.

“Did you think I had left without saying goodbye?” she asks, and Asra stills. He turns his body so his back is completely to her, but that only shows her the stiffness in his shoulders as he stirs the second pot, the sense of his aura tightly restrained.

Ah. She has awakened old ghosts, and now they will haunt him all day.

“Just old fears,” he finally says, and his insincere smile worsens her knotted heart, the tightness in her chest. She nods, adjusting the neckline of the robe, tugging it tighter though it exposes nothing, and she thinks to something else they could talk about.

“Did you sleep well downstairs?” she asks. She hesitates only a moment before continuing, “I know you’ve said that you are comfortable with this... arrangement, but...”

Asra looks at her as he takes their plates back to the stove, filling first her plate with fried rice, chicken cutlets, prawns, and eggs, then his. When she trails off, and does not speak further, he sits across the table from her. “I slept great,” he says, offering her a smile that does little to ease the anxiety knotting within her chest. “When I say I’m fine with this—with what we’re doing now—I mean it. I’m just glad you’re spending the night in this house, because that means I can see you that much sooner in the morning.”

His smile widens, dimple flashing, and she feels her face heat. She looks down at her nasi goreng, then back at him, teeth worrying against her lower lip in thought.

“I only wonder,” she says, “whether you deserve—more. Better.”

They have had this conversation before, and she does not know why she is bringing it up again. She pushes her rice around, worrying at her own inability to keep her doubts and fears to herself, and her chest is tight when she finally looks up at him.

Asra is watching her with a mouth full of breakfast, chewing in thought. After he’s swallowed, he sighs. “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” he finally replies, softly. “About me deserving better.”

He is no longer smiling; she can see the ghosts in his eyes. Guilt twists her stomach. She thinks, I am sorry, sweet. I did not mean to make them haunt you today.

Ziah lowers her gaze. “Is it not true, though?” she asks, driving her fork into her chicken. She dips it into the excess soy sauce, but does not eat, too unsettled by her churning stomach and the growing ache in her knuckles. “You deserve someone who does not flinch from your touch, who wishes to share your bed at night, who—who—”

She bites her lip, flexing her left hand, hiding her flinch at the sharp pain it sends down her nerves to her wrist. “I am sorry,” she finally says. “I should not be so melancholy this early in the morning.”

Asra smiles, but it reminds her of his early smiles, the ones that had been neutral masks than any expression of happiness. “Can I touch you?” he asks, and she licks her lips, heart thudding hard in her chest.

“Please,” she whispers.

He moves his chair closer, the legs scraping against wooden floors, and she fights her instinctive fear, struggles to keep her body relaxed and loose. Asra exhales slowly, then lifts his hand.

The brush of his fingertips against her cheek is delicate, soft; as gentle as holding a hand out to a beaten dog, coaxing it forward so it can be petted.

I will not hurt you, his touch says, and she believes him.

His palm cups her cheek, fingers fitting under the lobe of her ear, and his thumb rests against her temple. Ziah lets her eyes flutter shut and tucks her left hand between her knees so he will not see it shaking. This is still so new, only a few months old, and fragile; she feels she is holding a china bowl, and it is at risk of slipping from her hands and shattering upon the floor at any moment.

One wrong word from her, one wrong action, and he will leave her; she will be alone again. 

(She had been alone before him; to be alone after him is now one of her greatest fears.)

“I love you,” he finally says, and she shivers when his thumb strokes her skin. “I’ll say it as many times as you need me to. I don’t want anything from you that you’re not willing to give me. I don’t want you making yourself uncomfortable because you think I deserve something, or that you should be doing something for my sake. I want to be with you in any way you’re willing to be with me. I want you comfortable, Ziah, but most of all I want you happy. Okay?”

Her exhale shakes, and she turns her head to kiss his palm, eyes squeezed shut. I do not deserve you, she thinks, wildly. I deserve nothing you offer me. I have done nothing to earn your love, your affections; all I have done is exist. 

But perhaps that is his point. Perhaps she need do nothing, to be worthy of being loved. 

She feels tears prick the back of her eyelids, and she nuzzles into Asra’s palm, exhaling hard. Her cheek burns with his warmth, and she knows she will carry his invisible handprint on her face throughout the day, his gentleness known to none but her.

She opens her eyes, pulling away from his touch, his heat threatening to undo her at the very seams. Asra’s hand gently flexes, and he puts it between his knees without a word as he watches her, waiting for her reply. 

Ziah takes a small breath, and nods. “Very well,” she says.

Asra smiles.

[cedarmoons]

pylades: i'll take care of you / orestes: it's rotten work / pylades: not to me. not if it's you.

She holds no delusions: she knows she is no easy creature to love.

She knows her contradictions are many and frustrating.

She is averse to touch and yet hungry for it, starved for it. She is warm and laughing until she remembers it is not her place to draw attention to herself, or until the past makes itself known in her mind, and then she withdraws, becomes cold and closed-off and aloof. She is confident and unafraid, until someone stands closer than five feet, and then she is skittish and coltlike in her fear. She is too timid, too withdrawn into the fortress she had walled herself in, to ask even for a simple kiss.

She knows she is no easy creature to love.

But Asra—loving Asra is breathlessly easy.

He is sweet and earnest and sincere in everything he does. There are days the hardness in his eyes does not ever go away, when she says something or makes a thoughtless inquiry that rebuilds his walls—not walls she had torn down, but walls he had willingly dismantled, for her—in the span of a moment. 

But there are also days where he spends his hours in the as-yet unfinished tea shop with her, sampling blends she had made or helping her set up the bookshelves and the hanging plants or assisting in her attempts to puzzle out teleportation magic. There are days he does not visit, but sends someone to her home with a bouquet of tithonias instead, always with a note. There are days where, seeing the stormcloud darkened sky and anticipating rain, he brings her cream from his apothecary to ease her arthritis.

She regrets many things, but giving him permission to court her—and receiving his permission to court him in turn—is not one of them. She only hopes that he does not regret it, either.

She had thought up some pretext to visit him this night—for she, foolishly, had thought she had needed a reason to visit him, as opposed to simply following a whim to see his smile and talk about their respective days and, perhaps, try to touch and be touched without shivering.

And now she is in his kitchen, and he is watching her with his chin in his palm, and her chest is tight. She cannot shake the feeling that she should not be here, intruding upon him in his home. She cannot shake the impulse to thank him for tea and get up, make a hasty exit, pretend the awkwardness of the silence between them had never occurred.

The apology is on her tongue, but she knows what he would say in response: why are you sorry? don’t be sorry; you have nothing to apologize for. Besides, she has been trying to curb that habit. She knows it frustrates him.

Asra hums, moving his chair closer to hers. Her breath catches. He hears it, and his smile widens. “What’re you thinking about?” he asks, reaching out to her, moving so his arm is draped across her back and his shoulder is pressed to hers. Ziah’s heart leaps into her throat, but she swallows, makes herself turn toward him, press closer. This flaw, too—turning away from touch, running from affection, rejecting his freely offered warmth and comfort—she has been trying to improve, a blacksmith hammering day and night at a dented, dulled sword to make it straight and sharp.

She wants to be better for him, so she may love him better, so she may be easier to love.

“It is nothing,” she murmurs. “Foolish thoughts.”

“I don’t think anything you think is foolish,” he replies.

She swallows, hard, and offers a weak smile, more a quirk of her lips than true emotion. She lowers her gaze to the tabletop, to where his second hand rests carelessly beside his teacup full of lavender tea, and slowly rests her hand atop it. Asra stills. “I am only thinking,” she whispers, watching how Asra turns his hand and intertwines their fingers. He escalates nothing she does not initiate; he does nothing she has not given him permission to do.

(It is why they have not kissed yet: she is too afraid to ask, and if he were the one to ask, she fears her answer would be no. She has not been kissed in three hundred years. She is frightened of what it would mean, to break that drought.)

Her admittance is slow and heavy as syrup. “That it must be… that perhaps you are….” She swallows, looks away from his face. “I imagine it is not easy to be with me.”

“Why would you think that?” he asks.He is frowning. Her heart breaks; she knows the deprecating things she says hurt him, sometimes, no matter their truth. He rubs his thumb over the back of her hand, and she shivers. “Ziah. Look at me.”

She does. He offers a smile. “I don’t know what… what you’re thinking, right now. But being with you? Let me tell you, it’s one of the easiest things I’ve ever done.”

The arm at her back is warm, scalding. She would rather bear its brand than carry the ugliness of her scars. But all the marks he had left on her—they are brands of their own, holding memories and impressions and heat above all. Look, says her ear, where he had first touched her, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Cherished, proclaims her cheek, which he had held in the palm of his hand in his oasis. Her hands and fingers, her arms, her back: they too wear invisible marks of his affection.

(One day, she hopes her whole body will burn with memories of him.)

“May I stay with you tonight?” she asks.

Asra’s smile lights up his whole face, and his beauty steals her breath. “Of course. I need to set up the pillows downstairs—”

“No,” she corrects, gently. “I want you to stay with me tonight. In your own bed.”

Asra’s lips part in surprise. He shifts backward, arm sliding up her back. The fabric of her shirt is not thin enough that he can feel the scars, but still he is slow and careful, measured, watching her face for any reaction. “Are you certain?” he finally asks.

She wants to be better for him, so she may love him better, so she may be easier to love.

She holds his gaze, lifting their joined hands and twisting her wrist, so the back of his hand faces her. She kisses the backs of his knuckles, then turns her head, resting her cheek against his hand, looking up at him. “I would like to try,” she says.

Asra lets go of her hand and brushes his fingertips against her cheek. When she closes her eyes and turns into his touch, his exhale shakes, and he turns his hand, fitting his palm against her cheek, thumb tracing the shape of its curve.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

(She knows it is hard, loving her, but she hopes she can make it easier for him.)

[cedarmoons]

@4biddenleeches​

Ziah wakes up sick for the first time in... she cannot remember. She winces, pressing a hand to her sweaty forehead, which feels cool to the touch. Her head pounds, her nose is congested, and her throat aches; every time she swallows, a sharp pain pricks the back of her throat.

She sniffles. This is your fault, she thinks to the house, without any real heat or accusation. She turns onto her side, facing the wall, and sniffles again, grimacing at the wet, sickly sound.

In the morning light, the other side of the bed is immaculately made. Baubles strung from the ceiling cast refracted light over it, pinks and blues and purples where they intersect. It looks as if Asra had never, ever moved from where she lies now, and changed sides of the bed.

She swallows hard, pushing herself up onto her elbow, and hovers her hand over it, closing her eyes and concentrating. All of her senses attune to the pillowcase, which hums under her attention, and old energies begin to rise, as river silt disturbed after eons clouds clear water.

She touches the pillowcase, and immediately—

The red-eyed woman from her dreams. Auburn hair, a face she knows and loves, fingers tracing his cheek. Asra behind him, not unimportant, never, but no longer the same, love—diminished—

You’re here now, so I’m ready. I can go without regrets.

I don’t want to be alone, Asra’s voice whispers.

At the sound of Asra’s voice, Ziah snatches her hand away, holding it to her chest, breathing shallowly through her mouth. She feels no guilt for her curiosity, but she does not doubt that she has somehow deeply intruded. His loss, and his grief, are his alone; she has no right to be a spectator to any of it.

But—

(Love, diminished—the red-haired man, her newer, truer joy—)

“Oh,” Ziah whispers, voice cracking as she stares at the wall. “Oh, Asra.”

She sniffs again, pressing the inside of her wrist under her running nose. Asra is already awake, in the kitchen, and he has left her in peace. But the longer she stays in here, the more she avoids the conversation that must happen between them.

As soon as she thinks it, she feels the ghost of his touch, warm against her cheek. Her breath hitches and she rubs her cheek as she stands, shivering against the chill and the sudden lightheadedness that takes her. Once she is steady, she makes the bed and opens the door.

“Good morning,” she says to Asra, keeping her gaze lowered. Even to her, her voice sounds rough, rasping, hoarse. She swallows and crosses her arms, pulling the lapels of the sweater tighter against herself. “I’m sorry, I must look a mess. I believe I’ve caught a chill from the rain last night.”

[4biddenleeches]

@cedarmoons

Asra’s hands flutter uneasily, fingers curling and uncurling, in and out of clenched fists. He wants so badly to touch her, perhaps to reassure himself as much to comfort her. Wants to hold her close and tell her that he will keep her safe—that no matter how she pleaded, begged, he would never abandon her in such a state. He is not that person. He couldn’t.

But this is all because he wants to reassure her, and he knows that any contact between him—even the most fleeting touch—is likely to have the opposite of the desired effect. By great force of will, he keeps his hands to himself.

He breathes a sigh of relief, however, when Ziah pulls the saltwater over their heads and freezes it around them. The protection it offers, he thinks, is hardly more than an illusion. He knows just as well that the only reason he was able to temporarily get the better of Lucio—or whatever that thing was—is because he had surprise on his side. He doubts the creature will underestimate him again… and, if it has as much of Lucio’s temperament as it’s shown so far, when it does find them (as Ziah suspects it will) it will be pissed. But the privacy the dome affords—or, more accurately, the fact that it obscures for the moment the setting of the nightmare—brings him some comfort.

It is just him, and Ziah.

Trapped. For she tells him, ‘It is a cage, and I do not know how to get you safely out.’

That almost outrages him. That she sits before him, bleeding, violated, only just freed, and she is worrying about him. True, Ziah’s proven more powerful than Asra gave her credit for. A lot more powerful, anyway, than Asra himself. But it’s clear from the entities words (and the cage that Ziah believes it has constructed) that it’s conflict with Ziah is much, much more personal.

“Maybe it isn’t Lucio,” Asra allows, “but it wears his face, and it remembers me. So whatever your relationship with that thing is, it’s my responsibility, too.”

Asra sighs. Again, he is reminded of Ilya, always trying to protect though his efforts often ended with him endangering those he was trying to keep safe even further. He raises his eyes to Ziah’s face, imploring her. “Don’t make this your burden alone, Ziah,” he says, and though his voice has the quality of a whisper, his words resound, loud in the closed space of the dome of ice. “I’m not sure what we do next, and I may not know as much as you do about what’s going on, but I’m here. I’m going to help. I’m definitely not going to ‘get out’ unless it means you’re coming with me.”

[cedarmoons]

She watches him move around, utterly comfortable in his own space, and feels the lingering touch of his arms where he had carried her. He had not touched skin, and when he had touched her back she had managed to keep herself from twisting out of his arms right then and there. But her shoulders and the skin behind her knees are still tingling, the ghost of his warmth, his touch, lingering even now, as if he is still holding her to his chest.

She is glad she came to him, despite the touching. He is more welcoming than she could have anticipated—offering her food and dry clothes and shelter from the storm. Most surprising of all, he does not even seem alarmed at the fact that she had forcibly entered his home. His tone when he had said I’m getting a pretty good idea had been playful, yes, but there had been awe as well. Perhaps something else as well.

It occurs to her that she cannot be so careless with further displays of her magic. The more power she shows, the more cause he has to consider her a threat. That does not seem to be the case right now, but the human heart is a skittish thing.

She is eating the pumpkin bread and fighting her body’s instinct to faint when he returns from across the room, an armful of black and gray clothes in his hands. He leaves her with them and returns downstairs for medical supplies, taking Faust with him. Ziah eats one of the fruits, easing the gnawing ache of her near-empty stomach, then slowly pulls off her sandals, wincing at the sight of her lacerated feet. Just as carefully, she rises to stand on the sides of her feet.

She pulls something black and oddly shaped from the pile of clothes, accompanied by a long-sleeved cropped gray knit sweater, and, leaning against the wall, hobbles around the corner to a closed door, which she can only assume is the washroom.

She goes inside and shuts the door behind her, wincing at the pain in her feet. Were she currently not so weak, this would not even be a problem.

She sets the clothes on the countertop, taking a glance around the room. The countertop is cluttered but not messy, full of little trinkets and baubles like gems, shells, even a carved animal token she does not recognize.

There are towels and soap in a cabinet underneath the sink; she pulls the fluffiest one out and rests it on the countertop.

Slowly she undresses, acutely aware of the cold air on her body and the sound of her wet clothes dropping to the floor. Once she is mostly bare she shivers and towels herself dry. It takes her a while to figure out the dress through the mass of ruffles and asymmetrical lines, but eventually she gets it settled around, the hem an odd curve that arcs from above her left knee to hang below her right calf. The fabric whispers to her in the same language of the tarot, in impressions and memories and emotion.

She smoothes her hand down the satiny fabric, and the dress hums, excited to be worn again in two years. It shows her the ocean at night, under a blanket of stars, salt water staining the hem. Pale fingers tangling in auburn hair, a kiss. Red, she hears someone say, so softly she cannot distinguish the voice. She thinks of the woman with the red eyes, and Asra.

She hears a knock outside, not on the washroom door but the second floor’s. She shrugs on the sweater—the dress, while pretty, has a back that exposes her shoulder blades and the tops of her scars—and wraps the towel around her shoulders as well.

She emerges from the washroom to see Asra carefully opening the door, supplies in his hands. She leans against the wall on unsteady feet, then makes her way back to the kitchen table, sitting down heavily. The creature had taken more from her than initially anticipated.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” she says to him. She smoothes her hand down the skirt again. She should not pry into his past, but she is curious. “The dress showed me Red, I believe. You need not answer if you do not wish, but—that was that her name, was it not?”

pt. 3

@4biddenleeches is the best y’all js :3

–

She has been in Vesuvia for little over half a month, and it has been storming for the past three days. She lies in the nest of blankets and pillows on the ground, which passes as a bed in her work-in-progress home, and stares at the ceiling. Her left hand does not hurt, thanks to Asra’s ointment, though with the thunder comes difficulty sleeping. Despite the rain, it is humid and hot, and she tosses and turns, trying unsuccessfully to rest.

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[4biddenleeches]

melancholy hearts pt.2

AU of an AU with @cedarmoons

It is small, the smile she favors him with. Tight lipped as it is, though, it does not seem insincere, nor bitter. She even says hello to Faust. His familiar watches Ziah as she had in the floating market, with the same unflagging curiosity.

It’s not the warmest welcome he’s ever been given, but that’s okay. In any case, Ziah does not seem decisively displeased to see him. Though it isn’t quite warm, neither is it cool. Above all, her greeting seems cautious.

Asra does not hold this against her. If he could keep his wits about him for more than a few seconds without being bowled over by the mere sight of her, he might be cautious, too. But what fun is caution? he finds himself thinking, though his boldness surprises him. But he’s twenty-three, and he wants to be hopeful again, reckless. What use is caution to him, under those circumstances?

(Of great use, a sinister voice reminds him. It was a lack of caution that led you to cast untried magicks on someone you once considered a friend; it was a lack of caution and care that drove away your teacher—your lovers.)

The smile on his face wanes.

But when she offers her company—asks him to join her as she forages—he cannot refuse. It is an act of caution: to grow close to her, watch her, figure out what she's hiding. If for no other reason than to make sure she's not disturbing whatever it is that has been growing in these woods. Which, honestly, now that he thinks of it, he shouldn't be too pleased to find her here, of all places, where the specter so often haunts.

Asra considers whether this presence might have anything to do with her, her secretive nature. Ziah may have drawn it here, to Vesuvia; she may have even nourished it. It’s possible that the thing in the woods has nothing to do with Aredhel or Ilya at all. And though that would leave him with far less information to work with, trying to ascertain what it is and what it wants, that would almost come as a relief.

(They have left him. He has tried not to be too bitter about it. But if it can be avoided he'd prefer to not have to clean up after the mess they left in their wake. Gathering up the pieces of his own life has been work enough.)

He puts the thought out of his mind. The spirit, phantasm, energy—whatever it is—has a distinct malevolence to it, and he does not sense such intent in Ziah. She could of course be hiding it—that trick with the coins had been very convincing—but he doesn't think so. For now, there is no reason for concern; nor is there any compelling reason not to join her, if he so desires.

(And he does.)

“Thank you,” he says, inclining his head slightly to accepts her invitation. “I’d like that. This is a great spot. Faust loves it.”

He approaches Ziah, pausing only to bend into a crouch beside the stream and let Faust slither into one of the flat, sun-warmed rocks. She does, but instead of curling tightly around herself and enjoying a quick rest, she coils loosely, keeping her eyes trained on Asra and Ziah.

Mostly, Asra thinks, this is out of curiosity. Like Asra, Faust has only known one other magician, and though (in the end) Faust had not felt particularly warm to Aredhel, she’d always had a surprisingly good relationship with Malak. Without him, the past two years have been a little lonely for Faust, too. She's probably wondering where Ziah’s familiar is, if she even has one, Asra thinks, discretely passing his eyes over Ziah’s clothing, wondering if some small creature hides in the folds. Sensing his curiosity, Faust turns her eyes to him.

‘Friend?’ she asks Asra, hopefully. But he has no answer for her.

Asra comes up alongside Ziah. He peers into her palm and picks one of the blueberries out of her hand, popping it clean into his mouth without bothering to check for loose dirt.

“Delicious,” he says, with a smile. “But here, these berries—the little salmon colored ones—they’re at the end of their season. Better to get them while you can and turn them into a jam, if you want. They’re fun, too—they taste really different from bush to bush…”

He makes his way to the bush, his fingers hunting between the green leaves and plucking two swollen, orange-pink berry from its folds. He pops one in his mouth and holds the other out to Ziah, flat in his palm.

“Sooo, how’ve you been? Nothing out of the ordinary has happened, has it? Nothing… weird?” Then his smile widens, and he adds, with a wink, “I’m sure you can handle yourself, but humor me. I’m curious.”

[cedarmoons]

This she knows immediately: her inquiry had been unwelcome. She watches him tense, shoulders squaring and a dark look stealing over his features. His aura is unguarded, protections shattered by her mere question, betraying the riot of emotions roiling within him—hurt and resentment and anger and more hurt.

He says no, turns away, and she regrets. He has taken such care to respect the boundaries she had made clear in the forest. She owes him equal respect.

“I am sorry. I should not have pried,” she says. “But I am sorry for your loss.”

The kettle’s screech is his answer. He turns away, provides her a wet washcloth at her request, and she presses it to her injured left foot. “I cannot remember the last time I had tea,” she tells him, truthfully. “Surprise me. And if you have more bread — I would appreciate that too. I expended too much magic before coming here.”

She is about to expend more, whatever had recovered during her rest here. She looks away and pulls her attention from his exposed (almost naked, she thinks, in its unexpected vulnerability) aura. It will give him a chance to collect himself.

She lifts her left foot into her lap, closing her eyes, wincing as she bends her own blood and the water from the cloth. Every glass piece, no matter how minuscule, is washed out under her careful observation and placed on the washcloth.

She pulls the washcloth away and strokes the arch of her foot, but when she attempts to heal it black spots flood her vision and her forehead pounds.

She has never been so powerless. The thought is more grating than it should be.

With another wince, she carefully folds the washcloth full of glass and puts it on the table, reaching for his apothecary supplies instead.

“To return to the point of my visit,” she says, “a servant of the Devil somehow managed to consume the magical energy of my protections, broke into my house during the storm, and attacked me, consuming my magical energy in turn. I managed to trap it inside my house, though I do not know if it yet holds. You asked me to come to you if anything concerning happen. Well.” She looks up at him. “I consider that quite concerning.”

pt. 3

@4biddenleeches is the best y’all js :3

–

She has been in Vesuvia for little over half a month, and it has been storming for the past three days. She lies in the nest of blankets and pillows on the ground, which passes as a bed in her work-in-progress home, and stares at the ceiling. Her left hand does not hurt, thanks to Asra’s ointment, though with the thunder comes difficulty sleeping. Despite the rain, it is humid and hot, and she tosses and turns, trying unsuccessfully to rest.

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