xparadisexlostx

[xparadisexlostx]

Shadows:

@bokketo I swear to god Onyx. I swear I'm done sdlfkgnsdlfgks I'm very sorry. This one is actually kinda wholesome. Especially in comparison to the last one.

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There were things in the dark. Entities that showed themselves to very few and bent to only the sharpest minds. Rán Malfoy’s cut like a guillotine. 

It made sense. Her father dabbled in all manner of forbidden sorcery behind the ministry’s back, and her mother was an incarnation of a spirit herself. If Rán wasn’t equipped to reach into the darkness and shackle the shadows to her will, no one was. As her skill grew, they eagerly came to her call. They saw everything; they were everywhere. No whisper behind her back went unheard. There was nowhere a man could hide that the darkness would not find him.

She tamed the wild spirits that lurked in the night, and she bridled the parasites that latched onto the shadows of witch and wizard alike. They went unnoticed to the untrained eye. They left no trace. They allowed her complete control if she desired it.

There was a stirring in the bed behind her. Rán looked up from her desk to where Lily Potter laid tangled up in her sheets. Her heart fluttered as she traced the tender freckles of Lily’s face. She was so beautiful it made her ache. Every time she looked at her, it was like she was the one being pulled along by the strings. It unsettled her as much as it thrilled her.

She’d chosen Lily Potter for very practical reasons. Lily wasn’t meant to have such power over her. She wasn’t supposed to feel this much.

Rán pushed back her chair as quietly as she could and tucked her book back on the shelf as she crept back over to the bed. Lily was sprawled out in every which way, taking up an impossible amount of space, and Rán had to inch her way carefully onto the bed to keep from disturbing her. It wasn’t a courtesy she’d have shown anyone else.

“Soft.” Kalliope whispered in the back of her mind. Rán forced her familiar out. She wasn’t in the mood for teasing. Here, in the silence of her bedroom, basking in the glow of the fire, she didn’t want to be strong.

Rán oh-so-gently tried to reposition Lily. She managed to squeeze under the redhead’s arm and reclaim a sliver of bed on the edge. It was enough. It was perfect. Lily sighed contentedly, and Rán mirrored her without even knowing. God she smelled so good.

Something moved.

Rán turned her head to see two glowing, hungry eyes staring back at her on the wall behind Lily.

“I know you.” It whispered. “I know you. I know you.”

Did the famous Harry Potter know that a parasite had latched itself to his sweet girl? She was surprised that she hadn’t noticed until now. 

It was a golden opportunity. All she had to do was a quick little binding spell. One spell. It wouldn’t hurt. Just a prick of her own wrist and a tiny incantation, and her little Ravenclaw would never crow unless she wanted her to. She’d never walk away. Never break her heart. 

The entity appeared so still against the wall, but she could feel its presence writhing around the room. It called to her again. Its empty eyes pleaded with her.

Rán lifted up her hand and summoned the wand. Not her wand. Not the beautiful cherrywood creation Olivander had placed in her hands all those years ago. No. She called the iron wand. The wand her mother had gifted her when she left childhood behind. It appeared from nothing, cold and heavy in her palm. 

She rarely used it, but it was the only sort of wand suitable for commanding spirits.

Rán turned the iron in her hand, opened her palm, and it shot forward like an arrow. There was a muffled scream as the spirit recoiled. The yellow eyes grew wide as the shadow grew along the wall, twisting and hissing mutely. But its head stayed pinned in place by the iron stuck between its eyes.

“Get the fuck out of my house.” She snarled, her voice both quiet and venomous. With a twitch of her fingers, the wand shot back into her hand. “And stay the fuck away from my girlfriend.”

The spirit scrambled and clambered against the walls, spitting at her like a wildcat. It crawled over the paintings and scrambled over the curtains, then it melted into the corner, and she felt the presence fade.

Rán wrapped her arms around Lily and buried her face into her fiery hair. They were, blessedly, alone.

[xparadisexlostx]

Shadows:

@bokketo Maybe this one should have stayed in the drafts. It's going under a cut, I'll tell you that. Onyx if you never read this long rambling drabble where someone smacks Rán in the face and she proceeds to murder them without a second thought.... I understand.

In twenty years of life, Rán Malfoy had never been struck. There’d been a few elbows on the quidditch pitch. She’d been kicked by horses or hit by stray bludgers. When she was sixteen, she’d been bit by a particularly ill tempered pygmy puff. But no one had ever dared raise a hand to her. Perhaps that is why she hadn’t seen it coming.

She crumpled back against the kitchen table clutching her jaw and reeling. Her boyfriend—and she used the term very loosely—was apparently coming to terms with the action as well. He was boring a hole into her with that stupid stare of his, clenching his fists, and panting like he’d just fought off a tiger instead of someone half his size who hadn’t seen it coming.

“You’re a fucking bitch.” He huffed, pointing his finger at her. It was shaking. “If–if you hadn’t have—I’ve NEVER hit a girl but you—you’re a real fucking piece of work Malfoy.”

Rán flexed her jaw, tenderly exploring the split in the thin skin of her lips as she tasted copper. He kept yammering on, and the longer he spoke the more he stuttered, and the more his voice shook. She counted to ten, breathed deep, and stood up. When she looked back at him, he had tears in his eyes.

Pathetic.

“Baby… Baby I didn’t mean—I don’t know what came over me.” A tear slid from the corner of his eye, and he reached for her like a snot-nosed toddler would a teddy bear after throwing a fucking tantrum. He laughed pitifully through his tears. “You just, you make me crazy. You make everybody crazy. Come on, don’t be mad. I’ll–I’ll fix you up. What can I do?”

She schooled her expression and sighed, turning to pull out a chair at his shitty little kitchen table in his shitty little apartment. It took everything in her, but she forced her voice to stay meek and small. She even managed a sniffle. “Can you get me a wet cloth, please?”

“Of course. Of course!” He rushed forward to kiss her on the cheek, then practically ran into the bathroom.

“What a waste.” She mumbled as she reached into her purse. She plucked a little velvet pouch from the bag and emptied its contents into her hand. The distant sound of water running could be heard. One by one, she took her collection of little black pebbles, and set them before her on the table. Her finger pressed into the cut on her lip, and she placed a thick crimson dot to each one of them, muttering a quiet spell. 

Thomas was back. He pulled her chair away from the table and knelt down in front of her. His hands shook as he dabbed her lip, but at least he wasn’t fucking crying anymore. He smiled up at her weakly, brushing the hair back behind her ear.

“It’s—you’re ok. You can’t even really see it. A little makeup and–and we can put this whole thing behind us. I won’t ever–ever–do that again baby. I’ll make it up to you.” He kissed her forehead and she barely resisted the urge to retch. When he knelt back, she ran her fingers through his hair and smiled.

“Do you know what I always liked about you?” She hummed.

That brightened him up a bit. He forced another chuckle. “My devilishly good looks?”

“Mmm. That too.” Rán stood to her feet and took a firm hold on his chin. The afternoon sun was blazing, pouring in the window in the livingroom, warming the side of her face. It cast long shadows on the wall behind them. One of them opened its eyes.

“No. See what I always liked about you was what a good little dog you were.” She hissed, shoving him back roughly. He was a tall, muscular man, and it didn’t move him much, but it gave her a split second to escape the range of his arm as it tried to reach for her. 

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” His voice was heavy with shock.

Rán rolled her eyes, “Oh please, don’t act so surprised. I say I want to go out, you show up on my doorstep an hour later. I say go home, you tuck your tail and scurry back to this little shithole of yours. I say fetch-” She paused, picking up the rag from the floor and tossing it at his face. “You fetch. It’s how we’ve always been.”

“You-” He rose from the floor slowly, his jaw clenched. Rán leaned back against the counter as he started toward her. “What the fuck is your problem. You're crazy!”

“Down boy.” Her fingers snapped and the shadowy creature behind him crumpled to the floor. Unable to stop himself, he fell along with it. Rán crouched down to his level with a mocking sigh of disappointment. “Unfortunately baby, when your dog starts to bite—you have to put them down.”

He jerked, scrambling on the tile at her feet. She patted his head and stood back up. 

“It’s not all bad though. I mean, can you imagine what my father would have done to you when he found out? I promise you, whatever comes next, it’ll be a whole lot more pleasant than that.” She shrugged. “Besides, I’ve been wanting to test out a theory, and there’s no time like the present.”

“W-what have you done? What have you done?! I can’t fucking move Rán this isn’t funny!” He was thrashing helplessly, and it sounded like he was crying again.

“Oh come on sugar, you had to know you were fucked the second you clenched your fists, hm?” She teased. Rán flicked her hair over her shoulder and twitched her fingers. The shadow grinned a toothy grin and sprung to its feet, jerking its human meat-sack with it. 

“Rán, baby, sweetheart, come on. I-I said I was sorry.” He rambled, trying to reach out his hands, but they stayed glued to his side. The panic in his eyes only grew. “I swear–I SWEAR I won’t do it again! Forgive me! Just forgive me please!”

“I’m not a very forgiving person.” She said with a tight smile. She took out her wand and tapped it against her split lip a few times. The wound and the blossoming bruise faded back into smooth, unmarred flesh. “Wait right here. Stay. Quiet.”

He didn’t listen, but she could hardly fault him. He was spiraling. It didn’t matter anyway. The shadow clenched its teeth together and all that could be heard were muffled whimpers. Nothing loud enough to break the soundproofing spells that wizarding apartments kept on their units to prevent noise complaints. 

She found what she was looking for on his dresser. An antique watch that cost a small fortune, passed down to Thomas by his father. She swished her wand and it lifted up into the air.

By the time she walked back into the living room, he’d stopped trying to talk. He was, however, frantically crying, and it made him look so ugly she couldn’t believe she’d ever let him touch her.

“Don’t look so glum.” She plucked her ritual stones from the table and dropped them back into her bag. The spell was already done, the spirit under her control. There was no need for them now. “You know, you really are doing me a favor. I appreciate that. Which is why I am going to make this quick and painless for each of us. Come on. Follow me.”

He didn’t have much of a choice. She snagged a bottle of fire whiskey from the cabinet, poured herself a glass, and then thrust the bottle in his direction. He mutely clutched it in his trembling hands and followed as she stepped out onto the balcony. He was whimpering and struggling so aggressively, spittle was leaking from the corners of his mouth. She sat the watch on the slender iron rail beside them.

“You’re going to want to drink up, baby. It’ll make this next part so much easier.” 

He didn’t want to, and she didn’t really care. The shadow raised a bottle to its lips, and the man followed suit. His jaw unhinged forcibly, and he sputtered the first time, coughing and spitting it back out. It flowed down his cheeks and onto his shirt.

“Oh don’t make a mess. Drink!” She held up her glass and tapped it against the bottle, knocking back the whiskey in one gulp. 

“P-Please.” His voice was raspy and half choked. “Please. If–if you ever loved me-”

She burst into riotous laughter. “Oh. Oh baby now it’s just getting sad. Don’t go out like this. It’s pathetic.”

He stared at her as she wiped a couple of stray tears from the corners of her eyes, forced out by her peals of laughter. Whatever he saw in her expression seemed to make everything clear. His sniffling slowed and came to a stop, and he lifted up the bottle and started to drink in earnest. When half the bottle was gone, she smiled at him.

“What a good boy. Now-” She flicked her wrist and the watch began to slip. “Go fetch.”

In the coming hours she would cry and clutch her father’s arm as she explained the tragic story of the terrible accident to the aurors. How she’d begged him not to drink so much, and how she’d tried to drag him away from the balcony. It’d never been up to code, and she’d complained about it dozens of times, but she never thought it would give way like that. And in the coming weeks, she would sniffle and shiver each time anyone brought up his name. When the investigation closed, she’d spend a few weeks in the Mediterranean with her grandmum to soothe her poor nerves. 

And in the evenings when she laid her head down on her pillows, the shadow on the wall would get down on all fours and bark.

It made them laugh every time.

[xparadisexlostx]

@raisedheda

Look this is a weird one and it will probably definitely not actually happen but I had a dream about it and was like “I wanna write this out”. Soooo... I did.

“You want to explain this?” Murphy beat her to the question, but only because her mind was racing.

“I would also like an explanation.” Beck’s voice was tight, but she didn’t raise it, she never did. She was naturally slow to anger, and her temper was easily dampened. Ontari had never actually seen her cross. But the sight of her partner sitting on the bed before a grown man, collared and chained to their wall, as they stripped off their armor galled her immediately. Still, she tamped it down and tried not to show it.

“I don’t trust you.” Ontari stated plainly, and then, looking over to Beck, continued on just as casually. “I need a bath.”

That didn’t explain anything, and Beck couldn’t keep the scowl from her face. If it at all bothered Ontari, they didn’t let it show. In fact, there was a glint in those dark, fathomless eyes that suggested they might have even delighted in it. Ontari held her gaze as they stripped even further, shamelessly baring themselves to both her and the practical stranger in the room. Beck looked away, biting the inside of her cheek to quell the bizarre mixture of anger and jealousy and excitement she felt. Ontari was always stunning to look at. Their pale, scarred skin, their strong muscles, the curve of their hips and breast. She knew exactly what that body could do to her, and she longed for it. But there was a strange man in the room.

At least he also had the decency to turn his head. Though when she cast a heated look in his direction, she caught him looking behind his shoulder to peek, and he smirked when their eyes met rather than looking away.

Beck opened her hand by her side, and flexed it, drawing an invisible wave of magic through her as she prepared to hex him so hard he forgot his own name. She had not noticed Ontari’s eyes fixated on her as they stepped into the steaming waters. It was Ontari’s voice that stilled her hand just as it began to rise.

“Bathe me.” Ontari demanded. They were facing away from her now, toward Murphy, who had completely turned away at this point. Beck wasn’t entirely certain which one of them Ontari was talking to, and in her anger, assumed they meant to let this strange man touch them. After all, Ontari rarely commanded her so plainly outside of sex. The witch stepped forward, her jaw clenched, daring the strange man to turn and face her, but Ontari grabbed her wrist.

They had shared blood at their wedding, if Ontari hadn’t felt her about to cast a spell before, they certainly felt the magic stirring in her now as their skin met. Her lover’s grasp was hard and unyielding, and Beck looked down at her, still flush with anger but softened by confusion. Meeting their eyes now, Beck was certain they were getting some strange satisfaction from this.

Ontari tugged her wrist, and Beck lowered herself to her knees beside the tub. A rag was pressed into her hand, and once more Ontari demanded, “Bathe me.”

A shiver went up her spine and Beck took the rag and rubbed it against the bar of soap until it lathered a pale yellow in the candlelight. Her heart was racing as she drew it across Ontari’s shoulders, down her arms, and over her chest. Their face revealed only the slightest bit of satisfaction as the warm cloth circled their nipples and cupped their breast to lather the skin beneath it.

Metal against metal startled her, and she jumped slightly, looking up at Ontari’s face, and then following their gaze down the chain toward the hostage at the other end. Their hand went back to her wrist, urging her to continue on, as their other hand jerked the chain again. Beck didn’t look, but she could hear the shuffling of feet as Murphy turned to face them both.

Her emotions were running wild now. Part of her was furious. With Ontari, with herself. She hadn’t even questioned or thought to deny them this. Without a second thought she had gotten on her knees to serve her lover, and it thrilled her even still as the anger coursed through her veins. Beck gripped the cloth harder as Ontari pulled her hand lower. She knew exactly where this was going.

The water jostled as their leg lifted out of the water, flushed pink from the heat of the bath. It splashed over the edge and against her nightgown, turning it a dark shade of green and causing it to cling to every inch of her flesh in a way that made her feel even more exposed. She recalled the last time she’d felt that way, on their wedding night, and how that had ended, and she had to force back a whimper of anticipation.

She drew the cloth over Ontari’s torso, but their grasp on her wrist didn’t let her linger there long. It pulled her hand ever lower. Beck let go of the cloth completely, and let her fingers be guided inside of Ontari’s slit. They were slick in a way that had nothing to do with the water, and Beck easily found her clit and circled it with gentle fingers. But even in this, Ontari desired control. Their grasp on her wrist didn’t lessen, in fact, it became almost crushing, but they knew that Beck enjoyed the little spike of pain, the loss of control.

Ontari’s hips moved in fluid motion with her hand, and Beck could feel her chest heaving. She was riding on a strange high of emotion and sensation, her eyes fixated on the glistening beads of water and sweat gliding along her lover’s chest. Somewhere behind her, Murphy said something, and Ontari replied, but she couldn’t really hear it. She only caught the tone, low and strained and rugged from their arousal, which Beck took for approval. And she couldn’t help the way that Ontari’s approval thrilled her. Now she did whine, softly, just in the back of her throat.

The sway of her lover’s hips became more erratic, and they let out something between a sigh and a growl. Then their entire body was tense, riding out the high of an orgasm, and Beck didn’t stop until they relaxed once more.

Ontari released the tight hold on the chain first, and then on Beck’s wrist. Beck looked up into their eyes, struggling to find something to say, but Ontari’s smirk stole any words she might have had. They pressed the cloth back into her hand and laid their head back against the metal bath.

“Finish.” She insisted, and Beck plunged her hand back into the warm water to wash her lover’s legs.

They were going to have a very long talk about this later.

[xparadisexlostx]

Palaemon

So this is a ficlet I’ve been working on for a while now. I don’t know if it’s really going to go anywhere, but I’ve worked on the first chapter, editing and deleting shit for a while and while I have some issues with it, I wanna post it just because of all the work I’ve put into it.

This story will have some body gore/mutilation, and especially as it goes on just elements of things that are Not Ok (and I mean that in a SHIELD brought Coulson back to life against his will and I fully believe they do shady/potentially immoral experiments way). 

I have a whole profile for Winnie that I’ll link when I find it lmfao.

“Data log six-four-seven. Project name: Palaemon. This is project head Dr. Winifred Fletcher.” She wanted to make her voice a monotone over the recording, but as she passed the guards at the entry point and headed up the drive she could feel a shiver of fear crawl up her spine that caused an unconscious little quiver in her tone. It’d been a long time since she’d personally done any field documentation. Years, even. Back when she’d been young and zealous and determined to make a name for herself at SHIELD. Now she had dozens of low-level researchers and new hires in those same shoes she had been, eager to run headfirst into danger if it meant getting her approval. She didn’t have time to deconstruct how she felt about that. SHIELD had always kept her too busy.

She pressed the button on her recording device again. “It is May twenty first two-thousand-and-fourteen. I have been called in to assess a scene at cite three-nine-nine. All seven agents deployed are active participants in Palaemon and were last administered compound HDR 3-00-1 six days ago: the fifteenth of May, two-thousand-and-fourteen. All participants were cleared by medical staff before deployment two days ago, with no unusual side-effects documented during examination.”

Her voice had returned to its normal, professional drone, but something was making her deeply uneasy.

She wasn’t afraid of death. She wasn’t even particularly afraid of pain. It wasn’t the dark gravel drive only illuminated by headlights, or the dilapidated building that leaned like its tired wooden bones might snap at any second that sent chills up her spine. Part of the lure of SHIELD was the thrill of danger, and the morbid, twisted curiosity that came from the unknown. She didn’t fear any external force… only herself and the consequences of her own actions.

Her foot pressed just a little too hard on the brake as she stopped, and it threw her roughly against the seatbelt, which locked like a retractable leash around the neck of an ill trained poodle. A little cough left her, and she groped blindly beside her for the gear shift before finally freeing herself of her bindings. She snatched a bag from the passenger seat and pushed open the door. Immediately the night air rushed around her, heavy and humid, clinging to her skin, laying on her chest, and making it harder to breathe. Cicadas were droning a loud, repetitive song in the trees around her, and by the time she began ascending the stairs to the porch, her heavy breathing had fallen in sync with the alien music.

There was a terrible smell coming from the house, like that of wasting fish and burned fat. And someone was crying. Soft piteous whimpers that turned into wails that escaped the cracks of the open windows. Winnie recognized the voice as Veronica Cooper---one of the field agents who had recently joined Project Palaemon. There were other voices, talking in soft, short sentences that she assumed were platitudes that would make the agent calm down, but she couldn’t quite make out the words. She did note, as she pulled on a pair of sterile gloves, that the attempts apparently failed. The crying only grew louder and more desperate. 

She opened the half cracked door and felt a hard lump form in her throat. When the stench hit her eyes they immediately began to burn in their sockets. Directly inside the doorway, a dead agent was lying prone on the floor, his face straight down in a puddle brown vomit streaked with blood that, upon further investigation, appeared to be his own. His body was covered in bites and scratch marks, his shirt was ripped away to reveal a bloated stomach, and in his still clenched fists he was clutching shards of glass. Winnie looked around, her headlamp only illuminating fractions of the hall at a time, each just as bloody and horrific as the scene in front of her. She determined he must be holding onto the remnants of a light fixture that had been ripped forcefully from the ceiling. Wires were hanging from the hole, and directly below, the metal fixture had been discarded---it’s lightbulbs torn out. Why? The shards were too small to use as weapons. Perhaps he’d been holding onto the light as he was being attacked? Possible. But…

From her bag she produced a tongue depressor as she knelt down by the body. Carefully, she pulled back his lips as best she could. Shards of glass glittered in the bright light of her head lamp. They were deeply embedded in his gums and crushed between his teeth. He’d been eating them when he died. That possibly explained the vomit. But what could possess a man to do something like that? 

“Doctor Fletcher?” A man’s voice called. An agent she didn’t know. She heard Cooper screech and then begin to violently sob. The old, thin floors shook as the vibrations from the other room carried down the hall. That same male agent swore, and there was a scraping sound of wood on wood as if someone had run into a table or a chair. She was going to have to make her assessment of the dead wait until she had dealt with the living.

Winnie carried on down the hall, gingerly stepping over and around everything she could. Blood was smeared along the peeling remnants of wallpaper. And there were no lights except for that which came from her flashlight. Fixtures were ripped out of the ceiling, and there was a lamp on the floor that had been violently shattered with three disembodied, mangled fingers laying in the wreckage. She passed the dining room, her light just barely illuminating three mutilated figures. Each with swollen stomachs and eyes that had been torn from their sockets. They had fallen close to the entryway, each with a single bullet hole in their heads. But she couldn’t stop to observe them the way she wanted to.

By the time she reached the living room, Cooper’s wailing was so loud it made her ears ring. There was no light at all coming from the doorway, and she frowned. Her confusion didn’t last long. The second she stepped into the room, headlamp blazing, Veronica Cooper began to screech and howl like a wild animal. She was handcuffed, but it still took two other agents to restrain her. They were trying to keep hold of her arms while a third agent was attempting to put a blanket over her completely nude upper half. 

“Will you cut that fucking lamp off?!” One of the agents hissed as Veronica bit into his arm like a rabid animal. Blood began to bubble out of the wound and dribble through Cooper’s parted lips before the third agent managed to forcibly pry her jaw off.

The doctor hesitated for a moment, needing to get at least a preliminary glance at the agent Cooper. She looked much like the dead bodies in the dining room. Her stomach was heavily bloated, and one of her eyes was missing from its socket. Claw marks and bites were all over her exposed upper body, and her hand was missing three fingers that Winnie assumed matched those she’d seen in the hall. 

She turned off the headlamp. 

Immediately Cooper went from a raving wild woman, to a crumpled, sobbing creature. When the blanket was brought back to her, she didn’t resist. At least not that Winnie could see. Granted, she couldn’t see much. The only light in the room came from a trickle of moonlight that snuck its way through the torn curtains.

“Agent Cooper.” The doctor stepped forward blindly. It didn’t draw any visible or audible response from the agent. “Agent Cooper, can you understand me? It’s Doctor Fletcher. Can you tell me what happened?”

No response.

One of the agents restraining her chimed in. “When we arrived at the house Agent Cooper and three others were alive. Cooper was in the hall, and we managed to restrain her. I heard crying coming from the downstairs bathroom. There was also gurgling and---running water. No one responded when I called out for them, but when I stepped into the room and they saw my headlamp, they started screaming. I ran, thinking I could calm them down or find some way to restrain them if I could get back to the other agents, but they pinned me down in the dining room, and Tillman and Renolds were forced to open fire. When the scene was secured we attempted to speak to Agent Cooper, but she was confused. She hasn’t said much aside from ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘please’ or ‘water.’”

She nodded and bit the inside of her cheek. “And the others? This was a seven man team. We’re missing two agents.”

“We searched the house and the two exterior buildings but they were clear. Best guess is when things got weird they bolted.”

 “Or they did this to them and fled the scene.” The man who had been bitten growled. He was holding onto Veronica with a vice grip now. She couldn’t see him properly, but the way the poor girl’s shoulder was awkwardly raised while the rest of her shadowy form slumped lifelessly toward the floor was proof of his tight hold on her. “We got a search team out in the forest looking for the-shit!”

Fletcher saw his shadow contort awkwardly as he tried to maintain his grip and distance himself from Veronica all at once.

“Jesus fuck-Renolds grab her. Grab her!” 

“What--why? You’ve-”

There was a thud as the agent dropped her completely and stepped back. “She’s licking the blood off my fucking arm!”

“Water.” Agent Cooper was hoarse from all her screaming, and there was desperation in her tone. The men shuffled awkwardly as Veronica attempted to get closer to the bleeding man again. “Please! Water!”

“Can’t you give her something?” 

“No.” Fletcher said, her response automatic. She wasn’t sure what was turning faster, her mind or her stomach. But she knew that they couldn’t give Veronica anything. Not yet. “There’s a medical transport outside parked behind me. They’ve been instructed on what to do, but ride with them back to HQ and help them keep her contained. Afterwards my staff will assess any injuries you have and release you back to your duties.”

There was a long silence.

She was glad it was dark. If her light was still on, she would have likely seen disgust on their faces. It was on hers. Here she was denying Veronica even the slightest semblance of peace. It was callous at best, and unforgivably monstrous at worst. But HDR 3-00-1 was one of the most bizarre drugs she’d ever worked with and these were their first human trials. Any drug, even a mild sedative, could interfere with accurate lab results. As soon as she’d been given a full examination, her team would give her the best care SHIELD could offer. Fletcher would make sure of it.

One of the men cleared his throat. “The search party will radio you directly if they find anything.”

The agents had to carry Veronica out of the house. She fought them all the way down the hall, but once she saw the light of the med-transport there was no containing her agonized screams. When her cuffs were released she began clawing at her own face, and when the agents pulled them away, she fought them like a wild animal. One of the med staff caught a foot in the jaw as they laid her onto the metal gurney and pulled the straps up to restrain her. Even after one of the men pulled off his jacket and draped it across her face to blot out the light, she continued to howl and buck against the restraints, nearly tipping the gurney onto the ground. The last thing she heard as they pulled the doors shut was Veronica Cooper’s raspy, haggard voice begging for water.

[xparadisexlostx]

So this is a little drabble in my verse with @stcriestcld. We never did really talk too much about how Beck got to SHIELD. There’s some dialogue in here I am not in love with because I tried to cut some length down. I might go back in an tweak it.

For some back story Beck works with a group who helped save her from her brother/mother (verse dependent). They masquerade as nuns under the name The Sisters of  Holy St. Marciana of Mauretania but another common name is The Sisters of Emily, which pertains to their founder as well as some of their coded language. They operate out of several “churches” as well as a convent that is a front for their headquarters. This is just a glimpse into how Beck interacts with them that I thought was fun to write out. Plus it helps me get my mind around how Beck came to work for SHIELD despite zero qualifiers. 

Exchanging favors for favors was always messy. Beck had known that from the time she was small. Witch’s deals weren’t unheard of in the magical community, but it would be a stretch to call them common. Her people didn’t tend to enjoy being held to anything--not laws or contracts--but Beck had always found that in a tight spot a clever witch could twist her words and strike a deal that wouldn’t turn around to bite her in the ass. In hindsight she should have realized that her silver tongue was bound to turn to lead at least once or twice.

When she’d picked up the drop she figured it would be the same as any other job: meet the client, make a plan, execute, and run. She’d done it dozens of times. Almost all of them, apart from the occasional retrieval of a magical artifact, were domestic violence cases. The wife of some asshole cop that no one was ever going to hold accountable for his violence, the queer kid being beaten down by their devout and religious parents, the foster teen tired of being abused in the home that was supposed to provide them refuge. The Sisters, and Beck in particular, were very good at helping people who wanted to disappear do just that. Beck agreed not because of a contract or any kind of payment, but because she’d been those kids. The difficult child with the saintly, blameless parent. That’s what most people had seen… but only because they didn’t want to see the truth. If she could help anyone trapped like she had been, she was happy to do it. After all, if it weren’t for the Sisters, her mother would have likely killed her years ago.

Beck pulled open the enormous oak door to the convent chapel and entered silently. Wood pews without cushions lined the barren stone walls up to the front, where people knelt with clasped hands murmuring softly. Wayward souls seeking the kind of religious guidance that places like this were meant to offer. They didn’t know---couldn’t know---what this place actually was.

She stepped out of the way as a small party of nuns walked two-by-two down the aisle in perfect sync. They positioned themselves in front of the wooden altar, fanning out so that there were six on either side of the entrance to the dias. A clock chimed in the distance, low and solemn, the bell sounding three times in total before beginning to echo off into the early night air. By the time the ringing had left her ears, the room was in total silence, and without looking at one another, the nuns began a slow, harmonious chorus in a language Beck didn’t understand.

Once the song began, she knew she was free to wander back into the aisle. She kept her head down, her hands clasped in front of her, and cautiously approached the left side of the chapel where dozens of flickering candles lined the wall. There the abbess stood, rosary wrapped around her aged fingers as they pressed together in prayer. Her eyes were closed, and Beck didn’t want to startle her. The witch lit a candle, mimicked the sign of the cross she saw them make a thousand times, and knelt at the altar beside the feet of the abbess in waiting.

It felt like she knelt there for an hour, struggling to sit still and quiet. Finally the singing stopped, and a gentle hand reached down and squeezed her shoulder.

“What can I do for you, child?” The abbess asked, and even in the silence, Beck scarcely heard her.

“Revered mother, I have come in search of a miracle.” She didn’t look up. Staring into the flames, she summoned tears to her eyes. 

The abbess hummed. “What would you ask of our Blessed Mother?”

Beck didn’t particularly enjoy the song and dance, but she knew the script well. “God’s eyes are so much greater than my own. My sister has gone missing, but I know none of us can stray from the Lord’s gaze. Can he see her? Can he see my sister, Emily?”

The hand on her shoulder squeezed, and raised her head to look into the knowing grey eyes of the abbess.

“Dear child, you must be so tired. Come, we will pray together.” 

Beck accepted the hand up and let the woman lead her out into the halls. There was a gate that separated the private quarters from the public area of the abbey, and she unlocked it with a skeleton key that looked older than the abbess herself. The metal groaned as the gate swung open, and Beck followed closely behind as they crossed the threshold and into the old stone corridors. They were dark, only lit by an occasional lantern hung from an iron hook.

When they came to a room near the end of the hall, the abbess opened the door and led her inside. 

Beck waited until the door shut behind them to speak. “Out of all the people to contact me, I didn’t think it’d be you.”

She could hear the older woman shuffle through the darkness fearlessly, and then the sound of a match being struck, before a vibrant flicker of firelight came to life at the end of the little wooden stick. Abbess Fina transferred the flame to a candle and took a seat at a little wooden table. She unraveled her rosary and pulled off a bead, which she rolled between her fingers until it began to glow. It clicked quietly against the wood of the table, and streams of light shot up into the air, creating a picture.

“New target?” Beck tried not to be irritated by how cagy Fina was being and how long this whole thing was taking. It was why she rarely took jobs directly from headquarters. 

The man in the shimmering picture was pale. His eyes were brown, similar in shade to his hair, from what she could tell, which appeared to have been disappearing for some time. His expression was deathly serious, and it looked like he was holding something. A file, maybe? She couldn’t be sure with the distortion. 

“Your new boss.” Abbess Fina said. She saw the way the younger witch’s jaw clenched and the dark shadow that passed through those blue eyes. “Eleven years ago my people brought you here to this abbey. We hid you for months while you recovered, and when we gave you the choice to run off into the darkness or stay in contact and help us on our mission, do you remember what you did?”

Beck pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I asked you to make a deal with me.”

“I tried to tell you no. Said I didn’t want to extort favors from you in the state you were in.”

“And I told you that you saved me, and if it ever came down to it I would return that favor… at any cost.” Beck didn’t like where this was going.

“Beck, I’m in trouble. We all are. Ever since New York was attacked the humans have been foaming at the bit, looking to punish anything or anyone they don’t understand because they never got to string up the idiot responsible for the whole mess.” Fina said. She looked older than Beck remembered, which was odd for a witch. Eleven years meant nothing to a skilled practitioner like Fina… but stress could kill anything, she supposed.

Beck fished in her pocket for her packet of cigarettes, her noise snarled up a little as she spoke. “Asgardians have been fucking things up since the vikings. Can I smoke in here?” 

A wave of the abbess’ hand and the little window over the barren cot on the far wall flew open. Beck extended the box to Fina first, and the old woman gladly took one and lit it off the candle on the table. Beck followed suit, looking back at the image the bead was still reflecting. 

“So what is this, exactly? And how do I fit into it?”

“The mortals have made up this---organization. They call it SHIELD. It---keeps track of us and-”

“No.” Beck said, her voice taking on an immediate edge.

“Listen to-”

“No.”

“Beck-”

“No!” She wasn’t one to yell, but the venom in that word made it echo around the room. Beck lowered her voice to a whisper again. “Are you out of your mind?! Out of all the witches on Earth you think it’s a good idea to feed me to these fucking wolves? Have you forgotten that my brother is still out there, half mad off sacrificial blood magic and looking for me? You saved me from him, and now you’re going to sell me out to a bunch of suits that will dig into my ugly past. He’ll find out. He’ll kill whoever he needs to, and he will drag me back to Cali and throw me in a hole so deep I’ll never get out.”

“Beck! Listen to me!” The abbess grabbed her hand and pressed it to the table. Her grey eyes blazed with intensity as they locked with Beck’s. “That is not what this is.”

“Then what is it?”

“SHIELD’s director has made contact with a few of our agents. I wouldn’t call him pleasant to talk to, but he says he doesn’t want any trouble, and for the most part I believe him. He’s well aware that the---sensitivity of the mortals could result in another witch trials and if that happens it won’t just be you that has to fear the wrath of your brother. Or your ex, for that matter.”

Beck put her head in her hands and groaned. It was true. Fenris and Harper both wouldn’t hesitate to go to war with the humans if they started killing witches. The other clans would have no choice but to get involved. It would be a bloodbath---and one she doubted the mortals would win. Witches didn’t fight in mobs of mindless hordes, converging on a single city, fighting out in the open. Cities would burn with no indication of who started the fire. Crops would shrivel no matter how well tended. Assassins would carefully pick off anyone that mattered. Chaos would be carefully cultivated, and when people were at their weakest, then armies would rise. Their only hope would be Asgard stepping in, but they’d be breaching a treaty thousands of years old with the witches. Even if they were willing to do so, it’d likely be too late.

She had a very limited love for mortals, but she loathed war.

“So what does your new friend suggest to stop this impending chaos?”

“Our visions aren’t unaligned, Beck. Director Fury has agreed that it’s best the magical world stay in the shadows where it is. At first he asked us to submit all our agents to this index he has, but I refused. Instead, as a gesture of good faith, I agreed to send him a handful of agents to aid SHIELD in its different departments. No--wait. Before you get upset.” The abbess squeezed her hand, and Beck looked back at her. Concern was writing lines into her tired face. “I made my own witch’s deal. With him. That I would send him aid, send him some of my best people, but with my own files. The deal forbids him from digging any further. Even if he suspects the information on them is nothing but lies. In return for your help, SHIELD will pay you and help protect your identity as best they can. Just like with any other agent. I’m just asking for a couple of jobs, Beck. After that, consider our deal fulfilled. We’ll extract you, and you’ll be free to do as you please.”

“But they’ll have my face.” She said, still not convinced she wasn’t marching off to an early grave. 

“They can’t be any harder to shake than Fenris. And the deal explicitly states they aren’t allowed to track you or listen to you without consent. Please… I don’t have a lot of people I’d trust to be smart enough to swim with these sharks and walk out whole.”

“I want Boda to look at the file.”

Fina nodded. “Of course.”

This wasn’t going to end well for her. But she reached out her hand anyway, and Fina smiled as she shook it.

“Right then. So who is this guy?”

“His name is Harry Pearce. He’s in charge of the anti-terrorism department based out of London, England. He’s expecting you there in seventy-two hours.”

[xparadisexlostx]

So Idk what possessed me to write this. I wrote it all in one go and it is in desperate need of a proof read and probably and edit... but I doubt I’ll ever do that lol. I’m tired and I’m getting a headache and I still have drafts to work on, so I’m just gonna post it before I lose confidence and hide it like the many, many other drabbles I’ve never posted.

I don’t know why I wanted to write this in first person. That usually annoys me, but for some reason it just sounded right in this case.

So this drabble is primarily about Beck and Cora, how they meet, and the relationship they have. Obviously I did a LOT, if not too much, condensing because otherwise this never would have ended. 

For context, Cora is Beck’s sort of adopted mom. She his a centuries old witch who was possessed, years ago by a spirit of hospitality. Over time the two merged into one being and that is why she’s pretty much immortal. Because of what she was she was made an outcast by her own people, the clan of the Grey Owls. Here is her face claim. 

_____________________________________________

A long life makes you accustomed to loss. You learn people are better at a distance. Far enough away that you can’t really make out their faces, and their voices turn to echoes by the time they’re in your ears. Any closer than that and you risk the pain that comes with a proper meeting. I found that out the hard way when Hattie passed. 

It was agonizingly slow. At first she just needed a bit of help with getting up after a long day in the garden. And then she couldn’t go as far on our evening walks. Eventually she couldn’t make it out to tend the flowers that she loved so dearly, and she forgot the names of the dairy goats we’d raised by hand and bottle. And when I saw Death come peacefully across the border of the Living Dream, shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight and invisible to my love, I lifted her up in my arms and carried her out to the fields of flowers. She didn’t remember my name, but she held me close to her with what dwindling strength remained in her arms, and laid her head on my heart while I whispered a silent goodbye.

We had never had any children. Back then we only escaped the scandal of being together by living on my family’s land and growing or making most of what we needed. People in the towns whispered, but they let us be so long as we didn’t make too much noise. That wouldn’t have been any life for a child. Children need community, friends, and more love than just two mothers could bring them. The mortals would have never accepted a child of ours, and the witches had cast me out years before on account of what I was---what I am.

I buried Hattie in the flowerbed, and I left my home after that. The place I had been made, where I had settled for three centuries, had nothing to give me but pain. Even England reminded me all too much of what I had lost. I was alone, and I imagined that somewhere else I could find a place where I was content with that once again.

And I did. In a cottage deep in the Sierra Nevada mountains, I found the peace that had evaded me for so long. People stopped by in the occasional way: lost travelers, rapscallion youths, the occasional farmer looking for good dairy stock. That was the way for well over a hundred years. It wasn’t until the storm of ‘01 that it all changed, that I noticed the pie I was cooling on the windowsill was gone, and there was only a small muddy handprint in its place.

In the afterglow of a lightning strike I saw him there. A great, hulking bear, tall as the horizon, pale as a fresh pressed bedsheet, illuminated against the black sky. On his head were horns made of trees, and his claws were gnarled roots. On his back he carried a forest with a heart-tree that glowed gold. My brother, older than me by millenia, scarcely seen but ever familiar, always present. He looked from me to the barn, and stared, transfixed, by whatever he saw, and then he was gone.

I pulled on a raincoat and stepped into my boots, and raced across the yard to the shelter of the barn. The goats stirred in their pen, and the chickens let out a low squawk of protest as the building flooded with light. I found my pie in the back stall and a trail of blueberry pawprints leading away from it and into a pile of hay, where I found a small, trembling kit, little enough to fit in my one hand.

She shook like a leaf, whining up a terrible storm, as I tucked her beneath my coat and took her into the house. The promise of a proper meal convinced her to turn back into the girl I already knew she was, but she still shook so hard that she lost half of every bite she tried to take. I might have scolded anyone else for stealing, but she was so slight, too small and slender for a girl her age, and she was covered in mud and briars and sticks that matted in her golden hair. And when I put her in the tub to scrub her clean I saw the bruises and the cuts that no branch had inflicted. 

Looking back on that night I never had the chance to hold her at arm’s length. From the moment I plucked her out of the hay and pressed her to my heart, she was mine. I couldn’t keep her. The Fox Bitch wouldn’t allow it. And no one would listen to me when I told them of the heinous crimes Elea Tandy was committing against her own kin. No one cared when I complained of the local coven teachers casting her out. 

I made myself content with what I could have, and I taught her what an old witch could when she escaped that awful house and made her way through the forest to me. I showed her how to sew up a skirt as well as a wound, and taught her what the woods had to offer when her mother denied her supper. When she couldn’t read my spellbooks I taught her songs and rhythms to help her remember words and order. How to milk a goat, how to shear a sheep, how to tie a good and proper knot, and how to cook anything you found or caught. Our time together didn’t always last long, and when she left I felt it like a stab to the heart, but she was mine. The baby Hattie and I never got to have, filled with more kindness and curiosity and life than anyone else I had ever met.

And I ought to have known by the sight of my Brother what she was, and that she could not belong to me, or to anyone forever, but it wasn’t until months later, when I saw him again, watching her ride through the woods with a wild abandon, that I understood. 

Feral. A term that makes every parent clutch her pearls and shiver in fear, even though they barely know what it means. Feral witches are born to leave. They are only a brief bridge between the Dream Realm and the physical, destined to merge once more with the Nature Spirit from which they came. 

She was not mine to keep, but I held on.

I held on in agony as she ran off, desperate for freedom and adventure and a respite from the violence of her home. I smothered her in loving arms every time she came back. But she came back less and less. It was too dangerous, and every time she risked us both. I told her I didn’t care, and that I wasn’t afraid of Elea Tandy… but I knew that she was.

She was right to be.

Even I had never imagined Elea could be so vile and twisted as to kill a familiar. And to make a child watch… It turns my gut even to think of it now. I thought it would be the death of her, and it likely would have been if her brother hadn’t turned on their mother himself. He tried to bring her back to life, and so did I. But there was nothing but fathomless despair behind those blue eyes. I finally had her safe beneath my roof, and she was dying in my arms just like Hattie had. No amount of love could ever replace what she had lost when Dawnbreaker had been hanged before her eyes.

After ages of lifelessness, she eventually became restless in her grief, and I imagined I was witnessing her end. I put her in my car and drove her as deep into the wilderness as I could, and when I wrapped my arms around her I said that same silent goodbye. I barely made it home before my own sorrow and anger threatened to drown me. She was too young, I thought, and how unfair it was that she should die having tasted so little happiness, having felt so few kind touches. Brother would care for her upon her return, but why had he ever allowed her to come from the womb of that wretched woman? I had gifted her all the love that I could, and it didn’t feel like nearly enough in the face of all the pain she had been put through.

I hated him for that. Perhaps I still do.

I left California the same way I left England, distraught, and purchased new land on the secluded shores of Lake Erie. I told no one where I went, and no one would have ever asked. 

When I saw the golden horse upon my lawn some years later I thought it was a reflection in the Living Dream, a spirit of what once was lingering, but the girl upon its back was no longer a child. Even at a distance, even after all those years, I knew her face, and when she ran into my arms I held her tighter than I ever had before. 

She was alive and more vibrant than I’d ever seen her---all golden curls and smiles and a wild glint in her eye. We rode horses on the shoreline and sang foolish songs around a campfire. She told me stories of where she had been and everything she’d seen as she wove crowns from wildflowers. The next evening she showed me the scars where the mountain lion had nearly ripped her life away, and then demonstrated her new form with such ease that I felt my knees go weak. Even at such a young age the power swelled around her.

Feral. The very thing that had made other witches reject her had allowed her to thrive. In the wilds she had found the peace and happiness that others had so cruelly robbed her of. And I felt a pride blossom in me that I’d never felt before.

She left me again, as I knew she would, as was her nature, but this time I didn’t feel grief. For as long as she was on this Earth, she would return to me. That much I was certain. And that much has always been proven true.

Now, without the fear of her mother’s viciousness, she comes to me more frequently, and she can linger in my house as long as her wild spirit will allow. Our time together isn’t so rare… and yet I know that it is still brief. 

Each visit I see the spirit grow within her, each year the magic grows stronger. It pulls in more animals, and it bends nature around her without her even noticing it. 

She doesn’t see my Brother when she is sitting upon her golden stallion, basking in the sun as it cuts through the forest branches, but I think she feels him. As the animals gather all around her and play like newborn lambs, as she feels the embrace of the woods around her, I think she feels him watching. Her eyes glisten and she smiles with a fondness that breaks my heart. I think that if she just takes one step she will be lost to me forever.

I call her name when she raises her hand to touch what she cannot see, and with the slowness of a drunkard she blinks her eyes. When she looks back at me in those moments I know she can see across the centuries. She knows what I am. 

Again I call her name. It’s selfish, maybe, to want to hold onto her. Perhaps I do nothing but hold her back. But she smiles at me, and the mist evaporates from her eyes to reveal that mischievous sparkle.

“Come away from there, girl.” I say, beaconing her back toward the house with a wave of my hand and I watch my Brother’s eyes with unbecoming smugness as she presses her golden stallion forward and exclaims “‘Race ya!’” as she charges back home.

[xparadisexlostx]

So yesterday I was mindin my own business, writing something else, and @graunblida and I got on our gay shit. So I stopped all of that to write a 3.5k drabble about the fact that Beck wakes Lexa up in the middle of the night to do stupid witchy shit like catch moonbeams. 

This could definitely use some editing and another draft. I’ve never really written Lexa before and idk why I chose to try for this but... For some reason all of my drabbles seem to be like this??? Why do I do this to myself??? 

She couldn’t remember ever having someone shake her awake. Ever since she’d been brought to Polis, Lexa had been a perpetually light sleeper. That had only gotten worse after she’d become commander. After she’d lost the woman she loved to Nia’s sadism. Perhaps that was why she didn’t react with immediate murderous intent to the hand on her shoulder gently rocking her back into consciousness.

Lexa jolted upright so quickly that she nearly headbutted the little woman standing above her. She took a breath to steady herself. “What are you doing?”

She wasn’t sure what else to ask. Beck didn’t appear to be distressed, and the streets outside her window were quiet. Nothing seemed to be in disarray. Except for the fact that the moon was still high in the sky over Polis, and that her door had been locked and guarded, and that the the witch was supposed to still be on bed rest unless absolutely necessary, but there she was, her unbound hand still lingering on her shoulder, barely illuminated by the light of a candle she’d forgotten to extinguish.

“Come with me.” The witch whispered. The witch’s fingers trailed down her arm to grasp her wrist and gently tug her forward.

Lexa, who was still blinking away sleep and confusion, allowed herself to be coaxed up from the comfort of her furs and into the cool night air. She wasn’t dressed to go anywhere, and she needed her sword. Were they under attack? What was happening? 

Beck kept gently leading her along until she was awake enough to feel the irritation growing inside her. 

“Tell me the meaning of this.” She demanded. A cold breeze blew her nightgown flush against her body and Lexa crossed her arms. The chill wasn’t that bad, but it’d been a long time since anyone had seen her in this state, and she felt exposed. “Are we in danger?”

Beck gave her a bewildered look,  “Of course not. I need your help with something.”

Another tug on her hand, and Beck was wearing that ridiculously unapologetic smile that lit up her whole face. Lexa felt a flutter in the pit of her stomach, and some of her annoyance waned. It couldn’t hurt to help the witch, right? Surely her task was important if it warranted being out of bed at this hour, especially with her injury. And it wasn’t safe for her to wander the woods around Polis alone; the witch was no warrior. It was better than returning to her fitful dreams and frequent nightmares.

“Wait.” She demanded as the witch began to head for the door. She went to her dresser and rifled through the drawers to find something more suitable to wear. Beck was bouncing impatiently on her heels, but to Lexa’s surprise she was at least listening. She strapped her hunting knife to the thigh and while she was fastening the sword on her hip she looked back to her guest. “What is it I’m helping with, exactly?”

“I’m going to catch moonbeams.” The witch replied. Lexa waited for a long moment for her to break out into a laugh or to roll her eyes to show that she was being sarcastic. That moment never came. Beck was looking at her with utter sincerity and enthusiasm, still smiling, rocking back and forth on the ball of her feet with thinly bridled anticipation. 

Beck was a creature in constant motion. She buzzed with a persistent energy that threatened to spill over into action at any moment. The witch would sway back and forth in conversation, or swing her legs while sitting in a chair, and the guards had found her sleep walking twice since she’d come to Polis. Sometimes Lexa found herself resisting the urge to lay her hands on the woman’s shoulders to see if it would quiet her, but she never did.

“You want to catch---the moon?” Lexa said slowly.

Beck nodded eagerly. “Not all of her. Just a few rays. She doesn’t mind. I promise.”

She could only stare in bewilderment. If this was a jest... The irritation started to come back to her. 

“Beck-”

The witch must have heard the tension in her voice, because she cut her off. “Please? You need two hands to hold the bowl. I’ve only got the one. It’ll be fun. I promise.”

Lexa looked at the witch’s arm, still tightly splinted from where the healer had reset it only days ago. There was probably still a nasty arrow wound in her leg as well, and a menagerie of bruises on her skin beneath her clothes. Azgeda had not been kind to her when they transported her to the capital. She needed to be in bed.

But short of dragging her there forcefully, there wasn’t much she could do to stop Beck from wandering off on her own. It was well within her ability to do that, but she wouldn’t. The witch was not her captive, and if she wished to leave, so be it.

She let out a soft sigh. “Very well.”

When she turned to follow, Beck had already bent down and picked up a basket sitting by the door that Lexa had not noticed. She precariously lodged it between her hip and her good arm as she slipped out the door into the dark hall. Lexa followed silently, unsure what she could even say to fill the silence if she’d have wanted to. In the light of a torch at the end of the hall, she could see the witch was still limping slightly, but she was still walking quickly.

“My healers said your leg was still injured.” She said, broaching the subject carefully. In her short time of knowing Beck, she had learned the witch didn’t take kindly to being told what to do.

Beck shrugged, and Lexa’s eyes lingered on the way her golden curls glinted in the light of the torch for just a little too long. “It’s doing just fine.”

She was certain if Beck lifted up her long skirt the arrow wound would still be red and swollen, that if the healer assessed the injury he’d send her back to bed to rest, but she didn’t argue. If she were injured she’d do the same. Weakness was not a luxury she could afford. Did witches also value strength? Were they made to cover up their pain for fear their own people would judge them for it? Beck seemed so open and carefree, but was that persona just a mask to hide behind?

The guards by the Tower door stood stiff with confusion as they saw the pair rounding the corner, and Lexa raised her hand to dismiss them. They would tell Titus, and he’d be irritated with her, but as much as she didn’t want to listen to his constant complaints come sunrise, she didn’t like the way Beck tensed and drew back away from her guards. It was obvious that they made the witch nervous, and Lexa hardly blamed her after Azgeda had dragged her across the coalition lands, beaten, filthy, and half-starved. After that if Beck didn’t assume that all of her people were brutish and cruel it’d be nothing short of a miracle. Her trust would be hard earned, as Lexa’s would have been if she were in her shoes.

They stepped out into the night air, and Lexa scanned the quiet streets for threats while Beck hobbled forward without a second thought. She couldn’t afford to hesitate. If she blinked Beck was likely to be gone by the time she opened her eyes. 

“The city is so quiet here at night.” Beck said. A trail of silver breath trickled from her lips in the chill of the evening. It was too late for even the seediest mead hall to be serving patrons. Perhaps somewhere in the depths of the city where she could not see, there were a few people lingering by a candle, but they would be few and far between. Despite living in the city, most people still rose early to hunt or fish. Soldiers weren’t afforded the luxury of sleeping in. Craftsmen had to rise with the sun to get their wares in order in their stalls. Spending the evening wandering the streets in the light of the full moon was a senseless waste of energy.

“Do witches not sleep?” She asked, mostly joking. Though that was hardly clear from her tone. But Beck let out a soft, musical laugh and tossed a bit of hair behind her shoulder as they walked, and Lexa felt that jittery sensation flicker to life again at the sound. 

“Eventually everything has to sleep.” She was looking off into the distance with a wistful smile on her lips. “But it’s not like this. Some witches prefer the night. Some even specialize in spellcraft that is most powerful under the moon. Others get up to collect spell materials and alchemical supplies that aren’t there during the day or they fight off sleep to finish working on a project. There’s always folks singing around fires and dancing to the tune. Night markets pop up somewhere new every evening, and you have to find your way there by the smell of street food and the glow of crystal lanterns.”

Lexa felt both an intense curiosity and a pang of sorrow at the wonders the witch described. “Polis must bore you.” 

The witch leaned her weight off of her bad leg and spun in a circle, looking up at the night sky and then around to the quiet city. If Lexa hadn’t seen her when she’d first been brought to the capital, she’d wonder if the smile ever left Beck’s face. Moonlight shimmered off of her hair as she twirled, and glowed silver along her cheeks. 

“Not at all. Everything here is different.” She began to walk once more, headed for the woods behind the city. “I can feel them all dreaming here. All at once. And when I dream with them I feel their power in the dream realm spread out like a beacon. Power they aren’t even aware they wield. It’s---harmonious. Beautiful. Foreign. Peaceful. How could it possibly bore me?”

Lexa couldn’t be sure what any of that meant. She had received visions before, dreams from the previous commanders showing her wisdom, but she knew nothing of a realm of dreams. But as the witch described it, quiet, breathy, and reverent, Lexa felt as if their emotions were bleeding together, and that even if she did not have a rational explanation of the witch’s words, she understood by feeling.

They walked out of the city and into the woods in silence after that. Something peaceful had settled inside her chest, and Lexa clung to that rare feeling desperately. She focused on the sound of their muffled footfalls on the dirt path and the whisper of the wind gently stirring the brush. Animals wandered the forest unperturbed by their presence. An owl preening itself on a branch right above her that did not fly away as they passed, and a small herd of deer grazing on the tender grass at the edge of the path walked alongside them for several moments with no fear for their speckled fawns. It felt like a dream, and Lexa feared that if she spoke, it would be shattered and she’d wake in her bed---warm, comfortable, but terribly alone.

Beck gasped and drew her back to reality. Lexa found her hand gripping her sword handle and searching the forest for threats. The woods were shrouded in darkness, and she couldn’t hear anything. When she looked back to the witch, she was kneeling by a cluster of flowers that were glowing faintly. Her fingers gently lifted the petals without breaking them from their stems, and her thumb tenderly stroked their edges.

“What are these?” 

“We call them natshana yongon.” She explained. The little bell shaped flowers grew all over her lands. She remembered being young and sneaking out of the tower with the other nightbloods to gather armfuls of them. She remembered Luna’s hands over hers teaching her how to grind them into a paste, and painting glowing pictures on the tower wall that would fade before Titus ever had the chance to see them. That was so far behind her now that it felt like a different world. They were all gone, all but Luna. Luna who had ran. Luna who had at one time been her closest friend. Luna who hated her so much that she couldn’t bear the sight of her now. But even if the memory had turned bittersweet in her mouth, she still cherished it. 

“Natshana---yo-gun?” 

“Yongon.” She corrected gently. “Moon children in the Maunon tongue. They only bloom at night.”

“Can I take some of them?” Beck asked, looking up at her with an unnecessary plea in her eyes. 

Lexa nodded. “They will fade not long after you pick them. 

Beck began to gently pluck the flowers and tuck them away into an apron she was wearing over her skirt until it was puffed and full. She looked up at Lexa and held out her hand. “Will you help me up?”

It was such a small request, but the flutter in her stomach was back. It was a cold night, but the witch seemed to radiate a warmth. Her gaze gentle and unguarded, her smile soft and ever present. Lexa took her hand and felt a shiver rush down her spine that she desperately tried to cover up as she helped Beck back up. The witch rocked unsteadily and Lexa instinctively reached out and gently grasped her hip when she stumbled forward. Unable to steady herself with her broken arm, Beck couldn’t stop herself from swaying into Lexa’s chest. 

The world came to a crashing halt around her. She could smell the perfume of freshly picked flowers, and feel the tickle of golden curls brush against her neck. Beck was all soft curves and warmth, a refuge from the bite of the evening air around them. She could feel her chest shaking and hear the sound of laughter bubbling through the air.

“I’m so sorry.” The witch said, and as she pulled away Lexa could see her face was flushed. Lexa couldn’t bring herself to laugh. Her heart was racing like a spooked horse, and it was all she could do to keep her breathing steady. She felt Beck squeeze her fingers and then step out of her grasp entirely. “I can’t even stand on my own two feet anymore.”

“It’s fine.” She finally managed, her voice gentler than usual. To give herself something to do other than stare stupidly at the witch, Lexa bent down and scooped up the basket that Beck had dropped while picking flowers. 

“You’re sweet.” Beck reached out and took back her things. “Thank you.”

The sincerity of the complement took her off guard. She’d been called many things in her life---but no one had ever called her sweet. No one other than Costia. 

This was going too far. She needed to get back to the tower. Away from the woods, away from the wild eyed witch. But Beck was already headed down the path again, humming softly as she went. There would be no coaxing her back to the Tower, and she couldn’t bring herself to leave her out in the woods alone. She would just have to control herself.

Beck stopped them by a large pond where the surface was quiet and the reflection of the full more was undisturbed. She sat her basket on a rock and pulled a large bowl and a few small glass bottles. After handing the bowl to Lexa, she removed her apron and reached up to unbutton several of the buttons on her shirt, revealing two large flat crystals hanging from a leather cord on her neck. She tugged on them until they came free, and with careful fingers she took them off her necklace and placed one in the bottom of the bowl. Lexa bit down on the inside of her cheek and fought to keep the stony expression on her face while Beck rearranged the little crystal to her liking. The top of her shirt remained unbuttoned, and Lexa was trying to look anywhere but the dark stain of the tattoo between the witch’s breasts. 

Her voice was barely more than a whisper when she spoke, “What do you want me to do?”

Beck poured the contents of one bottle into the bowl and then took hold of Lexa’s wrist. She wanted to say that this was unnecessary, that if the witch would just give her direction she’d follow, that they shouldn’t be doing---whatever this was. But the words never left her throat. She allowed herself to be pulled out into the cold water until it was up to her hips. 

“All you have to do is hold the bowl still. I’ll pass the crystal over it.” 

Was it her imagination or were her fingers lingering again? 

Beck lifted the crystal above her head and passed it directly over the reflection of the moon in her bowl. A tingling sensation went up through her fingers, and Lexa furrowed her brows. Beck had begun to sing a strange, unintelligible song in a high, breathy tone. Once more she passed the crystal over the bowl and this time the vibration was stronger. The bowl felt---lighter somehow, and it was getting hard to keep her breathing even. Her eyes were locked onto the witch, whose head was tilted up toward the sky as she sang out her spell. She rocked with every slow swing of the crystal, and the water rippled and whispered with the movement of her body. Was all magic so---entrancing to witness?

As far as Lexa knew this was the first intentional magic she’d seen the witch do. She’d seen---something on the day of Beck’s arrival when they had visited her healer, but it had been brought on by fear. There had been no purpose to it. And Lexa had felt like an outsider merely observing the phenomenon. Now she felt the effects of the spell merging with her, running through her body as she held the bowl in her hand.

When the witch finished her song she continued to silently sway for several minutes, soaking up the light of the full moon until the magic waned and she came back to herself. Her lashes fluttered as she blinked the trance away from her eyes and returned to herself. And then the warm smile returned to her face and she looked down into the bowl.

“That should be more than enough.” She said, fishing her crystal from the bottom of the vessel and returning both of them to the leather cord they came from. “Here, help me pour it into the bottles.”

Lexa followed her carefully back to the shore. She wasn’t sure what if anything would happen should she spill the bowl of freshly gathered “moonbeams” and she didn’t intend on finding out. Beck carefully collected the water in her bottles and corked them, then put everything back in her basket. They had just turned to leave when a soft glow caught her eye.

“Wait.” She scooped down to pick up the apron and shook the debris from it before placing it in the basket as well.”

The walk back was quiet. Beck didn’t bombard her with questions or ramble on about something that she didn’t understand like Lexa was used to. She was content to hum softly as they made their way out of the woods and back to the tower.

“I’m glad you came with me.” Beck said once they had crossed the threshold and entered into the city proper. 

“I…” Lexa wasn’t sure what she should say. There was a knot of confusing emotions sitting in her stomach. Desire, longing, loneliness, and fear were all fighting for her attention, and she wasn’t sure which to give into. “I owed you as much, after what the Azgedan forces did to your arm.”

“Well then consider your debt paid in full.” The witch teased, and then she held Lexa’s gaze, her playful expression giving way to something else. Something sincere and hopeful. “Maybe next time you’ll tag along just for fun.”

She couldn’t bring herself to tell the witch that she had no time for fun. That every part of her was meant to belong to her duty. Titus would say it later, once he found out about their midnight tryst. He’d tell her that if she truly cared for the witch that she’d send her home. It would be better just to accept that now. To put an end to her hopeless desire before it truly began. And yet…

Lexa gave the witch a slight nod and turned back to the Tower. “Goodnight, Beck.” 

That playful air seeped back into her tone. “That wasn’t a no.” 

It was still dark when she woke the next morning, but a faint glow greeted her as she opened her eyes. Sitting in a small glass bottle on her bedside table, brilliantly and impossibly shimmering with life, as a twine-bound bundle of the natshana yongon. She propped herself up on an arm and reached out to stroke a shimmering petal, and she felt the magic dance along her fingertips just as she had the night before. And in the privacy of her quarters, she allowed herself a smile.

[xparadisexlostx]

Harper/Beck

Beck pulled on the back hatch to her van with a grunt, and it slowly parted from its hinges with a long, metallic groan. The back end of the Goose was packed with tight efficiency that was essential to fitting everything she needed inside the vehicle---but also made it nearly impossible to access. She shoved a pile of blankets forward onto the backseat, heaved her weight against the pack where she kept her tent, and snatched her cooler with a hard tug. A little too hard. There was a shlick and a rumble of plastic wheels bumping against the metal lip of the back of the bus, then it sprang free so violently it tugged her shoulder clean in the other direction, dragging several items beside it out onto the dirt below. 

She swore. It’d been a long enough day, and she was already sore, and now she had a mess to clean up. Lovely... but at least the food hadn’t managed to fall out. A soft groan left her lips as she bent to collect a canister of sewing supplies that had spilled, tossing them back into the basket once she was sure the needles were securely stuck into something. A couple of tin cups, a pot, some soap...

Her hand stalled as it brushed something smooth and dark. She pulled back for a moment, and then scooped it up in her hand. The cellphone was several years old, but disuse had left it in pristine condition. The cord that went to it was wrapped snugly around the base; the battery was long since dead. Would it still work?

It was a stupid thought, but she rounded the corner to the front of the Goose anyway, and jammed the little piece into the cigarette lighter, half expecting it to catch fire. It didn’t.

A little green light at the top of the phone blinked on, and Beck sat back in her seat.

“Oh my god can this not be an argument right now.” Harper shot her a look in the mirror that said that wasn’t a request, but when had that ever stopped Beck? Harper ran a finger under her lipstick as if it weren’t already perfectly cemented in place. “You need a phone, Beck.”

“I’ve managed my whole life without one.” The blonde replied stubbornly.

“You haven’t lived in a city since we were kids.”

“Fifteen is not a ‘kid’.”

Harper gave her that scathing “I really hate when you do that” look she always got before her temper flared. 

“You get my point.”

No. She didn’t. Not at all. Harper had a frustrating knack for acting she’d explained herself perfectly when in reality, the only thing she’d done was give an order, and Beck was fairly certain she did it on purpose. Most people were cowed by her hard assertions and sharp eyes. It kept them from asking questions or starting arguments. But Beck was immune to Harper’s piercing stares and venomous tone. They knew each other too well. 

Beck was afraid of most people when it came down to it. When their tempers flared, when their voices raised, she’d shrink back down into that frightened child under her mother’s scrutiny and wrath. But it was different with Harper. The trust between them couldn’t be shattered with harsh words or Harper’s tendency to let her anger get the better of her. They’d squabble, they’d get over it, and never once did she have to worry that Harper might cross that line, might dare even think of hurting her.

Beck sat on the bed and propped herself up with an arm, turning the glowing device over in her free hand over and over as if that would teach her how to use it. When she looked up, she realized that Harper was staring at her with an indeterminable expression on her face. They were at an impasse. Neither had a better argument than “yes” or “no” and those weren’t enough to be persuasive.

“It’s a gift.” Harper tried, and Beck looked down at the phone doubtfully. Harper gave gifts with all the warmth and efficiency of a soldier going through marching drills. She didn’t linger waiting for thank yous or promises of reciprocity. The act of giving itself fulfilled something in Harper, soothed some ache Beck didn’t understand. Beck accepted, whether she really wanted it or not, because Harper needed that from her. Just like she needed Harper’s strength, her unflappable assurance that everything would be alright---that she’d make it alright no matter what. That was part of being together. Needing things. But normally she at least enjoyed Harper’s gifts. Not this. She couldn’t accept this.There was a line even Harper could not cross.

Sensing that hadn’t gotten her anywhere, Harper pressed on. “I need to be able to keep in touch with you.”

There it was. Beck let the phone drop onto the sheets.

“I don’t need you to check up on me.” She said, almost resentfully. 

Harper pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s not checking. It’s communication. I work late and you wander the city at all hours. What if something happened? What if you got hurt? You don’t have to play with it or anything just... for emergencies.”

“That’s checking up on me!” She said heatedly. Shouting wasn’t her nature. Often it wasn’t even within her ability, but her tone acquired a razor sharp edge. “I’m not a child.”

“Fine if wanting to know you’re alive and having a good day is checking on you then yeah, I’m a stalker. Constantly hounding you. Treating you like a child.” Harper threw her hands in the air. “You’re blowing this out of proportion.” 

“You aren’t listening to me!”

The thin thread of Harper’s temper snapped, and her voice raised. “Why should I when you aren’t making any sense!”

Beck opened her mouth to argue. There was clear hurt reflected in her eyes, and regret silenced her girlfriend’s tirade. But Harper’s eyes glanced past her. She got a glimpse of that damned clock, and she forced her temper into submission. Her shadow dwarfed the little witch on the bed as she drew closer, and her perfume hung thick and heavy in the air as she bent forward. Warm lips ghosted against the skin of her jaw, then covered her own, and the red stain on Harper’s lips gently stuck them together, even as she pulled away. There was a sad expression on her face.

“I’ve got to go. Meetings.” Beck clung to her girlfriend’s arm softly, but Harper detached herself, pecked her lips one last time, and stood to her full height. “Tonight. We’ll talk. I promise. Just---look at it. Just until I get back.”

Her heels clicked sharply against the marble floors as she exited the bedroom and swept down the stairs. Keys rattled in the door, it shut noisily, and then the distant ding of the elevator signaled her absence.

The day passed slowly; it wasn’t like she had a job to entertain her. She ran with Ringo and then  they aimlessly strolled the streets of the buzzing city around her, trying to tamp down on her disdain for it. People every step she took. No space between them. No air slipped through the concrete walls of the city that was not tainted by the ever present smog spat out by passing cars with their blaring horns and cursing patrons. She’d thought, when she’d first moved in with Harper, that she’d come to love this city. She thought the people would endear themselves to her, she’d find a rhythm in the bustling streets like she did in nature, but there was only chaos and filth and crowds. They choked her, each and every person she passed, their presence like hands around her throat, and each day she hated them a little more for it.

The little device Harper had given her kept letting out mechanical chimes throughout the day, and if she’d have had less respect for her girlfriend and the environment in general, she’d have chucked it into the Hudson and been done with it. It wasn’t like she could read the messages. She’d made a valiant attempt the first few times, only to get a migraine over something as menial as “sorry I had to run out” and “Carver from accounting is still a dick.”

Beck returned to the house with an armful of groceries and set about dinner. She wasn’t surprised when it finished and Harper still wasn’t home. The days were reserved for business, but at nights, Harper slipped into the cemeteries and morgues that she owned to practice her craft and take from the dead what they did not even know they had left to give. It was near midnight when she heard keys in the door, and Beck set down her knitting to head into the kitchen and turn the oven back on. 

Beck startled as she turned on her heel. Harper was leaning against the island, not four feet away, dangling her heels from the tips of her fingers. Her blazer had been shed, likely on the way home, and the dark blue of her blouse had been half unbuttoned and peeled away from the top of her neck to allow her some breathing room, but she did not look disheveled by far. No bags dogged at her eyes, there was no slump in her posture, and neither her hair nor makeup had given an inch throughout the nearly sixteen hour day she’d just worked. 

“You didn’t answer my texts.” She said, and Beck could tell if she was joking or actually riled.

“I didn’t know how. I just stopped reading them. Are you hungry?” It was best not to feed into whatever this was. It wasn’t often, but sometimes her particular practice of the craft left her riled up and searching for confrontation; it was why she held her own so well in the business world. If that was where this was going, she didn’t want any part of it.

There was a tense silence in the room, and then Harper sighed and looked out the window. Her fingers reached into the back of her hair and snagged the pin that kept her bun in place to release it; waves of dark curls cascaded down her neck like waves of a golden ocean. She tousled them with a hand and groaned.

“Ok. I’m an asshole.” She said reluctantly. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

The little witch gave her a derisive look and turned back to the oven to stick the food in.

“ I can’t imagine why you’d think it was.”

Or that you needed to say it out loud.

Harper took hold of her hips and lightly pulled her back around. The tip of her thumbnails slipped beneath the hem of Beck’s shirt and brushed back and forth over the skin with tender affection. Beck tried to hold her gaze, but Harper was looking over her face intensely.

“You---are the toughest bitch I know.” 

Beck’s face contorted into a glare. “You aren’t funny Harper.”

She went to pull back, but Harper followed until her back was pressed up against the counter. 

“I’m not joking.” She defended. “I don’t know anyone that can take a hit like you. Something beats you down and you claw your way back up. You put a smile on your face, and somehow, every day, you say to yourself that you aren’t going to make anyone feel like people have made you feel. Scared or---alone or small. You’re tough.”

She couldn’t for the life of her figure out where Harper was going with all of this, but the gentle brushes against her hips and the faint smell of perfume were enough to settle her prickled spirit.

Harper’s forehead rested against her own and for a second Beck felt her hold a bit tighter. “But I’m---not.”

 Beck waited. She gave Harper the chance to work through whatever this was. Harper didn’t do well with vulnerability; neither of them did.

“I’m not tough. I am angry and I’m jagged and I’m ripped open and raw. And the thought of something happening to you---it scares the shit out of me. I’m weak. I underestimate you because you’re so damn nice.” She said, and Beck returned her embrace when she felt her tremble ever so slightly. But Harper wasn’t finished. “You’re right. I gave you the phone to keep tabs on you---because I---I guess I’m a coward.”

“Harper you-”

“No. I am.” She pulled back so that they could look one another in the eyes. “And I shouldn’t have made that your problem. Sometimes I rely on you too much... If you don’t want the phone Beck, I won’t say anything else about it. And I won’t get pissed. I’m sorry.”

She had tested Harper’s word by giving her the phone back. Harper hid it away somewhere, and she didn’t bring it up again. After a full month of proving a point, Beck asked about it herself. At first she kept it in the house. On occasion Harper would work from home or take the day off and she’d show her how to do things with it. Every time she would assure her it was safe. No one was watching them. No one was listening to them. No one could track them. For all her faults, Harper had never been a liar, and so slowly she came to trust the device. She’d take it with her on walks and send the little cartoon faces to Harper just to pester her into calling. Eventually she was so used to it that she took pictures of herself or of them together.

In her lap, the phone chimed melodically, and its soft glow filled the dark cabin of the bus. She was met immediately with a picture of Harper and herself, wrapped in an embrace, in front of a field of colorful lantern displays. There was a stab of pain in her stomach. Harper’s lips were turned up in the kiss, her arm outstretched to take the photo, and one eye slyly peaking at the camera as she rushed to take the shot.

[xparadisexlostx]

Drabbles: Beck and Charmaine part 2

@justicescreaming

I grew up with dogs. My dad liked to hunt deer, and in the summers we’d pack up in his old truck with two of his prized pooches and go north into the mountains. Sometimes Canada. He trained his dogs from pups, and they were the kind of dogs that were clever and independent. They wouldn’t roll over or shake if there was a gun to their heads, but they could get lost in a couple thousand acres of forest land for hours and the second my father gave a whistle they’d come eagerly bursting through the brush.

We found a bear on one of those trips. I couldn’t have been ten at the time, and it hadn’t been dead for long. I don’t remember what it looked like. Not really. I just remember my dad poking at a yellow tag on its ear and complaining about the “goddamn liberals.”

“You know what’s wrong with people?” He’d asked. I didn’t know because I was ten, and I definitely didn’t ask, but in a truly fatherly fashion he went on, impervious to my indifference, “All this meat’s going to waste. If I carved this thing up my face would be plastered all over the local news, here and back home, as a poacher and I’d go to jail. Fuckin eco-nuts and bleeding hearts can’t stand to see the natural order of things, but they put them in cages in zoos and want to be praised for how humane they are. Nothing in a cage is happy, Charmaine.”

I got too old for hunting . My dad got rid of the dogs when I went to basic at eighteen, and I never trained a single one of them, and I certainly never saw another bear.

Until now.

I don’t know what to do. I try calling to Beck, and once or twice she looks at me and I think that we’re making progress, but Wilson won’t shut his mouth, and I’m starting to wonder why the fuck no one outside the door has tried to take a shot at Beck through the door or activate the gas or something. They would have put anyone else down by now. The cells in block A are sealed and fitted with noxious gas to eliminate prisoners in the case of riots, and I know that they aren’t holding back to save Wilson. He’s a dead man anyway. There’s too much blood smeared on the wall and on the floors.

I can smell it, and if I can then she can. Which doesn’t bode well for me. The scent has to be doing something to her head.

I can practically hear the dogs rattling anxiously in their kennels, beating the aluminum against the hard steel of the truck bed. I can smell my father’s cigarette and hear him swearing and nothing is happy in a cage, Charmaine.

If I don’t get her out of this room I’m a dead woman.

The sirens have stopped now, and so has the incessant announcement. This doesn’t calm the beast completely, but she stops bashing herself against the walls and snarling at Wilson every time he flinches.

I slip down off the bed but keep a hand firmly on the rail in case I need to pull myself back up. Beck shakes her massive head and grunts in agitation. I can see her sizing me up, that primal, ugly feeling inside her snuffing out the docile woman I’ve come to know, and at a loss for anything else I clap my hands together as loud as I can.

“Hey! Hey.” She flinches, and I’m amazed that she can still flinch—that she can feel threatened—when she’s this enormous. The floor is sticking under my bare feet, and I know it’s blood.

Beck is quiet and pressed into the back corner of the cell staring, and it’s not much, but it’s a start.

“Easy. Alright? Relax.” My tone isn’t gentle or placating; it’s more of a demand than an attempt to soothe her. But for the first time I see her start to understand. There’s a glimmer of realization in those dark eyes, and that makes me bold. I take a step forward and point toward the door.

“You want out of here?” She follows my fingers with her eyes. I take the lack of brutal mauling as a sign of compliance and nod. “Then you calm the fuck down.”

She stares at me, swaying nervously back and forth.

“Sit down.” And she isn’t a dog, but she lowers down to her haunches. I have her attention, and at least enough trust to be able to inch toward the door while I face her, but none of that is going to last forever. I need to make good on what I said and get the damn door open.

When my fingers touch the plexi-glass I let out a sigh I didn’t know I was holding, and when I glance outside I see two men staring in at me. Not three guards. Not a battalion of soldiers. There’s just the warden and the doctor. The latter is on a walkie to someone and all I know is I’m desperate to get him out of here before Beck sees him. Every other time she’s even caught a glimpse of him she’s run like hell. I don’t need that right now.

I bang on the window to get them to pay attention, but I don’t dare to take my eyes off the beast in front of me.

“Go to the bridge!” They don’t have any reason to listen to me. The doctor puts his walkie up to his mouth and says something, then they exchange glances. I try again.

“Go to the bridge and open this goddamn door.” The day gets weirder because they listen to me and I’m starting to think I’m in the upside down. Nothing is making sense. Not the bear roommate or the lack of guards or the fact that I’m not sucking on poison gas and certainly not the fact that after a few more minutes of muffled talking the warden and the doctor nod in tandem, and head down the hall.

“See?” I’m panting like I’ve just run a marathon, and Beck is getting more and more distracted by the moaning Wilson as he tries to drag himself off the bed and crawl to the door. It was his leg that heard breaking. He’s hoarse, but as he starts toward her Beck stands up onto her enormous hind legs and roars. Her paw swipes the air and comes way too close for comfort.

I don’t have a choice. And I do what I’ve wanted to do ever since the fucking idiot disrespected me in the mess hall the day I met Beck. I put my hands on either side of his head and twist. He twitches but he’s already weak, and by the time he hits the floor he’s gone.

Behind me the door swings open, and before Beck can make a mad lunge and bowl me over, I put out my hands out in front of me.

“Steady.” She seems to understand and respect that. Her front paws lower to the ground, and she tentatively follows me out into the wide hallway where we walk unrestrained.

When I reach a hand over to touch her bloodied pelt, she’s as calm and docile as I’ve ever seen her.

[xparadisexlostx]

Drabbles: Beck and Charmaine

@justicescreaming

Trigger warning: vague threats and an implied attempt at assault. 

When the heavy lock on the steel door slides open I have to force myself to relax under my blanket. My first instinct is to spring up and pop a couple of bullets into the head of whatever idiot thought they could sneak up on me while I was sleeping. But I don’t have a gun. I have a thin pillow, a blanket that feels like it was designed to be as scratchy as possible, and my bare fucking hands. That means I have to wait until whoever it is wanders into arms reach.

It’s not a warden, a warden would have turned on the lights. And anyway at’s “day time” or at least what would have been day time back on Earth, and I know that because I can’t have been asleep more than two hours. I am not on day shift and neither is Beck and nothing good will come from the door unlocking. Whoever it is, they’re careful to be quiet. Where the hell are the guards at the door?

I lay still. I need to catch whoever it is off guard, but they aren’t moving. It’s a waiting game, and I wonder if Beck’s sleeping. That’d be my luck. The one time I don’t want her to be sleeping she’s probably face down in the bed drooling all over her pillow. Or maybe she’s waiting like I am. She’s strange, but she’s not stupid and all this activity has to have woken her. The door has not closed, not even by a crack, and there’s low, artificial light pouring in through the hall. I shift beneath the blanket, just to judge the reaction of the intruder.

I feel the sharp, burning pain in my leg before I hear the low huff of the tranq gun or the lock sliding back into place. By the time I’m fully aware that I’ve been shot, the drugs are coursing through my lower extremities, and I feel weaker already.

Should I stay where I am? Should I try and get to my feet to fight? Where the fuck is Beck, and if she’s sleeping now through all of this the next time she tells me she can’t sleep I’m going to smother her with her own goddamn pillow.

The thoughts are racing, and I’m not moving. There isn’t any point in moving. Whoever it was ducked out to wait until the drugs were working. If I were to jump down, I’d just fall on my face and have to deal with whatever was coming on the floor. I prioritize. It’s more important to fight for a clear head than anything else.

After a short eternity the lock clicks again, and the door opens for just a split second; this time I’m already trying to lift my head to see who it is. But it’s too dark.

Of course it is.

“What did you do to her?” I can hear Beck beneath me, and she definitely knows I’ve been shot. Why wasn’t she shot? The room is as black as a pit; I can’t see my nose on my own fucking face, better yet where the indruder is. There’s a rustling by the door. The sound of boots falling to the metal floor fills the small space, and whoever it is it also trying their damnedest to scare them. Why didn’t they drug Beck too?

I already know that answer and my stomach turns unhappily---because it wasn’t supposed to go this way. I brought her to this fucking cell block to scare the guards off her, and now I can’t even lift my hand to give him the middle finger. Not that he’d see it.

“Shut up.” That’s Wilson’s voice. “You fucking embarrassed me you little bitch.”

“Fuck you.” I’m actually kind of proud to hear that much aggression in her voice, but it’s a dull, far away feeling, and the blackness in my eyes has nothing to do with how dark the room is. I’m slipping, even as my mind is screaming for me to move. He’s close enough now to grab, but he knows it. His face is level with mine on the top bunk, and he’s fucking breathing, watching me. He’s got to be smiling to himself, and I want to be angry, but I don’t feel anything anymore. It’s worse than slipping now, I’m falling, rapidly, ever down into the abyss and with the last few seconds of consciousness I have I hear him laugh.

“Looks like your little friend couldn’t save you after all.”

I wake up prematurely. The drugs aren’t out of my system, and I can feel them weighing me down like lead in my veins, but the frantic scream of the alarm and the red light illuminating the room rip me out of my slumber. It’s just enough adrenaline to force my body into action. I can hear Beck. She’s crying, begging, across the cell for some reason, and I am going to kill Wilson.

I pry my eyes open laboriously.

It isn’t Beck.

It isn’t Beck because Beck isn’t here. There’s only Wilson, and he’s curled up in the corner, his clothes are on--thank god--but they’re in tatters, and in the low red light his exposed skin is glistening with something black. It’s staining his clothes rapidly, and now he’s crying louder and he’s not making any sense. His words aren’t coherent or even complete. It’s just please. Please please please please.

I don’t know what’s happening or what he’s done, but I still want to kill him.

It takes a minute for me to realize he isn’t looking at me. He’s looking beneath me, into the enormous shadow cast by the bunk beds which, now that I’m looking at it looks way too big. Most of the cramped space is filled with the massive shadow, and it’s writhing like a hell beast. Pieces of metal glint in the crimson glow and catch my eye as the shadow sways one way and then the other.

“Collar breech in cell block alpha. Position seven.” A mechanical voice announces, blaring over the sound of the siren, and the woman’s soft, controlled tone is jarringly out of place in the midst of this chaos. A sound comes from the shadow too, but I can’t hear it clearly. The announcement runs again, and the shadow moves.

It’s growing taller and taking shape and above the sirens and monotone woman there is a roar that shakes the room so hard it hurts my ears. The roar evokes something primal in me, and Wilson must feel it too because as I feel my body force enough adrenaline through my veins to make a snail gallop, he screams until his voice goes hoarse.

The shadow is not a shadow, it’s a bear. A real, breathing, goddamn bear, and where the fuck did it come from?

I press back against the wall as hard as I can. The beast is lunging to the other side of the cell and straight for the screaming idiot in the corner. I have no clue if playing dead actually works on bears or not, but I do know that screeching doesn’t. Neither does running, but Wilson tries.

The bear falls into the wall and he ducks beneath it and charges the door. He’s banging on the little plexi-glass window, and I can see people outside staring in at him. They don’t make any move to open it, and if they were going to they missed their chance. The bear sinks its huge claws into the side of his jumpsuit and throws him back effortlessly. The beds are the only thing that save him from going straight into the wall, but I hear the force of the impact snap a bone.

“PLEASE.” He’s wailing now. The beast is crawling in on top of him, I feel its back hitting the bottom of my bunk, jostling me even as I grip at the wall. It’s sickening. As much as I’d love to snap his neck myself, the thought of witnessing someone being eaten alive actually makes me sick. The SEALS prepared me for a lot, but not for this.

Wilson is screaming at the bear and I realize I’ve been zoning out. “Beck! Beck! GOD BECK PLEASE!”

Beck? Was she there? With him? Beneath me this entire time? No. No she’d have made a sound by now. Beck...

“Beck?” My voice isn’t heard through the chaos, and the bear has pulled itself off the sobbing Wilson and is doing its damnedest to pace the cell. It’s hitting the walls, grunting and calling out wildly, and even in the strange light I catch a glimpse of the whites of its eyes. It’s panicked.

It is Beck.

The world shifts into perspective too fast. Suddenly I’m not scared, I’m curious, and that’s dangerous because the fragile little bunny I’ve been keeping beneath my bunk is actually an eight-hundred pound grizzly. And the how and why and what the absolute fuck all has to wait because she’s trapped and scarred and has nearly mauled a man to death in her own bed.

[xparadisexlostx]

[ jewelry ] your muse clasping a piece of jewelry for mine , such as a necklace , or earrings .

“I don’t like it.” Beck proclaimed. She wiggled and squirmed in place like a nervous horse. 

“Oh–bloody—stop it! You’ve made me miss the clasp.” Ros said. Without a shred of sympathy. Taking the necklace in hand, Ros took the witch’s shoulders in her grasp and lightly but definitely positioned her. Her long fingers squeezed on Beck’s shoulders in a silent demand that she stay still, and then they swept her thick mass of golden curls out of the way to reveal her neck once more.

“I don’t want i-”

“You’re wearing it.” Once more the necklace was gingerly placed around her neck and Ros began expertly fiddling with the delicate clasp. When Beck took to rubbing at her neck, the agent let out a hard, agitated breath from her nose. Something was muttered under Ros’ breath, but Beck didn’t hear. Finally the minute hook slid into the microscopic hoop and Ros gladly released the squirming witch.

The look in Beck’s eye even gave Ros pause when she promptly turned around. Ros had been winding up to tell her to put the pendant down so as to not affect the camera feed and and to leave the necklace on no matter what happened tonight. The words were stolen from her throat. For a moment, for a split second, when she met the eyes of the witch it was as if her soul was sucked out of her body and into that wild gaze. Beyond the room, beyond the city, beyond the waves of the Pacific, she saw snow peaked mountains and smelled the damp leaf litter of a technicolor forest that parted into long flat prairies with grass that tumbled like the waves of the sea in the wind. It all flashed before her in a second’s glance, no more than a handful of heartbeats, and it was accompanied by a great, choking feeling. As if space and time were folding on itself, or a great noose was tightening around the scene, forcing it to become smaller and smaller. 

Her body coughed on reflex and whatever odd trance she’d been sucked into shattered. She hadn’t been breathing, she noticed, and she did her best to cover up her desire to gasp for air now. And she would have gladly snapped at Beck–blamed her–for what had just transpired if the girl didn’t seem so very lost; captive in that ever shrinking world.

“Beck.” Once more she returned her hands to the witch’s shoulders. Beck looked at her, but she was still miles away. Ros repeated her name, and a sliver of clarity sparkled in Beck’s eyes.

“It’s only a camera.” She reassured. Her voice was quiet. She was already concerned with the level of leniency she showed Beck. 

Thankfully the distant look faded from her eyes and Beck sighed and lowered her hand back to her side. Her brow furrowed as she looked at Ros, and for a second Ros thought she might speak, but she only shook her head. 

“It’s… alright.” Ros wasn’t sure why she’d said it and she instantly regretted it. Not only for the show of weakness that it was, but for the guarded expression that clouded Beck’s expression immediately after. The witch sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Maybe.” Was her only reply. Then she turned and headed towards the door. Ros hadn’t a clue what she’d meant—and she sure as bloody hell wasn’t going to ask.

[xparadisexlostx]

wxldchxld‌:

@irnveined in which there’s a long, boring dabble about witches bickering in an unnecessary set up that does nothing but shine a tiny glimmer of light on what it’ll be like to deal with these assholes the rest of Asha’s life. Except Harper. Harper’s goin tf home.

Asha knew fuck all about witches. She’d spent all of a week in their lands, and half of the time she’d spent there was spent half-drunk, stuffing her face, and doing the finger dance while the witches and Ironborn alike drank themselves blind at the preceding rite to the wedding. The rest of the time was spent in a handful of negotiations, the actual marriage ceremony, and one pleasant but all-too-short night with her new wife. It’d been a small wonder that she’d even been able to keep track of all her own men as she brokered an alliance between herself and a people she didn’t know the first thing about.

Still, nothing could have prepared her for Ragna the Bloodied Badger.

In truth, each of the commanding witches sent to sail east with her were odd in their own way. Harper Stolt looked as soft and lovely as the girls in a pillow house, but the witches all bowed beneath the weight of her boiling stares and assured any Ironborn with lingering gazes that there was nothing beneath her delicate features but a mind like a sword’s edge and a spirit like jagged rocks. The Seal King, who was no general at all but the leader of his clan, was quite easily the largest man she’d ever seen in her life. At his brow he was a good two feet above the top of her head, broad in the chest as her Black Wind was long, and thick in the stomach just like the sigil on his flag suggested. He wore the most offensive yellow coat with a blue hat and sash, and boots that went up to his knees. Cuyler the Seven-Toed Eagle was nearly as large in his breast as the Seal, but of an average height, only his skin was an unnatural grey, and the dark green tattoos that covered him were sunken into his flesh—even the silhouette of an eagle on his face. The witches had sent two scholars too, one a woman with hair the color of a pale ale and eyes red as the deck of Euron’s Silence, and the other an intelligent, fair looking man who looked wise granted his trembling body was kept under control by chewing on a wad of herbs like a goat out at pasture.

Still none of them she found as outlandish, nor as charming, as Ragna: a woman whose head came just to the bottom of Asha’s own chin and the champion of the Badger Clan. Asha was still trying to grasp the ease with which witches pronounced women soldiers and captains and generals at all, better yet small ones. And Ragna wasn’t particularly fit either. She was not as fat as the King of Seals, but they shared a similar quality in that under their—more rounded features their muscles were as hard as iron, and it was easy to see if one spared her more than a cursory glance. Which everyone did, as the woman’s voice boomed like thunder wherever she went to the effect that even when she was on her own ship, sailing beside the Black Wind, Asha could hear her shouting at her men on deck.

She was called the Bloodied Badger because she adorned herself in dozens of little sealed vials filled with her enemies’ blood that attached to her belt and her leather harness that bound her thick chest and the delicate chains woven through her hair. Hair that was shaved off on the sides and as long as her feet, and she scrubbed it so often with lye it was white as a ghost and braided so tightly that it looked like a noose, as she kept it coiled around her neck.

Asha didn’t cower in the face of any enemy, but she thought she’d rather take her axe and cleave off her own hand before willfully getting into a brawl with such a woman. She was, however, pleasant company: never without a sly remark to add to the conversation and rarely without a drink either. Once a week she’d called “war councils” to be held on the Black Wind, of which they’d had more than half a dozen where they were the only two participants involved, but she always brought fine dark ale and didn’t linger too long.

Currently, they were having the first (mostly) sober meeting of their journey, and not one of the witch leaders were absent.

“Three days isn’t time. Three days is hardly a heartbeat.” Ranga growled. “We’ve no time to plan.”

Asha snorted into her cup and brought her heels up to rest on the table. At her left, Qarl sent her a scowl as if he were offended by her boots resting in front of him, and whether or not he meant it, it made her laugh. But her confidence was skin deep. Even with the witches at her back they were outnumbered.

She thought briefly of her wife and resisted the urge to cringe. The witch king had sent her three hundred war ships with men to sail them, but he’d sent twenty treasure ships: the largest things she’d ever seen as sea, each with two dozen sails and a deck that could have hosted a village. Asha had sent her wife on one of those ships, and she had them sail a day behind the war party, but if they were defeated, her uncle’s fleet would descend upon those ships like a cruel wave, and she did not want to linger on thoughts of what might happen to her lady wife. Even in the best of circumstances, where none of her uncle’s men knew that they were wed, she was a young, beautiful woman; they’d drag her off for a salt wife.

“We’re on the open sea with a fleet not half the size of Euron’s own.” Qarl was stating the obvious, but the reminder seemed to have no effect on the witches, so he pressed on. “There’s little hope of surrounding them.”

Asha handed the flagon in her hand to the Seal King across the table, who was so large he had but to lean back and stretch out his enormous arm to put the brim under the spicket. The fox general, beautiful and perpetually exasperated, set her jaw and rolled her eyes, but she twisted the handle anyway. It wasn’t until she’d taken another drink that Asha found anything to say.

She didn’t get to say it because no sooner had she sat down her cup than Harper lost what little patience she’d been clinging to and snarled. “What the hell are they doing so far west?”

“We’ll take them from behind.” Asha said, ignoring a question that she didn’t have any good answer to. “With any luck we can surprise them under the cover of night.”

Ragna wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. “Not if they’re sailing toward us. The trailing ships won’t have the speed to slip around them. They don’t turn well.”

The Seal King muttered his agreement. They were his ships, after all, and he was the only witch among them who knew a damn thing about the sea.

“It’s the best plan we’ve got.” Qarl said after a moment of long, drawn out silence. It immediately went quiet again, and Asha consoled herself with a long drink.

“The best plan you’ve got, maybe, but I don’t intend to see my command ended in a watery grave.” Harper’s words dripped with such venom they might have bore a hole in the wood below.

They would not drown her. She thought. Not a woman that lovely. A proud man would see a challenge in her and take her for his salt wife, but Asha didn’t say anything. The woman’s hand was resting on a long, slim pouch of leather where she held her wand, and presently it felt like a bad idea to provoke her.

The Kraken’s daughter regarded the angry witch. “What would you have me do then?”

“The Allvaldr gave you nearly three thousand witches. What I wouldn’t do is squander them in a fucking sword fight.”

Ranga chuffed in disapproval. “She’s right. Prefer an axe in a fight myself.”

Asha shouldn’t have laughed at that, the tension in the room was almost at a boil, and Harper had, for reasons no one had ever told her, despised her from the second she’d laid eyes on her. But she did laugh. The Badger was a woman after her own heart.

“Let’ss ju-u-ust—take a mo-mo-mommment to breathe, eh?” The raven hair scholar was shaking in earnest now.

“By the blood of my ancestors will someone shove a branch down his throat?” Harper’s face was coiled in disgust. “Makes me dizzy just to look at you.”

“He ought to stop those transport spells.” The Seal King grumbled through a mouthful of fish. “One day you’ll pop off to somewhere and every inch of that skin of yours will fly off in a thousand directions. Mark my words.”

“Shut up!” The Fox commanded, “I am not done.”

The Seal King turned in his chair so that only Asha and Qarl could see his face, and just below the creaking of the ship she heard him mumble something about how no one wanted her to.

“Good queen,” It sounded as if it physically pained Harper to call her such. All of the witches addressed her as a queen, at least by title. Something about how will shapes the world and speaking things that would be as if they were true.

“We are not outnumbered.” She said strongly. “Not when we can call to the hearts of every creature writhing below the deck of this ship. We need not hurl arrows where we can send dreams to plague men with nightmares that deprive them of sleep. A sword cannot compare to a sickness we could spread through the whole fleet. What good is an axe against waves as tall as castles that we call to drown their ships? See if your enemies will rise from that.”

“Do that and not a soul is spared.” Ragna said quietly. Not even she would meet the eyes of the Fox.

“No.” Asha cut in before another breath could be taken. “I’ll not sink the whole of the Iron Fleet. Those that would see reason-”

“Would have seen it at your queensmoot.”

“I have given you my answer.” Asha said. There was no good nature left in her voice. That was twice now she’d been interrupted by this woman in the halls of her own ship. She sat her cup on the table pointedly and locked her eyes onto the witch. “I will not sink the whole of the Iron Fleet.”

Surely some men would see this for the madness it was. Her uncle Victarion was slow and proud, he believed her place was in a man’s bed fat with his child, but surely even he couldn’t deny her now. She’d sailed to the end of the world and not just survived, but returned with triple the force she’d had when she reached the shore. And she hadn’t lost a single man in the process. Diplomacy was not favored among her people, but it worked; surely they would have to see that. Some at least. Even a hundred. Even ten. She would not so carelessly discard the lives of her people. Troubled as they were, they were hers, and none of them would call her a queen if she let these foreigners kill scores of them.

“Then have my answer, good queen, and it’s this: I won’t send my own in to die for a lost cause. We fight as witches or we do not fight.” Harper replied in a cold, steely tone. The woman rolled her shoulders and turned on her heel to leave. “If you should find your wits, call on me.”

If she’d have been born anywhere else in Westeros, such blatant disrespect might have sent her into a rage. But she was Ironborn, and a woman nonetheless—a woman standing in a man’s shoes. Even if the Ironborn had have been the type to scrape and grovel at the feet of their lords, they wouldn’t have respected her. So she made no argument, and she didn’t let the bitter pang of annoyance show on her face.

With a sigh, Asha reached for her cup and focused back on Ragna. “How much will we suffer without her leg of the army?”

“Leg? Whole damn army’s hers.” Ranga said, already filling her cup again. The two scholars exchanged looks, one of them mouthing to the other ‘one of those nights’ and making a crude drinking motion with her hand that made the other laugh, but they didn’t speak.

“I thought you lead your own people into battle?”

The Badger nodded. “Aye, I’m the general of the Badger Clan’s army, but she’s the general of the United Army. All of us. Only person here to out pull her is Fritjof.”

“And I won’t.” said the King of Seals as he dumped something from a vial into his flagon. It was the first time she’d ever heard his name. He shifted in his seat and wiped his mouth with his hand, “I can’t afford to fight the foxes. I can scarcely afford the war I’m in now. It’ll be a wonder if the Bears north of Mun-Strǫnd don’t take half my land before I return home, I can’t have the south moving up against us too.”

Ranga cleared her throat and shook her head. “Before we decide whether or we can go against her, we should think about if we ought to.”

“Could you do it to your own men? Whether they’d turned against you or not?” It was Cuyler the Seven-Toed that spoke. His low, gravely tone came as a complete surprise; the man had ridden on the Black Wind since they’d set sail, and he’d never made a sound. Asha had taken him for a mute, and more than once she’d wondered how he held any kind of command without the ability to speak.

Ragna grunted and put her lips to her cup again, growling directly into the flagon. “No. No I couldn’t… but what if we didn’t have to? Harper had one good point at least.”

The raven-haired scholar managed to stop chewing his cud long enough to ask. “Dream walkers?”

“They won’t be any use to me if they can’t sail.” Asha said dismissively. In truth she didn’t like the principle of the matter. It felt—cowardly: weakening her people and driving them half mad. People ought to have the opportunity to choose–to fight for themselves.

“We’ve only got the one dream walker anyway. She won’t do it.”

“Does she too have some unfounded grudge against me?” Asha asked, only half serious.

“Your young bride?” Cuyler laughed at that. “I should hope not. But she’s too gentle-hearted to drive men mad. Even if she could channel enough of us to amplify a dream across a hundred thousand men, she wouldn’t have the stomach to unleash it on them.”

“A nightmare, no, but a dream…” Ragna let her words dangle in the silence that followed, then she pointed a finger to the sigil of the kraken on the wall. “An ill omen. It’s all we need send. Have the scouts find the direction which they sail, and let us keep away from them. Send them dreams of warring krakens and the sigils of their supporting clans where your enemies fall. Send them for days. Then call up those same creatures from the deep, let them sink a few ships. After we can send a second dream that warns them to turn home and lay down their weapons—to swear their allegiance to you. If they stay after that then they mean to fight you, and if we call up a wave to drown half the fleet afterwards, they’ll see it not as cruelty but a sign.”

“You mean to manipulate their faith?” The red eyed woman asked with clear disgust in her tone.

“It’s not doing any harm.” Ragna replied hotly. “She is the kraken, and we do mean to kill those who would keep from from her throne.”

“Would we see battle at all?” Asha asked. There was something about the prospect of seeing her axe sticking between Euron’s eyes that she just didn’t want to miss.

Ranga’s grin consumed the whole of her face. “Only if you want it.”

Asha finished the rest of her cup and slumped against the wall behind her. So that was that. She would twist what the Ironborn held most sacred and wage a war Euron’s men had no chance in fighting. There would have to be some sort of bloodshed though or her men would think her cowardly.

“Would she do this?” Asha pressed.

Cuyler offered an answer. “The Lady Greyjoy? She’d be saving life, not ending it.”

His tone was almost mocking when he spoke the words “Lady Greyjoy” but it didn’t seem to be aimed at the Iron Queen in particular.

“Will it bring her close to the battle?” Beck didn’t seem like the type for fighting, and as happy as the thought of seeing her wife again made her, Asha wasn’t sure how she felt about dragging her into the throes of war.

“Dream walkers can go far.” The Seal King slurred, half drunk and slumped over her table. He raised his cup into the air and sighed like a wistful maid, “Walk me to the depths of the sea!”

Perhaps—more than half drunk then. The Seven-Toed Eagle took the man’s coat in his grasp and hoisted enough. “We can do no more until the scouts return. I’ll see his kingship back to his own vessel.”

The two men stumbled up the stairs comically, as the Seal couldn’t manage them on his own and they were too large to stand side by side. Near the top she heard them fall with a groan from Cuyler and a bellowing laugh from his drunk friend.

“We’ll take our leave as well, good queen.” said the woman scholar, bowing her head respectfully and walking off with her colleague’s hand clasped in her own before he could attempt to speak through his full mouth. Asha waved them away dismissively and let her eyes fall closed. She wouldn’t sleep tonight; she knew that much. The battle was too close, and she could practically feel the weight of the Driftwood crown on her head.

There was a scrape of wood against wood as Ragna stood to her feet.

“Will the Fox general fight now?” Asha asked in a voice she hoped didn’t sound anxious.

“Harper? Aye. Especially now that Beck’s involved.”

Her brow raised curiously. “Do they know one another well?”

“Is that an answer you truly want?”

Well now she sure as hell did. Asha opened her eyes to assess the Badger, who looked hesitant to continue.

“As well as two people can; four years ago they were meant to marry.”

Asha had a good, hard laugh at that. Not because it was particularly funny, but because she couldn’t think of anything better to do in light of this utterly ridiculous information. Had all of that posturing been over something as petty as jealousy?

She nearly asked more of the witch but saw Ragna wince and thought better of it. Perhaps the ale was starting to get to her as well. That was Beck’s business.

“Shall I return when the scouts arrive?” It wasn’t a question. The Badger ascended the stairs two at a time, and she didn’t look back.

[xparadisexlostx]

wxldchxld‌:

@irnveined

Negotiations

Remember when I said this was gonna be one part and then it was two surprise now it’s gotta be three but that is the LINE! At least this one is shorter?

The dreams started the next night, and they returned again the next evening and then once more the night after.  Asha had never thought much of dreams. Putting meaning to evanescent visions in the depths of night were the fancies of madmen and children. How many times had she watched her Lord Father barely contain his exasperation as the Damphair rambled on, teaching his fever dreams as divine preachings? Enough to know neither nightmares nor fantasies had a place in the mind of a queen. If she dreamed, she forgot it as soon as she woke, and if she did not forget, she put it out of her mind willfully. But these were dreams she could not shake.

On the first night she’d jolted awake at an astonishing speed, landing on her feet with her knife in hand and her eyes dark and disoriented. She’d been thankful that she had chosen not to take Qarl to her bed; they’d have likely stabbed one another in all the confusion. But it was not only the dream that shook her. No, she’d won in the dream, but the feeling of a presence—the weight of a shadow on top of her—it caused her to wake ready for a fight.

She was not wrong. Sitting at her table, well out of her axe’s reach sat the fox general. She was swathed in shadows and in the low light of a single oil lamp Asha could see the woman watching her. Subconsciously, she’d made a jape about it, but neither of them had found any amusement in her words. In truth even if she were not newly wed she would not have taken such a woman to bed. Not because she’d never taken a lover whose passion for her was mostly rooted in hatred, but because beneath her wide eyes and sloping curves, all Asha could see was a sword—long and sharp and poised to swing down and cleave off her head if she did not protect it. Had her wife felt the same way? Questions lingered on her tongue like prisoners aching for freedom, but she squashed them.

“Why are you here?” She asked. There was a half empty cup of ale at her bedside, and Asha wasted no time gulping it down to quiet her nerves.

“I promised the Allvaldr I would see you on a throne. I have a feeling he would prefer it if you were not too brain dead to rule.” She replied. When Asha only responded with a questioning look, she continued. “Sometimes people pulled into a dream walker’s grasp don’t wake up. If too much time passes, they never will. It was a risk we were willing to take with your men, but not with you.”

Asha grunted and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She felt too vulnerable without her feet on the floor. “The witches said they had only one dream walker. What good are you?”

“I may not have the skill to walk in dreams myself, but I have plenty of experience pulling people out of dreams.”

The way she trailed off made Asha think that more was implied, but the Fox said no more, and even if she’d wanted to ask, Asha wasn’t sure where to start. Harper had left her after that, only to return each night later. It’d been the last time they’d spoken though. There was a silent understanding between the two warriors; they both needed one another, and too much talking was certain to shatter their tentative peace.

The dream had been about a golden kraken and her supporters rising up to drown the whole of the Iron Fleet, and it ended with the kraken molding into the seastone chair, and sitting on it was her own shadowy figure. The witches not involved in the spells were aiding it by sending beasts from the deep to assault Euron’s ships and storms to shake the sails and to wear down the men attempting to rein them in. They were too far away for any spilled blood to reach her own fleet, but she’d seen a stray corpse and the floating remnants of a sunken longship. it would have frightened even me. She thought, though she would have never admitted it aloud. perhaps not enough to make me surrender, but plenty to have me turn my ships around and flee.

On the fourth night, the omen changed. It showed the golden kraken’s enemies turning to face the blood red silence silhouetted against the crimson light of a blood moon, and the kraken meant to represent her uncle turned black. It’s limbs rotted away, and its body writhed. Feathers sprouted along the squid’s mantle, and its beak grew out, long and gnarled and ebony. Finally the kraken was nothing more than a haggard, diseased crow. It’s caw sounded sharp and mad, frantically echoing over the waves with its shrill cries.

ca-hahaha ha! ca-ha-ha-ha! And in the water below the ship the stone-battered body of her father pointed an accusing finger up to the Crow’s Eye. Euron’s laugh continued in wild peals, rising and falling and shaking the waters with their mad bleating.

ha! ca-haha ha. She felt like every roll of laughter was stealing away her own breath. Euron flapped his great, twisted wings, hardly able to fly they were so terribly misshapen, and he swooped down upon Victarion’s kraken. As Euron held her other uncle in his terrible, rotting talons, the yowl of his dragon horn accompanied the frenzied sound of laughter, and dragons descended from the sky to begin to burn the Iron Fleet.

The dream showed the other lords taking their ships and returning to Pyke, and then her own kraken rising from the water to drag the Crow beneath the water and drown him. She woke only after the red deck of the silence had turned black beneath the water, and the Crow’s red eye was all that could be seen in the watery depths, and her own shadow back on the seastone chair, surrounded by a thousand men shouting what they ought to have at her queensmoot. Asha Queen! Asha Queen! Again and again.

She told them to send her no more dreams after that. Before she had wanted to know, so that she might use it to her advantage, but even as she walked the deck and listened to the waves against the sides of her Black Wind, she could not get the wild laughter out of her head. If she could not sleep, she could not fight, she’d told them. They’d all agreed, and they’d sworn there would be no new dreams.

On the sixth day, just as her crew started to squirm, she turned their ships toward Euron’s fleet. She had not expected to see anyone for another day, perhaps two, but before the sun fell on the sixth day, one lone ship appeared on the horizon. She recognized it instantly: the Iron Victory. Her uncle Victarion’s vessel.

No more had she put her hand on her own axe to prepare for battle than she saw a small boat lowered over the side of the Iron Victory. Only two people stepped in, and Asha couldn’t see who they were. She watched with mild curiosity as the little boat inched closer and closer, until she could make out her uncle, still half clad in his armor, sitting sullenly on the back seat, and a man half his size rowing for all his life was worth in the front. When they called to board, Asha allowed it with Cuyler the Eagle at her left and Qarl at her right. The oarsman flopped onto her deck and merely propped himself up on the side of the ship without standing. Her crew was so silent she could hear the poor bastard’s wheezing above the sound of the lapping waves.  Her uncle, however, managed to look marginally respectful, though his eyes were red and tired.

“You might have pulled closer.” He said in a halfhearted growl as he approached. She could see him stare down the witch at her side and how he judged her instantly for his presence. Asha didn’t care.

“What business have you, uncle?” Asha asked, her hand still resting in the hook of the axe on her hip. He’d be a damned fool to attack her on a boat surrounded by her own crew, but her uncle had never been known for his incredible wit. He was a marvelous killer, and that was just about all he’d ever been good for. She didn’t put making a brazen attempt on her life past him. He’d die, yes, but so would she if he succeeded. That would be all that mattered to the Crow’s Eye. Asha had a sinking feeling in her gut that if Victarion did something that foolish the witch king would see it as insult and the witches wouldn’t spare a single man, woman, or child on the Iron Islands. Her best bet to fell him would be her axe right between his eyes before he could think to react. She was faster than him; she knew that much.

Victarion stared silently at her, then sighed and began to unsheathe his weapons and drop them onto her deck in an uncharacteristically dramatic display of his exasperation.

“I want to speak with you privately. Must I also strip my mail?” His hands gripped at the bottom of his shirt and Asha made a face, then held up her hand to stop him. She had no desire to be put through that sight.

“Why would I grant you this?”

Her uncle grunted. “I’ve come to make you an offer.”

She laughed at that.

“What could you possibly offer me?”

“Nearly half the Iron Fleet. And information on the Crow’s Eye and his plans. Urgent information.” Came his tense reply. He rolled his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable with the entire situation.

“This way.” She said with only a moment’s hesitation.

Asha turned around to head below deck and tried to look as if she weren’t dreading this conversation. Her uncle had been exhausting to deal with back in the days when her father had been alive to tell him to shut up or go away. Not as bad as Aeron, the mad fuck, not nearly, but at best she imagined her uncle would offer to void her sham marriage to Erik Ironmaker in exchange for her surrender. At the worst… Her eyes drifted over to Qarl, whose expression mirrored her own; he didn’t trust Victarion either.

“This is a mistake.” said the Eagle, now to her right after she’d turned to leave. His voice was deep, and it carried naturally, but he’d forced himself to speak so softly she was sure no one else had heard. “This man means to betray you.”

“Perhaps one day.” She replied dismissively. She gave his shoulder a good natured pat as if that might reassure him, and she made no attempt to shield her uncle from insult by lowering her own voice. “He couldn’t hope to kill me when I am armed and he is not.”

At least not before help arrived. The queen thought sullenly. Victarion’s hands were weapons enough. With them he’d given his own wife a slow and painful death.

“I am no kin slayer.” Said Victarion at her back. Asha watched Cuyler send him a glare over his shoulder, but that was the end of the discussion. She would not be denied. Not now. Not in front of a man who had already belittled and dismissed her command.

The air below deck was twice as thick, and she had to squint as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the oil lamps flickering along her table. To prove a point, she strode over to a chair and took a seat. If Victarion picked up on the significance of the gesture, it didn’t show on his dull face. In the lowlight he looked haggard and almost weak.

“I doubt you’ve come to discuss the terms of Euron’s surrender.” She said with a snort.

He didn’t mirror her mirth. “Only my own.”

Asha raised her brow at that. “What’s so urgent then?”

“My terms first.” Her uncle grabbed a chair himself, but Asha had a feeling it had more to do with his exhaustion than any brazen display of confidence. He rubbed at his face with a shoddily bandaged hand, and it was only when he did that she realized the stench she smelled now didn’t come from the cabin or her men. It was the foul scent of festering flesh and greasy bandages. Her stomach turned.

“Spit them out then.” Asha told him as she stood to go and get herself a cup of ale. Anything to put some space between herself and that stench. It was positively vile. If he could still use that hand at all she’d be stunned.

“You made me an offer on the shores of Old Wyk.”

“To be your hand?” Asha asked with clear amusement in her tone. It would do no good to bait him and yet… “I’ve the means to destroy Euron and any who would call out his name, nuncle. Including you.”

“Wizards.” He spat. “Is there anyone in the world who isn’t making a deal with wizards?”

Asha only shrugged, so he went on. “They would call you kinslayer. No one is more despised than the man who strikes down his own.”

“They follow Euron just fine when we both know my Lord Father didn’t fall to his grave by chance.”

“No one can prove it.”

“But they all know it.”

“They will curse your name.”

“Have you met my new friends? Theirs are the only curses I concern myself anymore.” Asha drained her cup, filled it again, and returned to the table. “And they will hate me only until they see the riches I have to offer them. Trading with the witches will make the poorest lord on a iron islands richer than a Lannister.”

She could see him go pink with anger, his mouth twisting into an ugly frown. “That is not the old way!”

“Fuck the old way. There are no old days to come, only new ones, nuncle. It’s time we all learned that.” And if she had to force feed them the lesson by cramming it down their throats she would. If they would not allow room for diplomacy she would carve it out with her axe. Let them continue their reaving and plundering in the South or even the East, but to the North and West she had her own plans, and they’d only complain about them until they started to benefit from them.

Victarion’s hands curled to fists in his lap, his jaw set, and for a long time, he said nothing. Asha watched with a calm sense of superiority that her own speech had invoked as he fought with his own pride and small mindedness until he was calm again.

“You said you had something to offer me. I should hope it’s better than this.” She said expectantly. “State your terms or get off my ship.”

“I mean to make you the same offer you made me.” He said slowly, as if his own words left a bad taste in his mouth. “Let me act as your—hand.”

“By the look of you, I don’t think you have a hand to spare.” She said, shrugging her shoulders and laughing at her own joke. “You’ve just as much a chance to turn your ships around and bend the knee as anyone else.”

“People may submit to your rule, but they will not support it. They would support me.”

Only they hadn’t. Some had, but not nearly enough to win him the driftwood crown. For all the support he’d received at the kingsmoot he was still no king. But she couldn’t deny that–if turned to new purpose–that support would make things easier. At the least, fewer of her people would be put to the sword with it.

“What else do you want?” She asked grimly.

“The Iron Fleet and a castle for when I am too old to command it.”

She pretended to ponder this for a moment. In truth he wasn’t asking a lot, and he was offering a hell of a lot more than she ever thought he would. She’d be a fool not to accept such an offer—even if the idea of dealing with him as her adviser for the rest of her days made her cringe inside. Perhaps if she sent him out to do enough raiding she could spare herself the headache.

“So be it.” She stood back to her feet and started back to the upper deck. She had to get away from that stench. Maybe one of the witches could do something about it.

Asha paused on the steps and turned to face him once more. Victarion hadn’t moved. His head was in his hand, propped up on the table as if it ached terribly. “You said you had something urgent to tell me.”

Asha had not thought it possible for him to look any more serious, but there was a morning expression pulling at his face when he faced her. He straightened his shoulders and met her eyes.

“Euron’s wizards have magic on their own. They told him that you have a second fleet, unguarded and to strike their first. If you turn your ships now you may catch him still.”

[xparadisexlostx]

wxldchxld‌:

@ashayara girl I cannot keep up with all ur urls lol

so this was supposed to be the final part of this, and it was supposed to all come to a clear and concise finish…. but i don’t think it will. on the bright side i’m 99 percent certain you’re the only one reading this and i know you won’t hold it against me.

but if, by any chance, anyone needs an explanation, I was just having a fucker of a time writing Asha and Euron’s fight, because as this entire piece makes it clear: I really suck at fight scenes. But, I mean, I’m proud I stuck this whole thing out. All parts put together made 25 pages in a doc and I feel like for the most part I followed through. Maybe @ashayara will write it, maybe we’ll all just imagine Asha stabbing her uncle 50 million times, or maybe I’ll  finish this one day, but for right now I needed to put it down. Sorry Elsie. Still have mad love for you girl.

The sea was bizarrely silent beneath the prow of her ship. One ill omen among hundreds it seemed. If not for her oarsmen she doubted the tide would have carried them at all. The wind was still and suffocating, sticking to her lungs and dragging along her throat and chest as she tried to breathe normally. Everything felt wrong. She could taste bile behind her lips, and for a moment she gripped the railing of her deck thinking she might lose what little food she’d managed to eat, but it stayed. She forced a breath and straightened her shoulders once more.

The Black Wind had been driven tirelessly forward since Victarion had told her of his plan earlier that morning, and it was late into the evening now. The light of the moon was cold and unforgiving above her, unimpeded by the clouds, and the only sound for miles was that of oars smacking against the surf. Beyond the moon a million stars danced in the black sky. How could such a picturesque evening feel so sinister?

“You worry for her.” Qarl said quietly. He sounded surprised, and she could detect the slightest edge of disapproval in his tone. Just what he was currently disapproving of she wasn’t sure; it felt like she’d done everything wrong lately.

A huff of silent laughter rolled past her lips and shook her shoulders. With a half grin and a sideways glance she asked, “Are you jealous?”

It was cruel. She knew that it was the second she’d said it. Her words were a barb that sliced like a blade into a still open wound. They’d scarcely spoken since her wedding, and when they had spoken it certainly hadn’t been about her wife. It hadn’t been said, but neither of them knew how to reconcile the relationship they’d had before it’d happened, or even if they should try. She’d brought that painful reality out from the shadows and into the light with one careless sentence.

“How do you think the witches will respond when they help win me a crown paid for with the blood of their own?” In truth she wasn’t sure what her wife was to the witches. She held some station, by birthright as well as something to do with their religion, but that was the extent of her own knowledge on the subject. What she did understand, quite clearly, was that their marriage had been arranged to symbolize a promise to the witches. Beck was a breathing symbol of their alliance, and if Asha neglected or failed her wife, she failed them all. The witch king had given her this warning himself… and he did not seem to her to be the forgiving type. Asha shook her head. “If we manage to defeat Euron and she dies, we’ll be lucky if the witches with us now don’t all turn on us. Their king wouldn’t forgive that.”

Qarl was quiet, sullenly watching the waves. She couldn’t tell if he was mulling over what she’d said or covering up some unsightly emotion, or not paying attention at all.

“But you worry over her.” He said finally. This time she could her anger straining his voice.

“…I do.” She said after a long, tense moment had passed. Though she didn’t let herself dwell on that thought. The more she did the sicker she got. It was preferable to focus on the threats of the witches rather than the crushing guilt and bizarre sense of sadness that overwhelmed her when she thought about what Euron might do to her wife. Beck was vibrant and joyful and warm and—soft. She’d stand no chance against ironmen. If that light was snuffed out beneath her uncle’s boot, she’d never put it out of her mind. At least she doubted she would live long enough to let that guilt consume her.

“What the hell is that?” Asha opened her eyes and turned back to Qarl, but her gaze didn’t linger on him long. Behind him, against the midnight blue sky, a luminous orange cloud of mist was resting over the waters. At first she thought it was smoke, and that deep within the heart of a smog her ships were burning, but as they drew closer she could see it wasn’t smoke at all.

“Go and get Cuyler.” She demanded, sending Qarl a cutting look. Cuyler was the only witch left on her ship. There was little need for strategy and war council now. They hadn’t the time. Their only hope was to hit Euron hard and fast with everything they had and pray to the Drowned God for favor. Or—whatever witches prayed to.

Qarl all but ran across the ship, and Asha’s gaze drifted from him to her sailors, who had all stopped to gape open-mouthed at the enormous cloud beyond them. Wordlessly they began to brace the sails and tie down anything loose for fear they were headed straight into the eye of a storm. Was it terror or excitement she saw in their eyes? Perhaps both. Should they die here in battle not a one would be turned away from the halls of the Drowned God.

Unless he forsakes us all. She thought. The Damphair had preached many a sermon about not spilling Ironborn blood. While most of the blood would likely be spilled by her allies, they did so in her name, and she’d be a fool to let herself think she’d get through the night without having to strike down any of her own.

all for a crown… She shook her head as she turned back to the problem at hand. more than just a crown now. my birthright has driven me here, perhaps, but now it has become so much more.

This war was its own beast now, with its own life. When her uncle had sounded the dragon horn that day, he’s blown life into its lungs. Tonight she would slay it and him in one fell swoop, and in doing so it would save her people from ruin. Ruin that could only come from serving under a man who cared only for his own whims.

“The ships!” Asha startled a bit, having been so deeply lost in her own thoughts she hadn’t heard anyone approach. Culyer was standing behind her, fast approaching the railing of the ship. His thick, scarred hands gripped at the sodden wood, and he smiled for the first time since she’d met him.

“Ships? I don’t see any damn ships. Only that fog.” She jerked her head in the direction of the mist, but the witch only stared ahead.

“What fog, good queen?” He asked, not bothering to turn to face her. Though he did have the decency to drop the smile from his face given her tone.

“What fog?” She replied, her words hard and mocking, then she stopped and considered him. “What do you see?”

“Not but moonlight.”

Qarl cut in with a small, humorless laugh. “No giant cloud of orange mist?”

Cuyler, who Asha was certain at this point didn’t even remotely understand the concept of a joke at all, only looked at him as if he were the greatest idiot to ever sail the seas. “I see… Stop your ships. Drop anchor.”

“drop the anchor?” She was starting to feel like a parrot she was repeating so much. Only that time it hadn’t been on purpose. She was genuinely shocked that he thought it’d do them any good to stop when the enemy was in sight—well in his sight at least.

“If you can see a mist where I can not the other witches must have surrounded your uncle’s boats in this mist to protect themselves.”

“Do you think all of your people can see through it?”

“Aye, and likely your uncle’s wizard as well.” The witch peered back out into the distance, and she watched as the pupil of his eye grew to twice the size, and his eyes, as well as his tattoos took on a faint glow. “Most of his ships are still far from our own; all but one.”

He didn’t need to tell her which one it was.

“If the witches who spread the fog can keep up the spell, we can take but one or two ships onward and cut down this Crow’s Eye. After our retreat we can drown all that remain.”

Asha took a brief moment to think. The swirling mist seemed to be reaching out to them now, when they’d felt miles away only a few moments ago. It was barely half a league from them now.

“Send someone to Victarion’s ship to help him navigate the fog. Have the rest of the fleet drop anchor. Bring the witch leaders here to me.”

Cuyler’s grin grew to something truly enormous and sharp and altogether horrific, “To battle then!”

Her eyes lost focus of him for a moment, even though she tried her damnedest to watch him closely. There was a blur, either in her eye or in the very space where he stood, his body contorted, colors smeared across reality as if drawn by a thick brush of paint, and then flapping two mammoth wings in the air directly before her, an eagle appeared where Cuyler had stood. The dark golden brown of its feathers muddled with creamy ivory around its head, and its tail was as white as the sea foam. He was larger than her, larger than Qarl, with claws that could have pierced a suit of iron with but a twitch. The razor sharp beak rose to the sky, and he screamed out over the waters so loud that the sound overwhelmed all her senses and carried as far as the sea was long. The shrill, grating note struck inside her like lightning, then with a single flap of his wings, he shot into the sky and soared out toward the awaiting ships.

Their short journey toward the mist passed in the blink of an eye, and when the very tip of the prow reached out to touch it, the entire ship lurched. Behind her she heard a chorus of shouts as men braced themselves while the Black Wind came to a screeching halt. The vessel pitched forward, its tip bending down to nearly kiss the waves, and then like an angry stallion it reared back up and threw its weight forward obstinately.

“Lift the oars! Pull them in!” She demanded, unable to release the rope clutched in her fingers lest she be pitched over the rail. The rough fiber clawed at her skin and chased away the normal chill of the sea to replace it with a raw, uncomfortable warmth. The bones of her fingers dug in harder, and she braced her boots against the deck as the residual motion rocked her ship like a child’s toy. When it was only just under control, she called the oarsmen to get back to work.

Asha took a steadying breath and then hurled herself toward the mast. Another rope found its way into her hand as she helped two other men grapple with the rebellious sails.

Eerily, it was not that the wind howled around them, nor that the waters below were wild, that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. There was a gut piercing, blood chilling silence to the world around them. She could scarcely see ten feet in front of her, and the mist seemed to suck sound from the air around them.

“Láta!” Came the cry of Ragna, but it was small and far away. Another voice echoed the word, and again and again. Láta. Láta. Until she could see the mist in front of her part, rolling like massive waves wide enough to allow them passage. The air rushed back into her lungs, and beneath her the ship settled.

“They’ve resorted to blood magic.” The red-eyed woman said. “Death drives this spell.”

Somehow she’d appeared at the front of her ship without Asha noticing her at all, and the other witches were fast approaching too. Now their voices were whispers, but in their hands they each clasped long iron wands in white-knuckled grasps, repeating láta, láta, over and over, keeping the mist from touching the ship, pulling more away from the cloud foot by foot.

There were shadows of ships in the smog on either side of the boat. Euron’s fleet couldn’t hope to move forward as their own vessels fought them. She watched in horror and astonishment as they lurched and toiled desperately on the still sea. And then she saw it, illuminated by a long stretch of moonlight, with mist lifting off its red hull and black sails; the Silence stopped its frantic rocking as the curtain of smoke pulled away. The ship swayed side to side like a drunk, spinning laboriously until finally it settled on the sea once more. They were closer now, nearly to the ship, and the soft light from the curling mist was just enough to see by. Through the long, narrow eye of her spyglass she could see that it was empty. Completely and utterly abandoned. Not even a shadow lingered on the deck.

Beyond Euron’s prized vessel, she watched the cloud forcibly tear in two around the floating fortress that was one of her treasure ships. It existed in a large bubble, sitting quietly beneath the starry sky, unplagued by the spell that had beset her uncle’s fleet.

“Is that his?” Harper demanded from her side. Asha took the spyglass away from her eye and gave a grim nod, but the Fox was not looking at her. Her rage was thinly veiled, and the effort that it took to contain it turned her soft face to stone. She was not panting, not audibly, but her chest heaved subtly. Was it fear? Excitement? Stress from fighting through the spell?

“Aye. That’s it.” Was Asha’s only reply.

The Fox needed nothing else. Her dark, predatory eyes shifted to the sky where the monstrous eagles circled above his masts, the tips of their wings dipping in and out of the mist like the fins on a shark.

“Let. It. Burn!”

The night sky blazed to life as the wings of the eagles burst into flames as gold as the autumn sunset. Speckles of blinding white glittered throughout the metallic flames; the frayed, toiling edges tore to reveal the ebony sky behind them, only to sew themselves together once more a heartbeat later; spears of crimson bled out against the golden field, staining everything it touched in shades of blood-spattered pink and burnt orange as they shot through the fire. The fire did not burn Euron’s ship so much as it consumed it. Like a pack of wild dogs rabidly tears apart and scarfs down its prey, the flames stripped the sails, broke open the masts, splintering them in all directions, and tore the planks apart board by board until there was nothing but embers and ash laying on the black water. She had never witnessed wildfire with her own eyes, but she imagined it looked just as unnatural as this. With a final roar and a sky shaking boom, the Silence died. What little remained sank down to the depths below, and for a time even the water glowed, as the sheer savage fury of the witches kept the flames alive even against the laws of the ocean itself.

The Black Wind glided effortlessly over where her uncle’s ship had been, and she tasted blood in her mouth.

Drawn by the violent display she saw men appear on the deck of the witches’ ship only just out of her reach. Euron’s men drew bows and took aiming, first at her ship, and then, upon seeing the flaming beasts in the sky, up to the air. Once more the eagles were descending, their beating wings dancing with fire. They were met the hail storm of arrows as they dove and three of them dropped with pained screeches into the sea below. Another spiraled and rolled along the deck of the ship, met with a spear before it could try and get to its feet. But those that remained swooped down on Euron’s men. They took grown men in their grasp, setting their talons straight into their chests effortlessly.

Her axe was wetted as soon as her feet hit the deck. Another wave of men emerged onto the lower deck and made their charge. Her arm swung, digging her blade into a short man’s shoulder. He gasped and drew back to strike her, but she slipped out of the way and brought her axe down on the back of his neck as he stumbled. A sharp pain erupted at the base of her spine, and she heard her back pop. She hit the railing of the deck and turned to face her assailant, gasping for the air that had been ripped from her. A sword shot out from his chest and the man choked and spasmed; blood sputtered out of his lips, hot and wet, and splattered along her cheek. The sword withdrew as the man fell, and Qarl smiled sadistically as the blood only smeared on her pale flesh when she went to wipe it away.

“Duck you bumbling fool!” She demanded, her hand not hesitating as she hurled a throwing axe toward Qarl. He was quick enough to step out of the way, but so was the man behind him. Her axe was blown aside by his shield, but the moment’s distraction was enough that Qarl could land a blow to his exposed leg. The man had no sooner hit the deck than her boot crashed against his face with a satisfying crack. Around her the flood of men pouring onto the ship were swiftly driving back Euron’s small force. But she knew he wasn’t fool enough to waste all of his resources here on the lower deck. This was merely a distraction while he readied himself.

“Where are the witches?” She had to holler over the chaos around her. Now Victarion’s ship was docking, and the bloodthirsty shouts of battle hungry men drowned out the sounds of everything else. Asha kicked the man again, accidentally catching him at the base of his throat. He gagged and coughed, slobbering piteously on the sea-soaked wood, and her patience dissolved before he could recover. She wrenched the axe from his shaking hand and hefted it down into the back of his skull.

“Where are my witches?!” She roared above the crowd. Those who had captives still yet breathing momentarily paused in their assault to parrot her question, but it was one of the eagles that answered.

“The wizard and the Crow’s Eye are on the main deck.” The words echoed not in the air, but in her thoughts. “But there are no witches. None alive at least.”

Asha shot a look to Qarl, but as far as she could tell by the wary expressions on the faces of every man on the boat, no one else had heard. She looked to the eagles as they circled in the sky above.

Was this some sort of grand farce? Was Euron baiting her? Now instead of blood it was bile on her tongue. Where was her wife? Why couldn’t one damn person tell her where her fucking wife was? She looked up at the ship’s sails again, thinking perhaps she’d seen wrong; perhaps this wasn’t the Fox Clan’s ship. But in the dim light of the mist and the moon, she could see the silhouette of the fox straining against the wind.

“Ragna and I take will take a force below deck!” The Seal King panted. For the first time he was devoid of his atrocious coat. He pointed with the spear in his hand to the shrouded doorway. “The lower decks are the hardest to breech. Those that could hide would have done it there.”

The Badger was practically unrecognizable under her sheen of shattered glass and blood that seemed to pulse and fog along her once-pale skin. Her black eyes gleamed malevolently as she shot a glance in her direction, and then she followed the Seal.

“Tell your eagles to hold back and stay out of range for now.” She said to the Fox. “We’ll need them to drive Euron’s men back from the entrance to the main deck.”

The witch nodded, and after a flurry of heated words, Asha reluctantly agreed to follow behind on their way to the main deck. This was her fight, she was the one who had everything at stake, and she more than anyone needed to see if her wife was among the corpses littering the ship’s floor, but even she conceded that the greatest risk fell on those who stepped over the threshold first. But she did not want for brave men ready to meet the Drowned God, either.

The halls inside the ship were so dark that if she’d have let go of the wall she’d have wandered off into the shadows and lost herself in a second. Not even the lone torch that one of her men carried could cast light enough to fill more than a small halo around him. Without her sight, she could only feel; she could only hear and smell. And she did her best not to focus on the smell, as that the stench of blood was so thick in the room that it clogged her nose with each breath. The waves were quiet this far below the surface, but the walls creaked and groaned steadily as the ocean pressed in against them. Apart from that, all she could hear were the careful footsteps and choppy breaths of her men, occasionally interrupted by the head of the line stumbling, swearing, and then calling out for the rest of them to step over the body in the way. Each corpse she crossed she stared at twice as long as she needed to, never stopping, but always needing to be absolutely sure that the lifeless face was not that of her wife. It didn’t do her any good in the dark, and as the minutes dragged on her dread and her anger only grew.  

What few men Ragna and the Seal King had not disposed of were quickly felled by her front lines. They lost one by the time they reached the narrow staircase leading to the main deck, and that was she best she could have hoped for.

“He’s waiting for us.” Victarion said over his hulking shoulder. Even he preceded her, much to her annoyance, but he did stand a better chance against the initial assault in all his armor. He took up so much space his shoulders nearly scraped the sides of the hall as he walked, and in his ironclad boots his footsteps were about as subtle as a newly shod yearling on cobblestones. He was exhausting even when he was being helpful. They’d come to an agreement, yes, but she still couldn’t help but wish he wouldn’t make it back to the mainland. It’d save her a lot of headaches in the long run—and they’d never had much love for each other.

“He’s got the advantage. He’ll wait forever if we let him.” She said; her hand came to rest on the hook of her axe.

She felt a soft, slender figure slip past her and threw a questioning look over her shoulder to see Harper squeezing into the space in front of her as best she could.

“We’re going to ram the boat.” She whispered. Bracing herself against the wall in between Asha and her uncle. The proximity to the Fox was making Asha uncomfortable. So close to the battle Asha would have thought she’d seen fear or rage reflected in her eyes or at least a thread of tension in her voice, but her gaze was still cold and calculating, and when she spoke the words were steady. Asha didn’t feel right looking at something so pragmatic and emotionless, especially not when her rage and her worry were at war within her own chest.

Harper briefly glanced over her shoulder, then turned back to the queen once more. “With any luck it’ll knock some of his men off balance. Give the eagles a chance to come down without any arrows flying. The second you see the flames, charge. With any luck we’ll catch the bastards with their breeches ‘round their knees.”

She was unaccustomed to this much—planning in an open water battle, otherwise she might have objected to everyone else doing the planning for her. That was magic, she supposed. Even when there were no options in sight, it gave you some.

No sooner had she braced against the wall then she felt the ship pitch backward with such a force that even those who had prepared themselves could be heard stumbling behind her. Whatever had hit the boat, if it’d been anything at all, surely hadn’t been another ship. It’d come from beneath the vessel. Visions from her dreams flew through her head, flashes of great leviathans and krakens the size of a longship, but she did not have time to dwell on them. Ahead she heard the commotion of Euron’s men shouting in alarm, and then the piercing scream of eagles beneath the roar of a fire as light flooded the top of the staircase.

Asha took three breaths, trying to memorize and anticipate the residual rocking of the ship beneath her feet, and then she charge forward with the rest of them, up into the blinding white light of the deck, her axe clutched firmly in hand.

At first she could see only shadows, blurry and distorted amid the intense flames of the fire. Great, hulking shadows hovering in the air, and the mad, flailing silhouettes of men waving their swords indiscriminately. The fire began to dwindle and fade, unable to catch hold of the deck of the ship. To her left three men leaped onto the back of one of the great beasts, thrusting their swords into its hide and hanging onto them for dear life as the creature flapped and screamed. Ultimately it fell and the light faded even more. One by one the eagles were either forced to flee or were slain, but by the time Euron’s men made a decent recovery, a small force of her own was already charging, with more filing out of the hall at every moment.

“Guard the entrance!” She demanded, looking to Harper, who had somehow managed to split open the throats of three charging men by simply pointing her wand at them, and Victarion who was removing his war axe from the gut of a sputtering corpse. If Euron’s men managed to gain back the entrance to the lower deck, they’d have no reinforcements and be done for in minutes. Neither of them looked at her, but they stayed near the door as the rest of them made their charge.

An axe flew in her direction, and in one deft motion she took it up in her own hand and hefted it back at the man rushing her. It caught him in the eye and sent him spiralling past her onto the blade of one of her men. Qarl. He was still right at her back. Asha spared him only a glance before pushing further into the fray. She plunged her axe into the next man’s throat, and ripped it out only to swing it into the side of another. His sword hand raised and crashed against her chin, hard. She spat blood, the taste of it filling her mouth with copper and her chest with a boiling rage. A cry of fury was strangled from her chest as she swung her axe down on the back of his neck, almost cutting it clean from his shoulders. More blood sprayed, making her grip on her blade hot and wet, and in spite of herself she smiled.

As she jerked it free she straightened herself and wildly searched the deck for the Crow’s Eye. Her eyes frantically dragged across the blood red sea of people. She saw Victarion crash two men’s head together in a way that might have been comical if the skulls hadn’t split and their brains hadn’t bubbled out the side like a bit of spilled stew. Her gaze didn’t linger. She didn’t care. Qarl was splitting open a man’s gut, and still she looked on. A serpent the size of ten men was coiled around Euron’s wizard, forcing its mouth over his shoulders and swallowing him alive. Still she tore her eyes away until she found him, looming above the battle on the upper deck like a coward. He was watching her.

She blindly cut her way through the crowd, unaware if she was killing men or simply taking them to their knees. She couldn’t avoid every swing of their axes or thrusts of their swords, but she barely felt the sting of any blade that split her skin. Every prickle of pain only served to strengthen the bitter taste of fury and bloodlust on her tongue.

And then something felt wrong. Her back felt naked—exposed—and as she ripped her eyes away from her uncle, reality came back to her. Qarl. She couldn’t see him now. He wasn’t at her back, nor her side, nor even fighting on ahead to bait her. Every face she looked on was wrong. Each pair of eyes belonged to someone she cared nothing for.

Her wild eyes landed two figures, one slumped over the other, but shaking with thunderous laughter. Like that same laughter from her dream. Mad and wild, trembling in the air and drowning out all other sound. Like a red hot sword plunged into ice water, she felt her fury immediately harden and turn to piercing fear. She slammed the blade of her axe down between the figure’s shoulders, watching the flesh split and his body jerk. Still he laughed and laughed, and the cold terror felt like mania inside her now. She struck again and again, screaming raggedly to overwhelm the sound of his laughter. Even once he was dead and silent, she hit him three more times before ripping his body away.

Qarl.

She might have wretched. She might have fainted. What miraculous force kept her from doing either she didn’t know, but she could not stop herself from falling to her knees.

He stared back at her with wide, glassy eyes. Neither alive nor dead, caught in the agonizing limbo between the two. His hands were clutching his side uselessly. From the gaping wound she could see his entrails snaking out onto the deck of the ship. He began to cough, blood bubbling up from his lips, and she caught his head in her hands as her axe clattered to the deck.

“Qarl!” Her voice was far from gentle, far from loving, and she couldn’t force any softness upon it. Even in her grief there were only sharp edges and hard demands to offer this man that she loved… but he looked at her. By some merciful twist of fate, her words brought him back to her. Those dark eyes met hers. His mouth gaped open and then closed, and she could not tell if he meant to speak or if he was only desperate for breath. She kept his gaze, feeling tears welling in her own eyes, feeling a thousand apologies and confessions gather on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t afford to cry for him now. A trembling hand pressed against the nape of her neck, and he weakly pulled her forward. She met his lips in a desperate kiss, as if she might give him some of her own life, and she held him to her until the hand in her hair went limp and fell away. Against her lips she felt him smile, and she pulled away long enough to watch the last glint of life fade from his eyes.

Dead. He was dead. She had loved no one else. She had trusted no one else. Not as a woman, at least. She had loved her mother as a ghost, she had loved her lord father as wish, and she had loved her brothers as corpses, but Qarl she had loved as the man he was. He had been real and tangible… and Euron had taken him from her.

[xparadisexlostx]

Adventure is out There:

I was a little stuck so I asked @kruisms for a drabble prompt. This is the monster that birthed.

Traveling from Polis to Tondc was not enough for her son. Traveling with the group was “boring.” They were too slow and they scared off all the wildlife and his mothers refused to let him ride his own horse such a long distance, despite his incredibly grown-up age of six years old. It was funny, really. A few years ago Beck herself had had a very similar string of complaints. Over time she’d learn to endure the ever looming presence of her appointed guards with a roll of her eyes. She didn’t even try to evade them anymore. Then again, being the mother of two rambunctious ten year old girls and a fearless six year old boy, most of her time was spent making sure no one managed to evade her watchful gaze.

Torin kept an astounding pace for being less than a foot tall and weighing little more than a fat peach. He trotted relentlessly ever forward into the wilderness without a single clue as to where in the hell he was going. Beck followed dutifully, watching the fluffy white snake of his tail bob up and down and side to side as he went along. It wasn’t about where they were going, she knew that. It was all about the journey. It was getting there; it was getting out. It was—living. Beck had grown up at the mercy of the siren’s song of the wilderness—of the whole world being right over the next ridge, right at her finger tips. When footsteps and heartbeats could change your entire world in a matter of days, it was almost a sin to stay stagnant.

It was nice to get out again… though she did feel guilt tugging at her gut, telling her to go home; Lexa was going to be furious.

“Mother look!” Her son’s voice reverberating at an astounding volume in her head immediately sucked her out of her thoughts and into the moment.

“Torin we talked about volume.” She chided. The tips of her ears smacked loudly against the side of her head as she shook from tip to tail. When she was finished she loped a few paces to stand beside her son on the top of a small hill. “Don’t push the magic, let it in and out; just like breathing. Only you tell it where and how it comes out.”

Her son looked at her through eyes as rich and deep as the earth, layered with a thousand questions which were each in turn intersected by stubbornness, offense, and stratums of good sense. He was all at once offended he’d been chided, confused as to where he’d went wrong, doubtful of her criticisms, and curious as to what had happened (because he hadn’t really been paying attention), all while brimming with bubbly eagerness to get it right.

It was a common misconception that magic took a lot of tedious instruction and fanciful equipment. Magic was a natural force in the world and the people that interacted with it could feel and see it just as plainly as one saw a river. Give a child a few simple instructions, and eventually prompted by thirst and the sheer nature of curious youth, they would come to several solutions for “how to get water into my mouth without drowning.” The variables for just how many solutions a child might find being age, encouragement, an enriched environment, and a heaping dose of sense. Magic was no different. Every witch more or less found their own way in life. Even witches that specialized in different types of magic like pyromancy or divination, weren’t really taught. Not in the way the non-magical folks believed. Teachers were there to encourage, to offer new points of view or remind children of things they’ve already learned, to refocus, and to instill good morals and a strong sense of character. They motivated and reprimanded, but all in all, children—and people really—all had to figure out the world for themselves. In the end, it was just a simple fact that people learned better when they figured out things themselves.

And sure enough, her son didn’t fail to find a solution that the both of them could be happy about—putting enough emphasis on the thoughts to show just how important they were, and after some pitchy volume adjustment, found a noise level that wouldn’t burst the blood vessels in his mother’s head.

“Look!” He repeated; his tail whipping madly behind him. “Look! Look! I found a hole!”

Beck followed the point of her son’s nose. Down the hill, a dirt encrusted sidewalk splintered by thick tufts of grass and eroded by rain, wound past a faded, half-burned sign and a dilapidated building. The building, once made of pristine white spackle and bright red brick, had faded to a wet, moldy brown around the mud-soaked edges, and a sad smattering of grey lines and  dull, depressing hunks of wine red. It had, at one time, been fitted to outline the entrance to an enormous black entrance to a cave. The kind of cave large enough for people; where sightseers would have flocked to on lazy afternoon not for shade or shelter, but because they had nothing better to do. Now, after years of abuse from the elements, the structure didn’t outline the cave, but almost sunk into it. As if the huge black pit in the distance was the mouth of an enormous monster, and the buildings were being sucked in to be devoured. Fang like stalactites were poised along the roof of the mouth, and as they drew closer, the glint of water from the recent rain rolling down the smooth rock looked like saliva.

True to his nature—which, if Beck were being honest with herself was also her nature—Torin saw nothing concerning about the cavern at all. Without asking for permission, and not caring at all if his mother opted to join him or not, he raced forward and leaped into darkness. Beck was hot on his furry little heels, tearing up the rest of the path with her claws raking noisily along the remnants of the sidewalk and whipping through the overgrown.

She wasn’t unfamiliar with caves, back home she’d squeezed herself into many a barren hole in the rocks to rest for the night when weather demanded, but never in her life had she seen anything like the sprawling cavern before her. Stalactites grow by the thousands under smooth, umbrella tops and in waterfall streams from the ceiling. Their counterparts rose and bubbled out of the floor and stretched toward the roof of the cave like small children reaching for their mothers. A still body of water snaked throughout the floor and the distant blip blip of singular water droplets falling into it sang in the distance.

Seeing as her son wasn’t very good at casting in his fox form, Beck took the liberty of illuminating the water below with a silvery light. Foxes could see quite well in the dark, but Beck wanted to take in the entirety of the cave without straining.

A little whine escaped her son’s mouth. He was dancing from one front paw to the other and twitching his jaws open and shut fractionally in his excitement. Each little breath puffed up his ribs and huffed out with unnecessary force and speed. Tick tick tick tick, tick tick tick tick; his claws clacked noisily against the rock, much to the displeasure of the very things that were causing his excitement. Several little creatures, mostly toads and something that looked like small turtles, scattered wildly at the intrusive light. A highly annoyed cluster of bats shuffled their feet along the ceiling and moodily wrapped their leathery wings around themselves ever tighter while they eyed the intruders with complete contempt; like grump teenagers refusing to get out of bed. One particularly perturbed creature took off in flight, and upon seeing the shadowy being flutter through the air, her son began to yowl in anticipation and bolted after him.

“This! This this!” He wasn’t very good at forming sentences in this form either. Instinct bridled his tongue. He jumped and made a horrible racket that echoed through the cave. Beck focused on one of the tiny creatures above and coaxed it sweetly with a soundless stare. After a huff, it glided down to hunker between her front paws. Torin didn’t miss this. He scurried over little hills and around stalagmites and skidded to a stop in front of her feet. He stared at the tiny creature, both of them motionless; their eyes were locked in a mutual questioning stare. Feeling confident in herself and her son, she stepped back away from the helpless creature.

Not two seconds later, her son had devoured it in an unsettling show of flapping wings, snapping jaws, and the cracking of little bones like dry twigs underfoot… perhaps she’d been too confident. Torin smacked his tongue and audibly gulped in the aftermath of his meal, then looked at his mother in both pride and confusion.

“Did I—eat?” He asked innocently. Beck wasn’t sure if he didn’t finish his sentence because he didn’t know how, or if he’d trailed off because he didn’t know what he’d eaten.

“Bat, Torin. Those are bats.” She explained once the shock had run off. She crushed the tingling feeling of guilt inspired by betraying the trust of a creature she’d charmed by letting it be violently consumed. It was all natural, even if it was a bit unfair. Beck laid down and crossed one paw over the other. “Did it taste good?”

Another wet smack of the jaws, only this time it was more decisive. The kit finally nodded in approval and Beck laughed to herself. Upon seeing that his mother wasn’t about to chastise him for his mistake, he hopped over to her and flopped down on top of her. She felt her ear held gently between his needle like teeth, and then an insistent tug. Beck flipped herself over, and with a splash, her son was plunged into the water. Excited and indignant, he clambered up the side of the rock and out of the stream, before charging to attack again.

The better part of the next two hours was spent with Torin attempting to shove his mother into the water, and Beck trying to pin her wiggly son down. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring every crack and crevice of the caves. She proudly only had to rescue her son out of two tight spaces. By the end of it, there wasn’t an inch left unexplored or, to the misfortune of the local fauna, a bite sized beast left untasted.

They slept beneath the stars that night, in a flower field not far from the caves. Her son’s white fur shone gently in the pale glow of the moon as he snuggled against her as tightly as he could in a little ball. He detested being held under most circumstances, but slept best if one of his mothers at on the side of his bed as drifted off. Beck dutifully watched the night around them until the moon faded and the sun tinged the sky with pink.

The next day, after a long walk, they found their way to the sea, where Torin finally turned back into a young boy and helped his mother fish for breakfast. That evening he giggled with delight as they cracked open the shells of mussels and slurped raw oysters. He found two minuscule pearls, which he insisted his mother guard with her life before running off for an evening swim. Beck abided him with a little laugh.

It was much of the same for week and a half. Thankfully she’d had on her gathering apron and enchanted pouch when she’d shifted to chase after her son, and each dutifully reappeared every time she became human once more, because during their time on the road, her son found a host of items that were all essential to his future happiness and he’d refused to go on without them. But they didn’t just wander aimlessly or without purpose. During their stint in the wild she taught Torin how to start a fire manually and, in case of wet or stubborn wood, by magic, shown him three different ways to eat off of a pine tree, taught him how to successfully discern which mushrooms were safe for eating and which should be avoided, and instructed him on how to navigate by the stars so he wouldn’t be lost. The weather was mostly agreeable and she’d never seen her son so invigorated. Beck counted the trip as a success.

But they had to go back. Lexa was likely sick with worry and might just strangle her upon her arrival in camp. At the least they wouldn’t talk for days. Gods how she hated the silent treatment. It wasn’t that Torin didn’t miss his nomon or his sisters or even the comfort of a warm bed, but the thrill of adventure was usually enough to make him forget anything unpleasant. Beck had made sure to work him hard the last two days, and had cleverly turned him around in the direction of Tondc once more. By the time she’d told him they were going home, he didn’t even pout.

“‘Nother adventure later?” He asked hopefully, his mouth full of a disgusting combination of nuts and berries that Beck didn’t imagine tasted good at all. A large mouthful, one so big that he winced as he gulped it down.

She took his little hand in her own and laughed, “I’m sure we will.”

[xparadisexlostx]

@onlyashymaid idk if this is what you were expecting when I said drabble because honestly this wasn’t what I was expecting to write but this is what came out so…

As to what she was expecting when she married a witch, Asha wasn’t sure. She’d heard tales of witches from her mother as a young girl, all of which seemed like ridiculous superstition now that she’d actually become acquainted with several witches. Her new wife didn’t spend her evenings mumbling incantations or sacrificing animals to horned gods and in fact if Beck had performed any spells at all, Asha had not been aware of it. The only notable differences between Beck and anyone else she’d ever met was the woman’s unnatural boldness and her great love for all of the natural world.

Getting Beck to come inside was something of a miracle in and of itself. And once she was inside, she seemed incredibly uncomfortable; she’d nervously glance around the ship’s cabin or drum her fingers anxiously on her leg beneath the table when she thought Asha wasn’t looking. All the while, her wild eyes would be restlessly scanning the room. Theon had suggested she was simply disinterested and looking for entertainment, Asha herself could not shake the feeling that she was looking for an exit.

Often she’d wake to find herself alone in the bed and the times when she would pursue her wild wife, she would arrive on the deck only to find Beck was gone entirely. Her disappearance had incited a mass panic the first time but Beck reappeared in their bed before dawn broke—somehow.

Asha gripped the hand rail leading up from her cabin to the deck of the ship. She’d woken to find her wife had abandoned her once again and remembering just how cold it had been when she’d retired, resigned herself to go and collect her wandering wife before she caught a chill. Did witches get sick? She wondered, only to quickly come to the revelation that she didn’t want to find out.

The wind on the deck was frigid and each burst cut clean through skin and flesh down to bone. Asha winced, ducked back into the hall for a moment, and then pressed out into the night once more. The air was filled with a salty mist that tickled along her lashes and settled on her cheeks. With every breath in she could taste a hint of saltiness along her tongue. It was a familiar, pleasant taste.

To her relief, she spotted Beck immediately. She was sitting with her legs curled around the side of the boat at the bow of the ship and beside her, the thick grey fur of her massive, ragged dog looked pale and shone in the light of the moon. There were only two crewmen on deck and both of them were at the wheel. Each man diverted his watchful, curious gaze when they saw their captain approach the young witch. The dog jerked his head around instantly to watch Asha’s approach, silently swaying his tail in greeting.

“You’ll freeze out here.” Asha said, doing her best to sound playful rather than firm, “What would your king say if you were frozen solid before we ever made port.”

Beck snorted. “He’s my brother, not my king. And I don’t imagine he’d say anything—he’d just try and kill you… Then again, he knows how I am. You could blame it on how impossibly stubborn I am.”

“Come inside.” Whatever quick witted words Asha might have offered at any other time turned to a stern demand in the face of a cold wind that hit her skin like a whip. She heard the sail snap and flap behind her, and the groaning of sea-sogged ropes as they strained to stay in position. From up close she could see her wife’s cheeks had been tinged with pink and that her arms were perpetually crossed to hide her bare fingers from the bite of the wind. Asha herself could already feel her own limbs begin to groan beneath the weight of the night air. She reached out an arm anyway and caught Beck around her waist to lead her back to bed; the witch didn’t move. Her wide eyes were fixated on the rolling tumultuous waves below. Asha almost wondered if she was considering leaping from the boat altogether. In this cold it would mean certain death. Once more she tugged on her wife’s waist and once more the stubborn witch clamped her thighs over the side of the boat and refused to be moved.

“Beck I-”

“Do you hear them?” She whispered. For a moment her eyes left the water to meet Asha’s own confused gaze. There was wonderment and curiosity brimming in her eyes; the feelings spilled out from her in just a second’s glance and Asha felt them rushing over her like a relentless current. She was drowned in the sentastion, instantly blown adrift. She was suddenly acutely aware of the sound of the waves, a sound she was so used to she often ignored, and she felt the mist clinging to her lips, to her skin, every tiny chilling bead of salt water as is settled on her body. The cold no longer stunned her but settled into her flesh, and Asha couldn’t remember a time when it had not been there—even if only moments ago it had not been. The boat rocked them in perfect rhythm with the ocean below and she realized just how in tune with that motion her own body was. Every twitch of a muscle, every rock of her weight, was perfectly in sync with the vessel and likewise, the ocean below. Years on the sea had taught her as much.

“Do you know them?” She asked, her eyes drifting back to the water below. In the silver edges of the waves her eyes caught a glimpse of something and Asha stepped ever closer to the side of the ship and peered deep into the sea.

“They know you. They know your ships, they know your blood… your souls.”

In the black ocean and its pale tipped waves a faint light began to grow. In one breath it was dim and distant, like a star on a smoggy eve. By the time she drew a second breath, the light had grown tenfold; a halo shimmering and reflecting the light of the moon and at its heart was a black pit the size of Asha’s head, perhaps even larger. Asha blinked to clear the mist from her vision.

It was an eye. An enormous, unblinking eye that was staring up at her from the depths. It was easily the largest eye she’d ever seen. The creature staring at her was so large that when Asha peered down its length to its head, or into the distance towards its tail, she could not see its end. Long tentacles caressed the splashing waves, they explored the sides of her ship, and they danced in the shadowed depths below the beast. It’s skin was red as blood in one moment and white as a ghost in the next and it took a moment to realize that it was no trick of light which deceived her eyes, but something purposeful, something meant to be seen.

She could not be certain if she was sick or excited. Every bit of her body trembled, and every moment she wondered when she would awaken from this bizarre dream. Only once in her life could she ever remember being overwhelmed before, and it had been an entirely different feeling from what stirred with her now.

“Did you—tell it to come here?” Her words were breathy and quiet.

“Her.” Beck said. “And I did not tell her anything. In the nights, the deep waters sing and I do not sleep. Tonight, I answered the song. I called to her as she calls to the ships, to the waters, to anything that might hear.”

“You can do that?” Asha wished she could have brought herself to look at Beck, but she did not dare let her eye wander from the beast below. She wanted to see with her eyes, to know that Beck was wore no trace of a lie on her face, but she did not look.

“I am a witch. What do you think that means?”

She had—absolutely no idea. The witches were largely a mystery to her. Asha could not have fathomed that such a small, unassuming woman could call up a kraken from the depths of the sea. The magic she had seen from Beck’s people before had all been petty, miscellaneous tasks like tying a rope or levitating a bucket. Impressive but ordinary. Anyone could have merely tied the knot by hand or picked up the bucket on their arm. And Asha had not even seen Beck perform such menial displays of magic.

“Look.” At first Asha did not obey, but a faint light caught her eye and she looked to Beck, holding a little golden sphere in her palm. She held it out over the side of the boat and dropped it into the water. Like a torch being struck and illuminating a room, the ocean  was flooded with a yellow glow. The illumination revealed not only the size of the beast below, but a hundred–perhaps even two or three hundred– smaller, similar shapes. Each was at least the size of a fishing vessel, and flew gracefully through the water with fleshy wings.

Men were shouting. Asha raised her head to see the fleet springing to life as the word spread like wildfire. People yelled as though they were seeing the face of the Drowned God himself. The witches emerged on their ships as well. Winged beasts poured from their windows on the massive carriers and filled the skies. They screamed and dipped and dove in the air above the glowing waters; they dodged smacking tentacles with effortless precision and beneath it all she heard singing and the low call of a drum. It was the witches, of course, they would find any excuse to sing, but her own men followed suit, raising their voices in a familiar tune which Asha knew, but had never heard played aloud before.

The light dimmed beneath them as the music drew to a close and wave after wave piled on top of the kraken which swam along the edge of her boat until she was buried in water. Eventually she disappeared altogether beneath the surf and the spell that had so captivated Asha herself fizzled and eventually faded completely until she was left cold and blinking at the waves below. She did not doubt for a moment what she’d seen.

“Do you—do that often?” She asked, still feeling breathless. She looked to Beck when she heard a tiny chuckle.

“I do what I think I need to.” It wasn’t an answer to her question. In fact, the statement prompted more questions than it answered, but Asha didn’t ask. She doubted there was any less cryptic response awaiting her down that road. And now Beck was smiling up at her with a bright, enchanting grin.

The witch slid from the side of the ship and tugged at her hand, “Come on. I’m freezing.”

[xparadisexlostx]

It’s funny how memories work. There’s this popular lie we all tell that says our memories are trust worthy and infallible from the time you’re ten to the time you hit sixty and everyone would rather believe you’re senile. When it comes to the memories we fear or cherish the most, we all like to think it’s as exact as a movie, recorded in our minds and played back the same way every time.

But it’s not like that. It’s not for me and I’d be willing to bet my next meal on the fact that it isn’t like that for anyone else either. Some parts we remember as well as our names, other parts we fill in, or we gloss over; ignoring the faded black edges where our memories end.

I remember my Aunt B’s house from the floor up to the couch. Anything over the back of the couch is hidden under a layer of smoke that probably came from my Uncle Porter’s cigars. At least that’s what I like to imagine. I couldn’t have been more than five the last time I was there.

My mom had just left my dad in what was one of the only times in our lives that I ever remember her doing anything without a plan. Mom had schedules and plans and lists for everything. That I do remember. If we needed to go to pick up milk, it would have to take the next available open spot, or she’d spend twenty minutes shuffling things around so that taking the a ten minute trip to the nearest gas station was properly accounted for. But leaving dad hadn’t been on any schedule or list. After I got older I learned they’d had some huge fight, and mom had carried me, half asleep, out to the car and just left. Without clothes, without food, without a blanket or a pillow. She had cash that she’d been hiding from him, she had a car in her name, and she had me.

The next thing I remember is Aunt B’s house. Waking up in the car not knowing where we were. It was dark, but I know what the outside of the house looks like because I saw it in the days after we arrived. Mostly from the back as I’d spent as much time as I could playing in the yard. I climbed the sugar maple in the back every day and I know because every night that I’d come down, my Uncle Porter would take the belt to me for it. I don’t think he wanted to, but my Aunt B wanted him to, and I when I see his hands, wrapped tightly around the leather of a belt that was faded and ancient, I hear him sigh and tell myself he had to be tired of dealing with her.

“Aunt B” was technically not my aunt, she was my mother’s aunt, and she was the oldest, least happy person I’ve ever met. Which is saying something. She had an obsession with little ceramic dogs that I’m pretty sure were meant to be out in the garden, but spilled over into her living room and stood stark still on the stairs, watching you with lifeless eyes. Aunt B didn’t have any real dogs. She said she hated them because they were loud and smelled. But when I think of her, of staring up the towering expanse of her old hand-sewn dresses to her constant scowl and wrinkled skin, I see the spitting image of a big, bald Cocker Spaniel with what’s left of its fur pinned back tightly away from its face. And not the short-faced American type, the English ones with the faces like they got sucked into the hose of a vacuum cleaner. Which probably isn’t very accurate, but it makes me laugh sometimes. Other times it scares me, because my memories of her house remind me of something out of a horror film.

It was dark because of something to do with Uncle P’s eyes. Except the kitchen, which was blue and white and had two huge windows with no curtains. Aunt B brought my uncle food whenever he so much as grunted, and the entire house was a maze of doors, so the kitchen light never reached the living room, where my uncle could be found at all hours of the day, smoking cigars and complaining about the sports on the TV. I’m sure he got up, because every night Aunt B would lock the doors so that I couldn’t wander outside. She’d tap around in her heels each morning loudly wiggling each one as I ate breakfast alone at the table. But every day, at some time in the day, the back door would miraculously unlock itself, and even though I ended up getting whipped for it each night, I know he was always the one to unlock it so I could get out.

“She’ll just find something else to bitch at you about.” That’s the only thing I ever remember him saying, and he said it often, because they fought all the time and I think it was mostly over me.

We stayed for an entire summer, until the divorce was final and the custody hearings were complete, then packed up what little we had to move to Indiana. 

I only ever saw my Aunt B and Uncle Porter one time after that. It was at Emma’s house after my mom had died. I remember Aunt B looked at me with all the contempt in the world, but argued when Emma wouldn’t let her take me away. My I can actually recall Uncle Porter’s face, which never appears in my original memories of my summer with them. He felt bad for me, just about everyone did then. And then I remember Connor. Connor grabbing me by the arm and dragging me back to his room where we made fun of the two old farts in the living room until we heard their old car doors slam and the sputtering of an engine as it struggled to pull out of the drive.

It’s always storming when I think of them; when I’m pinned up with nothing else to do but sit around and think. How much different would my life have been if I’d have stayed there? Would I wear dresses and spend time cooking for Uncle Porter or mending clothes that would have been better off thrown in the trash? Would I cross my legs when I sat? Would I have finished school and gotten married… Would my mom still be alive? That thought always chills me, because I can never decide if that would have been better for me in the long run or not. On the odd chance my mom was around we never got along, but she never let anyone hurt me. Everyone was frightened of her. Well, not me, but everyone else.

I would have been miserable. People say you don’t know until you’ve tried it but part of me just knows. Me and Connor, we saved each other, even if in the end it all went down in flames. And I’m on my own now, but I don’t think I’d have ever been happy any other way. 

I guess it’s funny how our feelings work too. How we dread things that never happened, couldn’t happen any more, or how we want things that we know will only bring us more pain in the end. 

So I think of my Aunt B every now and again and how different my life could have been. How she could have saved me from so much pain… and how she probably would have killed me by doing it.