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mt-musings · 1 month ago

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Sick of Losing Soulmates - 48

Castlevania, Alucard x Reader/OC

All she wanted was to escape her captors.

She hadn't meant to stumble upon Alucard's castle, nor infringe on his markedly thin hospitality. Still, she had little choice once he decided to take her in, set on nursing her back to health even though he seemed to find the very sight of her contemptible. Are the castle walls enough to keep her past at bay? Or will she become yet another ghost wandering the crumbling halls?

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Under the Moon Returned

Alucard couldn’t keep his eyes off _____. Even if the rest of the night was a misery, the little moments he got alone with her were worth it. As if he wouldn’t have come to simply make sure she wasn’t left alone with her awful family and a Court full of malicious faeries.

Dancing like this though, he enjoyed. It didn’t matter that _____ was still a bit of a clumsy dancer, only that the smile on her face was the first real one he’d seen of the night, that the furrow between her brows had softened, finally, if only a little. He knew she was still scared, still uncertain what any of the madness really meant, but together they could pretend for a few minutes that it was just the two of them, that it was the same as their 'dancing lessons' in the castle's ballroom.

He wished it was a normal sort of ball, wished he’d been able to properly escort her, that he wasn’t half looking for someone to try and hurt her the entire time they were in the Penumbral City. He wished it was the sort of ball _____’s human father had made her go to, with ordinary people and perhaps a half-decent quartet. He doubted anyone there dressed up beyond their nicest usual clothes and perhaps a new hair-ribbon, or something small, not the sort of opulence of the Unseelie Court. They’d have to worry about what people would say when they danced consecutive dances without being betrothed, not whether they’d be stabbed or someone would try to drag _____ away to Seelie.

Of course, one of those had a very easy solution.

Not that it was time, or they were ready, or Valion wouldn’t try to kill him if he asked her.

He wasn’t sure he could imagine spending sprawling eternity with anyone else, though.

But it was enough, now, that she was smiling, that he could make her laugh with petty jokes about the faery couples they passed, comparing them to characters from the novels they’d read together that he was sure none of them had read.

Anything mortal was beneath them, after all.

It didn’t really bother him, how the faeries of her grandfather’s Court treated him. He was used to being looked at as lesser, or something unnatural and wrong—vampires weren’t overly fond of dhampirs, found them weak, despised their humanity. His father had never allowed anyone to say a thing to him, but he’d still heard it whispered, on the rare occasions his father met with his generals and took him along.

He was surprised to learn that Valion treated him more decently than any of the other faeries, and he knew her dad didn’t like him. He didn’t treat him badly because he was a dhampir or from the Mortal Realm, just because he didn’t like him being with his daughter, which Alucard could almost respect. That, and he wasn’t sure Valion liked anyone except _____.

He’d yet to find the man treat anyone with anything other than begrudging, cold tolerance.

“Dad wants us to stay over tonight,” she said quietly, drawing him from his thoughts. “I know we’d planned on going home.”

“I assumed, he did say he’d talk to you after.”

“Are you sure that’s alright?”

“Of course. Don’t worry, dove,” he said, giving her hand a little squeeze. He was rewarded with one of her smiles, sweet and almost vulnerable, like she hadn’t expected him to agree.

As if he’d deny her anything.

He might not be Valion’s biggest fan, but he was _____’s father and the only parent she had left. He could tell he was trying to be better at it, trying to be tolerant and patient and come to terms with the fact that the baby he’d given away was a young woman, and he couldn’t just force her to stay in that house and call him Father and pretend they were an ordinary sort of family.

And _____ wanted a relationship with him. It was perfectly natural for her to, even if it was complicated.

Even if Valion was an asshole.

Maybe he could be a good father, one day. Alucard wasn’t exactly holding his breath, more just waiting for him to screw up again. He only worried how it would hurt _____, this time.

Of course, he could be worse. At least he hadn’t taken after his parents. Valion seemed almost normal compared to them.

Not that that was any comfort.

Alucard hardly noticed the song had ended, had meant to simply keep dancing with _____—after all, what else were they to do? The balcony with her family and important dignitaries was a nightmare and they weren’t allowed to leave yet or Valion would be dragging them bodily out the door.

Though Alucard might have thanked him.

He did notice, however, the sound of a throat being pointedly cleared next to him. He turned, spotting a foppish male faery, dressed garishly in a black and silver brocade suit that was embroidered with an obscene amount of black gems. He had a pointed, sneering face and pale blue hair very deliberately coifed into perfect, nearly-unmoving curls.

“Your Highness,” he said, ignoring Alucard completely to stare at _____, gaze almost hungry as he bowed. “I’d ask that you honor me with your next dance.”

_____ stared at him for a moment, eyes slightly wide. Alucard was about to tell him to get lost when she answered, far too kindly for any lout of the Unseelie Court.

“Um, I suppose,” she said, though it sounded a bit more like a question than a statement of agreement. “I—I’ll meet you upstairs after?” she asked him.

Alucard nodded. He didn’t want to leave her with some faery stranger, by any means, but it was just a dance and it wasn’t unexpected that someone else asked to dance with her.

Even if she wasn't Princess of Unseelie, she'd still be the most beautiful woman in the room.

He stared at her another moment, until she gave him a reassuring smile and he nodded again, though he stooped and pressed a kiss to her cheek before he agreed, giving the man a withering stare before he turned to retreat to the balcony. _____ smiled after him until the man pulled her attention back to himself.

Alucard walked back to the royal balcony, the guards at the base parting easily for him, though neither looked him in the eye. Valion glared at him the moment he reached the top of the stairs, though he moved over slightly to make room for him next to him as he leaned on the railing.

“She’s too damn polite,” he growled under his breath.

His mood was only seeming to grow more foul as the night dragged on, especially when _____ was out of earshot. Alucard just nodded, watching the stiff way she danced, the blank expression on her face that the rest of her family favored when amongst the Court.

Valion didn’t say anything else to him, but he didn’t shoo him away, either. Alucard almost wondered if he wanted company, even if he so clearly did not want to talk.

He thought he might be wretchedly lonely.

He wouldn't be surprised. The only people he'd ever heard him speak fondly of was _____ and her mother. Alucard wondered if there was a single other person he was fond of, or even friendly with.

He leaned against the railing, watching _____ stumble over her feet, brow furrowed as she went right back to overthinking her every step. He thought he heard Valion just barely snort a laugh when she trod on the man’s foot particularly badly and he winced, but it was so quiet he couldn’t be sure.

She couldn’t wait for the song to be over.

She tried to concentrate on the steps of the dance, tried to just muddle her was through it like she would have at one of the public balls her father forced her to attend in Vienna.

They hadn’t been so bad, though. Most of the boys that had asked her to dance had been nice enough, if boring and horribly traditional. Between her dancing and all the weird things she spoke about, she rarely got asked for a second dance, which was perfectly fine with her. She’d have much rather been at home, curled up with a good book or working on some of her illumination—she’d liked working on the special editions, liked the ink work.

Still, she’d always gone because it had made her father so happy—he always wanted her to be more social. He wanted her to have friends, she knew, wanted her to relate to people her own age and not just dusty old professors and whoever else they met on their travels.

She’d never found herself very interested, though she tried for his sake. It wasn’t until she’d met Adrian that she’d ever found someone she really wanted to be her friend.

Now she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to go about trying to make others. Certainly two was enough—she had Adrian and Sypha. She doubted there was anyone in Faery she’d like to add to the list.

At least in her father’s Court.

The faerie man—Count Maltrax or whatever it had been—cleared his throat to draw her attention.

“How are you finding Court, Your Highness?” he simpered, though he stared at her with a predator’s eyes.

“It has been fine,” she said, trying to be polite. It had been a nightmare and anyone with half a brain could have guessed that for themselves.

“Will you be staying in the city long? Surely until the end of the celebration, at least.”

“You mean tonight, when the ball ends?” she asked, furrowing her brow. He laughed at her.

“Oh, no—Solstice lasts a ten-day. The revelry hardly even begins until the third day, once all the formal rites are over. That’s when things get interesting,” he said, tone salacious on ‘interesting’ in a way that made her skin crawl. “Though it was quite the little spectacle during the Letting. An omen, some are calling it.”

“Of what?” she asked, brows furrowed, despite herself.

“All sorts of things. No one can seem to agree,” he said, delighted by her anxiety. “Only that none of it happened while your father had you hidden away.”

Her stomach flipped uncomfortably, though Maltrax hardly seemed concerned at all, far more interested in hearing his own voice.

“Are you keeping the halfbreed as some sort of pet? He certainly follows you about like a dog,” he said with a cruel laugh.

“What did you just say?” she asked, voice low and dangerous as she stepped back and planted her feet, halting the miserable dance.

“Oh, no one will fault you for such games now. I suppose you are intent on taking after your father. He certainly enjoyed his share of exotic dalliances,” he said with obvious amusement, reaching to pull her back into the dance.

She stepped in, but it was only so she could throw her hip into the punch like her father had taught her when she was young, aimed at his jaw. He stumbled back, blinking in shock.

She didn’t really notice the lights flicker in her fury, or the chill that overtook the ballroom, as if they’d all been plunged right into deepest winter. She didn’t see Valion push off from his place at the railing and stalk down the stairs to the dance floor, jagged shards of ice springing up as he walked, sharp as any blade. She didn’t really notice, either, that the faeries around her had stopped dancing and backed away, that they’d gone a deathly sort of silent as they stared at the scene.

Instead she heard only the rushing of her blood in her ears, furious and red-hot, felt only her own magic rushing to her in her anger, cracking around her like electricity.

“You’re disgusting,” she snarled. “Don’t ever speak to me again.”

“Your Highness—” he spluttered, anger and embarrassment coloring his cheeks as he glanced around at the crowd.

“Are you particularly stupid? What did I just say?” she snapped and pulled a gate into existence behind him without thought, fury taking over.

She reached out to the other side of it, to Cryptgarden, and called for one of her bramble vines, which shot out like a whip and wrapped around his middle, and yanked him through the gate with a yelp. She pulled the gate shut, only then noticing the audience of gawking faeries. She shot the lot of them a withering look and turned on her heel, only to find Valion stalking towards her, fury radiating off of him in waves, the floor beneath his feet covered in frozen fractals.

It was only then that she realized how they’d all backed away, how they watched her now like she’d seen some of them watch her dad the first time she’d stepped foot in the Council Chamber, in a wary, calculating sort of way. She still didn’t know anything about the faeries at Court.

It felt all the more dangerous, now.

She should probably ask Valion to add it to her lessons.

Valion reached out and wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her back to the balcony, fury still rippling off him. Only when they’d reached the balcony did the music begin again, did the room once more fill with the sound of hundreds of voices, though there was an edge to them, now.

Valion hardly even seemed to notice, simply led her to a chair at the furthest table, where it was hardest for the crowd below to see her. He stooped in front of her, hands on her shoulders as he searched her for injury, his magic still crackling around him, turning the air electric.

Maybe it should have been off-putting, but she found the feeling of his magic in the air almost comforting.

“Are you alright? What did he do?” he asked, voice even, though she could see the control it took in the tension of his body. He examined her hand, the slight redness from the impact, thumb tracing over her knuckles more to soothe himself.

She looked over Valion's shoulder to Adrian, who hid his anger much better than her dad, but she knew him well enough to see it. She tried to give him a reassuring look, but she thought it just cam out as a different sort of angry.

“I’m fine,” she said quickly, dropping her gaze to her lap as she tried to tamp down her own fury, though she was hardly successful. “He—he was being disgusting.”

“How—what did he say?” Valion asked, temper flaring even with all his effort. She knew his anger wasn’t directed at her, though.

“He said something vile about Adrian and implied I was taking after you in your youthful whoring,” she said, keeping her voice low as she stared down at the obsidian of the floor, jaw tight. Rage simmered in her gut, hot and acidic.

She’d hated how he’d spoken of Adrian, like some sort of thing, not a person—not a faery. People were horrible to him here, just because he wasn’t a faery, not from one of their stupid noble families—her grandparents had yet to even speak to him.

And then there was how he’d spoken of Valion—she didn’t know what he’d done to foster such a reputation, especially when she knew how he’d loved her mother, could hardly stand to be around other people. Her grandparents too, made nasty comments about it, and Vranos, but for some noble fae bastard she’d never met to so casually insult her, insult her dad to her face—

She didn’t feel badly at all for dumping him in to the tunnels of Cryptgarden. Maybe she should have dumped him in the middle of the Endless Green Sea.

Valion sighed, drawing her attention back to him.

“I’m sorry, Moonbeam,” he said quietly, sincerely, before his parents stalked over and the mask fell back over his features.

That only stroked the embers of her fury. She hated having to pretend with them, hated who Valion was around them, how miserable they made him. She felt hot all over, like she was running a fever. She clenched her teeth, hands curling into fists as she tried to take slow, calming breaths.

“What on earth happened?” her grandfather asked, looking between the two of them, eyes sharp.

“He insulted her date and called her a whore,” Valion said, without looking away from her. She glanced up at her grandparents, expecting them to begin one of their lectures, to tell her off for offending someone important or using her magic, but her grandfather’s expression hadn’t changed.

Her grandmother, though smiled at her. She fought the urge to give her a dirty look.

“Where did you send him?” she asked.

“Somewhere in the Undercrypts. Maybe something will eat him!” she replied, half-meaning it. She certainly wouldn’t find herself too upset if he never came back.

“And you were worried about her holding her own at Court,” her grandmother said to Valion with narrowed eyes. “Though I told you, they would talk. She already has to suffer your reputation, she doesn’t need anything else to contend with."

She knew she meant Adrian, and that only made her angrier, angry enough to want to snap back at her that she was a shallow, mean old woman who cared more for appearances than her family and she didn't give a shit what she thought of Adrian. She'd raised a monster who'd had her kidnapped, molested, and abused, after all, before stepping in to do it himself.

The scar on her ankle from the iron shackle was still red and furious, hadn't even managed to turn pink yet.

Valion ignored his mother, giving her shoulders a faint, reassuring squeeze, though the look he gave her was sharp, as if he could read her caustic thoughts. She stared back at him, fury barely abating, especially when his mother had to take the opportunity to insult him like always.

“You don’t have to dance with anyone you don’t wish to,” he said with the same intensity he’d had when they’d gotten home after her grandmother had had her ears pierced. She nodded.

She wasn’t going to dance with a single one of the nasty fucks—she was done. She hadn’t wanted to in the first place after all, had only said yes because it was polite, because it was expected.

No one had ever really said no to a dance back in Vienna, but then again, the worst one might have to suffer there had been a tiresome conversation until the song changed.

“Now Valion—” his mother began, but he cut her off.

“None of them,” he said, jaw tight. “And I’ll deal with whoever can’t take no for an answer.”

He glared at his mother, then, holding her gaze just long enough for it to be a threat.

“Come on, lets talk a walk,” Alucard said softly as Valion and his mother snapped at one another, the situation only agitating _____ more. He’d rarely seen her so angry—not since they’d dealt with her uncle and her father had taken away her magic.

Now it seemed to be building—he remembered what Valion had said about young faeries and their emotions, how they felt everything so much more intensely, which was half the reason they could be so volatile.

It would be very bad if she joined in the argument, which seemed likely considering how her grandmother kept insulting Valion and the faint twitch of _____'s eye.

He reached out his hand and she took it, following him without argument—the faeries on the dance floor gave them a wide berth, now, eyeing _____ with both wariness and interest.

The interest worried him. He doubted it meant anything good—as much as he hated to admit it, Valion was by far the least horrible faery he’d met in all of Unseelie.

They slipped out of the ballroom and into the garden Valion had showed him, showed him the secret path out, where they could slip away if something went poorly. Now it seemed a good idea to drag her along to the fountain that sat by the hidden exit. It would be well out of the way, hopefully enough for them to have a bit of privacy.

He didn’t say anything until the reached the tiny courtyard and not until he pulled her into a hug. He could feel her trembling slightly, so utterly furious.

“It’s alright, dove,” he said softly.

“It’s not—not even a little. I hate it. Everyone here has been so awful to you and I hate how they talk about Dad! I thought it was a ball, it would be fun, but I just dragged you to another misery. Nothing can just be normal, it all has to be nasty and horrible,” she replied, face scrunched up in anger.

“You didn’t drag me into anything—”

“I did, I should have known better to invite you to something with—with my family,” she said, though it took effort for her to refer to them that way. He didn’t blame her. Her grandparents might treat her nicer than they treated Valion, but it wasn’t a high bar. Both of them were pushy and expected her to fall in line without complaint. She was afraid of them—he wasn’t sure she’d admit it, but he could see it.

She pulled away from him and sat heavily on the lip of the fountain, shoulders slumping, anger dissipating into desolation. He sat next to her, gently taking hold of her hand.

She made a face, lip trembling slightly.

“I had a nice family, Adrian. My parents—they would have adored you. My mother would have cooked one of her ridiculous, wonderful dinners where you’d swear she’d been planning on feeding to dozen people and my father would have sent you home with a stack of books he’d expect you to read so you could talk about them with him next time you came over. They never would have—they didn’t fight like this, they weren’t mean. I miss them,” she said, voice hardly a whisper by the end.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. She hugged him back, pressing her face to the crook of his neck.

“I’d have liked to meet them,” he said. They had to have been particularly special people to have raised _____. They’d been good people—it was easy to see that through the daughter they’d raised.

“I just want to go home,” she said, voice slightly muffled against his skin.

“I’ll bet it’s not too much longer.”

She mumbled something about it still being ‘too goddamn long’ and he couldn’t help but smile. Sometimes he couldn’t help but find her irritation endearing.

_____ pulled back enough to search his face, brow furrowed. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, enjoying the way it made her blush, made her face soften, just a little.

“You should be mad,” she said, pressing her lips together in a tight line. Alucard laughed.

“Should I?” he asked, only smiling wider at the dirty look she gave him.

“Yes, you should! I dragged you to a terrible ball full of terrible people who either ignore you completely or say foul things to you just because you’re not faery. You should be so mad!”

“I don’t care about any of them,” he said simply. He didn’t beyond how they could hurt _____. “I had a fun time dancing with you. You’re getting better.”

He had to try very hard not to laugh at the expression on her face, somewhere between that soft, lovesick expression he loved, and curled irritation.

“I’m still terrible!”

“Not terrible. Bad, maybe. Perhaps even fine, but fine as in mediocre,” he said in mock seriousness. _____ huffed a laugh despite herself.

She sighed and leaned into his side. They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, just looking up at the sky, at the handful of twinkling stars that almost seemed to wink into existence right before his eyes.

“I don’t know why everyone seemed so upset the moon returned,” _____ said finally, absently trailing her fingers through the water of the fountain. “I’d say it’s an improvement over nothing but darkness. Nothing in Faery makes any sense at all.”

“It will, one day,” he said, hoping to reassure her. He didn’t disagree with her assessment, only wished she didn’t feel so out of place.

“I’m sorry, about tonight. I’ll make it up to you,” she said, letting her head drop to his shoulder. He sighed, tightening his hold around her.

“I told you, you have nothing to be sorry for. I’m enjoying the time I get to spend with you,” he said, and he hardly had to glance at her face to know she didn’t quite believe him. He just pressed a kiss to her temple, enjoying the feeling of her in his arms, of being away from Court and her family.

He couldn’t help but think she deserved better.

He froze, though, when he heard rustling in the maze behind them, the sort where someone was clearly trying to be quiet. _____ turned to look at him, eyes slightly wide as she clocked the noise and the look on his face. He stood silently, offering his hand automatically to help her up, even as his eyes searched for the source of the noise. It had to be more than one person, more than one person that had followed them into the maze.

His sword instinctually rose from its scabbard, waiting on his command to strike out. He glanced at _____, silently ushering her to stand behind him, though he could feel the air around them thicken, electrify in the way he knew meant she was gathering magic around her, making sure she had all she'd need.

A pair of faeries stumbled into the little courtyard, clothes half-pulled off and utterly unaware of anyone but the other. They seemed to be in competition to see who could unclothe the other first, though considering the way the taller of the two had their hand shoved down the other’s trousers, it didn’t seem to be a necessity.

_____ let out a single bark of laughter before clapping her hand over her mouth, cheeks bright red. The faeries broke apart, eyes going wide at they spotted her, the full extent of their disrobing on full display. Alucard grabbed her hand and tugged her away, back down another path. Once they were were far enough away they caught each other’s eyes and burst out laughing.

“Stars above,” she said, covering her face with her hands. He couldn’t help but laugh, half because of the faeries they’d seen practically having sex in the middle of the hedge maze and half because of _____’s hysterical giggling.

A lone figure leaned against the wall, only a few paces from the door to the hedge maze, idly swirling a glass of champagne. Their skin was faintly blue, hair black and straight and bluntly cut. They wore a fine midnight silk suit, the cut emphasizing their almost unnatural thinness. Their edges seemed slightly blurred, so subtly that you could hardly tell, not unless you were looking, unless you knew what to look for.

They watched the princess and her dhampir return with sharp, violet eyes— eyes that narrowed at the sight of their flushed faces and poorly hidden giddy smiles.

She was nothing more than a child.

A foolish child with far more power than she’d ever know what to do with, power enough to tear the Realm apart—The Gloaming had returned, since her arrival, and the stars, going so far as to seep over into the Dawnlands, and now the Moon. She had impossible magic, could step from place to place without effort or any of the usual rules applying, had resurrected a tree long extinct, grown it without sense of consequence.

Oh course how could she have, when she knew nothing of Unseelie, nothing of Faerie.

There would be such a short window, before she figured out how to truly control it all, before she would become unyieldingly dangerous, before she couldn’t be challenged.

Wretchedly short.

Of course her father complicated things—he was far from one to be underestimated, and he was violently protective of her—but he wasn’t around her always. No doubt she’d return sometime to the Mortal Realm, to the land of her paramour, to where she was raised. No doubt she thought it comfortable—safe.

Nowhere would ever be safe for a Blackthorne.

They watched the dhampir pull her back onto the dance floor, watched the little princess’s clumsy footwork. She hadn’t trained as she should have as a child, had none of the grace of a warrior, or indeed a noble girl of any standing.

No, she was still a changeling, still practically human in her own mind, still incapable of defending herself with anything but her magic.

Powerful magic, even now, though her ignorance meant she relied on instinct, rather than anything else.

And human instincts rarely served anyone well in Faerie.

Valion stood on the far side of the balcony, staring out over the courtiers below, though really he was watching Elyra from the corner of his eye. He hadn’t seen her slip out into the hedge maze, had been ready to set out to search for her when she’d returned with Adrian in a markedly better mood. They’d both been red-faced and trying to hide their giggles as they glanced back towards the maze.

He could only guess the sort of debauchery they’d accidentally come across in the maze.

He shook his head, mind flitting back to earlier, when she’d punched the damn Count and deposited him in the Undercrypts.

What she’d done to Maltrax—however deserved—was out of character for her. Or, at least, it had been, before she’d gotten dragged into Unseelie’s rot.

He hated it, as much as he was glad she could defend herself, proud that she wouldn’t allow piddling lords to speak to her with such disrespect. It was merciful, compared to what he’d have done to the wretch for upsetting his daughter, for insulting her.

What he would do, if he dared show his face at Court again.

He didn’t care that the Court thought him an incorrigible rake—he’d cultivated that reputation himself, had hardly had to try to keep it up after the first fifty years or so. It kept anyone from suspecting his relationship with Orlaith, kept away some of the smarter noble women who knew better than to marry a debauchee, even if he was a prince.

He did care that someone had implied she was some sort of whore, no doubt because she’d brought the dhampir. He could guess the sort of vile things the Count had said about him—most faeries held themselves far superior to those born of other realms, especially mortals and those of mixed lineage, particularly in the Undercourt.

There was a reason you never saw any half-faeries about, even though at least half the Court had produced one or two over the millenia. They were lesser things, fleeting and mortal, in the eyes of the fae—what was a few hundred years, after all, in the face of eternity?

He couldn’t fathom the neglect most of the poor things faced, discarded by their immortal parent to save them the mourning that would come when they passed. Had he known he’d only have Elyra for a handful of centuries, he’d have been hard pressed to be made to do anything other than spend the time he had with her, make the most of every bit of it.

He watched Elyra as she stood at the opposite end of the balcony, speaking softly with Adrian. Valion made a face, though, when Colm strode over to the pair, once more inserting himself into conversation with Elyra.

Unfortunately, Valion knew Colm wasn’t stupid, and he knew he’d seen Elyra’s eyes—her real eyes—before the glamour, knew he’d been so, so stupid in his grief and misery not to think to glamour them before they left. Valion wished he could know what was going on in his head, what exactly he suspected, what he thought.

He didn’t want it to give him more hope, where there was nothing but grief, didn’t want him to somehow take it as a sign Orlaith was still alive, just hidden away.

He didn’t deserve that sort of pain.

Valion also couldn’t afford him to go digging, or asking questions when it would put Elyra in danger. The Seelie Court could do whatever it wanted to him—or try—but he wouldn’t allow then to harm his daughter, or try and take her.

Not that it would go particularly well for them.

He pushed off the balcony railing and crossed to the other side of the platform, butting into whatever Colm and Elyra had been discussing after letting it go on for admittedly too long.

He was getting soft.

“Your Highness,” Colm said politely with an incline of his head. “We were just discussing the princess’s lessons.”

“Lord Colm was recommending a few history books,” Elyra said, smile slightly strained as she looked at him. He was sure meeting her grandparents—her other grandparents—had brought up a whole host of uncomfortable feelings. He’d have to figure out how to talk through them with her—he’d always just drank, himself, but he wasn’t going to leave Elyra to fall into his bad habits.

“You know how I do love history and Her Highness recommended some very interesting mortal compendiums I’ll have to track down. She brought up a very intriguing line of inquiry I find myself itching, now, to pursue,” Colm said brightly. He always had loved history—it hardly mattered what kind. Valion knew he lectured at the Academy of the Dawn, though he preferred his research in its archives.

He also knew Colm was clever enough to get the answers he wanted in a round about way, and Elyra wasn’t familiar with Faery’s double-speak, not yet.

“I only asked if he knew if any faeries ever had ever effected mortal politics or anything. There’s so many stories about faeries we hear growing up, some must be based in true events,” she said, flushing slightly in embarrassment.

“I think it’s worth looking into,” Adrian said, eyes bright. “There is certainly those who are more aware of faeries than others in the Mortal Realm, but there is strangely little real information. Some of that, I’m sure is due to who’d been collecting it though.”

He and Elyra shared a look at that, shaking their heads. No doubt they were thinking of whatever the Belmont’s had in their collection.

“Isn’t that always the case?” Colm asked, beaming at the boy. “You’ve clearly got a mind for research!”

“We do enjoy it,” Adrian said, smiling with a disgusting amount of sweetness at Elyra. “I’ve never met anyone else who loved books as much as she does. She’s a wonder at repairing them, too.”

“You’re a craftswoman as well, how delightful!” Colm said, smiling wider, even if his eyes looked a little misty.

Elyra’s eyes.

“Oh, well, my fa—my mortal father taught me. He was a book maker, he worked mostly in reproducing rare volumes, but he lectured too, at the University. He always took me with him so I could learn too.”

“How wonderful!” Colm said, and Valion knew he meant it. “You know, I’m known to lecture on occasion at the Academy in Ghrian, I could show you all around. You would just love the Archive—the both of you.”

He turned to smile at Adrian too.

“We will have to see,” Valion said stiffly, fear spiking in his chest at the very thought of Elyra stepping anywhere near the Seelie capital.

“Oh, well of course I’d expect you to accompany them,” Colm said quickly. “You’ve always been a ravenous scholar yourself.”

Valion hated the compliment, hated that Colm knew him as more than just the wretched Unseelie prince, that he no doubt remembered him younger than Elyra was now, being told off for sneaking books in to read under the table.

“Yes, well, such visits are at my father’s whim,” he said, forcing a smile.

“I know, I know. You know how I get ahead of myself,” he said, nodding, and Valion did, remembered countless times Colm had sat rambling at the dinner table, Orlaith utterly bored and mortified by her father’s chatter, though he’d always enjoyed it, however meandering it got.

Valion’s chest hurt.

“Ah, Lord Colm, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” his father said as he bustled over, subtle as an ox in a china shop. The tension radiating off of him was nearly visible as his eyes flicked to Elyra and then back to Colm.

Colm took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, of course, Your Majesty.”

Valion ignored the dirty look his father gave him, no doubt for not shooing him away from Elyra the moment he say him talking to her. He’d learned more by letting it continue—

Whatever he suspected, he’d held no ill will towards Elyra—in fact he’d seemed utterly delighted to speak with her. It was something, though it hardly made him feel any better.

He couldn’t help but imagine what it would have been like if Elyra had grown up as she should have, if Orlaith had raised her in the Light Court while they lived as a family in private as much as they were able.

She’d have had doting grandparents, no doubt grown up attending just as many lectures as she had in the Mortal Realm if Colm had had any say in it, would have learned the art of diplomacy at Róisín’s knee. He couldn’t imagine her ever being frightened of them. He could much more readily picture them fussing over her like the had over Orlaith, something that had annoyed her to no end.

He was glad Elyra didn’t know the extent of what she’d lost with her mother, how very different her life would have been.

She might even have loved Faery. Might have loved him, not just been as fond as she was able, after he’d failed her so fundamentally.

He bit his cheek, hard. He did enough living in the past.

He turned to search her face, looking for the same earlier signs of discomfort—there were some, but it was mostly guilt she was too young and innocent to know how to properly hide, and too sweet and naive to fully understand it wasn’t hers to shoulder.

“He’s nice,” she said quietly, almost like she wished he wasn’t. He sighed.

“He is,” he replied, understanding the sentiment exactly.

Valion dumped the basket of stolen food on the counter, waving a hand to send a dozen moonmotes to fill the sconces and light the kitchen. Elyra crowded in next to him, kneeling on the stool to get a better look at the cartons in the basket.

She’d been all too ready to leave, had hardly even offered a goodbye to his parents, not that he cared. She could have told them both to choke on rancid donkey cock and he'd have just told them to make sure to gargle the balls. The least they deserved was a snub, after everything.

Part of him—the stupid, impulsive, petty part—wished she had. They treated her less like their grandchild and more like a prized dog they expected to heel and listen to their every command. Perhaps they'd back off if they felt the sharpness of her teeth directed at them—they couldn't care less what he said, or told them.

He felt like he could breathe again, now that they were back home, now that Elyra was back to acting herself and not trying to play the princess Unseelie wanted her to be. He much preferred it, hated the way the Court was already warping her.

But that was a worry for another night, or at least after they'd gorged themselves on ice cream. It'd long melt if he got thinking about it now.

He focused on his daughter's innocent curiosity, on her excitement, however silly, at such a pedestrian nightcap. It was easy for the weight of the world to bow his shoulders after six millennia, for his jadedness to taint even the smallest, simplest things. Watching her, though, reminded him of the wonder he'd long lost, the joy in simplicity.

It nearly made him feel a bit better.

“Calm down, Moonbeam,” he said, making a face. “There’s plenty. No need to bite any fingers.”

“I want to see it,” she said, grabbing one of te cartons and pulling off the lid, examining it with interest.

“It’s just ice cream,” he said, raising his brows. “That one’s pistachio, I got chocolate and sweet cream and there was sweetberry, this time.”

“I’ve never seen ice cream before. Or heard of it,” she said, grinning at him as he crossed to the cabinets for bowls and spoons. “Have you, Adrian?”

He shook his head. Valion nodded, almost to himself. He supposed it would be hard to make without magic. Hardly any mortals even had proper refrigeration.

“Ah well, perhaps it will make up for the foul night then,” he said, wondering what else he hadn’t even considered his daughter had grown up without. “You can help yourselves, there’s more sweets in the basket.”

He got up to go get a bottle of wine, a horrible, tangled up feeling in his chest. The night could have hardly been less of a disaster, even if the worst thing that had happened at the ball was that vile little Count insulting his daughter. Just because no one had made any moves right away didn’t mean that they wouldn’t, only that they’d be more clever about it. Elyra had always been a target but now—

People would start suspecting she wasn’t an ordinary faery child. There were too many oddities, too many things that tied her back to Ysolde, to the Gloaming, to the babe of two Courts she’d drowned the Realm in blood for.

He didn’t know what to do. He hardly knew how to be an ordinary father, was still mostly hopeless at it, and that was without all of Faery conspiring to rip them apart. He took a deep, steadying breath before he left the wine cellar, intent not to let Elyra see his anxiety. He didn’t want to ruin her excitement, didn’t want to place more worries on her shoulders—he’d figure it out, tell her only what she needed to know, when she needed to know.

She deserved to remain innocent a little longer. As long as he could manage.

He returned to the kitchen to find her and Adrian sat at the counter, both with a bit of all the flavors scooped into their bowls, chattering on about which ones were their favorites. She’d let her hair down, curls wild. Valion sat at the counter across from them, watching their childish delight with a sort of bittersweet fondness.

Elyra laughed as she dug through the basket and found the frankly enormous bowl of knotberries he’d stolen and beamed at him before taking a heaping handful and dumping them into her bowl with the ice cream.

He found himself smiling back, if faintly, as he poured himself a glass of wine, poured a second for his daughter.

She made a face as she handed it to her, and she placed it on the counter before turning without explanation and pulled open one of those impossible gates of hers.

“Lyra, baby—” he called after her, fear constricting his voice as he watched her dart through, though she returned only a second later, carrying a bottle of wine as she pulled the gate shut. She handed it to Adrian, looking very pleased with herself.

“Since you can’t have faery wine.”

Adrian huffed a laugh before thanking her and setting it on the counter. Valion helped himself to his own bowl, trying very hard not to think of the last time he’d had someone to share his post-Solstice sugar coma.

He wished more than anything that Orlaith was here with them. Even with their daughter here, with the company and the laughter, her absence was still a ragged wound tonight.

“What books did Colm recommend?” he asked, pretending it was of passing interest. “I might have them already.”

“Oh, he said I should read Before Darkness by Theonin Raloris,” she said brightly, with the same excitement she always had when talking about books.

“He also said I might enjoy The Never-Queen by Vanya Sygella and there was one on, what was it?” she asked, turning to Adrian with a furrowed brow.

“The something Eventide I think it was,” he said before digging back into his ice cream. Valion just nodded, though his stomach sunk.

He knew the book they spoke of—The Death of Eventide. It was a comprehensive account of the Black Cull and the war that followed, that ended in nothing but slaughter. Like the other books, it focused on Ysolde and her almost-Court, on the curses she’d brought upon Unseelie in retribution for her family’s murders, for the killing of her subjects.

It had been Ysolde that had banished the moon, banished the stars, banished all light from Unseelie and banished Night from Seelie, arresting them both into their perpetual essences, cursed to never change, languish in their never-ending Night and Day.

Which meant that Colm knew, maybe not for certain, but was sure enough Elyra was Orlaith’s. Which, in turn, meant he knew Orlaith was dead. No one who’d ever known her would have believed she’d send her child to the Mortal Realm, that she’d let anyone.

That was—that was bad. Colm was usually level-headed, but Orlaith had gotten her temper from her mother. All she would have to do was go to her mother or her aunt and tell them and it would all fall apart. There’d be war, again, unlike any that the Realm had seen since the Cull, and he wasn’t sure there would be a place safe for his daughter.

But—maybe he could reason with Colm, explain it. He was wretchedly decent, and he’d very clearly been taken with Elyra. Of course he had—she was clever and good and kind. She was so unlike the Unseelie he was forced to make conversation with, year after year—not a single one of them was ever genuine, not completely, but Elyra hadn’t learned the Court’s language of lies yet.

He’d want to see her, want to know her, even if he wanted to kill Valion for what had happened to his daughter, to Orlaith. Maybe—maybe they could come to some sort of agreement, some sort of compromise.

Colm was well aware of what had happened to Ysolde’s child last time, after all. He doubted he’d want to put Orlaith’s daughter at risk, never mind throw the Realm into another war like that after the Cull.

He was broken from his thoughts by Elyra’s laugher, her nose crinkled as she argued with Adrian about some book they’d just read. He couldn’t help the small smile that curved his lips as he watched them debate between mouthfuls of ice cream, think of how similar the scene was to so many Solstices he’d ended in this kitchen, especially when they'd been young. Though he and Orlaith usually had argued over who the worst attendee had been that year, or traded gossip from the time they’d had to spend apart.

He took another sip of his wine, leaning back in his chair. Tomorrow he’d figure out what needed to be done, worry about what Orlaith’s parents would do, re-ward the house and the forest to make sure no one could reach her here, at least not without enough effort that he’d know, right away.

Now, though, he watched his daughter laugh as she sat in their little kitchen in her ballgown, hairpins pulled out and haphazardly piled on the counter next the the tiara his parents had had made for her. He just listened to her play argument, watched her delight in being clever and pedantic and silly with the boy, who was bright enough to keep up with her.

He could pretend, for a night, that it all wasn’t so complicated, that everything didn’t lay at a razor’s edge. Tonight it was enough they were together, that she was safe, that she was happy.

Colm sat on the edge of the bed in his and Róisín’s guest chamber, his head in his hands.

She’d had Orlaith’s eyes, Valion’s little daughter. He knew he hadn’t been seeing things before the Letting, knew they’d been glamoured after the whole spectacle of the Rite.

The moon. It hadn’t returned until Veylon had sliced her palm, until her blood had been given. What had been the wording of Ysolde Blackthorne’s curse? That no light would touch Unseelie until hers returned? He’d have to look it up when he returned home.

She’d offered so many, after all, it was hard to keep them all straight.

Of course, if she was Ysolde’s daughter reborn, that meant her mother was Seelie.

And she’d had Orlaith’s eyes.

It had been so long since he’d seen them on another. He’d stopped being able to look at himself in the mirror, couldn’t bear the reminder of what they shared, not when she was still missing. But the little princess’s had been the same shock of green, the same shape, crinkled the same way his Orlaith’s had when she smiled.

She was a sweet girl—too sweet for the Undercourt. He’d heard bits and pieces of the story of her arrival, the horror and the cruelty of it, magnified as it always was by the politics of the Unseelie Court.

And worsened by the fact that she as a Blackthorne. They’d always been cruelest against their own.

Orlaith would never have allowed her daughter to suffer such pain, such cruelties and indignities on her own. Valion had been bound by procedure and his father not to intercede, but if Orlaith had had the slightest inkling—

He brushed away a few stray tears, throat tight.

The poor girl had looked as if she wanted to burst into tears the first time he’d spoken to her after the Letting, had been so quick to inform him that her father had done right by her in the Mortal Realm, that her mortal parents had loved her and he’d visited often, that she’d had a far better childhood than she could have in Unseelie—it had seemed so important to her that he know.

She hadn’t wanted him to think poorly of her father.

Could she really be Orlaith’s? She’d always wanted a little girl, from the time she’d still been playing with dolls. Orlaith’s birth had been hard—it had taken two healers to stabilize Róisín after, and it had left her unable to carry another babe. If she’d had some sort of complication and they’d been hiding away somewhere so no one would know—

The poor dear never would have been hidden away in the Mortal Realm if Orlaith had been her mother and she’d lived. Not unless Orlaith had gone too.

He knew what the logical conclusion was. He just hated it.

“Are you alright, my sweet?” Róisín asked as she came out of the bathroom, makeup removed, hair soft and brushed out from her previous updo. She sat next to him on the bed, one hand rubbing circles into his shoulder blades.

“I—I was just thinking about her,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. He didn’t know for sure that his conclusions were correct, wouldn’t break Róisín’s heart if he wasn’t certain it was the truth.

Even then he wasn’t sure if he could manage it.

“Solstice is always hard,” she said, jaw tight in the way he knew meant she was trying so very hard not to let her emotions overtake her. “She always loved it. Loved any excuse to visit the tailor for a new gown.”

Colm nodded, smiling despite himself. Orlaith loved beautiful things, fine clothes and jewelry, had designed much of her own, and loved any occasion to show them off.

She'd always been so talented.

Róisín pressed a kiss to his temple before climbing into the plush bed. He knew she couldn’t bear to talk about her, not for very long, not without crying, and Róisín hated to cry.

He took another deep breath before he joined her, snuffing out the sun motes in the sconces and leaving the room lit only by brilliant silver moonlight.

Moonlight the realm hadn’t seen in millenia.

He couldn’t help but think of the little princess, the wonder and delight on her face as she’d watched it appear, a stark contrast against the horror of her father and grandfather.

Was he her grandfather too? The poor thing, born of two Courts. She had to be, for Ysolde’s curses to begin unweaving, for there to be creeping stars in the Dawnlands, for the moon to have returned, the Gloaming to have risen.

He’d have to see her again to be sure. He didn’t want to raise suspicion, but he had to know, and if she was Orlaith’s—

He couldn’t not try to have some sort of relationship with her, not if she was his baby girl’s. Valion—for all his snarling, Colm knew he could be reasoned with. He wouldn’t push the girl, Elyra, wouldn’t force her when he was little more than a stranger, but he’d have to try to get to know her.

He turned over the name in his head—it was unique and lyrical, the sort of name he’d have expected Orlaith to choose. She never would have wanted anything traditional, or common.

He had to know—couldn’t just sit and wonder and worry, not any longer, not with an answer so close, even if it was his worst nightmare. Valion owed him that, at least. Had, for a while, if he was right, though he understood why he’d never said anything.

He understood all too well what it was like to love your daughter, to want to protect her from all the ills of the world, from the slightest of dangers. And it was clear enough that Valion loved that girl, really loved her, not the way his parents loved him.

He shut his eyes, hoping that sleep would find him before he drove himself mad turning it all over in his head.

“Fucking bitch,” Maltrax spat as he waded his way through the bramble vines that choked the tunnel, fury plain on his face. “Only a Blackthorne bastard would have the nerve. Hot-tempered whore, just like her father. Clearly the damn half-breed isn’t enough to fuck it out of her. Maybe some decent faery cock will be enough to remind her of her place—to be humiliated by some bastard girl of the whore prince. As if he doesn’t have half a dozen others hidden away, ready to replace her.”

Thorns tugged on the fine silk of his clothes, and he swore, bearing his teeth at the offending vines.

Ysolde narrowed her eyes at the man, not bothering to hide her disgust. He hadn’t noticed her in the shadows, didn’t notice much but the way his suit tore. He spoke so foully of her Amaris, spoke of her like a thing to be defiled and broken like an animal.

She stepped out of the shadows, raising a hand and with it a whole mess of bramble vines, lined with thick, inch-long thorns. She twisted her wrist, watching as the thorns tore into his flesh, ripped through veins, slashed at him until he was hardly recognizable as a faery, looked much more like mere carrion.

No one would treat her Amaris so wretchedly, not again, not while she walked free. She’d killed so many in her name already—she’d kill them all again, if she had to, wouldn’t hesitate or feel an ounce of remorse.

What had she to feel remorse for, anyway?

She stepped over the bloody remnants of the faery’s corpse and continued down the tunnel, up towards the surface. She paused as she reached the once familiar mouth of the cavern, a smile curving her lips.

The Gloaming was far more wild and sprawling than she remembered—even the color seemed more vibrant, and far more blue. There were all sorts of new, unfamiliar plants, moon motes hung in the boughs of the trees, casting everything in their silvery, glimmering glow. It was whimsical, like something out of a story book, something innocent and wonderful in the way she’d made it, called it back from the depths of the choking swamp Ysolde had sunk its last iteration into.

It was so beautiful.

She smiled, a tear slipping down her cheek as she re-memorized the forest that had once been her home, her sanctuary. It was Amaris’s now, just as she’d always wanted it to be, one day.

Amaris, who still saw the world with a sort of storybook wonder, who hadn’t yet been corrupted by their festering line, the shackle that was the Blackthorne name, who had the chance to be something different, something so much more.

Who had a chance to be free of it all, this time.

Ysolde would see that she was.

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Notes:

Meant to have this out earlier but it was a bit of a beast and then I got heat sick and my brain was too dumb to write but we're here now!

AN: If you enjoy reading my stories, please consider dropping a like or a comment. I really love interacting with people and it really keeps me excited and motivated to keep posting.

#alucard x oc #alucard castlevania #alucard tepes x reader #long reads #angst #sick of losing soulmates

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mt-musings · 1 month ago

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I am soooo close to finishing the next chapter of Sick of Losing Soulmates but the last couple days I have been too exhausted to finish it, but it is coming!! I am hoping to finish it after work tomorrow

#mt talks #sick of losing soulmates #rambles

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mt-musings · 1 month ago

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as a society, we need more long fiction where the reader haunts the narrative. yes, I want to be that dead wife at the beginning of each movie. if I disappear or die tragically, i want to haunt the character every moment. we don't need a few paragraphs about how much the character hurts over our death, we want at least 10k where it is established at the beginning of the story that reader is dead, we want to see flashbacks to the past when we were happy. the longer the story goes on, the darker they become, all the way to the present. I never want to leave the character alone.

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mt-musings · 1 month ago

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Non-writers don't understand how much of writing is just googling things like "when was the croissant invented" for worldbuilding reasons and staring off into the distance.

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mt-musings · 2 months ago

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the em dash calls to me like the green goblin mask whenever I’m writing a fic

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mt-musings · 2 months ago

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It's our boy, Lisa.

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mt-musings · 2 months ago

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The Last Silverboughs - 54

Baldur's Gate 3, Astarion x Tav

Halsin struggles to put his past to rest, but it's haunting him in more ways than he realizes. He'd thought his time in the Underdark was long behind him, an unpleasant pitfall of youthful hubris, but remnants of his captivity remain, the youngest of which unwittingly stumbles to his rescue.

Lythra can't stop running from her past--hasn't, since she managed to make it out of the Underdark. She has no love for Menzoberranzan, or her House, or anything she left behind in the dark. Or nearly anything.

Still, she'd rather die than return--a prospect all the more likely with a tadpole jammed behind her eye. But perhaps, with the help of a renown druidic healer, she can go back to what remains of her half-life in the sun.

Read on AO3

A Crossroads

It was already midmorning by the time Astarion roused himself, merely slipping on a deep red silk dressing gown before he got up to pad through the palace’s halls. He could see servants scurrying around, cleaning up the remnants of his latest soiree, bowing at his approach, eyes locked on the marble floor.

It had been a particularly debauched affair, though it had left him nearly unsatisfied—

He’d found himself missing his favorite, his sweet little songbird tucked safely away in her chambers, unaware of the celebration of dark hedonism taking place on the opposite side of the palace. She was too delicate a thing for such revelry, and too precious to allow others to see in such an intimate fashion.

That was for him, and him alone.

He paused in the doorway out to the inner courtyard, hidden away from the city, every aspect of it beautiful and perfectly manicured, the sort of oasis he deserved after two hundred years of shit. His lips quirked up at the sound of gentle harp strings from further in the garden, a sure sign his most precious treasure was enjoying the quiet of the morning and the golden sunshine.

Lythra sat on one of the stone benches with her harp leaning against her shoulder. He admired the way her ivory gown clung to her, the delicate detailing he’d designed himself, the sweetness of the scooped neckline, even if he’d had it cut a bit low, and the tiny ruffles on the sleeves. He’d seen all of her wardrobe made in the same ivory, sometimes with the faintest silver or gold embroidery. She looked faintly divine—pale skin and snowy curls, dressed entirely in white. The only thing that ruined the illusion were the brutal scars that littered her skin.

She looked up as he approached, smiling at him as she set the harp back on its feet. It wasn’t the same sort of unrestrained smile of the wilds, but something practiced and refined, befitting of his consort. He pressed his lips together, though, at the heaviness behind her pale eyes, the sadness that never seemed to leave them, even if she’d gotten so very good at hiding it, at least from others.

But there was nothing she could hide from him, not anymore.

“Practicing already, little love?” he asked, crossing to her side so he could cup her cheek as he sat next to her, tilting her chin up so she was looking at him.

“It’s nearly noon,” she said, brows pulling together faintly.

“I suppose it is,” he said, leaning down to press a searing kiss to her lips. When he pulled away she was breathless, her cheeks flushed. “I suppose that explains why I’m simply famished.”

She stared at him a moment before she wordlessly dropped her head to her shoulder, exposing her neck to him, eyes searching his face for his approval as she swept her curls to the side. He smiled at her, delighted by her easy obedience. The vicious thing no longer remained, it was only the sweet, slightly uncertain girl that lay her trust at his feet, and his alone, as if they were an alter.

He’d made sure there was no one else she could.

He let his hand slip from her cheek, splay around her throat, feel just how delicate a thing it was, how fragile. A reminder to them both, though of far different things.

“What a pretty little thing you are,” he said, cupping her breast as he kissed down the column of her neck before sinking in his fangs. She inhaled sharply tensing, though she relaxed again as he kneaded the supple flesh of her breast, thumb swiping deliberately over her nipple, ejoying the way her arousal sweetened her blood. He grinned into her neck as she let out a breathy whimper, as she reached out to steady herself by holding his shoulder, her other hand holding on to his upper arm.

He let his hands wander, tracing her figure, the curves and swells of it that only he got to touch. No matter how many nights spent reveling in delicious bacchanals, drowning in hedonistic pleasures, he always preferred this, his precious thing pliant beneath his touch and somehow still as shy as a maiden, no matter how much she let him corrupt her.

He loved it, kept her tucked away in her own wing of the palace, far away from the dark hedonism of the rest of it, the pleasures that had been denied to him. He wanted preserve it for as long as he could, keep it for himself whatever innocence left to her, claim it as his own until nothing remained, until he’d consumed it all.

“‘Starion,” she slurred, pushing weakly against his chest. He swallowed another mouthful, drunk on her intoxicating blood and the thought of her beneath him, writhing with the pleasure only he gave her, the way she looked at him with those round, trusting eyes, so often lost now, and searching for guidance.

His guidance.

He felt her going wobbly and weak, heart racing to make up for all the blood he’d consumed. He wrapped an arm around her back to support her, the other cradling under her knees, still slightly taken aback by how slight she was in his arms.

He could Turn her. He doubted she’d even fight him on it, not really and then—

Then she’d be his forever. Nothing would be able to take her from him, not ever.

She’d look a proper little drow, her pale eyes traded for red. Had they been green, once? He could hardly even remember. It wouldn’t matter, though. Whatever color they were, it wouldn’t remain much longer.

He pulled away, watching as the stray rivulets of her blood stained the ivory of her dress, watched the way her breasts heaved as she tried to catch her breath, her gaze hazey, expression muddled with the confusion that came with heavier bloodlessness. He held her tight, kissing her fiercely so she could taste the remnants of her blood on him.

He’d miss the taste of her blood, the intoxicating quality of it, the decadence no one else’s could compare to. Still, it’d be a small price to pay in the face of an eternity with her, an eternity with her exactly as he wanted her.

He pulled back, admiring the way her blood smeared across her lips, her chin, how it stained her pale flesh and the white silk of her dress. She stared up at him, boneless in his arms, eyes slightly unfocused before she tucked her face into the crook of his neck.

“There you are, little love,” he crooned as she held on to him with all of her fleeting, fragile strength. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll always take care of you, my treasure. Until the world falls down.”

There were tears running down Lythra’s face, cutting through the grime and the blood as she stared at him, pleading.

He’d never seen her beg for a thing, had so rarely seen her submit to anyone, even under torment, but here she was, practically groveling as she beseeched him.

Didn’t she understand he wanted them safe, wanted to be able to protect her, wanted to be free, really free? With that sort of power, no one would be able to touch him, and that meant he’d make sure no one could ever hope to touch her.

She’d finally have someone who could protect her, who would—she’d never have to simply survive again.

Surely she knew what it was like to want to never, ever be afraid again?

“Please, Star,” she begged, the tears running down her cheeks seemingly never-ending. Her voice sounded so small, and so very nearly broken. “Please—please don’t ask this of me. Don’t make me choose—I cannot bear it.”

Of course she couldn’t—not with her wretched bleeding heart. She would think they should be saved, even if they were nothing more than monsters. She didn’t understand the spawn in the cells were rabid with hunger, that they were scarcely more than beasts—

She’d cried for Sebastian. A sweet boy, an innocent man who’d never been kissed before, who fell for his charms just as surely as she had. He hadn't lost himself to hunger, not completely, not enough that he'd been unable to talk to them. He still had reason, sense, even as he starved.

Sebastian had already suffered far worse than he’d ever deserved, didn’t deserve to spend the rest of eternity in the Hells at Mephistopheles’s cruel whim—

But Astarion hadn’t deserved any of it either. Surely he deserved better, deserved better than an eternity as a spawn condemned to endless nights. Even if there were a few innocents sacrificed, it had to be better than releasing a spawn of seven thousand ravenous vampire spawn on Baldur’s Gate.

The carnage of such a decision would be near-immeasurable.

“Please—let me find another way. I will give you the sun, my love, I promise. Should it cost a soul, let it be mine—as blackened and twisted as it is—” she swore, voice raw and ragged, looking half-mad, though he knew she meant it, knew she would give it to him in a moment if he asked.

“Lythie—!” her brother roared, nearly drowning out the druid’s shout of protest. Lythra ignored them both, eyes only fixed on him.

“—I shall give it to you freely. I love you,” she said, voice breaking. “P-please, Astarion. You’re so much more than he ever was. I know you are.”

He stared at her, trying to make sense of the words.

He would be, if he completed the ritual, more than any vampire that had ever walked the realm. He’d be something new, something extraordinary, something powerful.

Something Cazador had spent over two centuries stealing people away to sacrifice them to the Hells. It was why he’d Turned Astarion, Turned all his siblings, Turned poor Sebastian and the Gur children.

He’d stolen all their lives as if he’d had the right to, thought of them as nothing more than lambs for the slaughter, fodder for the ritual, a price for the power he coveted. Not people, not people with whole lives and families and friends who loved them. Just things to trade for the Rite, for sunlight.

Lythra loved him, inexplicably, she loved him, thought him better than he was. Saw that there was something better in him, even when he hadn’t seen it, couldn’t have hoped to find it himself.

Hadn’t wanted to.

She wouldn’t love whatever he became, if he completed the rite—couldn’t. Not when she knew the cost, not when the only soul she was willing to sacrifice was her own—not even his.

She’d never been able to leave a thing in a cage, not since he met her—not the owlbear, or the druid, not the Nightsong or the rude little pixie or even the disgusting aberrant intellect devourer.

She hadn’t hesitated to sprint through a crowd of monsters to tear him from the hold of Cazador’s magic, nor to arm him with him with her preferred weapons before she whirled around to defend him.

He swallowed had, bile rising in his throat.

He could have the sun, and unknowable power if he completed the ritual, rule Baldur’s Gate from behind the Council if he was clever about it—

Or he could have Lythra.

The one person who had ever seen him as something more than a pretty thing to fuck, than a bitter, cruel, and selfish man lashing out in fear, still acting the part of a slave even with his master’s tether severed. Who’d seen sweetness in him, somehow, even when he’d been playing his game.

Sweetness he would have sworn had died along with whoever he’d been before he clawed his way up out of the dirt. Surely not even the scraps she’d managed to knit back together would survive the ritual.

They certainly wouldn’t survive her loss.

“You—you’re right. I can be better than him,” he said, voice soft as he stared at her, at the relief that washed over her face. She smiled at him, and it was such a blinding thing, even with the tears that still slipped down her cheeks.

Maybe he could be the man she saw in him, be more than the thing Cazador had broken and twisted, more than his two hundred years of torment. He could put an end to it, to the pain and torture and subjugation and death, walk away and find something more.

He turned back to Cazador, a vicious smile curving his lips.

“But I’m not above enjoying this,” he said, striding forward with Cazador’s dagger in his hand, watching him cower and tremble as he knelt on the stone floor. He grabbed a fistful of his hair and drove the blade into his chest, over and over, adjusting his grip when the handle became too slick with blood, making it easier for him to keep stabbing as Cazador toppled to the ground.

He stabbed him over and over, even when he was sure he’d gotten him through the heart, that he was dead—finally dead. He had to be sure, couldn’t stay his hand until his old master’s chest was nothing but meat.

He took a step back, staring at the body, at the thing that had made him a slave, had tortured him for two centuries, had forced him to damn so many others. Somehow he looked almost small, broken on the marble floor, nothing like the monster he was.

He howled in rage and pain, stumbling until he fell to his knees, the rush of adrenaline leaving him. Then there was just agony—centuries of agony being torn from his lips. He sobbed, staring up into the darkness of the cavern.

It was over. Cazador lay dead on the ground and it didn’t make any of the years of torment better, didn’t wipe away the nightmares of his slavery. It didn’t give back a thing that was taken from him, didn’t return him to the man he’d been before Cazador had Turned him.

He still hardly even remembered that man.

He tried to catch his breath, tried to calm the riot in his chest, the pain and acidic relief. He saw Lythra cross to his side and silently kneel next to him, hands gripping her knees—preventing her from reaching out and touching him, he knew.

He squeezed his eyes shut, reaching blindly to take her hand as he tried to make sense of it all. She didn’t try to get him to speak, or ask him if he was okay—she knew well enough that he wasn’t—she just held his hand in both of hers, he’d it like she’d never let him go.

If only he’d be so lucky.

He took a deep breath before he opened his eyes, turning to look at Lythra, at the blood and grime that covered her, at the way her eyes softened when she looked at him, a sliver of his Lyth peeking through.

“Is it over?” Dalyria asked, approaching the pair of them slowly. “Is he...?”

Astarion gently pulled his hand from Lythra’s and forced himself to his feet, the motion more effort than it should have been.

“Yes,” he said, hardly managing more than a ragged whisper. “He’s gone.”

“What does that mean for us?” Petras asked, glancing around in fear, eyes lingering on Lythra’s oaf of a paladin brother.

They weren’t exactly known for their tolerance of the undead.

“What do you want it to mean?” Lythra asked, still kneeling on the blood-soaked ground. He had no doubt she was remembering Petras speaking gleefully of finding his own victim to drain.

“It means you have a choice,” Astarion said. “You can hide here, lingering in the shadows like parasites, or you can be more than what he made us to be. You can choose differently, of course, but the consequences are on your head.”

“And—what does it mean for them?” Dalyria asked, looking back up towards the cells, towards the seven thousand spawn they’d damned.

“Ah,” he said, chest aching. “That is a question.”

“Release them,” Lythra said quietly, taking hold of Cazador’s staff from where it fell as she rose to her feet. “They deserve the same chance you got.”

She held it out to him, a faint smile on her lips. He took it, holding on too tight.

A chance.

That was what those wretched mindflayers had given him, a chance to be more, a chance to decide for himself, who he wanted to be. He could have so easily squandered it—nearly did, so many times.

But he hadn’t, not yet.

“You can’t,” Xaryn snapped in horror. Lythra turned on her heel and glared at him.

“Why not? They didn’t do anything wrong and there’s tunnels here, I found them on the old blueprints. They lead to the Underdark, they wouldn’t even pass through the city.”

“You can’t just release thousands of rabid monsters into the Underdark, Lythie!” Xaryn snapped.

“Why the Hells not?” she snapped back, bearing her teeth. “Everything down there already wants blood—what’s adding to the population?”

“They’re monsters, Lythie, they’re starving—”

“What if they can control their thirst? Would you take away their chance to even try? They were cursed, they’re not inherently evil! Those children weren’t evil!”

“They’re still dangerous! They could hurt—”

“The poor wretches in the cells are innocent. They shouldn’t suffer just because I—” Astarion said, breaking off as if the reality of what he’d done physically hurt him. “Lured them here.”

“And what of the people they kill?” Xaryn shot back.

“So you’d rather kill innocents than allow them the ability to try and live with restraint?” Lythra snapped, hands curled into fists.

“I don’t want to kill anyone!”

“Oh, so you’ll just leave them locked up and starving and unable to die? Because that’s more moral,” she snarled at him. He opened his mouth to argue moving to take the staff from Astarion—if he broke it, they wouldn’t have the option of unleashing a practical army of undead. Then he could make her understand.

She cut him off, pulling the staff from Astarion’s hands as she clocked his movement, taking a step back, away from him.

“I’m not killing them and I’m not leaving them to rot. I promised them a chance. They deserve a chance,” she said, and raised the staff before bringing it down hard on the marble.

He heard the sound of the cell locks releasing all around, echoing in the cavern, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as he heard the skittering of bodies, heard them pouring toward the entrance to the Underdark.

“What have you done?” he asked, eyes wide as he stared at his sister.

Xaryn staggered, gripping his chest as he dropped to a knee. Something was wrong, something was missing, something had been torn away—

“Xaryn? Xaryn, what’s wrong?” Lythie asked, eyes going wide as she darted to his side, searching him for any obvious injury, anything to account for the pain gripping him.

He heard her calling for Halsin, felt more hands on him, heard his name his name being called, but he could only try and catch his breath.

There was a flash of red, infernal-looking light and he froze as a figure appeared, a figure clad in ornate black platemail with burning red eyes glowing from inside the helm. He heard Lythra gasp next to him, heard the distinct sound of a sword being unsheathed.

Xaryn just gaped at the figure. He’d heard tell of him of course, all paladins heard the stories of the Oathbreaker Knight, but he’d thought they were just that—stories. But here he stood, looking down his helm at him with such an unfathomable expression, the weight of his gaze in and of itself staggering.

“You have broken your oath, paladin,” the Knight said, his voice a lilting sort of rasp. “At the close of day, I will be waiting for you. We have much to discuss.”

He disappeared again in a flash of the same red light, ignoring his sister’s shouted questions, her brandished blade, the fury in her eyes.

Halsin knelt next to him, placing a steadying hand on his shoulder, already sinking in a healing spell as he pushed back the loose hair from his forehead, eyes searching his face.

“Talk to me, Xar,” he said softly, worry plain on his face.

“I—I felt it. I felt it break. I don’t understand, I—” he broke off, shaking his head as the realization hit him.

The spawn.

Lythie had released the spawn with that cursed staff and he’d told her not too, told Lythie it was wrong, releasing thousands of ravenous undead, and she’d told him she would do it anyway.

And he hadn’t stopped her.

There would have been no way of convincing her to leave them caged other than violence and he’d never hurt his sister.

She believed so vehemently that they deserved a chance, deserved the same chance as her wretched spawn, as the owlbear and intellect devourer and every other beast and monster she saw worthy of redemption.

Was she wrong, though, to offer it?

There were innocents behind those bars—his stomach twisted uncomfortably at the memory of the man, Sebastian, the young, utterly naive man Astarion had seduced and given over to his former master, the man that his sister had looked at with such a wretched understanding that he’d wanted to stake her damn spawn to death right there.

Was there a right answer in this horrid mess?

“Xaryn, are you—”

“I’m fine,” he said before his sister could even get the full sentence out. “I’ll be be fine.”

“Xaryn—”

“I’m okay, Lythie,” he said, hating the fear in her eyes.

“Who—who was that? What did he mean, he’ll be waiting for you—”

“It’s—it’s a paladin thing. It’s not—he’s not a threat. It’s—it’s nothing, Lythie,” he said, lost somewhere between shame and confusion and dread. He didn’t want to explain it to his sister, didn’t want her to shoulder the blame like he knew she would, like she always did.

“It clearly is—”

“Nothing for you to worry about,” he said sharply, sharper than he meant to. He saw a flash of hurt pass over her face before she could hide it. Her eyes flicked over to Halsin and he reached out to squeeze her shoulder for a moment, a brief reassurance.

“I’ll take care of it, little one. You look after Astarion, alright?” he said softly. She stared at him a moment before she nodded, biting her lip.

“Thank you,” she said, voice hardly more than a breath, before she turned back to Astarion, digging through her pack until she pulled out a rather worn cloak. She reached up to drape it over his shoulders, furrow etched between her brows.

“The spawn,” Astarion said abruptly, turning to the white-haired vampire woman, though he glanced at the other. “They’ll need someone to lead them. Take the tunnels into the Underdark and lead them—well, not safe, but somewhere less perilous.”

“What?” one of the spawn cried, eyes going wide. “No, we can’t—”

“Just try to keep them out of trouble,” Astarion said derisively, cutting him off. The white haired woman nodded and lead the others towards the tunnels, towards the thousands of rabid vampire spawn flooding the Underdark.

Astarion just stood there for a long moment, eyes far away.

“I—I think I we’re done here,” he said as he rolled his shoulders back, though it did little to disguise the way he still trembled.

“Let’s go, then,” she replied, putting her hand protectively on the small of his back as they walked back to the elevator. It was almost ridiculous, the sight of her so clearly stepping into the roll of the protector—his sister, so tiny from their mother’s foul experiments, from years of starving and surviving, nearly a foot shorter than the spawn.

It was clear she was a comfort to him, though.

He hadn’t cowered behind her during the fight like he’d thought. They’d fought side by side, he’d defended her viciously from his old master.

He shook his head. He had enough to think about considering he’d broken his oath, that he’d have to speak with the Oathbreaker Knight when they returned—he didn’t have the time to try and make sense of the spawn’s schemes. He just knew not to trust him, knew to watch for the moment he tried to hurt his baby sister.

They froze in the hall as the sight of a small crowd of heavily armored individuals—Gur, judging by the markings on their armor and shields. An older, silver-haired woman who must have been their leader stepped forward, fury plain. Xaryn’s hand automatically went to the hilt of his weapon as she approached Lythie.

“You killed one vampire, but you released seven thousand of his spawn? Have you lost all sense?” the Gur leader snarled.

“They were innocents. To kill them would have been an even greater crime!” Astarion snapped back, face twisted with fury.

Xaryn was surprised, not by the sentiment, but that it was the spawn yelling it at the woman and not his sister.

“But if you do decide to go hunting them,” Astarion sneered. “Know they include your children.”

“They—they survived?” the woman asked, anguish clear on her face. Astarion shifted uncomfortably.

“Well, that depends on how you define...survived,” he said, eyes glued to the floor. “But—they are free. They’re making their way into the Underdark as we speak.”

“You have taken them from us twice, now!” she spat.

“I have,” Astarion said, his usual bravado falling away. “I’ve stolen your last chance to see them. And I’d do it again, in a heartbeat, because anything else, would mean sending you down into the dark. It’d mean showing you the hunger in your babes eyes, and leaving you with that terrible, final decision. I visited enough pain on your people. The least I could do was spare you that.”

“Perhaps there was something to that,” she admitted, voice softening, though only for a moment before the scathing bite returned. “Kindness that I wouldn’t have credited you with.”

“Well, it’s backhanded as compliments come, but I’ll take it if it means you’re done trying to kill me.”

“I never dreamt a spawn could find redemption, but...yes. I expected less.”

“So I can see, from all your heavily armed friends. You didn’t think I could resist completing the ritual, did you?”

“I admit it, I had my doubts,” the woman said, before turning to his sister and addressing her sincerely. “But thanks to you, a monster will never rear its head again. You have our thanks.”

She gave Astarion another sharp once-over. “You are free. Never again will you be hunted by my people.”

“Thank you,” he replied, shame and contrition softening his voice. “And, for what its worth, I’m sorry. I wish I could return the one taken from you.”

“You gave them a chance. I’m not sure there was anything more we could have asked of you, considering the circumstances.”

The spawn just nodded and watched with Lythie as the Gur turned and left ahead of them. Lythie waited until they’d left before turning back to him.

“Is there anything else you need to do before we leave,” he heard his sister ask the spawn softly. He shook his head.

“Let’s just go. I’m done,” he replied, words sharpened by bitterness. He seemed to deflate a bit, though, the sharpness leaving his eyes, making them seem almost empty.

Astarion was vaguely aware of Lythra pulling a cloak tighter around his shoulders, of her hand protectively on the small of his back as she led him back to the Elfsong, of how she had him sit on the edge of her bed, pulling the dividers more closed to give them privacy. She disappeared for a moment, must have, because she returned with a bowl of warm, soapy water smelling of lavender and a handful of clean cloths, some of his softest camp clothes.

She set the clothes aside and perched next to him with the bowl, eyes searching his face for permission before she touched him. He found himself nodding faintly, only half-aware of his actions.

He wasn’t sure if he felt the gentle way she cleaned the blood and grime from his skin or if he was just sort of aware of it, knew that she would be—of course she would be.

She was always so gentle with him.

She helped him into clean clothes and urged him to lay down, tucking him into her blankets before sinking to her knees to the floor next to the bed. She combed her fingers through his hair, brow furrowed, eyes so deeply sad.

Sad for him, he knew.

He took a shaking breath, reaching out to wipe a bit of grime from her cheek with his thumb, grime that hadn’t been washed away by her tears. She was covered in blood and dirt, bruises blooming across her neck from Cazador’s grip. She hadn’t even bothered to change out of her armor.

“You’re filthy,” he said, trying for his usually teasing edge, but it just came out flat. “You can’t join me smelling worse than the owlbear.”

She forced a smile, a smile that didn’t come close to meeting her eyes, but she nodded.

He watched her almost absently as she stripped off her armor and filthy, patched clothes and cleaned herself quickly, with none of the tenderness she’d shown him, nothing but quiet efficiency, before she was clean enough to pull on a nightshirt and slip under the covers with him. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close, but oh so carefully, like he was made of finest china.

He felt just about as delicate.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t try and coax him to speak. Instead she rubbed his back, his head nestled in the crook of her neck, her cheek pressed to the crown of his head. He focused on the feeling of her trailing fingers, the smell of the lavender soap on her skin, the feeling of his legs tangled with hers.

They lay like that for hours, long after the others had gone to bed and soft snores filled the room.

They were safe. Cazador was dead.

And once they destroyed the Netherbrain he’d likely never feel the sun on his skin again.

He took a shaking breath, pulling back just enough to look at Lythra’s face. She stared back at him, her concern so clear, eyes still red from crying.

“I promise, Star. I’ll find a way for you to walk in the sun. I promise,” she said, face twisted by guilt. He opened his mouth to respond, but couldn’t quite find the words, especially when he knew the truth of hers, knew that she really would pay for such a privilege as she’d said, with her soul, if need be.

She’d begged him to spare the souls of seven thousand strangers, but she’d offered him hers without a second’s hesitation.

He pressed his face to the crook of her neck again, forcing himself not to hold her too tight. He took a few steadying breaths, just clinging to her, unable to have any space at all between them.

She was there. She was safe.

They just might have a future together, even if it would be in the dark.

AN: If you enjoy reading my stories, please consider dropping a like or a comment. I really love interacting with people and it really keeps me excited and motivated to keep posting.

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mt-musings · 2 months ago

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Amor Aeternus

Ascended Astarion x Tav blurb

cw: heavy angst, attempted suicide

He caught her, with the knife to her breast, blood flowing in rivers down the front of her beautiful silk gown, one he’d picked specifically as it reminded him of the opalescent color of her eyes before she Turned, before they went crimson as the blood pouring down her chest. He was beside her in an instant, cursing gods he scarcely believed in as he fumbles in his pocket for the healing potion he always carries out of habit from their time adventuring.

She stared up at him in desolation, tears streaking her cheeks as she clenched her jaw shut and shook her head in a silent refusal, even as he watched the light begin to dull behind her eyes, watched it dull again and he can’t bear it—how could she expect him to bear it a second time, when the first nearly destroyed him?

“Open your mouth,” he ordered, and his voice was harsh—harsh with fear and desperation and rage that anyone, even she, would dare to try to take her away from him. Her body complied, was forced to, by the thrall, but he saw flickering loathing behind her eyes as she did, loathing he’d seen a thousand times burning behind the eyes of spawn, but never hers. Still, he forced the potion down her throat, pressing his hand against the wound as tight as he dared to slow the torrent of blood pouring down her chest.

She must have nicked her heart, to account for so much blood, nicked but not truly punctured.

Had he entered the chamber even a few seconds later it might have been too late.

He couldn’t bear the thought.

He carried her to their chamber himself—he would not have the spawn touch her, not have her precious blood grace their skin. He stitched the wound back together himself, each one meticulous and precise. She passed out as he begins, eyes fluttering shut, skin bloodless and lips purple. Still, she breathed, shallow and light as a whisper, but she breathes.

She lay still and lifeless but for the slight rise and fall of her chest for nearly three nights, and for nearly three nights he refused to leave her side, refused to speak to anyone, to feed, to so much as relinquish her from his embrace.

She woke that way, cradled oh so gently in his arms, eyes fluttering open weakly. She was still so pale, so fragile—for a moment she almost looked mortal again. The sweet, delicate mortal that had stirred his long-dead heart, that had shown him such innocent, pure love that he’d only ever believed to be the silver lies of bard’s ballads. She stared up at him dully, tears dripping from the corners of her eyes, though she said nothing, face impassive but for the devastation behind her eyes.

He’d ruined her, ruined her so wholly he doubted he could ever find it in his black heart to forgive himself.

Still, it would not stop him from ruining her further—not if it preserved her, protected her.

“You will never do that again, treasure. I will not see harm brought to you, not even by your own hand,” he said, throat constricted by lingering terror even as he laced his words with command she could never disobey. “You can’t. Not ever. I love you, and I shall never be parted from you. Never.”

He wiped away her tears as delicately as he could manage with the pad of his thumb, hating how quickly they were replaced. Still, she melted into his embrace the same as she always had, fingers clinging to the silk of his shirt with none of the strength he’d learned to expect from such small, delicate things.

#ascended astarion #cw sui attempt #ascended astarion x tav #angst #bg3

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mt-musings · 2 months ago

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holy shit ao3 finally made it so they tell you which chapter a comment was made on without you having to click on the specific comment

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mt-musings · 2 months ago

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Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!

Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.

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mt-musings · 2 months ago

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mt-musings · 2 months ago

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To Inherit the Night - 26

Hubert von Vestra x OC

Cecily Leclerc will do whatever it takes to eradicate Those Who Slither in the Dark, even if it means killing the man she's loved since the Academy. That is, until her brother Yuri is captured, his life taken hostage for hers.

Hubert will do anything to help Edelgard realize her dream. No cost is too high--except, perhaps, the life of the urchin girl who stole his heart before the war, a girl Lord Arundel is hunting down with the rabidity of a wild dog.

A girl he wants alive for reasons Hubert has yet to uncover.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26

Read on AO3

Revelations

“They are coming, your Majesty,” Cara said as she pushed into the tent, sweat running down her next from how fast she’d run back, ahead of the approaching war band. Queen Fiadh looked up form the makeshift bed, sharp, mismatched eyes—one violet, one the iciest of blues— meeting her sentry’s beneath furrowed brows. Her raven hair was plastered to her face, her braids half undone as she clutched the bundle in her arms.

A girl.

Her girl. Born without the same mismatched eyes as her mother, as her grandmother before her. Hardly a few hours old.

“Is it—?” Cara asked, approaching her. The Queensguard stiffened around her, but made no move to stop her.

Fiadh nodded. “She. And her father?”

Cara shook her head, dropping her eyes to the ground. Fiadh took a deep, shaking breath but nodded. She’d already known, as soon as Cara burst inside the tent. Cathal would never have allowed them this close had he still breathed.

He’d never get the meet his daughter in this plane.

“We will hold them at bay, your Majesty. You run,” Imogen said as she nodded to the rest of the Guard. Fiadh shook her head.

“It is futile, for me, in this state.”

“Your Majesty—“

She raised a hand, wordlessly silencing the dissent. She turned and stared at the babe in her arms, memorizing her sweet, sleeping face.

“Cara, Ailbhe, Emer—you will will take her north, to the old forest, to the Beginning, where they will not find her. The Druids will shelter you. My mother’s line cannot die with me.”

“It will not, your Majesty, for you shall flee with her.”

“If I do they will never stop searching. There will be nowhere safe, nowhere far enough. You will make sure she knows of her family, knows of her grandmother, of Lady Night. That she alone remains the last vestige of our beloved Queen of Stars. That her mother loved her, more than anything.”

“Your Majesty—“

“Go, now. Before they are too close to see your torches,” Fiadh said, pressing a kiss to her daughter’s forehead. “Be safe my child, for you hold all the hope for a new age in your tiny heart. Night shall live in your veins, to be reborn, when the world is ready to be wrought anew. This, I promise you, my darling girl, my Aisling.”

She hesitated only a moment longer before handing her daughter to her nursemaid Emer, the woman who she knew would raise her as her own. She turned away, unable to watch her daughter leave. She waited until the footsteps of the little party faded away before turning to Imogen.

“You will take the war band my head. You must see that my body is destroyed, they cannot know that she lived.”

“No—my Queen—“

“This is my final order, Imogen. My steadfast, my friend—I am sorry I must ask it of you. But this is how it ends. How it must,” she said, calling on the tendrils of Night to come to her, to lengthen her hand into a claw. She gave one last, desolate smile to her Guard—her friends—who had served her so valiantly, who had followed her to the very end.

And then she tore her own still-beating heart from her chest.

“The girl is in the Capital again,” Thales snarled as he stormed into the lab. Myson glanced up from his most recent experiment, raising a brow.

“I would assume you’d be more pleased, considering you know where she is now.”

“Perhaps I would be, if the Vestra boy wasn’t playing games with forces beyond his ken. I doubt he even knows he keeps the last vestige of a dark and ravenous god locked away in his bedchambers. If he did he might have the firepower to move against us.”

“That or he is indeed fond of her—I very much doubt the boy could stand a chance against us without dissembling her for parts.”

“You seem very sure her power is significantly dampened.”

“Of course it is. Otherwise why would she simply go after dinky little outposts. And it took her ten years to do that. That’s not the work of someone who’s tapped into the innate power of a god, that’s someone with a vendetta.”

“Still, the boy’s complicated everything. I doubt it will be so easy to slip our agents in next time.”

“He’ll have to assess the frontlines again sooner or later. I rather doubt he’ll take the girl along to an active war zone.”

“You propose we steal the girl away from the palace. The Emperor with hardly abide such blatant action.”

“You don’t need her, you need her blood, at least for now, for our plans to keep pace. Sedate her, bleed her to the edge and leave her there to recover until the next opportunity. It’s not ideal, but it could do.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps she can be…persuaded even if the foolish boy cannot.”

“I don’t care how you do it, only that you get the blood. We will need it, to subdue northern Faerghus.”

Thales didn’t answer, sweeping from the room without a backwards glance.

“They shouldn’t have been able to get the jump on you,” Yuri said, giving her a sharp look as they walked through the East Garden. She’d mercifully been able to convince Vharan to let her go with just Yuri. “You’re either getting sloppy or they had help concealing—“

“I fucked up, okay? I was drinking on the roof, I didn’t shut the window when I came back in and passed out—“

“Did you think you were in fucking Derdriu?” He hissed, keeping his voice too low for anyone but her to hear. “This isn’t a game, it’s not another one of your secret runs I’m not supposed to know about. He knows where you are all the time now. There’s not a moment you get to lower your guard until he’s dead, do you understand me?”

She huffed a sigh and rolled her eyes. “I get it.”

“You don’t! You don’t, or you wouldn’t have let Hubert know what you’re capable of.”

“I hardly had a choice—“

“You did, Cecily, we both know you did. You should have dropped a line to Peregrine and had Rook or Hawk sort it out. I don’t know what possessed you to go to Hubert—“

“Kestrel needed dealing with!”

“And what happened if Hubert decides you’re too much of a threat to Edelgard? What happens when Arundel makes him choose between her and you?”

“He won’t.”

“Don’t be a fool.”

“I’m not being a fool, I just—I don’t think he will. There’s…other factors.”

Yuri dragged her behind a rose bush, away from prying eyes.

“What factors, Cecily?”

“Just, you know, new information.”

“What new information?” Yuri asked, voice dangerous. Cecily made a face.

“That maybe his motives were more altruistic than we initially thought. Even if the execution was fucking clown shoes.”

Yuri just stared at her for a full minute and a half before crouching down and dropping his head into his hands.

“You’re going to be the fucking death of me,” he said, the words muffled.

“You’re being dramatic—“

“I—I’m being dramatic? He’s manipulating you, Cecily, and even if, by some miracle, he’s not, he’s practically put you out on a platter for Arundel. You can’t trust him.”

“I—I know that, I’m not saying I do, I’m just saying maybe we’re not fighting on two fronts. Or at least we don’t have to be, yet.”

Yuri sighed and straightened, giving her a look.

“Where were you, anyway? Hubert wouldn’t tell me,” she said, aiming to change the subject. He sighed, plucking one of the blooms from the bush and handing it to her.

“Arianrhod, mostly. Couple of runs up to Camulus for recon—“

“You’re shitting me—he sent you to Camulus? With the fucking psycho stalking the moors?”

“I was careful—“

��Well, so was Dove! We don’t go anywhere near the Tailtean Plains, it’s a rule—“

“Yeah, well, I didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice.”

Cecily ground her teeth, staring at the cobbled path. She’d have words with Hubert later, and make sure he never sent Yuri somewhere so dangerous again. No one went to southern Blaiddyd, not after Dove had been practically torn apart, not even her.

“How’s the line holding?” She asked.

“How do you think it’s holding?”

Cecily just sighed, ignoring the pit in her stomach. “Any big lordlings die?”

Yuri glanced at her sidelong. He knew what she really meant. “He’s fine, as far as I know.”

“And the Alliance?”

“Just as conveniently divided as ever, but nothing new.”

Cecily nodded, glancing behind her to make sure Vharan was still fall enough away.

“You never told me what happened with Shae. Did you get what you needed?”

“No,” he said, his face turning somehow stormier.

“You mean she ripped you off, or didn’t have it?”

“She didn’t have what I was looking for.”

Cecily gave him a look but didn’t push. The answer seemed more loaded than what was safe to dig into at the moment.

“How long do you get to stay?”

“I don’t know. He did’t say anything, so I guess it’s up to his whims.”

“Then stop yelling at him, please. I don’t want him to send you away again.”

He surveyed her a moment before he sighed, mussing her hair affectionately. “I’ll try, alright? Best I can do.”

“You’re messing up my hair,” she said, swatting him off. He chuckled at that.

“Fine, let’s see what we can scrounge up for lunch. Then I’ll have to see to a bit of business, but I’ll be back for dinner.”

“Do I want to ask?”

“No. Though—“ he said, pressing the secret, concealed button on the side of his broach. He passed her a tiny, rolled piece of parchment tied with a bit of golden string. She tucked it into her stays wordlessly, raising a brow. Yuri just sighed and shook his head.

Cecily followed him back to the chambers that had been provided to him upon his arrival, the rooms markedly sunnier and cheerier than Hubert’s own, though on the far side of the palace.

“You know they’re amassing troops across the Myrddin?” Lorenz said as he called for the tea service to be brought.

“Yes, of course, Cecily’s just delivered an updated report on troop movements.”

“And what do you plan to do about it?”

“Nothing, yet. We’re neutral, remember?”

“And will we remain neutral if they cross the bridge and invade Gloucester lands?”

“Obviously not, Lorenz, but I’m not about to overplay my hand. Not when we can let the Empire keep dwindling its own numbers against Kingdom forces in the Dukedom.”

They both looked up as the door opened.

“Goddess, Cecily, you look terrible,” Lorenz said, eyes widening as he spied her in the doorway, hair still wet from her bath.

“A girl always loves to hear that,” she replied sardonically, dropping into one of the chairs next to them.

“I didn’t—You know that’s not how I meant it,” he said quickly, a flush covering his cheeks.

He wasn’t exactly wrong—scrubbed clean he could now see the real extent of the injuries she’d suffered on her last run, bruises and cuts layered over dozens and dozens of long-silvered scars. There was a deep purple bruise along her jaw that he’d mistaken for mostly dirt and the shadows under her eyes could easily be mistaken for the same.

She wore a simple pair of black trousers and a matching shirt, which was open at the neck, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. The trousers were too big, even though they were meant to be slim-fitting, held up by her thick, silver-buckled belt, in which he knew was concealed a tiny, poisoned dagger. Her signature duster was missing. Perhaps she’d finally admitted it was unrepairable.

He couldn’t help but think she looked strange without it, almost naked.

“Let me make you a cup of tea. What would you prefer? I have a variety from Albinea, as well as a lovely green from Morfis, or I have that rose blend from the garden,” Lorenz asked.

“Oh the rose, if you have it, please,” she said with a smile. Claude couldn’t help but notice that Lorenz didn’t have to ask her how she preferred her cup, adding very specifically half a teaspoon of sugar before handing it to her. She thanked him as she took it, taking a deep inhale of the steam.

“Did you add just a touch of hibiscus to the blend this time?” she asked, raising a brow.

“Discerning as ever,” Lorenz said, unable to hide his smile.

“And what poison pairs best with it?” Claude asked, disguising his smile with his own cup.

“Digitalis, especially if it’s sweetened.”

Claude laughed, reaching over to tug the silver ear cuff she wore off, slipping it onto the tip of his finger to display the band of foxglove on it—her personal seal. Beautiful, deadly, and easily hidden in plain sight, just like her. She swiped it back, sliding it back onto her ear.

I t was the only bit of jewelry she ever wore.

Lorenz shot him a dirty look when Cecily wasn't looking. He just smiled back.

“It’s been months, without so much as a whisper,” Lorenz said, pacing back and forth in front of Claude’s desk, anxiously picking at his gloves. “And you refuse to do anything.”

“I never refused, Lorenz. We have to be cautious, Hubert is not one to be trifled with—”

“Hubert is not someone who’s mercy she should be left at! You didn’t see her at the wedding—she was scared of him, Claude. Cecily was frightened. He’d threatened to kill Yuri. And then the next day he whisked her off before anyone had even awoken. Ferdinand said they’d left just after dawn.”

“You’re still friendly with Ferdinand?”

“Friendly enough, considering the circumstances. He called on me while I was in Enbarr. But that’s not the point, the point is that it’s been months and you’ve done nothing!”

“What do you expect me to do, Lorenz? Fly out to Vestra Manor and kidnap the Marquess of the Adrestian Empire myself? I thought you wanted to keep war out of Gloucester?”

“I—there has to be something—something more. We can’t just leave her there.”

“I know—I know. But being rash puts her in more danger. Hubert doesn’t know she was working with the Alliance—she was careful about that.”

“I know, but—I written her a dozen times in the past two months, and haven’t gotten so much as a reply.”

“You wrote her?”

“Yes, of course I wrote her—don’t look at me like that! I’m not stupid, I didn’t write anything classified—simply noble shmoozing, vapid sorts of things, ladder climbing nonsense—things she’d see through, but it would be enough for her to let us know she was alright.”

“A dozen? That’s insane. Two—two would be insane. You two weren’t even friends in school—you know Hubert’s going through all her mail at the very least, if he’s giving it to her at all. What the hell is he going to think after a dozen letters?”

“I—he will think I am a foolish noble, trying to make important friends, just like everyone else in Enbarr.”

Claude stared at him, his eyes narrowed before he shook his head.

“Were you ever going to tell her?”

“Tell her what?”

“That you’re in love with her.”

“I—That’s ridiculous!” Lorenz spluttered, cheeks aflame. “How dare you assume I only care for her well-being because of some non-existent romantic feelings.”

“Yeah, that’s super believable,” Claude quipped back. “I’m sure Ignatz painted you a second portrait of her that you keep in your room for completely normal, platonic reasons.”

“I—how would you even—you’re ridiculous! This—this is ridiculous!”

“No—what’s ridiculous is trying to steal her out from Hubert’s nose.”

“That is not what I’m saying!”

“Well, then what are you saying, Lorenz?!”

“I’m saying—I’m saying I’m leaving for Enbarr at the end of the week and I’m going to check on her myself.”

“Don’t be a fool! You’ll only put her in danger, showing up without a proper reason—“

“I have a reason—that damn portrait. I’ll just be delivering it, seeing how she’s adjusting to Court life. Hubert thinks I’m a fool, not a threat and Cecily will be happy to know some of her friends haven’t forgotten about her so quickly,” he finished sharply. Claude just shook his head.

“You’re putting her in danger.”

“And you’re abandoning her.”

“I’m not,” he spat back. “I’m trying to hold Leicester together. I’m trying to balance everything. Sacrifices have to be made—“

“She’s not a sacrifice!”

“No, she’s not! But I can’t do anything until everything doesn’t blow up if I try, do you understand that? We know nothing about what’s going on, about the situation. We could get her killed, we could start a war. It’s not simple, Lorenz.”

“It is for me,” he said, turning on his heel. “I’ll report back when I return.”

“It’s not a Crest. The Gautier boy swindled you,” Myson said, pushing back from his instruments, a cup of the girl’s blood sat next to him.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Thales said, tossing a book into Myson’s lap. “I don’t think he realized the prize he had.”

Myson scanned the contents, his brow furrowing. “You can’t seriously believe—“

“Oh yes. I do.”

“She does have the eyes—though it’s supposed to be a mere legend.”

“A legend the same as those told about the Immaculate One? Or the King of Liberation? There’s truth to be found in legends, and use.”

Myson turned back to the book with renewed interest. Thales lingered a moment before leaving him to it, striding instead to the cells to where they were holding the little beast.

She sat curled in the far corner of her cell, her hands and feet bound. She was filthy with dirt and blood, her black hair snarled around her face. Thales crouched by the bars to get a better look at her.

She was such a small thing, the wounds on her cheek hardly scabbed over. They’d scar, badly, if she lived long enough. If he was right in his guess, he hoped she would.

It might be just what they needed to start turning the tide against the damn Church.

“Tell me, girl—are you from Sreng?”

“I want to go home, please. I’ll never tell anyone who you are, I just want to go home—“ she begged, voice barely more than a rasp. Thales huffed a laugh.

“This is your home now. You might as well get used to it. Now I asked you a question.”

“Please—please I want to go home. I don’t know anything, I’m just a servant, I want to go home!”

Thales sighed as he unlocked the cell door and strode to the girl who pitifully almost looked hopeful. He slapped her, hard, across the face, hard enough that his hand stung.

“I asked you a question. Are you from Sreng?”

“I’m from Gautier. I live at the Margrave’s house, I always have—“

“Why are you lying?” He asked, grabbing two of her little fingers and bending them backwards until he heard them snap, even over her howls of agony and fear.

“I’m not lying!”

“You think you can fool me?”

“I’m not supposed to tell!”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Go on, where are you from, girl?”

“I don’t know! I don’t! I w-was only born in Sreng. All I remember is Gautier.”

“Why did your mother leave Sreng?”

“The—the war, I think. I don’t know—I don’t—“

He broke another finger.

“I don’t know! I don’t! I don’t know. I want my mama! I want my mama, I want to go home! Please, please let me go home.”

“I told you,” he said, wrenching her thumb back for emphasis. “You are home. Now stop crying and answer my questions, or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Cecily watched Yuri disappear out of the palace gates, lingering for a few moments wishing she could follow. The last time she’d been to Enbarr she’d been fourteen or fifteen on a run, but it had been much the same as when she’d first moved there—busy and loud and overcrowded, the air scented with smoke and spices from Dagda. She missed the bustle of city life after so many months spent in near solitude.

She turned back to the palace, heading back towards Hubert’s chambers—he’d said he wanted her to meet with the tailor, and considering how poorly the morning had gone, she thought it’d be better if she listened, lest he send him away after only a day like last time.

Still she took the long way back, stopping at the library for a few new books before heading back to the Inner Gardens. There was less foot traffic, as only the Emperor’s senior advisors had chambers and offices in the innermost palace, something she was glad for, at least.

“Well, if it isn’t the new Marquess Vestra.” She bristled at the familiar voice—the voice that starred in so many of her nightmares. She turned to see Arundel stalking towards her, lavender eyes full of cruel delight. She ground her teeth, pulling the shadows close as a way to ground herself, even as her heart hammered against her ribs.

“If it isn’t the Goddess’s favorite mistake,” Cecily shot back with a smile, digging her nails into her palms. He was close—too close.

“It seems time hasn’t tempered your sharp tongue,” he replied, amusement coloring his voice. He always liked it when she fought back—then he could hurt her worse.

But not anymore. She didn’t want to be afraid of him anymore.

Why was she still afraid of him? She hadn’t frozen like this the other day—she hadn’t been alone then, hadn’t been with the real Arundel, the monster that didn’t hide his cruelty, but reveled in it. She’d had Hubert there to temper him, Hubert to step behind, to hide.

She was still a little coward, when it came to him, no matter how much she wished she wasn’t.

“What do you want?” She spat.

“You’ll address me with all due respect, girl.”

“All due respect—which is none.”

“I wonder if you’d be a bit more accommodating if I got a hold of that brother of yours. Perhaps then I could persuade you to work with us.”

Cecily’s temper flared before she could temper it.

“If you lay a finger on him and I will raze this fucking city to the ground.”

Arundel’s face darkened and he pushed her into the wall, hard, towering over her as he glowered. She dropped her books to the floor, fear freezing in her veins as she felt his hand grab her hard by the jaw, the same as when she’d been small. He was so close she could smell his aftershave, though it was almost unfamiliar when not mixed with the iron scent of blood.

She wasn’t supposed to be afraid of him anymore, she wasn’t a child any longer, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She was pathetic and useless, just the same as when she’d been eight and he’d snap her fingers, over and over—

What if he did that to Yuri, what if he broke his bones over and over and starved him and cut him and broke him, like he’d broken her?

“You think you can stand there and threaten me because you tricked the Marquis? You think you’re any more than the rat I bought in Gautier, girl? At the end of the day you’re only worth slightly more alive than dead, so you will listen to me, or I’ll gut that boy and make you watch," he snarled and she swore her heart stopped. Arundel couldn't get his hands on Yuri, couldn't do to Yuri what he'd done to her, to the others that hadn't made it. Nothing would matter if he hurt Yuri, not the war, not the Empire--Not Fodlan. She couldn't breathe, there was no air and her heart was going to pound through her ribs.

"I shouldn’t have let the Gautier boy kill your mother, I should have brought her along—maybe then you’d have manners, if it wasn’t bits of you that I was slicing off—“

“Cecily? Cecily, there you are!”

Ferdinand strode towards the pair of them, an armful of scrolls under his arm. Arundel stepped swiftly away from her, molding his face into something pleasant. Ferdinand crossed to her side, subtly putting himself between them.

“Ah, Duke Aegir, has the council release early today? I thought there was rather a lot on the agenda.”

“No,” he said slowly, eyes flicking between Arundel and Cecily still pressed against the wall, her books scattered on the floor. “No, we simply took a break and I was hoping to pick the Marquess’s brain about the new education bill I hope to propose. Hubert and I are having tea with her Majesty and I’d hoped you’d join us.”

“I um, I—“ she stammered, voice barely more than a whisper. Her breath was still coming too fast, her heart fighting to pound out of her ribs.

She wanted to cry.

“The Emperor was most insistent,” Ferdinand said, crossing to her side and stooping to pick up her stack of books. “She’d like to hear first hand about how the school is going at the manor. If you’ll excuse us, Lord Arundel,” he said with a nod and a smile, though it wasn’t nearly as bright as usual.

“Of course. It was nice catching up, Marquess Vestra. I do look forward to the next opportunity,” he said, and set off back down the hallway. She didn’t realize she was trembling until she felt Ferdinand put a hand on her back.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course. I—I’m fine."

Ferdinand sighed, shaking his head. “Come on, I have some lovely lavender tea, it’s very soothing on the nerves. We will speak with Hubert and Edelgard.”

“There is no need, Ferdinand, I—I am late for an appointment as it is.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it can wait until the lot of you explain to me exactly what is going on.”

Previous Next

AN: If you enjoy reading my stories, please consider dropping a like or a comment. I really love interacting with people and it really keeps me excited and motivated to keep posting.

#hubert von vestra x oc #hubert von vestra #thales #those who slither in the dark #slow burn #fire emblem three houses #yuri leclerc #cecily leclerc #inherit the night

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mt-musings · 2 months ago

Text

To Inherit the Night - 25

Hubert von Vestra x OC

A girl he wants alive for reasons Hubert has yet to uncover.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25

Read on AO3

Shared History

It wasn’t unusual for Regulus to spend his nights slipping through the catacombs below the city. It was far safer than the streets, easier to navigate once you had the main tunnels memorized—there were no guards to dodge, no drunks to avoid, no watchful eyes. Just stone and the rhythmic sound of dirty water distantly dripping from grates.

It gave him time to think, to take a break from the whole grand charade that had become his life—there were no masks to juggle, no careful molding to the desires and expectations of others.

He could be simply himself and as lackluster about it as he pleased.

He turned the corner that would lead him towards Old Town. There was a rustling coming from one of the far tunnels, a rustling mixing with a sort of choked cry. He sighed, pulling his blade from his sheath. It wouldn’t be the first time an animal had fallen through one of the grates and injured itself. He’d long before learned it was kinder to just put the thing out of its misery, rather than trying in vain to nurse it back to health.

He turned the corner and froze, eyes widening. The form on the dirt floor of the tunnel was too large to be a raccoon or a dog or any of the usual unfortunate creatures that sometimes fell to their doom. It was deathly pale, its limbs spindly and disproportionate, half concealed in a tattered tunic. Its movements were stilted, jerky, every motion accompanied by a rasping cry. Shadows seemed to cling to it more readily than they should, making it even harder to properly make out the figure. It wasn’t until he took a few steps forward that he realized it was a girl—a terribly beaten, starved little girl. One of her legs was wrong, bent in an unnatural way. She looked up at him with unfocused, mismatched eyes—one blue, one violet—her ashen face skeletal and dominated by a trio of scars across her cheek.

“Please,” she rasped, outstretching a shaking hand towards him. “—help.”

He hesitated a moment before sheathing his blade and stooped to pull her into his arms. She was far too light, all right angles and sharp bones under pale, dirty skin. She cried out as he started to moved, the sound raw and broken.

“Sorry,” he murmured, glancing down at her face while he quicken his pace, noting how she stared listlessly at nothing, her breathing shallow. She didn’t answer.

He walked faster.

He brought her to his mother’s house. He didn’t know what else to do.

It was a horrible decision. He was putting her in danger and for what? A girl he didn’t even know. But when he thought of the broken way she’d begged, the way her spidery fingers had clutched his collar like a lifeline, he couldn’t help the flash of self-disgust at the thought of leaving her there in the tunnels.

His mother returned to the kitchen, carrying a large bowl of now-filthy water and the remnants of the rags the girl had been wearing. She tossed the rags onto the fire before dumping the water out the door. She turned on him, fixing him in her lilac gaze.

“She’s asleep. Now are you going to tell me what in the Goddess’s name happened?”

“She was in the tunnels under the North End. I just—I didn’t know what else to do.”

She nodded, glancing back to where the girl slept. “Did she say who did it to her?”

He shook his head, dropping his gaze to the uneven floorboards. “She only begged for help.”

“Regulus,” his mother said, recapturing his attention, “I don’t know that she will make it through the night. We will do what we can, but she might be too far gone.”

“I understand, Mama.”

“We’ll keep her comfortable, at least,” she said, brushing his hair back behind his ear. He leaned into her touch, trying not to think about the little girl dying. He knew people died, of course, had seen it, just never anyone so small. She barely looked eight.

His mother pressed a kiss to his forehead before dropping her hand. “Go sit with her. Maybe it will do her good to know she’s not alone.”

He didn’t say that he doubted she knew anything right now. He just nodded and sat cross-legged next to the straw pallet she’d been carefully tucked into with every spare blanket they had to try and stop her shivering.

He might’ve thought she’d look better, now that his mother had scrubbed away all the filth she could from her skin, but it only revealed more injuries, more bruises, more scars. She was covered in them—some silvered with age, some still red and angry—though none as vicious as those on her face. They looked like claw marks, carved deep into her flesh from the side of her nose to her ear, one of them very narrowly missing her eye.

He could tell now that her hair was a stark white beneath the grime, tangled and matted past her waist. An unusual color, but pretty.

He hesitated a moment before crossing to his mother’s cramped vanity and grabbing the old tortoise-shell comb. He tried to move her as little as he could in order to tug her hair out from beneath her sleeping form, careful not to pull on her scalp.

He started idly at the bottom, trying to detangle it as gently as he could. After a few minutes his mother noticed and gave him a little bottle of hair oil to ease his progress.

It gave him something to do other than catalogue her injuries, to wonder how someone could be so terribly thin and still live. How long she’d had to have been beaten to have that many scars. He didn’t want to think of the desperation in her eyes as she’d choked out those two words, or how she’d trembled in his arms as he ducked through the familiar tunnels.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, forcing himself to just focus on working the knots out, carefully cutting off what he couldn’t save. He had to cut off most of it, until it barely went past her chin.

He didn’t know when exactly she’d opened her eyes.

He froze, midway through a knot. “I—sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Th-thank you,” she murmured, the words so soft he could hardly make them out.

“It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

She just stared at him with eyes too old for her face, eyes that had already beheld more than a lifetime’s worth of sadness. He reached out and took her hand, giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

“What’s your name?”

“Saoirse.”

“That’s a pretty name. I’m Regulus.”

“Like…the star?”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Yeah. Not many people know that. How old are you?”

“What—what year is it?”

“1175.”

He watched her squeeze her eyes shut, her fingers twitching one by one as she mumbled to herself.

“Maybe ten still. Maybe eleven.”

“Do you know your birthday?”

“The seventeenth of the Red Wolf Moon.”

“Still ten, then. It’s still the Horsebow Moon.”

She nodded stiffly.

“Do you know where your family might be? I’m sure they’re missing you terribly.”

“Mama’s dead. No one misses me.”

He felt his heart break a little at that, at the resigned set of her face, at the tears that slipped down her cheeks, unbidden.

“You’ve got me now.”

Her lip trembled as she stared up at him, though he doubted she could really see much with all the tears welling up in her eyes. He swiped them away with his thumb, smoothing back her hair soothingly with his other hand.

“Try and sleep, alright? We’ll see the healer tomorrow when the parish opens.”

“I don’t want to. I hate sleep.”

“I’ll stay right here until you wake up, okay? I promise.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Th—thank you.”

He stroked her hair as she slipped back into sleep, her breath still too shallow, too fast. She was so thin, so broken lying there under their spare blankets.

He only hoped she’d make it through the night.

“I think we should not act so rashly—allow him to get comfortable before acting. He will be expecting it now, after your little stunt in the throne room,” Hubert said, still parsing through reports. Cecily didn't mind —she was perfectly content to divide her attention as well, though not with a tome, as usual, but with his chess set.

“Perhaps it would leave him more unsettled to not act right away.”

“It gives us more time to be clever about it.”

Cecily sighed, sinking down in her seat. “I don’t care about clever, I care about them being dead.”

“That’s a lie and you know it,” Hubert said, glancing over the report he was reading to catch her making a mocking face, eyes locked on her dinner plate. He huffed a laugh, turning back to his work. She glanced up at him eyes narrowed slightly.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“You pout like a child.”

“I do not.”

“Whatever you say, dear.”

She bristled at that. “You’re an infuriating man.”

Somehow that felt like a badge of honor, coming from her. He surpassed a smile, instead turning to logistics. “You’ll need a dress for the opera. I'll have to order something, but you must allow the tailor to take your measurements this time. And before you argue, you own nothing appropriate for the theatre and Lady Edelgard has kindly offered us the Imperial box, which means that protocol must be adhered to, more so than usual.”

She surveyed him for a long moment before sighing. “Fine.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so resistant to new clothes.”

“Are you fond of dressing rats in tulle?”

“What?”

“It’s the same concept. It’s still a rat, no matter how you dress it up.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he said, unsure of what to make of the comment.

“And you’re wasting money.”

“Do you want to go to the opera?”

“Yes.”

“Then you will get a new dress. Three new dresses.”

Cecily huffed a sigh, turning back to the chess set at her elbow. She’d been playing both sides before he’d sat down and was trying to work out some new strategy. He found himself glancing at her progress every so often.

“The Hevring Defense will counter that,” he said, tossing down his report, finally finished. Cecily looked up at him, brows furrowed.

“The what?”

“You just opened with a Morfin Gambit, the Hevring Defense nullifies the advantage.”

“Wait, they have names?”

“Of course they have names,” he said, getting up and crossing to one of the large bookcases that lined the far wall. He searched for a moment before pulling out a book of chess theory Edelgard had gifted him when he was thirteen. He crossed to the table and laid it next to her elbow.

“You might find it enlightening. Though if you’d like an opponent other than yourself I’d be happy to play—after we sort out your dresses. I am surprised, after playing you, that you haven’t studied theory.”

“You’re surprised the barely girl literate girl who lived in the tunnels under the school hasn’t studied chess theory?” She asked, hardly surpassing a grin. He shook his head.

“I meant it as a compliment.”

“Because I beat you?”

“Perhaps I was feeling generous when you first arrived.”

“Oh yeah? What’s your excuse going to be when you lose this time?” She asked, brow raised. He rolled his eyes, turning back to his meal without dignifying her jab with a reply. He watched as she flipped through the book until she found the Herving Defense, balancing her chin on her hand as she read, brows furrowed in concentration.

He’s here! He’s here!

Cecily stood at the sound of her whispering shadows, her face splitting into a grin. The shadows rejoiced around her, mirroring her joy.

“Cecily? What is it?”

“He’s back!” she said, crossing to the door to their apartments and throwing it open. Yuri’s eyes widened on the other side of the door as she threw her arms around him. Yuri hugged her tight, tight enough that she had to force herself not to flinch.

He stepped back, staring at her face, at the bruises, his own darkening.

“What happened? Did he hurt you? I swear to the Goddess—”

“He didn’t, Yuri. It was two of Arundel’s shitlords.”

“Cecily—“

“They got the jump on me, that’s all. I was slow, it’s really not that bad.”

“Not—I swear on everything that’s holy, sit down so I can sort this out,” he said, anger clear in the crease of his brow as he steered her inside towards a chair. He froze when he spotted Hubert, half-risen from his chair.

“You—You! You did this!” Yuri spat.

“He didn’t, Yuri. I told you—“

“Ten years—ten years and they never tracked her down. Ten years and the only times they laid a hand on her was when she was stupid enough to go hunting them down herself, and two months in your ‘care’ and they do this,” he nearly shouted, gesturing to Cecily’s face. “They could have killed her, or worse.”

“Yuri,” she started, trying to defuse the situation. She believed Hubert, that he hadn’t known, hadn’t been involved. It had been all too plain on his face when she’d summoned him back to the manor.

“No, Cella,” he retorted, turning back towards Hubert. “Do you know what they did to her? Do you know, really? She didn’t even look human when I found her because of how much they’d starved and bled her. They’d broken her bones and let them heal wrong, over and over—“

“Yuri—“

“There wasn’t an inch of her not bloody and bruised and covered in filth. I couldn’t even save her hair, it was so matted and dirty—I’d thought it black before I was able to finally rinse it clean.”

“Yuri, stop—“

“I COULD HAVE LOST YOU, MAGPIE! REALLY LOST YOU!” Yuri roared, color high in his cheeks. “He’s already taken you away, I’m not writing your name in my book because he can’t even take care of you, because he put you in danger!”

Cecily shrunk back, taken aback. Yuri had been mad at her plenty of times—hell, since the war began, he’d mostly been mad at her, for being reckless, for not listening, for going after the Agarthans alone. But he’d never yelled at her, not like this. He’d called her a moron, cuffed her about the ear, lectured her for what felt like hours, but never shouted.

“Don’t yell at her. Nothing that happened was her fault and no one speaks to my wife that way,” Hubert spat, striding to put himself between her and Yuri. “If you want to yell at someone, I shall make myself available after you heal her.”

“Your—your wife? You mean my sister, who you blackmailed into marrying you?”

“It was all I could do to protect her!”

“Fucking fantastic plan!” Yuri snarled back, pointing to her face. “Really fucking believable, considering she looks like she’s gone and gotten beaten by your soldiers again!”

“Again?” Hubert asked, face darkening.

“Just—stop it. Both of you, just stop! Hubert—I’m sure you’re late for a cabinet meeting or something.”

“Yes, I’m sure you have a boot polish eating appointment to get to,” Yuri snapped at him with a nasty fake smile. “Wouldn’t want to keep Edelgard waiting.”

“You dare—“

“ENOUGH!” Cecily shouted, unable to stop herself from pulling the shadows closer around her. She breathed hard, glaring at the two men. “Hubert, please go to work, I need to speak with my brother.”

Hubert looked like he wanted to argue, but he just searched her face for a moment before nodding.

“As you wish. I will see you tonight.”

Cecily nodded, eyes glued to the carpet. He hesitated a moment, his hand twitching, almost as if he wanted to reach out to her, but then he turned and grabbed his jacket and left, the door banging shut behind him. She waited until her shadows told her he’d rounded the corner at the end of the hall before turning to Yuri.

“What the hell was that about?”

“What—have you seen your face?”

“It’s not that bad—“

“You never should have been attacked! The fact that he let Arundel’s cronies anywhere near you—“

“I don’t want to fight, Yuri.”

He glared at her for a long moment before he sighed. He wrapped her in a hug, so tight it almost hurt.

“I missed you,” he choked out, voice almost a whisper as he buried his face in her hair. She could feel the warmth of his healing magic sinking into her skin, feel the aches of the bruises disappear. After a few minutes he pulled back, staring at her face.

“I’m going to need scissors to remove the stitches before I can heal your face.”

She nodded, crossing to the bathroom to retrieve the small pair from the medical kit. She sat at the breakfast table while Yuri carefully removed them before tracing his thumb over the wounds. She could feel them knit back together, feel the bruises disappear.

“Thanks,” she said, rubbing the tingles out of her cheek from the magic.

“Of course. I got here as soon as I could.”

“I’m okay, Yuri. You know that, right?”

“Sometimes I don’t know if you’re brave or stupid,” he shot back, making a face.

“Oh, stupid, definitely,” she replied and he laughed, despite himself before huffing a sigh.

“How long is he going to let me stay this time?”

“I don’t know, you just told him to eat boot polish, so I’m sure he’s not happy about that,” she said, giving him a dirty look. “Though he’s been more…lenient, since the attack. That’s not our most pressing issue, though.”

“Then what is?”

“Arundel’s back in the capital and Kestrel’s dead.”

Yuri stared, eyes wide. “What?”

“I killed him, the other night. He was working for the bastard.”

“Fuck—how long?”

“Well, anything they say after you cut a certain amount of fingers off has to be taken with a grain of salt, but—too long? Two, three months?”

Yuri swore, running his hands through his hair in agitation. “Okay—well, at least he was never the brightest, so he only knew low-level shit, but still, we’ll have to get Sparrow and Oriole out, and we should move Pigeon.”

“And Mall, but you’ll have to get in touch with them, I can’t.”

“How did you manage to deal with him without Hubert noticing?”

“I didn’t. He—he noticed that I clawed up Arundel little when he came walking in on a meeting Edelgard called—“

“Cecily!”

“What?! I needed him to bleed a little so I’d have the scent, I just got a little overzealous. You can’t blame me, it’s the first time I’ve seen the fucker in a decade! So then Hubert got his hackles up about dangerous mystery magic and how it could be a danger to Edelgard or whatever and how I had to show him what I was doing, so then I said I would if he let me kill Kestrel for fucking selling us out. I didn’t think he’d agree, but he did, so then I, you know,” she made a mock-scary face, baring her teeth before continuing, “and he’s been weirdly cool with it.”

Yuri stared at her, dumbfounded. Then he dropped his head in his hands, a steady stream of mumbled curses falling out of his mouth.

Cecily rolled her eyes, huffing out a sigh. “What?”

“I’m trying to remind myself that you’re only twenty, and this is a developmentally appropriate level of idiocy.”

“Oh, real nice Yuri.”

“How do you not realize this is bad?”

“Ah, probably because he just saw me rip a man’s heart out of his chest, so maybe he’s done fucking with me for a bit?”

Yuri didn’t answer, unless she counted his overdramatic sigh as he pressed his hands harder to his face.

She decided she didn’t.

In the morning he took her to the Parish the next village over, one he knew had no idea who he or his mother was. He might not have been able to go as far, had she not been so light. The healer hadn’t questioned him when he’d told him Saoirse was his sister, nor when he’d attributed her broken ankle to a fall down the stairs. He had berated him for her dehydration and malnourishment, all while resetting her leg with no regard for her scream of agony as the bones crunched back in place. He set the whole thing with a burst of white magic before she’d even had a chance to compose herself.

He’d told her to stay off of it for at least a week before trying to walk with a crutch and sent them off with some foul-smelling herbs to be boiled in water and drunk three times a day. Regulus carried her piggy-back on the way home, taking her the long way so he could show her the pretty shop windows on the rich side of town as a way to cheer her up. She rested her cheek on his shoulder as they walked from window to window, occasionally asking what this or that was. He found himself prattling on more than usual, about the shops and the vendors, the streets they took and the people passing by. She listened to all of it, her little fingers knotted the collar of his shirt.

“Are we in Faerghus?” She asked softly as they turned back towards the western side of town, towards his mother’s house.

“We’re in County Rowe. It’s in southern Faerghus. Close to the Empire. Are you from Faerghus?”

She paused a moment before nodding into his shoulder.

“Do you know where?”

“Close to Sreng.”

Regulus nodded to himself. That was north, far north, almost two weeks travel with a decent horse.

“What was it like?”

“There were lots of gardens to catch frogs in, and a creek to go fishing in and big trees to climb. It got really cold in the winter and we wouldn’t be allowed outside, but sometimes we’d have snow fights. I don’t think there were pretty shops like this though, or big markets. I never saw them, anyway.”

“Well, we don’t have very many frogs here, so I guess it’s a trade off.”

She giggled at that, the sound still raspy and wrong, but it made him smile.

“How’d you end up all the way down here?” He asked.

“I don’t know. I think—I think they took me. I don’t remember.”

“Who took you?”

She shook her head, and he could feel her trembling.

“You don’t have to tell me, it’s okay. The important thing is you’re safe now.”

“What if they come back?”

“Rowe is huge. They won’t find you, especially now that you look like a little girl again. I thought your hair was black, you know, before we scrubbed it.”

“My hair is black,” she said, releasing one of her hands from his collar to tug at her hair, which he’d braided back to keep out of her face. It was so short now, nearly shorter than his own, but it was clean and free of matting.

He paused, stopping in front of a dark shop window that served well-enough as a mirror.

“Don’t yank at it like that, it took me hours to save what I did. Just look,” he said, turning so she could see properly. He watched her face fall as she stared at her appearance, touched the sharpness of her face, the stark white of her hair. Tears welled in her eyes and she didn’t bother to try and swipe them away.

“I look like a ghost,” she said softly, almost to herself.

“It’s pretty,” he said, and it was true enough, though he was still trying to figure out exactly how it had turned from black to blinding white, especially when she was only ten. He’d heard of stress turning people’s hair white, but more in stories than anything else.

Of course, judging from the scars on her skin, she’d suffered more than enough stress to do it, if that was indeed what caused it.

She just buried her head into the crook of his shoulder, shaking with silent tears. He didn’t know what to do, other than taking her back home.

Hubert looked up from his desk as the door opened, hand twitching towards the empty ink pot to throw at whoever was stupid enough to barge into his office unannounced. He stopped when he realized it was Ferdinand—of course it was Ferdinand.

“Oh, Hubert—good.”

“I’m busy, Ferdinand,” he said, turning back to his work.

“I merely wanted to inquire as to how Cecily was. She seemed quite shaken the other day, in the throne room.”

“Yes, well, she’s fine. Yuri arrived this morning,” he said, working to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He knew Yuri had every right to be mad, knew just how close he’d come to losing Cecily, but hearing what that would have meant—hearing what they’d done to her, what they’d do to her again—

They all knew death was preferable to whatever the Agarthans would do to her. It didn’t make that reality any more bearable.

“I’m sure that will cheer her up. Is he joining you two at the opera tomorrow night?”

“No,” he said quickly. Ferdinand raised an eyebrow.

“Just you and the Marquess—that’s very romantic, Hubert,” he replying, voice teasing. Hubert ground his teeth.

“She wished to see Dorothea perform.”

“I’m sure you two will have a wonderful time. And in the Imperial Box no less. Edelgard said that she’d lent it to you.”

“The Emperor is exceedingly generous, as always.”

“She said that you planned to take half the afternoon off as well—it must be truly a special occasion.”

“Don’t you have more important things to discuss with her Majesty other than my personal life?”

“Of course I do, but they're not nearly as fun. Besides, it’s refreshing to see you acting as a proper gentleman for once. I would have never thought it in you.”

“The fact that my position calls for certain measures you deem unseemly does not in any way preclude me from being a gentleman.”

“Before you married, I would have disagreed with you. But Cecily seems to make that distinction very apparent.”

“Do you ever tire of hearing yourself talk?”

“Why would I? I have a rather lovely voice. Besides, I am merely hoping to guide you in your romantic endeavors. I am, myself, rather accomplished in the area.”

“I do quite vividly remember Dorothea telling you there was no one in the continent she found to be a more disagreeable prospect for marriage.”

“And yet, I have still managed to win her heart with hard work and gallant sincerity!”

“And yet, you are not the one married.”

“Well, I find myself waiting for the perfect opportunity, and with the war—“

“You’re frightened she’s going to say no if you ask.”

“Absolutely not!” Ferdinand said, sounding overly scandalized. It was clearly exactly what he was worried about. Hubert turned back to his work, hoping if he simply ignored him, Ferdinand would get the hint and scuttle off.

“All I’m saying is—“ Ferdinand began, completely ignoring every sign Hubert threw at him. Someone knocked on the door. Hubert’s head snapped towards it. Hadn’t he had enough interruptions?

“What?” He snarled, ignoring Ferdinand’s raised eyebrow. The door opened and Cecily stepped inside, brow creased. She wore a simple, violet dress, her hair pulled back in the sort of intricate braids she’d worn back at the Academy. Her face was no longer bruised, the stitches gone. There was only the faintest scar cutting through her brow where they’d been.

His irritation instantly melted away.

“Cecily—“

“Is this a bad time?” She said, glancing at his curled fists before turning to Ferdinand. “Hello, Ferdinand, it’s nice to see you.”

“Hello, Cecily. You look wonderful. I hope you’re feeling better.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“You know, Thea is so excited for you to come to the show tomorrow! She’s been dying to see you, but considering…we wanted to make sure not to bombard you with visitors.”

“I’m very much looking forward to it.”

“Yes, well Ferdinand, I’m sure you have things to get back to,” Hubert said pointedly. Ferdinand huffed a good-natured laugh.

“Fine, fine! We’ll talk later, Hubert. I’ll see you both soon.”

Hubert waited until the door closed behind him before turning back to Cecily.

“Was he able to heal it all?”

“Yes, of course. It wasn’t that bad.”

“It was.”

She sighed, shaking her head. Hubert turned back to his papers. He fought the urge to cross to her side, to examine her skin for more traces of his negligence.

“Was there something you needed?”

"I just--I'm sorry, I suppose, for this morning."

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

"I--I believe you, that you didn't have anything to do with it."

Hubert stared at her, his chest constricting painfully. That was big, for her. Perhaps there was hope, after all.

"I'll see you later, then. I promised Yuri I'd show him the gardens."

When they finally reached Enbarr on the back of a grain wagon Yuri’d paid three silver each for the pleasure of the bone rattling ride, he felt as though he could stop holding his breath for the first time in weeks, the first time since he’d found her in the tunnels.

He didn’t regret what he’d had to do in their first months to survive, before he’d been able to set up his network. It was wretched work, but it kept their bellies full.

He’d done his best to keep her out of it, to shield her from the vile nobles that coveted him for his beauty, his voice, his youth. She was striking, once the filth had been cleaned from her and she’d managed to heal, almost ethereal with her shock of pure white hair and pallid skin, delicate features and peculiar mismatched eyes. He knew that she’d be targeted in a moment, had it not been for the thick trio of scars that carved across her cheek.

She was clever, which made staying alone in the lousy tenement building he’d secured a room for them in all the worse. She was terribly bored, practically bouncing off the walls every time he came back.

After a few nights at work he’d managed to make enough extra coin to feel comfortable dropping a few copper on a bunch of tattered second hand paperbacks, enough to keep her busy during the day doing something other than stripping off the peeling wallpaper of the single room. He unlocked the door with a sigh, dropping them in her lap as he turned to shuck off his coat and tossed his bag on the table. She flipped them open with interest, her brows furrowing.

“Thank you.”

“What’s the matter?” He asked, familiar enough with the expression.

Where are the pictures?”

“You’re too old for picture books.”

She stared at him, brows furrowed.

“Do you know your letters?”

She shook her head, color flooding her cheeks. He flopped down next to her, sorting through the pile to find the simplest one.

“My friend was going to teach me, but…” she trailed off, ducking her head. But then she’d gotten kidnapped and tortured.

“I can teach you the basics. Let’s see if we can find a slate at the market—otherwise you’ll go through too much paper practicing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Then maybe you can help me sort through all some of my research.”

“Oh, I want to be able to help!”

“It’s mostly boring,” he replied quickly, regretting offering to pull her, however minutely, into his world. She’d already been through enough.

“That’s okay! I want to help you. It’s only fair, right?”

Yuri snorted, holding back his comment that they both knew how absolutely unfair life was. “All right, grab your crutch and let’s go before we lose the light.”

“I want to try walking.”

“I’m not carrying you back,” he lied, raising a brow.

“I know! I know, I won’t ask!” She said, too quick, despite the fact that she’d never asked for help in the past, that it was he who insisted on carrying her when he noticed how tired she grew, or when her limp grew pronounced. She still hadn’t quite worked out when he was joking and when he was being serious. It might have struck him as amusing if it wasn’t so obvious that she expected a beating with even the smallest of mistakes.

He mussed her hair affectionately, giving her a small, crooked smile as she grinned up at him.

She was always so happy to get out of the apartment for any reason. She clung onto his sleeve as they stepped out onto the busy street, too nervous to ask for his hand. He took hers anyway, trying not to think about how it should be bigger, at ten, how she should have been inches taller than she was.

Maybe she’d grow now that she was eating properly.

Saoirse stooped, grabbing something from the street. She held it up for Yuri to see, beaming. It was a cheap brass necklace, the clasp missing, a crude bird-shaped charm hanging from it.

“Look! Isn’t it pretty?”

“It’s broken.”

“Can I keep it? Maybe I can fix it.”

“Why would I care?”

“Alright,” she said, polishing the charm with her sleeve, a smile tugging at her lips. Yuri couldn’t help the fond smile that crept upon his face as he watched the simple joy the trinket brought.

“Come on, they might have a slate at one of the second-hand stalls by the canal.”

They ended up finding a very cheap slate and a pouch of chalk in the main market, along with some bargain spices, a nearly-new tunic for himself, and a proper pair of boots for her. She also found three interesting stones, a discarded opera poster, and a lost embroidered handkerchief, all of which she jammed into her dress pockets.

He watched her collection grow with no small amount of amusement, wondering if there was any sort of rhyme or reason to what struck her fancy. His stomach growled at they passed by a row of food stalls.

“How about splitting a kebab for dinner?”

“Ooh, what’s that?”

“Meat on a stick.”

“Okay! Why do they put it on a stick?”

“Never really thought about it,” he replied absently, digging out a copper coin to pay for their meager dinner. He traded them with the merchant, who gave them a larger skewer after spotting Saoirse at his elbow.

“You get the first bite,” he said, offering it to her. She didn’t take it, instead, digging in her pockets for her shiny stones and broken necklace and holding them out to him.

“What’s all that for?”

“My half.”

He snorted, tearing off a bite before passing it to her. “Keep your trinkets, Magpie. It’s just a kebab.”

“It’s not, you’re always working and paying for everything and I want to do my share. I can help too.”

“You’re still healing. It’s alright, you don’t have to worry.”

“I do though. I know I owe you a lot, but I promise I’ll pay it all back. Maybe I can work with you too—“

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re just a little kid. And what I do is dangerous.”

“I’m dangerous,” she replied, fixing him in her mismatched gaze, “And I’m not a little kid.”

His mind flashed back to the bodies on his mother’s floor, the men she’d somehow killed for slapping and threatening his mother. The brutality of their wounds.

She certainly could be dangerous, but he very much doubted it was in her nature.

“We’ll talk about it once you’re properly healed. Until then you can work on your letters.”

“So then I’ll be useful?”

“Something like that.”

She beamed at him, and he smiled back, hoping she couldn’t see how he forced the expression.

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AN: If you enjoy reading my stories, please consider dropping a like or a comment. I really love interacting with people and it really keeps me excited and motivated to keep posting.

#hubert von vestra x oc #hubert von vestra #yuri leclerc #inherit the night #cecily leclerc #ferdinand von aegir #fire emblem three houses #agarthans #those who slither in the dark #angst #slow burn

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