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stygius-cr-sideblog · 8 months ago

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the nicest places | A Critical Role fic

Pre-canon: Delilah and her boyfriend go grave-robbing.

Also on AO3!

Delilah had bought the shovel in a moment of personal weakness. She had only known Sylas for a month at that point – certainly not enough time to form an accurate picture of his character, and what sort of garden tools he would be willing to utilize on her behalf. Nevertheless, she’d bought the shovel. Not even that – she’d stopped the carriage, leapt out of the carriage, and gone racing into the general store to buy the shovel. She held it on her lap the entire rest of the ride home; she lightly stroked her fingers along the handle, memorizing the feel of the grain. Once home, she’d immediately suffered a fit of mortifying embarrassment and stuffed the shovel under the bed.

She proceeded not to mention the shovel to Sylas even once, although its spirit lingered through every moment – its silver edge winking at the corners of her vision, its handle digging like a pea through the mattress and directly into her shoulder blades. She spent ages tossing and turning. She gnawed her fingernails to the quick. She relied copiously on Sylas to distract her, which he proved to be astonishingly good at. Sylas has a way about him – a quirk of his mouth, a twitch of his fingers, and Delilah’s brain melts ecstatically into nothing.

So she isn’t thinking at all when she has him put the toybox back under the bed. She is quite happily occupied not thinking, in fact, so she doesn’t remark on his silence; she only notices when he says: “Delilah?”

She blinks. The bed hangings resolve themselves into fabric, instead of dreamy blurs of postcoital color. But not quickly enough – Sylas says her name again, his amusement like the twist of a lemon in his mouth.

“Delilah?”

“Hmm?”

“Why do you have a shovel under the bed?”

Delilah sits bolt upright. “Oh,” she says, fishing wildly, “I don’t – it isn’t for playing with.”

There’s the sound of fabric rustling, and then Sylas pops back out from under the bed. Nude, he’s mouthwatering: a sword unsheathed, a house that Delilah aches to live inside. His mouth is smeared bruise-dark with Delilah’s lipstick; when he rests his arms on the bed, Delilah admires the red marks on his wrists with a hunger she’d previously thought herself entirely incapable of. It’s astounding, everything he provokes in her. She could feast on him forever and still be ravenous.

There are times when she thinks: I could tell him. When he looks at her like that, when he lets her – oh, gods, he always lets her – and Delilah thinks, I could. I really could tell him. She could tell him anything. Everything. He wouldn’t mind. He might even still like her afterwards.

Do you know what it means, to raise the dead?

Once she imagined asking him that, and the thought of his smile – the growl of his laugh – hit Delilah like a poison-sweet knife to the belly. She couldn’t think about it again, she couldn’t think about it—

Sylas, ignorant to all of Delilah’s flustered panic, rests his head on his arms; he studies her. “I’ll admit,” he says after a moment, “I’m disappointed.”

She blinks at him. The urge to say: you’re disappointed that I’m a necromancer?

But no, she hasn’t – that wasn’t. What were they talking about?

Right. “You want,” Delilah says slowly, “for me to bludgeon you with a shovel?”

Sylas lifts a shoulder, lets it fall. “I wouldn’t be opposed.”

“You should be.”

“Mhm.” He sounds wholly disinterested in the concept of what he should be doing. “What is it,” he says, “that you planned to dig up? We’re on the second story.”

“One never knows,” Delilah says. “Come back to bed, I’m cold.”

Sylas’ eyebrows rocket up to his hairline. It’s true that the change in subject was pathetically obvious, but he needn’t look so gleeful about it. Like she’s blundered in chess and he’s about to rip her queen away. He doesn’t come back to bed; he stays exactly where he is, just out of reach.

“Most people,” he says, “settle for a dagger under the pillow.”

“I’m not most people.”

“I know.” (The words are bright and warm with wonder.) “You don’t need a dagger. You’d only need to touch them.”

Delilah matches his tone: “You think I’d need to touch someone to kill them?”

Sylas beams his perfect smile: a lethal flash of teeth. “No,” he says dreamily. “I don’t. Is the shovel for me?”

At the brief furrow of Delilah’s brow, he clarifies. “When you grow bored of me and kill me. And you decide to dispose of my bo—”

“I’m not going to get bored of you.” The words leave her mouth scathing, insulted. Good: she is insulted. Delilah closes the space between them, takes Sylas’ chin in her hand; his pupils flare wide, he sits very still. Wholly docile.

“I’m not going to get bored of you,” she repeats. “Stop obsessing about the shovel. It’s a shovel. I wouldn’t dra—” but he’s stopped listening to her. His face went dreamy and hot the second she reiterated it: I’m not going to get bored of you. I won’t, I won’t ever. I won’t get rid of you. I want you forever. Well, it’s true. She does want him forever. Delilah already knew that – that she was doomed from the moment she took the shovel in her hands and imagined Sylas’ hands on it instead, Sylas holding it, Sylas using it. Realistically, she should admit: she was doomed long before that. Long, long before.

So she does it quickly, like pulling an arrow out of a wound: she says “It’s for grave robbing,” and drops his face. Clenches her hand in the bedspread instead. She works to keep her voice airy: “Now will you stop being ridiculous?”

Sylas’ face goes blank with surprise. “Grave robbing?”

“Yes.”

A series of feelings twist Sylas’ face in different directions. He says, “Well. I’ll ask again: is the shovel for me?”

“No, I told you that I’m not—”

“For me to use, Delilah. Or were you planning on chipping your nails?”

“I,” Delilah says. Through her teeth, she confesses: “Yes. It was for you.”

“Were you ever going to say anything?”

“...no.”

“Delilah,” Sylas breathes, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “You might have asked. You know I would have said yes.”

“To grave robbing?”

Easily, without a second of hesitation: “Yes.”

“It’s illegal. Cruel. Heretical.”

“Delilah,” Sylas says softly, “I couldn’t care less. And besides. You’ve thought of a way to keep us from being caught, haven’t you?”

...yes.

“Yes, you have.” Sylas leans up, touches light fingertips to Delilah’s cheek. “Did you know,” he murmurs, “that you’re blushing?”

“I’m not blushing.”

“You are,” Sylas says tenderly. “It’s very sweet. Where’s the closest cemetery?”

“You don’t have any other questions?”

“Oh,” Sylas says, “I have many. Any graves in particular? What are you looking for? Why keep this a secret? Why does this make you blush, when you and I have done any number of sordid things together that have utterly failed to faze you? It’s only that I think you won’t answer any of those questions, and so asking them seems like a waste of time. So? Shall we?”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Delilah protests.

“The grave-robbers’ hour, I’ve heard.”

“Neither of us are dressed.”

“Oh, but my clothes are right over there.”

“The closest cemetery—”

“As if your horrid mage-carriages aren’t always available. Try harder.”

Delilah has started to choke on helpless little hiccups of laughter; Sylas’ smile grows at the sound. “I don’t,” she says, “I don’t have anywhere to keep—”

“You’re a wizard.”

“Yes, but—”

“You have magic.”

“I don’t know—”

“I think you do, Delilah.”

Delilah finds herself fishing for words – confronted with the picture of Sylas, as lazy and dangerous as a jungle cat, sprawled there on the floor. His eyes are sparkling, his mouth hooked by a smile; she’s powerless, she feels powerless. So she tries what usually works: a breathy, wry “You’ve worn me out.”

And then Sylas isn’t on the floor anymore: he has leapt onto the bed in front of her, so close that Delilah can smell her own perfume on his skin. “Then I’ll carry you,” he says. “And the shovel. And the corpses, if that’s what you’re after—”

“You couldn’t—”

“I can,” Sylas says. “I will.” By now the spark has caught in his eyes: they’re burning, hot and wild and merry. “Do you have any other excuses you’d like to make for why we shouldn’t do what you want?”

Delilah’s mouth works soundlessly; she can’t spit it out, the only true reason. What if you don’t like me anymore. What if you don’t want me. “I think,” she says quietly, “you’re too eager. That’s all. Perhaps I’m out to assassinate the king—”

“How convoluted.”

“—and I’m not nearly as clever as I think I am,” (“Impossible,” Sylas says loyally.) “and I’m going to land myself in the Claykeep. Why do you want to—”

“Go with you?” Sylas says. “Delilah, I’d rather be in prison with you than anywhere else with anyone else.”

“How sweet. And how stupid.”

“Besides,” he says, “we won’t get caught. You’ve planned for this. How long have you been planning this...? Ah, you’re blushing again.”

“Stop,” Delilah chokes out.

Sylas cups Delilah’s face in his hand. “Well,” he says reasonably, “you have two options. Either you sit here and bravely bear my inquisition, or you get dressed and we go make use of your shovel. Hm?”

His palm is so warm. He’s always so warm. Until he touched her, Delilah didn’t realize that she’s been cold for years.

“Why?” she says.

He cocks his head, like a bright little bird. “Why not?”

She confesses: “I don’t understand you.”

And for a moment, the mischief drops; Sylas is just looking at her, and his face is so sharp and his eyes are so dark. With utter, somber quiet, he says: “Good.”

Then he’s off the bed, grabbing discarded clothing from the floor and slinging it on haphazardly. Delilah slips off the bed after him; she pads to the wardrobe, gets dressed. She turns the feeling over and over in her hands: that sense of relief she felt when she saw him just then, dark and cold, like the apocryphal black dog looming over her grave. The utter security. To see his black heart, even for an instant – to know she isn’t alone here—

She hears Sylas’ noise of surprise. “She’s dressing practically?”

Delilah finishes buttoning up her shirt, begins folding up the sleeves. “I’m capable of it.”

“I thought perhaps you would crumble into ash if you couldn’t wear a robe or gown.”

“They’re comfortable,” Delilah says. She takes too long pulling on each glove, fussing, then she turns around – and is hit bodily with the sight of Sylas holding the shovel. He has it slung over his shoulder like it’s a featherweight; Delilah feels a hot, ravenous urge to immediately abandon this whole pursuit and fall back into bed with him. She wants to sink her teeth into the muscles of his arms – the meat of his chest, just visible through his open top button – the cords of his throat. Oh, the cords of his throat.

“Delilah,” Sylas says.

“Yes?”

“We should go.” His voice is rough. “Or I’ll take you back to bed.”

Sometimes he says precisely what she’s thinking, and it turns her blood to sparks.

“We should go,” Delilah says, and she holds out a hand. Her packed bag comes leaping towards her from under the bed with a desperate, canine eagerness; she grabs the pack by its handle and makes for the door.

Down the winding stairs. When Delilah hears Sylas’ footsteps creaking on the boards behind her, her heart flutters up into her throat and stays there. Ridiculously, she feels like a girl again – sneaking off in the night for some schoolgirl tryst, the kind she never actually had at that age but sometimes idly considered. She knows how they’re meant to feel. The giggles, the nerves. Footsteps creaking on the staircase: shh, shh. Hands pressed to mouths. Bodies pressed to bodies. And this: the racing heart. The dry lips. The sudden shyness that keeps her from looking behind her, even though she can feel the heat emanating from Sylas: hearthfire, arson, star.

And as he’s implied, she has the horseless carriage waiting for them by the time they’re out the door. It only needs a touch of her fingers, a breathed whisper of directions – then they’re off, moving sleek and silent through the winding streets of Rexxentrum. The inside of the carriage is dark, close; with the curtains closed, the press of the velvet walls, it feels comfortingly coffin-like. Delilah and Sylas may as well be the only real things in the world. This could be their grave.

She feels Sylas’ knee press against hers in the dark. Through the gap in the curtains, the occasional flash of a streetlamp: the glint of his eyes, the glint of the shovel blade. A bouquet of knives winking at her from the black.

“Did I tell you,” Sylas says conversationally, “how much I like your shirt?”

“You implied it.”

“Oh, how rude of me. I should have done more than imply it. Blue is a lovely color on you, you know. And are those ivory buttons?”

They are; Delilah presses her gloved thumb to one button. So far away – almost entirely beyond the veil – an animal death rolls over blearily in its sleep; it cants towards the press of her hand. It whispers to her dreamily: I could be anything you want me to.

“True Marquesian ivory,” she says. “Or so I was told. I’m afraid I don’t care enough to track the provenance.”

She can hear the smile in Sylas’ voice, the barely-repressed laughter. “You know, I’m very good at telling the origin of carrion.” (Oh, if only he knew.) “Only by touch. It’s a rare talent. Why don’t you let me feel a button, and I’ll tell you where it came from?”

He’s only playing, and his delight is contagious; a matching smile crooks up Delilah’s mouth. “Try harder.”

A sudden gasp of light through the curtains, and – there – Sylas leans forward, quick as a snake, and his leg presses itself entirely into Delilah’s thigh. Warm, unrelenting pressure. He’s close enough that she can smell him. Gods, he stinks of sex.

He murmurs: “Do you really want me to try harder?”

Yes, of course she does. She wants to spread her legs for him and have him take her in a damn carriage. That’s what he’s reduced her to: a creature of pure, wailing desire.

With effort, Delilah says, “No. I want you to dig up graves with me. And then you’re free to get distracted.”

Sylas lets out an amused breath and relents, sinks back in his seat again. “This is important to you. Will you tell me where we’re going?”

“A graveyard.”

“Delilah.”

“Sylas.”

“I’m in the carriage,” he says. “I have your shovel. I am undistracted – solely focused on the task at hand. What more do you need of me? You know I’ll give it to you.”

Delilah exhales. “A graveyard in the Tangles,” she clarifies. “I don’t know if it has a name.”

“Do you know who’s buried there?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” She hears the tink tink tink of his nail against the blade of the shovel. “Hmm, hmm, hmm.”

“Disappointed?”

“Hardly. Only thinking.” Tink tink tink. “This isn’t exclusively to get some sort of magic spell ingredient, is it?”

“Grave dirt’s very useful for spells.”

The sound stops. Sylas says, “What sort of spells?”

Create Undead, exclusively. “Oh,” Delilah says airily, “that’s beyond your purview, darling.”

Sylas says nothing. Then, the screech of metal rings: he has grabbed the curtain, yanked it backwards. The sudden flare of light from outside makes Delilah wince and hiss. When she comes to, she sees him staring at her. His eyes are very wide.

“Delilah,” he says. “Are you...”

Oh, gods. The precipice. And Delilah on the edge of it, staring down into the pit – finding herself unable to bear it – looking instead to the window, seeing a slice of Rexxentrum outside, and using that to triangulate well enough that she can yelp the incantation to Dimension Door and fling herself to the graveyard.

She lands in a stumble, skids on the wet grass, and immediately falls straight to the ground. Damn.

She lies there face-down for a moment, two. The atmosphere soothes: the cold night air, the smell of grass and decay. Beneath the earth, Delilah can feel the quiet pulse of death after death after death – like a series of hands pressed to the soil, their pressure barely noticeable from here on the surface. But she can feel them. She can feel them.

She rolls over onto her back. Above her, presumably, the stars – but between Delilah and the stars is the willow tree.

It’s what had drawn her to this graveyard, because Delilah is – despite herself – a horrid romantic. She had seen the willow tree, that someone had taken the time (and space, better used for the dead) to plant a willow tree, and it had made her heart pulse with a sudden static shock. She hadn’t been able to help it. In every one of her maudlin, embarrassing fantasies, she always sees him here. By that willow tree. Touching a gravestone, maybe, when she can bear it – can bear to think of him, his hand on a grave, that same fond smile held so lovingly in the corner of his mouth.

She should direct the carriage somewhere else. Send it off into the Tangles, where Sylas will be battered around for a few minutes before he realizes that he’s been had. She could limp home with her tail between her legs; she could flee the country, the continent, the world. Make a new life in the Shadowfell. Devote herself utterly to the practice of lichdom, which she’s always meant to look into but never found the time for.

But of course, Delilah doesn’t do any of that – she just stands, Prestidigitates all the muck off her clothes. When the carriage rolls up to the graveyard, Delilah is leaned easily on one of the gravestones. She has her claws dug into the mouldering rock, to steady herself.

The carriage hasn’t even stopped before Sylas comes clattering out of it, shovel slung over one shoulder; when he sees Delilah, he freezes. The moonlight turns him to silver stone, freezes his face so clearly: an expression of desperate, painful relief.

He shoves the feeling away, and his face drops into something like normalcy. “Impatient,” he says to her lightly. He makes for her, winding with impressive ease through the gravestones. His steps crush the grass. The scent of its screaming: run, run, you are going to die here. And the grass can’t run.

“As I said,” Delilah says, as he comes nearer. “I was worried about distractions.”

“I told you I wasn’t distracted.”

“That isn’t what I was worried about.”

Sylas lets out a soft breath – he’s so close – and then he takes Delilah’s face in hand and kisses her.

It’s a lethal kiss. Potent. Delilah can hear the sound she makes in response to it, and it’s mortifying; it doesn’t stop her from grabbing Sylas’ sleeve in her hand, so fiercely she’s scared she’ll rip the fabric. It’s fine, she’ll buy him another shirt. She’ll buy him a thousand shirts. She’ll learn to sew things besides skin, she’ll sew for him, she’ll be the sweet woman her mother always wanted, she’ll do anything as long as he doesn’t stop kissing her like that.

But he does, he stops. He knocks his forehead against hers. Softly, sweetly, he says: “Don’t go.”

“I won’t.” Her voice is hoarse.

“You frightened me.” This is effortful for him – she can hear it in his voice, which is newly soft and young. Unguarded. He’s leaving himself open for her.

“I’m sorry,” Delilah whispers. “I was frightened too.”

“But you still wanted to show me.”

“...yes.”

Sylas exhales; his mouth finds her mouth again, the barest gossamer whisper of a kiss. “It’s lovely,” he says. “Serene. Let’s dig it all up.”

Delilah snorts despite herself; the sound is ugly and very loud. “We’ll put the coffins back afterwards.”

“Hmm. And what is it that you plan to do about the grass?”

“Wither it all. Hope the idiot locals assume there was some sort of flash freeze.”

Sylas laughs; he knocks his nose against hers, presses another kiss to her mouth. “Alright,” he says. “Pick a grave. I’ll start digging.”

He takes a step back and then there he is – Sylas – standing in front of that willow tree. His face is unbearably fond. All at once the future crashes into Delilah, she can see it all: Sylas smiling at her like that in this graveyard, another graveyard, her workroom, their bed. Sylas with the shovel, Sylas with the bone saw. Sylas with his sleeves rolled up. A look of concentration on his face. His beautiful mouth, opening with – oh! – an idea, a comment, a way to do it better. He could make her better. She wants him to. She wants it all. She wants him for the rest of her life.

She blinks; the future collapses back to the now, where Sylas’ fondness has gone slightly bemused. “Delilah,” he says, “are you crying?”

“Thank you,” she says. “For coming with me.”

“Anything,” he says simply. “Anywhere.”

He makes it sound so easy. Maybe it could be that easy. The blade of the shovel is already planted into the ground; it, and he, are only waiting for her word to tear it all open.

“Here, then,” Delilah says. “Now.”

“Yes,” Sylas says. He starts digging.

#briarwoods #screaming crying throwing up #and i mean that with every fiber of my being #delilah buying a shovel bc of a crush... you will always be famous!!!#critrole fic rec

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stygius-cr-sideblog · 9 months ago

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with my hands, in my teeth | A Critical Role fic

Sometimes you talk to Nina @c-estmabiologieestmabiologie too much about Imogen And Laudna Corruption Arc Real and then you write about the girlies blowing up Gelvaan. Fellas, has this ever happened to you?

[content warnings: delilah briarwood. also a lot of death including child and animal death]

Also on AO3!

Gelvaan looks so small from up here. Less a town and more a series of toys scattered over green carpet. It seems so unbearably breakable. When Imogen looks at it, her teeth ache; her stomach aches; her entire body aches. She feels Predathos pressing against her mind. Like a tumor. The way it pushes up against her skull.

Don’t think of it as a tumor, that’s what Laudna had said. Her cold fingers touching Imogen’s temples. Think of it as your brain getting bigger. That helps me, when I get too frightened. And she’d smiled.

That same smile is held, now, in the corner of her mouth – it’s always there now, it never goes away. That has to be a good thing. Right? Standing on top of this hill, smiling vaguely down at Gelvaan. This has to be good. This has to be what Imogen wanted. She swallows in her dry throat, licks her dry lips. Says, “Can you do it?”

“Hm?” Laudna says, and blinks, and shakes her head a little; she exits her other conversation, steps into Imogen’s. “Oh, yes. Oh yes. Easily.” When she tilts her head to look at Imogen, her smile is huge. It twists her whole face up. “We’ve got it. But...give us a kiss first, won’t you? Just in case.”

She bats her eyelashes at Imogen; she doesn’t need to. Imogen has already stepped close to kiss her.

Her hand on Laudna’s jaw. Her mouth on Laudna’s mouth, and only Laudna’s mouth. Imogen is always careful to articulate to herself exactly who she’s kissing, which sometimes helps. No, it always helps. It’s only Laudna’s mouth – opening against hers, so soft and so sweet. Imogen tastes the edge of that perpetual smile, which is Laudna’s smile—

It doesn’t help. Even when Laudna tangles her fingers in Imogen’s hair, even when she sighs adoration, it doesn’t help – Imogen can feel the parasite crawling up Laudna’s throat. Probing and searching and reaching until – there – it finds Imogen’s parasite, and sinks its teeth in.

Predathos screams when Delilah sucks the life out of it, which could mean anything – it screams all the time. It screams when Imogen is happy and when she’s sad and when she’s scared and when she’s tired. It only has one word for feeling. It only ever feels one thing.

It takes, she takes, they take. They take turns taking from each other. She has to remember Laudna’s mouth, or none of this will be for anything.

When Delilah has had enough, Imogen and Laudna kiss for a little while longer – proving a point to someone, although who could say which of the four of them they’re proving that point to. Afterwards: Laudna’s mouth. Kiss-bruised. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes are glassy and fever-bright. She heaves for breath. If Imogen pressed her palm to Laudna’s chest, she’d feel that living heartbeat. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

“Imogen,” Laudna breathes. Imogen loved – loves – loves the way Laudna sounds when she says Imogen’s name like that. It makes her think of dark bedrooms, of Laudna’s laugh pressed up against Imogen’s mouth. Quiet places. Nights on the road. Just the two of them in the dark. When Laudna says her name like that, Imogen misses Laudna – which is stupid, because she’s right there.

“Watch this,” Laudna says. “Watch. Are you watching?”

“Always,” Imogen says, and means it. “Honey, I never look away from you.”

Laudna laughs: a cackle like a scarf tossed into the wind. She lifts a hand. She pulls.

They used to be much worse at this. In the first town, they’d bickered over how to wield the magic – Laudna had said like this and Delilah had said like that and then they’d thrown a cataclysmic tantrum and had left only skeletons in their wake. But—

(“I killed them,” Laudna said. Her forehead pressed to Imogen’s in the dark. The wet hiccuping of her crying the only sound in the world.

“You didn’t mean to,” Imogen said. “I know you didn’t—”

“I did,” Laudna said. “I did. Didn’t you?”

YES, said Predathos, YES, YES. THEY HURT ME. THEY MADE ME SMALL.

When you hear a scream for long enough, you kind of stop hearing it. It sort of becomes background noise. Imogen has explained this to Laudna; Laudna is maybe the only other person who would get it.

Imogen said, “Yes. I wanted them dead. So they’re dead now.”)

—they’ve practiced. Now it goes exactly the way Imogen wanted: the green green grass around Gelvaan goes brown in a perfect ring. Laudna gasps, inhales – keeps inhaling – and Imogen swears she can see it, all the life flowing from the plants and streaming straight into Delilah and Laudna’s hungry mouth. The flowers withering in their windowboxes, the vegetables at the market all crumbling to dust. Gelvaan, withered. And Laudna, her eyelids fluttering in some toxic ecstasy: bloom.

The gasp cuts off; Laudna staggers, catches herself. They blink and take in the destruction: Gelvaan, dry as a bone. Flammable.

She tilts her head to the side and says, to Imogen: “Good?”

“So good,” Imogen says. “So good, baby, so good.”

Her stomach growls.

Laudna laughs. (She laughs much more easily these days.) “Go on,” she says. “I’ll catch up.”

Imogen’s fingers twitch; her mouth is starting to water, her veins beginning to spark. Still, she says, “Are you sure?”

“I love you,” Laudna says. “Go.”

“I love you,” Imogen says. She goes.

She’s stumbling down the hill at first – a fishhook has snagged her ribcage, is reeling her in towards the withering. Predathos, throwing itself forward against the steel cage of Imogen: THEY HURT ME THEY HURT ME THEY HURT ME THEY MADE ME SMALL. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. I WANT THEM DEAD. I WANT THEM BROKEN. I AM BIGGER THAN THE WORLD. I AM THE BIGGEST THING THERE’S EVER BEEN.

...or maybe that’s Imogen, thinking that. Hard to tell. Her heart is thrashing inside of her chest; she picks up speed, starts running, but that isn’t enough it just isn’t enough. THEY TRAPPED ME. THEY HURT ME. WHY DID THEY HURT ME? I COULD HAVE LOVED THEM. I COULD HAVE LOVED THEM. I COULD HAVE LOVED THEM. I COULD HAVE LOVED THEM and Predathos’ revelation, or maybe Imogen’s own, lifting her feet off the ground and she’s flying.

She sees red. Red red red red red.

The people in the market are gathered around Tomas’ vegetable stall, muttering in bewilderment over the ash heap that was the tomatoes; then Imogen is there, a flash of heat lightning, and they all stop muttering. Some people back away. One daring person tries to run. THEY PUT ME IN A CAGE so Imogen pulls them back again. It’s easy. It’s all so fucking easy.

“REMEMBER ME?” she says.

A babble of voices. Useless. Worthless. So fucking loud. It’s always been so loud here. Their voices banging against her skull, CAGE, trapping her MAKING ME SMALL they hated her WHY DID THEY HATE ME? I COULD HAVE LOVED THEM there’s always been something so strange about that Temult girl HUNGRY HUNGRY I’M HUNGRY she calls the lightning. Oh, she calls the lightning.

Dry wood catches. Withered grass catches. The fire bursts to life like the inside of Imogen’s head: red, hungry, screaming.

“REMEMBER ME?!” she screams. “REMEMBER WHAT YOU DID TO ME?!”

They do. They must. That’s why they’re screaming. Because they know that justice is coming to them – they know that I’M GOING TO HURT THEM THE WAY THEY HURT ME. I’M GOING TO BREAK THEM. UNMAKE THEM. ERASE THEM FROM THIS WORLD. And it will hurt. AND IT WILL HURT. Will you make it hurt? I’LL MAKE IT HURT. The way they hurt me. I WON’T LET ANYONE CAUSE YOU PAIN. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

Oh, that promise. That irresistible promise. Imogen would do anything for someone to promise her that and keep it. She has already done anything.

Predathos is screaming, which means Imogen is enjoying herself. She’s thrilled, ecstatic. She breaks bones, breaks walls, sucks up Gelvaan into a howling tornado of fire and wreckage; she remakes the world in her image. The market. The tailor’s shop, the blacksmith’s, the butcher’s. That fountain that she used to make wishes in, before she realized the gods didn’t give a shit. BUT I DO. Predathos screams and screams and screams, which means I love you. Sometimes Imogen wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and she realizes that these little love confessions – a city’s worth of gore and silence – are more real to her than the word itself, said aloud: love. She can’t think about that. She just can’t think about it.

And then Laudna says her name:

“Imogen?”

Imogen is on her hands and knees in the center of town, crying so hard it feels like she’ll die of it. Heaving for breath. Wailing and wailing and wailing.

That cool hand on her shoulder: Imogen clings to it, weaves her shaking hot fingers through Laudna’s. When she looks up, Laudna is there. The only unbroken thing. Delilah has draped a cloak of shadows over Laudna’s shoulders, so the fire won’t even touch her. The damp chill of her is such a relief.

“I’m here,” Imogen says hoarsely.

Laudna’s thumb touches her cheek, brushes a tear away. “Are you alright?”

I’LL NEVER BE ALRIGHT AGAIN. THEY TOOK THAT AWAY FROM ME. NOW I CAN ONLY BE WHAT THEY MADE ME. ALL I REMEMBER HOW TO DO IS SCREAM.

“Yeah,” Imogen says. “Yeah.” She takes Laudna’s hand, uses it to shakily pull herself to her feet again. Around her, Gelvaan is burning. Imogen’s father must be able to see all the smoke. Did he see Imogen? Did he feel...what she wanted him to feel? She knows exactly what she wanted him to feel. She knows. She does. Did he feel it? Could he explain it to her? Could he put it into words, what she wants?

I WANT—

Yes, that’s right. She knows what she wants.

“Oh,” she says.

“Hm?”

“I forgot,” she whispers. “I meant to...the animals. The kids. I meant to…”

Laudna steps into her field of vision; she tips up Imogen’s chin with two fingers. Or, well, someone tips up Imogen’s chin with two fingers. Someone considers her. Someone has that smile still cradled so sweetly in her mouth.

“I saw them,” she says. “Imogen. I saw the children get away. They all ran away.”

“They did?”

“Darling.” She takes Imogen’s face in her hands; Imogen lets her eyes flutter shut. “All you did was retaliate. They hurt you first, didn’t they?”

THEY HURT ME.

“Yeah,” Imogen says. “Yeah, they did.”

“And you can’t just accept that.”

“No. No, you’re right.”

“So? Let’s keep going. There’s an awful lot of this world left to break, you know.”

Imogen coughs up a rusty laugh. Predathos thrashes inside of her, screaming. This means—

“Laudna?” she says.

There’s a moment of silence, two. Then Laudna says, “Yes?”

“I love you,” Imogen says insistently. “I love you.”

She opens her eyes. When she sees Laudna, her stomach growls again.

“I love you too,” Laudna says. “Would you hold back for me? When we get to your father? That way, if there’s still a stove afterwards...I could cook you dinner. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“I’ll try,” Imogen whispers. “I’ll really try.”

The smile blooms again on Laudna’s face. “Oh, you’ll manage it,” she says. “You can do anything. You’re incredibly capable, you know.” She leans in; she presses another soft kiss to Imogen’s mouth. “Now let’s hurry up, before Relvin manages to skitter away. D has all sorts of ideas for what we can do with him, you know.”

BREAK HIM.

“Yep,” Imogen says. “Yeah. I...me too.” When Laudna goes to move away, Imogen lunges for her; she catches Laudna’s hand in her own. Laudna’s fingers weave through hers, tangle and intertwine with her. Good. That’s good. It’s good. Imogen loves Laudna, and Laudna loves Imogen, and no matter what Laudna cooks for her tonight Imogen will still be hungry afterwards and Laudna will still be hungry afterwards and they won’t talk about it and they won’t look at it and then tomorrow they’ll do all of this over again. And again and again and again and again and again. UNTIL IT STOPS HURTING. But it won’t ever stop hurting.

Imogen’s boots crunch and crush the ashes as the four of them walk, hand in hand, on through the wreckage of the world.

#campaign 3 #critrole fic rec #imodna #my fellow enjoyers of hubris and horror.... bon appetit!!!!

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