#and then will marble nest again

[soldier-poet-king]

Thought about one (1) thing very briefly and now I'm Pining Again. Hate this for me.

[bachelorsees]

The Marble Nest: Daniil & religion (likely Russian Orthodox) (2/2)

[vorakh]

disco elysium dlc that is just unpleasant and somehow worse than the main game marble nest style

[vvelegrin]

he's just like me fr fr

[ms0milk]

𝟏𝟔 | 𝐇𝐞𝐦 𝐊𝐢𝐬𝐬

ー✧ prince!bakugou x royal guard!reader

"This is so much worse than fury, and you rip your hand away from his to take a step back. You didn’t mean to. Bakugou stares like a dragonslayer, heartbroken."

cw blatantly suggestive, an accidental kiss and the panic that follows. bkg doesn't know why he's been looking for you. you couldn't be angry about it if you tried. laughter, bite marks, magic, a warm hiding spot. 8.1k

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A slap across the face and the spatter of blood that follows in an arc across fine rugs. Bakugou bleeds when he tries not to think of you. You are too easy to be with and too difficult to find.

Your prince and fragments of rehearsal fineries that you would beam at if you appeared in this frigid foyer– which he knows only because you’ve done nothing but smile at him for seven cursed days– storms towards warmer hallways. There’s nothing for it but to track you down. He wakes up and you are not outside his door. He eats and meets and eats again and you do not materialize behind him or emerge from shadowed corners to brandish a weapon when unpleasant lords are unpleasant. Are you still following orders or are you finally sick of him?

Bakugou pretends he is not walking quickly. A maid has pointed him in your direction. The waitstaff here has no particular affinity for either of you, so they’ve tried their hardest to answer his questions this week and be rid of Alderans for the day. After all, once he finds you he doesn’t bother anyone else until dawn.

Find is a strong word, the maid thinks as she chews a dry lip. You don’t seem to be hiding from him.

It's the busiest morning, second only to tomorrow’s actual ball, and Bakugou has spent the whole of it in dress fittings and board meetings and appetizer tastings. He was meant to rehearse the first waltz with Fuyumi but for four days in a row she’s had her hands full with final adjustments to royal rosters and seating arrangements. The king is home afterall. And he does not dote on his daughter.

Bakugou turns up a second staircase once he arrives in the center castle and barks at a guard, stationed and startled, in the doorway where he emerges. Shinsou clutches his chest and stares at the imposing prince, heavy but silent.

“Boo. You seen my captain?” Bakugou only half-waits for a response from the apprentice before following his intuition to the left. You like to hide in odd places.

“Yeah,” Shinsou breathes and finds his position again, “carrying her lunch to the catwalks.”

Bakugou grins and hopes you can feel him wherever you are, rolling his eyes.

She was in common clothes– I think, headed towards the throne room.

Haven’t seen her, sir.

Your Alderan? It’s freezing, she should request a jacket from the supply corps.

Five days ago he found you rehousing spiders in the rafters of the greenhouse much to the chagrin of delicate flowers. Two days ago he finally spotted you among a dozen soldiers all helping the blacksmith resilver the inlay of the soldier quarter’s door. Yes, he’d told you to leave his babysitting to Kirishima but he didn’t expect you to listen.

Yesterday, Bakugou caught you wandering through the ninth-story walkways, the walkways sculpted onto the side of the castle like wasp nests where the archers hide. Your fingers gripped the hem of your padded tunic, red with cold, and your back pressed flat to the white castle marble even as you craned to gaze the city and sea over the edge of the balustrade.

Your prince almost screamed when he glanced out one of ten thousand pale windows in his search when instead of the depressing gray sky, it was your braids whipping in the wind outside, several stories higher in the air than he would have liked you.

“Eyes!” He jerked the window open and stuck out his head. 

“The marble is too smooth Highness, please stay inside.”

White pointelle curtains rattled on their rods with the ferocity of the afternoon wind. “Come now,” he’d barked. He swallowed a roar to keep from startling you off the wall. You turned from the view towards his outstretched hand and half a golden body out the little window, and smiled.

You smiled from the cobwebs when he asked you what the fuck you were doing in blue begonias. You smiled at him among the crowd when he mimed flexing from the gallery to mock the blacksmith. You smiled when he caught you practicing sword forms for bored children and again when he and Kirishima joined in. You smiled without thought and he warmed at the sight of it. He laughed.

He laughed when the florist shrieked over a clutch of spider eggs and he laughed when you hammered Aizawa’s door crooked in your distraction. He laughed when Kaminari tried to teach you to juggle apples in potion storage, and very softly he laughed when he found you asleep beside proofing ovens.

The castle’s vanity seeps into every orifice, it bleeds from the seamless walls and into seed-sized crannies. Family portraits, royal crests, kingdom’s colors, wards against death written in old Takoban like they think this is the only kingdom on the continent where people might live forever. Superstition and agitation nick the Alderan like thorns through cold blue hallways. He itches for forests. On the third floor of the East Wing there is a great open gallery. It presides over the grand staircase of the castle’s entrance so that an invading army couldn’t so much as piss over the threshold before the legion of soldiers that fit upstairs fired off their arrows.

It was only a matter of time before you found yourself a roost here, warmaster.

He knows where you are. He can hear the king shouting from an open door downstairs and crosses the entrance gallery, bathed in warm sunlight from its volley of windows. It takes him exactly as long to walk it as it takes stained glass heat to pink his shoulders and with a perfect golden hue he dips under a doorway to find you perched at the lip of a ledge. You’re always about to fucking fall off something.

You sit cross-legged behind a black railing, picking at the cup of fruit beside you. Your hair is getting longer, wilder, and your braids tumble with white ribbons as you follow the scene below. Two stories below the ballroom is awash in afternoon light and hundreds of potential floral arrangements with the king dead in the middle, roaring at artisans. Prince Natsuo is slightly behind him and his neck is an agitated red. You pop a berry in your mouth.

You were always going to love the catwalks– the thin system above important rooms that servants use to gauge crowds and light the tall candles. All of tomorrow it’ll be crawling with footmen and today it looks like it’s already been dusted in preparation, although it’s not meant to be seen. You sit comfortably in its shadows and watch.

Tension melts from his veins when he finds you and nothing replaces it, so Bakugou isn’t quite sure what he’s thinking when he slips inside to be closer. Jeanist taught him too, he can be quiet. You wipe juice from your lip with your thumbs and polish it with a lick. Your fingertips are purple. You run them through your hair to push the braids behind your shoulders and focus again on the agitated king and his crying arachnophobic florists.

“You stare like the best of ‘em,” Bakugou whispers as he drops behind you and cups a hand over your mouth in case you make a startled sound, although, you react before he actually finishes the thought or announces himself, and jerk forward to catch his gentle hand with your teeth.

King, prince, artisan, maids, seagulls, and dustbunnies pause their meeting to agree that a grunt did in fact come from the chandeliers and that they aren’t insane, before continuing their jury over the fate of the party decorations. A whiff of caramel is the only thing that keeps you from breaking the hand with your bite and just as quickly as you attempt to reveal the intruder through pain, you swing your arm around to cover the prince’s mouth before he gives away your position with a yelp or fireblast. The momentum flattens you both.

Maybe one day Bakugou will remember that you are filled with the same fire that he is, before trying to bother you. When did the urge to bother you even occur to him? Both of you, square on your backs to hide properly in shadows, are close enough for your hand to still be firmly planted over his face like a muzzle. He smiles first this time. You smell like blackberries.

Your prince wires his jaw shut when he laughs in the shadows to keep from kissing your palm. In the seconds that the king and his entourage fall silent, Bakugou can only just barely contain huffs from his nostrils and the wet at the corners of his eyes. You stare like always and he must have melted fast enough because horror and apologies haven’t tumbled out of you yet. His dragon’s nails have gotten longer. Loose and wild hairs frame the face he only ever knew as perfectly kempt and unreadable. He cannot stop finding new things to notice here on the itchy rug beside you and he’s grateful you have only covered his mouth because his firebrand eyes gleam when you succumb to your own smile. Immediately you hide it behind your own free hand to stay quiet and the pair of you swallow stupid mirth in the dark.

Where did his anger go? “Ow,” the prince rasps when he’s collected himself and pulls your hand into his.

“Excuse me, Highness,” you whisper back. Your smile still rattles him like a blow to the side of the head. What the fuck is it about you that makes his pulse drum? Bakugou rolls onto his back. If you were sick of him you probably wouldn’t lay so close.

He tilts his gaze back to you, “What are you doing up here?”

Watching, you mouth like you’re signaling him to shut up. You pull your hand away from his and look over your shoulder towards the ledge where roars and curses roll up from the king like crashing waves.

“Why?”

It’s as close as Bakugou has ever seen you come to rolling your eyes. You blink at him and press forward. Something horribly soft started to grow the night you helped him carry drunk friends to bed. Something like rot. It eats away at the strongest parts of him, the parts of him that are poised and beautiful and ready for war. It’s eating you too. The strongest parts of you that are silent and obedient and deadly.

You drag your body across the floor to be closer to him– so much closer– so close that your thigh practically drapes over his and you cup your hand to his ear so you can whisper an answer that he can’t even focus long enough to hear. Maybe the rot started earlier. Maybe he should never have picked a fight with you.

A sudden scream flies up from the ballroom and Bakugou reacts before you do, less to offer protection and more because he knows you’ll launch right off the walkway if he doesn’t hold you down, but still his hold is protective when the scream is followed by a pillar of white orange fire that flies high and soots crystals in the chandelier. It’s brief and scalding like a geyser and you are not strong enough to protest your prince tucking all of you under his chest in the interim. You smell like home, like forests like moss. The scent of the sea is finally falling out of your hair.

“In what world is this my responsibility?” the king seethes. His drop in volume is menacing and it echoes violently in the empty room, “pick your own fucking flowers, I have work to do.”

The ballroom doors are not meant to be closed or opened with such force and they scream louder than he can when he burns his way through, leaving the prince and his artisans in the cold and terrible hall. A ball in Takoba is an oxymoron. A malicious idea. Bakugou leans back on his arm to release you and sits up to watch Natsuo console his workers. The eldest Takoban prince wears patience well. Whose idea was this party? The same person who sent for Enji? Belligerent. Bakugou hasn’t seen the queen in weeks.

He grumbles before he turns to look at you, “Missed what you said.” But when he does finally look, you are so much Alderan that the cold of Takoba falls off his shoulders like frost. Maybe that’s why he’s been searching for you. The fire that only a life in his castle could stoke, ravages the blacks of your eyes. Even though you are silent, he knows what you’re thinking.

“Down girl,” he grins and kicks his legs out from under him to settle more comfortably. Flowers below are picked in whispered consensus and the room empties under your glare. The sun has started to set. The far wall of the ballroom is, in classic Takoban fashion, one long series of windows taller than most houses and the sea shines behind it in a trick of rolling warm shapes like smoke from a fireplace. You both linger at the edge of the shadows up on high. Bakugou watches you shamelessly.

“I will not attack the king.”

“Who’re you trying to convince?”

You think for a few seconds and turn to him with an awkwardly soft look that crackles into a smile too easily for you to be the same girl who grew up learning how to kill in his castle. Everything you do but fight is bizarre. Like blue fire, he cannot make himself look away from you.

“What’ll you do at the ball?”

“What do you mean?” The ballroom is empty so there’s no need to whisper but neither of you know how to talk to the other.

Bakugou cocks his head and doesn’t need to hope you know when he rolls his eyes anymore because he can finally do it in front of you. He crosses his arms, “Do you dance? I can’t think of anything else to keep you distracted enough to avoid assassination.”

But you are already distracted by something and he can see the moment you stop listening to him talk. All the better, he thinks. He might have just asked you to dance with him.

“Your hand Highness, I– mers–” and you reach forward to take up his bitten fist like touching him is suddenly the easiest thing in the world. Your fingertips are ice-cold. The rot spreads. “You startled me, I’m so sorry.”

Now Bakugou isn’t listening. You rub at the divots your teeth left in the side of his palm and press them like imperfections in pie dough. Your hands are so much more slender than his. So much rougher. Do you feel it too? The death of fury? How the ocean slowly laps at the bonfire until wood can no longer fight back? Do you remember the library like he does? He wants more than anything to sit in a nook and read for a thousand years in recovery from this trip. Is it a safe place for you, or has he ruined it? Do you miss home like he does? Or has he ruined that too?

“No. I’m sorry,” he admits before thinking. He startled you after all, but immediately he is silent with realization; breath holds in his lungs. Fuck, that’s not– you asked him so clearly not to do that. Is he incapable of leaving you with anything? You watch his fingers twitch for a moment like you can feel his heartbeat there and then look up at him and stare. He’s not sorry for sneaking up on you at all. That’s not what he meant.

Eyes was an apt nickname, if not a little mean. Bakugou has never envied telepaths before. How ignorant he was, to think of you as the bloody little girl in a velvet carriage. You hold his hand now with just as much strength as you did all those years ago; obviously it was strength and not desperation. You did not hang laundry to thank him. You did not catch fruit to thank him. You didn’t learn to fight the rain or windows or soldiers or the sea for your prince. It was only him, making magic for you.

“Never thought I’d hear a sheep apologize to the sheepdog.”

He startles a little, just a slight widening of his eyes, because you hold his hand up to see the ring of teeth clearly and cover your chuckle with the tips of your fingers.

“Callin me a sheep?”

“You are biteable like one.”

Do you know what you’re doing? Bakugou wonders as his own smile escapes the confines of horror. He snatches his hand back and leans against the black iron railing to face you. Quick wit, quicker draw, why do you hide such pleasant things under such a ferocious– the Alderan blinks and his face falls for half a second again in realization.

You blink back because you cannot read his mind, “Are you okay, sir?”

The same fire. If he stopped and thought for a single fucking second you wouldn’t have been the enigma protecting his home. You would have been a girl that he wanted very much, to talk to in his ceaseless boredom. He melts into a smile again and this time his teeth glint, “Don’t call me that.”

Winter really has arrived; the sun sets faster with each second and soon the ballroom below is a great orange pool. He was meant to rehearse the opening waltz today and the thought of you watching him, concealed, makes his ears hot. Florals drift up and up from their vases where they’re warmed in afternoon light.

You cross your legs and turn too, so that the prince isn’t just staring at a profile. “Are you looking forward to it?”

“To what?”

“The ball, Highness. Are they fun?”

“You’ve attended balls,” he grunts and scans his memory for the last party thrown in Aldera, although you don’t appear in the pictures his brain conjures up. “They’re fine. Loud.”

You nod. There are ten-thousand things he could think to ask you and a hundred more questions he knows that the answers will spur but sitting beside you in the dark without a threat to either of your lives is new and overwhelming. Your wild hair makes wild shapes.

“Fuyumi wants to dress you up.”

You don’t find that as funny as he does and you’re gawking when you turn from the view of the ballroom to look at him. He thinks you aren’t afraid of him– he hopes– but he knows you still won’t say what you long to for fear of sounding unprofessional. He’ll have to work on that.

“She gave up on Ochako years ago.”

“Is it a gown?”

“Takoban,” he rests his head on the metal too, enjoying all the scandalized expressions your pretty lips make, “frilly lace, the works.”

You consider this for a moment and make the shape of his name before swallowing it. One more time, “I see.” And you turn back away to think some more, about how to phrase something unprofessional. He’s teasing, he hasn’t seen the damn thing but for a moment your prince can see you so clearly, sewn tight into a dress made of sealace. You try to speak again, fail, and lean closer. Your breath is sweet from fruit and your bowl is empty behind you.

“I can’t wear blue for another second, Highness, I’ll hurl the tailor into the sea.”

Bakugou spits over the railing in amusement and huffs, a subdued panic, when he crosses his arms again.

“Highness please,” you chuckle, “I’ll get violent,” and you smile under the frown, which just serves to make you look even more like a dragon– like you’ll make good on your word– and less like an obedient footsoldier. How do you do it? What are you doing to him? Bakugou can only stare with a rough affection because if he tried to speak right now something might come out.

You run a hand back through your braids to settle them where you like them to lay. It’s draconic, regal, every way you sit perch and glare from the clearest part of any room. His mother calls it King’s Corner, or the Seat of the Queen, that perfect spot where you can see everything important without showing your back to a soul. That’s always where he finds you. That’s your secret. He pinches an ear between his knuckles to try and cool it down.

“Takoba’s lucky you aren’t a mage,” he manages. He has to look away to say it but he does manage, “should thank you for it.”

“I did try,” you don’t need to manage back. Proximity to him isn’t eating you alive. “And I don’t work for thank yous, thank you very much.”

When Bakugou was ten years old he celebrated his birthday in a parlor with boughs of cherry blossoms and sweets for which he never really had an appetite. He was doted on and he worked hard to deserve it so that anything he wanted to do that day, and any birthday thereafter, was his. You were not celebrated with cake. He wouldn’t know until years later that his mother brought you gifts and good food on your birthday because he could find you every day of the year at work somewhere in his castle. You did not fall ill, you did not fail, and on his birthday you, nine years old, practiced forms in the paths between spring orchards just downwind from the parlor. Jeanist was seated inside with him among the family’s guests. No appetite for cake. Bakugou only celebrated ten birthdays and you have never stopped breaking his heart.

“Tried what?”

You ruffle your own hair so you don’t have to look at him either because at least one thing embarrasses you. “Magic.”

“Magic.”

“It’s not funny,” you chirp at his flat tone and round on him with your legs crossed. He leans back when your voice comes out a bit louder than expected and his bitten fist aches when it clenches. “I would copy you.”

The rot makes him weak and useless and susceptible to your stare, but the rot makes you fearless.

“I used to watch you studying– when we were really little– when we were both supposed to be eating with everyone in the Hall. You used to,” you look briefly to your side like someone important might be watching you acting so casually and it dims that fire he needs in your eyes.

“Used to what?” he smiles. He knows you watched him, you must know that too. Finish, please finish your story, he wants to hear your voice tell you more about home.

“Used to watch you flail your chubby arms until sparks came out.”

When Bakugou laughs this time he tries not to hold anything back, if only just to douse you in oil and keep the fire alight. Fucking please, just talk.

“I used to try every night too!–” you laugh, slightly louder, “– wind up my arms tight and spin around my room after curfew– disturb the horses– pretend to be a dragon.”

“Your runty prince looked like a dragon?”

You grin, “My runty prince taught himself magic, didn’t he? What’s wrong with wanting to breathe a little fire?”

“I don’t breathe fire, dumbass.”

“You still make miracles. Ever seen a dragon?”

“Of course I have.”

“Have you ever sheltered from a spray of ethereal flames?”

He frowns and smirks, confused, as if to ask, why have you? And the flint tinder in the bright part of your eyes sparks white hot.

“Melting, crushing, it’s completely inescapable without a barrier mage,” you pull your knee up with a bit of theatrics and lean because with everything inside of you except for actual realization, you want him to listen too. “Pink and red, blue, green golden and white hot. Highness, has no one ever told you how beautiful your magic is? You make magic like a dragon, who wouldn’t want a blessing like that?”

No one would want this cursed fucking magic that prickles his palms with sweat in the dark for no other reason than because you are looking at him, when all he wanted was– he just wanted to see you– watch you, he didn’t need you to watch him back and now the fire of Aldera he keeps trying to warm beside will blast him all the way to the wick. This is the flattery he hears so much about from his blushing mother.

“‘s not special. My magic maims people.”

“So do I.”

He frowns deeper, “Not the same.”

“I worked hard to maim people, it’s not the same because what I do isn’t beautiful.”

“That’s not–” he doesn’t think that. Don’t think that he thinks that, “–work isn’t beautiful. War isn’t beautiful.”

“You’ve never seen war. Highness you make–”

“Fuck off,” he tosses at you like it’s ever worked before.

“I won’t.”

“Eyes–”

“– it’s beautiful.”

“I make bombs.”

“You make starfall.”

Bakugou stares. Rough affection, yeah right, he’s melting.

You fall back on your hips when you realize you’ve broken clear through the confines of professionalism and the embarrassment sets in quickly. Eyes dart sideways, chest and knees turn. Your embarrassment is a subtle grip on fraying rugs. What do you do to your heart to make it pull so strong in every direction? Is it a spell? One that makes him quiet and happy to wait for his silent guard to speak again. This must be how the queen feels. You turn fully back to the rising orange light of the ballroom below and your lips part before any words are actually ready to come out.

The first time you try to speak, he doesn’t hear you. Bakugou traces the path between your shiny scars with his gaze. One below your ear to the one at your eyebrow and down again, past an old cut in your cheek. You couldn’t douse the forest fire behind those lashes if you tried. Not under orders or oath. Not from embarrassment.

“What does it feel like?” You whisper, looking a great distance down past abandoned flowers.

Both of you have fallen closer to each other in the waves of your nothing conversation, so much so that your shoulders would press together if the rot just ate away a little bit more. Bakugou’s heart sinks into the ballroom. It plummets like a drowned man.

“Gimme your hand.”

This is a fucking mistake, but all your prince can see is the last time pure joy ever sailed across your face in an evening spent around your wonderful campfire. He caused and extinguished it with one spark thrown into your cupped palms, the last time you ever tried to make magic. “I won’t hurt you,” he rumbles even though it kills him to look at you now.

Your side of the catwalk begins to glow at the lips because the sun has set far enough to climb walls towards the ceiling. You glow with it. Pink in a thousand places, ears and throat, lips, because you’re thinking too hard about what it is to be a proper guard and how much it is probably not raising your voice to delight in magic that does not belong to you. The corners of your mouth tremble. Who was it that told you you talk too much?

“Is that an order?”

“No.” Of course not.

You study the details of the itchy rug for too long, in the new light at its edge. Bakugou used to hate hiding up here in the cold but it was the only place the idiot children his mother sent him here to entertain couldn’t find him. He couldn’t be happier now, now that no one but you can see just how hard he flounders without fury.

Your hips swivel back towards him in precise decision then you fold your knees neatly underneath them to get closer. A few white ribbons in your hair seem to catch fire as the sunlight climbs higher and the sun dips lower out an infinite distance. Every mile it is far, is a mile Bakugou can feel in measures of chill. If Aldera is at the center of the world, Takoba is the outer edge and you remind him just how blessed he is when his hand melts at your Alderan touch. You reach and pull both his fists into the space between your bodies from where they lingered in the air.

“Yes sir.”

“Don’t,” he breathes, watching all the shapes your fingers can make together. He’s a prince, this is ridiculous. He sits up tall and stretches his arms out so you don’t need to reach so far, and makes a safe place for your strong fingers, those calluses and scars, to rest atop his open palms.

“Don’t call me sir.”

You are looking at him and considering something about his face, or his words, who knows– one of your eyebrows twitches in decision. It’s remarkable how steady your heads are. You are sure of everything you do even when it’s destructive and disruptive and punishable by death.

Laid out plainly like this and stiller than either of you have ever been together, your fingers and wrists, your palms, even your fingernails are so much more delicate than his. Like if he closed his golden fists, you’d disappear. Compared to the princess you have the hands of a farmer, but not a single thought– past how each other part of your body might look beside his– is allowed to rattle through his head when you watch him, straight ahead, and smile.

“Okay.”

He clears his throat. He’s a mage and magic is easy. He’s not going to set off the sweat on the back of his neck. “Don’t be nervous,” Bakugou grumbles to the dark.

You grin and ghost a thumb over the warmth and damp of his open palm, “Who are you trying to convince?”

“It’s this stupid fucking magic,” he bites. A bead of sweat drips through his knuckles onto the floor and if he’s not careful he might take out half the castle. Prince and apprentice assassinate world’s most fucked up royal family– he can already see the dossier sitting pretty on his mother’s desk.

You’re suddenly in a wonderful mood and you sit up slightly at the beginnings of warmth under your fingertips. He can hear your knees squeak and count your heartbeats in the veins of your wrist that his own fingertips reach. Those eyes again– always your eyes. They’re colored like any normal pair anyone might ever see but he’s one of few people who watch the dragons. You must have watched them too, too long, for your gaze to become so similar.

It feels like any other second of Bakugou’s life. Setting fire to own hands and measuring the strength of his magic in reds and whites. It’s an ordinary moment for many whole seconds until your prince follows the beginnings of light up from his palms, to your starving and unabashed awe. The sparks bubble up as hungry fish would in a pond, and then jump, spit, between your fingers like cooking oil. Your touch is so gentle at first. You train and measure your own skill every day so that Jeanist’s recruits don’t lose varied limbs, but as your excitement wells up you spill a bit from your seams. You rise slightly higher and give him more weight to hold and your prince dissolves into a smile.

Four hands rest inside one another and fire from the dragons illuminates your hiding place.

“Highness,” you whisper and startle a thousand times at every new color Bakugou ignites between your fingers. You’re fully up on your knees now having risen higher and higher to watch his magic as best you can and Bakugou sits on the floor beneath you, rotting.

“Highness what,” he whispers back.

You abandon the thought and jump when a green sparkler squeals through the air between you, and when your prince thinks to pull away your fingers are already wrapped tight around every part of him you can manage. He could have done this for you a thousand times; your joy was always this simple, raw, and unjealous. Purple and gold soar across the highs of your cheeks and hug your jaw. It’s all he can bear, to love this smile and to know that his sweat is plastered across your hands and soaked through the cuff of your sleeves, and so he freezes with the realization and embarrassment and with your last words.

“Highness, thank you.”

He doesn’t have the wherewithal to speak yet. The smile he loves. The magic dies with his concentration and as the sun finally crests your walkway for its fleeting moments of warmth, Bakugou tries to muster something like confidence because you’re looking at him with a softness he didn’t realize you had. Is it overwhelming because he knows you could kill him? Maybe it’s because he’s never wanted to kiss anyone before.

Bakugou’s pomegranate eyes dart up to you, saying goodbye to the last of the light and something like sugar scalds his throat. That new thought is fleeting because your golden prince drains the life from it like a butchered animal– gods, can’t he leave you with anything?

“Told you I don’t bite,” he grins and swallows the last selfish thought to death, “that’s your job right?”

You beam before bursting into deep and hungry laughter in the sun-soaked air above him. Whatever. Bakugou supports you as you cling to his arms and struggle to stay upright in your laughter. You’re overflowing. He smiles and huffs, he can’t help that. He can’t help goosebumps either but you don’t need to know about those and he’ll never utter a word. He still needs to meet the dressmaker for alterations and finalize the appetizers, and make sure the kitchens send dinner to your door.

“Highness,” you breathe like a bird and try to collect yourself enough to stop laughing. You plop back onto your hips, “Highness–”

“Highness Highness,” he taunts. The sound of it will make his ears bleed. Bakugou palms for a handkerchief with one hand and lets you hold his other. You cling to the bite you left there. Your legs overlap. “This is ridiculous,” he chuckles when your joy almost folds you in half, “A real joke might kill you.”

“Let it,” you breathe, canines twinkling, and dip slightly closer, laughing, to press your lips to his.

It’s so easy, you don’t mean to. You are lightheaded in the warmth of the sunset, magic trembles across your sensitive skin and you only want to be closer. Just close enough to bury yourself in that place that is so safe and that fills you with such a horrible comfortable joy–

As Bakugou reaches inside his tunic for something you lean too close. Your chest falls over his lap before either of you remembers that it shouldn’t be like this, that there are a thousand other places your prince belongs and ten thousand rules you have engraved on the meat of your skull to keep comfort at bay. It’s so warm with your eyes closed and his smile tastes like cinnamon. He doesn’t pull away.

You only realize what’s happened after that smile falls dead against your lips. Venom and rage betray a soft exterior. He’s soft against your touch. He’s soft like he’s never fought a day in his life. Your hands hold his beautiful golden head right where you need it and in the quiet, your eyes open to blinding and beautiful sunlight.

A touch is all you wanted, gods know why– they’ll never tell you– and you draw your chin back an inch to breathe. Bakugou is staring violently and his eyes are more like targets now than cherry pits. Eyebrows wider, higher, than the sky, he stares like his heart has stopped. What happened? He doesn’t look like anyone but himself anymore. You freeze.

Prince Bakugou is staring at you until he’s not, on the itchy rug in the sunset of the great black catwalks, until his eyes close and he kisses you back. Soft, closed lips brush so hot they’ll leave a mark, they’ll brand you and everyone will know what you did. The doom spreads quickly. You have never been so graceless in your life as you are now, falling backwards out of his warmth and stumbling onto your feet. He’s still on the ground and you only know he is holding you because sweat drips from the fingers of yours that he clutches.

“Wait,” he gasps. This is so much worse than fury, and you rip your hand away from his to take a step back. You didn’t mean to. Bakugou stares like a dragonslayer, heartbroken.

You run. Before you can breathe or be reasoned with, before you hear him call your name, you turn and dash through the back doorway alone. If this were Aldera, where would you hide? The frozen air of the seashell castle whispers straight through your flesh as you, sprinting, stumble your way past the castle’s vanity. There is a nook in the wall of the principal staircase where only Jeanist can find you. There is a seat on a high window in the Great Hall that you can reach with a library ladder. There are two tiny battlements in the east corner of your queen’s castle without a real way to get inside and on any day but a lightning storm, you can wedge a hunting knife in loose mortar and climb the masonry over its edge to lay and nap and stargaze at the tallest point of the most beautiful kingdom. An ant couldn’t hide in Takoba. There’s not one dark seam for the bugs.

A guard barely moves in time to avoid being crushed under your boots because fuck this horrible waterlogged place. The ocean drips out of your ears like tears from a seashell, drop by drop because you picked a fight with the goddess and thought yourself lucky to live before you realized she had made a home for herself inside your heart. Now you laugh with your prince and you touch him happily and you spar with him and hold nothing back and you tell him how much his magic helped you to live.

Resisting the urge to kill him, fighting to win Mitsuki’s favor, the threat of blue fire and a mage you doused in the sea, it was all so much easier than this. It could have been that easy forever, what were you thinking?

“Y/n!”

You weren’t, that’s what being too content gets you.

When Bakugou calls your name again his voice cracks because you are so much faster than he is at slipping through corridors. There is nowhere to hide in this awful country. Why are you running? If you were just slightly calmer you might have known where you were but white windows will always look like white windows and Bakugou is not so slow that you can ever really outrun him.

You duck under a low wall and its hanging tapestry and emerge on the other side at the edge of a stretch of empty hall. Setting sunlight pours past ten silver vases and someone left a window open, so lace curtains flow around a pedestal with its silvery prize in the center. 

“Y/n, please.”

Agony. This isn’t what you want. When Bakugou calls to you one last time you have no choice but to face him because he has never asked for anything before, and when you do, tears drip off the highest parts of your cheeks.

He lets the tapestry fall over his shoulder and stops at the front of the long, long room. Neither of you speak for an eternity besides the sound of breath being caught again, him at the edge and you in the center being swayed by cold air. His shaggy hair has been pushed back too many times in his rush to follow you and his eyes glow unobstructed. Bakugou’s broad shoulders fit too perfectly into his baubled tunic. It’s easier to watch him than to think.

When he leans forward, you step back, and he pauses like you might start sprinting again.

He doesn’t realize there’s something rotten stuck in the depths of your throat that keeps you from straying too far.

“I–”

“Don’t be sorry,” he begs, reading your mind. He’s never looked like this once in his whole life. He fell a step closer in his panic and when you do not run, his fists unclench from where they draw blood at his sides. “Don’t cry.”

You shake your head and he cautions another step. How can you ever go home now? How much longer can you survive here? The thought is suddenly and immediately overwhelming and Bakugou freezes again when you drop your head into your hands. It’s too much, you can’t believe how badly you want to hate him again and how much easier it would be than this.

“Y/n,” he whispers. His voice is candled ash. You know exactly how close he is even with your eyes closed because Alderan fire is unmistakable and you know too that he’s giving you a moment to escape.

“I didn’t mean to.”

Prince Bakugou’s magic-worn hands reach up from where he wires them and you snatch them both, and all their kiln-fired warmth, out of the air before he can touch you like you might break the first finger that moves. You don’t mean to bare your teeth either, you hope you aren’t, if you are he doesn’t care. Your prince stands above you, brows knit and eyes stupid with worry.

“Forget,” you plead in whispers.

He pulls your grip higher so that he can rest his palms under your ears. You aren’t doing anything but hanging from him. He moves easily because you do not stop him and he brushes his thumbs over stray hairs and their wild shapes. Silence is worse than his rage, but he’s trembling and his eyes never once look away from yours. He’s studying, contemplating something that continues to break his heart.

“Highness.”

Bakugou cups your jaw like it might bruise and tilts your head up just enough to kiss you. He could not care less about broken fingers.

His lips quiver and press just once to yours before pulling back, reconsidering, and dipping into you again. Your hold on his hands and his hands at your throat are melting, shaking, sweating. His chest swells above yours. You melt with him because you have lost your mind and push against the body you know can hold you. It can pull you from a current and throw you over its shoulder. Bakugou can lift you in strong arms, he can make you laugh until not even an order could compose you at your station.

You part your lips to be closer. He tangles his fingers in your braids so that you can take whatever you want. Your prince tastes like his favorite pastries, and Alderan peaches, and gold, he tastes like he’s fireproof.

Wet drips from your bottom lip in the mess of it all, before Bakugou tilts your chin in strong hands to catch what he’s missed. The slick of your tongues, a clicking of teeth, you want to eat him whole. He’s going to devour you.

He holds your face now to move you as he’d like– four feet tripping over each other to find a wall– and you grip at the patterns on his tunic between stolen breaths and steps stumbled backwards. Magic crackles where he touches you like he can’t control himself. His voice comes out with his gasps in growls because there is too much and nothing to say. You have forgotten apologies.

“Your hands” he breathes between nips for the softest warm parts of you, “cold.”

“The window–” but he kisses you again before you can finish. His hands are shaking, he is a starving dog and still he holds you like you’re going to break. You terrify him.

How long have you wanted this? There’s not enough focus left for your brain to turn its wheel and if there was you wouldn’t have pulled him so close. You suckle at his lower lip because his heartbeat tastes like home and he lets you dip inside again when you’ve had your fill. He fills you with himself in return. Wet, soft against you. It’s clumsier than sparring, and so much warmer.

At the end of cold hallways, where servants bustle and where there is still work to be done, the guard who barely survived your warpath ducks out from under the tapestry. He only wanted to check you were okay, but in the almost empty hallway Shinsou’s hand falls slack and his baton slips from it. It rings out against white marble and your heart stops beating at the same time as your prince. Your wheel groans in its new turning. The guard stares and you bristle.

You do not hear what Bakugou says in your panic but he does not let you go so easily this time. You will run, you’ll find somewhere to hide in this prison because that is your job and no one has ever done it better than you and there you will figure out what to do.

The last breath you take before darting away is shared in the sunlight with your prince, and just as you tip in a hint of escape Bakugou cups your cheeks one last time to keep you still. Your claws jump immediately back around his. He stares. His eyes are a study over every scar and warm flush, the violence of your sudden caught fear, even the parts squished and wrinkled in his hold. His magic vibrates unlit through your skin for one more second just one more second he takes to look and then he whispers,

“Okay.”

You take off the moment he releases you to deal with the apprentice and slip as best you can around a blue-tiled corner. Seedsized carvings raise their axes and little white waves fall. Sparks fight the chill on your jaw.

You forgo the seaside for fear of worrying your prince again. Manure pools around your pretty white boots because in the stables, horses don’t mind if you need to cry. The ocean swallows the last of the sun and you are suddenly a child again rinsing the blood from her face and into the hay and finding a dark place to hide. Every step is labor. Agitated white stallions complain to you in a line about their dinner and restlessness, and about chickens roosting inside uninvited, and about the woman who has sat here for hours and done nothing to help them.

The port city of Takoba shimmers at twilight under the hill that the stable looks out on. Its waters are silver and beg you to join them on all sides from their great distance. They have the advantage as you turn your back to the view.

When you amble towards the last empty stall, a figure drowning in blue is perched on a bed of straw. She is sickly beautiful and she stares like she hates everything she gazes upon.

“Majesty,” you startle and forget to take a knee.

Where you tread carefully in borrowed clothes, the Takoban Queen is happy to ruin her gown sitting up to her hips in straw beside a very plain horse. She runs a brush over the sheen of its black mane.

“Yes?” She sighs, defeated, until she turns to you and cocks her head like she might have expected someone else. Hundreds of translucent layers fall over themselves in her skirt like a flower and catch imaginary light for every inch that she moves. There is an ache so deep in your bones, chilled first then charred like dipping cold hands in hot water, you struggle to compose yourself. You cannot muster the question of why a queen might be hiding in the belly of her stables but you could guess.

“You were crying.”

“Please don’t tell Mitsuki.”

When will you be allowed to go home? The queen looks between her horse and the space you haunt above her, and pulls a second curry comb from the depths of her soft straw seat. “They’ll find you if you stand in the open like that.”

The day drags on like a dream you have made from picturebooks of Aldera and the man that you will never be free of, but queens don’t much mind if you need to cry either. You crumple into the spot she digs out for you in the straw and until it is too cold, the two of you sit quietly in shit together.

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[ghoul-slime]

Mushy May Day 9+10 - Warming Them Up + Quiet Nights (Aether/Dew)

Combining days 9+10 for a super short little drabble. Skipping day 11 because I'm out of town, but hopefully back Monday with another prompt combo! Thanks again @forlorn-crows for giving us Mushy May this year and @ghuleh-recs for the dividers!

Days 9 + 10: Warming Them Up + Quiet Nights, Aether/Dew, rated M, 374 words

It’s the dead of winter and the entire abbey grounds are deathly silent and blanketed in layers of heavy snow. Inside too, the sprawling ministry halls are dark and quiet with a deep cold that seeps into the stone walls and marble flooring. All of the ghouls lie hidden away, seeking refuge from the chill, chasing what warmth they can find in their nests. Or in each other.

Deep in the ghoul wing, Aether and Dew lie wrapped up in their massive nest of soft fabrics, fluffy pillows, and warm furs. They’d retreated just as the cold, dreary daylight began to fade, content in spending the rest of the night quietly pressed together behind closed doors.

Aether wraps his arms around Dew, burrowing under the blankets and absorbing the steady warmth emanating from the body of the little ghoul curled up beside him. A nest full of blankets and furs on a cold winter night was great, but a nest with a purring fire ghoul, heating up the space far better than any heater or fireplace was divine. There was a reason Aether considered winter to be his favorite season.

He presses a sleepy kiss to Dew’s temple, who answers by letting out a contented little chirp and snuggling his face into Aether’s chest. He feels selfish on nights like these, happy to have Dew all to himself, not only for his steady warmth, but because he loves getting to see this side of the normally fiery little ghoul. Like this, he’s sweet and pliant, happy to indulge Aether in soft kisses and aimless caresses. Content to cuddle the night away, just the two of them.

Eventually their soft touches and chaste kisses become more insistent. 

On cold winter nights like these, they make love under the blankets. Soft and slow, quiet except for the sound of their breath mingling. Hushed little pants and the quiet noise of the blankets rustling around them as they indulge unhurried in each other’s bodies.  

They don’t bother coming out for dinner, happy to stay hidden away together quietly. Instead they doze, waking throughout the night for more sleepy kisses and soft sex, clinging naked and warm under the covers while the snow piles up outside their window.

[hey-august]

It's not always a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake (Buggy x GN!reader)

Gif from monikanarnia

Description: Late one night you find Buggy in the kitchen growing increasingly distressed over dessert.

Word count: ~1.2k

A/N: One shot fluff with an established relationship. Gender neutral reader, no use of Y/N, pronouns, or physical descriptions. Based on OPLA buggy. Not beta read. Hope you like this! Let me know if you see any errors or typos. ♡

Warnings: Some light profanity, but that's about it!

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ✩ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Lured by the sounds of activity at a time when most of the ship was asleep, you peered into the kitchen and finally found the person you were looking for. Buggy was hunched over the center island, deeply focused on the cake in front of him. He finished spreading the frosting and stepped back to observe his work. The scowl on his face and annoyed muttering were clear signals that he wasn’t satisfied. Despite being an artist, cake decorating was not his usual medium and it showed. Based on the amount of flour on his vest, pants, bandana, and in his hair, baking was also not his forte. 

Buggy ran a knife along the top of the cake, attempting to smooth out the white frosting. Instead the sweet coating stuck to the knife and lifted up to expose the bare cake underneath, as if he had wounded the confection. Trying to hold in the anger that wanted to burst from his mouth, Buggy’s fists flew to his head and he turned in place, stomping on the floor. Shouting was guaranteed to wake someone up and Buggy did not need anyone to see the absolute failure in front of him.

His glare flitted between the marred cake and the knife still in his hand before he flung the offending utensil towards the other side of the kitchen. The resounding clang caused him to flinch. He hoped it wasn’t loud enough to attract attention. A few heavy moments later, Buggy sighed and leaned over the cake. From where you were, you couldn’t tell if the weight in his rounded shoulders was from anger or disappointment. But you knew Buggy well enough that he wouldn’t give up yet. And you were right. 

With a cautious hand, Buggy began tapping at the lumpy frosting, nudging it into place. His gentle, feather-light touches showed a level of restraint and artistry that could only rival Michaelangelo chipping away marble, intent at bringing out the beauty only his fingertips could find. Finally satisfied with the coverage, Buggy assessed his work again. Despite being slightly worse than it was before the frosting incident, he was afraid of making an irreparable mistake. There wasn’t any more flour or sugar left in the kitchen. This wasn’t the first cake he baked. Or the second. But this was the first one that was fluffy and edible. Maybe if he decorated the cake with other things, the streaky, lumpy, crumby coating wouldn’t stand out as much.

Buggy stalked around the kitchen, rummaging in the cabinets and digging through drawers, looking for ingredients that were worthy of garnishing his confection composition. His frustration grew with each cabinet and drawer he opened and slammed shut. When he finally ripped open the fridge door he was greeted with the perfect gems, signaling the end of his kitchen treasure hunt. His greedy pirate hands pulled out some ruby red cherries. Buggy gave them a quick rinse in the sink and popped one in his mouth, finding satisfaction in the sharp snap and sweet juice from the ripe fruit. 

Moments later, the fruit adorned the top perimeter of the cake, each one nested carefully into the frosting. Buggy stared thoughtfully at the cake as he fiddled with the last cherry, lightly rolling it on the table with his finger. With an air of hesitation, he placed the red orb in the center of the cake. No one else would second guess the placement, but the pirate clown was overly sensitive about anything that could be mocking the one feature he had trouble accepting about himself. A feature that you never shied away from. If anything, you adored it. And while he couldn’t love his own nose, knowing you did filled him with warmth. You always brought brightness and sunshine to his dark and twisted world.

As you watched Buggy stare at the finished product with an expression you couldn’t see clearly, your interest got the better of you. The kitchen door released a tattling creak when you tried to gain a better view of the kitchen show. Thankfully Buggy did not have his knives on hand, but the glare he threw at the entrance was sharp enough to sting. His face softened when he realized it was you, before hardening back into a scowl that was equal parts annoyed at being interrupted and embarrassed that you found him.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he chided, sending his hands over to push you out and close the door. Anticipating that he would do that, you ducked the flying appendages and slipped inside.

“I could say the same about you.” Buggy knew your comment was true. Despite being the captain, the kitchen was not his usual scene. “What are you up to anyways?”

Despite the innocent tone behind your question, the twinkling in your eyes told Buggy that you already knew the answer. You walked closer and looked at the cake, missing the wince that flashed on Buggy’s face. It looked alright, but it was not at all like he envisioned.

“It looks good. The cherries were a great idea,” you said in earnest.

“Don’t lie,” Buggy snipped. Agitation bristled in his body, feeling scratchy and uncomfortable. Every muscle was fighting the impulse to throw out the cake and act like he hadn’t wasted hours creating something so far below his usual standards. 

“It’s awful! A disgrace! The shitty frosting isn’t smooth and it’s full of crumbs. It’s too sweet and I used all the sugar so I can’t make more.” The tirade increased in pitch as he continued, the tension in his body constricting his throat. The frown on your face slowed his monologue.

“Are you serious? This looks like one of those cakes you buy at a high end patisserie in the fancy part of town. People pay a lot of money for rustic cakes and fresh fruit.” Flattery was always guaranteed to uplift Buggy when he was in a bad mood, but these were genuine compliments that you shared with such conviction and admiration. A flush crept across Buggy’s face and tickled his ears at the intensity and sincerity of your praise.

“O-of course! I knew that, I just wasn’t sure if it was your style.” Yeah, sure, that’s what he actually meant.

“So it’s for me?”

“Who else would I do this for?” He responded quickly, since you already knew the cake was yours.

“I was going to give it to you later, but you ruined the surprise,” Buggy continued, rolling his eyes in mock annoyance. He slid the cake towards you and finished with a surprisingly gentle, “happy birthday.”

Although he was supposed to be showering you with gifts on your birthday, the radiant smile you gave was definitely a gift to him. He couldn’t tell if he wanted to look away from the brightness or continue staring into the sun, in awe of the radiance.

“Thank you, I love it,” you said, the words heavy with appreciation. Buggy watched as you plucked the cherry from the center of the cake and popped it into your mouth with a wink, feeling as though his heart was replaced with a bumbling moth, fluttering everywhere and bumping into everything. It was probably drawn to your brilliance, just as he was.

[anakinskywalkerog]

My Very Soul (Chapter 34)

Anakin Skywalker x Jedi!Reader

Link to Chapter 33

Warnings: a bit of sad reader, a bit of angsty Anakin, FLUFF, clandestine love affair bullshit!! and a very subtle implied *you know* at the very end (rated teen as always)

Summary: Your training with Obi-Wan constitutes a new beginning; you and Anakin reckon with the fight you had after Felucia (WE HAVE NEW CLONE WARS ANAKIN GIFS TO USE I'm screaming)

Word Count: 4.2k

You felt the crisp, cool, morning air of the Temple hit your face like a bucket of water, as if the wind wanted to keep you awake and upright. You walked slowly through the hallways, focusing on your breathing, on the cold air, the hard marble beneath your feet, on anything but the whispered conversations you heard around you. Not heard—felt. You knew that the few Jedi you passed in the halls were not responsible for the accumulation of the voices in your head. This was just how it was for you, now—you couldn't help but pick up too much, like you were receiver that was too sensitive, picking up too many transmission signals.

It was easier to ignore the feel of all of the whispering voices than it was to ignore the pain you felt in your entire being. Walking through the Temple halls, even, felt like walking through thick, piling sand, your limbs aching. But you knew you mustn't focus on the pain—the pain of your grief, still so heavy, or the pain that twinged in your mind as you thought about the fight you'd had with Anakin last night—you mustn't let it consume you. You had work to do.

You felt horribly guilty for how you had shouted at Anakin the previous evening, how you had pushed him away, how you had told him to get out. Not that he had listened; he'd held you all through the night, and even after you'd calmed enough to dose, you still felt the guilt of it in your veins. So, when you'd awoken to the coruscanti light streaming in through the window slats, and you'd seen Anakin fast asleep, his peaceful, beautiful face finally at ease, you knew it wouldn't be right to wake him. You'd taken one last look at his face, admiring the shape of his jaw, his eyebrows slightly downturned in sleep, his eyelashes that shown blonde in the morning light, before you'd slipped out from under the covers and donned your robe, holstering your lightsaber before sneaking out of your apartment.

There would be time to apologize later. Now, you knew, you needed to clear your mind. You kept walking. As you passed the archives, something that you had been thinking about since you had returned from Felucia flashed through your head. Later, you told yourself, turning to look ahead and stilling yourself for what was to come.

You stopped outside the meditation chambers. You knew you didn't need to knock—knew that he would sense your presence. And, as you heaved another sigh, working to keep your body upright, fighting the weight of that ever-present grief, you heard his quiet voice.

"Enter," Obi-Wan said, and you pushed the button on the panel on the wall, walking slowly into the darkened meditation room. Everything inside was a shade of blue and grey, even the pale light slipping in through the mostly-covered windows. The room contained only a few soft ottomans, and gave the impression of stillness, of calm. Even so, you had to hold your breath as you bowed to Obi-Wan and took your place on the ottoman across from his. Everything in this Temple reminded you of Yuma. Everything reminded you that she was no longer here.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me," Obi-Wan said gently, his eyes grazing over your form, your face. You realized you still had yet to visit the refresher, your hair still looking like a nest something might crawl out of. You couldn't find it in yourself to care.

"Thank you for...offering, to help me train," you responded, bowing your head again slightly, forcing yourself to look him in the eye.

"I will do what I can," Obi-Wan replied, folding his legs on the ottoman, assuming a straight-backed meditative position. You followed suit, and found that your body felt comforted in this position, like muscle memory, as if its familiarity made the weight a little bit easier to bear.

"It is my understanding that you were unsuccessful," Obi-Wan began, stroking his beard thoughtfully, "when trying to extricate yourself from Yuma's thoughts and memories in the Force."

"Yes," you said, swallowing hard, trying to ignore the lump that had formed in your throat as you thought back to those training sessions, some that had taken place in this very same room. It felt like a different lifetime, compared to the one you were living now.

"And you were unable, as well, to stop reading other's presences, when you tried." You felt Obi-Wan's thoughts drift lazily toward Anakin, and you checked to make sure your own Force presence was folded neatly and minutely into yourself. The last thing you needed from this training was to reveal too much.

"Yes," you said again, watching Obi-Wan with interest.

"What did it feel like? When you tried to disentangle yourself from Yuma's presence?" Obi-Wan sounded genuinely curious. You swallowed again, pushing your head and back up straight, blinking away the pang that her name sent through you.

"It felt like..." you thought back to those training sessions. "It felt like there were thousands of...tendrils, connecting my presence to Yuma's presence, in the Force. And all of the tendrils were tangled together, knotted and looped...it took so much effort to disconnect one, or two, but before I could make progress, her thoughts or emotions would shift, and new tendrils would take their place. I could never get too many disconnected at once."

"An interesting metaphor..." Obi-Wan mused, his hand gracing over his mustache, his eyes unfocused as he considered your words. "My thought is that we are going about this the wrong way." He looked up, making eye contact with you once again.

"I'm listening."

"I've observed your Force empathy myself..." Obi-Wan said, looking at you as if he could see through you, right to your very soul. "I've found that your own emotions form a strong connection to those you read in others."

You thought back to all the times you'd mistaken others emotions for your own...with Anakin, the first day you'd even met him, or with Henry, when you'd seen his memories and assumed they were yours. You nodded.

"Sometimes...sometimes they even become indiscernible," you confirmed. "My own emotions, and those I read in others." Obi-Wan nodded as well.

"Logically it follows that extricating your emotions from the emotions of others would be very difficult," Obi-Wan said. You thought back over your relationship with Anakin—how at first you'd been afraid your feelings of affection, longing, of love weren't yours at all. Over time, though, your own feelings had grown such that their strength couldn't be denied. They had asserted themselves over you, over both of your lives. You shuddered at the thought, at how difficult it felt, even now, to not be by his side, not be in his arms. How those emotions threatened to swallow you whole.

"If the two are inseparable," Obi-Wan continued, snapping you back to attention, "instead of trying to separate your emotions from the emotions of another, I'm wondering if we can cut both off at the source."

"You mean..." you pondered, thinking this through, "not feel anything?"

"Not exactly, no," Obi-Wan explained, his voice thoughtful. "You are gifted at meditation, yes?" You nodded, wanting to see where he was going with this. "Instead of trying not to feel anything, you might think to separate yourself from your own emotions, when in particularly dangerous or high-stakes situations."

"You're speaking of impermanence," you murmured softly. Obi-Wan nodded. It was an old Jedi principle, one you had learned from a very young age—that the root of all suffering was impermanence. That to fear the impermanence led to anger, and then to hate, and then to suffering. A Jedi must accept the impermanence of all things. Especially emotion, you thought to yourself.

"I think you might have more success if you were to try to separate yourself—your being, your very soul—from those momentary feelings. The emotions you feel, and those that others feel, entangled and entwined as they are." Obi-Wan watched you, waiting for your response.

"So, it isn't about trying not to feel..." you said, thinking deeply. "But rather, allowing my sense of self to detach from my feelings, when the occasion calls for it."

"Yes." Obi-Wan affirmed. "It isn't about escaping your own emotions...but rather, forming a stronghold against them, and the ones you might read in others." Obi-Wan paused for a moment while you thought this over. "The Sith are controlled by their emotion." You looked up, and for a moment, instead of Obi-Wan's blue iris, you saw the purple one that had haunted you in your dreams. "They draw strength from it, yes," Obi-Wan continued, "but they also let it consume them. It seems to me that when you intuit Sith presences, that emotion consumes you too."

You thought back to when Count Dooku had taken you prisoner in your own mind. It had felt like being led down a dark path, one that narrowed, narrowed, until...until you'd been trapped. You didn't want to be rendered useless ever again. You didn’t want anyone else to come into harm's way because you were unable to keep your own mind for yourself. As your resolve hardened, you sat up straight, meeting Obi-Wan's gaze.

"What must I do?"

It was difficult work. Obi-Wan led you through a series of visualization exercises, and then meditations. You waded so deeply into the weeds of your own mind that you felt, for a moment, afraid you might get lost in it once again. But Obi-Wan was there, his voice guiding you, allowing you to continue mapping those deepest parts of yourself. You soon found that you were not one whole, but a composite mix of things; you were not solely a Jedi, nor were you solely the self that Yuma had taught, nor the woman that Anakin loved. You were many different things, different forms, ever-shifting and changing along with your consciousness.

By the end of the lesson, you'd achieved a moment—only a moment—in which you had looked at Obi-Wan and felt nothing emanating from his presence at all. It snapped away as you lost your focus, and you'd been certain that it was a mistake, but Obi-Wan had assured you that he did not have the gift of hiding his Force presence, and that if you had not been intuiting it, you had made great progress. You could admit that the flow of conversation in the back of your mind, the ever-present murmuring, had quieted to only a trickle. This was a great improvement from the storm of voices you had grown accustomed to. After only one day's effort, you and Obi-Wan had achieved more than you and your Master had been able to accomplish in six months.  

"Thank you," you said, breathless, sweat dripping down your brow from effort. For the first time since Felucia, you felt a bit looser, like you didn't have to try quite as hard to stand up straight.

"I appreciate your gratitude," Obi-Wan said kindly, "but you know it isn't necessary. I want to do anything I can to help you." You nodded your thanks to him, all the same. Obi-Wan's face became thoughtful. "I've never encountered anything like you, in the Force," he added, considering you.

You paused, taken aback. Obi-Wan, one of the most talented Jedi in the Order, who'd had a Padawan that—

"But...Anakin..." you mumbled, confused.

"I've never encountered anything like either of you," Obi-Wan said, chuckling and rubbing his beard. "You astound even the wisest of us." You laughed too, and felt yourself surprised to hear the sound.

"I know it doesn’t help," Obi-Wan remarked softly, "But I…have been in your position before. I watched my own Master be killed." You went quiet, your eyes fully on Obi-Wan, his head bowed, his hair hanging over his face, his eyes glazed with the memory. "And I was there, and I could do nothing to stop it. The mark that it leaves…it gets easier, with time. Easier to bear the weight of it."

You had never heard Obi-Wan speak of his Master before. Qui-Gon’s passing had happened when you were so young—it had scared you, at the time, with all the rumors surrounding how it had happened, but you hadn't thought, at that young age, of the effect it must have had on his Padawan.

"It does help," you told him quietly. The two of you sat for a moment in comfortable silence.

"How do you feel?" Obi-Wan asked, looking you over with careful concern. You considered his question honestly, allowing your body to express itself to you.

"I feel...hungry," you breathed, surprised at yourself. Obi-Wan smiled widely, and you grinned back at him, feeling, for the first time in a while, like there was solid ground beneath you.

Anakin stalked through the halls of the Temple. Jedi who were in his path moved swiftly to get out of his way; a maintenance droid squealed as the toe of Anakin's boot just missed it, but he wasn't paying attention. He looked down for a moment, but could barely see the tendons in his hands as he clenched his fingers into fists. He barely noticed the way the other Jedi were looking at him, his furrowed brow, his tall stature. He had other things on his mind.

He had awoken in your bed to find it empty. Fear and panic had gripped his heart as he tore apart the sheets, looking through the apartment, calling for you. It was only then that he remembered your training with Obi-Wan, your promise from the previous day. It had calmed him, but only a little. He had dressed quickly, sneaking out of your Jedi apartment with ease. He knew he had to find you.

Anakin's heart raced thinking about how you had been these previous days, how immobile you seemed, how you had been refusing to eat or drink, how you hadn't been able to get out of that bed. It terrified him whenever your eyes started to glaze over; when you didn't seem to fully see the room you were in. He was worried you might slip back into that Force haze at any moment, that space where you had seemed all but lost to him forever. He wouldn't let that happen.

The meditation room was empty; Anakin paused in the doorway only for a moment, before wheeling around and continuing down to the lower level. Where could you have gone? Surely not back to the medical chambers, unless—unless something had happened to you, during your training? Unless your mind had gone back into that cloudedness—

Surely there was no way the council had already sent you into command, was there? Anakin himself had been granted a small reprieve after the events of Felucia. He knew the council had appointed you general of the 415th batallion, Yuma's former position. He knew you had accepted command—what else could you have done? But could the council have sent you back into combat so quickly? Panic gripped Anakin's heart as he considered what it might mean if you returned to battle in your current state. He paused just outside the Temple gardens, half-ready to turn around and head back up toward the medical bay, to the council chambers, to demand to know where you were, when—

He felt a tug within him in the Force. It was a familiar presence; it felt like comfort, and reddish brown hair, the sleeve of a tunic...

Anakin found him on the other side of the gardens, in the corner, sitting with a cup of tea.

"Where is she?" Anakin demanded, looking around quickly. Obi-Wan seemed relaxed, so, at the very least, nothing horrible could have happened to you.

"Good morning, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, his voice sounding tired.

"Where is she?" Anakin asked again, bouncing back onto the heels of his boots for emphasis, feeling unable to keep still, even in the presence of his seated Master.

"I believe she went to get something to eat," Obi-Wan replied, looking warily up at Anakin.

"To eat?" Anakin asked, pausing for a moment, debating turning around on the spot and heading for the mess hall. But if you had gone to get something to eat, then—

"Training went well, then?" Anakin asked, lowering his voice, perching on the bench next to the one on which Obi-Wan lounged, in the corner of the Temple garden.

"I would say so," Obi-Wan said in his infuriatingly calm voice. Obi-Wan took another sip of his tea, looking out at the garden as if deep in thought.

"What does that mean?" Anakin asked, feeling impatient.

"I'm not sure," Obi-Wan replied, his voice still infuriatingly calm.

"Don't be cryptic," Anakin accused, leaning back on his bench and crossing his arms defiantly over his chest. "Do you think you'll be able to help her, or not?"

"I am optimistic," Obi-Wan said, finally turning in Anakin's direction to look him over. "You should be patient with her, Anakin. This was a serious loss for her."

"I know that," Anakin responded, his heart pounding, his anger jumping up a pitch. "I am being patient." Did Obi-Wan think he, Anakin, didn't know what you needed? How could Obi-Wan not see that your well-being was the most important thing in the world? Of course, Obi-Wan couldn't know about your relationship with Anakin...but didn't Obi-Wan realize the importance of keeping you alive, regardless? Didn't Obi-Wan realize how much danger you were in? Anakin took in the posture of his former Master, how calm Obi-Wan seemed, how superior, and felt his frustration grow. Obi-Wan sucked in a breath.  

"She's grieving—" Obi-Wan tried, but Anakin cut him off.

"Felucia, Obi-Wan?!" Anakin rasped, his volume increasing. "That wasn't grief!" Anakin recalled again the way you had looked with your body limp, your eyes clouded over, milky white, unable to hear him, trapped in your own suffering.

"I'm looking into it," Obi-Wan responded quietly, lowering his eyes.

"Well, look harder," Anakin said, his breath coming out in a huff. He leaned forward again, looking to Obi-Wan beseechingly. "If she takes command of the 415th, and she doesn't have this under control—"

"If you don't trust her by now," Obi-Wan began, but Anakin cut him off again.

"Of course I trust her! But you know as well as I do—as well as Yuma did—that her gifts are a liability!"

"She is not a liability to the Order—"

"I don't give a kriffing gundark about the Order! I'm talking about her—her life. You need to help her, Obi-Wan. We need to...to find a way to make sure..." Anakin's breathing was heavy. He found himself looking down at his hands, his shoulders moving up and down quickly with his breath. He blinked, his fear overwhelming him.

"We will help her," Obi-Wan said, putting a bracing hand on Anakin's shoulder. "And she will help herself."

You sat, staring into the archive memory, sifting through the holobooks to find what you were looking for. The Temple library was quiet, the atmosphere one of focused attention. Something about it calmed you, but you also found it a bit unnerving, that every bit of galactic knowledge that existed could be found in these very archives.

Your stomach was full for the first time since Felucia; you were sitting upright, able to fight the weight of the grief that had been threatening for days to consume you. You felt exhausted, and sad, but it was a start. And after attending to your needs in the mess hall, you'd come straight here, to the Temple library. Even in the darkest parts of your grief—even when you'd been totally trapped under that weight—you'd known what you needed to do next. You'd been forming your plan. All you had needed was the strength to begin. And, thanks to your training with Obi-Wan, today you'd found it.

You used the controls to pull forth one of the holobooks, and as the holoimages came up, you sat down to focus. You felt yourself getting lost in the text, trying to remember everything. Your focus was so intense that you didn't feel his presence coming until he was right behind you.

"Why are you researching Galactic Sign Language?" Anakin asked, his hand gently stroking your shoulder. Such a small, subtle movement was likely to go unnoticed by those other Jedi in the archives, absorbed as they were in their own research. The sound of his voice made your body electrify—all of the longing, the guilt, and the desire passed through you at once. You shivered.  

"It's a long story," you told him, turning around in your chair to face him full on.

"I'm sorry," you breathed, right as Anakin had said the same thing, leaning in toward you, his eyes wide. You felt the corners of your mouth turn up at the sides, and Anakin's face fell open, his surprise taking away his supplication.

"Me first," you said, getting up out of the chair and shutting off the hologram. As you faced Anakin, you felt through his emotions in the Force, sifting through as if the man in front of you were a different type of archive memory—one that was tangled, passionate, complex, brilliant, and beautiful. His emotions mirrored your own; you felt his guilt, his longing, his love for you. The first and most prominent emotion surrounding his presence was worry, and this made you feel even more guilty.

"I'm sorry I shouted at you," you told him quietly, aware of the others milling about the great library. "I'm sorry I took my anger out on you. It's only anger at myself—" Anakin looked as if he were going to cut you off, but you silenced him, holding up your hand. "I shouldn't have gotten angry with you at all. Not when you are so kind," you voice grew quieter, "and so loyal, and so patient with me." Your faces were closer together now; if anyone were to look over, they might wonder why you were having such an intense, whispered conversation. "I'm sorry I fell apart," you continued, feeling the hint of the tears pinpricking the corners of your eyes. You pushed through, closing your eyes to keep the tears from falling. "You shouldn't have to worry about me. I won't let it happen again. I promise I'll be here for you. With you."

"I'm the one who should be sorry," Anakin said eagerly, acting as if he were about to take your hands in his, and then looking around, thinking better of it. Instead, he surreptitiously reached up and brushed under your eye, stroking away the ghost of the tear that didn't fall. "I shouldn't have said anything about...I shouldn't have assumed I know anything about what it felt like for you, on Felucia."

You nodded, but really, he didn't need to apologize. You'd put your own words into his mouth; it hadn't been a fight between you and Anakin, but one between the warring sides of yourself. And you knew now that you needed to face those warring sides head on, and deal with them before they could manage to hurt anyone else.

"You don't have anything to apologize for," you said, pulling half of your mouth up in a small smile. Anakin's eyes were stars, on fire, the blue looking like it was burning, like it would melt out into the air.

"Obi-Wan said training went well," Anakin whispered, hopefully, looking around you for a moment before grazing your hand with his.

"I think it did," you whispered back, looking up into his eyes. You wanted nothing more than to take his face in your hands, but you held back. All this secrecy, you thought, might just drive you mad.

"And you'll tell me about your research..." he continued, glancing back at the archive computer behind you.

"Another time," you assured him, looking around again, making sure no one was close enough to overhear while you leaned in closer toward him. "You know that I love you," you breathed. Anakin's face broke into a joyful smile, his body leaning in closer to yours.

"You know," he said quietly so only you could hear him, "that I love you more than all of the books in this archive." He glanced back at the other Jedi, huddled in their research. "And more than all of the stars in the galaxy, and more than all of the galaxies in the universe." Anakin met your gaze, his sorrow gone, his eyes alight and mischievous. You felt the intention in his Force presence, and it made your insides turn over, your breath becoming short.

"And I love you more than whatever lies beyond that," you whispered, smiling up at him, your heart full. Anakin surreptitiously stroked his hand over the top of yours once again.

"Do you have much more research to do?" Anakin asked, his face forming a familiar, cocky smile.

"It can wait," you murmured, smiling and cocking your head as you strode past him toward the doors, gesturing for him to follow.

************************************************************************

thank you all for being patient with these updates <3 if you are following this story, you and I are besties, that's how it works

let me know if you want to be tagged when I post the next one!

divider credit to @racingairplanes

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[coffeeghoulie]

got a feeling inside that i can't domesticate

surprise! secret sixth chapter/epilogue of Eternal Heatstroke! (though you don't have to have read that to read this lol)

3.2k of Swiss and Aeon getting their well-earned rest after the end of the Re-Imperatour, with bonus fire ghoul courting rituals, mild miscommunication, and Aether and Dew giving each other Looks about the new lovebugs.

Title from Bishops Knife Trick by Fall Out Boy

this one goes out to @ghuleh-recs, wishing her a very happy birthday!

Aeon's not quite sure what day it is.

They had come home after months and months on the road, the Re-Imperatour done some time ago. Dew had barreled off of the bus, nearly tackling a waiting Aether to the ground, Sunny had been successfully tackled by the three other ghoulettes, and Mountain and Rain had greeted their packmates, giving them tight hugs before promptly retreating to the forest and the lake respectively.

Swiss and Aeon had stepped off the bus together, fingers still laced together, heading straight for the ghoul dorms through the marble hallways of the Abbey. The soles of their boots echoed through the empty halls, the clergy and siblings gone to celebrate Papa's return and the end of a successful tour.

"I'm a ghoul of my word, bug," Swiss leaned down to whisper in their good ear. "Straight to bed with us. I'm going to make you the best nest you've ever slept in, I swear to Belial."

Aeon laughed, fishing in their jeans pocket for the key Aether gave them on their very first day Up Top six and a half months ago. "That's not a high bar," they cackled, checking him with their shoulder.

"Still," he grinned. "You wanna grab your bedding from your room or do you just want to use mine?"

They pulled out their key, readjusting the strap of their duffle bag on their shoulder with a shrug. "I'll grab mine too." Swiss lit up, grin sun-bright

The two stopped in front of the plain door that leads to the room Aether had showed them to that first night. Aeon took a moment to fumble with the lock, refusing to let go of Swiss's hand. The door swung open, hinges creaky with months of disuse. The room was just as plain as it was before they left, and Aeon itched to rearrange the furniture, make it a little more theirs now that they were confident that this wasn't a temporary thing.

Reluctantly, Aeon let go of Swiss's hand, but instead of going to their bed, they felt Swiss's gaze on their back as they ducked under their desk, scooping up all of their sheets and blankets and pillows. "Baby," the multighoul said, and Aeon straightened, barely able to see over the pile of bedding in their arms. His tone was devastating, soft and almost sad.

"Yeah?"

"Were you sleeping under your desk?"

Aeon shifted the pile of fabric and took a step back as they took in Swiss's expression. His eyes went soft, but a deep frown lined his face. They cocked their head. "Yeah?"

"Oh, baby," he said again with that same sad tone. "Sweetheart."

"What?" Aeon said, kicking their door shut as they came back to him.

Swiss shook his head, taking a deep breath. "You need help locking up? Or help carrying that?"

"I got it, thanks," they said, shuffling their bedding into one arm as they fit the key in the lock again. They couldn't take Swiss's hand again, but they stood as close as they could to make up for it as they headed down the hall to his room.

Swiss had a much easier time getting his door unlocked, holding it open for Aeon as he ushered them inside. "Just dump those on my bed, alright, baby?"

Aeon nodded, setting the sheets down on his neatly made bed. Without the pile of fabric blocking their view, Aeon took a look at Swiss's room as the multghoul flicked on a string of soft lights, dropping his duffle bag on his desk chair.

It's much more lived in that Aeon's, which made sense, Aeon supposed. He'd been Up Top for far longer than they had. There were shelves of books and records that lined his walls, a guitar not unlike the one he played on tour mounted above his desk. There was a hanging plant near the window, curtains open and letting in the light, illuminating the dust particles floating in the air.

Swiss sighed as he kicked off his boots. "Finally. Home at fucking last."

Aeon carefully followed suit, taking off their own boots and tucking their duffle bag in the corner.

The multighoul opened his dresser, rummaging through it until he hummed victoriously, pulling out two pairs of sweatpants and a pair of shirts. "I'm gonna change and get you a nest made," he said. "If you want to shower, feel free."

Aeon nodded, eyes suddenly incredibly heavy. They wandered over to the wingback chair by the window, curling up against the cushion as Swiss handed them one of the shirts and pairs of pants. They thought about showering, blinking slowly as they felt the soft, worn fabric in their hands. Aeon shook their head, standing and changing into the offered clothes. They smelled like him.

Swiss's lips quirked up in a smile as he quickly changed, turning to arrange his and Aeon's bedding into, as promised, the best nest. He straightened, a satisfied smile on his face. "You wanna shut the curtains for me, baby?" he asked.

They nodded, pulling the black out curtains shut, casting the room in darkness with the exception of the string lights above Swiss's double bed. He settled into the nest, patting the space next to him. "As promised, buggy," he said, teeth glinting as he grinned in the low light.

Aeon returned his grin, crawling into Swiss's nest, plastering themself to his side between him and the wall. The nest was softer than anything Aeon had ever felt before, sinking into a carefully arranged pile of sheets and blankets and pillows. Swiss curled his hands around their biceps, pulling them flush against him.

They let out a little "oof" when their chests collided, both of them staring in silence for a moment before they burst into laughter.

"So," Swiss crooned, nosing at their cheek as they laughed. "Is this the best nest you've ever had or what?"

Aeon's nose crinkled up, cheeks dimpling with their laughter. "Oh yeah," they laughed. "'S really soft." They noticed their words beginning to slur, eyes growing heavy.

"And there's the crash," Swiss said, yawning. He carded his fingers through their hair, Aeon keening at the touch. "Sleep as long as you need."

It's warm, and soft, and now that they'd finally stopped moving, Aeon realized that Swiss was right, drifting off to sleep.

They don't leave the nest for hours. Or it could be days. With the curtains drawn, Aeon's not sure. Sometimes they wake, still held fast against Swiss's form. Their hands settle on the back of his neck, playing with the ends of his locs subconsciously. Sometimes Swiss wakes, and even in their sleep, Aeon can feel his blunt, glamoured fingertips carding through their hair, tracing patterns against their spine.

And sometimes they wake together, only getting up to use the bathroom, to raid the ghoul kitchen for snacks and water, dried fruit and nuts and the single serving bags of Dew's favorite spicy chips, before retreating back to the nest. They'll pay for that particular transgression later, but Aether and Dew's door hasn't opened once since the band returned to the Abbey, so they're not particularly worried.

For now, Aeon lets Swiss keep his word, keeping them in his bed, safe in his nest, and Aeon drinks it up. The smell of him is much stronger here, and Aeon spends long moments with their face buried in his chest, his shirt, his bedding.

"Can you even breathe like that, bug?" Swiss laughs, hand caressing the back of their neck. Aeon doesn't raise their head to answer, mumbling into his chest. Swiss hums, ducking down to press a kiss between their horns, and Aeon chuffs happily, if not half-asleep.

"There we go, sweetheart," he whispers, shifting until he's on his back, Aeon curled up on his broad chest. They chuff again, already slipping back into sleep, their body making up for all of the sleepless nights they spent on the road.

The creak of the door handle startles them awake next. Aeon pushes themself upright, lips peeled back in a terrified snarl as the door pushes open slowly. The sudden movement and noise wakes Swiss, as light from the hallway pools into his room, lighting the dim space.

It barely takes half of a second for Swiss to register the open door, the budding tinge of terror on Aeon's scent, before he's shoving them off of him, sitting up between them and the door. He reaches behind him, fingers curling in the fabric of Aeon's borrowed shirt. A deep growl bubbles up in his chest, and Aeon's never heard him make a sound quite like that.

But Aeon sees the glowing pairs of purple and copper eyes silhouetted by the hall light, and Dew clears his throat as he and Aether look in. "Quit fucking growling, asshole, s'just us," he says, scoffing, even though Aeon can hear the worry seeping through his tone.

Swiss has the wherewithal to at least look sheepish, padding his tail against the mattress. "Sorry," he says, but the tone of his voice says he isn't.

"We just wanted to say hello," Aether says, smiling easily like one of his packmates hadn't just been growling at them. "Haven't seen hide nor hair of either of you in the last three days. Got a glimpse when you came off of the bus, but to be fair, we ran off pretty quick." He chuckles, looking at Dew with a softness in his eyes, an arm around his waist.

Aeon whistles under their breath. They'd been in Swiss's nest for three days.

"We've been out," Swiss says, and Aeon feels how tense he is still, his back against their chest. It's just their packmates, one of whom they've only had a few glimpses of in the last several months. They don't know why he's so worked up. "We went to the kitchen."

"Yeah, to steal my chips," Dew scoffs, but he's laughing as he toes at an abandoned foil package that didn't quite make it to the trash can, but neither of them had been assed to get up and actually throw away.

"Invite yourselves in, why don't you?" Swiss laughs, but he's still tense. Aeon sits up straighter behind him, hooking their chin over his shoulder.

"Hi, Aeth," Aeon says, voice heavy with sleep and, apparently, three whole days' worth of disuse. "Missed you."

Aether grins, opening the curtains, much to Swiss and Aeon's dismay. They both hiss, squinting in the bright afternoon light. "Missed you too, pup. You too, Swiss."

Dew stares as the room brightens, and Aeon watches his mouth fall open, eyes brightening with a disbelief and a delight. "Swiss," the fire ghoul says slowly. "Satanas, you didn't-" He gestures loosely at the nest, where Aeon's light grey sheets mix with the dark burgundy of Swiss's own bedding.

Swiss tenses further, tail wrapping around his own thigh, spade thudding nervously against the meat of it. "Spitfire."

"Aeth, look at his bed," Dew says, and Swiss covers his face with his hands, groaning. "Tell me that's not what I think it is."

Aether turns from opening the window, bringing in a waft of fresh autumn air, and Aeon watches his clever eyes dart back and forth between the nest, Swiss, Dew, over to Aeon, and back again. A grin slowly grows on the older quint's face, baring his gold fang.

"Belial, Swiss," Dew throws his head back, crowing with laughter. "You made them a hearth, didn't know it was that serious!"

"Shut up," Swiss says, muffled into his hands.

Dew ignores him, still laughing. "Waited all of a week to get them into your bed, huh?" He crows. Aether's still grinning at Aeon. "We walked in on a fucking hearth. No wonder you were growling like you were feral, you spent the last three days fucking in a hearth-"

Swiss's head snaps up, growling again. He almost clips the back of his skull against Aeon's horn. "Shut the fuck up, Dewdrop," he snaps, voice rumbling dangerously around the edges of the ghoulish words.

All three of the other ghouls freeze, Aeon squeaking softly under their breath. Swiss hears it, their mouth practically against his ear, and sighs, shoulders slumping as he presses his cheek against their temple. "I'm sorry. Nothing like that happened. We've just been sleeping. Please just drop it."

Dew holds his hands up, palms facing the nest. "Didn't mean to insinuate," he says, still leaning against the doorframe, grinning. "Didn't know you were the hearth type, Swiss."

Swiss grunts, staring at Dew with grit teeth.

"Well, darling," Aether butts in, a similar smug look on his face. "You didn't seem the type either."

"Oh, shut up," Dew rolls his eyes. "It worked on you."

Aeon's eyes dart from ghoul to ghoul, brow furrowed. "Um," they breathe, not exactly liking the way all three of the older ghouls turn to face them. "I don't wanna interrupt, but what do you mean? What's a hearth?"

"Oh, no," Aether breathes. Swiss buries his face in his hands.

"Oh, Lord Below, of course you didn't tell them," Dew laughs. "I'm gonna let Swiss explain this one to you, voidling, seeing as you're in one." The fire ghoul jabs a thumb towards his mate. "This guy didn't know what a hearth was the first time I made him one either."

"Of course I didn't know," Aether argues. "I wasn't raised with fire pack customs."

"Exactly," Dew stresses, leveling a look at Aether. "Neither were they."

Swiss hasn't moved, breathing so shallow that Aeon can't feel it from where they're pressed up against his back. They chirrup, trying to be comforting, but still questioning. Swiss groans, tilts his head back until their cheeks are pressed together. "I'll tell you, bug, but will the two of you leave us alone?"

Dew nods, suddenly incredibly solemn, hand over his chest. "Of course. Aeth?"

Aether nods, stepping closer to the bed to run a hand over Swiss's locs, finger trailing along the ridge of his horn. "I'm glad you're home, spark."

Swiss hums, leaning into Aether's touch for just a moment, flashing him with the brightness of his smile for a second. "Glad to be home too, big guy."

He grins, turning to his fellow quintessence ghoul, running blunt fingers through their hair. "Congratulations on finishing your first tour, pup."

Aeon smiles, not as bright as they would have, the uneasy tension sour on the air, but they press into the touch like a pleased cat. "Thanks, Aeth."

The pair of them step out, Dew flashing Swiss a mischievous grin before shutting the door behind them.

Swiss sighs again, running a hand through his locs, eyes squeezed shut. He shifts until he's sitting straight and cross legged, and Aeon props themself up to sit next to him, their thighs pressed together. "Did Caldera, did she ever make nests? Specifically, did she ever make one for Oasis?"

Aeon cocks their head, curiosity washing over and dampening the sting of their names on his lips. "No," they tell him. "We were moving constantly, didn't have somewhere secure for a nest like that. He'd give her stones all the time, though. He said it was a water ghoul thing."

Swiss's ears pin back to his skull and he tenses again, fingers flexing, hands in his lap. "Shit."

Aeon darts out, grabs one of his hands, seeking contact. He melts, eagerly taking theirs. His thumb traces over the back of their hand, and his eyes track the movement. "Can you tell me what Dew meant?" Aeon breathes. "About it being a fire thing?"

He nods and squeezes their hand.

"We- No," Swiss winces. He starts again. "Fire ghouls come from the coldest circles of the Pits. They're the only ghouls that can survive there, because the fire in them keeps them alive." He rests his other hand over his heart. "But sometimes, in the longest, darkest nights, one fire wouldn't be enough. You could go to sleep fine, and your flame would freeze and go out by morning. So, most fire ghouls tended to sleep together with partners or big family piles."

Aeon listens intently, resting their head on his shoulder. "You said that was something you missed from your birth pack, right?"

Swiss snorts, turning to nose at the crown of their head. He takes a deep breath, letting his eyes shut as their scent hits him. "I did say that. My family was from the City, so we weren't exactly worrying about freezing to death, it was more a comfort thing. But this isn't quite like that."

They wait for Swiss to continue. "What's it like, then?" they ask, yawning.

"A hearth is-" He nuzzles into their hair again, hot breath blowing the strands as he hums. "If you were single, and looking for a partner, you'd offer to build your potential partner a hearth, a nest of your own bedding, to prove you could provide and protect each other's flames. And if they offered their own bedding in return, you had been accepted, and they were interested too. I know I didn't ask, and I asked you for your bedding instead of you offering, but that's what Dew saw. He made a hearth for Aether before he asked him to be his mate."

Aeon cocks their head, sleepily blinking up at him. "It's a mates thing?"

"Yeah," Swiss shuts his eyes and heaves a breath. "It's like a courting nest. I'm sorry, bug. Haven't thought of myself as fire for so long, I didn't realize what I was doing, didn't ask if it was okay. Didn't put a name to what I was doing."

They straighten, shift to look at him dead on. Their hands come up to his face, smoothing over the three day's worth of unshaved stubble. It scratches their palms just right, and Aeon watches the little furrow in his brow smooth out.

"You don't have to apologize," they say, entranced by the shift in the gold of his eyes. "Did you mean it?"

He hums curiously, the little furrow back on his brow. "Did I mean it?"

"Nobody's ever been interested in me like that," they admit in a little voice. Swiss's hands curl around their own, just touching. "Are you? Do you mean it?"

Swiss thinks, and Aeon feels a pit growing in their stomach the longer he doesn't answer.

"Aeon," he says, smoothing his thumbs over the back of their hands. They look up, catching his eye. "Of course I mean it. I love you, bug."

"Then I accept," Aeon says, as easy as breathing. "I want that. I love you too."

He grins, bright and golden, just as warm as the nest they've spent the last half a week in, and Aeon grabs his hands tighter, nose crinkling up in laughter.

"I'm glad we got you, Aeon," Swiss says, smile softening. He kisses their cheek, warm and flushed deep violet.

"I'm glad it was me too," they whisper, leaning forward to shove their face in Swiss's throat.

He embraces them, rubbing up and down their spine, and Swiss's heart jumps when he realizes he can't feel the knobs of their spine. "I hate to say it, lovebug, but we should probably go have something real to eat, see the others."

Aeon whines, but their stomach chooses that moment to growl, and both ghouls burst into laughter at the timing. They stand, begrudgingly leaving the warmth of their hearth to rejoin the rest of their pack.

[impossiblescissorspeachpaper]

The Heart of a Wanderer VII

Clifftop

Previous chapter can be read here

If you need a complete refresher or would like to jump into this story, the masterlist can be found here

4.4k words. Very light sexual themes.

Azriel had flown them back to the edge of Persepolis in silence before winnowing them the rest of the way home. His face had remained a stoic, stony thing. Hard hazel eyes scouting their path meticulously but always carefully remaining averted from her. 

She thought she felt his gaze burning the side of her face a few times, sensed his chest constricting as if he were about to say something, but then he’d stop himself. If he was going to apologise for his outburst then she would accept, but she wasn’t going to beg for it. Nor make it easy for him. He’d acted like an ass, and she was sick of letting people get away with it. The entire way home was such a stark contrast to their flight in.

They had stayed only one night in Helion’s palace, needing the time to rehash her vision with the High Lord and then devise a plan to assist in anything they may need to avoid allowing Beron to be successful in the matter of the looming Spring Court invasion.

Helion, graciously, had agreed to provide aide, in whichever way he could. And she and Azriel had played their parts well. They had agreed the citizens of Spring couldn’t be left to defend for themselves against the might of the Autumn armies, and that their safety would be of utmost importance, along with stopping Beron from successfully taking over the fraught territory. Impeding Beron’s triumph in turn seemed imperative in protecting the humans who inhabited the land just below Springs’ borders, too.

After all matters of importance had been decided upon and planned for, Helion had invited them to drink and dine with him in his private parlour that night. Elain accepted graciously, but Azriel had politely declined, claiming he had reports to complete that had become pressing. 

She tasted the lie in the air, knowing the Shadowsinger was avoiding her, as he had been since their argument in his room. She had been deflated that they had found themselves back in this awkward territory after seemingly coming so close to being friends again. But she decided not to wallow, not to let his broodiness seep into her own attitude. If she had just one night here, out from under the watchful eyes of all of those from the Night Court, then she would damn well enjoy it.

She had changed into a more comfortable but no less stunning dress for the evening. A flowing gown that still resembled the Day Court fashion, but less stuffy and embellished, the colour a deep jade. Its bodice still hugged her torso and the skirts billowed around her slender legs, but the added gold embellishments were stripped, leaving her more relaxed to eat and lounge with the High Lord’s company for the night.

There were perhaps two dozen High Fae gathered in Helion’s private parlour when she joined them that evening, the room dimly lit with flickering glass lanterns strewn across the marble floors. Males and females alike dressed in gowns and robes in a kaleidoscope of deep jewelled tones were lounging on puffy, cloud like cream-coloured cushions, or draped across low-lying, deep-seated settees. 

Some attendees were already entangled in varying degrees of lust and desire, whilst others merely enjoyed the view and ambiance or discussion around them. Swathes of fine gold organza draped and folded from the low ceiling, giving one the sense that they were nestled within a giant ornate nest, the delicate fabric muffling the sounds of neighbouring conversations and impassioned touching alike. 

Crystal decanters of ruby, sapphire and emerald held various wines and liquors. Females in billowing magenta pants and exposed bellies floated around the room offering trays of plump dates, rosewater and orange-blossom flavoured jellies, and a sweet flaky pastry treat called baklava. Brass platters of fresh figs, soft cheeses and olives were spread across the scattered tables around the room. 

It was all so decadent and lush. And although Elain usually shied away from such scenes of debauchery, she found herself once again drawn into the thrall of the Day Court customs. Emboldened by the absence of anyone who reallyknew her. 

Here she could be anyone, here she could enjoy something she would normally not care to want, if even just for just a little while. It wasn’t something she longed for often, not at all. But on the occasion, it felt like a refreshing change. Like she could slip on a different mask and play make believe for just one night.

She had spent that evening in Leto’s company, her sandals kicked off and strewn about on the floor before her and her legs tucked beneath her on a soft, cream loveseat. They had not spoken or seen each other since the last time she had been in Day, which had been months ago, and she had forgotten how easy he was to talk to. She had forgotten how charming his smile was, how his rich olive skin seemed to glow from within, how his pale green eyes peered so intently at her as she spoke. But despite all of this, of how truly lovely this male was, she found her thoughts wandering up to the room beside hers. The room that she knew was currently occupied with the brooding shadowsinger. 

After his outburst, she figured Azriel must have been jealous of Leto. That he had sensed something between them and surmised some sort of scenario for himself. Never mind that all that had happened between them was a few kisses and heavy petting when she had last spent time here. Having indulged in a few glasses of Day Court wine had left Elain feeling lightheaded and a touch rambunctious. 

Sure, they were very hot and heavy kisses that still made her blush when she remembered them; how she had brazenly straddled his lap, how his hands had grazed across her burning skin, how his tongue had traced wicked paths up her throat and along her collar bones. She had explained to Leto that she was just looking for some light-hearted fun, nothing serious. He had merely replied that she was a beautiful young female, and she was entitled to do as she pleased. That there was no judgement in the Day Court. 

She wasn’t sure if he knew the status of her mateship. Not that it meant anything to her. But she didn’t bring it up and graciously, neither did he. 

During that first visit, they had indulged in a night of laughing and drinking and passionate foreplay, Elain draped over Leto’s lap as he ravished her lips, chest and neck. She’d never done such a thing, her human sensibilities always holding her back- but she found the more time she spent with the fae, the less she cared about trivial things such as decorum and propriety. She was free to do as she pleased, and she’d be damned if she was going to let a couple of stubborn males dictate what or who she should be doing. She belonged to no one.

So, she had enjoyed herself this visit too, although she had refrained from partaking in anything physical with Leto this time. He didn’t push her and seemed genuinely happy to just enjoy her company, talking with her into the early hours of the morning. When people started dispersing; either retiring to their quarters alone, or to finish what had been started with one or several partners, they too turned in for the night.

Leto had walked her to her door and left her with a sweet kiss on the back of her hand, wishing her a restful sleep. 

Entering her room that night, Elain hadn’t heard a single sound coming from the occupant next door. And yet a restful sleep was far from reach.

~

Elain sat on a plush leather couch in the main library of the river manor, a small fire crackling before her as the weather had finally started to turn colder. The looming clouds outside had been foreboding enough to have her forgo any of her gardening duties today, instead opting to hunt down any books about Seers, controlling one’s powers, and how to strengthen one’s mind to the onslaught of various magics.

The books she had collected were currently sat in a stack beside her on a small brass pedestal, a heavy tome open in her lap, but the words before her swayed in and out of focus. Her mind was unable to fixate on the topic before her, ironically. The broody Spymaster incessantly floating into her mind instead.

It had been almost a week since they had returned from Day, and beyond their initial meeting with Rhys upon their immediate return to Velaris, Elain had not heard a peep from Azriel. She wasn’t even sure if he had been staying at the river manor, let alone if he was anywhere in the entirety of the Night Court. 

It seemed every time there had been some sort of conflict between them, they would choose to run away. Her to the far reaches of Prythian, Azriel to the Mother knows where. She hated it. And she was sick of having to tiptoe around males. It was bad enough when Lucien imposed his presence upon her during his seldom visits to Velaris, but the thought of needing to avoid Azriel too? She could no longer stand the thought.

Snapping the book shut with a loud thud, Elain stood, flinging the leather-bound pages behind her on the cushion she had previously sat in. A small groan of frustration left her lips as she paced, back and forth, her feet wearing a path across the plush rug along the face of the fireplace.

Elain was fed up, aggravated of this cat and mouse game, the unpredictability of this situation between herself and Azriel. They couldn’t continue avoiding each other forever, and further to that she had the nagging suspicion that there was something he wasn’t being completely honest with her about. She was tired of the restless nights and simply of not knowing. Of not knowing where he was, when he would return, if he was safe, how he felt, how she felt. It was growing tiresome and once again she decided that she couldn’t wait.

She couldn’t wait until an appropriate time to corner him, to speak with him. She couldn’t wait for him to come strolling through the door in his worn leathers, his face weary. She wouldn’t.

And so, she once again closed her eyes. Delving further and further into that mysterious well of power that rumbled deep within, she allowed the pull of the void to lead her along the path to Azriel as she winnowed.

~

Before Elain had even opened her eyes, she felt the cold, harsh wind whipping against her skirts, tangling in her long hair. She hadn’t thought to don a cloak in her urgency to go, and truth be told, the bite of the icy air only bolstered her resolve.

Cracking her eyes open to reveal the scene she had winnowed to, she learnt why the wind was so arctic here, why it so ferociously whipped about her. 

Standing near the edge of a rocky cliffside, she peered around her, spotting Azriel about twenty paces ahead. His back was turned to her, his mighty wings a strong dark force against the strong gale. He stood deathly still, the only movement was his raven hair that whipped wildly about his face, and a few lone shadows that swirled about his feet, caressed his neck.

Elain couldn’t help but stare, mesmerized by him, the mighty warrior on the edge of the jagged cliff. His strong thighs planting him securely to the ground beneath his feet, the two siphons upon those brutally scarred hands the only source of brightness in the otherwise moody scene before her. 

A shadow coiled about his ear before disappearing, and Azriel turned, a look of mild surprise lining his face as he beheld Elain standing in the knee length grassy meadow at his back. Before he could turn around completely, Elain’s feet moved. She was grateful she hadn’t winnowed to directly on top of him this time, but she didn’t let the insecurity of that dredged up memory show as she closed the distance between them.

His deep voice floated over to her on the back of a strong gust of wind. “How did you find me?”

Once she was within a few paces of him, she halted, standing before him with her shoulders thrown back. Elain chose to ignore his question. She wasn’t sure how she had found him anyway. It was as if some part of her knew where she could find Azriel, where she could always find Azriel. But she wasn’t going to admit that. She’d never admit the pull she felt toward him, the bright, invisible thread that seemed to bind them.

“I winnowed,” she responded instead. A vague enough answer that perhaps alerted him to her hedging but provided enough information to the Spymaster that confirmed they remained alone. That no one had brought her here. That they could speak freely.

“Is everything ok?” he responded. She spied a few shadows darting away, no doubt off to gather information about any happenings he should be aware of, any danger.

“Everyone is fine. I just wanted to speak with you.”

His face gave nothing away, even as his eyes bore into hers unwaveringly, seemingly trying to read her expression in return. “What about?”

Elain scoffed at the question somewhat unkindly, his seemingly feigned naivety grating on her patience. “What about?You have been avoiding me since the day we arrived in Persepolis. Barely three words have been uttered. You cannot be that obtuse, Azriel.”

His eyebrows bunched together as a dimple appeared in the tan skin of his smooth cheek. She couldn’t tell if he was annoyed with her last remark or trying to hide his surprise.

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” he murmured adamantly, clasping his hands behind his back, a muscle in his neck twitching.

“Oh yes you have, you haven’t been home in over a week, nor present at a single meal,” she bit back, her muscles now tensed against the ice cold winds.

“I’ve been busy with the looming conflict in Spring. I…I’ve been coming home late and leaving before you rise.”

“So, you’ve been avoiding me.”

“As I said, I’ve been busy,” he bit out, not conceding to her inferences.

“Well, we’re here now, and I’ve had enough,” her temper was rising at his petulance.

“Enough of what?”

Enough of what? Elain heard her own heartbeat pounding wildly in her ears, her temper flaring with every passing word Azriel uttered. She exploded, her voice coming out louder than before, her arms splayed out wide. “Of running! Of you running, of me running. I’ve had enough!”

“I haven’t been running—"

“Oh, come off it, Azriel!” she shouted, cutting him off from telling more lies.

“What do you want me to say?” He too was growing exasperated now. Good. She’d had enough of his stoic composure. She’s gladly see him unravel if it meant he was honest.

“The truth! Tell me the truth! I know there is something you are not being honest about.”

Azriel’s jaw clenched, the only sign that she had said something with some certainty behind it. Even still, he seemed reluctant to speak his mind.

“Is it really that bad? The thought of kissing me?” She had uttered the words so softly; she couldn’t swallow them before they had come tumbling out.

His face cracked, his shoulders softening slightly, his hands flinching at his sides as if they ached to reach for her. It was clear he hadn’t expected such candor from her, nor had she expected to let that admission free from her private thoughts.

His voice came out as a croak, his eyes peering down upon her beseechingly. “No. it’s not that. Elain…”

His words drifted off, fading into nothing, but his chest was rising and falling rapidly, the scars on his hands stretched over his clenched fists. His eyes darted across her face, his expression giving nothing away, and yet something charged went taught between them. That mysterious thread once again pulling.

“Azriel…”

She started the sentence but truly wasn’t mindful of how she’d finish it. But no sooner had his name slipped from between her lips he was stalking toward her. His long legs ate up the space between them in just a few paces and in the next moment he had reached out with those beautiful hands and buried them into her hair. 

Before she could register his intentions, he had swooped down and captured her lips with his. Azriel kissed her so desperately, so passionately, that the air had been knocked from her lungs. He had utterly caught her by surprise and she couldn’t react, her body wilting in his arms. Melting hopelessly into his embrace.

Her arms hung limply at her sides as he pulled away slightly, his face still so close to hers, lips swollen from their kiss, his bright hazel eyes churning as they searched her face. In vain he searched for an answer, for a sign that what he had done was ok, that she too, had wanted this.

Before he could pull away, she had grabbed the front of his leathers, tugging him down toward her and this time Elain kissed him with back the same amount of gusto. The same amount of aching need leaching from every swipe of her tongue, every bite of her lips, every sweep of her hands dragging along his neck, asking a question she desperately longed to find the answer to. 

He answered, leaving no query as to what his intentions were.

His kiss consumed her, like flames licking languidly at her very soul, slowly devouring her until there was nothing left. Elain threw herself into the kiss, allowing her hands to wander down his hard chest, around his shoulders, the nape of his neck. He groaned in response, a bestial thing born from his gut, his very essence singing in answer to hers.

Her slight hands inched beneath the collar of his leathers, and he shivered as the pads of her fingers caressed along his hot skin. She was burning and burning and burning in his arms. So many months of longing, so many moments of visceral need, so many feelings pulling at her from every direction.

And yet… she still did not know. She didn’t know what this all meant, why he had pulled away all those months ago, why he chose now to act on his feelings. Did he in fact feel anything for her? Or was this merely a physical need? Did he care for her at all? He had, once again, ran away from a problem.

Before the fire burning low in her belly could completely douse the dwindling clarity in her mind, she tore her lips away from his. As painful as it was to do so, they couldn’t leave this conversation lingering once more.

“Azriel… Az— wait,” she gasped as he latched his lips onto the side of her neck, his tongue laving at the skin there, pulling and swirling across the length of her throat as if he couldn’t stop himself from tasting her. A groan escaped his throat as he continued sucking at her and she couldn’t help the flutter of her eyes at the deep sound, the vibrations against her neck shooting straight through her centre.

“Azriel,” she moaned at a particularly delicious swipe of his tongue against her burning skin, “stop—” she mewled weakly.

No sooner had that final word fallen from her mouth, Azriel had flung himself off her. Snatching his hands away from her body and dragging them roughly through his hair he panted, remorse etched painfully on his face.

“Elain, I— I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me,” he spluttered as he continued to back away from her as if she had bitten venom into his veins. Self-hatred lined his face, truly believing he had done something wrong, something she did not wish.

“Azriel, no- that’s not what I meant. Its ok, I wanted this. Just, stop retreating. Stop running away. I only mean— if you cannot speak openly with me, then you have no right to my body, either.”

He turned pleading eyes toward her, his face stricken, still believing he had done something wicked, had forced himself on her. Seducing her into something that she didn’t wish.

She knew no words would be able to lift him out of the spiral he was currently plunging into so instead she showed him. Showed him that she trusted him, that she longed for his touch, that she wished for it day and night. But before she could completely succumb to those desires, she needed an explanation. She needed an understanding of where they stood, what she meant to him, why he had left her so abruptly that Solstice. 

Stalking up to him and grasping his hands in hers, she looked up into his face, hoping to portray nothing but sincerity, trust, comfort in his near presence.

“Azriel, please. Just tell me. Tell me what it is. What it all means. Why you’re jealous of Leto, why you avoided me for all those months, why you called me a mistake…”

A chocking sound escaped his throat. He looked stricken, his shoulders sagging with the weight of a secret she knew not. His eyes had closed but as he opened them his hazel irises burned brighter than she had ever seen them, appearing almost golden in the light of the setting sun.

“You are not a mistake Elain. You have no idea how abhorrently those words haunt me. How my actions haunt me, just. Please. Please try to understand.”

“Understand what? Azriel, stop evading speaking your truth! Please, just say… something.”

“I can’t—” a rasping sound clawed its way to his lips, as if the words were chocking him.

“Elain, I’m sorry. You deserve better.” 

Pulling his hands from hers he inched backwards once more, edging closer and closer to that cliff.

“Azriel! Stop running!” she cried, her mouth twisting in pain despite her attempts at willing it not to.

His hazel eyes guttered at the sight; the same devastation she felt reflected on his handsome face.

As if his legs moved on their own accord, he stalked back to her, reaching for her like a man finding nirvana. He cupped her cheeks in his hands, tilting her face up to his, her doe eyes wide as she peered back at him. He held her tenderly as if he had possession of the most precious thing in the world in the palm of his hands. His thumb traced her jaw and he looked down upon her as if he wished for nothing more than to simply exist in her embrace. “I’m not running, Elain. But please, let me…let me fix something first. I’ll see you at home. I promise.”

With those words, he pressed his lips to her forehead for one long, pointed moment before he retreated again and stepped off the edge of the cliff. Elain gasped, forgetting herself before his wings shot out from behind him, catching a current and carrying him away.

Elain lifted her fingers to her lips, feeling they were indeed swollen from his passionate kisses. That this all just wasn’t a dream, a vision cruelly planted in her mind to torment her further.

She stood on that blustery cliff edge watching him fly away until he was but a dark speck upon the horizon in the far distance, high above the lights of Velaris, just winking to life as the sun set upon the city she called home.

~

Hours later Elain was being woken up by an urgent hand shaking her shoulder. She hadn’t realised she had fallen asleep, spending hours tossing and turning in her bed back at the manor. She had awaited Azriel’s return, straining her ears to hear any movement from his room down the hall, but such a thing never occurred. Her younger sisters’ tattooed fingers dug into her shoulder as her eyes adjusted to the first rays of morning light.

“Elain. Elain. Wake up. Beron has made his move. His armies march south.”

Elain bolted up in bed, the words clanging in her brain like a clapper pounding against the inside of its bell.

Elain scrambled within her bed sheets, fighting to free herself from the tangle of quilts and furs.

“I’ll get dressed immediately; I just need a minute,” she babbled, her voice thick from sleep.

“No Elain, wait. I need you to stay with Nyx, protect him,” Feyre instructed, the voice of the High Lady making its request. “Rhys and Az have already gone ahead. Cassian is gathering the Illyrian troops. Nesta and I are leaving shortly to meet them, and Mor is on her way too. Amren will stay behind with you to protect the city.”

Elain wanted to argue, wanted to insist she go with them. Help them in any way she could. But she knew why her sister asked her of this. She wasn’t a warrior. Was not trained in combat. Although no one could settle and care for Nyx outside of his parents like she could, something still twinged in her heart about being separated from them all during this time. But she knew this is where she was most useful.

Elain nodded her head just once, her sister seeming to sag in relief that Elain hadn’t put up more of a fight.

“Thank you,” Feyre breathed, “Send word with the twins if something comes up.”

“We’ll be fine, I promise,” Elain vowed. Feyre saw it for what it was; that Elain would protect Nyx with her life. Today and always.

Feyre squeezed her shoulder before turning away, her long braid swinging down her back against the leathers she had already donned. Time and time again her family had gone into battle, had been flung into conflict and danger and terrors beyond her wildest dreams. Elain couldn’t help but wonder when their luck would finally run out.

“Feyre?” Elain called from her bed, the urgency evident in her voice. 

Feyre turned; her blue grey eyes bright with concern. “Yes?”

“Please make sure you come home. All of you.”

Feyre nodded solemnly before she turned back, and Elain could do nothing but watch her sister retreating from her room for what she desperately hoped wasn’t the last time.

*******

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[trashmouth-richie]

͎l͎͎e͎a͎͎v͎͎e͎ ͎m͎͎e͎ ͎i͎͎n͎ ͎t͎͎h͎͎e͎ ͎d͎a͎͎r͎͎k͎ 🦇🌑

a spooky tale of the night things went bump in Hawkins, the aftermath and how things had been affecting your boyfriend, Eddie months before you both were on the run.

tw: possession, ptsd, nightmares, drug use, cheating, vecna lives, mean!evil!Chrissy , mean!Eddie, a sprinkle of Steve and Dustin! yay we love them. Mike wheeler, ew! This runs the same course as season 4, I just thought it would be cool to see Eddie’s life before spring break of ‘86 and what it would be like if he had a girlfriend, you baby— that’s you!

eddie x fem! reader

“No, no!” 

  He could feel the razor sharp teeth sinking into his flesh, gouging his sides like butter under a hot knife. It was all too real. 

  It always was. 

  The nightmares presented around the anniversary of that day. The day you almost lost him. 

  You did what you always had, holding him close to your own body, pressing your lips to the plains of his shoulder blades, running the pads of your fingers over the pink marred scars delicately to remind him it was just a nightmare. 

  That he was safe with you.

  You weren’t around when it happened. he didn’t want you down there, instead your position was right side up with erica and Lucas at the Creel House. 

  “I’ll be fine,” He had teased, rolling his eyes as you fretted and pouted that you couldn’t go with him. He kissed the knuckles of your right hand, those infamous dimples dipped into his cheeks, “I’ll be right back.”

  Only he wasn’t right back.

  He was choking on his own blood when Steve hoisted him through the gate into the disheveled remnants of the Munson trailer. 

  A day burned into your memory. A day he still suffered from. No matter the amount of medications he was on to help numb the nightmares. 

  “It's okay Eddie,” you whispered softly into his skin, “you’re here with me,” 

  His shoulders begin to release the tension he was holding, fist gripped hands softened as much as the guitar calluses would allow. 

  He shifted his weight to his other hip, facing you. His puffy eyes moved erratically trying to gain security in your face as you smiled softly at him. 

  His hand presses to your chest to feel your heartbeat trying to mimic his breathing to yours. He’s warm, sweaty and hair a nest around his face.

  He would take it all back if he could— selling to that bitch Chrissy to make a quick buck. Running and hiding at Rick’s. Dodging your phone calls because you had been in another fight about whether or not he could just move hellfire so Lucas would be there, and why he was selling to Chrissy.  

  Moves and counter moves. And those 4 days, Eddie had made the worst ones. 

  “‘m sorry, fuck, I’m so sorry.” 

  Years had passed and it still felt like it was yesterday. The red lightning striking behind his eyelids every night before he went to sleep, a reminder of the world that crawled with demons and creatures beneath his feet, just aching for another gate to open and make the two worlds collide. 

  The embarrassment hung heavy on his features, tinging his marble cheeks pink, a silvery tear fell from his grove of lashes. 

  Guilt riddled through him from those days, and the months leading up to it, he had no idea what was happening.

  He promised Steve and the others that he wasn’t a hero, then cut the sheet and rammed through the door to give them all time.

  Scoffed and told you he’d be fine then ended up laying in a puddle of his own blood, Dustin screaming for him to stay awake. 

  Swore to Wayne that he would graduate that year, but ended up hospital bound for months and missed graduation again.

  Flashes of your face, your eyes, the sweet nectar of your lips played through his mind. Your voice was the only thing he heard, maybe it was the loss of blood that numbed him, he wasn’t sure. But one thing remained, your voice was the only thing he could hear.

“Ed please, please let me come with. I wanna be with you.” 

  Your relationship was hanging on by threads in March of ‘86. He had loved you for years, knew every single freckle and imperfection on your skin. He loved the way you had shown up to every concert cheering for them when the bar was silent and empty. He had been the one to teach you a little about cars when you sat on the ground beside him watching as he cranked a wrench this way or that. He knew the spots to kiss below your ear to summon the pretty noises, just for him. 

  You were the love of his life, and he was yours. Two outcasts finding each other and sticking like glue. 

  But the past year had been hard on him, he was back in school again, super senior times two, and he fell deep into the facade the town had molded him into. He was angry, feeling the weight of the heavy chip on his shoulder, the pounding ache in his skull.

  It wasn’t your fault, but somehow you were the easiest to push away. 

  He became mean, became everything they thought he was, leaning into his reputation. And as much as he fooled the others you knew that wasn’t the Eddie you had fallen for. 

  The Eddie you knew was sweet. And not just a nice guy but affectionate in ways you didn’t know anyone could be. 

  He’d open doors for you, carry your books to class, pick you up before school and drop you off every day, even on days you worked at the bar wiping slimy tables, he’d wait for you shift to be over, tipping and whistling when you walked away, letting the whole bar know you were his girl. 

  He wrote mushy songs about his love for you that would make the rest of the band gag. Promising you the moon and the stars while laying out on the top of his van, Eddie was wrapped around your finger, just as much as you were around his. 

  November was the month she had left, and it was always tough for him, but that year it ate at him. The pain from abandonment spread like wicked vines in his chest and he lashed out at anyone who crossed him. 

  It hurt when he started picking fights, bickering over what songs you played in your car, tossing the tapes out the window, laughing when you got mad. It hurt worse when he ignored you all together, heated fights ending with him unplugging his phone from the wall jack, not wanting to hear your pleas. 

  He stopped calling, stopped staying for your shift at the bar, claiming he had something else to do. DnD and weed became his only escape, usually finding solace in your arms, your kisses, but he had outgrown them, outgrown you. 

  That day was the same as any other Friday. 

  He had picked you up for school, wearing his hellfire shirt and greeting you with a sleepy smile and a morning cigarette, one he had inhaled and held while he pressed his lips to yours, only breaking away and pushing the smoke from his lungs and into yours when they were screaming. 

  “You look pretty, who’s the lucky guy?”

  It was a running joke between you, but somehow the joke fell flat when it was rumored that Chrissy Cunningham was seeking him out. 

  you blew the smoke between your lips and settled into the velour seats of his van, “oh just some curly haired metal guy, always wears the old leather jacket we found in Indianapolis three years ago, super good lookin’ kind of a dick, lately.” 

  He scrubs his hands down his face, “c’mon babe don’t start this shit again.” 

  You were still hurting from your argument last night, he just couldn’t understand how it was a big deal that Chrissy seeked him out to do special k with her, at his trailer, alone. 

  “I’m not starting anything, I just think her intentions are more than getting high.” 

  “It’s an easy sixty bucks, triple what it’s worth— I’d be stupid to turn it down.” 

  “Or just stupid to do it.” 

  The two of you had argued for hours over this, ending the phone call with a slam into the receiver on Eddie’s end. And tear stained pillows on yours. 

  Crazy to think now how that was what was killing you, your boyfriend who was pushing you away. 

  You were so naive, then. Not knowing that within a day's time, Chrissy would be found dead in Eddie’s trailer and he would be missing. And whatever her intentions truly were wouldn’t matter. 

  “No need to apologize,” you whispered into the dark, fingers moving his bangs from his face. 

  He pulled away, reaching for the lamp on his side table and pulling his knees to his chest. “Thought I was past this shit.” 

  “Your doctor said the possibility of them coming back is higher than them leav—”

  “I know—” he barked, rubbing the heel of his palm into his eye, “sorry, fuck I’m tired of it— it’s been six years!” 

-

After Hellfire was over, Eddie paid Mike to make sure you got home safe, which led to you throwing the velvet bag of dice at his chest, demanding answers. 

  “So I’m not allowed to be at your place when she’s there?!” your finger nails dug into your jeans as your hands pressed into your hips. 

  “Oh here we go—“ Eddie breathed out annoyed, “it’ll take a half hour, tops.”

  “so since it won’t be that long it shouldn’t be a problem for me to be there when Chrissy and her skanky ponytail show up, right?” 

  “Well, I’m driving her there.” 

  You almost laughed in his face at his hurtful joke, but when he peered down at you, you knew his dimples wouldn’t show up and he’d tickle your sides kissing you frantically and laughing. 

  He was serious. 

  Driving that cheap tramp to his place, making a sale, doing k and then what? You could see the web she was stringing along, and you knew he did too. He was just playing dumb. 

  “.. wow munson, (a name you only called him when you were mad) hope she swallows.” 

  Rolling his eyes he muttered, “Jesus Christ sweet—” 

  “Don’t sweetheart me!” You said shoving his chest with all your might, he didn’t even tip back onto his heels. “You can use the sixty dollars to pay for your new script when you catch something.” 

  “Grow up, it’s not like that,” he grumbled, blowing you off and walking away from you. 

  “Really?” You chirped, following him to the back of his van, “tell me what it is like then, because last time I checked- I didn’t have guys over at my house without you.”

  “It’s just a sale,” he gritted through his teeth, slamming the back of the van door, “don’t fucking pretend like you weren’t doing the same shit before we started fucking.”

  That was exactly your point. And the fact that he could say it and not even bat an eye or see what her intentions were was fucking insane. 

  Your tongue pressed into your cheek and you ripped his guitar pick necklace from your neck, and threw it as his reeboks, “fuck you.”

  Stomping over to Nancy Wheeler’s station wagon, you hopped in the passenger seat. 

  “Drive Wheeler.”

  “Huh?” Mike said confused and nervous that he was the one to drive you home. 

  “Fucking drive!” 

-

  Whatever could have or would have happened between Chrissy and Eddie never did, she was dead within ten minutes of being at the trailer. 

  And Eddie fled, making a pit stop to grab the only thing important to him, the only one who would believe him, you. 

  You had never seen him like that before. His eyes were wider than they ever were. At first you thought he was fucked up on some bad shit, maybe Chrissy convinced him to do some coke or even worse. 

  “Aww the princess wouldn’t put out?.” You seethed before attempting to slam the door in his face, he caught it with a thick hand and shoved his way in. 

  His face was ghost-white pale, eyes wide and scary like he was a little kid and witnessed a true monster lurking beneath his bed. 

  “Shut up, we have to— c’mon,” he grabbed your wrist and drug you up the stairs to your bedroom, once there he began opening up your drawers and tossing clothes onto your bed. 

  “What the hell are you doing?” you protested, trying to stop him from ripping your entire room apart. 

  “I can’t,” and this was the first time you saw your boyfriend break, he was always strong, holding you when your own mom left with her many boyfriends, brushing your tears away at the end of a sad movie, but here he was, tears stinging his eyes, crying while he held a combination of his clothes that you kept in your dresser and yours. “…can’t explain— right now, please baby, fuck please! Help me!” 

  you did as you were told, opting to ask questions later, you nearly tripped down the stairs with how hard Eddie was dragging you behind him, he stopped in the kitchen and grabbed the first food items he could think of, and thirty seconds later you were in his van, watching him wipe tears from his eyes as he sped through town. 

—

He had never told you the most frightening part of his nightmare, and it wasn’t the bats or vecna or the way he felt like he was suffocating. Or Chrissy’s body snapping like a fucking twig under a bears claw, it was worse than all of that. 

  “It’s the same thing over and over again,” Eddie said between puffs of a cigarette, your warm hand rubbing his back like you always did on bed nights,  “I’m lying there almost dead, and I can see Henderson, feel the bats teeth, but…”

  “It’s okay Eddie, it was traumatizing— but you’ve come a long way, and I’m so proud of you.”

  The truth is what scared him the most. 

-

  “You’re scaring me Eddie,”

  “Yeah- well I’m pretty fucking scared right now too, I have no idea what I— fuck I’m losing my mind.” 

  His foot was pressed flush with the floor, no time for stop signs. 

  “Just tell me what happened so I can help!” you yelled, unable to calm yourself out of fright.

   He turned to look at you and you swore he aged 10 years, “She’s fucking dead, I don’t know how, I don’t know why. She flung into the air like a fucking squirrel or some shit and then she- she, and then she snapped.” 

  “She snapped? Like she went crazy? Like a witch?”

  “What? No, not like a witch! She snapped like her bones fucking snapped and then she fell to the ground and she was— dead.” 

  “Jesus.” 

  “We need to hide, it won’t take very long for someone to notice there’s a dead bitch in my living room.”

  —  

  “You were right.” 

  “What?”

  “She— Chrissy, she wasn’t there that night to buy from me. I didn’t, I swear to you, I had no idea.” 

  “It was so long ago Eddie, it doesn't matter now.” 

  “It does..”

  -

  “I wanna be with you.” 

  Running from the cops, finding out about the upside down and helping your new found friends discover vecna and his curse still couldn’t stop you and Eddie from bickering. 

  He was pissed that you had dove in the water after Robin and Nancy, even more pissed when you resurfaced and found you helping Nancy wrap up a badly bleeding Steve. 

  You were mad that he ate all the honey comb back at Rick’s before you even woke up, leaving you with a rumbling stomach and a growing hatred for him. 

  And worst of all, you were still upset that you were both in this mess. Imagine if he had just listened to you and Chrissy would have died at her own house or better yet at Jason’s. You and Eddie wouldn’t be reeking like an ogre’s armpits and your socks and underwear wouldn’t be soggy.

  And now he didn’t even want you with him.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said with an eyeroll, his chin dipping into the green vest, “I’ll be right back.” 

  -

  Chrissy didn’t come over for drugs, the minute her door slammed in the van she was all over him, rubbing his thigh and walking her nails up his chest. 

  It felt good to be wanted by someone else. He wouldn’t deny it. He felt like you were his past and he wanted something new, something… more. 

  Someone like Chrissy Cunningham. 

  She wasn’t prettier than you were, but she was cute, and he had a crush on her for as long as he could remember. 

  Plus, her boyfriend was the biggest asshole in all of Hawkins High so how great would it be to find out his girlfriend was cheating on him with the freak? 

  He thought of you.

  His girl.

  Your smile, your witty little jokes, the way your curves felt in his hands, how you were the first girl to actually give a shit about him. 

  He loved you, goddamn he fucking loved you. 

  He started second guessing everything that was happening. Suddenly Chrissy’s nails felt like talons and her perfume smelled like rancid rotting fruit, he pushed her away in disgust, and her eyes flickered a sinister shade of milky blue. 

  But before anything could happen, before her lips could even touch his, and before he could tell her to get out and find another way home, she was dead. 

  —

Blood was fountaining from his mouth, he made Dustin promise to take care of the others. And before Dustin could beg him to stay, he heard your voice. Pretty and musical, 

  Eddie bear. 

  You had called to him like an angel. 

  My sweet sweet Eddie, how fucking dumb are you? 

  He couldn’t get away from it, he tried to focus on Dustin’s voice but it was no use. 

  I’m glad you’re dying, you worthless fuck. Now you can lie with that whore, forever. 

—

  “I— I know it was Vecna, but it— fuck baby it’s your voice.” 

  You didn’t cry easily, not anymore. But the tears hit the tops of Eddie’s bare shoulder before you can catch them. And you sob into his neck. 

  “I love you, sweet girl— I’m sorry I’m so sorry.” 

  It wasn’t a secret how much you didn’t like Chrissy, even now when she’s been buried for years you still couldn’t forgive her. 

  You had heard what her plans were when you were stacking paint supplies for Ms. Greenly in the supply closet earlier that week. Her locker was right next tk the closet door snd you could hear everything she was saying. 

   She was talking to Carol about her plans of seducing Eddie, how he had become so hot this past year, how Jason wasn’t filling her needs anymore. But maybe if she got under some trailer trash like Eddie— it would help her appreciate how good she had it. 

  She had just wanted to use him for her own benefit, using the fact that he had liked her years before to win him over. 

  “Plus,” she added, “have you seen the dog he’s dating? Barf.” 

  You may pried open her locker after that, and you might have poured red paint on her Pom poms. But it wasn’t anything she didn’t deserve. 

  Eddie never told you about what he heard when he was fighting for his life that night. 

-

  You had cried so hard when Steve rolled up to the creel house and hollered for you to get in, Eddie was sprawled in the back nearly dead. You jumped in beside him, holding his head in your hands and asking a frantic Dustin what had happened. 

  The rest of the days were a blur. Eddie was stable but in extreme amounts of pain. Feeling guilty that he was the one to come back and Max was still in a coma, bones shattered like Chrissy’s were. 

  You rarely left, visiting every hour you could and sharing Eddie’s hospital bed. 

  “I’m sorry baby, I’m so fucking sorry,” he repeated it almost every hour, you thought it was for him almost dying and refusing to let you come with, but now you understood. 

Six years has passed and you both left Hawkins the week after he was cleared from the hospital. Both unable to stomach the idea of staying in a town that quite frankly was formed on the hubs of hell. 

  Hawkins was your home, but it was filled with toxic memories. Ones that you and Eddie had put behind you, ones that never got brought up. 

  You were in love again, no longer fighting, promising to be together until you were both old and gray. Eddie was the same boy you fell in love with in the band room years before, sweet as can be. Your hero. 

  And maybe it was Vecna’s curse brewing that wedged between you and Eddie to begin with. Vecna saw that he was valuable, much more use to him as a leader among an army of the undead than just an undead soldier. 

  That was Will’s theory at least, explaining why Eddie was distancing himself, why his head hurt all the time why he became so mean and vile, and why he was driving you away. 

  Vecna acted through Chrissy, taunting and teasing him, coming into his dreams and promising him power, riches, and companionship. 

  The nightmares were like a ticking clock, acting on the same four chimes as Vecna worked, four nights of hell for not obeying his orders, for not joining him. 

  For now, he waited in the shadows. He’d wait for however long it took. Waiting for his right hand Kas, to return. 

[fancifulplaguerat]

Need to rant about the Marble Nest because I just. I cannot get over it. It is everything to me. Every time I hear “Birdies... birdies... Gather ye here...” I want to eat door hinges and run up the walls and put myself in a blender

There’s something utterly tragic to me about the image of Daniil lying in bed delirious and feverish and dying while these children who care about this weird Capital doctor so much are trying to break his fevers like he taught them to, and it fucks me up even more considering when Spichka asks Daniil who looks after him when he’s sick Daniil just. Doesn’t answer him. And the narrator’s line (I love that they got Martin Cooke he absolutely ate and imo elevates the entire game) “a warm, dry hand seemed to have touched your forehead soothingly. It’s going to be all right” OH MY GOD I just. I can only wretch and sob about the fact that Daniil is being taken care of and at least for a moment he feels like it’s all going to be okay, exactly as he’s been saying throughout the beginning. Also when the narrator says “Somewhere, bells are chiming, softly. Bells are chiming around the marble nest. The bells, are chiming, softly.” Not only does Cooke’s delivery make me feral beyond words (particularly that last one where he whispers ‘softly’) but I mean. surely this is referring to Daniil hearing his own goddamn funeral bells which just SCREAMING CRYING BITING SCRATCHING COMMITTING UNSPEAKABLE ACTS. 

Plus when Spichka warns Daniil against giving Shrew nuts because, as we learn, Shrew wants to let Daniil die. I unfortunately can’t find the exact quote but I believe Spichka says smth about how Shrew doesn’t think it’s right for Daniil to suffer as he is (there is blood in my mouth !!!!!). She clearly just wants Daniil to rest and not be in pain anymore; she thinks she can create a Focus so she can still talk to him. I’m also Highly Emotional about Spichka because he’s so adamant about Daniil continuing to live, even if it’s just in his fever dream, this poor kid just wants Daniil to keep going. These kids have known Daniil Bitchelor for all of ten days and they care about him so much !!! 

I’m also hung up on everyone telling Daniil that he doesn’t know how to die properly, especially when Aspity likens him to a child covering his eyes because he doesn’t want to see the truth, which gets me too because it makes me think about how defeated and afraid Daniil probably is when he realizes what’s going on. I think it’s even more tragic in the sense that Daniil is dying having failed to meet Simon and save Thanatica, failed to prove death can be conquered, and couldn’t even protect the Town from the plague, either, and I can’t imagine Daniil would handle any of that well. I feel like he’d think everything—plague and all—was his fault, especially with the context of the Executor/Death saying, “Who was the murderer: a sickness that let no second go to waste—or you, who bothered not to hurry? I think it’s the latter.” 

Also when Daniil does agree to die properly and the Executor tells Daniil “Give me your hand,” and Daniil can say “Here it is”,,,,,, Yes I am being dramatic but actually it makes me insane to imagine Daniil finally taking Death’s hand after fighting it for so many years. Even though I love this horrible little man with all my heart, I disagree with his whole “no more death” thing. I’m not going to like. Expound on my philosophy about death here aafnkgk but suffice it to say I like the idea of Daniil accepting that death is not something that can be defeated; though, I don’t think his idealism is useless or a negative trait, only that it has to be tempered with some realism. 

So here is as good a point as any to scream about endings. 

It's a cycle. A pause. Things will change. And the day starts anew.

That. Tjat second sentence is lodged in my cortex and it is not coming out I ougghh I love stories that repeat so much. And I’ve played the Marble Nest just. Too many times (and I’ll do it again) and I might be imagining it, because I’ve never seen anyone else talk about it, but every time I’ve gotten a different ending the game is a little different when I play it again. I find that extremely immersive if I’m not just gaslighting myself, because it puts the player in the same situation as Daniil, with things changing subtly; you get to accompany Daniil on his Fun Fever Delirium Death Adventure. On the one hand I think it’s a little painful that Daniil is going to just live in this delirium forever, but on the other one, I like how Daniil’s decision to repeat the day encapsulates continuing to fight for life, even if it seems hopeless or in vain.  It feels very “Do not go gentle into that good night / Rage, rage against the dying of the light"

And finally The transition is real, and the timeline continues. So does the entity I call myself.

I don’t want to get into meta too much, but. I kind of like this line knowing people have written/drawn/etc. endings to this nightmare where Artemy saves him with panacea (Magpie Crown’s “Conjunction of Spheres” animatic !!). All these different endings people have given Daniil’s story in general. This is silly but I like to think of it as yeah, The Powers That Be played a cruel game with you, but other people are kinder to you (or make you suffer more, depends on their persuasion). Your story keeps going, depending on who picks up the thread, you’re going to keep going. 

Anyway everyone go watch CodexEntry’s video on the Marble Nest <3 

[queen--of--shadows]

Healing Shadows: Part 4

Azriel x Reader

Summary: Reader is a gifted surgical healer and water bender. Rhysand needs her help when he finds out about Feyre’s risky pregnancy. Azriel finds out reader is his mate.

Warnings: mentions of surgical wounds and scars

Word Count: 1,896

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

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

Part 4: Truth

Nuala and Cerridwen cleaned up, removing any trace of the traumatic morning, while you and Rhys set up a cozy array of soft quilts, plush blankets, and thick pillows in Feyre’s old room so she could nest with baby Nyx. “Feyre, let me know if you need anything, I’ll be in my--” You stammered as you felt the heat rise to your cheeks.

“Y/N? What’s wrong?” Rhys questioned, raising a brow.

“Nothing, I’m sorry. I was about to say my room, I didn’t mean to assume I could just take over the guest room. I…Is there somewhere else I should bring my bag?” You only had your supplies with you, not foreseeing that you would end up moving in so soon.

Rhys and Feyre shared a sympathetic look. “Y/N, please, consider the House like your own home. Take whichever room you prefer. If you want to stay in the guest room, by all means, do,” Rhys continued, “We have no problem using another room for guests.” He gave you a warm smile, and you knew he meant it.

Your chest swelled with joy and gratitude at their generosity. Turning to Feyre, you said “I’ll be in my room. Shout if you need me.”

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

It was late and although you were physically and emotionally exhausted from the day’s events, sleep escaped you. Soaking in a long steaming bath usually helped, but maybe it was the nerves of being in a new home. And not just any home, but the High Lord’s. You still were having a hard time believing the trajectory of your life changed so drastically in just a few days.

You paced in your room, read a few chapters of the book Nesta had lent you, trying to tire yourself out, but after a half hour gave up. Maybe I just need some tea, you thought, grabbing a robe from the dresser and making your way downstairs.

The House was dark and dim, save for the faelight torches along the length of the stairs. You were already familiar with its layout, or as much of it that you’d seen so far. Nesta had mentioned she would give you a tour of the Library tomorrow, and Cassian offered to show you around the rest of the House and the training ground on the roof.

With one hand against the wall, you made your way into the opulent kitchen. Beautiful white marble glistened underneath the iridescent faelight. You grabbed one of the torches to guide your path to the end of the room, pulling back the thick curtains draped around giant floor-to-ceiling windows, revealing the famed starry Velaris night sky and a full moon. Even though you had spent most of your life here, the sight still took your breath away.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Azriel whispered.

You jolted back and turned to face him, not realizing he was in the kitchen before you had come down.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he chuckled, bringing his hands up in innocence. His deep, breathy laugh caressed your soul. Azriel was donning a simple black ensemble, the V-line cut of his sweater showcasing dark sweeping tendrils of his tattoos across a broad, muscular chest. Your heart began to pace and you were sure he could hear its pounding. Moonlight shining bright on him from the window, you couldn’t help but marvel at his perfect features. The sharp angle of his jaw, his soft, full lips, and gorgeous, blazing hazel eyes. His shadows slithered around his arms and shoulders, and you looked down to see one of them wrapping up your leg, like a cat brushing and winding against you. A cheeky smile spread across your face as the shadow slid up and around one leg, then the other.

Meeting his eyes again, you realized you hadn’t said a single word.

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” you breathed. Turning back around, you continued, “I’ve loved the night sky since I was young.” Azriel hummed in agreement, taking a seat at the oak table in the center of the kitchen. You just noticed the odd-shaped chairs, and as he sat down, it made sense that they were fashioned to accommodate their massive wings.

“I was going to make myself tea, would you like some?” You looked to Azriel for his response, but he just stared at you, as if searching for an answer from you in turn. His cold, beautiful face yielded no emotion.

“Sure, thank you.”

You worked in comfortable silence, steeping the tea, unsure what to say or how to make conversation. He was the notorious Shadowsinger, and although that alone didn’t scare you, you had just been invited to move in and were still getting to know everyone.

Straining out the rich chamomile drink into two mugs, you handed him one before deciding to head back upstairs. You wanted to stay, some feeling in your gut telling you to take a seat, but figured it would be better to avoid any situation that would cause you to gain feelings for someone in the Inner Circle. The few moments you’ve had with Azriel thus far already had you in bed at night, imaging his tall lithe body, pushed up against yours.

Azriel wrapped his hand around the mug and your fingers, warm and strong. He looked up at you as if expecting more, but you instead pulled back with a soft smile and mumbled goodnight.

You didn’t notice the shadows that followed you back to your room, slithering along the cold stone floors in the darkness.

You were kicking yourself as soon as you shut your door.

How will I ever fit in around here?

The tea worked its magic to clear your mind, and with heavy lids, you drifted away into a deep sleep.

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

The following day, you were awoken by a loud knock at your door. “Come in,” you grumbled, eyes still half-closed.

“Morning, Y/N!” Mor squealed as she let herself in, her citrusy cinnamon scent filling your room. Jumping onto your bed and propping her head on one elbow, she asked “How did you sleep?”

Her eyes sparkled as she awaited your answer. “Fine,” was all you could manage. How did she look so good this early?

“Madja is here. She said she wanted to come check on Feyre and Nyx.”

Rubbing your eyes and pulling on your robe and slippers, you followed the tall blonde downstairs.

You entered Feyre’s room to find Cassian holding Nyx with Azriel seated next to him, both cooing over the baby. He was looking healthier and stronger by the day. Rhys was helping Feyre out of bed and onto the couch so you and Madja could look at her wounds. Madja slowly peeled back the bandages and gauze from yesterday morning. She whipped around, meeting your eyes with a menacing gaze that made you want to shrink.

“Why do her cuts still look so fresh?” Madja’s words shook you out of your sleepy stupor, and an icy fear mixed with rage washed over you.

No…please, please don’t say anything.

You didn’t respond.

“What does that mean? Are they not supposed to look like this?” Rhys asked, his night-kissed power slowly thrumming throughout the room. All eyes were on you, again.

“Madja? What are you talking about?” Feyre protested.

She didn’t shift her gaze away from you.

“I thought you were going to tell them. When I asked for your help, I meant all of it.”

You threw your head back in frustration. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Madja,” you replied coolly. “I performed the surgery, Nyx is healthy and Feyre is healing appropriately. Her wound is already closing.”

You prayed that everyone would believe you, despite Madja’s death stare.

“Y/N, what are you hiding from us?” Rhys knew how to sound like the High Lord when he needed to. Guilt and shame-- you suddenly felt horrible for not telling them the whole truth. Fine, they offered you their home and trust, the least you could do was give them this.

“Rhys, Feyre, I’m sorry. I haven’t been completely honest with you. I…” You were having a hard time putting your thoughts into words. “I have healing…powers? Magic? Something beyond just my surgical skills. I’m not entirely sure what to call it. I learned a lot from studying medical texts, but my healing power is similar to...” 

They all stared at you, awaiting your explanation.

“It’s hard to describe, and I haven’t fully mastered it yet. I need to practice more, but essentially I can heal using water.”

The blank stares you received in return had you stumbling over your words as you continued, “I think it would be better if I just showed you.”

Focusing on the glass of water next to Feyre’s bed, you took a deep breath and closed your eyes to center yourself. You searched deep down in your core for that power, that magic that hummed along your veins, allowing you to bend water to your will. Opening your eyes, you lifted one hand with a flicking motion of your wrist, the water following, easing out of the glass and into the air like a fluid rope. You turned your palm towards the water to stop it, and then continued to bend and twist your wrist and fingers, weaving and dancing the water through the air, not unlike Azriel’s shadows when they wreath around his neck and limbs. You were so focused, you didn’t notice the multiple sets of eyes darting back and forth between the water and you.

“Incredible…” Azriel all but whispered to himself.

Halting the water above Feyre, you motioned for her to lay down on the couch. The room was silent as if everyone was holding their breath, watching you command the element to your will.

With one hand holding the water still above her, you used your other to lift Feyre’s tunic above her abdomen to reveal the site you had cut into just a day ago. Using both hands, you twisted the water into a circle and brought it down above her wound. “This may tickle,” you warned. Feyre nodded, and you were grateful for the trust shining bright in her eyes.

You slid the water across her abdomen, willing the magic from deep inside you into the liquid. The water began to glow a soft blue, illuminating Feyre’s belly, and you moved it in long strokes across her wounds as if you were washing and wiping with a towel. You continued for a few seconds, the redness from the stitches slowly subsiding, and the wound fully closed. You were done with a few more strokes, then eased the liquid back into the glass on the nightstand and reeled your power back in. The water stopped glowing.

“That was…unbelievable,” Rhys muttered. “Y/N, it seems you have a sort of elemental magic. Have you tried using your power with other materials?”

Already following his pattern of logic, you responded with a sigh and shook your head in disappointment, “I have, but for some reason, I’m not able to connect with the other elements. I don’t know why, but it seems I’m only able to do this with water or other fluids that contain water, like--”

“Like blood,” Azriel finished for you, wearing the cold mask of the Night Court’s Spymaster.

“Yes, like blood.”

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

[buffetlicious]

For the Braised Fried Fish Maw Seafood Treasure Soup, the staff portioned it into ten smaller bowls before serving it to us. Not sure if it is because I am holding a camera, but my bowl came with more chunks of crab meat and fish maw. Basically, a seafood soup thickened with starch so the ingredients seem to be suspended/frozen in the soup. Black vinegar and white pepper accompanied this soup so feel free to add some to it.

Well, the Roasted Crispy Chicken with Prawn Crackers was warm and tender to eat, it however wasn’t crispy at it. And just like everywhere else in Singapore, they referred to this deep-fried chicken as a roasted chicken. Sprinkle a bit of the salt & pepper before putting it into the mouth. A lacklustre dish but thank goodness, the prawn crackers were crispy though.

This Steamed Hybrid Garoupa in Hong Kong Style was cut into sections just before they served it to us. This hybrid grouper is probably a cross between the giant grouper (Epinephelus lanceolatus) and brown-marbled grouper or tiger grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus) and given the Dragon Tiger Grouper (龙虎斑) name. The fish got to be very fresh to be steamed and cooked with just a simple condiment of soya sauce, julienned spring onions and cilantro leaves for garnish. The end result, sweet springy flesh with collagen like skin that is so good to eat.

The Braised Whole 10-Head Abalone with Sea Cucumber and Spinach was up next but the process of waiting for the next dish to be served was a long one as in-between the hosts are showing us video stories of the newly married couple and plus the live singing by the friends and band. Ten pieces each of the abalone and sea cucumber sitting atop a bed of blanched Popeye’s favourite green vegetable. Why 10 you may ask? Because a table usually seat ten people so the food portions are divided equally so each get a piece of everything (for the expensive ingredients that is). The only complaint for this dish is that the spinach is on the bitter side.

Like an overturned basket or nest, spilling out Deep-Fried Prawns with Black Truffle Mayonnaise Sauce. If there is anything to change for the presentation, I would move the red and green coral lettuces from under the eatable nest and placed it in the nest for a more dramatic effect. Anyway, these truffle gratings lend an aromatic and earthy fragrances to the classic mayo prawns topped with orange flying fish roe. My colleague and I detected a mild spicy hint of wasabi in it but another colleague said it is from the truffle and mayo combo. Differences aside, this is one dish I won’t mind having again.

I always love this noodle served at the end of the dinner courses just before dessert. The Braised Ee-Fu Noodles with Yellow Chives and Straw Mushrooms is a usual staple at wedding due to the fact it is also known as longevity noodles (寿面). Normally, I would consume more than a bowl of the yi mein (伊面) but that night I was already quite stuffed from the dishes served and I was leaving room for dessert. :D

By the time the last dish was up and the clock was ticking closer to 11pm. The warm Teochew Yam Paste with Gingko Nut and Coconut Milk with its gooey and smooth yam (taro) paste and whole gingko nuts smothered in thickened coconut milk is bursting with sweetness and a great comfort to many of us Singaporeans. I liked the fact that the chef tuned the sugar level to just sweet enough as I preferred mine not too saccharine. Anyway, I just had to ask for another bowl as it was just too good to pass up.

Dinner is now over and after shaking hands with the groom, bride and their respective parents, it is time to head to the train station to catch the train home.

[screemnch]

The Pathologic Russian and English analysis: Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky

So uhhh.... Turns out my priorities aren't as messed up as I thought, which is why it took me a whole month just to finish this thing. Let's cover some basics shall we? The approximate structure will, depending on the length of this analysis, go as follows: I’m gonna tackle Patho Classic and the three healers from each other’s perspective, look at shared dialogue options and then talk about all the other important NPCs and how they interact with the playable characters. Since Patho 2 only has the Haruspex run, we’re gonna move through that a lot faster in a similar fashion, and then we’ll look over Marble Nest.

What I’m going to be focusing on: there’s a huge amount of dialogue between all the characters in the story, and I couldn’t possibly note down all the differences at once. I will mainly be trying to relay the “voice” of the character that is present in the original Russian version and noting the biggest differences. If there are also pieces of dialogue that shine a different light on a few story aspects, I will point these out too. Mainly I will talk about how the characters in these interactions seem to treat each other (which will be difficult, since opinions of characters change frequently in this game), note interesting mannerisms and sometimes quote the fun differences and try and fail to explain why the use of this specific idiom is funny in this context. Sooooo yeah.

The Bachelor

The Bachelor in the other characters’ campaigns is, as we all know, a drastically different character. Before I dive nose deep, I’m gonna establish what kind of impression we have of our English Bachelor, so we can compare and contrast things easily.

Daniil in the English version is, as we all know, a prickly prick. He speaks in a usually rather conceited manner, gets irritated with people easily and likes to throw in latin phrases at random points. He sees himself as smarter than everyone else which then in turn leads to him being manipulated by most people that he meets. He’s having a no good, very bad week and he will let people know about it. In the Haruspex campaign the “asshole” part of his character seems to be a bit diminished, and when watching him interact with Artemy, I almost saw something similar to… Respect? He even appeals to Artemy’s knowledge of the kin, as opposed to his own Capital beliefs, when asking him to save the Polyhedron. In the Changeling campaign the Bachelor’s prickly prick factor is ramped up to a hundred. He’s arrogant, talks down to Clara while also being heavily dependent on her and does his best to seem unaffected by all the shit hitting the fan.

Overall, he does give off an impression of a capital dandy that’s in way over his head in both campaigns, and has a very distinct voice and mannerisms. Partially I’d attribute that to the fact that the speech quirk of “randomly starts speaking latin like a pretentious asshole” was a rather easy thing to translate. So, what do we get when we meet the Bachelor in Russian?

As the Haruspex: Before I even discuss the tone, I want to set a little groundwork - although it might be something people already know if they're that deep into learning about an obscure Russian game. And that is - the use of “you” in the Russian language. Similar to German, we have two versions: formal and informal. 

The formal version - “вы” (vy - phonetics are difficult) - is used in Russian when referring to strangers, figures of authority, people older than you, people whom you respect, as well as a group of people.

The informal version - “ты” (ty - once again, phonetics are stupid) - is used when speaking to a friend, someone younger than you (like a child), someone you have no respect for, or someone you’re familiar with. Also family, even if they’re older. This being said, for 90% of the time in the Haruspex campaign, the Bachelor uses the informal “you” when speaking to Artemy. More on that as we get into the nitty gritty.

Dankovsky’s tone throughout this campaign is separated into 2 groups - before and after you receive a letter with his list of Bound, where he decides to dedicate himself to the Kain's cause and to saving the Polyhedron. I’m not sure if that is clearly visible in the English version - reading them side by side has blurred a lot of things for me, but it’s quite apparent in the Russian version. 

In terms of consistent mannerisms, there is one detail that I think doesn’t shine as well in English as it does in Russian. You’d think that our bachelor of medicine would speak in a very formal tone, using big boy words and scientific terms only. You would be wrong.

The Bachelor speaks in very “deliberate” sentences. It’s like he is trying to get all the possible clarifications out of the way, before getting to the point of the sentence. That doesn’t make him sound formal or anything. He uses diminutives and “rough” words every now and then, and doesn’t overcomplicate his sentences too much.When I say rough words, I don’t mean cussing, per se. In fact, other than the equivalent of “damn” (which literally translates into something like “imp”) Daniil doesn’t swear at all. Even when he calls the Haruspex a bastard in English, in Russian it’s a lot softer and more akin to “scoundrel.” Rough words, I guess, would be more like… “Lower-class” slang terms. I say lower-class because for a long time many words in Russia were considered to be unacceptable, since they were, or at least were reminiscent of, prison talk. The closest example I can think of in English is the way one person might say “making love” and another one might say “screwing.” Except in Russian, there are “rough” words for eating, going somewhere, etc. And the Bachelor, even though you’d expect him to be a high-strung formal ass, is very liberal with those words. This goes into contrast with what we get in the English version, where he seems to mostly use very formal language, except for a few moments of frustration.

In the first half of the Haruspex campaign, Daniil speaks in an overall warmer tone, starting out with what seems to be boundless enthusiasm. It’s only slightly mitigated by the frustration towards the townspeople. In English he sounds like he’s only frustrated, but in Russian it sounds like he’s frustrated because of how much he wants to help. He expresses a lot of his frustration by riddling his speech with tiny connector words, as if rushing the other person to respond. It’s like if there were a bunch of different alternatives to the word “then,” and you’d see him being like “Well tell me then, what, then, is this thing?” This creates an appearance of impatience, desperation, and helplessness. Which is what I imagine the player would feel at that time in the Bachelor run. Anyways, now onto the fun little details.

Everyone’s beloved “far be it from me to call myself a person of mystical inclinations...” line is, for the most part, pretty accurate. The biggest difference, from what I found, is in the first sentence itself. In Russian, it’s simply “Yes… Mystical feelings/sensations are alien/foreign to me.” Everything else is pretty much the same. Though, tone wise, the sheer presence of an informal “you” makes it a lot more personal. Instead of someone talking about an odd, otherworldly and foreboding feeling, the tone is more of a person bitterly commenting on an unfortunate and cruel burden that they realise they share with another person.

Day 2 and it’s main quest have a fun little detail that I will talk about later when we discuss formalities a little more, but for now I will simply note that throughout all of Day 2, the Bachelor speaks to Burakh using the formal version of “you” (and being addressed informally right back). But also, in one of the dialogues that happens during that quest Artemy says “I’m beginning to like you, oynon” the Russian version instead has “I’m liking you more and more, oynon” which is a fun detail that I think some people may appreciate.After examining the samples, you can ask the Bachelor what he is working on now. In his reply he says he’s looking for the sources of the outbreak and needs hard evidence. In the Russian text, he specifically says he needs evidence of himself being right. In the rest of his dialogues he seems rather open-minded to unorthodox practices, as much as he sneers at them, but in this particular case he seems focused specifically on being correct, rather than right. Not too empirical of him, smh.

I found this difference absolutely hilarious. I imagine the main reason that this line was translated the way it was is because they wanted to maintain the tone of suspicion coming from the Bachelor. In a more literal translation (and keep in mind, this all has a bunch of little words strewn in to pad out the sentences) Dankovsky says something more like “And what sort of specimen is that?” except it’s not “specimen” it’s “subject” which in Russian can point to a person, and it’s very difficult to convey the absolute snark that comes with this question. Imagine a suburban mother in a polka dot apron and red glasses, as she stares down a dead bird that her child has brought in from the backyard. There’s suspicion, a hint of disgust, and a demand to know why this is being brought to their attention. That being said, I don’t know if there was a better way to translate this. Maybe “Who the hell is that?” is the best way to convey this. I just wanted to point out how starkly different it is in Russian.

Interesting difference here: in the English version the Bachelor says “Your father was a natural.” Here, the specific word used usually refers to a gemstone, something extremely valuable. A literal translation of the word would be “self-born.”

Additionally, Dankovsky seems to speak very fondly of Rubin throughout the campaign. Like, it’s something that’s present in the English version, I guess, but in Russian it genuinely seems that the two share a strong bond. There is a lot more warmth when talking about his expertise, and a lot more concern and sadness, when it's implied that he might be in danger.

Two things about this. 1: The whole “half-dead” thing is absolutely hilarious in Russian. Essentially the word that he uses can be loosely likened to smth like “half-corpselings” with the use of diminutives, as if the bacteria were a bunch of tiny little guys that were about to die. More to my argument that the Bachelor doesn’t sound professional, just very deliberate. Secondly, the whole “Oh yes, I would very much like to have a serious talk with Rubin” makes it sound like he’s an angry parent whose kid is absolutely in trouble. In Russian, he sounds like he’s talking about meeting up with a college buddy, or as if the desire to ask for someone else’s assistance is a sudden urge. That comes specifically from the word he uses - охота (okhóta). The primary meaning of this word is “a hunt.” But it can also mean a desire, or want to do something, often paired with the fact that it’s something that you can’t or won’t do at the moment.

Fucking this. I was so flabbergasted by this line when I came across it, because the entire Haruspex campaign these two get along really well. And then this happens, and it suddenly sounds like the Bachelor is spitefully making fun of Burakh for not finding something that they both believe is impossible to find. Like, it was so mean and petty and out of the blue, it immediately paints an image of someone who lashes out the moment they have to admit defeat - which is not something the Bachelor has been doing so far. In the original Russian dialogue? “Yes, after everything you were unable to find this creature.” Or something to that effect. I’m translating the vibes here to my best ability. Oddly enough, this is one of the instances in which the Bachelor uses the informal version of “you” again. It’s not mockery. This is Daniil drawing the line of all that he could accomplish, but also all the things he tried to help realise, all the people he supported, before he is executed (at least he thinks he will be). He mentions being unable to look in the eye of everyone he failed earlier in the conversation, referring to his colleagues at Thanatica, but at the same time - at this point he’s already insisted that he wants himself and Burakh to collaborate and sees their separate goals as one. Artemy’s unfortunate conclusion is one he feels partially responsible for. The meaning and vibe of the sentence goddamn changes near everything about this interaction! It goes from spiteful gloating of a cornered, near dead man, trying to find solace in another person’s failings, to instead something more akin to… Regret? Pity? Empathy? That’s it, Marble Nest, I’m coming for your “oooh, Bachelor Dankovsky has no heart” bullshit.

That being said, after the Inquisitor’s appearance, the tone that Daniil takes on shifts drastically. I wasn’t able to find or remember when he sends his letter about the Bound, but I’m pretty sure it all happens around the same time. And the main idea of that is - the Bachelor has his own agenda now. He’s found out about what happened to Thanatica and is now dead set on preserving the only other miracle he knows of - the Polyhedron. And, maybe I’m getting a little to interpret-y here, but seeing as the Haruspex can help lead to that goal of his, the Bachelor then starts giving Burakh the same treatment that the Kains have been giving him. 

His tone becomes a lot more familiar, a lot more personal. He constantly brings up the things that he’s done for Artemy and the looming threat of the town getting shelled. Oh, and I’m pretty sure around that time he also starts calling him by his first name. He does his best to act like he really cares about what the “udurgh” can be, while pushing his own idea, and condemning Aglaya for doing the same. He also doesn’t use those little exasperated and rushed filler words in his speech, despite the situation being arguably a lot worse. I remember seeing some of that even in the English version, but I don’t know if it’s the fact that I got to see all the dialogue, or that some Russian words just hit different, but it’s a lot more apparent when looking at it now.

Now here’s a moment where I’m a bit lost as to what translation I prefer. I want all these characters to get along in a universe where they’re nice and kind to each other, but that’s simply not Pathologic. Besides, if I’m sticking to my interpretation, I should really be telling y’all that the Russian version is more effective. Because in Russian, dude literally says “I’m sorry if you thought I was condescending” or something to that extent that would imply that him being an ass is simply Burakh’s own misinterpretation. But hey, this is also the conversation in which he decided to “play unfair” and pressure Artemy into speaking to the Foreman in his stead, so it’s not like this changes much. Maybe being manipulated for what, a whole week now, has finally gotten to him, or he’s just gotten familiar enough to use such tactics - interpret it how you will.

More fun differences - when asking the Bachelor about how to get into the Polyhedron, he will mention Maria and Khan getting into a spat and not being on good terms. In Russian, he refers to her as “my Maria” which he hasn’t done before or since (at least between these two).

That’s all I’ve got about the campaign as it is, but I’ve also promised a little tangent about formality and so here it is. Throughout the entire campaign, there are only a few instances in which the Bachelor addresses the Haruspex using the formal version of “you.” Those instances are: 1 - when asking him about his inheritance. 2 - when talking about chimaeras and how they don’t exist before heading off to face the Inquisitor. And 3 - when you’re speaking to him late at night. Instances in which he’s either asking you to leave him alone, or offering to use his own bed to rest in. My theory is that the Bachelor - as far as I’ve read in his interactions with Burakh - switches to a formal tone (with people who he’d usually speak to informally) if he is uncomfortable. Consider: he uses the formal version of “you” when speaking to Artemy about his inheritance - because that’s a really awkward topic. He needs to get crucial information from Isidor’s notes asap, but the person he has to speak to about them is the man’s grieving son, who’s still being blamed for his death. Awkward as hell. Next instance? He thinks he’s about to be offed by the inquisitor and is (at least in my interpretation) expressing a degree of guilt for the failures of someone who’s at the very least an acquaintance at this point. Very uncomfortable, especially for someone with an ego as big as the Bitchelor’s. And lastly - late at night, tired out of his mind, having to either turn away a guest, or offer them his own bed. Both awkward and uncomfortable things to do, for a city boy. Now, this is, of course just from what I can see of Daniil in the Haruspex route, my conclusions might change drastically when I get through the other interactions, but it's still a fun difference.

And I would say that about wraps it up for the Bachelor in the Haruspex run. The biggest differences have been mainly the fact that he is a lot less formal than his English counterpart, the interesting insights that come with addressing your fellow doctor formally, and the very precise moment where Daniil’s kind and determined attitude turns to that of a manipulative snake.

On a quick tangent here about that, actually - in both the English and Russian version, you can very much engage in a way that allows Burakh to catch on to the Bitchelor’s tricks, and even start lying back to him, when you’re trying to gain access to the Polyhedron. But there is a certain bitterness present in these interactions that I’m not sure is well conveyed. Maybe it’s in the way Artemy himself speaks like an old soul, a fairytale wiseman, that makes these interactions that much more saddening. It’s especially visible in the dialogue where he tells Dankovsky that they’re dolls - it’s sad in the English version, but god if it isn’t absolutely tragic in Russian. And weirdly enough, I feel like a little bit more of that could have been conveyed if people opted for the clunkier but more literal translation? Like what I imagine the old translation was, that everyone complained so much about. Like, if the line “They don’t love us, but they way.” was instead. “We aren’t loved, by the way.” I think it’s a bit more personal, a bit more sad, and doesn’t have the “they” in it, which I feel makes it a little more… Potent. In fact, for most of that dialogue, the “they” is omitted in Russian, because grammar and all, except for the moments where Burakh explicitly mentions the children. And I like that more, I think. It’s not about what the powers that be are doing in the sandbox. It’s about how their dolls feel. How they’ve been stuck into this situation and how they aren’t loved. Even the line of “I hope my side wins” is different, instead it’s more like “I hope I’m won with” as if these characters were a means to an end and they are!! They are a means to an end! They’re dolls!! It’s a lot. This is already long enough and I have the Changeling to deal with. However, as this turned out to be a lot longer than anticipated, I will have to give that it's own post as well. Feedback, question or recommendations on how to format this better are always appreciated)

[kylobith]

LotR Week - Day 6 (16th Dec)

triumph | healing | hope

Word count: 1,120

‘Come on, Mr Frodo, just one more time.’

The brown-haired Hobbit let himself fall back onto the neat bed and its pristine white sheets. His hands hung limp between his quivering knees, following the heaving of his chest as he sighed.

’I can’t go on, Sam. I’m tired.’

Sam knelt before him and gently took Frodo’s hands in his, caressing the scarred skin with his thumbs. There lingered pain in the ocean of his blue gaze, one that the younger Hobbit had so often longed to ebb. How often had he wished that he could take over his pain like he had wanted to carry the One Ring for him to bestow him even a moment of respite.

Yet if there was one lesson that Sam had learnt after their peculiar journey and their near-death experiences, it was that, sometimes, things would be out of his control. He could not mend every wound, he could not soothe every pain. Not every burden could be his to carry, not every fight could be his to lead.

Sometimes, all he could do was to support those who ached, those whose shoulders weighed, and those who fought. It could happen that they were all the same person fighting several battles at once. His gentle words and kind gestures could be the balm to the burns, the stitches to the cuts, the shield to the blade and the hand to lift.

No, Sam could not always be the solution to all problems, nor could he solve them all. He was still learning to let go and be kinder to himself, however painful the process could be, but he saw progress everyday.

As Frodo still recovered from his wounds, the starvation and dehydration, he saw his strength regain him by the day. But as hard s they had tried, he could still hardly stand on his own, let alone walk. Outside his window, the birds of Minas Tirith chirped and sang, perched up on the marble-white roofs of Minas Tirith or in mid-air. The leaves of the bushes in the gardens rustled in the breeze carrying the young robins spreading their wings for the first time, springing from the nest and rising into the sky. Singers sat on their balconies and strung their harps, their voices joining these of the birds, creating the most harmonious setting that Sam had ever come to see since Rivendell.

And Frodo, bedridden, could witness none of it.

Not that he had a heart for it at present, mind you. His soul carried more scars than his body did. The voices of others deadened as soon as they spoke as his mind drowned under flashes of the ordeals they had just survived. Cloaked figures haunted him, their screeches awakening him at night when he had finally thought that he could find solace in sleep.

Sam was not blind to it. But he would be damned if he ever let Frodo suffer alone.

After having tried to make him stand up and take his first steps since Mordor, Sam gently squeezed his friend’s hands and offered him the warmest smile he could muster.

’Look, Mr Frodo, we can try one more time. We don’t have to walk all the way to the balcony. If we even make it to two steps, that would be amazing! Just take it easy, alright? We won’t rush through things. One step at a time. What do you say?’

Frodo eyed him with his shoulders slouched in defeat. He did not share the same enthusiasm. Nevertheless, there was something in Sam’s eyes, a glimmer of absolute hope and faith that made him reconsider his options.

With a single sigh, the Hobbit rose to his feet again, not without difficulty, holding on to the bed and trying to still the shaking of his knees.

’Easy, now,’ Sam cooed. ‘Easy.’

One of Frodo’s hands remained ensnared in Sam’s — not that any of them minded —, providing him with the necessary support to keep his feet on the ground. His friend eyed him cautiously, taking two hesitant steps backs to leave some space between them. Sam’s free hand hung in the air, ready to catch him should this renewed effort fail him again.

Once he stood steadily enough, Frodo shifted his weight on one foot and lifted the other. It trembled in the air for a moment, the sole movement triggering a shooting pain up his entire leg. Frodo winced yet persisted, slowly kicking it forward and landing again.

’Well done,’ Sam whispered, rubbing his back as the older Hobbit took a moment to deal with his aching leg. ‘We can stop now.’

’Two steps, we said.’

’Look, if you’re not ready for it, then that’s okay. We still have tomorrow and the day after that. You must take your time.’

’Let me try. Please.’

He nodded and stepped back again, his focus entirely on Frodo. The latter repeated the same movement, this time leaning onto his weaker leg. As soon as he did, his knee nearly caved in. Sam reached out for him but Frodo stopped him by wrapping his bandaged hand around his wrist.

With renewed hope and determination, Frodo lifted his foot, letting go of Sam altogether, trying to stand on his own. And so, he took another step. And another. He could have taken another, even, had it not been for his thigh feeling as though it was about to pop out of its socket.

Eyes wide, he stared down at his feet, his jaw slacked as his eager breaths produced gasps of disbelief. He snapped his head up to face Sam, whose tearful gaze filled with joy, wrinkling at the corner from the wide smile crossing his lips.

‘You made it! Not only did you make it, but you did even better!’

’I can’t believe it. I did!’

Laughing and finding each other in a warm and tight embrace, the two Hobbits celebrated this victory. It might have been small to any onlooker, but to them, after suffering such heart-wrenching and nerve-wracking ordeals, it meant the world.

’Thank you, Sam,’ Frodo’s muffled voice reached him. ‘I wouldn’t have done it without your help.’

The flustered younger Hobbit chuckled and held his dearest friend by the arms.

’It is all you, Mr Frodo. It has always been all you. There is nothing that you cannot do, it seems.’

Frodo smiled and stroked the palm of his hand against Sam’s cheek.

‘I would have gone nowhere without you, Sam.’

Then, out of the blue, the older Hobbit placed a tender kiss on the same cheek he had caressed, leaving Sam red and stuttering, but with the most joyful expression one could ever live to see.