#*an anvil fell from the sky

[autophage]

The slow but incessant rain of anvils began in 1942.

George Macomber was walking from the trolley stop to his home in Great Falls (a name which many newspapers took advantage of in their lede selection) when a two-ton Bavarian fell out of the sky, landing squarely on top of poor George. He was Flattened instantly.

And, seconds later, he slid out from beneath the anvil, with a new height of one and a half millimeters. He had become, in an instant, the densest human being on the planet.

George Macomber happened to look up just before impact. This saved his life: because he was the first to ever be Flattened, the extremely-high-density intravenous fluid setup had not yet been invented, and no hospital could have kept him hydrated if his mouth were not accessible on his topside. (Iris Colelman invented the extremely-high-density intravenous setup in 1947, after hundreds had perished due to dehydration mere days after their Flattening.)

In another twist of good fortune, George Macomber had served as a signal officer in the Navy during the Great War and knew Morse code. While his vocal chords were capable only of producing an awful gurgling, he could still communicate by blinking - a trick that the doctors recognized quickly. And so he was able, painstakingly, to describe the characteristic sound of the anvil's descent: a terrifying descending whistle, like the slide-flute sound used for falling bombs in animated reels.

His story is not all a happy one, though. Some who are Flattened eventually pop back up to their former stature, but poor Mr. Macomber never did. While his medical condition remained stable, his wife divorced him and he had trouble finding employment. Seven years after his Flattening, he stopped eating or drinking. His final words, blinked to his nurse, are lost to history; she felt that she owed him her silence, even as she was fired and eventually prosecuted for letting him pass in this manner. The court asserted that she should have immobilized him and given him a high-density drip.

Only twenty-three days after George's Flattening, Irma Childress was returning from the bakery when a six-ton farrier's anvil hurtled down and Flattened her. She, too, was lucky enough that her mouth remained accessible. Her story is happier than George's - she was also the first person to pop back up to her normal height. It took her six months, and those must have been worse than George's, as she did not know Morse code - though she learned it and was proficient by her third Flattened month.

Even after regaining her former height, Irma remained wary of doors, stairs, and any place with high foot traffic. She sold her house in Los Angeles and moved out to an almond farm. She spoke to the press repeatedly and respectfully, and to this day is remembered as an early and passionate advocate for keeping the Flattened comfortable and helping them maintain their dignity.

Nobody has discovered where the anvils come from. They fall primarily in North America, most often in the southwest and midwest. Some suspect that they are flung by tornados, or some sort of awful prank, or military test flights. They are always of recent manufacture, indicated by a date stamp, but never a maker's mark.

The rate of Flattenings increased until the late 50's, at a peak of a bit over 100,000 in 1958. Today, the rain has slowed: there are usually between one and two thousand Flattenings a year. This incident rate has held steady since the early 1980's. This is unusual, since far fewer anvils are manufactured or used today than were in the 1940's. Of those Flattened, about half pop back to their previous height, usually between two months and a year after their initial Flattening.

It was difficult for the Flattened to connect with each other before modern video conferencing - those who were lucky enough to look up before their Flattening can see above themselves, but cannot see in front of themselves, and it is generally difficult for the Flattened to orient themselves otherwise. The Flattened of today generally stay on a table with a tablet above them, modified to use eye tracking for navigation. (Of course, this only really works with Flattened whose eyes are on their top- or bottom-sides; those with eyes facing forward, or whose faces were crushed into their bellies, can usually hear, but have a very hard time making themselves understood.) Regardless of orientation they are helped by dedicated care nurses who changes their IV fluids. These nurses are provided by Flattening insurance, offered by all major insurance providers; they often also take over some of the responsibilities the Flattened previously held, such as taking care of their children.

Sadly, the provisions surrounding Flattening insurance have changed in the last twenty years. Most nurses make less than 20% above minimum wage, and are afforded very little flexibility by the job, which requires them to attend the Flattened's household around the clock. They become very close with those they care for - in many cases they develop shorthands to make communication easier, such as diacritic modifications to the blinked Morse code.

While the Irma Childress Foundation is the leading voice for Flattening insurance reform, some long-term Flattened feel that their concerns are often not heard. They contend that the Foundation often bargains away provisions that could help some edge cases - especially those with limited communication capabilities.

Some of the Flattened have started pooling resources to buy land and build a city suited to their own needs, to wean themselves off of the marginal succor offered by the insurance system. We who stand tall must support them. We must afford them not only the dignity of doing our best not to step on them, but to self-determination. We must acknowledge that their lives are all unique and different. We must refuse, if you will pardon the pun, to flatten their experiences into one single narrative.

[raayllum]

Key to His Heart Theory: Shot Through the Heart, and You're (S5) to Blame

Intro

So a little over a year ago (since usually I think about things meta wise for at least a good month before writing them down), I wrote a meta about why I thought the Key of Aaravos might hold a quasar diamond, specifically Aaravos' missing chest piece. His heart, if you will.

At the time, I thought it was a very strong contender for what the cube might be, even if it didn't necessarily give us a clear depiction on what it might be used for, and was again operating under the assumption the cube itself is something Aaravos even wants back or needs (which is assumption still, at this point).

It made sense loosely with some of the new information we'd gleaned about the cube from S4 (mostly the Callum pawn intro with its bright flashing light, the emphasis on hearts in the narrative with Ezran's speech, the 4x04 flashbacks) and was likewise built upon a previous meta regarding the series' use of Egyptian mythology (Thoth and Ibis being present somewhat in Callum's arc, the main trio's parallels to another Egyptian myth trio, Aaravos' mirror and mirrors as objects of divination, and potential matching symbolism with the ankh).

The Key to His Heart theory was also built on previous seasons — largely the Magma Titan plot line, and Avizandum being stabbed in the heart — in addition to Aaravos' chest piece, seemingly, being notably absent, which seemed indicative of certain lines from the short stories, particularly Rayla (S4's Dear Callum), but we'll talk more about these later:

Please don’t let this hurt too much. But, if it does—if you feel that soft aching—know that that piece of your heart isn’t missing. It’s not missing at all, Callum: I’m carrying it with me! Always.

If you're interested in this theory and want to know about it, I recommend reading the two metas I've linked above, as the rest of this won't really be delving too much into what I've already written about, and talking about how season five has given more potential evidence.

With that out of the way, let's get into it in rough order of "most to least" likely:

Season Five

TDP Reflections

Whereas hearts weren't mentioned too much in the short stories leading up to S4, they became a reoccurring motif every TDP reflection story going into S5.

Fools. They might as well have held their own hearts, beating and bloody, in the palms of their hands. Kim’dael knew that if she showed them her heart—or something convincingly like it—the Sunfire elves would do exactly what she wanted them to do.

“Rayla,” she said, meeting Redfeather’s gaze. “My name is Rayla. And I’m going home.” Redfeather sighed. “Oh, you bleeding heart.”

“They balk at shadows, then.” Aditi pulled a slip of white-hot metal from the forge and turned to place it upon a gilded anvil. “I see your heart—and I am not afraid.”

It stared up at him. Ezran felt a coldness twist its way around his heart. It took his lungs, too, and for a long moment he could not breathe, could not feel anything but an unfamiliar anger so potent it seized the whole of him, inside and out.

Viren staggers backwards, his last breath shuddering through the blade. His white robes turn red at his heart. Something in Soren’s own chest shatters along old cracks, but he cannot look away. 

“You are stronger than this. All storms end!” Rex rumbled a snort through flared nostrils. “What lies at its heart?” 

 He wept for his city, his people, and the darkness struck deep into their hearts.

While one may say it ends with a sunrise, another will insist it ends at nightfall. Yet at the heart of the story is a single, simple truth…A star fell from the sky.

From where Kim’dael stood, she could only see the brilliant aura of its magic. For a moment, it was as though the queen’s heart overflowed with light.

Now, some of this is undeniably because a heart is a short hand for emotion and one of our most useful metaphors for communicating a variety of emotion. However, I did think it was particularly interesting / eye catching that these lines tended to overlap with the series' growing light and darkness motif and emphasis on wounds/scars (to the point we have a 5x02 episode titled "Old Wounds" that refers to both Viren's past and Callum and Rayla's healing relationship).

But by far the one that struck me the most, and seemed the most reminiscent of how Aaravos's (literal?) wound manifests is this paragraph from Claudia's short story:

Lissa had left her years ago, but the space she had owned in Claudia’s heart remained. It was a dark place now, hard and hateful, its edges raw as a wound that had forgotten to heal.

Mountains had crumbled and left in their wake a vast new sea. It was as though the land had been dealt a great wound and bled a hundred years. Terror washed across the remnants of humanity like a wave: What power could fell mountains? Turn all the world dark, and bleed a sea from stones?

—Ripples (pre-S5)

As well as Aaravos' clear desire to have revenge over the Startouch elves for something that seems to go beyond the resentment over just being banished:

I have not seen the stars in centuries. But when I see them again—when the stars are forced to look upon me, their dark brother—they will know how I have waited. And when everything they have built lies shattered, I will savor their fall from the sky. For I have been patient.

—Patience (pre-S4)

We don't know yet if we are going to get more TDP reflections going into S6 or S7, but given the way the previous stories emphasize the heart as both a symbolic idea (a darkened, hollowed out heart) and a literal entity you can hold in your hands... It's clear there's something going on symbolism else, otherwise why be so consistent? But enough of the reflections, for now.

Time to talk about S5 itself.

Laurelion

Previously, I thought the cube in the intro (a literal glow toy, as Rayla identified back in 1x05) already had similar properties to the star-glow effect in the title intro back at S4.

At the time, this was more of a guess. Most of the Star magic we'd seen at that point we weren't able to fully identify as such, it seemed a bit more magenta in colour, and while there was a parallel in the bright flash of light upon releasing Sir Sparklepuff, there's also a bright flash when the prison is actually made. It's just a good short hand for a crescendo of magical power, you know? We didn't know if quasar diamonds were even going to be white, besides the one presumably in Aaravos' chest concept art wise.

And yet — it still felt like something to me. Then S5 with Laurelion came along.

The Death of the Immortal

K: "And though undying, took last breath, immortal Laurelion was no more." C: That's good, right? I mean when someone "was no more," that's — that's dead, yeah? K: It's a bit confusing, but that is the clearest implication. Though it is somewhat odd they call them undying and immortal. C: Well, that doesn't sound so immortal? Laurelion "was no more". K: Right. C: But how? How did they...? K: Right here. "White as the star's heart it pierced, ivory draconic brought death's bite known ever forth as Novablade." C: It's a sword.

There's a few noteworthy things about this whole exchange:

The poem has to be relevant eventually, otherwise why include it at all when you easily could've just had Kazi and Callum stumble across the sword period?

It confirms that the heart of a star is something that can be pierced, presumably removed, and white, which I think is the biggest "hell yeah" to the 4x04 intro

There is no reason to point out the contradictions in the poem itself unless A) the sword doesn't work the way we think it does and/or B) we are going to find out why the "undying and immortal" thing matters — and they make sure to emphasize the contradictions quite a bit as well, so they definitely want us to notice

If Laurelion died, and Aaravos took his place, that would explain how Laurelion — identity wise — could die while the same person under a new name could also remain alive / immortal

We learn in Rayla's pre-S5 short story that Ghosts don't often keep their real names, and take a new one as the final severance of their bond with their old community. For all extents and purposes, Aaravos was Ghosted (banished) from his community as well. Taking a new name would make sense

"That must've been when [Harrow] fell." "Fell? Fell! He didn't fall, Rayla, he didn't trip and fall on the ground — he got killed!" (2x08)

There's more speculation here regarding the actual sword and draconic ivory, but that is another post for another day that other smart people have made if you are interested. For now let's just focus on the heart.

We know Laurelion had a heart; we know it got stabbed with the Novablade, leaving Laurelion both no more (i.e. dead) and yet immortal / undying. We know that Arc 2 in particular has had an emphasis on losing your sense of self and identity ("I was his puppet" / "We can't save everyone, Soren" / "But I'm not evil. It's me" / all of Viren's dream visions). We know that a Star's heart is white. We know that Aaravos seemingly used to have one, and now it's either missing or impermanent, only visible sometimes.

(Putting a pin in the second image cause we'll roll back around to it in the counter evidence section.)

We know his chest centrepiece glowed when he was imprisoned, and we know it was seemingly gone when he got banished. We know something about the Key of Aaravos was able to reveal his treachery.

I'm not saying any of this is for sure connected, but it does make you think, at least a little?

That, and it'd play into another bit of potential interesting foreshadowing / symbolism we got in s5 with

Viren Heart Theory

This is another theory I've discussed in more detail elsewhere, so I'm going to link to it here, but it wouldn't feel right to not talk about it at least a little here. Basically the theory is that Viren used his own blood / a piece of his heart, or possibly the whole thing, and the relic staff in order to save Soren when he was a young child.

This is largely due to Viren's spotlight turning red after he begs to be able to save Soren, and cinched by Kpp'Ar pointing specifically at Viren's heart only for Viren to deflect and start talking about Soren's case specifically. Whatever he did seemed to make him more 'powerful,' but at a great personal cost ("In the name of love you may perform acts that are so unforgivable, you will never forgive yourself") and something he finds the need to justify ("I had to do something! I had to save him! I had no choice!").

If Viren did this, it also adds another layer to Viren's sentiment of "Harrow's death breaks my heart" being well, half-hearted, in addition to Soren literally stabbing illusion Viren in the heart in 3x09. Viren mutilated his heart for his son's life, stopped being able to properly express love to said son, and then Soren stabbed his father right in the place that presumably saved him as a child. Ouch.

It seems likely that one of the reasons Aaravos was able to prey so aptly on Viren's desire for importance and attention — to Matter — was because Aaravos might've tried and failed earlier on to get the Startouch elves to listen to him pre-banishment. Being ignored, exiled, and disempowered is something he can relate to, and something he doesn't mind taking advantage of when it suits him.

However, if this combination could save someone Viren loved, it makes me wonder if Aaravos did something similar to likewise try (and fail?) to save someone he loved, too. It's either that or the Startouch elves just completely ripped it out, so... I guess we'll have to see?

But yeah — if Viren did it, then I'm expecting it's more likely that Aaravos did it, too. That is all.

The Pawn Intros

But Dragons, you say, didn't we already talk about the Callum pawn intro?

And to that I say yes, but — thanks to a promo S6 picture of Aaravos crying, we know something else very important about said intros that we didn't know before: they take place at the Sea of the Cast Out.

The sky, the mountains... the fact we know, thanks to the statues in 5x09, that this is likely where Aaravos' grief — his wound, if you will — began to bleed and take root, leading to his thousands of years of seeking vengeance and using just about anything or anyone he could. This is, presumably, where his chess game started... and where it is, symbolically at least, going to end.

Okay, so it's the Sea of the Cast Out — why does that matter?

Well, we know the Sea of the Cast Out is a site of literal trauma for Aaravos. We know, thanks to the statues of Aaravos and the Merciful One, that it plays into the same reaching motif we see Viren participate in quite a few times, both in his intro and in other places/relationships (most notably Sarai, Harrow, and Terry).

The Sea of the Cast Out is also, perhaps more importantly for this theory's purposes, near Elarion. What little we do know about the city beyond it being an important place for humans and dark magic ties it repeatedly to nature through The Midnight Star poem:

Elarion, trembling seed, lay down to earth in icy night, and in the cold her roots took hold defying winter’s deathly bite. Elarion, fading bloom, afraid to wilt and dim and die, [...] Elarion, dying husk, did wilt and whimper in the dark [...] Elarion, black-eyed child, her twisted roots spread deep and far,

as well as a tale about the Flowers of Elarion, precious blooms that could soothe the senses and turned to dust come morning—flowers that were left as "a fair exchange of beloved for beloved" (Tales of Xadia). Put a pin that Exchange idea because I swear we're gonna come back to it but not in the usual way you might be expecting, or at least not entirely.

And we have good reason to believe this nature motif is tied to Aaravos' current imprisonment as well, given how present flower imagery is for his mirror.

So the Sea of the Cast Out and Elarion seem to be the two places we know of thus far that are not only the most important to Aaravos, but the most instrumental to his banishment. It would not surprise me if either Aaravos got involved in what would become Elarion either because he was banished, or it was what he was banished over, or if discovering the truth of what happened there is likewise why the Archdragons were partially like "Yeah, we gotta lock this guy up" (now that they knew he posed a serious threat). The fact that Elarion is referred to as a child (everything with "blood of a child,"), black-eyed (which denotes dark magic), and winter's "deathly bite" ("White as the star's heart it pierced, / ivory draconic brought death's bite") just all ties together nicely in being related even if we're not totally sure how.

But Aaravos having his chest piece removed by force / as punishment in addition to being cast out by the Startouch elves, or him taking it out himself and giving it to someone who was lost... There's a lot of roads to get here as to why this stuff all seems connected if the Key is indeed his chest piece, which offers up both a power up, a sad tragic backstory, some baller symbolism, and some nice double meanings as to what it is key wise.

As the Key works in the moment, it doesn't seem like it's something that would be very useful to a primal mage, as other than pretty easily identifiable gemstones they wouldn't be using much the key identifies. However, the function of the Key being able to categorize and sort magical creatures and plants from each other is something that is very useful if you're a dark mage and need to shore up your ingredients list.

If the Key has Aaravos' chest piece in it, there are two main prongs this offers:

It may have been instrumental in helping humans discover dark magic, hence the "Elarion, searing white" and could also be the Gift the poem speaks of. Aaravos removed it himself (love makes you weak?), gave it to his chosen human, chosen human died, and he was locked out of Startouch realm as a combined result. This offers the clearest connection between why Aaravos' mirror has the nature motif and why Aaravos is crying in the beginning of 6x01.

It was removed by the Startouch elves and lost/hidden, forcing Aaravos to be away from his old home until he could find it again. This is the clearest explanation as to why the Key might be relevant on a plot level. It could give him the power up he needs to get out of his prison and barring that, it's what he needs to wreck havoc and gain access to the Startouch elves to get revenge on them

It also allows what we learn of the cube in 2x06 to have multiple meanings:

The Key is revealed in an episode called The Heart of a Titan. We're led to assume that this is just the Magma Titan, and you could perhaps make an argument the dual meaning (just like how Breaking the Seal refers to the letter and the titan's chest) refers to Harrow or Callum's capacity to love. But, given that one of Aaravos' most prominent mythic comparisons is to Prometheus, a literal Titan, well...

"It unlocks something of great power in Xadia" would work equally well if it's a Key literally made from Aaravos, not just to Aaravos. And the past 2 seasons in particular have emphasized over and over again just how powerful and dangerous he is

The salvation and destruction motif that is inherent in the key, ("I just have a feeling this key thing can help me" / "It's the key of Aaravos, no good will come of it") as keys are linked to chains and freedom with the ability to lock and unlock, is rampant in 2x06, as Viren states that Xadia and the Magma Titan "held both the promise of our salvation and threat of our destruction." This goes double for Sarai sacrificing her life to save Viren

And to round back to Viren and his intro, I don't think it's a coincidence that

is one of the first things Aaravos ever says to Viren, particularly when trying to earn Viren's trust. (Nor that Aaravos considers that Zubeia and co. "betrayed" him when "he would lower his guard," just before the imprisonment.) And while Aaravos gains Viren's trust as a political ally here first, it's also clear that he's actually primarily preying upon Viren's deepest emotional desires here as well: to be listened to. To matter.

Viren wasn't listened to by the monarchs around him (Harrow). He wanted to be important (to them). He wanted to matter.

"It is everything to me, to know that I matter. It's all I ever wanted."

Aaravos: Search your heart. There is something you want very badly. (2x09) Zubeia: He was able to give them something they wanted very badly. (4x04)

And that's what Aaravos offered him, with power and knowledge just being the bait. (If you're interested in more detailed thoughts on this aspect of Viren / their dynamic, check out this meta here.)

More to the point, I do lean towards the Key's plot purposes being 1) a power-up that may be needed for him to get out of his mirror and 2) something that likewise allows him to see the other Startouch elves again. After all, the Silvergrove gave each elf a similar kind of key:

But y'know what, let's talk about Rayla now, because

The Missing Piece of Your Heart

As stated earlier, Rayla's letter has a consistent metaphor when it comes to family and loss:

I remember how I felt when my parents left me to join the Dragonguard, like PART OF MY HEART WAS MISSING and I would never feel right again. I thought I hated them when they did that to me. In the beginning, it felt so big and terrible—like raging despair—but, overtime, it became a soft, sweet ache—a reminder of that missing part of my heart. [...] Please don’t let this hurt too much. But, if it does—if you feel that soft aching—know that that piece of your heart isn’t missing. It’s not missing at all, Callum: I’m carrying it with me! Always.

This struck me as interesting when the letter first came out, as it was a departure from most of Rayla's previous heart motif ("My heart for Xadia") and even the one attributed to her one half of her parents ("My heart goes out with this one"). Why have the motif suddenly switch up when it would've worked just as well, or been doubly romantic + a Ruthari parallel, to just have it be the whole heart?

Then season four came out, and I understood, because, well...

Upon her return, Rayla brings back that "missing piece" of "Callum's heart". It's a painful restoration and doesn't run entirely smooth, but in season five in particular we see him be much more like his older, happier self once he's let himself love her again, and how steadfast he is in said love ("To love is simply know this...").

But, in a moment that could've been exclusively about Rayla, nor did it need for Stella's connection to the Star arcanum to be this prominent in the same moment, they choose to likewise highlight Rayla 'bringing home' the missing piece of Aaravos' heart, too.

This symbolism is also consistent with how the key is introduced in the first place, i.e. first thought of because Rayla's drawing in Callum's sketchbook (another gift from Harrow) reminds Callum of it, and her ultimately being the one to retrieve it even once things at the Banther Lodge take a turn towards the south.

Furthermore, we do have reason to believe that Rayla is indeed the 'Key to Callum' in a sense, particularly after 5x08. Just like how a key can both lock and unlock — give freedom or entrapment — Rayla symbolizes a great deal of duality in Callum's life, including but not limited to:

Leading him to primal magic (1x03, 5x08) and dark magic (2x07, 5x08)

Light ("No one can control you or make your choices for you" / Ray of light) and dark ("But the second you see that elf girl in pain, you completely lost yourself" / "Stay safe, and stay in the light. Don't look for me")

Being routinely emphasized in Callum's arc with Aaravos, especially in S4

"Now you're back. That's kind of good, and it's kind of bad" / "You have to hold pain and love in your heart at the same time" / "And when she came back, I was so happy, and so mad at the same time"

Salvation ("Rayla saves people [...] that's what makes her a hero") and destruction (being willing to die / do dark magic for her)

The Ocean arcanum realization being both positive and negative, just as the poem itself takes on a different shape across the season in regards to how Callum views her and how he views himself while being motivated by his love for her / Ezran

“Wow. So [the berries] look identical, but they might kill you or they might save you,” Callum said. “Exactly. Just like me…” Rayla smiled.

—Book One: Sky novelization

If you're interested in a more specific meta on this dichotomy, I recommend this meta written pre-s4 and this more recent one about 5x08 specifically.

I've written before about Rayla have a weird consistency with the cube as well, particularly in her being the primary carrier of its foreshadowing for most of arc 1, with Callum only really doing so in 1x04 and having Rayla pick up the slack the rest of the time:

"It's a toy, a piece from a children's game" (1x04) as well as "It's a glow toy" (1x05) are now literally true as the cube is 1) involved in Aaravos' game and 2) literally glows a bright flashing light circa the 4x04 intro.

"Are you practicing magic or are you losing to Bait at a game of rolly-cubes?" (2x07 right after Callum calls it a key) came to pass, somewhat if not outright, it seems, in 5x08. Callum practices two different magics, Rayla is literal bait in exchange for the glow-toad, and the episode ends with Callum being worried he's potentially losing Aaravos' 'game' so to speak — that he's made himself more vulnerable to the Startouch elf's control.

Two lines of hers regarding the cube that have not yet come to pass are "This doesn't end well for you" (1x05) and "I hope it was worth it to you, putting everyone's lives in danger" (1x04) but I expect that we'll get them soon enough.

Rayla's 'tether' to a the cube does, of course, loop back into the Flowers of Elarion tale, in which there was a fair exchange of beloved for beloved. If the Key does indeed hold Aaravos' heart (and that is still a very big If), whether it would include an actual exchange is still debatable, but it seems inevitable that she would at least play a part. (If you're interested in more thoughts on Rayla + the cube, check out this meta pre-s4.)

Where the game motif gets the most interesting, I think, is where it intersects with the idea Aaravos mentions in 2x09 regarding, "Those who fail tests of love are simple animals," and one of the TDP short stories in particular having one very interesting tidbit:

“My behavior is—?” “—unusual,” Corvus repeated, nodding. “Very unusual. Ever since you started challenging me to all these little games.” Soren squirmed. His pauldrons clanked as his shoulders slumped. “They aren’t games. They’re tests. Ugh…I’m really messing this up.”

Since Rayla is going to have her "My heart for Xadia" undeniably tested, it would make sense if Callum and Aaravos' hearts came into play too, don't you think?

Other Misc Symbolism / Oddities

Last but not least, we have our odds and ends that didn't fit in the other sections, but I thought may be worthwhile to mention anyway.

For starters, we have screencaps (most notably in 3x06) where you can see a visible dip in Aaravos' tiddies chest that indicates something was removed, and it's not just an artificial darkness.

We have Aaravos touching a fist to his heart twice before he bows and indicates that Callum is going to "play" into his hands (remember that game motif?).

We have this shot, which is the exact kind of thing that "crew makes sure the Ocean and Moon runes are most prominently on display in Callum's dark magic dreams to foreshadow him doing dark magic in S5 Ocean for his Moonshadow gf 3 seasons later" would absolutely do and think they're So Funny about. "No gem for star magic" except the one you're unknowingly holding in your hand, am I right?

Finally, we have precedent that dark magic can 'darken' your heart both in show when Amaya passes the light trial ("A human that is pure of heart") and in the graphic novels with Claudia ("Your heart is not yet darkened") which allows her to see the map to a unicorn (The Puzzle House).

@self-spaghettification also noted that the bright white flash of the star in the 'o' of Aaravos' name in the Arc 2 intro momentarily looks like and makes the shape of the Nova Blade, which is also very cool.

Honourable mention to Rayla going "it's a piece from a children's game" and Ezran going "you said each of the archdragons had a piece of the puzzle" and the Orphan Queen and Jailer presumably working together to trap Aaravos. I think about that shit every day.

Evidence to the Contrary / Alternatives

But like I said at the start, there are plenty of alternatives or feasible pitfalls to consider. This theory resides on a few assumptions after all, that may not be true, such as Aaravos not actually needing the key for anything other than as a lure for Callum, it could purely have something to do with the Nova Blade and nothing to do with the prison, or even have something to do with the nature of magic itself, capable of great good as well as great evil.

His chest piece could've always been more immaterial and dark magic has just darkened it rather than it being removed. Aaravos may have stabbed Laurelion in order to use that heart diamond to partially make the Relic Staff he passed onto Ziard, or Aaravos' chest piece could be in the staff itself, and the cube is something else entirely.

Conclusion

In the end, as we go forward into S6 all the above is more less my personal bet as to where I think we really could go in terms of answering a lot of these questions we've had for a few seasons now. I hope you enjoyed reading the theory and considering (and possibly subscribing to) it, as well as getting your own thoughts stimulated. If any of the above happens I will cry for days and no matter what, I am deeply intrigued to see where S6 takes Aaravos' backstory and, of course, his cube. Luckily:

[so-no-feint]

Painted in Red (Lilith x Reader)

Hi all, after having the brainworms for Diablo 4 for a while I really wanted to write something like this :) I hope you all enjoy.

Content: Lilith x Reader, violence, dubcon kissing, descriptions of blood, biting Words: 7.1k After being ambushed by Lilith's forces while investigating demonic activity under order of the Cathedral of Light, you wake up a prisoner, the Daughter of Hatred your captor. No amount of training could prepare you for what she had planned.

(and you can find it on ao3 here!)

.............................................................................................................................

The first thing you feel when you come to consciousness is pain. Twisting, excruciating pain, exploding across your chest. You don’t have enough energy to open your eyes, so you decide to focus on breathing instead. You crawl through your memory, trying to find where everything went wrong.

The Cathedral of Light had heard whispers of demonic activity in the west, and decided to investigate. At the behest of Prava, you and several other commanders were instructed to organize squads and march to the last reported site of activity.

Upon arrival, the first thing you had noticed was how wrong the atmosphere felt. This place should have been temperate. Some of the finest drink in the region originated from here. And yet the sky was dark and churning, almost violent. The flora that you could identify looked wilted. Life itself seemed to have been sucked from the earth, and as your fellow captains took note, your grip tightened on your spear.

Being high up in the Church afforded you luxuries not seen by the common soldier — embossed armor bore the mark of the Cathedral, providing both ample comfort and a powerful defense. Your holy weapons, forged on blessed anvils, almost hummed with their purity. But nothing could be created to defend your mind against its own worst enemy: fear.

You heard several of the men behind you begin to fall behind as whispers broke out among them. You almost couldn’t blame them. Most of the common knights Prava had sent with you hadn’t seen anything resembling battle outside of drunken brawls in the late hours of the night on Kyovashad’s streets; the mere thought of demons was likely shaking them to their core.

You held up your hand and turned to face them.

“Men. You must believe in the Light. We have been blessed by Inarius and the Light to remove scourge from this land. Remember your honor, your faith. We press forward.” You took note of the deep breaths your words inspired, calming and reassuring the young soldiers.

And so you and yours continued on, until one man fell to his knees.

The squad leader next to you turned, marching towards the fallen soldier who was clutching his head in his armored hands. Was he… trembling? Your senses heightened as your heart began pumping into overdrive, sending adrenaline coursing through your body.

The soldier removed his helmet. His eyes were missing the spark you expect to see in a man of faith. It was then that his voice reached your ears, loud enough to hear through your helmet.

“She is here. She is come. She is here. She is come.”

Stabbing your weapon into the ground, you closed the distance between the two of you in three massive steps — not a difficult feat for you. Part of your election as commander was due to your physical stature. You towered nearly a head over most. Your body was covered in muscle, scarred and burned by the fifteen years of combat you had seen.

Those fifteen years hadn’t prepared you for what was about to come. And those soldiers who didn’t have that experience were afraid.

Clutching his face in your hands, you shouted through your helmet at the soldier.

“Who is coming!”

“Our… Mother.”

Any remaining words were drowned in the blood that began pouring from his orifices and he collapsed to the ground.

The third commander reacted quickly. “Formation C, now!”

Training took over as the remaining men formed a defensive circle around you all. Searching the horizon yielded nothing, except — had the sky always been this dark?

And then you remember a flash of red light, and screams. Horrific, piercing screams. And then darkness.

Now, sitting against what seemed to be a stone wall, with your hands chained above your head, you managed to blink open your eyes.

There was nothing holy here.

Viscera was scattered in varying corners of the room, whose only light shined through several iron bars dotting the top of the wall. You spotted another captain, his armor pierced through. He was dead.

Nearly overcome with anger and fear, you managed to still yourself and began to think of escape. Tugging on the restraints proved useless; they were bolted directly into the stone above you and offered no movement. You were flexible enough to get your feet under you, but trying to stand to was futile — your torso protested and you collapsed back to the ground with a scream. You’d been injured sometime between blacking out and being taken to this dungeon. A seven inch gash across your armor exposed your bare chest as fresh blood began to seep from the wound.

That scream caught something’s attention, and a solid iron door across the room swung open. Whatever walked in wasn’t human, and you wracked your brain, poring over the mental notes you’d made over the years of different demons. What was it? Wings, exposed skin, long hair, she was almost…

A succubus. It was a succubus.

Your eyes narrowed and you bared your teeth, ready to defend yourself against her attacks that never came. Instead, she hissed at you and left the room with the door ajar.

The encounter had stirred a body from stillness in another corner. It was one of the soldiers, his eyes bloodshot and heavy. He made eye contact with you, mouthing words you could not hear.

You called out to him. “Speak up, knight!”

He took a deep inhale before trying again, and you barely caught pieces of his speech. “-her … she is — Queen — coming,” he uttered, before his head fell backwards and his chest grew still. You cursed every deity you could think of. Queen? Which Queen? And of what?

Heavier footfalls echoed outside the door as their owner walked down the hallway towards your cell. Footfalls and… the dragging of chains?

Your previous questions were answered as soon as you caught first glimpse of who had entered the room with you. So that’s what he had meant by ‘Queen’.

The Daughter of Hatred, Queen of the Succubi, the ‘Mother’.

Lilith.

The demon stood in the doorframe, her presence commanding every cell in your body to give into fear and anguish. But you were strong. Inarius himself had given you his divine blessing to protect against such incursions into your mind.

She extended her wings, spanning nearly the width of the room, and raised them to block the light coming in from outside. Here in this blackness, the only light came from her multicolored eyes. It was a sinister light, a devious one. Lilith had plans for you.

“I see that our…” She paused, glancing over at the dead soldier, “sole survivor has wakened from his slumber,” she spoke. Her voice was as smooth as the finest spirits you had drank. The words emanated from her, enveloping you in a near-suffocating embrace. You shook your head in protest.

“The Light protects me, demon. You hold no power over me.”

Lilith clicked her tongue and stepped towards you. As she drew closer, you noticed a long, thin tail dragging along the floor behind her. Spikes extended from its tip as it rattled along the stones in her path. She had gotten close enough to nearly stand directly over you.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, little Light. Who is protecting you here now? Certainly not your Inarius. There is no light here,” she said, her lips curled into a sneer. “There is only me.”

Lilith’s tail had moved, poising itself to the side of your face. She brought it down on your cheek in some twisted caress you could only assume brought her delight.

“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you, yet. Answer my questioning, and I might let you live.” She stepped back, and the spikes on her tail dragged down your cheek, cutting it open. Lilith smirked at your pain as she stepped out, leaving you with a new cut and in complete silence.

Your eyes flicked open once more as the door rattled before flying open. Two of Lilith’s succubi were standing at the entrance; one holding a key, and one holding what looked to be a plate?

You almost laughed at the idea. Lilith, the Daughter of Hatred, taking care of a prisoner? You might as well be dead already.

That ‘idea’ was anything but. The two drew near, and the one holding the plate set it aside for the moment, before stepping onto your outstretched legs and holding you still. Her skin was colored like ruby and her green eyes pierced through into your soul. You looked away, gritting your teeth as her clawed feet tightened their grip on your armored joints, causing the metal to groan. The second reached above your head to the chains holding your arms in place, brushing her upper thigh against the throbbing cut Lilith had given you the day before.

Were they trying to taunt you?

The shackles fell loose, and for a brief moment, the one standing on you relaxed. Ignoring the pain in your chest, you swung your arms with wild fury, catching the closest succubus in the navel. She collapsed to the floor heaving as you tried to push the one on your legs to the side to no avail. The surge of energy died as the pain exploded again, and you leaned over to vomit or pass out. You weren’t sure which your body would choose.

You didn’t have to.

The succubus standing on you held her foot high, kicking square into your head as your skull cracked against the stone behind you, and you fell to the floor barely clinging to consciousness. The two succubi whispered amongst each other, and one left. You aren’t sure how much time passed until she returned — you were struggling to stay awake as your chest and head throbbed with pain.

She returned holding a locking belt and roughly ten feet of chain, which was swiftly fitted to your waist and the wall. Better than having your arms bolted to it. Your body won against your mind and you gave into sleep once more.

The second day you awoke to an unknown substance sitting on a small dish in front of you. It didn’t smell bad, and your stomach protested the thought of not eating with a loud grumble. As you ate, you heard that familiar rattling again, and your body began to panic as Lilith opened the door once more. With the daylight streaming through above you, you could make out more of her details clearly.

She was nearly two heads taller than you, and her intricate horns increased that difference even more so. She wasn’t wearing armor, but rather a flowing, deep purple robe which seemed to meld into the skin on her chest. And the eyes — her multicolored eyes which saw through all veils. Your own eyes traveled downwards. She had mostly human-like features, with some notable exception being the length and sharpness of her nails. Her legs seemed to ripple with power as she took step after step towards you.

Her voice was barely louder than a whisper. “I see my daughters have taken appropriate care of you. Good.”

You regarded her with caution, but knowing that you were in no position to attack or provoke, humored her conversation.

“And why me, demon? Why save me?”

“Did my dear mate not tell you of me, when you received his blessing? I can sense it on you. His twisted Light,” she spat. “How like him to hide such secrets.” ‘Mate’? Inarius? She knew of Inarius?

“Yes, I know of Inarius. You Knights Penitent are sharp, yes? You can put the details together,” Lilith continued. Had she heard his thoughts? “We knew each other once, long ago. But that is irrelevant now. You shall tell me the plans of your Cathedral and your Order. Do not lie to me.”

You swallowed at her demands. “And how does the bitch of Hell not know that already?”

Her eyes squinted at the insult and she reared her hand back, before delivering a powerful slap to your face. As you stumbled, she shot out her other arm, gripping your neck in her hand. Her strength was powerful, more than you had expected. Lilith leaned close to you, her lips only an inch from your ear.

She whispered. “Now now, little Light. You don’t get to be feisty yet. Now answer me: why were your knights so far west?” Her hand around your throat tightened, and spots began to form in the corners of your vision.

“We were investigating demonic activity on behalf of the Cathedral,” you sputtered out. “Slain villagers. Missing men. Ritual circles scattered across the wastes. Markings of your kind,” hissing emphasis on the last four words. You felt Lilith’s skin touch yours as she grinned.

“Good boy,” she purred, pressing a kiss to your cheek as she released her grip. “Was that so hard?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, and yet it lit every hair on your body on fire.

“Do not touch me, demon!”

“If you cooperate, I won’t have to.” Lilith, you realized, was cunning. Moreso than anyone you had met. “I do hope your face is alright — wouldn’t want the only pretty thing here to be ruined.” She pouted mockingly, raising her hand to the light to inspect it.

This caught you off guard. Speechless for several seconds, you struggled to find any appropriate response to what she had just done, before a brief smile flashed across your face.

“Not the first time I’ve been hit by a woman. Not the hardest, either,” you taunted. Perhaps challenging the most powerful demon in modern times was not a good idea, but if you were going to die anyways, why not have fun with it?

She smiled at your retort, before bringing her tail up to your chin. Your eyes watched the end warily, all too aware of the damage it can inflict. Instead, Lilith turned it onto its flat side, tilting your head to meet her icy gaze.

Whatever semblance of fun you thought you could have disappeared with the next question. “And, my dear, where is Inarius?” As she formed those words, something behind her eyes shifted and her eyebrows narrowed. A visage you had seen often danced across her face: hatred. Fear began to flow in your veins as you came up with an answer.

“We are not privy to that information.” A… partial truth.

Lilith bared her teeth at you as her hatred choked the atmosphere. “I told you no lies,” she hissed. She drew her tail back, only for it to sweep your legs out from under you, sending you crashing to the floor back-first. She stepped on your outreached arms, wrapping her tail around your armored legs, immobilizing you. As much as you struggled you were no match for her strength.

She squatted down to get close to your face once more, practically straddling your chest. Normally, you would have considered this intimate. Unfortunately, this situation was anything but.

“I did answer your question of his location, ‘Mother’,” you replied, injecting as much venom into her title as possible. Lilith smirked and grabbed the sides of your head with her hands, and your eyes darted to the edges of your vision as you tried to understand what was about to happen.

The Daughter of Hatred moved her mouth to yours, drowning out your sound of protest with a deep kiss. Your emotions swirled; on one hand, the desires and feelings you felt as a baser human beat against their cage, repressed by the years of training in the Order. On the other hand, the antithesis to all your beliefs and existence was currently trying to force her way into your mouth.

That concern grew smaller and smaller as Lilith held you still, almost savoring the forbidden, as her tongue mingled with yours and your mind went blank and time stood still. Your pulse quickened and your body grew hot as the reality of what was happening set in. Tugging your head back, you spit onto the floor, praying to the Light that whatever saliva of hers had entered your mouth was there no longer.

You panted, catching your breath. “Do you treat all of your prisoners like that?”

She stood, no longer crouching above your chest, stepping off your hands and unbinding your feet.

“Only the ones that amuse me,” she said. “We are done for today. Unless, of course, you feel comfortable answering more… questions.” She raised her hand, holding a small orb of blood in stasis above her palm, before clenching her fist together. You gasped in pain as the wound on your chest reopened and Lilith’s temptations swirled in your head.

Give in to me. It will all be over. Return to your origins. Reveal the truth. Set yourself free.

She let out a chuckle. “Unfortunate that your body betrayed your beliefs, isn’t it? Such is man. Simple creatures. But don’t worry, little Light. Mother is here to save you all.”

The last of your controlled conscious slipped away as Lilith slipped into your mind. She wielded your thoughts and actions with finesse. You had let her get close enough to ingest her saliva. You never had the possibility of being a match against Lilith. It was over before it even began. Before you woke up in this forsaken cell. You were playing right into her hands the entire time.

And you wanted to.

Lilith’s smirk turned into a grin as the last pieces of you lost their battle to her willpower. You, a knight who once stood proud before Inarius the Father, had been reduced to no more than a plaything for the Daughter of Hatred. And it was good.

She stepped towards you, inches away from touching your chest. She raised a hand, laying it on the cusp of your armor, before wrenching it off of you piece by piece. Your chest was bared to the world, angry and inflamed as the flesh tried its best to heal.

“You should keep still while your body repairs itself. Don’t want to get hurt, do you?” she said. As she spoke, Lilith was winding the slack in the chain between yourself and the wall into her hands, trapping you between the stone and her overpowering form. Was it a trap, or a luxury? Your mind hadn’t yet decided.

With imperceptible quickness, Lilith tugged the chain from its socket in the wall, swinging her arm above your head and impaling it into the stone above. Her lips curled in a smile as she took your hands in front of you, wrapping your wrists together with the remaining chain.

She leaned in close to your ear. “Now be quiet, dear. I like to work in silence.” You nodded in acceptance (or was it willingness?) as she dropped her mouth to your collar, sinking her canines into your weak and bruised flesh. You moaned quietly in pain, and her eyes flitted to your face as she pressed a finger to your lips.

“Hush.”

Lilith recreated the bite on the other side of your body, stepping back to admire her handiwork. She stood before you, your blood smeared across her lips, and you felt desire to submit. Your only purpose was to serve Mother, was it not? You were willing to give her the power over you she needed.

Some voice in the back of your mind screamed and raged against the very idea, and you stifled it. Lilith had noticed and pressed you between her and the wall, your arms high above your head. Her body was warmer than it looked, you realized, as the tapering slit of her dress pressed her bare skin against your chest.

Her tail had snuck its way into your lower armor, and coiled around your upper leg with pressure. “This last one will hurt,” she said, licking your blood from her lips. There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes, but you didn’t see it.

Lilith traced her fingers along the surface of your chest, skirting down to your stomach and back again. Her nails danced upon your skin as she locked eyes with you, before stabbing under your sternum and into your chest. The only noise you can make is a whimper as the pain radiates across your body, threatening to bring you to your knees.

She grabbed the back of your neck, cradling you against her as your body begins to shut down. “Give in, little Light. You’re so, so close.” Her scent whirls around your head and you nearly experience a twisted euphoria. A mix of sweat, perfume, hatred, and death. Sickeningly sweet.

You can only manage a whisper. “…Yes, Mother.”

“Good.”

You feel her finger hook onto something and tug. As she pulled it out, the room became illuminated with the dim yellow glow of an Angel’s wing fragment. Her eyes narrowed as she squeezed, screaming with her last might of strength, before the fragment shattered.

Whatever voice was in the back of your head was gone, scattered across the bloodied floor beneath you both.

Lilith let out a subtle sigh before she began to work her magicks. You briefly remember learning of her powers in the Order. But she was helping you, wasn’t she? Showing you the path to salvation. Yes, that must be it.

The last thing you remember of that day is catching her gaze as she licked her canines, tasting the essence of your life, and giving you a cruel smile.

Day three. Or was it four? You had lost track of time. But time didn’t matter now. She did.

She. The Queen of the Succubi was standing before you, her wings folded in tight to her back.

“Good morning, little Light,” she cooed. “I have something to show you today.”

For the first time in a long while, you felt… normal. No weight in your chest. There was no feeling of being forced into something. You felt free. Standing to your feet, you lightly rattle the chains around your wrist, smirking at Lilith.

“What about these?”

She grunted and your arms came free from the wall. Your eyes didn’t see it the first time, but as you brought your hands back down towards your body, her tail skittered across the stones back towards her. Your eyes widened ever so slightly in fear. Had she always been that fast?

“You need not be afraid. Come along, now.”

For the first time in several days, you stood up to your full stature, spreading out your chest and legs. Even still, Lilith towered over you, dominating your vision.

“Where are we going, Lilith?” You asked.

“The Gardens,” she paused. “Do you remember yesterday, my knight dearest?”

You nod in affirmation. Lilith sneers.

“Good.”

The rest of your walk is done in silence. You arrive to a massive pair of wooden doors, and Lilith flicks her hand lightly, swinging them open. She knelt down to your height, placing her hands on your shoulder, and you felt her horns press into your head.

“Grown just for you.”

Lilith’s manipulations and destruction of your mind unraveled as you processed the scene before you. All of your men, every single one, sat dead in the field before you. Some were missing limbs, while others hung gruesomely from massive stakes rammed through their bodies. At first, you feel nothing. The anger, the hatred, boiled up from the pits of your stomach, exploding out of you into a scream so fierce that even the Daughter of Hatred stepped back in surprise.

Your rage rapidly gained direction as you spun to face the demon once more. “What have you done,” you mutter through clenched teeth.

“What I needed to!” She hissed back.

You felt her tail hit you before you saw it move. The force of the impact knocked you down spinning, and you lay on your stomach trying to process what had happened. Lilith took no pause moving to your incapacitated body, placing a single leg atop your back, extending her claws into the skin around your spine.

You cry out in pain as tears begin to form in your eyes and pour down your face. She took note of your pain, wrapping her tail around your torso and lifting you off the ground as your head lolled forward.

“You had done so well, little Light,” she said as she lifted a hand to your face, wiping the tears from your skin.

“My name is not ‘little Light’, it’s—“

Her hand dropped from your cheek to your lips, pinching them shut as you writhed against her. She lets your mouth free when you slowly return to silence.

“I will ask you again, knight,” venom dripping from her voice. “I can sense if you lie. Where is the Angel Inarius?”

You swallowed hard, blinking the wetness from your eyes as you and Lilith stared into each other’s eyes.

“We were blessed in the eastern peaks, but that was months ago. I swear on my life.”

“Then I will hold you to that,” she growled, dropping your weakened body to the floor. Your legs crumpled as they hit the stone and you tattered on the edge of consciousness. There was a low snap, and two succubi appeared from the doorway to the ‘Gardens’, holding a small chalice. Lilith spoke to them in what you can only imagine was demonic, and your strength failed you once more, leaving you unconscious on the stones beneath her.

She waved her hand towards the two succubi, before extending her wings to their fullest, and took flight with her army to the east. She had an angel to hunt.

You awoke, head and back pounding with pain. There was a dull taste in your mouth, one of iron and sweetness. You’re in restraints once again, this time exposed to the world: your arms and legs are chained diagonal from each other, forming an X. Your armor has been removed and taken, and you’re covered in only simple linens.

The chains holding your limbs are so tight you can only afford mere inches of movement as you tug on your bindings, trying hopelessly to twist yourself free from your prison.

Lilith’s demons open the door to your cell — it’s the same two you punched days ago. You growled, spitting onto the stone in front of you, challenging them to live up to their Mother’s punishments.

This time, they did not bring food. This time they brought whips.

You chuckled, gritting your teeth for the coming torture. It hadn’t been your first time being whipped; no, the Order made sure of that. Their “training”, they claimed, would pay off one day. And here you were, Lilith’s toy. The irony of the situation nearly made you burst out with laughter.

The first whip strike was light, almost playful. You gave a wicked grin to your tormentors. “Try your hardest, hellspawn.”

They snarled back, unleashing a flurry of strikes that scathed your flesh through the shirt. The protection, or lack thereof, of your linens rapidly deteriorated as hit after hit cut through the fabric and into your skin.

The two were smart. They took breaks, paused between whippings, exchanged tips on their weapons. All to break you. Sometimes they would give you water — just enough to keep you awake for the next round of attacks.

Your body screamed under the pain of hundreds of cuts. It had been hours since they had started. Blood had pooled on the ground beneath your feet, crusted and drying. Some were shallow and stung; others reached deep, gouging open your skin. Your voice had given out long ago. You protested the torture, of course, but no longer could you voice the screams of pain.

You closed your eyes as they continued again. Your body had mostly grown numb to their whipping; likely from the amount of blood you had lost. You wanted help. You wanted it to stop. So you asked, begging, in your mind, for the torture to be over.

You hadn’t expected an answer.

The Daughter of Hatred entered, her eyes trained not on you, but on her daughters. Their attitude changed immediately, quickly morphing from pleasure at your pain into fear of upsetting their Queen. No words were exchanged, but the two succubi immediately left the room, exiting behind Lilith whose glare at them sent shivers down your spine.

They’d left their whips behind.

In your current position, you were lifted off the floor enough to be eye to eye with Lilith. At this level you could see her face clearly in the light. She was slightly smiling; not the loving, concerned smile of a Mother. Her smile concealed angered amusement. You were completely, utterly helpless before her, at her beck and call.

Lilith sighed, glancing down at the dried blood beneath your feet. “Always so eager to please their Queen, they are,” she said. She nearly looked… disappointed?

Raising her hand, the redness scattered across the stones slowly reconciled itself into a bubbling liquid, hovering in the air between the two of you. You raised your eyes in confusion, and then surprise, as she pushed the orb of blood into your chest. Its contents were absorbed through you, invigorating your body as the blood you had shed entered you once again.

“The succubi have never been skilled at torture,” she continued, running her hand along the length of one of the whips. Lilith hadn’t come to save you. She’d come to do the job herself. She stepped closer, with only a foot of distance separating you two. In the light, you could clearly tell that she had been fighting. Her wings were covered in dust and gunpowder, and blood spattered the bottom of her dress.

“I take it you didn’t find Inarius.”

Lilith held up her hands, inspecting her nails for any imperfections. She ignored, you noticed, the blood caked on her palms. “No.”

Her gaze settled back onto you as she unfurled the whip in her hands. Fuck.

Her first swing lacerated your chest, cutting down from your shoulder to your sternum. The second echoed the first, this time on the other side of your body. And so she continued — like an artist painting on her canvas, Lilith carved her hatred and fury into your body as symbols and icons. First on your chest, and then she moved onto your arms and face. Once she was satisfied with her work there, her strikes aimed for your thighs, your muscles jumping every time the whip sliced through your flesh.

You never bled. She was keeping your body from doing that, her twisted magic ensuring that you were awake for all of the pain to come.

Her onslaught eventually slowed, the time between each lash of the whip increasing until she dropped it from her hands. You look up in a haze, your eyes barely able to focus as every square inch of your body is on fire, eyes searching for anything to focus on. They land on Lilith’s.

Her eyes, normally sharp and blue and grey, were blurred by both your tears and hers.

“You do not deserve this, little Light,” she says quietly, gazing at your red and raw body hung broken before her. Her shoulders lowered as the tension and sadness evaporated from her body.

Lilith’s voice swirled, containing an amalgamation of despair and anger. “Did you know that I had a son once? Not your mankind,” she continued with a sigh, “but a real son. My son. Rathma.”

“And your Father, Rathma’s father, killed him where he stood. All in the name of returning to Heaven.” A single tear fell down the her face. In this moment, Lilith was not the Daughter of Hatred, but a mother broken who lost her child.

Her visage hardened back into its cold and unforgiving self, but there were cracks now. Chinks in her armor, weakened by the death of her son. She stretched out her hand towards you, and a surge of warmth filled your body as cut after cut slowly seal themselves closed.

You look up from yourself in disbelief to find that Lilith’s face is directly in front of yours. You flick over her features: the weariness in her eyes, the edges of her jaw, and the red of her lips. This time, you do not struggle as she kisses you. This time, you are willing to afford her the twisted, grieving comfort she desires.

The restraints on your legs fall to the ground, leaving you dangling by your arms. Lilith pulls away from you, her tail wrapping around your chest as she undoes the remaining clasps on your wrists.

As she sets you down on the ground, your brows furrow in confusion.

She grasped your head in her hands as you looked up to maintain eye contact with her. There was no malice here, only gentleness.

“I want this war to end. I want to free humanity from its chains. No longer will you all be pawns in the Eternal Conflict,” she replied. “Follow.”

This time you followed, not in acceptance, but curiosity. You trailed Lilith into another stone room, this one larger and more elaborate than your cell. There were small glass windows dotting the walls, and several wooden chairs and tables were scattered across the room. She stopped, raising her hand and twirling in a small circle.

The air in front of you cracked and hummed as the energies of Hell surged out from the rift that she had opened in space. A small portal whirled in front of you as Lilith turned around.

“This will return you to Kyovashad.” She paused, smirking, raising both hands to your face. She took the sharper edges of her nails, slowly cutting from the tops of your eyebrows and down to your cheeks, barely missing your eyes.

“That is for my own amusement. And this,” she continued, dropping her palm to your navel, “is for you.”

Lilith’s skin glowed hot against yours as you grunted in pain. Her hand pulled away, leaving a small sigil stamped into your skin. “You’ve piqued my interest, knight. Not many of my… captives have been as amusing as you,” she says.

You can only stammer out a single question.

“Why?”

The Daughter of Hatred gives you a low bow, her wings extended. “I was curious to see what would happen. Now go, little Light.”

With that, you stumble backwards into the portal, facing your captor the whole time.

And so you returned to as normal a life as you could, your body bearing the sins and beatings of your imprisonment. You told Mother Prava what you had learned, but pieces of you were in doubt of the Cathedral and the Order. Had Lilith been right? Had Inarius’ lust for victory been fueled solely by selfishness and vengeance? Had you suffered and your brothers died just to become stepping stones for some higher power?

Your doubts took root silently, at first, before their growths began to blossom in your head. Over the next several months, Inarius’ conquests grew more and more daring. Each mission came back with fewer and fewer men as your numbers dwindled faster than knights could be trained. Soon, those remaining were Inarius’ most loyal. Or perhaps, his most fanatical?

Winter came, bringing its sharp winds blasting across Kyovashad and the surrounding area.

And then He made his announcement. The Order would be marching on Hell, to conquer its fiery threats once and for all. To slay Lilith and put an end to the madness. The night before that final march, you didn’t sleep. Your mind was swirling with conflict. Perhaps she had been right. Inarius never deigned to ask about your capture; he’d never listened to your concerns about his mission plans. He had forged ahead, disregarding anything Man had told him.

He was an Angel, after all. How could he be in the wrong?

But hadn’t he always been wrong? Falsely leading so many men to their deaths under the guise of permanent remembrance and salvation, only for them to be torn limb from limb while their great leader pursued his true goals? This war would not end under Inarius.

Your stomach burned hot and you winced as the sigil Lilith had placed months ago glowed faintly. You could almost feel it all again: the beatings, the cuts, the… kisses. And so you stand, walking outside your barracks, and stumble blindly into the cold until your feet can pull you no further.

If you go just a little further, you could reach her.

You press both hands to the mark, and that warmth surges once more as the surrounding air cracks and hums with her energy, forming a portal that sends you hurtling through inky blackness.

You land roughly on your knees, the skin bruising as your body comes to a halt on the stone floor beneath you. The air is hot and dry, and a warm glow is emanating from outside of the expansive room you appeared in. As your eyes drift around, you find her. Her.

Your Holy Mother, Creator of Sanctuary, sat, legs crossed on her throne at the end of the room.

You stood slowly, walking towards Lilith. Step after step, second after second, until you were close enough to make out the grooves on her horns.

“And so the little Light returned to the darkness to illuminate it once more,” she teased, giving you a devilish smile before she turned serious. Lilith lifts herself to her full height and walks slowly towards you. “What brings you back to me, knight?”

You’re silent for several seconds, trying to come up with an appropriate response to that question you knew she would ask.

“After your… internment,” you growl, “of me, I expected to return to as much normalcy as I could. But I was scorned. Shamed and discarded by our Father. Watching him lead my brethren into pointless death was too much for me.”

Lilith arches her brow, circling you as she inspects your body. You continue on, watching her smile grow as she sees the scars left upon you by her and her spawn.

“Your goal is true, Lilith, but the lengths that you go to in order to achieve them is too far for one to respect. But if your dream will finally free these men, not knights, men, from this perpetual slavery and demise, then I shall support it.”

She leans in close to your ear, one hand snaking its way from your shoulder and down your chest. “You didn’t answer my question, little Light. What brings you here?”

You grab Lilith’s wrist, wrenching it off of you and tugging her down to your level.

“He’s coming. He knows.”

A blink of emotion flashes across her face — disgust, hatred, concern — before being replaced with a snarl. Moving her hand to your chin, she tilts your head upwards to watch her as she stands to her full height, extending her wings and unleashing a buffet of wind around the two of you.

Her thumb drags lazily across your cheekbone. “And what will you do, knight?”

You grit your teeth. There’s no other way. You can’t go back to the angels now, only the devils. There is no god that you can pick and pray to any longer.

“Submit.”

The Daughter of Hatred almost seemed excited.

“And finally, the children begin to understand. Let’s do this properly this time. Do not resist, little Light. Soon you will be free.”

Lilith draws a nail along her palm, slicing it open, letting the blood pour out of her wound. “Drink,” she commands.

Her blood drips into your mouth from her open palm. It is bittersweet, thick and metallic. Like old wine that had been sitting out for too long. Yet you obey, drinking, swallowing, until she pulls her hand away.

“My turn.”

Lilith wraps the two of you in her wings, putting you in her own little bubble, bringing you close to her. She leans down towards your collar, where she first bit you months prior. She smirks as she closes the gap between her mouth and your skin.

“I’ll be gentle,” she purrs.

The Queen of the Succubi breaks your skin with her teeth, pulling her tail up to your face in a twisted caress. You feel a weak suction as she drinks from you. Converting you into what you always should have been. There is no pain. Only bliss.

She removes her teeth from your flesh and holds the back of your head in her hands. Lilith pulls your forehead to her lips, and then your nose, and then your mouth, staining each with your redness. Her wings pull you in even tighter, pressing you into her as she holds you in her loving embrace. And you submit.

Lilith’s kiss is returned by one of your own as you push each other back and forth, tongues meeting and hands exploring. Her nails scrape down along your back as your fingers dance across her dress. Your hesitancies fade away as she grabs your head tight, almost pressing you into her so that you can be consumed, devoured by her, and become a part of her as much as she becomes a part of you.

She pulls away, curling her wings back in as you stare into her very being. Of course Lilith had been right — the Creator of Sanctuary would know what is best for her children. You laughed at the irony of it all: the belief in the Order, in Inarius; in man believing that they can break the cycle through their own powers, and always spiraling back into conflict; and in the realization that you were finally and truly free.

Lilith reaches her hand out into the space between the two of you and twists, squeezing her fist in the air. Your body feels light as you drop to your knees before your Mother. She bends down to sit behind you, pulling you into her chest as your strength wanes. It is almost serene, you think, as your mind is fogged by her scent wrapping around your body.

She speaks into your ear. “You did so well, little Light. But now you shall serve the darkness.”

Your pulse races as Lilith’s blood and saliva begin to course through your body, breaching every defense you held against Hell’s sick allure. Your body twitches as it fights to its very last protective breath, until it finally comes to peace with Lilith.

She releases you as you both rise from the stone floor, newfound strength in your limbs. The Daughter of Hatred speaks to you in a language you haven’t recognized, yet one you perfectly understood. So you respond in kind.

And she smiles.

“Come then, dearest Penumbra. We have an angel to kill.”

end

[chronicowboy]

"Everyone misunderstands," Eddie announces to the silent waiting room.

Its the first thing he's said since he begged Buck to talk to him as Chim's hands pressed into his sternum. The words come out jagged and cold.

Everyone is looking at him, but Eddie doesn't - can't - take his eyes off the chilli sauce stain on his trousers.

The chilli Buck had made.

The chilli with Bobby's secret ingredient that had sent Buck into a joyful frenzy when he was let in on it.

"Everyone thinks Buck," here his voice breaks, "thinks he's indestructible and that they know better." Eddie's clasped hands shake in his lap, knuckles so white he waits for the bones to snap and slice clean through his skin. "Well, I do know better. I know him better."

I know him.

That's what he wants to say.

Its what he's always wanted to say. To Ali and Abby and Taylor. To the Buckley parents. To Connor and Kameron.

Because no one knows Buck like Eddie does, and he wears that knowledge as a badge of honour.

Here, surrounded by the family Buck's built himself, he wants to say it again. He wants to rub it all in their faces. He wants them to understand what he's really saying.

I know him as none of you know him. I know him as Hen knows Karen. I know him as Bobby knows Athena. I know him as Chimney knows Maddie. I know him as if he was mine.

I know him. I know him. I know him.

"Buck doesn't think he's indestructible, he thinks he's expendable." Even though he spits the word, he catches Margaret Buckley's pained little noise. Good. She's the one that made him think it in the first place. "I don't know when I realised it. I just know that I've been carrying it as a weight on my back for longer than I can remember."

He wore the knowledge of it like a crown of thorns, a crucifix.

Ready to die once, twice, a thousand times if it would convince Buck that he was worth something more than what he could do for other people.

"I thought I knew better," his words waver, but he doesn't care about how many eyes are on him as the tears roll down his cheeks. "But I'm just as bad as everyone else because I know Buck thinks he's expendable, but I was the one who thought he was indestructible."

He scoffs at himself.

"That's why I did it."

He whispers this, but in the suffocating tension of the room, it carries like a scream.

"This wasn't supposed to happen."

He wraps a trembling hand around the pendant of his St Christopher medal.

Fuck, he's going to have to tell Chris.

"He wasn't supposed to..." Eddie bites his lip, squeezes his eyes shut. "When I was dying, it was always him right there with me. He was life. He was supposed to be life. Not death, I'm death." He shakes his head. "He was supposed to live."

He's angry. But this time, he has nothing to be angry about, no one to be angry at.

Buck didn't do anything reckless.

The lightning fell from the sky like an anvil of divine intervention.

"I put him in my will because he always makes it through. He comes out the other side, cracking stupid jokes, but he always comes out the other side." He drops his voice to a whisper again, "that's why I did it."

Buck was supposed to be untouchable.

And when he wasn't, Eddie was supposed to keep anything from touching him.

"I thought if..." He doesn't know why he's telling them this. It took him a full year to tell Buck himself, but something inside of him, wild and untamed, refuses to settle unless the words are falling off his lips. "I made him Christopher's guardian because he's never the one who leaves, and I wanted to be the one who stayed."

Even the sounds of the hospital beyond their little vigil, fade away.

The lawyer had asked him if it was a wise choice, to make another firefighter his son's legal guardian. His partner, for fuck's sake. There were multiple times each shift where one fell swoop could have taken both of them.

But Buck was indestructible.

And putting him on a legal document cemented his immortality.

So, maybe it wasn't wise to make Buck, a statistical anomaly of a firefighter, his son's legal guardian.

But its Buck.

"He's not supposed to leave. He's not allowed to leave."

He's not allowed to leave me.

That's what he wants to say.

[kisses-from-crows]

Crossed Wires - Campbell Bain - Ch. 5

Pairing: Radio Host!Campbell Bain/Popstar!femReader

Summary: After the media fiasco from the day before, Campbell just wants to go to work and forget about it. But nothing is ever that easy.

Genre: enemies to lovers, slow burn, modern au, reader insert, forced proximity, misunderstandings, fluff, hurt/comfort

Word Count: 2,882

Warnings: Swearing, Daddy Issues

Chapter 5: Digging a hole

Beginning | Previous | Next

E!: Do we hear wedding bells? Rodger Del Ray Jr., future CEO of DreamLight Records, has announced his engagement to actress-turned-singer Penelope Taylor after a year of dating. Congratulations to the happy couple!

Posted: 2 weeks ago

Sunlight streamed through Campbell Bain’s bedroom window, spraying little rainbows across the wall as it got caught in the prism hanging from his window. It had been a gift sent to him by Rosalie about two Christmases ago. The light shining in his eyes gently forced him awake. He yawned and stretched out his unusually sore body. He rolled over and buried his face into the pillow.

Similar shuffling noises came from the unusually warm phone that sat unplugged beside him. He blinked a few times to clear the blurriness from his eyes. After a few failed attempts at reading, he finally made out the words on the screen:

ITS THE DEVIL’S HENCHMAN; DINNAE ANSWER IT

Time Elapsed – 10 Hours 34 Minutes 25 Seconds

Campbell stared at his own confused reflection in his phone screen for several long seconds as his sleep-addled brain struggled to catch up with reality. In that time, Y/N groaned tiredly on the other end. Y/N… Phone… Morning? What was that? Ah, it was reality, right on time to smack him upside the head with a steel chair.

He never hung up last night. She never hung up last night. They never… well you get the point. He shot out of bed instantly, as though a fire had been lit underneath him, scrambling away from the phone like it was a ticking time bomb.

Campbell paced anxiously around his bed, floorboards squeaking beneath him as he planned his next move. Maybe he could just hang up the phone and she would never realize how long the call was. Who checks their call logs anyway? But, what if the sound of him ending the call woke her up? And then she would know. Even worse than that, she would know that he knew. And then the world would end, obviously.

The sounds of Campbell’s stomach growling drowned out the irrational argument he was having alone in his head. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t exactly thinking straight. With a deep breath and a clenched fist, he ended the call. He waited with bated breath, staring at the black screen sitting ominously on the bed.

When a large cartoon anvil didn’t drop from the sky and crush him through the floor, he figured he was safe. Hopefully, she wouldn’t notice, and they could go on as if nothing had happened. Well, nothing had happened really. They just fell asleep on a call, that’s all. It doesn’t mean anything. They had a long day and accidentally fell asleep. On the phone. Together.

There was a distinct thud beneath him. Likely his downstairs neighbor hitting the ceiling with her broom, not so subtly telling him to stop pacing. This was a common occurrence.

It was a completely innocuous thing, falling asleep on the phone like that. But Campbell couldn’t quite shake the odd feeling in his stomach… probably just indigestion. Right, that made the most sense. Never mind the fact that it was the best night's sleep he’d had in months. He bent down to the floor and knocked twice to acknowledge his neighbor’s complaint. Sore legs carried him unwillingly to the kitchen for some slightly burnt toast and coffee.

Eddie always said Campbell drinking coffee was like giving cocaine to a toddler. Which Campbell found amusing if not slightly insulting. But a cup of coffee in the morning was obligatory now. He had developed the habit during his first year in New York. Back when he had his very first show in the States. It was a show he co-hosted in a small station, filling in the 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. time slot. Just a throwaway assignment designed to fill the dead air, but to Campbell that show meant everything. It meant he had finally made it. It meant that of all the time and energy he had poured into the radio station back at St. Jude’s was worth the heartache. Hell, it even meant his father was wrong about him.

Campbell wondered if his dad knew just how successful he had become. Or if Campbell’s name had become as unspeakable in that house as his bipolar disorder. Or his ‘condition’ as they called it. The moment he announced his plan to move to the State, his father decided he was on his own.

“Don’t come crying to me and yer ma when this daft scheme of yers goes up in flames.” had been his father’s exact words if he remembered correctly. And he did. The words had seared themselves to the inside of his skull. The point of no return.

To say Campbell had missed his father would be a lie. But that didn’t stop him from wishing things could be different. To hear from his father that Campbell knew what he was doing all along. That he was proud of him. Campbell knew it was a dream, something akin to wishing on stars. He was never going to get that satisfaction, but it didn’t matter. He’d made his own family, made his own way in the world. Sometimes blood was simply that… blood.

It had been far too long since he’d called Eddie McKenna. Campbell made a mental note to give him a call soon. He filled it away in his brain along with all the other things he was likely to forget.

He munched on his lightly blackened and over buttered toast, grabbing his phone to scroll absentmindedly until it was time for work. The hope had been that the mindless serotonin machine that was social media would distract him from the fiasco with Y/N yesterday and the phone call incident this morning. Instead, he was confronted with an onslaught of tabloids speculating on the nature of their relationship and discovered that he had become a meme.

The picture of a rather panicked Campbell peering over the side of a building had caught the interest of many young people with big imaginations. Who had started photoshopping Campbell into random places: teacups, airplanes, space, peeking over the edge of the trenches in a World War I photograph. You name it, he was there. “Campbell Bain in places he shouldn’t be.” They called it.

While seeing himself plastered across time and space was a particular type of disturbing, he had to admit, some of them were pretty funny. Someone had quite alarmingly edited him into a guillotine. ‘Y/N would like this one.’ The thought passed as quickly as it came, slipped right through the grasp of his consciousness like a leaf in the wind.

Campbell finished up his breakfast and got dressed for work. Over the last 2-3 years, he had worked hard to secure the prime-time spot for the station. From 2pm to 6pm every weekday, Campbell Bain had his own radio show. Comforting the huddled masses stuck in rush hour traffic.

In a flash, he was out the door, bundled up in a comfortable hoodie with his chunky headphones covering his ears. Music blasting, he made his way to the subway. A part of him missed the simplicity of the old Glasgow railway but there was just something about the hustle of New York that agreed with him. At least, that’s what he would’ve said three years ago. These days, it was beginning to wear on him.

Campbell Bain had become a household name years ago. Around the time Y/N and Campbell had their fourth interview together. That had been the most vicious of them all, not counting their very last interview before Y/N’s disappearance. He could picture the second it all went to hell like it was yesterday.

He had delivered some jab about her lyrics being generic and expected. The moment the mood shifted from school-yard taunts to an all-out war was palpable. Y/N cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. Under her piercing gaze, Campbell had never felt so exposed. Her eyes scanning his being as if assessing his greatest weaknesses like the Terminator. Before she even opened her mouth, he knew he was going to regret whatever it was that he just said. With a wicked grin, she delivered a blow that hit him right between the gaps in his armor, and he just lost it. That night when he went home, he stared at his ceiling without blinking. The harsh conversation playing over and over in his head. It wasn’t the first time in those seven years that Campbell couldn’t recognize himself. Nor was it wasn’t the last.

Lost in the flow of the music and his own mind, Campbell nearly missed his stop. He squeezed past tourists and commuters alike, against the human current flooding into the overcrowded subway car. As he stepped onto the busy sidewalk above ground, he marveled at the skyscrapers towering above him. Only a few short years ago, all these buildings felt so much taller. Stone giants, so shiny and full of promise. Now they just felt like walls closing in on him.

Campbell pushed his way through the revolving doors of the radio station. The interior had changed a lot since DreamLight Records had bought the station, just a year after Campbell had signed a contract with them. Nearly eight years ago now. It wasn’t so bad at first, working for them. But slowly over time, things got more and more strict. All these different rules about dress code and what music they could play. He didn’t care much for being told what to do. So, he made himself utterly indispensable, the biggest name to grace what was once a small station. Now he could pretty much do anything he wanted. Well, almost anything.

Campbell got settled in his cushy leather chair with his mug of coffee and looked over the available catalog for the day. It was a list of artists all signed under DreamLight Records. Around year three, DreamLight’s CEO, Rodger Del Ray Sr., announced that the station could only play music written, produced, owned, or approved by the DreamLight Record label. They claimed it was to “promote their brand”. Campbell thought it was a load of shite, but they signed his paychecks, so he kept quiet… mostly. Well, quiet for him at least.

He took a long swig from his Bugs Bunny mug as he picked out a few of his favorites to start out the day, deciding to sort through the rest as he went along. Campbell worked best in a flow state, planning it all out just wasn’t his style. The tech guys outside the sound booth held up five fingers. Five seconds until he was live. He cleared his throat and chugged some water, best to keep the instrument clear.

5… 4... 3… 2… 1. “HELLLLLOOOOOO AND WELCOMEEEEE. If yae are just tuning in, yae are right on time for the Loony Tunes show with Campbell Bain. I am your designated loony for this afternoon, Campbell Bain.” He fell into the character like a second skin. It was a part of him. At least it had been, once upon a time. Now it just felt like a costume. The grandiose announcer thriving off the undivided attention of the general public.

Campbell played his first few queued up songs and began wracking his brain over what to play next. Deft fingers flitted over the song choices till they came to a pause at a familiar name. F/N L/N… it was a track from her third album. As much as he loathed to admit it, he actually quite liked this particular tune. Something about the way the drum kicks and cymbal sizzles emphasized the emotion in her voice made his chest go tight. He used to listen to it alone in his room and think about his father. All the rage he felt, all the disappointment, the yearning he had for his father’s approval even to this day. But that was a secret he planned to take to the grave. And when he met Fergus wherever he was going, his lips would remain sealed.

He queued up the song before his brain even recognized what his hands were doing. Campbell’s eyes widened as he watched the track go into the lineup of songs. He scrambled to fix his mistake, mouse clicking furiously. But it was too late. With nothing else to play, the channel began broadcasting a 4-year-old deep cut from Y/N’s third album. Campbell swore silently and slid dramatically from his chair onto the floor. This was not good.

Of all the ridiculously dumb things he could’ve done, this had to be one of the stupidest. If the media frenzy over their near escape yesterday had been bonfire, Campbell had just thrown gallon of gasoline on it. Plus a few fireworks for good measure.

As Campbell laid curled up under his desk, the beginning chords of the song floated through the air. He felt sick to his stomach. This was disaster. Even worse, it was downright embarrassing, he had a certain reputation to uphold after all. Maybe if he just hid down here for a while, his slip of a finger and the consequences that would soon follow might just disappear. His phone buzzed in his pocket, it’s from the tech crew. The message read: ???.

Campbell crawled out from under the desk, limbs getting tangled in the wires of the headphones. After nearly faceplanting in the well-worn carpet he managed to right himself on top of his chair with all the grace of a newborn giraffe. An awkward thumbs up to the guys on the mixer and he pretended to go on as usual. As if nothing had happened.

The song picked up around the second chorus bringing in loud baselines and a few subtle strings over top of it. The build of the instrumentals matched the intensity of her vocals as she sang about feeling alone in a crowded room and being desperate for the approval of those who could never see her. The lyrics were vague enough to be widely relatable but still cut deep. In a few measures, Campbell’s favorite part of the song was coming. The music reached a fever pitch before ending abruptly as if the entire band ceased to exist when they were giving it their all just moments before. The end left the listener feeling like they had the rug ripped out from under them. It suited the tone of the song so well.

So, maybe Campbell liked this song a little. His head bobbed to the beat of its own accord. Okay, more than a little. But after 6 studio albums she was bound to create one song he liked. Even a broken clock was right twice a day.

Campbell let the music fade out and hoped the mistake would pass without acknowledgement from the press. As 4 o’clock rolled around, it was time for requests. Loony Tunes had an hour-long segment where listeners could compete to request a song.

With every call and every right answer, Campbell was bombarded with question after question about Y/N. What were they doing together yesterday? Is she releasing a new album? Are you guys dating? Why did you play a Y/N song? Is that a secret message? Why were you two on a roof?

Mind you, Campbell Bain can bullshit with the best of them. Lie his way out of a hole in the ground. But at this moment, he had no explanation. Not one single line concocted to get him out of this mess. Because the truth was, he didn’t know the answers either. Questions swirled around his head; he was more confused now than he was before. It seemed his meeting with Y/N had only brought more questions. It had also unfortunately chucked him like a rag doll straight into the rumor mill.

Another buzz emitted from his phone from a contact labelled: Boss Baby. Oh god, it was Rodger Del Ray Jr., Y/N’s former fiancé. The text cryptically read: “You’re dead, Bain.”

Well, that much was clear already. Anxiety boiled over in the pit of his stomach and wrapped a hand around his throat. He had to find a way out of this. Maybe he should reach out and tell Y/N the interview was off. He wanted no part of whatever mess he’d found himself in. But even as he tried to convince himself that it wasn’t too late to walk away, curiosity gnawed at him like a dog with a bone.

As the last half an hour of the show rolled around, Campbell decided to take matters into his own hands. He pulled his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. It was full of notifications, endless links to new articles claiming to have the inside scoop on Y/N’s new Scottish beau. The memory of waking up next to her on the phone flooded his overactive mind as he pulled up her contact. Passively, he wondered if he should change her name in his phone. He typed up and deleted ten different messages before settling on:

“We need to talk.”

A breath later, a buzz.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

_________________________________________________

Next Chapter

A/N: sorry this is more of a filler this week, everybody at work got sick so i was working a lot more than i expected. i promise next week we’ll get some good drama in there. also i don’t know why it didn’t occur to me when i wanted to write a popstar!au that eventually i would have to make up fake music. don’t worry i’m not gonna try to write a song that would be a disaster. just gonna stick to describing the vibe lol. - Ducky

[ragnarfanfics]

Valhalla part one

Ragnar X Reader part one

Warnings: None yet

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

Your hands grip the side of the boat as if your life depends on it, perhaps it does. You manage to keep a hold of the side as you pull yourself up to look out. The waves are monstrous clashing into each other and the ships slowly drifting farther away from the one you reside on. The deep gray over takes two of the ships pulling them into the depths, your screams for the fallen fall on deaf ears, the storm silencing everything but the thunder up ahead. Thor, The beautiful bright blue lighting overtaking the sky's as he strikes his anvil. Why must the Gods be so angry with you? You look over to the captain of the ship, his eyes full of fear as his mouth moves with prayers drowned out over the storm. What should you do? What can you possibly do? The captain's eyes fall upon you as he screams, “Row!” His finger leading the way to a bench that’s empty. You made your way over gripping the ore, thinking ‘how could I have not noticed someone fell overboard?’ You thought as you row as swiftly you can, for as long as you can. Praying to Odin for strength, your arms burning with each pull, water blinding you as it strikes your face. Just as you thought you couldn’t move your arms anymore, a wave comes head on for your ship. As suddenly as you noticed the wave, it took over your boat filling it with freezing water, tipping it as the wave continued. You lose your grip on the ore and grab onto the side of the ship as it tips. The wood creaking under your fingertips that desperately grip onto the ship. Water suddenly surrounds you, the salt stinging your eyes as you look for your way up. Everything is so dark, so dark you couldn't even see your hands as you moved around in the water from the force of the ship tipping then being pulled under. Not sure of how long you have been under the water your lungs burn for air. Instead of panicking when you let your last gasp of air out you take a moment to stop and look at the bubbles, studying as the orbs of air floated upwards. you moved the way the bubbles went swimming up to the surface of the water. Gasping as your head broke the surface you can only see more monstrous waves heading to you and no ships. Debris floats around you, parts of ships and the possessions people had with them. You managed to grab onto a part of a ship large enough for you to hold under your arms to help floating, but alas not enough to hold you above the freezing water fully. The last thing you could see was the sky full of dark clouds matching the wave coming to you. You prayed that the end would be kind and take you fast, that you would be reunited with your lost loved ones. 

You woke up gasping for air, your hands reaching for your stinging throat. Coughing as you look around you, you see some tall figures looking down around you, and one kneeling beside you. Your clothes are damp and smelling of salt, as well as your hair with sand clinging to both. You are on a beach of some sort with white sand. Remembering your ship has fallen you start to look around the beach in hopes for anyone else. Seeing nothing but an empty beach around you and the men you realize no one was near you, that you recognized, you started to run. Looking for the family’s you have promised a better life, an actual future where they can peacefully live. One of the men ran after you, his voice laced with concern and confusion. “Where are you going? No one else was here besides you, what has happened?” He said catching up to you grabbing your arm. Turning to him, your hand met his face without hesitation, “Let go of me!” Shocked, he slightly smirks, rubbing his cheek with the hand that has fallen from your arm. He has blue eyes, tattoos littered on his skull, and a strong physic about him . “You could have just asked, " What has happened?” He asked his hand gesturing to the bits of wood and items of fallen ships. After a moment of looking at everything and gathering a few things that you washed up with, you calmed yourself and turned fully to him. “My ship has crashed,” you informed quite snippily as it was obvious to anyone what had happened. You’re only greeted with a smirk at your attitude to him, “I can see that, I mean, why have you come to katagate in a storm?” This was the great trading place with the infamous Ragnar Lothbrok. You didn’t mean to end up here but yet a farm outside of it, a small settlement your earl has arraigned to settle. Realizing who this man is, you curse in your head and your position to him you quickly take a knee, “I apologize Ragnar Lothbrok I have not recognized you after waking up, I am (y/n) shieldmaiden of Earl (name too lazy to actually think put one in later.) I swear to you on my armband that whenever I am called upon I will respond to you.” The man you now recognized was smirking now at you as you kneel in front of him. You cured the Gods as this is the way you meet, a mess thrown upon him, a mess with an attitude no less. “Well this is interesting,” he starts on as you stand looking at him, “you are the only one to arrive from the ocean in such conditions, tell me why would anyone sail in such conditions?” He questioned his hand moving as he talked to you, his fingers moving slightly with his hand. Looking at the other men all you could manage was, “May I talk to you in private about such things?” He looked puzzled for a moment before gesturing to the men behind him, “these are my brothers, we speak together there is nothing to hide from them,” The men nodded in agreement as you rubbed the back of your neck. That wasn’t the issue, it was the fact the words got caught in your throat, embarrassed to admit defeat in front of powerful men. “My earl, she was trying to escape her husband for acts unkind, I have promised my sword to her and only her until now. She heard of you and the things you are able to accomplish. She bought a farm with a few cottages to start anew, under you.” You spoke as you rose from your knees. Only to see his smirk now gone replaced with a confused look, “What has he done?” He questioned you, his bright blue eyes looking down at you. “That I will not say in front of others I simply do not know, and certainly not without my mistress.” You stood your ground not wanting to humiliate or go against your Earls wishes. He simply nodded and waved his hand to the other men behind him without looking back, gesturing them to leave, “I understand now, come, let's get you by the fire with some food?” He stated it more as if a question as he wrapped his arm around your shoulders leading you into the town, heading to his residence. The town was large, bustling and full of people, traders at some post holding up items as you moved along shouting what they had. You haven’t been here since you were a kid, much has changed around the town. As you near Ragnar’s residence, nerves filled your body. So many things could go wrong seeing as you are the first and only to wash ashore. 

The fire was warm flickering onto your exposed skin, food in front of you with a curved horned cup full of mead. The clothes they have provided you are soft, fitting your form quite nicely, you're thankful for this seeing as you lost most things to the storm. Ragnar sat across from you with his own cup in hand. “So tell me shieldmaiden, what has happened?” His voice takes you away from your personal thoughts about others who could be so close and with no help. With no one around you found it easier to speak to the man. You took a moment to take a bite and savor it. The food they gave you was some kind of soup that tasted amazing compared to the bread you lived off of on the boat. You closed your eyes for a moment taking a bite enjoying the taste, meat and a hint of some spices, with vegetables. “Seeing as my mistress is most likely feasting with the gods, I am confident enough to let you know.” You spoke as you grabbed your cup lifting it to your lips taking a drink of the sweet mead. “He has treated her as if she was a slave of a raid, he has treated rabid dogs better than the woman of the house.” You explained setting your bowl down on the hearth's edge suddenly not feeling hungry enough to eat and speak about such horrors. You look up to see Ragnar's piercing eyes staring deeply into yours, leaning forward one hand on his chin as he listens. He waves his other hand to you to go on, “He often beat her without reason, withheld food as if it was a luxury she couldn't afford.”  Your hands messed with the clothing covering your knees feeling a bit nervous about speaking of her traumas to a man she doesn't know. “He often treated many women like this, causing it to be seen as normal, the horrid treatment of women. It wasn’t punished so instead of staying to be beat like a dog, all of us came here in hopes to start anew. The women and men that didn’t want to live like that.” That was true, the treatment of women was horrid and normalized amongst your people. Not everyone wanted to come as their households didn’t treat each other as such, or they didn’t want to change. You could convince most women in abusive households and even save them if they asked. Ragnar's voice pulled you from your thoughts of everyone and how the Gods can be so cruel. “Why in a storm?” His voice was full of confusion, not quite understanding the severity of the situation. Looking into his eyes you spoke without hesitating. “Because she was going to be fed to his dogs along with her daughter, and everyone caught helping her to escape or even help, executed. I couldn’t have run away. I swore my life to her so we did the next best thing, risking our lives instead of handing them over. How could I not try when my life is hers?” Fire was in your eyes as you spoke, anger heated you more than the fire ever could. “I don’t understand how someone they love can treat them so cruelly.”  The last sentence you spoke had a bite to it. The horrors you have personally witnessed would be enough for anyone to be enraged with the actions, the horrors you have been told about only break your heart more for your people. That was clear enough to Ragnar from how you spoke about the situation. Ragnar finally spoke with a questioning look, “So where were you when the cruel treatment began?” His hands now not stirring as he spoke, but clasped together in front of him.  “I was a simple daughter of a farmer when this started, we didn't even know each other. It was about a year of me fighting, she finally wrote to me.” You spoke, picking your bowl back up to continue eating the soup. “I started fighting when my father started to become cruel. You see I didn’t do much besides do my chores and help my mother tend to things, but I wasn’t stupid enough to see no one was speaking out about this. I decided I would steal coins from my father as well, saving the few I was given by my mother to have a man teach me how to fight. Women fighting was looked down upon, I think it was to control us easier.” You informed him as you ate. The food that filled the wooden bowl slowly vanished as you spoke taking bites, “In her letter she mentioned I was in danger, that I was causing myself to be seen by her husband. I wasn’t even sure if it was her. Why would she put herself in danger for me? It was too late as two men tried to attack me but killed my mother in the attack. Her letter has saved me and she never stopped from that day to save me, I couldn't ignore her any longer. I spent the last of the coin I stole and saved up to send her a letter in secret.” Your bowl sat empty as you set it back in front of you, grabbing your curved cup to finish the mead that sits inside of it. “From there she paid for my training, and I swore my life to her rightfully so seeing as she tried to save me from her husband and his goons more than once. Even so far to buy her people land with her own riches.” You admired the woman you knew to be a friend, if you could carry an ounce of her kindness and empathy with you, you would be the kindest woman in kattegat. Ragnar's gaze never left you as you spoke of your past, his hands still wrapped around each other. “I see thank you for telling me about your difficult past, I understand why it would be hard to share that in front of other people.” He stands looking around the room settling his hands on his hips before he speaks. “We can’t have our people treating free individuals like this.” Well that is one problem solved for now, but many more lay at your feet. “We have to set up a search party for everyone that crashed, and a sacrifice for the ships that didn’t so they may find their way.” Your voice moved faster than your mind, still worried for your people who have been shipwrecked. You stood up gathering the few items you had when you washed up. Quickly walking to the door to head out to start up looking around the beach and shores for anyone. Ragnar stood there for a moment letting you go before starting on his own to get people to help you. 

You didn’t find many survivors as you made your way along the white sandy shores. A few people accompany you taking back the injured and dead back to Kattegat. You feared at first that you would be the only one left, that the Gods would have been so cruel to play with lives like that, cutting theirs short after trying to escape from terrors. After a few countless hours you made your way back to the sleeping town. Your mind is occupied with thoughts of the injured and still lost as you make your way to where the injured rested. You quietly crept through the door making your way to the few people you knew. Taking a seat you slumped back wondering if you have looked enough, or if anyone was out there waiting for you. Tired and exhausted at the experience you and everyone have endured you drift off into a light sleep. 

You woke at a few people walking in and out of the building they provided for all of you. One of the people heading to you was Ragnar accompanied by a woman. She wore a fine dress that was accompanied by fur, earrings hanging off of her ear lobes, her long hair framing her face. That must be Aslaug the queen of Kattegat. You stood as soon as you noticed them both, “It is very nice to finally meet you my Queen.” She reached out her hand for you to take and kiss her knuckles, something you did not like, Ragnar even took notice of this behavior and raised an eyebrow at the new change of behavior of her. “Anyway, there is a ship arriving, we think it may be one of your party’s?” He said with a questioning tone watching you start to rush for the door. They let you through them and out the door, they trailed behind you as you ran to the dock with joy that someone could have made it out of the storm. Looking out to the once harsh waves overcome with gray whipping waters that took lives of people you cared for holding a ship, now light blue and calm waves gently lapping onto the shore. The ship was too far to make out the emblem on the sail that rested on the mast of the ship. Taking a seat on the edge of the dock the Queen and King of Kattegat reach up to you. “I told you I think, It’s too far out to tell just yet, but we aren't expecting any visitors.”  Time seems to pass slowly as the ship makes its way over to you. As soon as you can see the emblem your eyes teared up. It was more survivors, you let so a breath of air you didn’t even know you were holding. As the ship docked and people started getting off you looked around to each and everyone of them, but despised your hope you did not see your Earl. Your heart sunk with disappointment as you knew what needed to be next, someone else to lead them in this fragile time. That someone had to be you, she has always told you to protect and serve everyone as best as you can. Turning to Ragnar who was busy with telling a few other people how to aid the new people of Kattegat. You walked up to him wanting to speak about everything including the lands in your Earls name. “Ragnar?” Aslaug looked at you thrown off by your use of his name so casually instead of using his title. He turned to you with a smile, “(Y/n)? Did you find your Earl?” He questioned you with hope lingering in his voice. “No, and that is what I would like to speak to you about. She had a farm with a few houses right outside of Kattegat. I would like them to be put in my name?” You didn’t mean to sound so questioningly but it just managed to come out that way. Maybe it was the nerves that build up in your body at the thought of having to lead people. Ragnar’s voice took you from your thoughts and concerns that come with the position of being a leader. “Yes we can speak about that in a while, let's have the new arrivals taken care of and I have some other business.” He confessed turning to Aslaug to walk back with her. You watched them walk away as you led others into the building holding your people. You smiled as you watched families reunite taking each other in an embrace with warm hellos. Once people started to calm down from the happy greetings, you stood on a chair to address them, the chair creaking slightly as you did so. A few people noticed you climbing the chair and turned to you. “ I am afraid there is no sign of Earl (name) , no other ships have yet arrived nor anyone else to wash up on the shore.” The rest listened and looked at you while you spoke about what had happened. You informed them as they all grew worried for the people lost in the depths of the ocean worried they would never see them again. “But we will continue on and keep her memory alive, for she has given us this chance, we will thrive here as a community for one another.” You explained getting down from the chair seeing as you have everyone’s attention. Speaking made you nervous but with the people you grew up around, and with you felt more at peace speaking to them, like it was a second home waiting for you. “We will head to our lands and once settled I will have your personal lands in your own names, it may take a while to get established because this is the first time I had to do anything like this,” You confessed slightly laughing at the nerves of this new experience, as you made your way around the room full of people, picking up your few items. “If you are too injured to join us now that is fine, stay here and rest up the rest of us should go.” A few people stayed behind but the majority of people came with you to the decent sized farm with wagons and supplies to help everyone to live their new life. 

The farm was more beautiful than you expected, the buildings carved with intricate designs showing character, the main farm having a carved serpent's head on the pitch of the roof. Fields surrounding all of the buildings littered with a few trees. It was more than you could ever hope for, a home you could finally live in some peace. You got settled in one of the smaller cabins seeing as you were by yourself, and others needed the space for their large family. The small cabin was a little ways away from the rest, sitting on top of a hill, a stone path leading you inside your new home. The cabin you picked was open with a small dining table, two benches, a bed on the opposite side with a hearth in the middle to keep you warm. Happy with your new home, you go to open the door to go explore the rest of the land and to see how people are settling in. As soon as you opened the door you jumped back startled by Ragnar standing there with his hand raised to knock. “Oh-” You said as he tried to speak at the same time. “Sorry I-” You both pause as Ragnar begins to smirk, almost chucking to himself. “I didn’t mean to scare you, you frighten easily.” He comments as his smirk grows on his face. “You didn’t frighten me, just took me by shock when- no what are you doing here?” You lost your train of thought of defending yourself to wondering why he was here so soon thinking he would have taken a few days to take care of his own business. “I was able to sneak away to discuss the land issue and some other things,” Puzzled by the mention of other things you step aside to let him in. “I haven’t had the chance to start the fire or even candles I just got in,” you explained gesturing to the room of the cabin. “I thought you would have taken the main building for your own, seeing as you're going to lead them.” He says moving to the hearth quickly starts the fire. As he started the fire you sat down on one of the beaches resting near your table. The flame quickly grew with flickers filling the room with some much provided heat. He took the bench across from you as you spoke, “Well no why would I when I don’t need that much room?” Speaking with genuine confusion. He studied you as you spoke like he was trying to figure you out in some way. “Wouldn’t you want all the lands in your name?” He asked you, confused still why you wouldn’t take the best for yourself. “Well no-” You started as you looked from the table back to him, not much else to keep you occupied as you spoke to Ragnar. “I want this cabin and enough farming land to sustain myself and make a profit off of it to live, but I would like everyone to have their own lands in their own names, they are free people and that's what my Earl would want.” You want to stay true to her plans as much as you can, no matter how difficult or if it takes your life, providing them with a life you always would want is the least you can do for her. Ragnar looked as if he solved a puzzle when you spoke to him watching you move your hands as you speak, “Ah so you are very loyal to her.” He commented with a smirk proud to be able to start putting the easy parts of you together. Of course he was trying to figure you out, if you were to lead people under him you two should get to know each other. Or seeing as he is the king of Kattegat, your king. “Why should I not be? If it wasn’t for her actions or kindness I wouldn’t be here or possess any of the fighting skills I have today, or be here to lead the others in a new start.” You reminded him all you owe to her for giving you this life, and saving other’s lives as well. “I should watch you fight sometime, or I can teach you a few things.” His smirk only grew wider on his face as he spoke to you. Not sure if his tone was flirtatious or teasing you quickly spoke without much thought. “Or I could teach you a few things,” You teased back at the king with a smirk of your own on your lips. His grin turned into a full blown smile with an eyebrow raised. Maybe it was a bit flirtatious after all. “Oh the shieldmaiden from far away will teach me a few things will she?” He leaned towards you, his gaze moving over your body as he spoke. You smile back at him with confidence in your voice. “Oh I know I can.” He chuckled as he stood walking to the door, his hand grabbing the handle before he told you. “Have the names with what land exactly and I will have the rest taken care of, I expect to be taught a few things when you come by.” His eyes looked you over like a hungry wolf, or you sore he did as he left. “Definitely.” You said to him as he left, hearing him chuckle one last time before the door shut. Laying on your new bed you thought about what all has happened in the last two days, was Ragnar always like this with everyone or was there something more to it? He was a married man, yet has left the famous shieldmaiden Lagertha for another woman he didn’t know. Your thoughts slowly faded away as exhaustion overtook you, perhaps next time you will get a few more answers. 

The days slowly passed as you haven’t seen the King since your encounter in your little cabin. You passed the time by getting your farmland ready for the next plant and trying to help the others with theirs as well. After a week you feel confident enough to leave the others to themselves for a while while you explore Kattegat. The town was much larger than you were used to, busy with people in the streets conversations and smells of food filling the air as you pass by. The goal of your trip is to find a few things to make your home feel more like yours, as well you lost most of your clothing in the storm. The vendors had everything you could imagine and then some, you tried to pass over the food vendors as tempting as they were, you wanted to only get things you needed. After passing a few vendors you find one full of clothing with golden jewelry scattered across a table. You took your time looking at the items of clothing not sure what to get or all to grab. They had an array of dresses, tunics pants and even some leather armor. After spending some time picking out a few beautiful dresses, and a few spare clothes for work, you look at the armor disappointed you have lost yours. You study the armor taking it into your hands, it was rough and thick like a bores back. It was black with a dark brown adoring it with a raven right on the heart. You move your thumb over the leather raven attached to the armor thinking for a moment. ‘Would you be able to make a set that's custom to me? Your stitch work and leather craft is amazing. I would love to have some.” You looked to the merchant as you spoke about getting armor for yourself. “Yes I would be able to if you paid in advance,” The merchant spoke softly, their voice aged by years. You set down your items in front of her gently with a smile. “Great, I would like these as well.” After the woman has finished discussing your armor and the specifics you want, you grab the bag you brought once empty now full of clothes. You put the strap over your shoulder as you turn back to the street to be met with Ragnar leaning on the pole of the merchant's shop. “A Valkyrie should be adorned with gold jewelry too,” He comments standing up moving to the table with the jewelry. You got confused for a moment for one, how did he find you here and how you didn’t notice him, and two what he was speaking about. “What could you mean? I don’t need it and I am definitely not a beautiful Valkyrie.” You said, rolling your eyes as he picks up a necklace with a round golden pendant with a raven carved into the precious metal. “We both know that's not true.” He stepped behind you with the necklace with one hand, using the other to gently pick up your hair. “Hold your hair.” He spoke softly right behind your ear, he was close enough for you to smell him, the ocean, woods, and fire, you never knew someone to smell quite like that. You took your hair into your hands as he put the necklace onto you. “It would be a shame to have a beauty walking around without something as precious.” He still spoke into your ear, his hands leaving the back of your neck leaving the necklace behind. The words and actions of this arrogant king left you blushing in the stand for a moment, as you turned to him you noticed him tossing a coin to the merchant. “I can pay-” You started to say before Ragnar waved his hand to you as he spoke, interrupting your protest to pay for the necklace. “No never, it is a gift from me, you will never have to pay me in any way for what I do.” He had a smirk on his face as he noticed the blush across your cheeks winking at you. “I see you don’t hate it.” His voice had a slight teasing tone to it letting you know the heat on your cheeks is visible to others and with that smirk it only grew. “What are you doing here?” You asked him as he turned to the street to continue looking at the vendors, you followed after him. Many of them are clothes in this area, the next area tools and equipment “This is my home. I should be asking you that.” He chucked at you confused how he randomly popped up. That chuckle seemed so innocent to what he is doing to you, making you blush this way. “Ok then how did you know I was here?” You asked him to walk next to him, smiling at his chuckle. You wondered if he watched you or had others tell him about you due to his curiosity. “ Well simple, I didn’t know. I simply saw you after getting a few things for myself.” You rolled your eyes at his answer, not satisfied, maybe it was random and not him seeking you out. “Ok well then why did you get me a necklace?” You said gently touching the raven pendant fiddling with it in your fingers. He turned into another small shop as he spoke with you trailing besides him. “Simple I wanted to.” You now realize getting answers from this man is like pulling teeth, teeth from a rabid dog impossible and stupid. You simply punch his shoulder with a small laugh at his antics. “I am serious, I want to know if you treat everyone like this or if you're giving me special treatment?” You egged on wanting to know if he is truly just this charming or if he is treating you any different. He picked up an item before looking at it and putting it down and moving to the next, then the next. “Ragnar.” He turned to you and put down the item of clothing. “I don’t treat everyone like this, I am not quite so friendly all the time.” He teased you with his tone of voice, watching your face for your reaction. “I can bite.” He teases watching you with that signature smirk. You are not too sure about this behavior to you, and what to think about this man. Was he just flirting with you to tease you or was it something more? He was inches away from your face watching your reaction to his words. You were just confused and flustered by this man's actions. Looking up at him he seems satisfied that you're flustered at his words. “Could we speak sometime? If we can, you can just meet me at my place.” You said trying to hold yourself together then quickly turning away from Ragnar to leave. Ragnar didn’t stop you amused by your reaction watching you walk away. He has never met a woman quite like you, everyone wanted him yet you, only you had him in a trance. 

Once you made your way back to the settlement you have grown to know as the first home you love, you stopped on the way to a good friend of yours, Moeiour. She has always been a support system for you when you have a hard time, as well you help her whenever she may need. You knock on the wooden door nerves overtaking your body about what has happened. She soon opened the door looking at you with a small babe in hand cooing. She smiled right at you and let you in. “(Y/N), sorry I haven’t seen you yet you know with him it's always busy.” She starts off as she sits down in a chair resting by a fire. “No, don't even I should have come over sooner I’m sorry Moeiour, but I do need your help with a few things. How much do you know of this place?” You ask as you sit down in a chair besides her watching her face light up as you asked. “Yes! I actually do because my mother was from here and never actually left so we have caught up over the past few days. You would not believe the drama here if I told you.” She spoke quickly, eager to gossip with you about all she has learned. She has always been this bubbly personality. You knew her mother was from somewhere and chose to stay instead of moving with her ex husband and two kids, at the time it seemed like the best idea for them. “Like what? I really need to know about Ragnar Lothbrok.” You confessed to the kind woman next to you butterflies taking off in your gut. She smiled and looked at you with excitement you didn’t understand where it came from. “You mean the King? King Ragnar?” She asks, her smile only growing as you internally die at the fact you're using his name casually, after all he is a king you should be addressing him as instead of a common man. “Yes, that's the one, King Ragnar forgive me for not leading with that.” Your voice trailed off as you spoke, embarrassment creeping up on you. “Something is up you would have said King if you didn’t meet him like any other king but you addressed him as just Ragnar. Tell me what has happened.” The blush on your cheeks gave you away as you tried to sink back into your chair to disappear from her gaze. “I know so much! Ok so first he had a first wife and two kids, he lost one sadly, and out on a trip he meets this other woman right. So this other woman and him are only together for this short trip and his first wife finds out about it, then nothing happens for months then suddenly she shows up.” You blinked a few times knowing he had two wives but not sure the reason why. “Well what happened?” You inquired trying to get her to continue speaking. “Pregnant. Then his first wife left with their son, he married her and now they have 4 sons.” You took a moment to take all of this information in and simply said. “He's blessed.” She snickered at your reaction and pushed your shoulder. “Why do you ask? Have you met him?” She asks once again excited about the gossip. “I thought he was flirting with me, so he bought me a necklace and put it on.” You confessed after a few moments of being quiet. “What do I do? I never even looked in a man's direction and now that he is here my gaze is only on him.”  You put your face in the palms of your hands with a groan. “The gods hate me and want me to suffer a terrible fate, I know it. I will die out of embarrassment.” Your friend lightly rubbed your back with caring shushes. “No no (Y/N) they love us and they love you I just know it. Why else would Odin's descendant look your way?” She teased with a slight snicker at your groans. “What?” You looked up at her with an eyebrow raise dumbfounded at this statement. “Did I not mention that?” Surely the gods hate you for this is a game to watch you suffer at the entertainment of their own. “I need to drink” You simply replied to her while removing your palms from your face. She chuckled at your comment and stood up calling to her husband to take care of their child. He came in with a smile to take their son waving a hello to you. “I'll accompany you and get your mind off of the beast hm?” She says hitting your shoulder as her husband takes their kid from her arms, causing a groan come from you. “That would be better than drinking by myself, and don’t ever say beast again.” You admitted standing heading for the door. She followed you back to your cabin as the sunshine slowly turned into dusk littering the sky with stars. You spent the rest of the night drinking and making jokes with Moeiour, your thoughts of Ragnar out of mind. Well that is until there is a knock on your door in the middle of you two drinking. “Hold on hold-” You opened the door with a wide grin laughing back at your friend at your drunken antics, only to turn to the door and stop laughing realizing who stood in your doorway. Ragnar stood there in a dark tunic with the v neck laced with cord but not pulled shut, leaning on the frame as he looked down at you. Your friend quickly stood to try and greet him properly but fell as soon as she got up, causing you two to laugh again like drunken fools. Your friend eventually stood and simply said. “It looks like it's time for me to go. My husband is yelling my name. Nice to meet you.” You waited a beat to listen to the crickets chirping with not much else making noise at this time of night. You stepped aside, allowing Ragnar in as you spoke. “No you don’t!” you laughed at her making her escape with a few hiccups trailing behind your yells at her. “Well I hear him.” She shoots back at you while she leaves, closing the door behind her. You loved her but angry she left you alone with Ragnar. “You sir can’t keep doing this.” You said turning to Ragnar pointing a finger at him. “I know what you're doing.” You started on about, swaying slightly cheeks red from being obviously drunk. He held up his hands with a smirk and a fake shocked look for a moment. “What? Me? I am not doing anything.” He says trying to act innocent of any wrong doings. “You are, and you know it. You have a wife yet you treat me as if you're trying to swoon me.” Your sentence was interrupted by a few hiccups in between words. Ragnar didn’t speak for a moment instead he took a seat on your bed, his gaze off of you for a moment then back to you. “We do not love each other, I do not love that woman for neglecting my children and they almost lost their lives, due to her lust.” He admits watching you stand slightly swaying still not too sure if you would remember this encounter. “She hasn’t loved me longer, I was always gone on raids and she found someone else to comfort her.” As he spoke you walked to him and took a seat right by him, offering him a cup of mead. “We all have been through storms, we all came out stronger.” You said after he took the cup, not sure what else to say. “I don’t understand why we are still together, besides that’s what's best for the kids.” He took the cup of mead in one drink, downing it all after he spoke. “Cheating, seeing your parents fight, learning that's what love is, is best?” You said not really thinking about what you were saying first. He took your words in for a while enjoying his drink as he thought and sat with you. You wondered what he could possibly be thinking about and why he was here. Maybe this wasn’t the time to have this conversation, but if not now then when?  “You're right in the end. I don’t want them to treat their wives like this, cheat on them and abuse their trust. It isn’t the best feeling in the world.” He chuckles at his own pain getting up to refill his cup, as he poured the mead into his cup he held it up. “Need anymore? It does seem like you don’t but I have learned to never challenge a powerful woman.” An involuntary smile appeared on your face at the mention of a great fighter thinking you're powerful, or even referencing you as such. “I am fine thank you.” The hiccups have died down from your throat now. He rejoined you on the bed with his cup in hand. “They say our fates are decided.” You started falling back onto the bed drunk enough to not care about sitting up on your own. “I don’t think they are if you are unhappy, take matters into your own hands and change things, no matter how small they may be.” You stare up at the ceiling of your cabin trying to keep focus on the topic at hand. “No one deserves to be unhappy with their life, and you're a king! It is a lot easier for you to have a change than most.” You two sat there in silence for a while while he enjoyed his drink. It felt like an eternity to Ragnar before he spoke again. “You're right.” That was probably the only time he has admitted someone else was right. Too bad you were sound asleep to hear it, he took notice of this and made sure to cover you with a blanket. “Goodnight (Y/N).” He said softly to not wake you up from your slumber, leaving shortly after.

[frozenjokes]

Signing Back In, Apparently - 10

Prev/Next

I am so sick. but yay convex chapter. hope they kiss and get to be evil together

“Cleo! You didn’t tell me- can you also-?” Scar rushed forward and grabbed at their shoulder, but was promptly shaken off.

“I thought your reaction would be funny. I was right,” Cleo shrugged, shooing Scar further away, “Back on the wheel, boat boy, pay attention before we crash.” Scar yelped as he was shoved into the wheel. But there was absolutely no way he would be able to pay attention now.

“You can hear us?” Impulse pointed vaguely at himself before squinting to get a better look at the island, followed quickly by the rest of the ghosts. Well except maybe Mumbo, who declared he did not want to be here anymore before walking down the side of the boat and disappearing underwater. Grian followed him with an alarmed squawk. Always so dramatic, those two.

“Yup! This island is great , you guys are going to love it. It’s like ghost paradise. Probably? I mean, I think 90% of the ghosts there are certifiably insane, but they’re loving it. What are your names?”

“Oh, wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve had to introduce myself hasn’t it.. Well, I’m Impulse. The tall one who just went overboard is Mumbo, and the guy who followed him is Grian.”

“Pearl,” Pearl grunted, when Cleo looked her way, “Where are we going anyway? Clearly this involves us. What are you planning?” Her tone was accusatory as she stepped forward to tower over them. Cleo didn’t seem bothered at all.

“This is a gift! A ghost vacation, as Scar so aptly put it. Sausage is forcing him to be nicer to you guys, isn’t that sweet?”

“Alright, that’s enough, Cleo, you can navigate this better than me,” Scar left his station at the wheel, forcing Cleo to take his place and steer. He crouched near the edge, yelling into the water, “Mumbo! Grian! Get up here, will you?” Scar felt a chill over his back, turning to see Pearl standing over him. He scowled. “Did you just try and push me?”

“Wanted to know if I could touch you,” she deadpanned, looking extremely disappointed. Scar looked back just in time for Grian’s head to surface, flashing him what was probably meant to be a middle finger. Due to his disfigured water-hands, it was hard to tell. Mumbo surfaced next, looking quite resigned as he walked back onto the boat.

“Ay, why so down? I thought we had fun?” Scar mumbled, offering a small smile.

Mumbo closed his eyes. “Don’t.”

“Fine, fine,” Scar pulled back before Grian could lunge for him, settling at the sail, “Alright everyone, listen up. You’re here for some pirate mandated fun, and I’m here to be miserable and possibly die, which means all of you should be on board. Once we dock, you can go crazy, just stay the hell away from me. Enjoy it, because we aren’t coming back. Got it?” His answer was a resounding silence. “Perfect.”

“Inspiring,” Cleo rolled her eyes. “Well we’re here! Get ready to tie up the boat, Scar, the dock is pretty shit. Try not to fall through it.”

“Got it!” Scar grabbed the rope at the front end of the boat, leaping off as Cleo eased in next to the pier. It was weird hearing the ghosts talk amongst themselves. He tried to ignore it, a task made much easier when an anvil plummeted from the sky(?) and smashed directly next to him through the center of the dock. Battered by splinters, Scar fell back into the murky water with a scream. The water felt thick and warm, and he gasped as he surfaced.

“Cleo! What-?” Scar blinked in alarm as his hats began to float every which way, hurriedly wading around to gather them. Apparently, the ghosts were as shocked as he was given their silence, but Cleo didn’t seem fazed.

“Hey, Cub! Missed again! How long were you waiting here this time? Miss me that much?” Cleo stepped carefully onto the remaining edges of the dock, balancing until she could hop to shore.

“You brought someone new,” Cub, presumably, walked up to the water’s edge wearing a passive frown. He was short, wearing a lab coat that looked ever so slightly too big, but the detail that grabbed Scar’s attention the most was that he was a ghost. Maybe he.. should have assumed that one. He didn’t like the way Cub was looking at him.

“Yeah, and like four other ghosts, care to introduce yourself?”

“Nope.” Cub stepped into the water, reaching for the final hat. Scar snatched it away, but Cub’s expression didn’t change. Scar glared, but had a feeling this was a staring contest he wouldn’t win.

“Alright, Scar, have fun! Try not to touch anything!” Cleo waved.

“Hey- wait- how did you..” Pearl began, but Cleo gestured for her to join them on land.

“Someone else can show you, long story short, ghosts have a lot of power here. Let’s let Cub be, I’ve just given him a great gift.”

“You- you’re not leaving me are you?” Scar yelped, moving with great urgency from the water. The mud at his heels begged him to stay.

“Just let it happen, Scar,” Cleo waved.

“I am NOT-“

But Cleo put their fingers in their ears, yelling nonsense as she walked away into the fog. Pearl gave her an indecisive look, but quickly followed, dragging Impulse with her by the hand. Mumbo looked like he might stay, but Grian made sure to pull him away as well. Scar couldn’t escape the water fast enough to follow them, like the mud was working actively to pull him in the opposite direction. When he managed to scramble out and to the tree line, there was no sign of anyone through the fog.

“You won’t find them. The fog is confusing when it wants to be. And I want it to be. I can show you some pretty cool stuff though if you follow me.” Somehow, Scar wasn’t surprised to find Cub directly behind him.

“I am not following you. I have no interest in becoming part of your human taxidermy collection or whatever it is you do.”

“Taxidermy? No no, you’ve got me all wrong. I want a live specimen. And I certainly don’t have a collection, geez.”

“Live! You just tried to crush me with an anvil!”

“Well, maybe undead. The dead are easier to work with. In theory. I haven’t had the chance to test it on anyone, since no one ever visits except Cleo. Well, there was this one time I got to play around a bit, but Joe was watching, so I could only get a couple stitches in. I hope she gets horrifically injured again soon.”

“Stitches- are you talking about her face?”

“Yeah!” Cub’s intonation raised for the first time, and Scar couldn’t help but chuckle. “Now, let’s get out of here before Cleo tells Zedaph about you, he’ll have like a billion questions, and then the others will want to meet you and then they’ll get attached , it’s a whole thing.”

“Hm. Well I don’t like that.”

“Perfect, come on then,” Cub began walking into the fog, which Scar thought was rather arrogant, but he figured it might be better to keep an eye on him rather than just waiting to die. After all, Cub couldn’t touch him directly at least, so as long as he followed Cleo’s advice and didn’t touch anything..

Scar hurried after him, stumbling a bit over roots and mud patches that Cub could float over, “So visitors are pretty rare, huh? Human visitors?”

“Uh huh. Most sailors that try end up shipwrecked on the rocks,” Cub chuckled to himself, examining his own nails. Scar noticed with slight unease they were sharp. “We’ve had a couple ghosts join us that way. Though, it’s been awhile.”

“If you want bodies, why didn’t you just take them from the ships?”

“Oh, those have long rotted. The museum is a new venture, and I want someone fresh. Or, just alive I suppose. I’m not picky.”

“You know, Cub, I think you might have a marketing issue on your hands! No, no, this island is in crisis territory! Luckily, I’m an expert.”

“Oh?”

“You want bodies, right? Alive, dead, whatever, you want them. Well, I can make that happen for you, guaranteed. What’s the catch Scar? Nothing much, really, especially in exchange for my services. See, I’ve got a ghost problem. You saw them! When they’re happy, I’m happy, when they’re sad, my back hurts, so, as you can tell, not ideal.”

“I don’t have the power to cut ties between a ghost and the soul they’re bound to.”

“Ah, well then, I have a feeling I’ll be visiting again, and you won’t want me dead, no, no.”

“I don’t? Are you sure?” Cub turned, revealing a sly smile. Scar returned it with his own grin. This was his element.

“You need people now, and later, you’ll need other items that those ghostly hands of yours won’t have access to. There’s all sorts of things I could ferry back and forth for you. If I’m stuck here in an exhibit, especially when you could just as easily have someone else in a snap, I won’t be of any use. Well, besides looking pretty. But I guarantee I’ll draw more eyes with my other, wide range of skills.”

“I feel like a lot of this hinges on trust.”

“Well, sure, doesn’t everything? But I understand, I get it, why take a chance when the body you’re looking for is right in front of you?” Scar removed the hat at the top of the stack, presenting it to Cub in a dramatic bow, “These mean a lot to me. The hats of my old crew, my family, struck down in a storm on the wild sea. Consider it insurance. I will be back.” Scar recognized the twinkle of interest in Cub’s eyes as he tilted his head, reaching forward to touch it. His hand, maybe not surprisingly, fell through it.

“Hm. I’ll need my gloves for that.”

“So it’s a deal? You get my services, and I keep my life?”

“Not yet. I want to know how you plan on getting humans here.”

“Aha! Of course, of course. Now, as I was saying, this island has a marketing problem! The Haunted Island is possibly one of the worst names I’ve ever heard! I’m looking for something more.. exciting. And boy, you should know that I know my way around a rumor.”

“Alright, shoot. What should we call it then?”

“Hm, let me think. How about.. GHOSTS: A Trial in Terror. An Experience That Is Sure To Blow Your Fucking Socks Off! For short, Ghost Fucking Island. That’s what they’d put on maps at least, ideally.

“Haha, that’s awesome, man,” Cub stopped, hands in his pockets.

“You could call me an expert,” Scar puffed out his chest, placing his hat back in its place at the top of the stack. He didn’t see the wall before slamming into it, falling back with a yelp.

Cub snickered, “I never get tired of seeing humans do that. Bring a lantern or something next time, will you? Can’t appreciate the architecture if you can’t see a foot in front of your face.”

“Well I-“ Scar hurried to his feet, but stopped short as he followed Cub’s glowing form inside. Behind the massive front door was a dimly lit, but grand opening room, filled to the brim with all sorts of odd knickknacks. Scar might’ve stopped to read some of the labels, if he wasn’t so awed by how beautiful it was.

Cub smiled beside him, “Like what you see?”

“How did you do this? It-“ Scar broke off, leaning over to touch a table and then a picture frame, “It’s solid. How could you even move this stuff? You decorated, I assume?”

“There’s interactive exhibits if you insist on touching, otherwise, hands off,” Cub walked forward, far too fast for Scar to look at every little thing that caught his eye, but he wasn’t keen on falling behind, “This island works differently. The things that grow here, the rocks and minerals, and even the animals that are born here; all are solid to both ghosts and humans. That’s how we can build all this stuff. Only catch; some world ending disaster strikes the island every couple years or so and changes its form. So we start over. Build anew. Humans don’t like that, there’s a reason no one lives here. Besides the ghosts, of course.”

“Oh, wow. Mumbo and Impulse are going to have a field day with this. Grian too, maybe. Him and Pearl might just try and hit me in the head with a rock though,” Scar paused, taking another moment to look around, “This is amazing. Gosh, I’ll have to come back and see the outside! Light it up for me, will you?”

Cub chuckled, looking quite pleased, “Thank you. I’ve been collecting artifacts from our current.. season you could call it. I believe we’ll be nearing the end soon.”

“And you’ll lose everything?”

“Right. Don’t be too sad on my behalf, it’s always fun to start over. Come on, follow me. You can see the rest another time.” Cub bent down over a hatch near one of the walls, opening it to reveal a ladder leading down. How lovely and not sinister at all. Scar frowned, but he was in too deep now.

He wasn’t overly shocked to see a sterile looking lab space at the bottom, complete with fluorescent lights, dark countertops, and rolling silver tables. Just by being here, he was sure his chances of getting murdered and/or turned into some gruesome exhibit just increased tenfold. What a way to go.

“I thought you were into what I was selling,” Scar mumbled, examining the room for some sort of weapon. He had his sword, but that would pass straight through; not that any other weapon could do much to a ghost, but maybe Scar could at least slow him down.

“Oh, I still am,” Cub mused, sliding on an odd looking pair of gloves. Scar tensed as the ghost approached him, but Cub only plucked a hat off the top of his head. “Relax. Scar, right? I’m ready to make this deal, but I want one more thing from you. Sit.” Cub tapped one of the sterling tables. Scar didn’t move.

“I’d rather not.”

“Scar, if we’re going to be business partners, I’m going to need a little more. How much is your life worth to you, hm? I could live without, given what you’ve offered so far.”

“What else do you want, then?” Scar’s tone was flat. Wary.

Cub gestured vaguely with his head, turning to one of his shelves and gently pulling down a jar. Inside was.. Scar wasn’t really sure. It looked a lot like a ghost, but small and sharp, and quite angry. “This is a vex. They inhabit this island, although rare, and I’m quite fond of them. I’ve modified my body to fit some of their features, as you may have seen.” Cub tapped his clawed fingers on the glass, smiling with teeth for the first time. Sharp. Just lovely. “And this, with help of course,” Cub turned his back to Scar and unfurled small, spiked wings, seemingly from inside his lab coat. “Stitched to my back, right from the source.” Cub tapped the glass again, turning back around.

“You want to do that to me?” Scar breathed, feeling slightly ill.

“Not all of it today, unless you volunteer. I’ll be happy to work on you during future visits. I want to know what it will do to you, to combine the living and the dead. It might not work at all.” Cub set down the jar, sliding open the top and violently snatching the vex inside before tearing off its wings. His neutral expression didn’t fade.

“Is- is this going to kill me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“That doesn’t fill me with very much confidence!”

“Well, you don’t have a choice. Besides, you’re the perfect subject! A bonafide conman with a silver tongue who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. I don’t see any reason why the vex wouldn’t take to you.” Cub held up the wings, dripping with.. something. The creature they came from writhed at the bottom of the jar.

“I don’t suppose this procedure includes any anesthesia or pain killers?”

Cub actually laughed, a reaction that was answer enough, “No. But if you promise to sit still, I won’t strap you down. Good enough?”

“Guess so.”

“Great. Now sit down and take off your shirt.”

[assassinmidnight]

Long time, no see!

N meets up with his long time crush after a few months of them being away.

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

N x GN!Reader

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

Warning: A few swear words, two people sucking at communication and emotion.

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

“N!” 

The young trainer turned around, looking across the crowded terminal, eyes searching for a familiar looking ponytail. It had been 3 months since he’d last seen them, they'd asked if he wanted to join but he wanted to give them a chance to see the world without having a man with a criminal record next to them. But now he’d see them again, hopefully he’d be able to convince them to travel again.

He turned around after he felt a poke on his back. “Long time no see,” they’re smile was just as radiant as he remembered. He took them in, the shorts and shirt had been replaced with a patterned dress, which had definitely been bought in Alola, the place they were coming back from, still the vest had stayed. 

Gripping his arm they started walking, telling him everything they'd done in the past months, listening to them talking about it all, the beautiful architecture of Kalos and the lovely food they tasted in Alola. The historical monuments they researched in Hoenn and Johto, the strange people that were scattered around the world, telling them stories of old. 

“Alola was definitely the best place to end my journey but my favourite place to visit was Sinnoh. I met with Cynthia again and she told me about some new finds they’d made in the past year, all from finding a grave. It was on the top of mount coronet hidden away behind a secret door, it had no name but all around it, it was amazing- N am I boring you?”

He shook his head, “No its just nice to see you again and hearing you talk about your adventures, did she let you see the grave?” he smiled and took a big sip from his coffee. They were seated at a coffee shop close to the terminal.

“Yes, it was amazing. The walls around it had writings etched into them, Cynthia is trying to decipher them right now, she managed to decipher what the words on the grave said but the name had withered away. “The Hero who fell from the sky” that's what it says. The ground around it had flowers blooming, despite it being hidden away from the light and the high altitude of its placement. There were some drawings too, a trainer, we assume its the hero, playing a flute and Arceus looking down on them.” They let out a big sigh, seemingly lost in the memories of it all. “Now what have you been doing N?” They smiled, looking expectantly at him. He felt blood rush up his cheeks, “I haven't done much, I’ve mostly been trying to get used to living like normal people, I got a small house in Anville Town and I’m still trying to find a job that suits me, right now I just do what people need from me. Helped Cheren by being a substitute teacher at the school a few weeks ago, he said that I did well,” he had avoided their eyes but when he met them they were just as sweet as always, glittering with awe. 

“It sounds like you’ve done a lot, N. Could I come and see your house?” The look in their eyes, if N was correct, was complete and utter amazement and admiration. “Of course,” he smiled.

                                                }Fancy time skip{

The trip to Anville Town went by smoothly despite the huge luggage Y/N had to carry everywhere. They didn’t mind it though, any time with N was a blessing, even if it was when they had to fight his adoptive father.

His house was small, only two rooms, the living room/kitchen and his bedroom. The decor however, is what made it truly N’s. The walls were covered in bookshelves and if there wasn't a bookshelf there was a small Pokemon bed with a toy in it, they looked handmade. His room only had one bed, his own but it was clear that Zourua was sleeping there too, the walls of his room had pictures and frames.

“Oh those are the postcards I sent you,” Y/N looked up at a wall close by the window in his room. It was postcards they’d sent him, most of them had a picture of themselves with something behind them. The Sinnoh one had a temple behind it, the Kanto one had them next to professor Oak and the Kalos one had the Lumiose city tower. Y/N’s smile dropped however when they looked at the postcard from Johto, it was the only one that wasn't a picture of them, it had been bought from a store in Ecruteak City, they hadn't thought about it when they bought it but looking at it now. It was a picture of the Ecruteak City theatre with the Kimono girls in front. It left a strange feeling in their belly, the thought that N had seen these girls, did he compare them to those dancers? Did he think they weren’t as pretty and elegant as the kimono girls?

“You miss Johto?” N’s question brought them back from their spiralling mind, it doesn't matter what N thinks of those dancers, because N would never consider them in that light.

“A little bit, the weather there was very nice and so were the people. I met someone I think you’d get along with, he’s also a loner,” they laughed, only slightly catching the muscles in his jaw tense. “His name is Silver, he used to be a bad person, especially towards his Pokemon but he changed,” Y/N looked over to N, who seemed irritated by the mention of a trainer who used to be bad to his Pokemon. 

The two remained in silence, having moved back to the living room for more comfortable seating, until Y/N Xtransceiver rang. “Hi!! Y/N I heard you just came back, we need to meet up ASAP, how about tomorrow? I need to finish this paper for the Professor tonight, we can go to that little bar in Castelia, the one with the guitarist. Oh I gotta go now, see you tomorrow.” Bianca's voice rang out before the click that signalled hanging up came. 

“Still the same Bianca,” they smiled. Looking over at N, who’d been watching them, noticing their attention he questioned “Are you meeting up with Cheren as well?” “No? I don’t think so, unless Bianca is planning a reunion. It would be nice to see him though, I got them both souvenirs- damn I forgot to give you yours.” They scrambled towards their suitcase, but they didn't open it, rather they opened their hand luggage. “I didn’t want it to get damaged,” they handed him a warped object, unwrapping it he saw what it was, a Zourua statue. It was made from wood and hadn’t been painted, “The seller said it would make a great gift for someone that you really care about,” blood rushed up their cheeks. 

“I love it.”

[moltengoldveins]

personal favorite headcanon: totems don’t just ‘heal’ you. They fill every scar, every open wound, with gold. They knit you back together Wrong, and it doesn’t just extend to the injury that killed you, it knows Everything. Even long-faded scars are back, brighter and bigger than they were when they first healed, shimmering bronze in the green light of resurrection. They’re a soul-deep instance of the craft of kinsugi: you come back better, in one sense of the word, but you do not come back the same, and whatever dictates ‘better’ does not care to hide or soften your history of suffering like your body does. Every loss, every slip, every pain is magnified and glorified, until they are all most people can see of you. You become, in entirety, what you have survived. Your death becomes your identity. (Are you really even revived?)

Elaboration on my personal favorite headcanon: Techno’s execution was the first time he’d ever had to use a totem. He’s an old thing, be he god or man: he’s never died. But he has fought. He has fallen. He has held himself together with cloth and rage, and afterwards Philza has had to stitch stray pieces of flesh together until they once again resemble his dearest friend. Most of his injuries are old enough for the evidence to have faded from the surface: they are not old enough for the totem to pass them by. For a moment, when the anvil fell, he looked like he was made of gold entirely, a figure of divine fire. He barely faded when the light did: every inch of his skin laced through with shimmering lines. One of his eyes was crushed in the execution: it glows yellow now, alongside its red partner. Quackity fought a man made of metal, and died watching him bleed ichor instead of blood (long healed bones, deep tissue tears… his heart, crushed by his rib cage when the anvil ground his body to pulp. the gold took everything, even the blood his chorus chants for.)

Tommy has to take a moment to recognize Techno: he doesn’t have to hear the story to know what the Butchers managed to do.

Philza spends a hundred winter nights replaying that moment on the balcony, one futile arrow shattered against the falling iron, half of his soul consumed in green and gold. He spends a hundred more laughing, pressed to Techno’s side, naming each glittering cut, recalling their origin. Neither of them remember what Techno looked like scarless. That is, of course, the whole point.

When Doomsday comes, the first sign of death is a burning figure, tall and bright and cast in gold under a blood red sky, standing amidst a sea of black hounds.

[azurelyy]

YOU ONLY HAVE 100?! You need 1000! Please please please Fluff 4 for Itachi!!

1000?! I don't know about that lol, but thank you for saying so anyway! You're very sweet. OMG and literally this prompt is SO PERFECT for Itachi. I was swooning while writing this, not gonna lie. Also, Pride and Prejudice (2005 VERSION. NO OTHERS WILL BE MENTIONED ON THIS BLOG) is lit one of my favorite movies of all time - so thank you for spreading the fluff.

☁️ Prompt: "You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love... I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on."

Words: 1.9k (under 2k... I did it!)

Warnings: Absolutely none. This is the fluffiest fluff I have ever fluffed.

The paddles of the boat were heavy in his hands as Itachi rowed out towards the middle of the lake; his palms clammy as he focused on the small weight of the tiny, velvet box in his jacket pocket. He may as well have been carrying an anvil with how weighed down he felt.

You weren’t outwardly doing anything he could see except standing there, beaming with excitement, holding the universe in the palm of your hand. Your bright eyes watched Itachi, not doing anything for his nerves. He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and averted his eyes back to the water for fear of giving himself away. He had planned this - had replayed everything that could go wrong in his head more times than he cared to admit, and had accounted for everything - yet he still had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach like his very soul was being sucked into a vortex. What if you didn’t want this - want him, forever? - or what if you had expected something… different?

The sky was a beautiful gradient of navy, blush, and faded yellow as the last sunshine fell with dazzling affection upon your glowing face. Itachi stopped the little row boat right in the middle of the lake and watched shadowy figures off in the distance all take their places amongst the calm waters, enjoying the cool breeze on the hot skin of his face. He cleared his throat and shifted away, trying to hide the blush that he was certain adorned his face. If there was one telltale sign of what he had planned, it would be you noticing that his body was sabotaging him. Everything else, he’d accounted for. You had no idea this was coming.

He heard the water rustling and looked over at you circling your index finger around in the lake, languidly creating a small whirlpool. He could smell your floral perfume, like a lovely tulip festival in the peak of spring, and he scooted forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees and placing his chin on his fists. He tilted his head to the side as you glanced over and gave him your signature blinding smile, savoring the way his heart started thumping against his ribcage like a bunny ready to sprint. 

You gripped onto your silver sun necklace that Itachi gave you for your first anniversary and pulled your finger from the water, humming as you crawled to be closer to him. You rested your head in his lap and sighed with contentment, reaching forward to caress his chin. Your hands were cold like steel, but Itachi didn’t mind; it was a nice contrast to his burning skin.

“Tachi,” you whispered, adjusting to sit up on your knees and put your face inches from his, “You’re burning up! Are you okay?”

He swallowed a ball of delight and anxiety as he shook his head, feeling his dark hairs tickling his forehead as they fell gently from his slick ponytail. Were you aware of the power you held over him; of the way your voice could compel him forward or the way the curve of your lips was like a beautiful bow, striking him down with each shot of your arched arrows when you kissed him? He almost snapped right there. “I’m fine, my dear.”

“Are you sure?” You asked, rubbing your thumb along his cheek. “Because we can leave-”

“No!” Itachi's lips curved into a crooked smile as he grabbed onto your hand and brought it down to his lap, trying his best to not sound flustered. “I feel fine. I promise.”

Knowing Itachi never broke his promises, you smiled, satisfied. He blew out the breath he had been holding as you dragged him down to sit on the bottom of the boat with you. You traced the outline of his crescent moon necklace and whispered, “Good.” 

He poked your forehead with his two fingers and kissed your temple, gently as always. He’d had you for three winters now, but he wanted them all - he wasn’t going to risk ever harming you, fearful of his own power - so he kissed you with the tender touch of silk. He pulled back and was greeted by your flushed cheeks, which he also kissed, and then wrapped his arm over your shoulders and pulled you closer to him as he watched the shadowed mountains off in the distance. The lights would go up any second now.

Itachi realized how cold everything around him seemed - even your body pressed to his felt frigid - as he swiftly patted the box in his pocket, knowing it was still in there but needing to satiate the urge of touching it once again. He felt bad when he realized you had been talking to him, but his heartbeat was pounding so loudly in his ears that he hadn’t even noticed. He always considered himself a good listener, so when he could only give you an “I see” as a response, he promised he would make it up to you later when your shoulders slumped and you rolled out of his embrace to lean against the edge of the small boat.

Itachi followed your lead, swirling his finger in the water with you, when he saw the warm glow from the first lantern in the reflection of the lake. He watched your face light up as you stood abruptly, nearly toppling over from glee, and Itachi gripped onto your calf to steady you.

“Look! Here they come, Tachi!” Your voice was brimming with effervescent excitement and you pointed at the sky as hundreds of lanterns started their slow ascent, enveloping over the stars themselves. Their firelight glow reflected in your pupils, brightening eyes that Itachi considered to be the Sirius A of the galaxy and he felt that familiar warmth bubble deep within his stomach as he sat on the bench and grabbed hold of two unlit lanterns with shaky hands.

Itachi always had trouble expressing his emotions. Always a quiet man, never one to want to disrupt the peace, he loved you in silence. He quietly wrote it in waves; in skies; in his heart. You were the sole thing he would allow to permanently indent onto his soul as he carved his love for you with a flamed sword. It was a hushed love - he knew that - but now he needed you to know; to be cognizant of just how deeply he cared for you.

 I love you, he wanted to shout. I love you. I love you. I love you. He wanted to scream it with ferocity, loud enough for all the Gods whom man had ever invented to hear, even high in their majestic towers. He wanted you to hear his voice in your head like an airplane, zooming through the sky; to tell you that you are the clouds and he wanted his voice to boom around you like a thunderstorm. He loved you, so much it made his throat raw just from shouting three tiny words in his mind like they were the only words he’d ever need again.

Breathe, Uchiha, he thought. The worst thing she could say is… no. He realized the worst thing you could say was also the singular word that would cause his world to come crumbling down from around him and he considered, briefly, if he was ready for that. When you looked back at him; lanterns twinkling still in your eyes, your hair slightly messy from the way your hands tugged at it with glee, your sun necklace off kilter from your earlier fumbling, Itachi’s fear was completely vanquished. 

You scooted onto the bench across from him and took the other lantern, fluttering your eyelashes at him like they were small butterflies. He counted you both down from three and you released the lanterns, watching them light up as they joined the others and they floated towards their unknown home in the sky. Itachi remembered that he was supposed to make a wish, and realized the only thing he wanted right now was for you to say yes. He grabbed hold of your hand and caressed his thumb over your knuckles, slowly breathing in through his nose, before he gained the courage to face you.

Burning, deep and deadly, was all he could feel as he looked into your eyes. He wanted you to keep doing it - you were the only person on this planet who could make the blue fire in the hearth of his heart turn red, and he would endure the pain if it meant he could keep you in his life.

Your hand trembled in his and he gave you a gentle squeeze, smiling to himself lightly. He was the one who should be nervous right now. “My dear, I-” Itachi froze as he saw your pupils dilate, nearly engulfing your eyes in pure darkness. Your lip quivered and his heart skipped a beat. He needed to talk, and fast, or he’d break. 

He reached into his pocket and gripped onto the tiny box like a life raft. “Being with you has taught me to hope, in a way I never allowed myself before.” His fingers twitched around the soft fabric and he gripped to it tightly, knowing the only other option was your hand, which he refused to cling to so desperately for fear of causing you pain. 

His dark eyes looked at yours, flickering with the warm hue of the brilliant lanterns, and it was as though the entire universe opened up to you - his eyes were the doors. He spoke, softly, “You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love…” He stuttered as he pulled the black velvet box from his jacket. “I love… I love you.” His words fluttered, delicately slicing you in two as he opened the box to a gorgeous ruby ring. You gasped and glanced back to his eyes as he whispered, “I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.”

Comforting silence filled the boat as you stared at him in complete bewilderment. Itachi hummed and gripped onto the ring with trembling fingers, watching your every movement as he waited, always so patiently. He saw your eyes grow glassy as you nodded at him, a quick and small movement, as his heart grew wings and he pushed the ring onto your finger, enjoying the way the crimson looked against your lovely skin. 

He kneeled in front of you and rubbed his thumbs under your eyes, catching the stray tears that fell as your forehead rested on his. The frays of his stitched heart were knit back together as your tiny hands gripped onto his shirt and you gently traced the buttons; your noses brushed against each other. Itachi felt every inch of his body spark brightly as he moved forward and pressed his mouth to yours. 

Your lips were gentle and warm, welcoming him openly and without judgment. He moved his hands down from your face to intertwine his fingers with yours, feeling the cold sterling silver of your ring cut through the heat of his hands, and he smiled into the kiss. Even the radiance of the sun was nothing compared to you.

Please consider reblogging to support my work! As always, scream at me in the comments if you enjoyed <3

[yaois-revenge]

i almost died at work today

quite the dramatic way to word it; but it’s an easy attention-getter! a large, heavy display sign decorated with coffee names and artwork propped behind screws in the ceiling suddenly became dislodged, and fell, like a comical anvil from the sky. it crashed, clattered, just an inch behind me. i had been standing right where it landed just 10 seconds before it came down. and everyone laughed, at the absurdity of it all. how does such a thing happen? i laughed the hardest; i brushed off any chances of concern from others. it was hilarious. i almost wish it hit me. i almost wish that just, for a spare moment in time, i could be cradled like i was something precious—like an injured, broken-winged bird that is pitied on the side of the road. i’ve always had that deep longing, for something terribly drastic to happen to me, so i could find an escape—perhaps within the pity. because pity is the closest form of mercy i can find.

3/2/24

9:18 pm

[throughtrialbyfire]

Snippet Someday

@dirty-bosmer hope it's okay to hop in on this!! this is such a fun idea, thank you for making this tag game!

tagging - @skyrim-forever @thana-topsy and anyone who'd like to join in! no pressure to join at all!

Rules: Revisit an old fic (or earlier chapters of your current WIP) and share a snip from:

Your first chapter

Your favorite chapter

Your most challenging chapter

Alternatively, if you don't write longfic, feel free to share your one-shots. Provide as much or as little commentary as you want.

From "Cycle of the Serpent"

First Chapter: "Unbound" (i did Not intend for it to be 6.6k words but yknow what. its fine <3 )

"Next, Ralof!" As Ralof was pulled forward by guards, the shrill noise rang out again, clear as the Anvil chapel bells. Athenath darted their gaze to the sky, a large, dark shape making itself known. At first, it swept distantly, riding the winds, before it rose high above the town. The beast, dark as night, spilling shadow over everything it crested with it's massive wingspan, pulled the wind aside and into it's maw. It blacked out the sun as it swooped down, a thing larger than belief, skull alone as big as a guard tower. "What in Oblivion is that?" General Tullius cried out. The sky went black, all sign of clouds, all sign of blue, of the trees that bent and swayed under it's wings, shielded by the beast as it drew closer. "It's in the clouds!"

Favorite Chapter: Chapter 5, "Fus" (favorite thus far at least ;3c)

"Who should pull it?" Athenath darted his gaze between the other two. "We all should. Do it together, I mean. It feels… Wrong, to volunteer someone to death if we fail." Wyndrelis turned to the Bosmer, who shrugged. "We could draw straws. I'm sure we could-" Wyndrelis pressed his heel into the toe of Emeros' boot, causing the other to grunt in pain and, after a moment, throw his hands in the air. "Fine, fine! Let's all pull the bloody lever together. If we die, at least it's not alone."

Most Challenging Chapter: Chapter 10, "Dragon Rising" (i'm not used to writing action scenes, hopefully i'll get better at it though!)

"Let's make sure that overgrown lizard is really dead. Damned good shooting, boys!" Irileth congratulated her ranks, before turning back. She began to approach the corpse, but stopped in her tracks. All joy fell from the features of the survivors as they took in the sight. The corpse began to peel apart like parchment in a flame, scales and flesh setting themselves aflame, blinding in it's light to such a degree that left everyone closing their eyes and shielding their faces. "Everybody get back!" Irileth shouted the command, some guards frozen in place, some sprinting away from the beast's body as fast as their exhausted legs would take them. The moment passed, and as all flesh and muscle and sinew faded off the bones of the beast, a terrible wind flowed, dividing like a mighty river into three streams, the power of the rush nearly sending the Mer backwards. In a strange moment, the energy returned to them, anxieties and aches washed away until they stood as though there had been no fight at all. The world fell silent for a moment, the trio checking themselves over, then one another, then turning to the guards, all eyes on them, some with mouths agape beneath their helmets. One guard removed his, stepping closer. "I can't believe it! You're… Dragonborn…" He gaped.

[enasallavellan]

Enasal Lavellan Reboot - Ch. 5

Enasal learns her role as Herald of Andraste and struggles to understand the Common language.

But don't worry, Varric's got this under control.

If you like what I've written, consider reblogging or commenting - I love to hear from ya'll!

The following days were a flurry of activity as the Inquisition laid claim to Haven. The sky was filled with birds delivering letters, soldiers trained and blacksmiths hammered metal on their anvils. Amidst the hustle and bustle, Solas was usually busy with his own pursuits, so she didn’t see too much of him. But Varric seemed to always have time for her - even waving her over to sit with him while they watched all the people going this way and that.  

She liked Varric - he answered all her questions but never made her feel stupid for asking. 

On that particular afternoon, they watched along with curious onlookers as the Commander came out of the chantry and hammered a large piece of parchment to massive doors. Enasal decided that it must be very important, so big and eye-catching as it was,. “What’s it say?” She asked, leaning forward. 

“Can’t tell from here.” He said, “Go check it out.”

She shook her head, boosting herself up on a parapet.

He let the silence stay for a bit before saying, “You have that contemplative face.”

She looked up, “Contemplative?”

“Thinking really hard.”

“Actually…” She shifted her weight, “I wanted to ask you something.”

He waved his hand, “Ask away, kid.”

She swung her feet a bit, head tilting side to side as she thought, “What’s a…” She could barely recall the word, much less pronounce it, “En… something. Like, Cassandra had this book - a really big book - and she was talking about how it was reborn, and that chantry man wasn’t happy too about it.”

“Ah.” He leaned back against the wall, “You mean, ‘inquisition.’”

She nodded.

“Fancy talk,” Varric remarked with a chuckle. “People in charge like those sorts of words. It makes them feel smart.”

“But what does it mean?” She pressed.

“Basically, a big group that tries to figure out who did something, make them stop doing the thing, punish them for doing the thing, and then fix whatever thing they broke.”

“And…” She rested her elbows on her knees, looking at him, “They called it a….”

“Inquisition.” He repeated.

She snapped her fingers, “That.”

Varric chuckled, “You’ll pick it up.” 

She sat back up, drawing her knees up, “I hope so.”

She felt a tap on her ankle, and Varric smiled up at her, “Try it. Inquisition.”

She squinted at him, “En… en cah… something.”

He repeteaed it speaking slowly, “Inquisition.”

They went back and forth in playful repetition until Enasal seemed able to manage all the vowels and hit the consonants without stumbling or fumbling. She found herself oddly proud when she said it correctly - it might have had something to do with Varric reaching up to jostle her a bit, grinning ear to ear, “Knew you could do it.” 

She fell quiet, trying to bite back a smile, but the grin was easy to see. 

The people passing by didn’t approach her. Those that passed by would often smile and bow their heads, some saying simply, “Good afternoon, Lady Herald.” It was a nice change, and she found herself able to offer a very small smile in return.

Varric chuckled, breaking the silence. “I heard that Curly got on his men about giving you some space. He made sure they spread the word.”

Enasal tilted her head to the side, “Who?”

“Curly.” He gestured to the chantry door, “The grumpy commander.”

“He is grumpy.” She said, drawing her knees up again. “I was… kind of worried I did something wrong again.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Varric reassured her, “Stop assuming you did.”

She fussed with a particular curl that decided to stick out of the general halo of her hair, “I mean… everyone wanted to kill me a few days ago.”

He nodded, lips pinched together as he tried not to laugh, “You’re not wrong… okay, I’ll give that on to you.” At noticing her fussing with her hair, he reached over and mussed the curls.

“Varric!” Enasal protested, batting his hand away. “They’re already fuzzy enough without you doing that!”

“You mean frizzy.” He suddenly grinned, leaning in and whispering “Here comes trouble - want to have some fun?” Before she could answer either way, Varric threw his arms wide, crying out, “Seeker!”

Cassandra frowned at him, “Hello, Varric.”

“Seeker, how are you on this fine, bitterly cold-”

“Herald.” Cassandra interrupted, “We need you in the chantry.”

“Seeker, I’m hurt that you’d ignore me,” Varric said dramatically, placing a hand over his chest. “Right here, like a knife.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes, dismissing Varric’s theatrics. “Herald, if you please.”

Enasal hopped off the wall and followed Cassandra. The silence between them wasn’t at all like with Varric. This quiet was awkward and prickly, like a porcupine chittering and swinging its tail at a predator.

“Does it trouble you?” She asked suddenly, looking straight ahead.

“No, I think I’m okay.” Enasal said, chewing on her cheek as planned her next sentence, “Varric said that the commander told off some people so they’re not really getting too close”

“The mark.” She said shortly.

“Oh,” Enasal looked down at her hand, the mark’s symbol etched on her skin. “Some. But it doesn’t hurt. Well, most of the time it doesn’t hurt. But it... feels weird. Like an itch that doesn’t itch.”

Cassandra nodded, “We will take any victory we can .”

Enasal slowed to a stop. 

Of course, they needed to take every victory after their complete failure to seal the breach.

Well, her complete failure.

She felt hot tears forming in her eyes, and she looked away from Cassandra, trying to blink them away. She hated crying, hated how easily she cried. Shiral always scolded her over it, telling her she was too old to be so sensitive, to stop acting like a baby.

But Cassandra had clearly seen it and busied herself with adjusting the strap of her gauntlet. “You did all you were able.”

“But it wasn’t enough.” She felt a tear start down her cheek, and she roughly wiped it away, “All those people….”

“They will not have died in vain, Lady Herald. We will fix this.”

Enasal swallowed, shaking her head.

Cassandra hesitantly patted Enasal’s shoulder, “What is important at this moment is that the breach is stable.”

She nodded vaguely. 

“Solas believes that a second attempt might succeed, provided the mark has more power.”

Enaal looked up at her in surprise, “Solas thinks so?”

“If he is as knowledgeable as he claims.”

That gave her some hope, “You said we needed power?”

“An immense amount.” She said, “Solas believes it will require as much power to close it as it took to create it… maybe more.”

Enasal realized her fingers were fluttering - an old nervous habit that her sister could never stand. She clenched her fists to still her anxious hands. “Is there some sort of plan or something?”

“There are many plans - each more desperate than the last.” Her frown deepened as she neared the door to the back room. “You will have a team of advisors to assist you - myself included.” 

“Assist…me?”

“Yes.” She said, opening the door, “Our Herald - you.”

The Commander and Leliana looked up from the map they were studying, accompanied by a woman Enasal hadn’t seen before. The woman wore clothes that seemed to be spun from gold and hair done up with impressive perfection. From over a board stacked with paper, she smiled warmly when she saw Enasal, “So this is she.”

“Yes.” Cassandra said, “This is Enasal Lavellan - the Herald of Andraste.”

Enasal winced at the introduction. She didn’t understand why she needed a name in the first place, much less why assumed her clan’s name was a fitting choice.

The other woman gave a graceful nod, “Andaran atish’an.” 

Enasal perked up, “You speak Dalish?”

“Unfortunately.” She said with a laugh, “You’ve just heard the extent of it.”

“This is Lady Josephine Monilyet, our ambassador and chief diplomat.”

Enasal nodded, “It’s good to meet you.”

“An honor, Lady Herald.” She said, “I will be assisting you when dealing with more delicate matters - communicating with other nations and their nobility in a way that fits their… unique views.”

Leliana nodded, “Which means she’ll write the words pretty enough that nobility will think we’re doing them a favor by allowing them to join our cause.”

Josephine smiled, “And I assure you, Lady Herald, I am very skilled with a pen.”

Cassandra continued, “And you remember Leilana, I’m sure.”

“Like our diplomat, I will be handling delicate subjects as well - but my position will involve a degree of-”

“She’s our spymaster.” Cassandra interrupted.

Lelians sighed, “Tactfully put, as always, Cassandra.”

Cassandra seemed to be growing tired of the proceedings, gesturing to the Commander, “You might remember Commander Cullen.” 

“I thought your name was Curly!” Enasal blurted out.

Leliana covered her mouth to stifle a laugh and Josephine hid her face behind her clipboard.”

Enasal felt a breath catch in her throat when he rested his hand on the pommel of his sword, fingers irritable, tapping its surface. She had made him mad.

“I’m sorry.” She said quickly.

“Varric’s doing, I’m sure.” Cassandra grumbled, “He prefers creating his own names for people over using their own.”

“Either way,” Cullen bowed his head politely, “I’m pleased to see you’re doing better. 

Again, her eyes drifted back to the hand resting on his weapon, trying to figure out how fast he could draw his weapon and cut her down. It wouldn’t take much for him to shift his grip and strike.

She nodded, “Yes - I mean, no. But yes - I mean...” She rubbed her face, “There hasn’t been any more crowding. Thank you.”

He smiled, one side of his mouth higher than the other. Enasal couldn’t tell if he was smirking or if his mouth just had a quirk in it, “Good.” 

“Thank you.” She said quickly.

He nodded, “I’m actually rather impressed.”

She squinted at him.

“I’ve known hardened soldiers to fall to less than what you faced.” He said, “And you didn’t hesitate. Despite how things began, you fought alongside us. That’s commendable.”

Enasal’s thumb ran along her fingertips as she tried to decide what to say. This was a room full of very important people; military leaders, spies, and no-doubt nobility - they all had a certain dignity about them, a confidence that made her want to trust them.

And there she stood; eyes down and trying desperately to stop fidgeting, so much she almost forgot they were all looking at her. She swallowed again, but tried to smile, “I suppose I’m lucky to be working with you all.”

“We have no time to waste.” Cassandra turned to Enasal, “I mentioned your mark needs more power—”

Leliana immediately responded, cutting her off. “So we’ll need the help of the rebel mages.”

Enasal nodded along. Even if she wasn’t making decisions, she could at least pretend she understood what they were discussing. Leliana said with such conviction that it seemed they were all in agreement.

But it turned out they weren’t.

Cullen frowned, and his hands instinctively rested on the hilt of his sword again. “And I still disagree. The templars could serve us just as well.”

Templar - another word she’d have to ask Varric about.

Cassandra leaned on the table towards him, “We need power, Commander. If enough magic is poured into that mark-”

“It might destroy us all,” he countered firmly, setting his jaw. “Templars could suppress the Breach, weaken it, so—”

Leliana jerked her chin up defiantly, “Pure speculation.” 

Enasal put her finger up as if to say something, but nobody noticed. Cullen continued to stare Cassandra down., “I was a templar; I know what they’re capable of.”

Josephine continued to write, “Unfortunately, neither group will speak to us yet. The chantry has denounced the Inquisition.” She forced a weak smile, eyes going to Enasal. “And you, specifically.”

She launched her shoulders, “Why me?”

Josephine motioned out the window, “Some are calling you - a Dalish Elf - ‘The Herald of Andraste,’ and that frightens the chantry. The remaining clerics have declared it blasphemy -”

What was blasphemy?

Leliana nodded, “And we heretics for harboring you.”

What was a heretic?

Cassandra huffed, “No doubt Chancellor Rodrick’s doing.” 

Josephine was scribbling on her clipboard, her hands flying across the page, “Which limits our options. Approaching the mages or templars is currently out of the question.”

This time, Enasal waved her hand until the others looked at her, “Sorry, sorry, but...” She worried her hands, “How am I the Herald of Andraste?”

“People saw what you did at the temple,” Cassandra insisted, “How you stopped the breach from growing. They believe the woman in the rift was Andraste.”

Leliana nodded in agreement, her eyes studying Enasal intently. “Even if we tried to stop that view from spreading—”

“Which we have not,” Cassandra interjected

Josephine flashed a warm smile, “The point is, everyone is talking about you.”

She didn’t like that.

She didn’t like that at all.

Cullen spoke up, again with that smirk-or-maybe-smile. “It’s quite the title, isn’t it? How do you feel about it?”

She rubbed her arms, “Oh, I… I’m not really sure.”

“Understandable - a lot happening all at once.”

She dared a look up at him, nodding before looking away.

“Herald.” Leliana said, “People are afraid. They’re desperate for some sign of hope. For once, you are that sign.”

“And to others.” Josephine added gravely, "A symbol of everything gone wrong.”

Enasal swallowed as she thought back through her most recent past. She had traveled so far, killed demons and sealed rifts, been jerked back and forth between life and death and now? Now, she had made very powerful very people angry - Shiral always told her the human chantry was especially dangerous.  

She looked from one to the other, voice trembling as she asked, “Is the chanty going to attack us?”

“With what?” Cullen asked, examining one of the maps, “They have only words at that disposal.”

“Yes, Commander.” Josephine said with a shake of her head, “And they may bury us with them.”

The others began to argue again, but Leliana had fallen quiet. Her attention was fixed on the map, fingers drumming a restless rhythm against its surface. Finally, she stood, voice cutting through the fighting, ““There is something we could do.”

Enasal jumped at the chance to participate, “What?”

Leliana pointed decisively to a spot on the map before locking eyes with Enasal. “I’ve been in contact with a Chantry cleric named Mother Giselle. She has asked to speak with you. She is not far, and her assistance could be invaluable.”

Enasal’s worried fingers pinched at the loose skin of her knuckles before catching herself and shaking her hands out. She wanted to be involved, but she wasn’t sure about actually making the decisions. So she put off giving a definite answer, instead asking, “Where exactly is she?”

“In the Hinterlands, near Redcliffe.”

“And how will this help us?” Cullen asked.

“By giving us a foothold.” She said, “The Inquisition needs to be seen as a cause that will help the people - and having someone in the Chantry on our side will help give us some legitimacy.”

Cullen raised his eyebrows, “That’s actually a good idea.”

“I have my moments, Commander.” She said tersely.

Cullen’s hand instinctively found its way to his pommel, but as he turned to Enasal, he quickly put them behind his back again. “Look for more opportunities to expand the Inquisition’s influence while you’re there.”

Josephine nodded in agreement, “We need agents to extend our reach beyond this valley, and you’re better suited than anyone for that.”

She pointed to herself, “Me?”

Josephine underlined something with a flair, “You are the Herald of Andraste.”

Enasal rubbed her arms, “I mean… I don’t know.”

Cassandra leaned toward her, “We would not send you if we doubted you.” 

She swallowed, nodding silently.

“In the meantime.” She said, returning to one of the maps, “We will think of our other options - you will not make this decision alone.”

A sigh of relief escaped Enasal, a weight lifted off her shoulders. “Thank you.”

The other continued talking, discussing maps, troop placements, and possible alliances. Enasal stood awkwardly by the door, unsure of what came next. “Um… excuse me?” She asked tentatively, “Did you need me for anything else or…?”

Josephine looked up, “No, Herald. Please, go rest. You must be tired.”

She was tired.

Deep down into her bones.

But she wanted to talk to Varric first. Her nerves were so bundled up and tangled together - she wouldn’t be able to sleep like that.

When she had left, Leliana glared at Cullen, “You are a man of good standing, and men of good standing do not stare. How do you think that makes her feel?”

“I’m concerned!” Cullen snapped back, his worry etched on his face. “Did you see how thin she was? Maker’s breath, her skin must be sticking to her ribs!”

“He’s right.” Josephine sighed, already drafting a missive, “Poor girl. Do we know how old she is?”

“She claims to be twenty-five.” Cassandra said.

“Twenty-five?” Cullen asked in surprise.

“So she says.”

He rubbed his forehead, shaking his head, “To be as small as she is… she went without food for long periods of time… on many occssions.” He crossed his arms over his chest, “Her whole life most likely.”

“Did her clan offer her no help?” Josephine asked.

“I doubt that.” Leliana shook her head, “She’s obviously not used to being around people. Perhaps she left on her own or perhaps she was sent away, but she seems to associate with her clan very little, if at all.”

“I cannot believe I’m saying this.” Cassandra sighed irritably, “But I believe Varric has been good for her.” She wrinkled her nose.

“I’ve noticed that.” Leliana said, “He’s taken her under his wing.”

“He does that.” Cullen said blandly.

With a deep sigh, Josephine nodded, “I’ll make sure the tavern takes special care with her meals.”

“Good.” Cullen bent back over the maps. “Frankly, I’m not sure how she’s even functioning.”

Outside the chantry, Enasal had finally found Varric near his favorite fire - the one right by a branch in the path, all the better to find people to talk to. She hurried over to him, huddling close to him and shivering.

“Good to see you’re still alive.”

“Yeah… hey, can you help me with some more words?”

He chuckled, “Anytime.”

“Okay, so what’s blas... blas-pha... phe-?”

“Blasphemy.” He supplied, “It’s when someone does or says something the chantry doesn’t like. A matter of opinion if you ask me.”

“Blasphemy.” She repeated, then asked, “And what’s a herik-tic?”

“Heretic.” He chuckled, “That’s the person who does the blasphemy.”

“What’s a templar?”

“Ah, the templars!” He rubbed his hands together, “A complicated bunch.” He crossed his arms over his chest, “They’re supposed to protect mages in circles - do you know about the circles?”

Enasal nodded, “A little.”

“On paper - that’s just another way of saying ‘how it was planned’ - they’re supposed to protect mages from demons and protect the outside from mages who like to set people on fire.”

Enasal nodded, “But… since you said it like that, I’m guessing it’s different in real life.”

He nodded, “A lot of templars get real power happy. They think mages are cursed by the Maker - or they just like pushing people around. They’re tasked with hunting down mages that escape from the circle or try to avoid being taken, and I’m sure some of them enjoy it. Mages get beaten, killed - sometimes worse things happen.” He jerked his head in a vague direction., “In Kirkwall, they started rounding them up by the dozen to make them Tranquil.”

She squinted her eyes, “Tranquil?”

“Cutting their ties with the fade, no more emotions, no more magic.” He shook his head in a pitying sort of way. “But mages in Kirkwall started to rebel, and next thing you know things start blowing up.”

Enasal was quiet as she digested the information.

“Cullen said he was a templar.” She finally said.

“Curly? Oh yeah, I knew him in Kirkwall - was kind of a piece of shit.”

Enasal nodded, “So he is dangerous.”

He shrugged, “He did some pretty bad things. Then again, I heard from a certain Nightingale that he was in a circle where half the mages were turning into demons. Watched a lot of people die. So, Curly and magic don’t mix well.” Varric pointed to his mouth, “Did you notice the scar?”

She shook her head,   

“Well, it means one of two things. Either there were no healing mages nearby when he got it, or he wouldn’t let them near him.” He frowned, “I’d guess the latter.”

“I didn’t notice.” Enasal said, “I was too focused on trying not to look terrified.”

Varric threw his head back and laughed, “While I wouldn’t say I’m friendly with the man, he seems to be trying to do… I don’t know, something mildly decent with his life.” He shrugged, “That and he’s too serious for his own good - but I don’t think he’d hurt you.”  

She nodded slowly, whispering, “He’s so big.”

Varric burst out laughing, “Compared to you and me, everyone is.”

“Yeah, but…” She said, fussing with her hair, “I didn’t know humans could get that big. I mean, if he wanted to, he could kill me, just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“Maybe.” Varric said, “But I don’t think he will. He got everyone to give you space, didn’t he?”

She thought about it, then nodded, “Yeah… yeah, okay.”

Varric crossed his arms over his chest, nodding slightly as he said, “I have an idea.”

She tilted her head to the side, “About?”

He grinned, “Nothing like a game of Wicked Grace to help you get to know everyone a little better.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“That’s fine.” He said, “You’ll learn.”

She drew her knees to her chest, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

She glanced at him and shrugged, “People… tend not to like me very much.”

“Who doesn’t like you?” Varric laughed, playfully jostling her, “Because everyone I’ve talked to likes you.”

“They don’t know me.” She said softly.

Varric shook his head, “Okay, I’m not sure where you got that idea but it isn’t true. So take that thought out of your head and throw it somewhere.”

Enasal switched subjects, “Well, we’ll be going to the Hinterlands soon, so-”

“Ah, one night won’t kill anyone.” He said, “Might take me a few days to get everyone pinned down at the same time, but it'll be a good time - I'll let you know once the day's set.” Without leaving any room for argument he put up his hand in farewell and walked toward the chantry.

Enasal shook her head and sighed. Even with the Commander’s efforts to keep her crowded, all the activity in the area still put her on edge. Swords clashing and men yelling in the training yards, noise and music coming from the taverns, people walking this way and that and talking, talking, talking.

And she was so cold. This coat didn’t seem to keep her as warm as her long covers did, lined in fleece or not. She wished for halla wool, but knew the chance of getting it outside the clans, not to mention all the way out here, was practically impossible.

Maybe Josephine was right. Maybe she should go rest. She could build up the fire and burrow under the blankets, nice and cozy. She was actually becoming quite fond of beds. The mattress was certainly an improvement over her bedroll - even if  a few people had apologized profusely about it being ‘just straw and linen.’

To her, it was one of the best things she had ever seen.

She didn’t even bother with the fire when she returned to her room, instead curling up under the heavy blankets with a contented sigh.

Within minutes, she was fast asleep.

Read the full fic from the beginning at my A03 here!

If you’re willing and able, feel free to donate to my ko-fi or drop a tip in the jar to help me afford my many medications to keep the crazy at bay!

Credits:

Artwork of Enasal drawn by the talented @vahingoniloinenlapsi

I used Project Elvhen on Ao3 to help with the 'Dalish'.

[lowlyroach]

298) Balloon

I didn’t know when I decided it

I put in my headphones and started walking

I stepped firmly against the sand

As if it's all I've ever known

Listening to songs that remind me of you

My steps stutter and still

I stumble when I think of you

Nearly fall picturing you with someone else

I find a balloon there

On a soft bed of seaweed

It says “I love you”

I grab it

Wonder when it fell here

Or washed ashore

I hold it like a burden

I continue walking

I told myself it would be until my headphones died

I walk along the sand

Pick a direction and continue forward

I want to fall and cry

I walk instead

I walk across seaweed pillows

Give respects to burrowing crabs

Move quietly passed the egg laying sea turtle

I walk across the trails they left as they rose to the dunes

I listen to the soft waves crash

I wear the night like a blanket

When my headphones die

I begin to march

I march listlessly

I march until my ankles feel like stripped screws

Loose in their socket

Broken hinges

Their wiring mismatched

My spine has never felt so heavy

My neck is an archway downward

I hunch and lurch forward

I cannot holy my head high

So I fall unevenly

I march

I march until I kick crabs from their burrows

I march through seaweed swamps

I march until my eyes have become anvils

I march until the waves are not my friend

I march until the shadows hold daggers

I march until I pull my weight forward

I march like I am shackled to the sand

I march with ocean water soaking my shoes

I march until the balloon is a boulder

I march until I am somewhere unfamiliar

My phone dies next

It is quiet

I march

Miles and hours pass

There is no reason that I have

No answer I find

But where else will I go?

To hardwood homes?

So, I march until the sky is brightening

Then,

I turn around and march back

I finally throw the balloon away

Cross the street without looking either way

On the drive back my eyes cannot focus

I drive 40 over and take a sharp turn

Feel my car float

Nearly lose control

Fear and exhilaration

I’ll get home and sleep on the floor again

When I wake up

Maybe I will continue marching

[dawn-of-worlds]

Where there's a whale...

(2d6->7, plus 3 makes 10)

Haebarik watched as humans spread across Incarien, and was pleased. He watched the potters in the east, the traders and warriors in the south, the herdsmen and whalers in the scarcer north.

He watched, with slightly greater concern, the Ebon Priests, as their influence grew in more and more villages, as their instructions fell on receptive ears. Raids became more common, the losers dragged off to work on mysterious constructions. To Haebarik's shock, not all slavers were associated with the priests: some were merely opportunists eager to exploit this new demand for labor. Evil, it seemed, existed not merely in higher beings.

But surely, surely there would always be some humans untouched by that wicked faith?

...perhaps it would be good to make sure of that.

Haebarik extends his arm, reaching higher than birds fly, higher than Eppethikuja may soar, higher than the winds themselves may reach. His dark arm disappears against the void, its inlaid gems substituting for those stars it blots out. At last, his fingers close around a large mass of rock, and he pulls it down to earth.

Those who behold Haebarik's handiwork in the future will explain it such.

During the first day of creation, all things floated in an endless void, and no thing could touch any other thing, and life was impossible. It was then that a god (whose identify is never agreed upon) bestowed weight upon this matter, causing it to fall down into a large pile called the world. But the god missed a few scraps of rock, which still float high above the world, and from time to time he still spots one and sends it down towards the others. This is thus why stars sometimes fall to earth, and their pure and weightless form is what Haebarik used for his avatar.

Maretik! The Void Whale, the Hunger Above, the Envoyager. Some mistake it for a child of Naakrsh, others for a sibling of Ohm. It is none of those things, as its inability to destroy anything real should make clear.

Maretik's hide is a very dark grey, covered in large thumbprint-like indents left over from Haebarik's shaping. Its size is that of a mountain, its maw a small lake, its many eyes a house each. Where one might expect barnacles on a normal whale, Maretik bears boulder-sized clumps of shining iron, nickel, and cobalt, and its baleen are thin wires of the same metals, which may fit to form a perfect seal. Lacking weight, Maretik may swim through the sky and the void beyond, propelled by divine force.

(for the physicists in the audience, model Maretik as lacking gravitational mass but not inertial mass)

When the Void Whale acts, it does so thus:

Fist, it descends singing from its resting-place above the clouds, song echoing for a hundred miles, evoking images of vast stretches of nothingness, of large hollow things, of great yawning voids. Some flee, at this, others are paralyzed with dread, others yet understand, somehow, that they need not be afraid, and wait with peaceable calm.

Then, the Whale arrives, blanketing the land in its shadow. The song ends; there is a moment of quiet and darkness, and then its maw opens. Beyond lies a cavernous space, lit by the soft glow of starlight (for at the dawn of time, a few cowardly rays fled Velarië's anvil and found shelter in this rock).

Then the maw closes, engulfing all that which it came for. The Whale departs, leaving only a miles-long gorge in the land. In time, it will fill and become just another lake.

And what of its cargo? They find themselves unharmed: carried along their homes and stores, their ancestral soil, their tools and weapons. The journey's duration is impossible to tell, but none go hungry or thirsty, and all experience a comfortable calm.

Then, the maw opens once more, bright sunlight flooding the Whale's gut. The contents are expelled, no worse for the wear than a few cuts or scrapes. While the transplanted mortals are still getting their bearings, the Whale is already returning to the void: never again will it visit this place.

As the settlers sift through their expelled belongings, they may find things that never were theirs: leftover possessions from past transplants, treasures from abandoned and devoured places, plants and beasts from strange lands, and weirder things still, things that drift through the heavens as Maretik does, swallowed absentmindedly and now free once more.

(Create Avatar for 7 points, 3 remaining more actions to follow)

[elsanna-shenanigans]

November/October Contest Submission #2: Nightmare

Words:  ca. 8,000 Setting: Scandinavia circa 800 CE Lemon: lime Content: explicit horror, descriptive images of death and decay, PTSD, slight BDSM, MCD

~~~

The Viking Age

Air filled the space between bone and flesh as her arm rose into the sky.

And escaped with the fall of the hammer on steel.

With each breath, frigid air resonated with the rhythmic ringing of metal. The blacksmith’s chest rose and fell with the tempo. The forge raged in the cold with tempestuous embers kicking and licking at the sweat on her exposed skin.

Muscles burned and tendons stretched; every sinew and vein drove every ounce of strength deeper and deeper into the glow.

“Anna, you are a sight to behold.”

Anna became shrouded in steam as she plunged the white-hot steel into the trough of water with a sharp sizzle.

“If you keep staring at me like that, Eric, I may have to tell your wife that her husband has an eye for another redhead. Should I expect a challenge from her?”

Eric sat on a stump as he watched the blacksmith dull the glow on his blade, unaffected by the steam and sweat that stuck strands of fiery hair to her cheek.

“Ha! She would be no match for you.”

“You’re no match for me.”

The black wolf pelt across his broad shoulders bristled with his chuckle.

“Truer words have never been spoken. Perhaps she should challenge that husband of yours. Would be a fairer fight, I think.”

Eric nodded toward the fenced area on the other side of Anna’s house. A meager hamlet with a forge on one side and a farm on the other. A wide-eyed and wide-smiled man stood in the pen with a reindeer calf in his arms and a carrot in his mouth. He caught the pair of eyes looking his way and gave an awkward wave in their direction, nearly losing his grip on the calf and stumbling over.

Anna did not wave back. Instead, she returned her gaze to the cool steel in her hands.

“Is there a reason you’re wasting air in my forge, or did you come just to tease Kristoff and pine for things you can’t have? Your sword won’t be ready until tomorrow.”

Eric brushed raven locks out of his face in an attempt at seriousness.

“I came for your answer.”

“You know my answer” was Anna’s reply, swift and sharp.

“I know the lie that you tell yourself. Come now, Hammerfall, you can’t expect me to believe that you don’t miss it? Just one more is all I ask.”

Anna brought a whetstone to the blade and began to smooth the rough edges. Her eyes were focused entirely on her task, yet they seemed elsewhere at the same time.

“I don’t raid anymore.”

Eric let irritation show on his brow. He directed that irritation toward Kristoff, the reindeer, the forge, at anything he perceived to be the cause of Anna’s weakness.

“You’re wasting your life, Anna! You are blessed by Thor himself yet you sit at your forge, growing old with that oaf. Your hammer is meant for more than fixing swords and shoeing horses.”

“My hammer is meant for whatever I choose to strike with it. If you don’t want that to be your head, then I suggest you take my answer to heart. And never ask me again.”

Eric closed his eyes and let the irritation and disappointment dissipate through his feet and into the permafrost.

“Very well, shield-sister. It won’t be the same without you.”

Anna showed a moment of forgiveness for her brother-in-arms when she looked up from his sword and gave him a reassuring smile.

The sky bellowed with a deep rumble that shook their chests. Anna placed the sword on her anvil before walking to her gate. There she looked toward the fjord from the side of the hill where she made her home.

“Whose longboat is that?” Anna asked as she stood next to Eric. It pulled up to the dock, ropes flying from each end to secure its mooring. Eric could just make out the motif of a black horse’s head painted on the sail.

“Loki’s ballsack. That’s a Westergaard longboat.”

Anna squinted her eyes in a vain attempt to get a clearer look. A young man disembarked before all the rest, seemingly younger than everyone else on board yet clearly in command.

“Which son is that you think?” Eric wondered as he put his hands on his hips.

“The youngest, I would guess. Hans, maybe? I wonder what he is doing here—”

Anna’s words trailed off as her eye was caught by the second figure leaving the boat.

Tall, and shrouded in a white bear cloak that covered her face behind a hood encircled with teeth and jawbones.

Hans reached out to assist the mysterious person onto the dock.

“Who is that?” Anna’s words were almost a whisper, but Eric shared her wonder.

“His wife? Doesn’t look like a warrior. Why bring her with a raiding party?”

Anna pulled herself away to return to the rapidly cooling sword and returned it to the forge to re-soften the metal. As she stoked the fire, the visiting party hiked their way up the main trail from the docks that weaved its way through the village toward the massive longhouse that sat overlooking the valley.

Eric had moved away from her gate as the party passed by the edge of her homestead. Anna continued to work, but through the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the cloaked figure.

The shrouded woman hesitated just for a moment, lingering for a single, chilled breath. Just long enough for her head to turn. Long enough for Anna to be caught in the gaze of two massive orbs of pure glacial water. They stared at each other, transfixed for an eternity until the spell was broken.

“I don’t like the look of her,” Eric said, cutting the silence.

Anna blinked and the party had moved on toward the longhouse. And when the mysterious figure left Anna’s sight, her chest expanded with a forgotten breath.

~~~

The sun burned through Anna’s eyelids causing her to turn away from the unwelcome sensation. She stirred in her cot underneath the furs with groggy reluctance.

“Rise and shine, honey.” Kristoff’s voice was not much more welcome. Anna simply groaned in response. “It’s nearly midday. Did you have trouble sleeping?”

Anna finally rose, attempting to wipe the fog from her eyes, and yawned through her answer.

“Just some weird dreams.”

After eating breakfast, she began the meticulous process of starting up her forge for the day’s work. A smoldering piece of wood from the fire Kristoff had started in the morning stoked a budding flame within the bed of charcoal. As the embers began to wake, she gathered long iron rods with hatch marks running down the length. Soon enough there was the familiar sound of ringing metal as she hammered a chisel through each mark, cutting segments of equal length to fall into a bucket below the anvil.

She quickly got into a rhythm, breaking piece after piece.

Breathe. Hammer. Chisel. Breathe.

Breathe. Hammer. Chisel. Breathe.

A glance toward a pair of blue eyes watching her.

Hammer to chisel.

Hammer to thumb.

She cried out with both pain and surprise toward the figure of a bear-cloaked woman standing just feet away with an intense stare. Anna pulled her glove off and rubbed at her thumb while she kept her own gaze on the woman who had yet to say any words.

“Can I… help you… my lady?” Anna wasn’t sure how to address her. She wasn’t sure of her status. She was dressed in quality not known to most save for a Jarl’s wife.

“I’ve never seen a woman blacksmith before”, the stranger said. Her voice was soft and carried a curious wonder with the question.

“I suppose there aren’t many of us.” Anna was visibly confused at the lack of social decorum. “They call me Anna. And you are?”

“Elsa. Was your father a blacksmith?” The woman’s stare never ceased and the uneasiness was growing.

“Yes—”

“May I watch you?”

Anna looked the woman up and down, not sure what to make of her.

“Sure… I’m just making nails today. Nothing exciting I’m afraid.”

“That’s fine.”

Elsa pulled back her hood so that the ring of tooth and bone stood erect along her shoulders. A bundle of braids of varying lengths and thicknesses tumbled alongside her neck and against her chest. They were unnaturally white as if the bear fur was a part of her mane. Her skin was a pale hue Anna only ever saw on corpses except for a thick band of black paint that stretched across her face from each temple painting her massive eyes in a sky of black like twin moons against a starless expanse.

Anna’s heart skipped a beat.

Elsa began to sit on the stump next to the forge, but Anna got a sudden urge to stop her.

“Wait. That stump’s not very comfortable. Let me get you a chair.”

Without waiting for a response, she entered her house to grab the chair she usually sat on at the table. She placed her hands on it but then hesitated and looked toward the other chair, still occupied by her husband. Determining that his chair was larger and thus more regal she issued a command.

“Up. Now.”

Kristoff stood without a word but with his question in his eyes. She swapped their chairs and proceeded outside with the larger and her husband was left to sit and ponder.

When Anna returned outside, Elsa was looking toward the fjord. She placed the chair over the stump, trying and failing to have it level. Elsa sat and folded her hands across her lap when a glint of a silver ring caught Anna’s eye. The blacksmith returned to her task, having forgotten completely where she left off, and having forgotten completely to breathe during the whole ordeal.

Having neglected the fire, she furiously began pumping air into the coals. Her hands gripped the bellows tightly, veins beginning to stretch against the skin of her exposed biceps as the heat rose to her face.

Anna was keenly self-conscious of the mysterious woman now staring intently, and intensely, in her direction, but without any word. Silent as a hunter.

“So…” Anna attempted to break the silence as she grabbed her hammer and chisel from the anvil. “Would you like me to make you something? I’m afraid I’m not very skilled at jewelry. I could make a bronze clasp for you or your husband—”

“I don’t have a husband.”

Elsa’s stare didn’t break but her fingers reflexively flinched around the silver ring on her middle finger.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I thought that Hans—”

“He is… my master.”

The stare was finally broken and the silence returned and all Anna was aware of was the slow rise of her chest and the frustrated heartbeat underneath.

“You have no thralls in your homestead?” Elsa said as she returned to watch Anna awkwardly place a small length of iron into the burning coals.

“No. I… don’t need them. Kristoff and I manage fine on our own.”

The woman said nothing more and Anna went about her mundane tasks for the day, all with the intense but curious onlooker watching every movement.

Every rise of the hammer and twist of the tongs;

every loose strand of hair against a cheek,

every bead of sweat.

And every breath that Anna struggled to take in time with her tempo.

~~~

Anna tossed and turned in her cot. Sleep was not coming easily. She looked toward her husband, soundly dreaming beside her, then looked toward the ceiling. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.

She felt the cool air enter her windpipe and flow through her chest causing it to rise. Her chest rose even higher with a deeper inhale through her nose and fell with the escape from her mouth.

Then her chest refused to rise.

She breathed. And breathed. And breathed and breathed and breathed.

But no air entered her chest.

It didn’t rise, it couldn’t rise. It was as if a great weight sat atop her body and rejected the needed expansion of space.

She opened her eyes, and the expected sight of a darkened ceiling was blocked by something completely unexpected.

Twin moons against a starless night, glowing, radiant, and with a hovering gaze just above Anna’s face.

Anna couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. She looked down and saw Elsa’s naked body lying atop her, the furs pulled away, their chests pressed against each other, and her legs draped across Anna’s thighs.

Then a hand came over her mouth.

She looked toward her husband, still next to her, still dreaming.

She tried to shake her head. She tried to reach for her axe that slept next to her pillow.

She tried to breathe.

Elsa pressed her hand against Anna’s mouth and the weight on her chest grew even heavier. She feared it would collapse under the pressure.

Anna’s vision began to blur. Stars began to fill the darkness as a red haze encroached, threatening to black out her mind.

Suddenly Elsa pulled her hand away and Anna made one last attempt to take one last gasp of air.

But lips pressed against her mouth.

The air did not come.

Instead, she felt Elsa’s chest expand above her, taunting her desperate lungs with their swollen bounty.

Anna felt as if her very soul was being consumed, pulled out of her body through her lips and into the chest of the ghostly woman straddling atop her very life.

Redness turned to black and the stars blanketed her eyes concealing the rising moons.

And her chest finally rose.

She coughed. And heaved, and gulped for air. She launched herself out of her bed, stumbling over the edge with her vision still blurred. She desperately grabbed for her axe and scoured around her home. Finding no sign of the woman, she ran to the door and searched.

And found nothing.

No bear skin cloak or ghostly figure of a naked woman glowing in the darkness; not even a moon in the sky. Just a blanket of stars and Anna’s breath billowing in the night air.

~~~

Anna awoke the next afternoon, her fiery mane in a tangled mess and her eyelids heavy and plastered shut.

“You don’t look so good, honey. Are you feeling alright?”

Anna chose not to tell Kristoff about the night. She chose not to tell him many things. Her problems were her own and she would deal with them on her own.

The waking routines proceeded without incident. Kristoff left to shepherd their herd of reindeer, leaving Anna behind to finish her meal and start up her forge. She pulled the hide that covered her doorway to go outside, and standing there in her forge was Elsa.

Anna froze for a half second before lunging to a rack of unfinished swords, pulling out the bare steel, and pointing it at the woman. To Anna’s surprise, Elsa had a look of shock on her face in response.

“What are you doing!?” Elsa exclaimed as she backed away.

“What am I doing? What are you doing? Why did you attack me last night?!”

“Attack you? I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

Anna stepped forward and Elsa stepped back twice as far.

“You tried to kill me!” Anna’s rage pushed Elsa back against the gate. She was visibly distraught, and it gave Anna pause.

“I didn’t attack you! I don’t know anything about what happened to you last night. I was with Hans, at the longhouse. Ask him, ask the guards, ask you’re own warriors that stay with the Jarl. I was there all night.”

Anna’s breathing was furious but her mind was growing more confused.

“I don’t understand… You were there. You were on top of me. You were choking me! You…you kissed me.”

“I kissed you? I tried to kill you then I kissed you?”

She lowered her sword. She looked toward the ground as her mind tried to walk back the events.

“Was your husband home? Did he see any of this?”

“He was asleep… He didn’t see anything…”

Elsa took a few hesitant steps forward, glancing at Anna’s sword but also looking at Anna with concern. She reached out and touched her arm and Anna felt the cool steel of the silver ring against her skin.

“I think you had a bad dream, Anna.”

“I felt my chest burning. I felt my life leaving me! I felt you, your hands, your skin, your lips… I… I…”

Anna’s cheeks flushed and her eyes grew wide under the recognition of the revelation she didn’t realize she was making.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. I’m so so so stupid. Dreams can be such— you know? I can’t believe I—”

As Anna spoke she went to the forge and began pumping the bellows at a rapid pace, not realizing that she had yet to begin the fire and the coals sat cold in the basin.

Elsa came over and put a reassuring hand atop Anna’s, halting the futile motion and letting Anna catch her much-needed breath.

“It’s ok, Anna. Dreams are funny things. They can be informative, but also mischievous. Windows into our souls, as well as our imaginations.”

“We don’t have to speak of this again.” Anna moved a loose strand of hair from her cheek to behind her ear as she looked away awkwardly.

“May I watch you again today?” Elsa asked, nodding toward the chair that remained from the day before.

“Sure,” Anna responded as relief began to cleanse the awkward moment.

The day finally resumed at a more comfortable pace. More words were exchanged, mostly Anna recounting the parts of her life she was willing to share, mostly about smithing, or Kristoff. Elsa was far less free with her conversation. She preferred to ask, not answer. Anna noticed that she was particularly tight-lipped about her past or where she came from. She did not press the matter.

She knew where thralls came from.

~~~

Two women waded slowly through the thick soup of water and peat, their legs wrapped tightly in oiled leather and furs.

“You didn’t have to accompany me. Bogs are pretty messy. I can not guarantee the safety of your woolens.”

“I do not mind getting a little dirty”, Elsa said as she made her way through Anna’s wake.

They found their way to a small island, a raised hill of dirt, in the middle of the bog where Anna would often camp during her trips to gather iron. There was a small, makeshift structure where she stored supplies as well as stockpiles of iron ore. Anna grabbed a basket which she slung to her back and a knife for cutting through the peat.

“You’ve set up quite the hideaway here”, Elsa said.

“I like to come here and be alone with my thoughts. An escape from… a life I once had.”

Anna started a small campfire to warm up by when they returned.

“Does your husband know about this place?”

Anna didn’t show much reaction to the mention of Kristoff before responding.

“No. No one knows about it. You’re the first person I’ve ever brought here. I’m not really sure why, but I felt like… I wanted to share it with you.”

Anna caught a faint smile from the other woman, but also saw it tinged with what she thought was a sense of confusion.

“I’m glad you brought me here. It can be our secret.”

Anna smiled back.

“Well, ready to get dirty?”

And with that, both women returned to the water.

The bog was blanketed with a thin layer of mist that clung to their hair and chilled their cheeks. Anna scanned the surface of the brackish water for the telltale glisten of the iridescent film that would reveal her prey.

Once she found a spot where the water was slick, she punctured the film with her fingers and pulled layers of peat which she cut with a knife. On the underside amongst the mud and roots, she found what she was looking for. Small nodes of naturally occurring iron ore. She pulled them free of their rooted mooring and tossed them into the basket on her back.

“There, see? Once you know what to look for you can gather a good amount in no time.”

“This seems to be an odd task for someone who carries herself as a warrior,” Elsa said.

Anna bristled at the accusation.

“I am no warrior”, she said as she plunged her hand back into the mud.

“A murderer then.”

Anna froze.

“What did you say?” She looked up, hoping she had heard wrong. That Elsa’s voice was simply distorted by the wind.

But there was no wind. And there was no Elsa.

There was nothing but mist. She called out again and swiveled her head in all directions but saw no sign of her companion. She decided to pull her hand from the water and search.

Except her hand wouldn’t move.

A sharp pain pierced her shoulder as the unexpected force prevented her arm from following the movement of her body. She looked down at the mud where her wrist met the water and pulled. And pulled and pulled and pulled.

But her hand would not be let go.

“What the Hel?”

She positioned her legs in a more stable stance to get as much leverage from her thighs as possible. She feared for the strength of her wrist but finally, the mud began to give. Her hand was released with a slow suction of muck, but it was not alone. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around something.

She wiggled with her elbow to try and work her hand free yet her fingers refused to let go of the object in the mud, like a thick root buried deep in the earth. She grabbed it with her other hand and continued to pull. It was rough and rigid, and her hand was stuck to it as if by thick sap.

“Let go of me, you piece of—”

Suddenly the mist began to glow red and a crackling filled Anna’s ears.

The bog was on fire.

Seemingly out of nowhere Anna was surrounded by flame. Her heart began to race as she felt the onslaught of heat brush against her. She continued to pull at her shackle, and as she pulled the root from the mud she began to recognize it. A familiar set of carvings inlaid within a wooden body told her the impossible.

It was the handle of her axe.

The fear of the encroaching flames was now muddled with confusion. She didn’t bring her axe, and she certainly didn’t drop it in the bog.

As she pulled with all her might, the head of the axe finally revealed itself. And like her hand before, it was not alone.

The peat began to give way to something underneath, rising like a shallow dome from the bed. The slick film across the water became fibrous, like long strands of black hair. When Anna tried to pry her fingers from the shaft she found that the mud covering her hand had turned into a dark syrup. A coating of red stuck to her skin and spread from her forearm, over her fingers, and onto the wood.

When the surface of the bog finally broke, Anna saw that the steel of her axe was buried in neither wood nor mud, but bone and gore. A face rose from the water, covered in decay and staring at her with empty orifices. A skull of rotting flesh that peeled from charred bone. A row of teeth hung above an open maw where a lower jaw ceased to be. Strands of matted hair clung to the top of the skull where her axe sat embedded between the gaping eyeless sockets.

Anna screamed.

She pulled, and kicked, and punched. Strips of flesh stuck to the knuckles of her free hand. She stumbled backward, falling into the brackish soup. Her hand finally broke free of the axe, but now the corpse was on top of her, pressing her into the mud.

She couldn’t escape the gaze of the voids above her face. She felt the weight of the body grow heavy as mud, water, and peat began to cover her body. The back of her head started to sink, leaving her face alone to float atop the surface. Her gasps of air came rapidly, desperate to get enough breath to break free. She sucked as much air into her lungs as she could, but soon enough there was more than just air that entered her mouth.

Mud covered her eyes and seeped into her nose, eventually pouring down her throat and filling the space in her chest with earth and decay.

~~~

“AHHHHH!!”

“Anna! Wake up!”

Anna’s vision cleared from the red mist that blinded her. She saw Kristoff on the ground and herself on top of him. Her breath caught in her throat when she felt the familiar grain of wood in her hand and she saw that her axe was raised above her head, ready to come down on her husband. She dropped the weapon and jumped backward, falling over their bed. She lay there hyperventilating and staring wide-eyed with fear that matched her husband’s. He slowly rose and walked toward her.

“Anna, it’s ok. You were having a nightmare.”

Anna didn’t respond with words, instead choosing to leave their bed and storm outside. She nearly ran to the gate and gripped the top with white knuckles. She breathed in as much of the cold night air as her lungs would allow, desperate to get her heart rate under control.

Kristoff came out with a blanket in hand and worry all over his face.

“Leave me alone”, she said. “I… want to feel the cold.”

Kristoff hesitated for several moments before reluctantly returning inside, leaving Anna to watch the plumes of air escape her burning lungs.

~~~

Elsa did not come that day.

Anna stood alone in her forge with the smoldering coals growing dim and her hammer laying atop the anvil. She had a list of things that needed to be made or mended but she could not seem to bring herself to start the work. Instead, she stood by the heat of the coals, looking past the empty chair, over the gate, and toward the ship still moored in the dock.

~~~

Anna lay in bed, refusing to close her eyes. Kristoff wanted to stay by her side, but she forced him to set up another bed across the living space of their house. For his safety. She looked over to where he lay sound asleep. When she felt the fog of fatigue begin to encroach upon her, she rose from the furs and walked around, refusing to let sleep take her.

She decided to walk outside and let the cool air wash over her. She once again found herself gripping the wooden gate and watching her breath leave her body.

A scream filled the sky.

A cry of agony erupted from behind her. She spun around and saw the inexplicable sight of her house engulfed in flame.

“What!? Kr—Kristoff!”

She ran into the fire. Flames covered the walls and ceiling. Her lungs burned even hotter with the smoke replacing the frozen night air. She ran toward Kristoff’s cot only to find him laying there, a charred husk, his hands petrified in a grip of agony, and his skin peeling away.

Anna couldn’t breathe. Her eyes began to water and she backed away toward her door. But she was halted by a figure standing in the frame.

A woman, naked, with pale skin save for her hands and feet which were black as pitch. And the skull of a bear masking her face. She stood as still as a ghost with her hands by her side and the eyeless skull watching.

Anna let her anger and fatigue boil to the surface.

“You! You’re doing this, aren’t you!?”

Instead of fear, Anna let her anger propel her forward. She grabbed the woman by the neck and lifted her in the air with the strength of a blacksmith’s arm, knocking her against the wood of the door frame.

“Why are you doing this to me!?” Anna yelled as she tightened her grip around the thin neck.

A voice spoke from behind the bone.

“I am not doing anything. This is your dream.”

Anna didn’t believe her. She grabbed the bottom of the jaw and tore the mask off the woman’s face revealing the twin moons against the starless sky.

Elsa spoke again, soft almost as a whisper with every breath that Anna felt slip from the neck between her fingers.

“You have control, Anna. You can end the nightmare.”

Anna watched as Elsa’s eyes began to roll into the back of her head, her breath leaving her body and her hands still laying against her sides with absent protest.

She tightened her grip.

She felt tendon and veins constrict underneath the pale skin.

Then, with Elsa still pressed against the wall, Anna found her own breath leaving her body and entering through Elsa’s lips as she kissed her. Her hand let go when she felt Elsa’s arms wrap around her shoulders with black hands gliding underneath her hair. She held the woman against the wall with the force of their bodies embraced tightly together. She felt Elsa’s chest expand against hers. Smoke and ash still burned yet the women did not care.

Anna grabbed Elsa’s thighs, brought them around her waist, and swung her from the wall to land on the floor where both women now lay amongst the burning corpse of Anna’s house. She felt the heat rise in her core and let it burn as embers licked at her sweat. She let the weight of her body press against Elsa’s skin, making every breath a desperate gasp of ecstasy.

She lost herself in the gaze of the moons and the heat of the flames and sleep became a distant memory.

~~~

“Wow, you look as if you drank a whole barrel of mead last night.”

Anna sat in her bed. Her eyelids were heavy and nearly glued shut and her hair a tangled mass of fiery bramble. Kristoff brought her some water to help with her face. She placed her hands in the bowl and splashed the cool liquid against her cheeks and rubbed the morning crust from her eyes.

“I… I don’t even know anymore”, she said with a raspy yawn as she massaged her throat that chaffed from the dry air.

She moved about the house as slowly as a glacier. Each spoonful of porridge took its time to her mouth and lingered between her teeth. Kristoff had left to attend the herd, leaving Anna alone to recover from her dream-induced hangover. When she finally got ready for the day she didn’t even attempt to braid her hair. She merely walked out into the sun with a full mane of chaos.

And Elsa was there waiting for her.

“You… don’t look so good”, she said.

“Tell me about it.” Her words were almost slurred and she had to shield her eyes from the blinding sun bouncing off of Elsa’s white cloak. However, it did not prevent her from noticing the fresh split in Elsa’s lip. “Just… crazy dreams…”

“I’ve never seen anyone wake up from a dream looking like you.”

Elsa looked upon Anna with her usual gaze, but today it gave Anna an awkward feeling in her stomach with the images of her dream still fresh in her imagination.

“But then again… I’ve never had anyone make love to me next to the burning body of their husband before.”

Anna was inspecting her hammer. The words lingered in her ears for several moments, allowing her addled brain to register their meaning. Once they sank in her eyes grew wide and she dropped her hammer, causing it to bounce off the anvil and onto the ground.

“What… did you just say?”

Elsa remained casually seated in her chair, fiddling with the ring on her middle finger.

“Why did you sleep with me last night?” She asked as if it was a normal inquiry.

“No… no no no no no. This must be a dream. I’m still dreaming.” Anna began pinching her skin in various places.

Elsa stood from her chair and walked over to the anvil and the hammer laying in the dirt. She picked up the iron tool and weighed it in her hands.

Then she swung it toward Anna’s head.

Even with the fog clouding her mind and vision, Anna’s reflexes took over and she dodged the blow, but the sudden movement spun her compromised sense of balance and she stumbled to the ground. Elsa stood above her, but where Anna expected to find anger or hatred was instead a befuddled Elsa inspecting the hammer as if something was wrong with it.

“I still can’t seem to finish you off.”

Anna wasn’t sure if she was supposed to feel fear or confusion. She started to back away with her elbows digging into the dirt. She glanced behind her toward the house and her axe sleeping inside. She attempted to launch herself from the ground, but a sudden weight came down on her ribcage, knocking the wind out of her lungs. She winced and looked up to find Elsa sitting on top of her with her cloak draped above like a furry white tent.

“Why… are you doing this?” Anna could barely wheeze out the words with the pressure pressed against her chest.

Elsa continued to look at the hammer and gave it a few test swings against her palm.

“I didn’t come here for you, but you pulled me into your dreams. What else was I supposed to do?”

“I pulled you into my dreams? How is that—”

“Despite popular belief, we don’t cause nightmares. We are drawn to them like a moth to the flame. Especially when someone decides to dream about us. And besides, your dreams are far more fascinating than that stuffy Jarl of yours who seems to only dream of roast boar.”

Anna’s confusion only grew but she felt a slight relief from her ribs as Elsa shifted her weight to allow her chest more room to expand.

“The other night… you did try to suffocate me.”

“I tried to kill you. It would have been the easiest way to escape.”

“Then… why did you stop?”

“You kissed me.”

“What? I didn’t… you kissed me!”

“It was your dream, Anna. I was trying to kill you and your subconscious response was to kiss me. I was so taken aback I lost control and you woke up. I’ve never had someone kiss me while I was killing them before. Nor have I ever had someone cry out with such ecstasy in the middle of a nightmare where their husband was burned alive. Do you often have dreams where you mix death and sex?”

“What? No!? I don’t— Get off of me!!”

Anna struggled underneath the weight, shifting and turning, trying desperately to wiggle out from underneath the thighs gripping against her sides. She felt sudden momentum as Elsa stood and placed the hammer back on the anvil.

“There’s no point in killing you now. We are leaving tomorrow. I failed in my task and Hans is not happy.”

She gently touched her lip and a spot of fresh blood was left behind on her fingertip.

Anna finally got to her feet. She thought about running to her axe, she turned to look toward the door but Elsa seemed to lose any interest in doing her harm. She watched as Elsa readjusted her cloak to sit comfortably around her shoulders.

“What are you talking about?”

“I was supposed to kill the Jarl. But you kept dreaming about me. Dragging me into your mind. It’s partly my fault. I wasn’t too keen on leaving… But our time is done and I must obey my master.”

“Is there a way you can escape? Do you… have to leave?”

Elsa inspected the silver ring on her hand with a solemn look of defeated dejection.

“I am bound to him. I can’t break it. I can’t invade his dreams. Not while I wear this ring.”

“Maybe I can break it for you. I have the tools—”

“No. Only a dwarf has the skill to break a ring such as this. And last I checked, you are no dwarf.”

Something within Anna wanted her to push harder. They wouldn’t know unless they tried, she thought. She may not be a dwarf but she was the best smith out of all of the clans. There must be something she could do. Her hammer must have some use besides pounding nails and sharpening swords. Some use beyond death and the mundane.

Elsa began to walk toward her gate and once again Anna was torn as to whether or not she should attack this woman who threatened her or let her leave.

She grabbed Elsa’s arm.

“Wait! Please…”

Elsa raised her toothed hood over her head but looked toward Anna with a wanning sadness.

“It was fun while it lasted. Dream about me again, sometime. Maybe… I’ll answer.”

And with that, Elsa pulled from Anna’s grip and crossed the threshold of her homestead. She looked back once, and then proceeded up the winding path toward the longhouse. Leaving Anna to wonder what the night will bring.

~~~

“Anna… Anna! Wake Up, Hammerfall!”

Confusion awoke Anna as the sound of Eric’s voice was not accustomed to her bed.

“Eric? What are you… It’s the middle of the night…”

Anna rubbed her eyes and saw Kristoff had lit a fire despite the late hour.

“Somethings happened. The Jarl is calling everyone to the longhouse. Get dressed and bring your axe.”

Eric promptly left the house. Anna haphazardly donned her garments and cloaks for the cool night air and strapped a belt across her waist with her axe settled into its iron ring at her hip. She took a torch from Kristoff and met Eric outside her gate.

They quickly made their way up the hill. The village was alight with activity, torches making their way through trails to converge at the overturned ship that made the home of the leader of their clan.

Inside, was a half-awoken army of Anna’s fellow clansmen, all facing toward the imposing throne of the Jarl that sat occupied by a mountain of a man with a bristling grey beard that lay against his barrel of a chest adorned with matching gray wolf pelts.

As Anna made her way deeper inside, she overheard an argument already in progress.

“We demand justice!”

She did not recognize the voice. One of the Westergaard men she assumed.

“Justice? Is this a joke? You demand justice for your own lord-lings stupidity?!”

Anna and Eric slithered their way toward the front of the gathering. Eric leaned against one of his fellow warriors and quietly inquired what had happened at a low enough whisper so as not to draw attention to himself.

“Hans has been killed,” the man said.

“What!? How?” Eric’s voice rose slightly, drawing a few looks but nothing more. Anna stood silent next to him, her hand gradually tightening around her axe.

The man leaned toward Eric and Anna so that he could speak low.

“That woman he brought. She was a mare. He brought her here to kill the Jarl, but she turned on him. Killed him in his sleep. His chest was crushed. Like a boulder was dropped on him!”

“By the gods…” Eric could hardly believe the words if not for the body on the ground before the men from Westergaard with his jaw hung open and his chest collapsed in on itself like a crater on the moon.

The Jarl continued to speak.

“You bring that creature into my home, planned to use it against me, and when you couldn’t control it you demand justice of me? I will save you from further dishonor by allowing you to leave my sight. Bring the foolish boy’s body back to his father. Let his stupidity be a lesson to your whole clan. Take what shred of dignity you have left onto your boat before I command every warrior in this house to take it from you.”

The men hesitated, contemplating their chances or their bravery, but resigned themselves to their fate. They picked up Hans’ body and begrudgingly walked out to the cold and made the hike toward their longboat.

Murmurs began to fill the hall as the men gathered all gossiped and stoked their fears of the revelation that a demon had been among them.

“Eric,” the Jarl said. “Gather a hunting party. I want this creature found and killed before it can invade any of our people’s minds.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Anna turned back to her home and to sleep but was stopped by the Jarl’s voice.

“Take Hammerfall with you. I hear the creature has spent some time at the forge. She might have insight on how to track it.”

Eric nodded his acknowledgment and gave Anna an excited grin at the prospect of hunting together. Anna did not return his excitement.

Upon returning to her home, she began to change into clothes fit for a long hunt. Leathers and furs of a lighter make for added mobility. Her axe and hammer sat on opposite hips and a well-worn bow nestled against her back with its quiver of arrows fully stocked.

She walked outside to find Eric and a handful of men waiting with torches and hunting dogs.

“She spent a lot of time here, didn’t she? Do you know which way she may have headed?” Eric’s voice was commanding, but familiar. He could hardly contain his enthusiasm at seeing Anna geared for a fight.

Anna pondered the question. Her response was hesitant and Eric looked at her with mild concern. After a few long, lingering moments she spoke.

“We head toward the bog.”

~~~

The party made their way quickly through the forest with Anna leading the charge.

“What makes you think she went to the bog?” Eric asked.

“She doesn’t know there’s a bog, but this is the only direction she could easily have gotten to on foot. If she didn’t escape through the fjord or over the mountains, she came to the bog.”

“And she probably got stuck with all her fine clothes. Good thinking, Hammerfall.”

Anna had steel in her stare and did not look toward the rest of the party as she led them through the darkened forest. When the trees and rocks began to give way to moss and muck she halted the group.

“We should split up”, she said.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. The fog is pretty thic—”

Anna cut Eric off with a sharp and commanding voice.

“The bog is expansive. We won’t have any chance finding her unless we cover as much ground as possible. We split up.”

Anna began issuing commands to each man, sending them off in various directions. Eric still looked unsure of the idea, suggesting multiple times they should at least go in pairs, with him by her side. After multiple rebuffs he finally acquiesced to her commands and reluctantly followed her orders.

Dawn began to break, infusing the fog with a pink glow.

The hunting party moved slowly and silently through the peat and brackish water, bows drawn and eyes failing to pierce the thick blanket of mist that covered the morning.

Anna waded through the water, her bow still on her back and her axe by her side. The water came up to her knees and her feet stuck to the mud with each step. She knew the bog like no one else and quickly made her way to the familiar hill of dirt where her usual camp resided with stockpiles of iron and enough supplies to survive for weeks in the wilderness.

And there was Elsa, standing in her brilliant white cloak reflecting the morning light as if she was formed from the fog itself. Anna rose out of the water and stood before her.

Anna couldn’t help but breathe deep with a sigh of relief.

“Why did you do it?” Elsa said.

Anna reached into her tunic and pulled out a silver ring.

She held it up so that Elsa could see. Elsa’s eyes widened and she raised her hand to look at the ring still banded around her finger.

“So, am I to be your thrall then?”

“No!” Anna clutched the ring. “I just…”

She took deep breaths, letting the wetness of the fog seep into her.

“I didn’t want the nightmare to end.”

Elsa’s eyes grew even wider with surprise and confusion.

And then shock overtook all else when an arrow flew by Anna’s ear and entered Elsa’s chest.

“No!!”

Anna dropped the ring, spun on her heel, and threw her hammer blind, her instincts taking full control and guiding her aim toward the source of the arrow. The hammer flew through the air and struck raven locks.

Eric fell backward from the impact. Anna was already running toward him with her axe drawn and her feet breaking across the peat like an icebreaker through the frozen fjord.

Eric shook the stars from his head in time to see Anna’s axe heading toward his head and he drew his sword to block the oncoming blow.

“Anna! You’re bewitched! Snap out of it! It’s me, Eric!”

She kicked him in the abdomen, sending him careening back into the mud. The mud and iron deposits in the water made his hand slick and the grip on his sword was unsteady. Anna swung at the weapon, sending it flying into the misty void.

She stood above him with her axe raised above her head.

“Anna, wait! Stop!!”

Air filled the space between bone and flesh as her arms rose into the sky.

And escaped with the fall of steel.

Anna buried the axe between his eyes and let his limp body fall into the mud where it slowly began to sink and become one with the iron.

She returned to the hill within the bog to find Elsa’s prone body laying in the dirt with an arrow erect in the air. She ran over and saw the nearly imperceptible rise and fall of Elsa’s chest. She fell to her knees and gently brought Elsa’s head into her lap.

“I’m here, Elsa. I’m here. Don’t worry, everything will be ok.”

Elsa’s eyes opened and she looked toward a glint in the ground. Anna followed her gaze and saw the ring she had dropped. Elsa’s hand stretched toward it, quivering in the air with a weakened strain. Anna reached over, picked the ring up, and placed it in Elsa’s hand.

“Here. Your freedom. It’s yours. You can do what you want now! You’re not bound to anyone anymore.”

Elsa held the ring toward the sky, letting the rising sun bounce off its tarnished surface. Her breathing had slowed to a crawl.

She took Anna’s hand and placed the ring on her finger.

“Wait… What are you—”

Elsa placed her hand against Anna’s cheek. The cool silver brushed against her skin and wiped mud and tears from her face.

“Dream of me… and maybe I’ll answer…”

Anna felt one last breath leave Elsa’s lips as they shared their first and final kiss.

~~~