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satancopilotsmytardis · 3 months ago

Text

Broken Wings

Pairing: Shigadabi

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Commissioned by @zehei. The mothfolk and faeries have been at war for centuries with the Courts of Summer and Day being the main aggressors trying to take back the stolen Night Court. However, when a faerie arrives in Tomura’s kingdom having been tortured in a way that used to be reserved only as a punishment for his people, he finds he may have just been given the key to ending the war. Dabi finds himself more cared for in a foreign land filled with folk he thought were his enemies, with a secret that he is terrified will spell his end even after already suffering so much.

Contents: Fantasy AU, Moth!Tomura, faerie!Dabi, Off-Screen Minor Character Death, Off-Screen Torture, Aftermath of Torture/Recovery, Chronic Pain, Discussions of Past Slavery, Implied Caste System, Past Child Experimentation/Death, Mating Rituals, Non-Human Anatomy, Somnophilia, Multiple Orgasms, Size Kink, Scent Kink, Hand Jobs, Anal Fingering, Anal Cock Warming, Anal Sex, Creampie, Belly Bulge.

Word Count: 29,024

"Commander!" The soldier's voice carries to him and Tomura's antennae twitch. The smell of faerie blood is one that he's grown more than accustomed to over the years, but it's not a scent he expects at this moment. He used to spend so much time on the front lines that it was one that was soaked into every scale along his wings, but now that his father is gone and he has to not only be the Grand Commander of their army, but their king as well, he has been forced to stay in the castle more often than not.

"What is it?" He heard no explosions, no commotion that might indicate that a regiment of faeries have been able to pass their barriers and come into the heart of their kingdom, so the smell of blood only serves to make his concern worse.

"Something was found at the border. The enemy left us one of their own."

That is confusing enough, along with the soldier's sickly pallor to make Tomura spread his wings and glide down from his throne. "Show me."

The soldier doesn't hesitate, leading him through the halls and to the... Courtyard. Tomura understands why she has done so when he emerges from the silken halls of the castle and into the bright light of day. It should not be a sunny afternoon. No. It should not be bright, there should not be a lovely summer breeze against his body, he should not hear birdsong in the distance. It should be the blackest night to protect the world from seeing the horrors that can be inflicted by the cruel hands that have separated themselves from nature.

"Close the Courtyard and shutter the windows." He orders immediately as he moves closer, the horror of what he is seeing drawing him in despite himself. He has been a warrior for over a decade, he saw his first death, made his first kill when he was still barely out of his cocoon. He has seen death, cruelty, and violence for so long that he did not know he was even capable of being surprised by it any longer. But he has never seen this before.

Pinning a mothfolk is something that was done to them centuries ago, back before his father killed the faerie who kept them as slaves and carved out a kingdom of their own. The faeries back then would take a moth like mortals took insects and they would nail them between trees, forcing their broken limbs at odd angles and leave them their to bleed out from sunrise to sunset so that anyone who passed them would know that this slave had been caught committing a heinous crime and that they would pay for it with their lives. If the poor folk had been unlucky enough to hold on throughout the day, then they would be awake for night to come and for their former master to bring arcane flame. They would set the fire to their wings, and watch as it engulfed them completely. It's a practice, even after all of these centuries of war, that is no longer done. Tomura hasn't heard tale of it, or even seen evidence of the practice since the faeries found out that they were carving the wings off of their prisoners of war for each moth they found pinned. In the periods where new faerie rulers came into power and tried to make peace, they outlawed the practices on both sides and those laws have stood for one hundred and eight years.

Never has he seen a faerie pinned before. But the twisted, gnarled limbs, holes punched through his wrists and ankles. If his wings were punctured, it doesn't matter now because the poor unfortunate creature must have survived until sunset, because someone threw oil onto him and set his body alight, the wings so fine and delicate that they have been burned down to the last nubs of bone that jut out of his back. He didn't know that he could feel so sick, but his stomach is rolling as he sees the warped, raw flesh oozing blood and pus out of the skin where the blackened sections have cracked open. Tomura's stomach swoops, and through his sensitive antennae he can smell that some of the soldiers who loaded the body on the cart must have lost the contents of their stomachs upon finding him.

He is only just trying to formulate what to say when he sees the smallest movement. A fresh rivulet of blood and pus oozing over the body's chest that has no reason to be doing so-- he pulls his dagger from his side and brings the blade beneath the gnarled flesh of the creature's face hoping-- hoping for he doesn't know what. But he holds it there and holds his own breath.

Condensation forms very faintly along the blade.

"Moon and stars above," he curses. "Take him to the healers! Now!" He orders, sickness rolling through his gut. He doesn't know if the creature will survive at all, but he knows that he isn't going to let the faerie die like that if he can help it. Not when he wants to know what this new, horrible cruelty that they have deigned to enact on their own people could mean for the war front and how theirs will be treated.

He doesn't follow his soldiers as they take the body to the infirmary. He needs to know more about where that body was found.

///

The healers spend nine days working over the faerie's body. Tomura doesn't go to see their progress during that time. He receives the reports as the healers switch shifts, but he... doesn't want to see what they have and have not managed to save. They will come to him and tell him that they have succeeded or failed at one point or another, but until they do, he has more pressing things to worry about. Apart from the fire that overtook the southernmost border three weeks ago, the arcane blaze so hot that it destroyed faerieland folk alike, there has been no major conflict beyond the usual skirmishes. The faeries still want this land back, land that his father's slavers owned, the land of the Court of Night from centuries ago. The circle of moonstone at the Courtyard in the heart of the castle is the thing that has allowed them to continue to fight for so many years. It gives their bodies the longevity of the faeries and has allowed them to enhance their other physical strength and senses where the faerie tend to use the arcane and finesse weapons to fight their battles. They float above it all, the early faerie armies dressing entirely in white so their most successful warriors could flaunt how they were never touched by the blood or dirt that stained the battlefield. The faerie won't end this war unless they give back this palace and remove themselves to other lands that they will have to discover themselves or relocate to small settlements that they have put in place for them, and neither he nor his father would ever hear of that. No. This land is theirs now, they will choose where they live and what reparations the faeries need to pay if they wish for this war to end.

But part of his duties as the ruler that he has had to take up now that his father is gone, is returning to the set of moonstones, an eight foot circle with one placed two feet from the next around the circumference, and standing inside. He feels how the stones have soaked in the natural energy of the stars and moon. He takes that deep well of magic that comes from the eternal rotation of night and day and rather than absorbing it himself, as the High Faeries of each Court are expected to, as his father did for centuries, he has started to channel it into the earth instead. He has only been doing so for three years, and already their land grows lusher and more fertile, their crops more plentiful, illnesses more rare, and his people stronger. This ritual has brought his people more strength than they have ever had before and he will keep doing so, even as he feels like the action... takes something from him each time he does. Tomura can fly, he has been able to fly since he could fill his wings with blood for the first time at sixteen. But he cannot fly the way he used to. The sky is too far away from him now, an invisible tether dragging him down to the earth, making it so that he can no longer fly more than thirty feet above it. It is a weakness that he has hidden for now, that he will continue to do so, not out of mistrust of his people or Court, but because he knows that their enemy will find their own ways of locating weakness and he will not risk making himself an easy target.

Tomura lets the magic flow through him and into the earth, feeling how the sky greets the earth with the awe of one who has been kept at arm's length from others all its life, but still yearns for the connections that it has seen passing it by. He wonders, often, if the Court of Day among the other fairylands, would echo that same admiration if he stood within that circle. He isn't certain, but that connection flows through him as it is created and it assures him that even if he has not been able to end this war, even if he doesn't know if the war will ever end between their kingdoms, this is something that he can do to ensure that his people thrive. That is enough for him, for now at least.

He doesn't expect, after nine days of work and no real word, for him to have barely made it back to the throne room after the ritual before one of the nurses is flying up to him. She has the soft pink and yellow coloration of a rosy maple and a franticness to her that leaves her unable to keep her feet on the ground.

"The faerie has been stabilized."

"Is he awake?"

"No. But he has started to breathe on his own, and we managed to... reattach his skin." She winces as she says it. "We had to use staples to do so and it's unlikely he will ever heal enough on his own to no longer require them." He nods and she goes on with the report. "There is nothing we can do for the wings. He will never fly again and it is uncertain if he has any magic at all left. We think that he may have been part snow-pixie, which is why the fire was so... vicious. It's hard to tell, but his palms show some evidence of repeated burns being sustained throughout his life."

Pixie. It's considered one of the lower houses of faerie. Miles above what the faerie considered mothfolk, or what they still consider brownies and goblins to be, because pixies not only have wings, but magic of their own that is tied closely to an elemental form. As Tomura follows the nurse to the infirmary he considers, past the horror that he'd felt as he saw the faerie's body the first time, that he had been... small. Most other folk around him seem small, only his father, an atlas, looming over him given that he is a cecropia himself. But yes, the faerie was very small, wasn't it? Half pixie-half faerie would already be a combination that would be scrutinized heavily by the higher born faerie. Clearly he had done something to make his people reject him so violently, but he won't be able to ask those questions until he wakes.

As he is led to the faerie's bedside, as he sees that swaths of that cracked skin have become lined and darkened to the color of wine, pieces of silver pierced through them to keep them tethered to the sections so drained of life he already looks like a ghost, he wonders if this creature will even want to answer him. He was cast out and tortured by his own people, but they are still enemies at their cores.

Tomura has not waited over this faerie's body since he arrived, having too much of his own business to see to, but with the exhaustion of the ritual weighing him down, he finds a perch out of the way as the nurses and doctors make sure that there's nothing else they can do for the fairy, and they wait.

///

'You're a disgrace! A mistake! I should have torn off your wings when you were twelve! I should have smothered you in your sleep so that you couldn't bring any more shame to my legacy!'

The words are not unfamiliar. He has been hearing them for so much of his life. He has had his father angry at him before, the general using fists and flame to try and break down his body whenever he drew his ire to him. When he was still Toya, when it seemed like he would get the useful parts of his mother's pixie heritage and become a worthy successor, he used to think it was pathetic and disgusting how she would cower and take the blows that were meant for Natsuo or Fuyumi when they messed something up. But then his growth had stunted. Then his body proved that it had more of a resistance to the cold, more susceptibility to flames, and that against all odds, he was only adept at casting fire magic. He started to burn himself badly and was no longer worthy of the gamble that his father had taken in picking a lower-born faerie for his bride. When Shoto was born perfect, Rei's sanity had only fractured further, and when she had attacked the prized son, Dabi, at that point, had not been surprised when his father had her dragged into the Courtyard of the estate and had her wings torn from her back before she was sent away. He still thought she was a fool, but he understood the longer he was treated like a waste of space, the more he was beaten simply for existing, the worse the war beyond the walls of their estate got, he understood why she had shattered. He had been close to shattering too for a long time.

And then Yagi had died. The leader of the Day Court, a position that his father had been coveting since the mothfolk had stolen the palace of the Night Court centuries ago. Dabi hadn't even been certain how many other people knew that the Todorokis were descendants of the Night Court. Dabi isn’t even sure how their families are related. But Yagi had died fighting All For One, the leader of the rebellion that had started this war, and suddenly there was a path forward for his father’s ambitions.

Yagi had no heir and no successor named. His lands, then, would go to the next most influential faerie, and he knew that Enji, after all of his efforts in the war so far was sure to be chosen for that honor, and he had started to look for documents to prove that the Todorokis were the next in line for the Night Court as well so all three would fall under his rule if the could take back the Night Court from the mothfolk. And perhaps it had been, reckless, foolish fury that had filled him when he heard that he had been successful in finding something, that it was being brought up from the south. That if whatever he'd found reached the hands of the High Lady of Eternal Court that it would mean that every cruelty that his father had dealt to him, that every way he had used those around him, would go unpunished forever as he was given complete command over the military, over so many of their lands, that he would gain access to the runestones of Day and finally be able to unlock the magical power he had been sealed away from for so long as the moths held the Court of Night. Enji would win, and Dabi could not stand that.

Sneaking out of the house was no more difficult than it had been as a child because the truth was that not a soul cared where he was so long as he was out of the way. It had been the hardest flight of his life, a horrible screaming pain through his back to fly all the way to the battlefield. He doesn't think anyone had been prepared for the skirmish, he hadn't been trained since he was a child, and he was not prepared for the chaos of war. But he had to get to the small caravan that he knew was carrying the documentation that his father wanted.

It had been a mothfolk who had him at spearpoint who saw his face, saw his clothes, and must have thought him a civilian. He had started to lower the weapon, but Dabi had seen the caravan moving steadily towards fairylands, and he hadn't cared. He had ignited. Fire has hurt his skin badly since he was twelve, but he sent it all out across the battlefield, burning indiscriminately until he was certain that the caravan had been sundered, satisfied that he had killed his father's ambitions.

And then he'd had the misfortune of waking up and learning just how far his father would go to make certain that nothing could stand in his way.

The sound of bone cracking as the spike was nailed through his wrists and ankles was louder in his ears than his screams as his father watched it happen. The agony of hanging, suspended in the tree, uncertain of if he wanted to survive this somehow or bleed out so that he wouldn't have to feel the fire again as it burned him was its own torture beyond the physical. His father had him pinned. Pinned. Like their enemies, like a slave. Carving the wings from a faerie's back was considered the ultimate punishment, beyond even death, but his father had enacted on him one far worse by telling the world that he wasn't even worthy of being considered faerie anymore.

He thought that the pain in his wings from flying all the way to the south in a single night might kill him, but when the fire caught the gossamer appendages, Dabi had screamed until ash caved in his throat. Oh how he hoped he had died then.

But when he opens his eyes to a foreign ceiling, with the smell of medicinal herbs in his nose and pain wracking his entire body, he knows he was not so lucky.

It's a mothfolk who is sitting by his bed, one with pale skin over his face and chest, but that bleeds into the pitches black along his six limbs, four arms and two legs, and a large set of black and red wings behind him. The ruff around his neck, his antennae, and his long, wild hair are stark white, his red eyes bright against all of that paleness. He calls for healers in a rough voice, and all of the ones who come to see to him are also mothfolk. Dabi thought this one only seemed too large because he has been small for all of his life, but he towers over plenty of the healers that come into the room as well. They ask him about his pain, ask him for his name, ask him questions and he doesn't answer any of them. He died in the forest on the edge of his father's lands. That should mean that his body was burned or buried there. He doesn't understand how he ended up here, and even if he has no love for his people who allowed him to be bred and cast aside all of his life, he hopes that refusing to speak will frustrate the folk enough that they finish the job. That, at least, will make him stop feeling the agony and yawning emptiness of his back that as he is told gently, no longer has his wings.

///

The faerie doesn't speak when he wakes up, but neither the healers or Tomura know if it's because he refuses to, or if it's because he can't. They just know that the moment that they left him alone, he tried to get to the window to throw himself out of it and onto the ground below. That had forced them to move him to a secure room and ensure that he didn't have anything he could use to do harm to himself. Unfortunately, that is why he seemed to decide to do harm to others instead, lashing out with fire so hot that it burned blue and attacking the guards stationed at his door. They had subdued him, the faerie off-balance without his wings, and with a stiffness in his limbs that his guards reported as either a result of his new injuries or a result of only half-remembered training. They didn't know which, but he had been locked in his room, cuffs on his wrists to inhibit his magic since.

Tomura is already exhausted when he goes to deal with this faerie. He has no idea what to do with him now, but he hopes that he can be made to see reason, or he will have no choice but to execute him for the disruption that he's already caused. He opens the door to the faerie's room and finds that he's struggling against the cuffs that keep him held in place on the bed, preventing him from tearing at his staples or trying to brain himself against the wall, again.

"My name is Tomura Shigaraki, I am the Grand Commander of the moth armies and ruler of this kingdom." He says as patiently as he can as he comes up to the side of the bed. "You were sent to us, nearly dead, and our healers worked tirelessly to preserve your life--"

"They should have let me die." He rasps out, and Tomura, even if the words are less than satisfactory, is just pleased that he got confirmation that the faerie is at least capable of speech.

"We are not as cruel as your own people seem to be. Can you tell me your name?"

The faerie shuts his mouth and turns his head so he doesn't have to look at him.

"You are being held here until we can determine the purpose behind your people sending you to our border--"

"Sent?" That has the fairy's brows pulling together.

"Yes," he says with deliberate slowness, wondering if the trauma of the torture damaged the fairy's mind the way that Jin was hurt by an overflow of his own magic several years ago. "Your body was set into a horseless carriage and sent to walk straight to the border. It seems that whoever did this to you wanted us to know that they still remember how your people used to torture us." He waits, but the man on the bed says nothing. "Until we can determine your purpose, you are to stay here. My people have already taken great pains to bring you back from the brink of death, if you choose to harm yourself, that care will not be extended a second time. If you attempt to harm any of my subjects, then my guards have permission to use lethal force. I don't know what you did to have your own people treat you with such cruelty--

"I burned everything in the southern skirmish." The faerie looks back at him, his eyes the same bright blue as he was told his flames had been. "They put me back together just enough that Enji Todoroki hoped I would survive past the first spike being driven through my skin." He snarls, his teeth bright white behind his lips. "All For One made a mistake killing Yagi, because now Enji is in line to be the next ruler of the Day Court, and if he sent me here, then he wanted you to know that every single insect will be pinned before he has decided that this war is over."

Tomura takes in the fury, the venom, the sureness of this fairy's voice and nods once to himself. "Thank you for the information, fairy. You will be uncuffed from this bed, but given the destructiveness of your magic, the dampeners themselves will not be removed. The guards' orders will remain, but you will be moved to a proper room as you recover. Should you need any necessities that have not been provided, you may ask a servant where they can be obtained."

"What?"

"Kill yourself or don't. You will not leave this castle again now that you are here. It is up to you if you would rather make a life or be nothing. I am only awarding you this opportunity because you have given me information that my spies have not been able to gather in three years. But that is as far as my benevolence extends." He reaches down and unties the faerie from the bed, and the creature quickly sits up and pulls his limbs into his body, making himself even smaller.

He doesn't say another word as Tomura turns and leaves the room.

///

The faerie, perhaps now that he has been given permission to die, refuses to do so, and refuses to give his guards an excuse to kill him. He goes to his room and stays there almost all hours of the day, only venturing out to go down to the kitchens to cook for himself or to the laundry to wash the clothes, towels, and bedding that were given to him. To his understanding, the faerie hardly speaks to anyone, and only if directly asking a question or answering one from the guard when they see him in the halls. He causes so little trouble that Tomura sometimes forgets that he is around at all. It's easy, then, to turn his attention to the war efforts again. Once his spies have been told that the Todorokis will be making a play for the Day Court in the wake of Yagi's death, they are left at an impasse. The Day Court is located opposite of theirs in the fairylands, surrounded by mountains where the glittering golden palace can look down on the valley of the seasonal Courts. Their own palace is built into a palace on the western most point of the same range, and that gulf of land that stretches between the two is why they have never sought to take that land for themselves. The Todorokis have been high lords of the Summer Court for centuries now, and if the heir is not allowed to ascend to the throne, then it will be vulnerable and able to be taken. It's the matter then, of being able to hold that territory if they could take it, and while he has no doubt that the runestones in that Court could help give them more power, he knows the seasonal stones are only at their peak when it is that season. If Enji Todoroki uses the autumn equinox to ascend to the throne of Day, then Summer will be vulnerable until next year.

These thoughts go around and around in his head, stinging his mind and leaving him even more restless and sleepless than he usually is in the early hours before dawn. His people are most active from sunset to rise, though he often is up half the day from his inability to sleep at normal hours. But that does mean that things are fairly quiet when he walks the halls down to the kitchens. Even at this hour, he could call for someone to bring him tea, but he needs to be out of his chambers for a few minutes so that the heaviness of his skull might find some form of momentary relief in just being taken to a new environment.

He's just not expecting to enter the large room and find that someone else already has a kettle over the fire, or that someone being the faerie. The other man doesn't notice him at first, his attention far too focused on whatever he is trying to grind together with the mortar and pestle. Before his eyes can register the faerie, his antennae are twitching as he smells the blood and desperation that are rolling off of the other man, his smell still scorching his senses with the bitter burn of smoke. The seams across his palms are bleeding from the effort it is taking him to grind whatever he has in the bowl, more dripping down from his eyes. The skin beneath them and lower lids had been badly damaged, but Tomura didn't realize that he wouldn't be able to cry now without bleeding. But he is certainly crying as he tries to work over whatever he's making, his breath hitching softly and his long ears drooped as his shoulders shake weakly, the stumps of his wings quivering.

Tomura glides over him, so that the man doesn't hear him approach and finds that he is breaking the hard, woody stems of ochroot inside of the mortar. The medicinal plant is used to relieve pain, but it is far more effective when the harder bark is stripped, the softer green insides have been mashed, and then boiling water is poured over it and allowed to steep. The best way of using this combination is then to strain away the liquid and combine the hot mash with tree resin and gum to make it into a chewable tablet that can spread numbness throughout the entire body, the effect growing more potent the longer that it is left to age. It is used so heavily to combat the injuries of war that he has an entire garden just in the palace dedicated to cultivating the plant and racks of the pills aging alongside the treasury so that they never have to go back to the days of their people being operated on without pain relief.

"What are you doing?" He asks, his lips tugged into a frown.

His voice is startling enough that the faerie lets out a cry, fumbling with the bowl and sending the half-crushed contents against the counter alongside the jar of resin that is so thick that its contents do not even shift their orientation until it has rolled halfway across the surface.

"Fuck you! Don't sneak up on me!" The faerie snarls, one hand reaching out to fumble with the ingredients that he scattered around the surface and the other moving to try and wipe the blood from his face.

"Why are you making medicine?" He asks, reaching to pick up the resin before it actually does manage to spill.

The faerie turns his face from him, his shoulders tense and the... jut of bone that is left outside of his body where his dragonfly wings used to sit looking as sharp as every thin line of him. Tomura knew he was small, but he looks... sharper everywhere than he was when he first saw him. Like he,

"Have you been eating?"

The faerie still gives him no response.

"Starving yourself is a long and miserable way to die." He remarks absently, moving over to one of the pantries to make himself something to eat. For a few long minutes as he makes his selection of fruits and cheese, he thinks that the other will continue to say nothing until he leaves him alone again. But as he tears open the rigid flesh of a pomegranate, he hears the faerie's voice again, low and bitter.

"You denied me any medicine. I have to make my own if I want to even be capable of keeping food down when just a few sips stretches my insides against these primitive sutures and leaves me in agony."

Tomura stiffens, his wings going rigid behind him. "I denied you medicine if you were trying to kill yourself. Not if you needed it as you started to recover." He turns to face the faerie fully and tries to calm when he sees how wide and frightened the faerie's eyes are on him. He is not only his enemy, but someone who is so much larger than the half-pixie. He can only imagine what he looks like in his eyes. "Come with me." He doesn't leave any room for protest, and he starts to move to the door. It takes a second, but the faeriefalls in step, pushing up to his side so that he is not trailing behind him, his head still held defiantly high as he does so, like he will greet death itself with his pride still intact.

He takes the faerie to the infirmary and sees that, as always, there are two guards stationed outside of the door. One medic is more valuable than a hundred soldiers in their war, and he won't lose any if he can help it. He addresses the guards, "Our guest is to be allowed to visit the medics whenever he has need of them, the same as any other in this castle. He is only to be denied medicine if he has deliberately harmed himself or others, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Grand Commander." The guards parrot back.

"This is to be known by everyone. If I learn that these orders have been disobeyed, then the offending parties will be removed from the service of the crown and exiled from my castle. The faeries are cruel, we are fair." He repeats his father's mantra and hears the faerie snort slightly but he chooses not to address that right now.

"Yes, Grand Commander." They agree again, stepping aside so that the faerie can be let into the room. Tomura waits for him to move, and he does so with his back straight and head held high. For any other faerie, he would have seen it as sheer arrogance, but having seen him alone in the kitchens, trying desperately to make his own medicine as he bled from the effort and the pain that it caused him just to try, Tomura has a sneaking suspicion that being pinned is just one of many he has endured throughout his life. The stance is practiced, a front of strength that he doubts the mixed faerie has ever actually had in his body. Tomura's eyes flick down to the solid cuffs of stone and metal that are wrapped around his wrists in segmented sections. He is not helpless. His body may not have been made for it, but the power that destroyed the southern border was nothing to scoff at. Tomura won't forget that as the faerie goes into the infirmary and he returns to the kitchens.

He doesn't have much of an appetite now, but he makes himself eat a bit before he goes back to his rooms to rest.

///

Dabi has been in this place, the former palace of the Night Court, he thinks, for a month. He thinks it's been a month given how people have started to talk about the upcoming solstice, though he can’t be certain how much time had passed when he had been unconscious after-- after being pinned. The conversations he overhears, though, end as soon as the people speaking realize that he is around. Dabi can't even chalk that entirely up to the fact that he is a faerie wandering the Court of moths, because he isn't the only faerie here. He knew, intrinsically, that when the moths rebelled, that they were not alone. Other lower houses of faerie also rebelled with them. That there had been faerie across the Courts who had not wanted to keep other races enslaved, they were just a very small minority. He knew that there were faeries who sympathized with the moths, but he knew that through the poisoned words of his father who always said that those faeries were not worthy of their wings. Here, he finds those people. Brownies, pixies,goblins, even moth-faerie who have a set of moth wings and a set of faerie wings beneath that advertise their mixed heritage. There are other faerie here, but either his appearance, the fact of how he came to them, or his crime against faerie and moth both at the southern border has gotten out and none of the creatures that walk the castle halls will deign to speak to him unless he asks a direct question, and then he is usually only given a very direct answer before being dismissed.

Faeries are cruel, we are fair.

That mantra is one that he's heard before too. It's something that prisoners of war often said if it came time for their execution, something he first heard when he was six and his father brought him to an execution to teach him young to desensitize himself to the violence. He had thought it worked back then, but when he saw his father carve out his mother's wings, that mantra rang through his mind again and again. The moths were not the ones who invented that as a punishment for faerie, they had only adopted it at the height of the war centuries ago. But faerie had created that practice and pinning both. Dabi pushes it from his mind. He is not going to change the way that the world works, he can barely manage to survive even after the king of the mothfolk takes him to the infirmary and orders his people to give him whatever medicine he requests. Dabi hates how often he has to go for the ochroot pills that the mothfolk seem to have in abundance, and he still rations them out so that the bottle he receives lasts him two weeks at a time rather than the handful of days it would if he actually took enough of them to stop hurting at every hour of the day.

He thinks that the king is the only person that has spoken to him out of their own free will since he woke here, and Dabi wonders if this is a method of torture itself. Because spending each day in the chamber that he has been given, only leaving to get more medicine, eat, or wash his clothes, is slowly starting to drive him mad. He finds himself staring out the window, looking at the people who zip through the evening sky when the city itself comes alive from the eerie stillness of day, and he gives himself over to the horrible ache that throbs through his back any time the stubs of his wings twitch as he imagines the wind against his skin again. Dabi has not asked for anything beyond any absolute necessities, but when he goes to have his meal as the mid-day sun burns brightly in the sky, he finds the kitchens completely empty. The bottle of wine that he takes from the cellar is an indulgence that he would surely be denied if anyone saw it, so he tries to hide it in a small basket, putting in some bread, honey, and milk into it as well, enough to feed him for the entire day, and nothing more excessive than he has ever taken before.

The guards don't sneer at him as he passes them, but the way their eyes follow him as he makes his way back to his room tells every ruined inch of him that he should have just died at the border.

///

Dabi pilfers one bottle of wine each week for the next two, the solstice fast approaching, and no one says anything. He grows bold enough to even take one when there are other servants present in the kitchen and though they still turn their noses up at his every existence, they don't stop him. He is allowed to take what he wants from the kitchens, it seems, and he at least lets himself have that as well. He has no pleasures in this place. Every day and night he is locked into the agony of his every breath until it gets so bad that he has to allow himself the medicine. He sleeps in horrible fitful bursts that bring the pain of fire and the agony of the spikes shattering his bones back into the forefront of his mind, twisting his mind and insides so horribly that more nights than not he awakens as he reaches for the waste bin beside his bed so he can lose the contents of his stomach into it. He stays thin and weak, barely able to walk from how little his body seems to want him to survive this. Dabi isn't even sure why he is bothering anyway. He had been ready to kill himself when he first woke, and then the king told him how little he cared if he lived or died and that had robbed the idea of its satisfaction. No one at all in this world cares if he lives or dies. Maybe Natsuo and Fuyumi might, but he hasn't seen them since they left with Rei after she had been clipped. Dabi pours another glob of honey onto the buttered bread that he's taken for his meal today, and gulps down a glass of wine. His existence is misery, his death purposeless, his body broken. If he can at the very least eat what he wants from the kitchens and enjoy it before his nightmares have it coming back up his throat, then that is enough for him right now.

So he can't say that he's very happy when someone... knocks on his door. Dabi's skin prickles with his fear. No one has knocked on his chamber door since he was given this room. He is expected to take care of himself and not cause trouble, and apparently the fair trade for that is he is allowed to live in this space without being tortured or interrogated every day. He thought that could be enough until he figured out if there was anything else that he could do with himself, but perhaps he has already used up all of the good will of the mothfolk.

He sets the glass on the floor and swallows what might have been his last meal, before he stands and walks to the door. He hates how his ears immediately droop when he sees the large shape of the moth king standing on the other side.

"...What?"

The moth watches him for a long moment, his red eyes searching his face. "I imagine no one has told you," He waits to learn that prisoners, even ones not kept in cells should not have wine, should not take more than they need, should not darken the halls whenever anyone else can see them, but Shigaraki says none of that. "But we have received word that Enji Todoroki has been set to be the ruler of the Day Court. He will be crowned on the summer solstice."

Dabi's entire body goes cold. The food in his stomach turns to tar, burbling thick and acrid inside of him and making him fear he might vomit all over the king of these lands' feet. "No--"

"It's true, all of my sources say that a festival is being set for the date."

"No, if he ascends to a Celestial house--" it was bad enough when he was just High Lord of Summer. "What about the Summer Court?" The solstice is only two weeks away, his brother is only fifteen. He's too young to take--

"It is my understanding that the High Lady of the Eternal Court has given him special permission to hold two Courts until his heir has come of age."

Dabi's stomach plummets. No. If he has that title now, and over the Court that commands the brunt of the faerie army that is only earned through displaying excellence in battle, and a legitimate genetic right to the Night Court then, "If he takes the throne, he will come here. He wants these lands back, and the sun stones will give him that power. He'll take back this Court and he'll slaughter everyone here to do it." And he will do it within the next three years. Shigaraki watches him as he speaks, but he doesn't react to the words. "If he becomes High Lord of the Day Court, then your people will be slaughtered! He won't stop there--" his chest grows tight with his panic, the stubs of his wings flaring with his distress and putting a pain so bright across his nerves that it nearly buckles his knees. "If he gets this palace back, he will reclaim the Court of Night too, if he has the Celestial Courts and all of the magic that has been building in the stones since the rebellion, he will have enough to take the Court of the Eternal too. He will become the ruler of all of these lands."

"Enji Todoroki will not become a despot." Shigaraki tells him deliberately. "His cruelty and lust for power will ruin everything that he has ever touched, and I will ensure his hand never reaches my kingdom. Our forces are preparing. I don't know who you were before you were... cast aside, but if you were a soldier on the southern border, then I know that you must have some knowledge of Todoroki's armies. If you are as frightened of his rule as you sound, then consider speaking with myself and my lieutenants. We will take any information you give us in service of creating a plan that will protect all lands from such a tyrannical rule."

Dabi's tongue is thick in his mouth. Was this the plan all along? Let his fear of Enji rule his sense? He has no evidence that his father is actually being appointed and no way of getting information inside of this castle that is not filtered through Shigaraki's people. How can he trust any words that he tells him? How can he risk anything else? Dabi is still grappling with the agony in his back when he hisses,

"Fine," at the king. If the words are true, then his ploy at the border meant nothing, his suffering has been for nothing. If the words are a lie, then what does it matter? Enji still did this to him. He still gave him half a lifetime of cruelty before this point to let him know how worthless he was in his eyes since the moment his magic did not become what he wanted it to be. If he survived all of that only to end up here, then helping his enemies destroy him isn't cruel, it's fair, and Dabi wants something to be fair for once in his night-damned life. "Bring me parchment and ink, I don't want to stand in front of a council. I'll write what I know, but that is it."

"That is more than enough." Shigaraki tells him, his tone a bit less grave than it had been before. "Is there anything else that you need?"

"What other luxuries do you offer prisoners?" He snaps, though in truth this is far better than how he was raised to expect a prisoner to live.

Shigaraki's antenna twitches, "A prisoner, but one who killed plenty of soldiers on both sides of the conflict. You have already been punished beyond what that warranted by the faerie. Here, you will live out your days exiled from your homeland and never able to fly again. To me," and as the king his opinion is the only one that matters, "That is fair punishment enough. If you choose to otherwise waste away in the chamber that has been provided then that is your prerogative, just as it is if you choose to end your life. But if you want books, puzzles, activities around the castle to spend your time on, then those are things that can be provided. You are a prisoner, yes, but you live in this place now. I would rather see you actually attempt to do that when you managed to stay alive long enough to even reach us here than let yourself rot away." His eyes flicker inside of his room and Dabi's skin heats with his humiliation as he knows the other sees the stolen bottle of wine among his things. "We may not be a people of the same level of indulgences as you may have experienced in the faerie Courts, but we can provide. Take what you need, not only for the good of your body, but for the betterment of your mind and soul. There is no such thing as life without it." The mothfolk says those words with the same cadence as he did the mantra that his people have fought this war by for centuries, and Dabi wonders if that was yet another of his father's teachings, just one that did not reach their ears across the border. "I would ask for only one other thing if you are planning on assisting us and continuing your life in my home."

Dabi bristles slightly. He's already betraying all of his people beyond the border, but at least he can justify that if it means that his father will not sit on every throne in the fairylands. "What?"

"You still have not deigned to tell anyone your name." He says patiently. "While you may hold your past to yourself, it is becoming rather inconvenient, and I would think, very rude, to keep calling you the 'foreign faerie'."

That, he supposes, is really the least that the other man could ask for, so he finally mutters, "Dabi."

"Dabi?" There's an incredulity in his tone that he's used to from when others would even deign to ask.

"This wasn't the first time I've been burned."

"No, I suppose not. I'll send for parchment. If you ever have need of anything else, you may ask the servants, if you have trouble with receiving anything again, you may come find me instead. I will ensure that you have all that you need."

Dabi doesn't know what to say about that, so he chooses not to say anything before he slinks back into his room and shuts the door softly, not wanting to slam it on the king's face. He doesn't hear the other man walk away, but he has learned very quickly that mothfolk are quiet. While faerie wings can be heard buzzing at all hours from every movement, mothfolk are silent as they glide through the halls, their steps as light as a pixie's when they choose to walk at all. So he can only hope that Shigaraki has left as he goes and drops onto his bed, his fingers tangling in his hair and his breaths coming in short, panicked gasps as the true horror of what the Courts have allowed sets terror ablaze in his mind.

///

Tomura has been aware of how violent and dangerous Enji Todoroki has been as he's campaigned for the past three years to take Yagi's spot in the Day Court, but he wonders if he was not nearly wary enough when Dabi manages to fill three feet of a scroll in a single night. He outlines as much as he knows about the number of troops directly under Todoroki's command, the methods he uses to train his soldiers and indoctrinate the loyalty that he needs to make certain that they listen to his commands. Dabi does his best, though clearly has no skills of artistry, by also drawing rudimentary maps of the Summer Court along with several of the encampments that Todoroki has along the borders. Tomura doesn't ask him how a half-pixie soldier would have gotten invited into the private estate of the High Lord of Summer. The very fact he wields greater fire magic than he has seen in his lifetime gives him a sneaking suspicion that there may be some relation between the two. Perhaps he is a bastard who wanted to prove himself. Perhaps the fires raging out of control and damaging both sides of the fight was such a personal disgrace that is why Todoroki chose to have Dabi pinned. Regardless of it all, Dabi works tirelessly to try to give them any information that they could want, though he still refuses to leave his rooms to actually go over the information with himself or any of his lieutenants. If he has questions, he has to seek the other out.

That, at least, reveals that some things are going better than others. Dabi, for whatever reason, has decided to stop rotting away in his bedroom, living on the bare minimum that he can possibly take for himself. Tomura thought, at first, that frugality was a result of living as a soldier or as a peasant, but he sees now that Dabi was constantly waiting for his position here to be taken away. He was expecting to be cast aside, punished for his indulgences, or otherwise mistreated for asking for more. But now that he knows that Todoroki has been granted two thrones, he has started seeking more from his confinement here. He starts with medicine. He needs more pain killers and asks for any medicine that he can use to try and heal the seams between his skin so that he doesn't come apart every time that he moves too quickly. The medics make him a salve to apply that will help promote regeneration, if it is even possible, and he is diligent about returning for more every three days like clockwork. He starts to focus on making meals for himself in the kitchens that will promote his body's healing, asking for cow's blood to mix with milk and honey, eating soft cheeses over sweet bread, and any ripe fruits that he can find. Not in excess still, but Tomura is satisfied to simply hear that he is starting to take care of himself and push his body as much as he can towards recovery.

Dabi does most of these activities during the bright light of day when all but those on duty are hidden away in their chambers, trying to sleep through the day. But Tomura has never slept well, and he is not looking for Dabi when he goes to the Courtyard two days before the summer solstice and finds Dabi inside. He is standing outside of the circle of moonstones, at their weakest today when the sun will hang higher than it has all year, leaving this as a day of rest for all of his people. The faerie standing outside of the stones, looking at the circle within, his back held tense. He is a faerie, his people are used to wearing clothes to cover their bodies, often from toe to chin in elaborate garments of flowing organza that have been dyed the colors of their seasons. But here, with so many of their people not having need of clothes at all for the purpose of modesty, they have foregone them in most instances. Only armor for his soldiers, with all else made from the silk that some of their people can spin outside of making cocoons. Dabi is a faerie, it's not a surprise that he's taken to wearing clothes, he has been since he first arrived here, but Tomura has never seen someone wearing armor over silk chitons. Dabi has not deigned to put on much, just arm bracers and a breastplate made of leather, but it is strange.

"Beyond Todoroki's communion with the stones, what is the solstice like in your Court?" He asks, announcing himself with his voice. It's certainly not enough though, because it startles Dabi badly again, the other man whipping around, the cuffs on his wrists sparking blue as they contain his flames beneath his skin before he can actually strike out at him.

"Stop--" the faerie snaps, a tinge of pink going across his cheeks, "Sneaking up on me." The last words end in a grumble as he drops his hands.

"You'll have to train your ears to hear me if you don't want to keep being surprised." He says, a faint amusement going through him before he waits for the other's real answer.

Dabi huffs, crossing his arms and leaning against one of the pillars of stone, looking at the center of the rest. "It's a big party. Feasting, dancing in the Courtyard, special provisions for troops, shit like that." There's a pause, but there is something in that pause that tells Tomura to wait. He has to do so for another minute or so before Dabi mutters. "People get roaring drunk because they want to forget the culling that happened the week before."

Tomura bristles, "'Culling'?"

Dabi shrugs a shoulder. "He doesn't take weakness into a fresh season. Taxes and tribute are gathered a month before, any houses that can't pay have their assets seized and their people are sent to work for some aspect of his Court, either as servants, in the army, or doing other menial labor. If they don't manage to save enough of their wages by the next year to pay back the full amount, then Enji brings them to the stones and feeds them to it. The lucky ones survive, the others turn to ash on the spot."

"Has anyone ever been able to pay back their taxes and avoid that fate?" He doesn't need Dabi's answer, the scowl is enough to tell him the truth. "Will he really ascend the Day throne today as well?"

"If he can fly there fast enough, yes." Dabi's scowl deepens and Tomura is a little worried that he might tear his face open around his staples, so he changes the subject. There was no way they would have been prepared for a full assault of the Summer Court in two weeks when it would be at its most powerful. All they can do now is prepare and fortify their defenses until they are ready.

"We celebrate the winter solstice. Feasting, dancing, weddings, matings" he says more easily, "everyone from my kingdom is allowed to attend, and celebrate as the moon rises high. I give back to the earth and ensure that when spring comes, our harvest will continue to be bountiful. You will be welcome to attend the festivities this year if you so choose."

The faerie shrugs slightly in response, and Tomura takes no offense. He doubts that, given how distant Dabi is still being, that he would feel comfortable making himself a part of that revelry, but there are months yet to change his mind.

"Did you always fight with your flames?"

That has blue eyes on him again and he does not waver with his patience. "...Yes."

"Do you have any weapon training at all?"

"...Only the very basics with a sword. I... wasn't meant to ever have to fight without my magic." Or his wings, he imagines. But now he will never get one of those things back, and Tomura will not grant access to the second until he is absolutely certain that Dabi holds no loyalty or love for his Court anymore.

"Well, that won't do, given how badly you seem to want to tear Todoroki apart yourself, I imagine that you'll be wanting to join my army when they march on his Court."

Dabi's eyes snap to his, "I thought that I was a prisoner here?"

"Well, a special exception might need to be made given how difficult decoding our maps have been."

That blush darkens Dabi's cheeks further and he has no trace of the fear in him that Tomura has seen so many times in the past few weeks when he snaps, "I wasn't ever trained to draw either."

"Well we can help fix both of those things for you now." Tomura reaches to the earth and uses the pulse of magic from his connection through the stones to pull two earthen daggers from the ground. He tosses one to Dabi and the faerie catches it. "We move silently over the battlefield, as I'm sure you know, and our greatest ally is that stealth. A battle is won for us if we can kill the commanding officers before anyone is able to raise the alarm. If we choose to infiltrate the Summer or Day Courts to take Todoroki off of the board, then we will have to do so with stealth on our side." He takes the other dagger and gets into a basic stance.

Dabi follows his lead, his eyes attentive on him, and Tomura starts to teach him how to fight the way that his people do on their silent wings. Dabi's might be gone, but that does not mean he can't adapt to these new circumstances. Tomura thinks that's what he was trying to do already and even if the faerie hadn't thought to ask for help in this area, he doesn't see the harm in offering it since he can. They train until the sun is hanging high overhead and Tomura is starting to smell the coppery tang of blood beneath the scent of their sweat as Dabi's seams are pushed right up to their limits. The faerie doesn't seem upset when he ends the training session, and when Tomura chances going back out to the Courtyard the next afternoon, he finds Dabi waiting there, more than happy to use the real training dagger that he's gotten for him as they resume their work.

///

Dabi doesn't know when the king actually sleeps, but over the course of the next month, he is aware that his father's armies have been hammering the borders as they look for a way in. It's something that he has heard about in passing, but that Tomura tells him not to worry about. His borders are secure, his people strong, and Todoroki will not enter. He knows that things are being moved in preparation for the attacks worsening, but he still gets no further information. He only resents that a little, and it is mostly tempered by the fact that Shigaraki has still been coming to train with him every day for three hours as Dabi is taught the way that mothfolk fight. He stumbled plenty at the beginning, his hands clumsy around the dagger, sword, and spear that he was being taught, his balance always off now that he can't catch himself with his wings. But he was not beaten when he couldn't manage to do the things that Shigaraki taught him the first time. He was not made to push himself until blisters across his palms split and grew infected. He was not denied food or water if he grew too exhausted to carry on with the heat of the summer sun beating down on them. And for a whole month now, they have trained together. Hours a day spent in the company of the king who has seen through him to his ambitions to be, at the very least, on the frontlines of the fight against Enji, if not the one who manages to slit his throat.

Dabi tries to banish the thought, because he doesn't want to be a ruler, but if he killed his father, if they could hold the Summer and Day Courts until the next spring equinox or the summer solstice, then he could take those positions of power. He considers the circle of moonstones today as they sit to drink some cool water that he is dying for, his snow pixie heritage making him exhaust so easily in the heat. If his father thinks that he has a rightful claim to the throne of Night, then that claim runs through Dabi's veins as well. If he held the entirety of the Celestial Court and the Summer Court, then the remaining three seasons and the Eternal is all that would need to be claimed. Depending on the time of year, only one of those Courts would be at full power whereas when Night and Day are joined again, they will be as powerful as Eternity year round. Of course, that would require him not only telling Shigaraki that he's Enji's disgraced son, but convincing him to give his land back to a faerie, which he thinks, despite the moth's seemingly endless good nature would invoke the wrath that he keeps waiting to find beneath the surface.

"You smell like frost when you get tired." Tomura says as they huddle together beneath the one tree that has managed to grow large enough to offer them both shade.

"My mother was a snow pixie." He mumbles into his cup. He is careful with what he tells the other man, but he does... speak to him more. The servants and soldiers in the castle don't make smalltalk with him. A few of Shigaraki's lieutenants have sought him out to have conversations, but it's infrequent and stilted. He doesn't know if that's his tension as he still can't help but await the day that all of his information has been given and Tomura decides he no longer needs him, or if it's simply because... Dabi doesn't remember how to talk to people normally. When he was the heir to the throne, he only ever spoke down to the people around him and he had been encouraged to do so, knowing that he was better than all of them. Then he had been disowned and he was as low as a faerie could get without their wings being stripped. He had to scrape by on what he was given and calling attention to himself was a dangerous game. He was able to be invisible in his father's castle, but in this one, even though he isn't glared at in the halls anymore, he knows that there are whispers that follow him. Horrified mutterings about what state he was in when he arrived, about the cruelty of faeries, things that are true but not mutterings that he wants to turn to engage with. So he simply does not speak to anyone unless absolutely necessary. But the king always wants to converse with him.

"And you have an affinity for fire magic? That's unfortunate." Tomura says it plainly when even the boldest of his father's soldiers didn't dare speak those words out loud. "Did your magic present an affinity for the solstice or the equinox?"

"Both." Shigaraki always wants to talk to him. He asks him about useful things, sure, but he also asks him about the books he's been reading, if he has ever taken up any other hobbies, what his favorite fruit is, if he eats any meat given so few of his people do that they don't stock much in the kitchens. He talks and asks, and he offers back plenty of things of his own. Over the past month, Dabi has learned plenty about Shigaraki and his kingdom. He is the adopted son of the previous ruler, as All For one never had a partner or children of his own. His favorite color is red. He has never slept much and doesn't mind spending part of the day with him training rather than sleeping. He was told that seventy-five years ago the Eternal Court said that they would end the war again if they gave up the castle so the runestones could be connected and the Celestial Court could be whole once more, but that his father refused because they would not lose the land they'd claimed and be forced out of their homes to abide by faerie traditions. Which is how he also learned that Shigaraki, and his father before him, have been channeling the magic of the stones. Dabi didn't even know that anyone beyond a high faerie could channel the energy from the stones. But All For One used it to extend his life unnaturally the way that all of the High Lords and Ladies do, and that Tomura has used it to make their lands so fertile and plentiful that they have had a boom in their population and that mothfolk age quickly through their childhoods.

"Eggs?"

"We all start as eggs," he says, his amusement clear in his tone as Dabi's face heats as he realizes how brazen his ignorance must sound. "We are born in large clutches of them, usually with around a hundred or so siblings. Only a small amount of those eggs manage to hatch, usually no more than thirty per clutch. We stay in our larval stage-- think a faerie between birth to their fifth year-- for one to two years depending on the type of moth, and then we go into our pupa stage where we create our cocoons. Inside, our organs and exoskeletons melt and then we become a soup for about a year. We're even more delicate then than we are when we're eggs, and that is the period of the highest mortality, with some cocoons rotting from a change in temperature or too many vibrations and a million other fickle aspects that can cause us to stop our development and perish. If not, the next year is spent regrowing organs, an internal skeleton, our wings, and the like. We emerge from our cocoons as young adults resembling a teenager, around fifteen to sixteen in faerie years."

"In a matter of three or four years?" Dabi asks, still reeling. Some species of high faerie, purebloods who have never mixed with lesser houses, sometimes have children who stay children for thirty or more years. It's not a common thing now, not when only the Eternal Court has completely refused to intermingle, but still.

"Yes, then we age alongside faerie. Our quicker reproduction is why the faerie subjugated us in the first place. They knew that they would have more workers and soldiers more quickly than with other species of faerie." He goes on before Dabi can put his foot in his mouth and apologize for a history that he wasn't alive to cause. "Because of the nature of how many eggs and how many larvae do not make it to adulthood, all of the children are raised in communal nurseries, who can then be adopted once they have emerged from their cocoons. It's traditional for the silk of the cocoon to be harvested and woven into a family quilt, each new child having their strands added to it as they are integrated into their new families." Tomura squints up at the sun as a breeze shakes the canopy overhead, leaving them with beams of the baking sun against their skin again. Dabi's breath catches in the back of his throat as the other man spreads his wings wide and brings them above their heads. "Some parents do seek out any possible child from their mating, but plenty of our people only wish to partake in the pleasures of the flesh and the passing of their genes, and choose to participate in matings during the solstice and not have any ties to the potential offspring once the eggs have been laid."

"...What are matings?" He hates to have to ask, because he has a terrible suspicion that he has to put to bed now rather than walk himself into something embarrassing.

"They're large-scale orgies that we put on each winter solstice. Not every pairing creates children, but all adults are welcome to join in the revelry and pleasures of the flesh. I don't know if you've seen them around, but the leopard spotted moth with the long gray hair and buxom figure is the coordinator for the event. She helps make matches for people if they've struggled with approaching a potential partner before."

"Oh."

"She always suggests polite forwardness when it comes to these kinds of things." Tomura says, his eyes locked on Dabi's.

"I suppose that makes sense." He says slowly, not certain what else the mothfolk is looking for in response. "Things are much more rigid in the Summer Court. Arranged marriages, everyone is required to have at least one child, widows are expected to marry again within a year of their spouse's death if they can still produce children."

"Were you betrothed?" The look that is on Shigaraki's face doesn't change, but his antenna, usually tilted towards him when they're talking like the wants to catch every whisper of breath from his lungs and attune all of his extra senses to him tilt a bit, flattening out to either side of his head.

"No. I was a disgrace. I would be killed sooner than able to pass on my genes. I guess as far as he's concerned, I was." Dabi turns his attention back to his drink and Shigaraki doesn't say anything for a long moment. Dabi doesn't like the way that silence feels so heavy with the possibility of... something in the hot summer air, so he tries to change the subject. "So with the hatching and stuff, does that mean you don't have birthday celebrations?"

He doesn't know why Shigaraki sounds so wry when he goes on, but he doesn't push as the moth says, "No, we don't, but adoption day ceremonies are very common."

Dabi doesn't tell him that he thinks that it's nice that no child here goes unwanted, and when they've cooled down, they stand again and resume their work.

///

Dabi is... adorably oblivious. Tomura isn't sure if it's because of his focus on his own goals, because he simply can't imagine anyone finding him desirable after a lifetime of being told he was worthless even before he was so horribly mutilated, or if he just has no interest in Courtship at all, but no matter the amount of time they spend together each day as summer marches on, Dabi remains oblivious to his advances. Tomura knows, in part, that's because he is still only just learning about their culture. but the very fact that Dabi is trying to and doing his best to adapt and ensure he is always being polite does earn him less scorn than he started with. But he accepts the meals that Tomura has started to bring for after their sessions with nothing more than a thanks, and any compliments he lavishes, any pheromones he releases or perfumes he uses to enhance his scent fall on deaf ears and a blind nose. He just cannot make his advancements clear and his entire Court and all of his lieutenants are trying to, very politely, not laugh in his face as he walks around smelling like his desperate longing for the strange faerie, as said strange faerie acts like a particularly skittish cat wherever he goes.

"Give him jewelry. That's a faerie thing." Snow tells him as he's moping in their chamber now that he has finally swallowed his pride to ask for help. "At least that might get him thinking along the same line as you and won't have you acting like a pathetic mess all the time." Jewelry, that at least, he could do.

The autumn equinox comes and goes. With both the Summer and Day Courts in his control, Enji has been hammering their borders with attacks, to the point that this years mating will likely be the most important one that they have as they start to lose enough soldiers in the skirmishes that Tomura has to seriously consider if he will send the current troops in training to the front lines three months ahead of their graduation to sure up their borders. But on the autumn equinox he channels the magic deeper into the earth, not to make their crops better in the coming harvest, hoping the magic he sent there in the spring and summer will be enough, but to their borders. He makes every tree and bush along their lands grow thicker and taller, full of thorns and brambles until no one can cross without risking tearing open their wings, or without flying over, making them easy targets for their archers on the other side. His kingdom has always been self-sustaining and focused on keeping the territory that they have rather than trying to take more. Blocking off their borders with thick new growth that carves through wings and flesh and smokes horribly whenever fire is used against it means that they are given extra protections and an early warning system against the faeries. It keeps them safe and gives them time to let their soldiers prepare themselves fully for what is to come.

And most importantly, it puts Todoroki's armies on their back foot. While their armies always fought stealthily, the faerie have never had such luck by the very nature of their wings, forcing Enji to have to adapt to that or continue to lose soldiers on direct assaults buys them time. If they can't end this war in three years, and after centuries of it, Tomura doesn't know how much he believes he could end it within the first six years of his rule, then holding out for three means that Todoroki will have to give up the Summer throne to his heir, refusal to do so will put him at war with the other Courts, and no matter how strong he thinks he is, he will not be able to fight a war on two fronts. A war of attrition was never his father's style, but Tomura is starting to see the appeal of it now that he knows how brutally Todoroki throws away anything that is not immediately useful for him. His father fought Yagi many times throughout the centuries and he knew that man well. He was a lower born faerie with no magic who was raised up by the former High Lady of the Day Court and he took that grace into how he ruled the Court as well. If he brings the practices of the Summer Court to the Day Court now, they will surely grow discontent. If Nana Shimura, Yagi's mentor and now the High Lady of the Eternal Court learns of his cruelty being enacted where her prized pupil once sat-- he can practically hear his father's voice telling him how vicious Shimura could be when her patience and integrity were tried. She will put a stop to it, and if Todoroki won't withdraw, and he has never known the man to do so, he will have two enemies and they will solidify their freedom, their claim to this land, and the end of this war. Perhaps, even if he cannot get Dabi to accept a Courtship from him, he will still accompany him to to parley with her as she extends the invitation to do so every other year on the solstice. Maybe if she saw the evidence of Enji Todoroki's cruelty and law breaking on one of his own subjects, she could be urged to act faster. That will not be a possibility until next year though, and Tomura finalizes the box that he's had made, ensuring the two vials inside are corked tightly.

The afternoon is bitterly cold as the sky is covered with thick clouds that are thundering with a storm that has yet to release its contents on them, bit at this time of year, this high in the mountains, Tomura would not be surprised if they were to get sleet rather than rain when it breaks. Perhaps not what most may consider a romantic form of weather for a confession, some may even tell him that it is a bad omen, but he thinks better of postponing when he steps up to the edge of the Courtyard and sees that Dabi is leaning against the wall, looking up at the sky, safely hidden from the thread of sleet underneath the threshold. It's dark and gloomy and he has grown very accustomed to seeing the faerie in the daylight, when his hair is lush with the sun, his eyes bright with determination, and his body warm from the exertion and heat of the afternoon. He sees Dabi now, looking fragile in the door frame that was modified centuries ago to accommodate his father's much greater size and sees again how small he is. Not like he was when he first arrived here. Small in stature, but his body is corded with lean muscle now. His skin is still held together, but it no longer separates so easily from each section when he moves too quickly or roughly. He's certain that his wing stubs still ache, but he doesn't slump in on himself anymore or try to cover them with a cloak when he is out of his room now. Perhaps it is all determination to see the one who did that to him punished, but he is... vibrant now and he has endured things that Tomura can scarcely manage to contemplate. He has a sharp tongue that has never been cowed when speaking to him even as he does always aim to err on the side of caution and respectfulness when it comes to his people's culture. Dabi is... so many things that he has only just started to uncover, but he can only become this if he asks. So Tomura straightens his spine and moves up to the faerie's side.

///

It's been months and Dabi still has a horrible time hearing Shigaraki, or any of the mothfolk, when they start to approach him. It's, of course, even worse when it looks like the sky might tear open and pour buckets of freezing rain on them, but at least he was expecting Shigaraki so he doesn't startle as badly when his massive shadow falls over him.

"I know that war will come rain or shine, but is there any chance training can be put off for a day?" He doesn't want to admit it, but even after all of the work done by the castle healers, his ankles and wrists have started to ache fiercely in the wake of the changing weather. He's already taken one dose of his pain medicine today, and still all he wants to do is soak in a hot bath until the ache just slips away or he decides to drown himself to escape it.

"I think that it might be a good idea to hold off on training for today."

That surprises him. So far, without fail, Tomura has come to make sure that he is training every day. Even if he can't stay for the entire session, he will give him tips and guidelines to follow so he can keep improving at a steady pace. "Really?" He turns to face him fully and realizes that the mothfolk is holding a small box in his hands, well, small in the two hands that hold it, probably medium-sized in his own.

"Yes, there are two things I wanted to speak to you about."

Dabi's skin prickles with anticipation, but Tomura just leads him over to one of the large windows that look out to the Courtyard beyond and he sits on the sill. Dabi does too, feeling like a child beside him that is waiting to get in trouble for some invisible crime that he must have committed. Perhaps his usefulness has run out. He's already given them everything he could in Enji's home and war camps. Maybe it's time for the king to stop playing nice.

"Are you... happy here?" Shigaraki's antennae flatten along his head when he says it, pulled back so that they blend in completely with his hair.

Dabi searches his face, looking for the riddle, for the secret words that will offend the man and turn him violent. "...Happier here than I ever was at the Summer Court." Perhaps the moth knows that isn't high praise given how miserable and frightened he'd spent the last fourteen years he lived in the Court. But this place is fine. Still quiet to him, still isolating, but he has his purpose as surely as he did when he went to intercept that convoy, he has medicine, food, a warm bed, and the training he needs to help him reach his goals. All of that is more than enough for him to be content in this life until he finds the next opportunity to strike back at his father.

"Right." Shigaraki's voice sounds a little... choked. He normally doesn't seem anything other than direct and Dabi's skin flares with nervous heat. "And would you ever return to the fairylands?"

He frowns, the nubs of his wings aching as they tighten against his back. "No." He would starve to death as a beggar on the streets if he ever did. Provided his father didn't hear about someone of his description and send his people to collect him again and then drag him to be torn apart a second time. His father would probably skin him alive. "Why? Am I not wanted here anymore?" Dabi doesn't know what the state of the mortal lands are, but he would have to wrap or... cut his ears to make them small if he wants to pass for mortal in their lands and not as some horrible monster. Even then, that might be a safer fate for him than trying to go back to the fairylands if he isn't welcome in moth territory anymore.

"You are wanted very dearly." Tomura tells him, his voice changing again, going... softer as the set of hands not holding the box reach to catch his. Dabi does his best not to wince as his larger hands wrap around his wrists, just beneath the cuffs, not wanting the other to see his discomfort and think he's flinching away because it is him touching his skin, but also not wanting to admit to him how badly his bones still hurt even after being mended. "And after the punishment you received by your kin," Dabi does his best not to tense at that phrasing, "and the services you have rendered for my kingdom, you have been pardoned, and are a prisoner no longer." His fingers move up to the cuffs, stroking a thumb along the metal clasp keeping the syphoning stones locked in place, and they fall away. Dabi hasn't seen the skin of his wrists since he was taken from the infirmary, and the knot of scar tissue in a circle that pierces through them makes his stomach twist, even as he feels his fire pulse weakly beneath his skin after being subdued for so many months. "You are still welcome to stay in the castle-- nothing need change, but if you would like to look for other housing, then that can be arranged as well." Tomura says, his words coming a bit faster than normal. "But there is another thing I would like for you to consider."

Dabi thinks that his mind might already be unraveling from shock and he isn't entirely sure that he can actually take another surprise, but he is rooted to the spot, his tongue frozen behind his teeth as he waits for the mothfolk to continue.

"I am interested in having you as a mate." Tomura tells him, forcing his antennae up again. "Regardless of if you accept or not, you will have your place within my kingdom." He tells him quickly, "And I don't need an answer right away, but I've had this prepared for you." He opens the box and shows Dabi that inside it contains a necklace made of silk and gold. The larger gold embellishments are held together with silk knotted into intricate cords that make up the sides. It's a far cry from Courtship jewelry in the Summer Court which consists of at first, a single uncut gem on a chord that then is refined over the Courtship process until it is finally set into rings on the couple's wedding day, but maybe this is traditional for mothfolk. "When you've made a decision, you can put this on and apply one of these two perfumes to the silk." He points at each of the two tiny vials that have been pressed into the velvet interior of the box. "Black will tell me that you are formally rejecting the proposal, the red will tell me that you have accepted."

"I can't." The words come out immediately, his tongue still feeling heavy in his mouth as his blood pounds in his ears. "I-- I haven't been honest. I'm not a soldier," the words make his throat tighten with his panic. He had been sure that if anyone found this out, that no matter how useful he had been, he would not get a second chance in this Court the same way he had been denied it in his own. "My surname was Todoroki when I was a child. I was disowned when I was twelve but Enji Todoroki is still my father."

Shigaraki's antennae pin again, but his lips only turn to a soft frown rather than the vicious scowl that he had been expecting. "He disowned you and tortured you. Surely I don't have to ask for his permission to have you as my mate?"

Dabi stares at him, something like shock overcoming all of his senses, but when he can't find any more words, Tomura closes the box and sets it on the sill between their bodies. "You can choose to accept or not on your own terms, Dabi. Like I said, take as long or as short as you need. I will be awaiting your answer and ensuring your place in this kingdom either way." The storm outside finally breaks and sleet begins to pour from the sky creating an even louder cacophony of noise than the thunder alone. "If the weather lets up, we can resume our training tomorrow."

Tomura leaves him with the box and goes swiftly to elsewhere in the castle. But he doesn't slap his cuffs back on him, doesn't curse him or threaten him with violence, doesn't exile him. He just leaves him with the necklace and... runs away, like he's embarrassed. Dabi looks down at the box, tempted to pour the black perfume over the silk right now so that he doesn't string along the king whose castle he's staying in. But there is another part of him-- He cuts that thought off harshly. Another part of him wants to go drown in a nice warm bathtub. That is all he cares to do for the rest of the day. He will consider Courtship later.

Dabi returns to his room, gets the water as hot as he can stand it now that his magic is flowing beneath his skin again, and promptly dunks his entire body beneath the water, even if that does send some of the contents of the bath sloshing over the rim of his tub that he will have to clean up later. Whatever. Maybe later his mind won't be as clouded as it feels right now.

///

Dabi doesn't wear the necklace the next day, and when he sees Tomura for training, he doesn't even mention it. He does ask if he wants to stay in the castle for the foreseeable future or if he would rather have a home of his own somewhere in the village, or even join the army properly if he'd like, but Dabi says he isn't sure yet. Tomura just nods and tells him that he can take however long he needs on that front as well. This is his... home now. It's only been a few months, he can take as long as he needs to figure out how to make it feel that way now. He doesn't bring up any of it the day after that, or the one after that. His touches never even broach the inappropriate, his words do not change the cadence that he has always spoken to him with. He allows Dabi to continue as he is.

And the longer that goes on, the more Dabi's chest starts to ache. He never thought that he would ever get to have anyone who cares about him the way that Tomura is saying that he wants to. Even if he did pay attention to those kinds of things, he doesn't know the first thing about how mothfolk Courtship differs from faerie practices. He decides that he should probably start there and tries to go to the library to find books on the subject, but he turns up shockingly little. Most of what he finds are more in-depth discussions of procreation in medical text books, but that focuses on just the idea of producing offspring. There isn't anything about the romantic side. When he asks about books on Courtship, thinking that maybe they have a different name for it, he isn't given any either. They don't have any. Because All For One chose not to ever take a mate or adopt a child until Tomura, the king doesn't have to follow any specific rules, and his spouse wouldn't be expected to either. Moths choose their mates and spouses based on personality, looks, compatibility, with mates being the more casual form, sometimes only joining once, sometimes only on solstices, sometimes whenever they want, the thing that separates them from spouses is really the wedding and the legality of sharing every part of their lives if they choose to go that route instead. That, at least, Dabi has some frame of reference for. He thinks that more casual dating and choosing to take, or not take, a spouse is more common in the Spring Court and in the Day Court when Yagi was still alive. He chose to never take a spouse either if Dabi recalls correctly. But by the end of having a conversation with a very patient, though clearly bemused librarian, he does at least know that he's not signing himself up for some rigid fate of duty if he decides that he's going to accept the Courtship--

Which he's not going to. He reminds himself when he trudges back to his room with a blush staining his cheeks. He's broken so beyond repair now and only readying his body enough to fight so that when that strain inevitably kills him, he won't have to feel as though Enji really did make his life as worthless as it has felt for so long now.

He's not going to accept.

Tomura still trains with him every day and Dabi's chest aches.

///

The winter solstice is fast approaching, and Dabi sees the castle come to life in a way that he hadn't been expecting. He knew that his father would pull back his troops. After the bramble wood that Tomura was able to raise on the autumn equinox, the longest night of the year will provide him access to even more magic to make certain that their defenses are fortified while the Summer and Day Courts are at their weakest. The Winter Court holds the best blacksmiths and most forges in all of the land, the faeries there enjoying the roaring heat of the fires that contrast sharply with the perpetual chill of their environment. They certainly won't be lending his father any soldiers to try and bolster their attacks, so this solstice, he thinks, will be safe enough. And clearly so does Tomura because as the snow falls heavy and blankets the mountain top, more mothfolk arrive. The majority of folk don't ever wear clothes, but in this chill, they walk more than they fly, their wings wrapped around themselves like cloaks and their antennae pressed down along their skulls so their extremities stay warm against the chill. Dabi has to find the scattered faeries in the kingdom to find proper winter clothes including shoes for the first time since he's gotten here, given that most of the mothfolk have insectoid feet that do not require them. It's while he's out in the city below, able to come and go freely from the castle now and able to show a small seal that he was given by Tomura to any vendors to have the bills for his purchases sent to the castle, that he hears people talking about the mating again. Outside of the castle, he thinks, the people don't know who he is, they just think that he's another refugee from the cruelty of the Courts and he finds that many of the other middling faeries here have also had their wings removed, and been exiled. Because of that, people don't think to talk around him in a hush, and he overhears a mothfolk woman speaking to another as she spins silk behind the counter.

"I heard there is going to be a line this year for anyone who wants to spend time with the king."

"No, really?"

"Oh yes, apparently his appetite isn't what it was since last year, he's been so focused on the war efforts. He hasn't taken a partner in months." Her wings flutter. "Oh, I bet he'll be so domineering with the first few that he accepts."

The two titter as they weave and Dabi's stomach twists into a knot. He... knows that Tomura said he could take as long as he wanted to choose whether or not he wanted to accept the proposal, but he guesses that he just hadn't realized that the king would continue to act the way he always had before around the ceremony while waiting for his answer. Dabi tries to shake himself. He isn't supposed to have a... mate. He should make sure to reject Tomura properly before the solstice so that he knows he should be looking among the guests for the person he wants to spend more of his life with.

But those thoughts don't keep that sourness from filling his gut over and over again.

///

When the night of the solstice arrives, Dabi goes to the Courtyard. Many of the inhabitants of the castle gather around as well, watching from inside as Tomura steps out into the Courtyard. He goes to the circle of stones, the fresh snowfall leaving only his footprints and the drag of his wing tips in the powder, before he stands at the center of the circle. The pale runestones begin to emit the soft white glow of the moon hanging high above them and Tomura kneels down, spreading his wings wide as all four of his hands are pressed into the earth. He has seen his father channel their circle many times before, and all of those, he would take so much of the magic into himself, ensuring that his body would never weaken, that he would always hold more power than anyone else in his Court, before he let just enough flow back into the earth so that they could have a good harvest when the season changed.

Tomura puts every drop of that magic into the land, Dabi can feel it. He thinks he felt the echoes of it in summer and fall, but it's not like it is now. The outpouring of magic that sinks into the ground now is far beyond anything he could have expected and yet-- It's a strange awareness that tugs on the back of his mind that tells him that this is not all that there is. There's more... somewhere beneath the surface that is being corked inside of the stones. The pressure is still building, the small amounts that Tomura is able to let out throughout the seasons the only thing that has kept them from shattering and overflowing. More than enough magic for Tomura to ensure the prosperity of their children, the sureness of their new defenses, and the good harvest of their winter crops. But there is so much more magic that is beneath the surface, an ocean of power that has welled up and that could be used to do... so much more. It could change everything. It could reach across the valley to its twin on the opposite mountain top and change the topography of the fairylands. It could be... everything.

And then Tomura stops channeling, and the stopper goes back in, and Dabi is left, trembling in the wake of so much magic pouring through the earth around him. Tomura rises and announces the start of the feast and other festivities. Feasting and games in the banquet hall, wedding services in the throne room, and... matings to begin in the grand ballroom. People are excited for the festivities and Dabi finds himself sick to his stomach again when Tomura steps away from the runestones and is immediately approached by a variety of folk asking where he will be spending his evening tonight. Dabi knows immediately that he will not be able to stomach a meal and he turns to go back to his chambers. He still has half a bottle of wine there, and with the plenty that has been overflowing the kitchens, he doubts anyone will care if he takes another bottle or two so that he floats away and doesn't think about any of the festivities taking place beyond his room.

"Dabi," Tomura moves past all of the other people so that he can approach him. "Are you going to attend the feast?" He has always been... good to him and the mothfolk's eyes are warm as he looks down at him now.

He doesn't know why that puts such a lump in his throat that makes it hard to speak. "No. I think I'm just going to go lie down. Enjoy the festivities." He tells him, watching the way that his antennae droop even as he keeps that same patient smile on his face.

"Okay, if you need anything--"

"I'll make due. Enjoy your night." He says, ducking his own head into the collar of his coat and turning to head to his room. He doesn't want to be a burden. He isn't supposed to have a significant other. He shouldn't be even contemplating having Tomura of all people. If he were any kind of decent, he would go back to his room, put on the collar, and use the black perfume before making a very brief appearance at the party. Then Tomura will know that whatever he wants to do tonight, he doesn't need to be beholden to him or the proposal he made.

He goes to his room, the box sitting by the window on a small desk, and decides to have a glass of wine instead. It doesn't relax him or settle his nerves and neither does the second. He still feels his heart pounding behind his ribs, and he decides quickly that he wants to go gather two more bottles from the festivities if he really wants to be unable to think about the other activities taking place beyond his room tonight.

But instead of going to his door, he finds himself standing in front of the collar. Dabi's hand trembles as he reaches to the box, opening the lid and seeing the pristine white silk that connects each section of gold. It's not a gem. It's not a marriage proposal. It's a... question. Something that Tomura has asked him to consider, something that his culture uses to actually test the compatibility of matches before requiring them to be finalized. maybe he wasn't made for this, maybe it's not something that he deserves to try, but... maybe he can be allowed to. Just once. Maybe if it doesn't work, it won't hurt the way that the untouched possibility is twisting his stomach into knots right now. Maybe this could be something. Maybe it could be better in the same way that so much has been better for him since he was allowed to take refuge here. Maybe he doesn't have to suffer in every aspect of his life.

Dabi uncaps the red vial and uses the dropper along the white silk. It soaks into the silk, the material wicking it all away easily and turning to such a deep red that he imagines that it must have some kind of dye in it to create the effect. But when Dabi lifts the vial and silk to his nose, he can't detect even the faintest scent. Tomura did say this was a perfume, didn't he? Dabi is hesitant, but he warms his palm and holds it beneath the silk until the dye has dried into the material so he can put it on without it staining his skin. He puts the necklace on and still can't smell anything, but the color is distinctive enough, when Tomura sees it, he'll know.

Dabi's heart is pounding as he goes to the door, about to declare in front of the entire castle that he wants Tomura, and he hardly gets it open before the massive shape of the moth is in front of him. Four hands wrap around him, his fingers touching around his waist as he lifts Dabi up towards his face. He can't help squeaking as he does so, feeling so fragile in his grip for the split second before Tomura's mouth is on his. Dabi hasn't ever been kissed before, hasn't ever been held, but feeling, so immediately how badly the other wants him has him melting readily into the other's arms as he’s carried back inside of his room, Tomura kicking the door shut behind them as they go.

///

It's been a year since his mate came to live in the castle, a year since he was tortured by his father, and only five months since he accepted his proposal to become his mate. Five months since his room became their room and he got to see, inch by inch, all of the things that Dabi had been hiding from him as he tried to prevent himself from being a burden in the castle. Despite his training and eating more, despite the fact he would ask for his salves and pain medicine when he needed it more often now, it was only when they were spending so much more time together that Tomura realized that he still was struggling with his very existence in the castle. He has felt worthless in his own Court for years, has been in pain every day since he awoke, and he needs more than he's ever allowed himself to have. It breaks Tomura's heart, but he also learns so quickly how Dabi bristles at the idea of simply being provided for without earning his keep when he lives with the constant guilt of simply existing. So he tries to give him ways of alleviating that. He continues his martial training, but he also sends him to the border where they allow refugees of the fairylands to pass. He knows their culture, and especially the marks of his father's soldiers well, and after the first time he catches a spy trying to make it past their borders, Dabi starts to stand up a little straighter. He works with their healers to make certain that Dabi has a slower release version of their fermented ochroot pills so that he can manage his pain while he's awake a bit more, allowing him to avoid the total body numbness that comes if he takes as much as he needed to manage the pain before.

But that only works when he's awake and Tomura stirs as he smells his lover's scent go acrid with smoke and sweat as he starts to tremble in their sheets. Tomura barely sleeps as is, and he's glad to wake now at the first sign of his lover's distress as the nightmares that have plagued Dabi since his arrival here come for him once again.

"Shh, darling," he murmurs, unsurprised that Dabi is too deeply entrenched in the agony that his body has suffered. He rolls his little faerie onto his side, knowing that the pressure of the bed against the stumps of his wings will only make the intensity of the nightmares worse. He leans over Dabi then, a hand against his side and stroking the seam that splits his skin there, another on his chest, moving to rub against his nipple, a third on the closest stump of his wings, reaching for the base so that he can rub around the connection point and soothe away the agony that must be pulsing through his taut muscles. His last hand moves down between his mate's legs. This had been something that Tomura suggested two months after they started spending time sleeping beside one another once Dabi had acclimated to the new schedule he had to keep to with his shifts at the border. The first few times he had tried to get Dabi to wake from his nightmares, he had flinched horribly and woken with fire arching off of his palms and smoke choking his breath. He had been in hysterics after that, sobbing and promising that he wasn't a spy, that he wouldn't do anything to hurt him or his kingdom, that he would go right then if that's what he'd wanted. And Tomura had to put the cuffs back on him just to cool his skin enough that he wouldn't set fire to himself again as he sobbed and sobbed. That had just about torn him open and pulled out his insides, and it still took a few days to get his mate to sleep beside him again. But when he had his next nightmare, Tomura hadn't tried to shake him awake. He held him close and murmured sweetly in his ear, he stroked his wing stumps and pressed kisses to his forehead and eyelids, and Dabi had managed to wake far more gently than he had the first time. So he did it again, and again, and after another two weeks, he had asked if Dabi would want him to try this when he is trembling against the nightmares in his mind and his body is aching with the agony of the aftermath.

Dabi is still trembling, still lets out a soft whimper as his dreams stay ruthless and his scent is layered with pain, but Tomura wraps his fingers around his soft prick anyway. The dissonance between pleasure and pain in his dreams makes him wake confused instead of terrified and panicked, and the thrill of a good orgasm can alleviate the worst of the tensed muscles. Tomura hopes that one day his mate won't dream of the agony that he's been through so frequently, that maybe someday he'll be able to wake him with these touches and kisses just because he can't stand even a few hours of not be able to access his mate's pleasure and joy when they're together, but he will still happily give him this if it will bring Dabi some momentary relief.

Tomura strokes him once, trying to turn his body to the start of his arousal instead of the pain that he knows is sitting on his nerves, but Dabi whimpers and twists beneath the ministrations, trying to pull his body away as he must be remembering the roughness of the hands that hurt him before they met. Tomura reaches to their bedside drawer and gets their bottle of oil, uncapping it so that he can coat his palms, and make his next touches even softer against his mate's skin. He kisses along the edge of his collar, the perfume that he poured over the silk always leaving Dabi smelling like he wants him in the way his scent always sharpens for him whenever they are near one another. The faerie's nose isn't nearly as sensitive as his antennae are, and he expresses confusion over why Tomura loves to run his antennae along his body so that he can find the natural smokiness that comes to Dabi's scent as well when he starts to truly sweeten with his desire, but he allows him to do so anyway. Tomura soaks in his scent now as he starts to move his hands over his body again. his fingers start to work along the tense muscles of his body, trying to soothe away some of those knots as another goes back to his mate's cock. He has refrained from saying anything, but the smallness of all parts of his mate makes his entire body warm with his desire. Tomura is used to being the larger partner when he has ever taken a lover in the past, but mothfolk, on average, are simply larger than most faeries. He always liked feeling as though he could tower over his partners and that he could bend their bodies to his will with his strength rather than his status or words. But Dabi only makes that fantasy more lush as he is so much smaller than him, delicate after all of the tortures his body has experienced before him, and so vulnerable as he lets him take from his body however he wishes as he sleeps.

One of his hands spans from Dabi's collarbone to the base of his ribs, his fingers able to encircle his entire neck when he so chooses, and he is able to cup all of him against his palm as he toys with his little one's most sensitive parts. His wings flutter, kicking up a soft breeze in the room as he cups his cock and balls in his palm, his fingers still long enough to rub back to his hole. Dabi stays soft in his hand for now, but he does make a quiet sound of discontent as his fingers clutch at the sheets a bit tighter, trying to move away. Scared that the touches he's getting will turn to the same sour pain of his dreams. But Tomura is going to make him feel good, he's going to make his whole body hum and sing, and when his mate wakes, he'll be gasping from his pleasure, and boneless with bliss.

He moves his hand over him, reveling in how soft his skin is here. He always revels in the texture of Dabi's skin. His body is covered in very fine scales that glitter in the light and shed like snow when he bathes in dust. Dabi's skin is twisted and bumpy across his scars, and soft and delicate where it is healthy. He burns with the heat of his flames inside his veins, and the training that he has continued has built him into lean muscle that makes his strength beyond his endurance plain. It's probably a miracle that Tomura is able to get anything at all done every day when he could be touching his mate. Tomura lavishes his body with his touches now, massaging along his balls, teasing them and pulling lightly so that Dabi is squirming a little more beneath him, savoring the whimper that he lets out when he does, as his firefly bites his lower lip, his thighs tightening like he can hide himself from his grasp. Tomura doesn't stop though, squeezing his palm around him as well so that he's giving him that same stimulation along his root as well as he unfurls his long tongue from his mouth, and starts to lick along Dabi's skin. The first time he had given Dabi the full length of his tongue in his throat Dabi had ridden his thigh until his cock was spilling without his hands ever wandering below his waist, and the fist time he had gotten Dabi, blushing, trembling, to sink down over his face so he could feed it into his insides, he had kept him there until Dabi had cum so many times, and was so boneless with his exhaustion he had been sobbing as he begged for his final orgasm to actually be the last for the night. All of those sensations, all of the pleasure that he can give his firefly, it all helps him to sleep better and heavier when he does lay down. But if their schedules don't allow that, then this is the next best thing.

Dabi's seams are healed enough now, and so sensitive, that he can tolerate them being touched. And as Tomura drags his tongue along them, his cock hardens against his palm. He shifts his grip, able to encircle him completely with three fingers. He starts to stroke him more deliberately, rubbing his thumb over his head, and applying more pressure, until he is stroking his baby the way that he knows that he loves to be touched. Dabi whimpers, his body growing a little warmer beneath his palms as his hips twitch up into the movements. Tomura purrs, the sound rumbling through him in a low vibration that always makes Dabi's wings try to flap again. He doesn't know if it's out of fear or arousal, but it doesn't stop the swell of sweetness that has been pulsing through him already.

Tomura continues to kiss and stroke him, working along Dabi's cock until his hips are moving on his own, rutting into his palm as he stretches his fingers back to his mate's hole and spreading the oil there. The way Dabi still blushes when he touches him here when he's awake still makes Tomura's purrs go louder, but watching him chase his pleasure unabashedly as he rubs against him in his sleep is almost as good. He doesn't withhold his pleasure, letting Dabi move and moan until he's moaning softly and his cum is spilling as hot as coffee against his palm from his magic flowing beneath his skin. Tomura nuzzles against his cheek and presses kisses there, but the nightmare, the pain of memory and his tense muscles must be worse than it normally is, because he doesn't wake with his orgasm. He is still asleep, his brow furrowing as he rolls away from his mess and presses himself tighter into Tomura's chest. His hands give up pulling at the sheets to press his knuckles to his chest, Dabi hiding his face in the soft fur of his ruff from where it flows beneath his chin and down his neck. Tomura uses a set of arms to cradle him close, but if that didn't wake his mate, then he knows what will.

He takes his soaked fingers and starts to work them into his body. Dabi mewls so cutely, nuzzling deeper into his chest, his wing stumps starting to flitter faster, the quiet of their room the only thing that lets Tomura hear that very faint clicking that would turn into the buzz that accompanied the faerie armies when they march if his mate still had his wings. He hasn't dared to ask what Dabi's wings looked like when he had them. He has his father's blue eyes, but his hair is the color of jet and the joints of his wings don't look like they could support the fiery monarch butterfly wings that Todoroki is known for. He wonders if he took more after his pixie mother in this aspect too, but he hasn't pressed. Dabi lives in fear that every day could be the one when Tomura will change his mind and decide that he has had enough of him, tossing him to the side. He is bound and determined to wait for the rest of their lives to show his love that is not something he will ever do to him.

Besides, even outside of their day-to-day, Tomura doesn't understand how Dabi can doubt how much he wants him like this as well. He sinks his first finger into Dabi's body, his muscles much more pliant after his first orgasm as his sleep has grown less disturbed as he tries to draw more of his mate's pleasure to the surface. Sometimes he likes to just press in and feel his baby open up around his cock slowly, but given that his first orgasm couldn't bring him out of his dream completely, he doesn't want to push too quickly and turn the pleasure sour in his firefly's veins. But Dabi's insides are hot as they squeeze around his finger, deliciously soft as he moves against them and spreads the oil. Until his body is open and able to accept a second, a third. That had been enough to make Dabi cum the first time too. Tomura loves to stretch him open, his fingers already making his hole open obscenely, but the way his taut stomach swell slightly when he has his cock inside and the way that his mate falls apart when Tomura makes him watch as he moves inside of him, tells him that he isn't the only one who loves how much smaller his mate is than him. Just the thought as he readies dabi's body for his cock has his slit opening, his slick spilling out and dripping down his thighs. His antennae flutter, the scents of Dabi's cum and his slick mixing together on the air and sending his arousal higher as the smoke and sweetness of Dabi's body and the stormy sky of his screaming that he should have more. He wants more. He wants to have every inch of his firefly whether he's awake or asleep. Wants to touch him until Dabi learns that no matter what horrors were inflicted on him, his body is his and he should be able to choose to live the rest of his life doing only what brings him pleasure in it. He wants Dabi to know that even if he can't bring back what he's lost, he will help him have any joy he can find in living like this. The world, the whole world, that's what he wants to give his mate.

He hasn't dared to try to give any of those thoughts voice. He doesn't know if he ever will. But he can show Dabi it in his actions every day until he finds the right combination of them to actually let out everything living in his chest. Now he shows it by taking his fingers from Dabi's pliant body and turning onto his back, his wings flared out wide and wrapping around their bodies as two of his hands move to the backs of Dabi's thighs, spreading him wide as he pours mor oil over his cock, his slick not copious enough to be adequate to stretch his firefly open. He lines up and lets Dabi burrow deeper into his ruff as he starts to sink him down onto his cock.

The heat of him always makes a tremor run through Tomura's body. Dabi is an inferno, no matter how badly his body craves the cold. He is flame incarnate and just that sensation as his walls struggle to take him in has him holding onto the threads of his control as well. He is so warm, so small, so tight around him as Tomura holds him close, his whole chest vibrating with his purrs as he sinks Dabi lower and lower, moving one hand to his mate's lower stomach. Dabi's prick twitches as it starts to fill again, always so eager for more, but that's not what he wants to feel. He presses his hand down as he sinks Dabi all the way until their bodies are flush and the entire length of him is buried inside, and he feels the pressure beneath the taut muscles of his stomach change. They press out a bit as his cock takes up so much room inside of his baby's body. Fuck. He stays still, enjoying the squeeze, the warmth, the feeling that being trusted so much that Dabi will let him change the way his body feels after so many years of everyone else who did so causing him harm instead of anything else. He nuzzles into his hair, purring and purring as he savors this closeness.

He only gets to for about three minutes before Dabi is squirming above him, his wing stumps fluttering faster and irritably as he starts to stir. It doesn't take long then for him to be mumbling groggily, those lovely blue eyes peering up from his chest as he blinks back to consciousness. "Tomu," he whines and just that has fresh heat going through his entire body. Dabi always has to be so tired to speak to him with such familiarity, even now, out of some sense of propriety that has been unseen in this Court since the rebellion. But as Tomura uses his strength to rock his hips up and pull Dabi down into the thrust, he takes those words away very quickly. He moans, arching into his chest, letting his body be limp so that he can be moved like a toy over his cock as he rubs his own against Tomura's stomach, his prick rapidly swelling back to full hardness now that he's awake.

"Shh, little one," he says, pressing a kiss to his temple, another hand stroking his stomach again so that Dabi can feel him from the inside out, "You don't have to do anything, just let me make you feel good."

He didn't know that Dabi could go any more boneless, but the stumps of his wings flutter again as he nuzzles deeper into his ruff, those pretty blue eyes glazing over with pleasure as he keeps moving his body. The absolute trust with his being as he's conscious again sends Tomura's need hotter and he sets them to a constant pace, making sure to angle his hips so that he's stroking over Dabi's prostate each time his cock presses into his heat. He doesn't turn it frantic. That can be fun, but he wants to savor the ways their bodies are joining as the sun dies beyond their windows. He wants to see the golden glow as it glitters off of every one of Dabi's staples, as it catches the sweat that glistens across his skin. He wonders if Dabi would ever believe him if he said that like this, as he marvels at his beauty, any fleeting curiosity about what his wings used to look like leaves him completely. He doesn't need to know, doesn't care, because he has him now, and since he can't turn back time and protect him from his father's cruelty, he thinks that this should be enough for him. He hopes that one day it will be enough for Dabi too.

For now, it seems to be enough to just bring their bodies together again and again in this rhythm, letting their pleasure seep along their veins at this steady pace until neither of them can hold on any longer. Dabi's hand fumbles out, and it is no trouble for him to find Tomura's. His fingers are so small as they interlace with his, and his grip, even as hard as it can go, couldn't ever bruise him as he squeezes. "Tomura," he moans, his head tilting up. He doesn't hesitate to shift, pushing into his mate deeper as he gives Dabi the kiss that he was searching for.

That's all it takes to send him into his second climax, and the heat and velvet squeeze of his walls tightening around him as it happens has Tomura following almost immediately after. Dabi melts back against him, his wing stubs twitching the way that Tomura's would flutter if he weren't pinning them to the bed with their bodies. He stays inside of his mate for as long as he can, but as he softens, his cock starts to withdraw back into his body and he has to let his mate shiver as his seed spills out of him and he's left empty.

"How do you feel, sweetheart?" He asks, his hands moving over Dabi's body, trying to soothe away any lingering tension or pain from his nightmares.

"I've been worse," He mumbles. But he proves that he's doing better than he has been in the past when he mumbles, "Can I have my medicine?"

"Of course you can, baby." He says immediately, but when he starts to sit up Dabi clings to him tighter. Tomura tries not to let his chest crack open from how that makes his heart swell, but clearly his little one wants medicine and cuddles and refuses to be denied both. As if Tomura would ever deny him anything at all. He presses kisses to the top of his head as he supports his weight with two hands, keeps holding one with the third, and then reaches over to the nightstand with the fourth. He brings Dabi the jar of pills and his mate takes one and swallows it dry before he tilts his face back up expectantly.

Tomura is more than happy to lay back down in their bed and give him as many kisses as he wants until dusk has completely fallen.

///

When the spring equinox comes around Dabi... feels that pulse again as Tomura lets the magic flow from it. But it's... different. Like something else is trying to reach the moonstones from across the valley. He pushes that thought away as his lover finishes up and they go back to their evening.

It's not until Tomura comes back to their room two nights later with a frown pulling at their features that he considers that sensation again. "I've received word that Todoroki joined with the Day circle on the equinox rather than wait for the solstice."

"He probably didn't want to have to fly between the both of them again." Dabi remarks immediately, but that doesn't surprise him. Tomura's defenses are still holding, but that isn't a surprise at this point. If the mothfolk couldn't maintain their own territory, then they wouldn't have been able to hold their own in this war for centuries. But that strange pulse... it comes back to his mind and Dabi hopes that his mate's seemingly endless patience as Dabi comes to know his culture won't be pushed past its limits when he says, "I didn't know that anyone but a high faerie could connect to the runestones. We were always taught that the ones here had just been dormant since the rebellion."

Tomura looks more amused than anything else at that. "Really? So what did they think of my father and the magic he wielded?"

Dabi walked himself right into that one and he feels what's left of the fair skin on his face heat sharply. "Nothing flattering."

"He would be thrilled then." His words are patient and leading, Permission to repeat what he was taught even though he's certain that it is wrong.

"They thought he was an unnatural folk or maybe that he had made a deal with a forgotten god." It's still kinder words than were usually thrown around when it came to All For One, but Dabi still cringes as they come out of his mouth.

Tomura snorts. "Well, you get to be the fourth of potentially only five that know this: My father was part-high faerie. He was the half-brother to the ruler of the Day Court before the rebellion, Yoichi Shigaraki."

Dabi tenses immediately. That was centuries ago. He was never taught that Yoichi even had a sibling or surname. He was always told that his father, the cruel ruler of the Night Court exiled him for his softness and he went on to become the ruler of the Day Court, changing the tradition in that Court from passing on through bloodlines and instead using that position as a way to elevate faerie across any Court that had proven their services to the fairylands beyond doubt.

Tomura doesn't seem put off by that, moving to sit on the bed as Dabi lingers at the desk, having been going over the roster of new refugees who have entered the city over the past week. "His birth father took as many liberties as he wanted with folk from torture to pleasure at their expense. Most times any mixed-race child hatched will mostly resemble the moth parent, but All For One looked so much like his father that Yoichi recognized him as kin when he was only four and my father was nine. Their father tried to keep them separated, but they spent a lot of time together as children, with Yoichi growing more and more convinced that his brother and all of the mothfolk should not be treated this way. He kept promising my father that he would end their slavery when he took the throne. But my father didn't believe that he would be able to turn their father's cruel Court when Yoichi had always been so sickly and weak-willed in the face of any true violence. So when Yoichi was sent to season in the other Courts in the hope of finding a good match, All For One started the rebellion. When the castle was taken and his people were freed, he channeled the stones himself for the first time and wielded their magic to visit the Court of the Eternal, demanding our freedom and for the sanctity of his claim to his father's throne to be recognized. The High Lord at the time refused and declared war."

The gaps in the history that Dabi was taught yawn out in front of him, showing him all of the ways that his people have been misled. Of course they would, because they are taught to respect the sanctity of a claim on a throne above anything else, which is why his father and the Summer Court has such strict rules about marrying and producing heirs. The very existence of a bastard could be enough to have an entire bloodline stripped of their titles, land, their wings.

"Yoichi never had any children, your father didn't either?" So how was Enji so sure that he could prove that he had a claim on this throne? What was in the documents that he burned?

"No, their father had dozens, with Yoichi being the only one born of his legitimate wife who he had killed shortly into his childhood as punishment for producing such a sickly heir. He married again, but she failed to produce an heir at all and I believe he was trapped in that marriage because she was from the Eternal Court," Tomura waves it off. "But all of the others were from other Courts and he was able to ensure they wouldn't be connected back to him."

"In the Summer Court?" He asks, hesitantly.

That has red eyes on him again, but sharper this time. Trying to see through him and figure out why this topic is the one that Dabi has latched onto at this moment. "Yes, I think so. At least two. Why?"

Dabi hesitates, "How do you connect to the stones? You're not your father's biological son."

"...No. But my father knew he would have to pass on the throne one day. He didn't want to take a spouse or mate, and he didn't want to have to take a faerie to ensure a single offspring instead of the possibility of half a dozen who might fight for the throne when they reached adulthood. So when he was ready to consider naming an heir, he started to take trips to the nursery. He selected thirteen that also had mixed genes and when we reached our cocoon stage, he and a brilliant faerie healer who had defected to our Court started to inject my father's blood into the cocoons when we were nothing. Seven of the cocoons rotted early, but six reached the stage when we were starting to reform our bodies. Three more hatched too soon and couldn't survive outside of the cocoon. Fearing that the last of us wouldn't make it that far, they moved us to the runestones and kept us inside of it until the spring equinox. He channeled a portion of the arcane into us then, hoping to stabilize us, but my cocoon was the only one that didn't boil from the inside out. I hatched too early as well, and I had to spend a year unable to pump the blood into my wings to inflate them, but I lived. My hair had been black when I was born, but it turned white when I gained my strength."

Dabi doesn't know if he's allowed to feel sick to his stomach at hearing how All For One chose to get his heirs, but Tomura gives him a wry smile.

"I told you he would be happy to be thought of as a monster to your people."

"Are you--?"

"I don't intend to use that method to name an heir, no. And given that it took my father being killed for his life to come to an end, I don't believe I have any rush to name one right now. Which is why I've never gone to the frontlines since he died. I'm not even sure the Court of the Eternal even knows my name." Tomura stands and moves over to him, taking his hands in two of his own, and bringing them up so that he can kiss his knuckles. "Now, why is this bothering you so much, love?"

Dabi still feels his stomach sinking as he finally admits, "The thing in the caravan that I went to burn-- my father said that it proved that he had a claim to this throne. If he can hold Day and Summer and reunite Night with it, then he'll have a season and all of the Celestial. He will be able to take the Eternal with that much power. I can feel the magic that the moonstones are holding onto after each channeling-- I don't know if it was like this when your father did it or not, but it feels like there is a wellspring beneath each one and that the magic you've been letting is only a trickle of it. If my father gets his hands on all of that, then he'll take everything else. If he has the Eternal Court, then he'll make each of the remaining seasons bend the knee and he won't be able to be stopped with a legitimate claim to three thrones." The panic in him starts to rise and he has to pull his hands from Tomura's so that he doesn't send sparks leaping off of his skin.

Tomura doesn't say anything for a long moment, but his expression is more pensive than angry, and Dabi hopes that he didn't find the thing that will turn his mate against him. "I can't fly."

The statement has Dabi's mind coming to a screeching halt. "...You fly all the time, Tomura."

"I can't lift myself more than thirty feet from the ground." He tells Dabi, one hand coming up to cup his cheek. "When my father channeled the stones, he had no such problems, but every time I put the magic back into this land when I channel, I feel myself being dragged closer to the earth. I just made my peace with giving up my flight to make sure my kingdom thrives, but maybe I can't access all of the magic that is sitting in the stones because I only have a drop of faerie blood in me. He was half high faerie. Maybe the reason that you haven't heard of anyone less than that ever channeling the stones is because they can't do so as effectively." Tomura hesitates, thinking over his next words before he speaks, "If Todoroki has a claim to the throne and you can feel it when I channel, then you should have that same claim."

"I'm a guest here." He says immediately. "I didn't bring this up to undermine you. I'm not playing some long game to steal your throne." The thought puts a sickness in his gut and Tomura's brows furrow, a wry smile twisting his lips.

"I know that, Dabi." He presses another kiss to his knuckles to try and soothe away some of his anxiety. "But this kingdom is still young and still trying to set our own traditions. Being the king is not about the runestones, it's about being the person best suited to rule. I haven't ever taken any of the magic of the stone for myself, but my people still find me fit to rule, something that I was working to prove for years before my father's death. And my people have proved that we can end a high faerie even without magic of our own." He smiles at him again, "If I tell them that you will be attempting to channel the stones instead of me on the next solstice, they won't say anything. You are my mate, and they know what you've suffered in the Courts. You were forced to endure everything our ancestors did and if you could give our lands that power, if you could enchant our weapons the way that they can in the other Courts, we would be able to make more progress on clearing the faerie around our borders." He considers further. "Does that mean that you would have a right to the Day and Summer Courts too?"

Dabi blanches. "I... technically. The Day Court still has the laws in place--if a successor isn't chosen, then it goes to the first in the bloodline of the past High faerie, if there is no successor, then the High Lady of the Eternal Court makes the selection."

"And you are the first of Summer too."

"I was disowned, it would be shaky at best. My youngest brother would be considered the rightful heir and--" his throat sounds as tight as it feels when he admits, "I haven't seen him since I was twelve. We were forced to be separated by my disowning. I don't know what he's like after having my father in his ear for so many years, but if he stood up to fight my claim, the army would stand behind him, not me."

"Just the Day Court could still be advantageous." Tomura says, standing and starting to pace. "We have a fresh clutch of soldiers, and more who will be ready in a few months. Three territories would be difficult to maintain, but two, linked as the Celestial Court is, boxing in the valley on either side--"

Dabi keeps his mouth shut. He doesn't want to take the power of either Court, but if he had to take both, if he had to do that to help Tomura win the war that his people have been fighting for centuries, then he would do that. But it would be beyond dangerous. He would have to travel the full length of the valley each time he had to connect to the stones. If they snuck in when Enji is in the Summer Court for the solstice, then he would never stop trying to recapture the throne. And when he had to occupy the Day Court would that mean... that Tomura would be here? Half a country away? Would he only get to see him on the winter solstice? They're thoughts that are beyond selfish after Tomura and his people took him in instead of just letting him die in agony on the back of that cart. So he makes no protest when his mate says,

"Well, all of that will be moot if you can't actually channel the stones yourself. My father said that the Courts often did so on full and new moons if the High Faerie was trying to increase their health or fertility-- the next full moon is only a week and a half away. You can try to connect then, and if it works, then we can start planning for the summer solstice. Todoroki has to go back to the Court then. No matter how well-guarded he thinks the Day Court could be, Yoichi was a sentimental man, and he once invited my father to the Court for parlay." His lips curve up into a self-satisfied smile. "And my father had an eidetic memory. He made a map."

Dabi smiles and Tomura pulls him into his arms for a kiss, pressing it to the crown of his head as he hugs him close.

"We won't move forward with anything unless I can guarantee your safety, love. I'll hold counsel with all of my lieutenants and I will make sure that Enji Todoroki never gets within a hundred miles of you ever again." He catches his chin in a soft grip and makes him look him in the eyes. "But if this is too much-- I know this is different from the training that you've been doing. If this isn't a responsibility that you want, then we can let this thought die here, Dabi."

It's a desperate, selfish part of him that screams in his head that playing with knives in the Courtyard is so different from what is being proposed now. But he has never heard... anyone here talk about the war ever ending, about the possibility of victory. It was always spoken with a finality to it. In the Summer Court, they always talked about when the faerie would win. Here, the mothfolk, Tomura, talk about this fight as if there is no ending. Like he and all of his people have accepted that as long as they want to remain free, they will be fighting to protect their home and the way of life they've made for themselves. With their numbers, with enchanted weapons, with all of the power of the Celestial Courts and the ability to cage in the Seasonal Courts in the valley below, stopping them from ever taking the high ground-- that could do it. That could force the Eternal Court to give them their sanctity. The Celestial Courts could belong to Tomura's kingdom. it could be different. they could end the suffering and the killing.

"No, this is a good idea," he says, pressing himself closer and hiding his face in his mate's feather-soft ruff. "I want to help however I can, I just don't... I don't want to be the ruler. If we could take the Day Court, is there someone else you would trust to rule? One of your lieutenants? You, if that wouldn't be spreading you too thin?"

"You won't have to do anything at all but channel the stones if that's what you want, precious. Every other day of the year you can lounge in my bed, or train, or continue your work with the refugees, or anything else your heart ever desires." Tomura promises him, "I will have my kingdom protected and my mate happy. That is what I want with every fiber of my being."

Dabi tries to hold onto that when in a week and a half, he makes himself walk to the center of the runestones and tries to reach out to that wealth of power inside of them. He barely has to touch it before centuries of power are flowing through his body and the moonstones all suddenly flare with light, each eight-foot pillar of them engulfed in the same blue arcane fire that Dabi has burned with all of his life. He tries to put it out, but the stones do not stop burning and don't seem harmed by it as Dabi feels the pain from his body ebb away more thoroughly than it ever has before, no matter how much medicine he takes. He is able to spill lushness through every mile of land along the territory, turn the brambles thicker and grow them thirty feet higher into proper walls, he sends the rejuvenating nature straight through to the nursery so that the cocoons below grow strong and the children about to enter them have the strength to do so healthily. And yet there is still so much more power that could flow through him. When he thinks that he might burn up from trying to put all of that somewhere Tomura moves and pulls him from the circle so that he isn't choking on the magic anymore. Dabi uses what's left of it that is thrumming through his body to sever the tether that was keeping his mate from flying freely through the skies and he sees in Tomura's eyes the sheer delight that he has as he realizes that this plan could work.

Dabi has horrible nightmares when they go to sleep throughout the day, but thankfully his mate just thinks it's from his scars as always and does his best to comfort him the way he has been doing for months now. Dabi clings to him harder, desperate not to have this taken away too.

///

The summer solstice is when they're going to strike. That has been decided because Todoroki cannot be present there without abandoning the Summer Court which would lose him the rights that the Eternal Court gave him in the first place to rule over both. They have an infiltration plan, they have the forces they need to occupy the city, and they will have an abundance of enchanted weapons after the next full moon when Dabi channels the full strength of the stone again. But his mate is having worse nightmares. He's started to withdraw into himself again, and there is always the sharp smell of frost on him these days as he stresses over the fast-coming future. Tomura tries to talk to him, to assure him that this doesn't have to go any further, but he always starts to reek of smoke when he responds with how badly he wants to help them end the war. But he doesn't want to be away from him, that close to Todoroki, in so much danger-- Dabi won't admit to any of those fears, but he can smell them on him. The bitter tang of melancholy, the acrid tang of terror, the sourness of fear, they cling to him when he thinks about any of the possibilities and no matter how many times he readies to call it all off, those smells of distress only get higher at the thought of doing nothing. So they keep preparing as though they are going to do something.

But he is mainly trying to find a way, any way, to make this easier on his lover and getting no closer to finding one.

"Grand Commander," Jin is a gray dagger moth with a scar splitting his forehead from a battle when he was around Tomura's age.

"What is it?" He asks, drawing to a stop.

"I had an interesting transfer to my unit earlier this week. He's a refugee who's been living here with his mother for nearly a decade and he's been on the frontlines since he became of age. He asked to be transferred to guard duties here and now he's asking if he can have an audience with, well, he said with 'whoever charged the stones'."

Tomura bristles slightly. Only his Court knows about Dabi's experiment on the full moon that solidified that he could fully take his place as the channeler. "Bring him here." He says immediately. He trusts his Court to know when to keep their mouths shut and he wants to see this soldier himself and determine what he knows.

"Yes, sir." Jin bows, but only halfway, their years of friendship and working together well beyond that need for formality when they aren't around other people.

Tomura only waits five minutes before the doors are opened again and a soldier in leather armor is brought in. He wears a blue silk chiton underneath it and he is tall for a pixie, but short for a high faerie, though the length of his ears speaks of that part of his heritage. His hair is snow white and his build strong, with a set of pale blue dragonfly wings arching off of his back and laying against his spine as he walks into the room rather than fly. He does bow properly, but Tomura quickly moves forward,

"What's your name, soldier?"

The man rises from his bow, slate gray eyes meeting his own with a determination that is familiar. "Natsuo Himura."

Tomura's breath catches in the back of his throat as that name rings falsely through his ears.

///

Dabi didn't have to work today and has taken to sleeping like shit again, always struggling a bit to do it during the day when his lover tries to catch a few hours at dawn, but it's been far worse lately, and he was looking forward to just sleeping all night. But it's only a few hours past sundown when a servant knocks on his door.

"The Grand Commander wishes for you to join him in the throne room at your earliest convenience." She says softly, her ruff bright orange and her wings a mix of orange and brown.

"Just put on clothes' or 'you can bathe first' earliest." He grumbles crankily, wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep instead. If this was important enough for Tomura to ask him to wake for it, but was also told that this wasn't an urgent summons, then this can't be an emergency emergency.

"At your earliest convenience." She repeats before dipping her head and turning to continue with her duties.

Dabi wants to go back to bed, so he hopes this isn't something that will require more than a short conversation to settle and he throws on a plain chiton and nothing else, even foregoing shoes given that he won't be walking through any of the mud that has soaked into the earth as the snow finally finishes melting as the season creeps towards late spring. He makes his way to the throne room swiftly enough and opens the door to find his mate conversing with another man, a mixed-breed faerie refugee from the dragonfly wings and his stature, Tomura looming over most, but especially faerie folk.

"You called for me, your Majesty?"

Tomura sighs immediately, but while he happily calls Dabi all variety of pet names around everyone else, happy... proud even, to have him as a mate, Dabi never wants to suggest to anyone that he has forgotten just how important Tomura is. He never wants to imply that he has more of a claim to him than they do to their king.

The soldier in front of him turns and Dabi freezes in place, his wing stubs giving a petulant burst of pain along his spine as he feels all of the muscles in his body tense as he takes in-- "Natsuo?"-- his brother's face for the first time in over a decade. He looks so much like Enji. The only real difference is that he got their mother's wings, her hair color that has bleached completely white.

"...Toya?"

He hasn't heard that name in years and his chest goes sharp, panic, fear, both spilling through him instinctively because he and everyone around him were punished if anyone slipped and tried to use his birth name when he had been disowned.

Tomura must smell his distress. "My mate," he says, moving past Natsuo to approach him and catch his hands, trying to soothe some of his nerves, "Goes by Dabi now."

There's a pause, his body blocking he and Natsuo from seeing each other. His expression is patient and concerned, but after he makes himself take a breath, Dabi manages a nod. Tomura leans down to press a kiss to the top of his head.

"I'll let you two catch up." He says easily once he's made sure that's what he wants before he steps aside.

Dabi knows that his mate has other things to do tonight, so he gestures for Natsuo to follow him before he leads him from the room, finding the nearest empty room to use, his mind still half numb from shock. When the door is shut behind him, long before he finds words of his own, Natsuo is in his space. His arms wrap around his shoulders, high enough that it speaks of experience from hugging someone whose wings have been removed. He hugs him, and says, with such a depth of feeling,

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. We-- We heard about the faerie who arrived after being-- they said you were a soldier, and then they just didn't say much at all. We didn't think-- I would have come to find you sooner. I'm so sorry."

Dabi's breath catches in the back of his throat, his chest tighter than it has been in years, and after a moment that tension in him shatters and blood wells up from beneath his eyes as he clings to his brother just as tightly.

///

It takes a while for either of them to be stable enough to just talk, and the night is thick and black through the windows when they do.

"We tried to make it in the other Courts, but when we went back to Winter, Mom's family assumed that the only reason that Enji would have done that to her is if he caught her having an affair. They couldn't be swayed no matter what we told them and they left us to fend for ourselves. I convinced Mom and Fuyumi to come over the border about ten years ago, and I joined the army shortly after. When Mom was settled, Fuyumi started working on getting her education and she's been working as a teacher in the nursery for the past five years." Natsuo hesitates, but he does ask, "What happened to you and Shoto?"

"Nothing good. My magic failed when I was young and he disowned me, but he didn't let me leave the castle. He was furious when he realized that Rei had taken you two with her when she left-- I don't think he wanted anyone with a potential to challenge his claim on the throne to be out of his sight. When Yagi died, he started to make his moves for the Day Court and started claiming some ancestry tied to the Night Court too. He sent a convoy to retrieve documents to prove it and I intercepted and burned them so he... did this to me." He doesn't elaborate, trying to push past that quickly. "Then he sent me here as a warning of what he was going to unleash if he gained the power he wanted. I haven't seen or spoken to Shoto in fourteen years. He never let us get near each other, like he was afraid my failure would rub off on him."

Natsuo rolls his words around in his head for a moment and Dabi can feel the space yawning out between them. They were close, once. But they're strangers now. He doesn't know what his brother's life has been like, not really, and he has no doubts he has seen and done things on the battlefield that have changed who he is. What Dabi does know is that his brother hated their father first, has hated him enough and loved this new home enough to fight for it every day for the past ten years. He knows that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it's the right call to make when he says,

"My mate has a plan to end the war-- for good," and Natsuo's slate eyes snap to his with an intensity that he thinks is his youthful fervor reflected back at him through time. "It's your choice, but I think there's a way for you to help."

"What's the Grand Commander's plan?"

///

The day of the summer solstice, Dabi is a wreck. He tries to hide it, but his mate can absolutely smell the stress pouring off of him as he sits in the Courtyard waiting for the sun to rise high. If Enji went to the Summer Court to do the ritual at noon as he used to, then noon is when Natsuo and all of the soldiers with him will start their infiltration of the city using the maps that All For One left of the secret tunnels below their side of the mountain. They will go with half an army, with enchanted weapons, with silent wings, and all they need to do is get Natsuo to the stones. If he can get into the circle of them, then he can turn the entire city against them as Dabi stands here in the Night Court and reaches out with the overflow of power, even on the brightest day of the year, and joins them the way they haven't been in centuries. They can wall in the valley with the same brambles. They can end this war.

But the waiting has Dabi pacing horribly. Tomura knows better than to try to soothe him with platitudes or kisses when his skin is nearly sparking with his agitation, but he does bring his sister and mother to the Courtyard to wait too, so that they can be the first informed if something goes wrong.

The noon sky hangs high above them and Dabi is breathless with his anticipation. If Natsuo is successful, he will take on the burden of being the runestone keeper in the Day Court. He has already been accustomed to being away from the city throughout his campaigns. He's willing to do it again to end the war, to best their father, to let Dabi hold onto the one thing that he selfishly wants more than peace. His heart aches and aches, the anticipation going to crack him open, when, an hour past noon, he feels the earth shifting beneath his feet. Dabi throws himself back into the circle of the runes and reaches back out.

The connection is instantaneous and blinding. The stones are set alight again as they pour their magic through the mountain range, down into the cauldron of the valley below, racing through the very veins of magic that pulse beneath the earth to meet their twin. And he can feel Natsuo's magic flowing through on the other side. The ice and snow that race to meet him and keep him from burning alone as their elements and the Courts of Night and Day are finally, finally brought back into balance after centuries of being adrift. Natsuo keeps him from burning, and he keeps him from freezing the roots that they seek to spread throughout the entire valley. They bring brambles and thorns to the border of every territory. They lock them all in, destroying trade routes, making it impossible for them to march their armies, disrupting the peace their lands have luxuriated in for centuries while they constantly sent trouble to their doors instead. The magic flows so easily, so completely, and he lets Natsuo take the brunt of it to destroy the weapons caches, the barracks, the outposts of soldiers in the Day Court with his ice, ensuring that they will not be able to mount a rebellion inside of the city. He feels the way that the very magic of the world reaches back for them, finds them acceptable, and then begins to withdraw. But it offers something else. It's a smaller presence than the enormity of the Celestial Courts, but not the same yawning darkness on the edge of his awareness that must be the Eternal Court. It must be Summer, claim to it in both of their veins, but as those stones flare to life, they don't come with the fire and rage that Dabi would have expected if Enji could feel everything that he just lost. No. They come with frost and flame, and a softness. Something kinder and inquisitive. Something young.

Shoto's magic brushes against theirs, as if to just reassure himself that he does know them even after they have been separated for years. It's a touch that comes with a question, an invitation. Parlay. Under the watch of the Eternal Court. That isn't something that they can decide and Dabi pulls away from the touch. Shoto's magic doesn't lash out violently like he would have expected their father's too, it just waits, and he and Natsuo finish ensuring the position of all of their pieces the way they promised they would to ensure the victory over the fairylands.

///

It takes only five hours after their channeling for the Eternal Court to send Tomura a message through an enchanted scroll. It declares that it would like to have a parlay with rulers of the Courts to discuss the possibility of peace. Tomura refuses. He will have his nation recognized as a sovereignty of the Celestial before he will even sit at the table, his rune channelers allowed to join him at his side. It takes a full three days of the Courts squabbling over that, according to his spies, before the Eternal Court will grant them that sovereignty temporarily if they attend the meeting. Tomura makes them put it in writing that their sovereignty will be law for a minimum of one year, forcing the Courts to be unable to continue or re-declare war on them without going through the appropriate checks and balances that have kept the Courts from squabbling for centuries. That is met with even more fury from the Courts, but after just a week, with trade crippled and the armies of Day and Summer not making any moves to try and rebel against their new rule. The High Lady of the Eternal Court signs the document and the war, at least for a year, is over.

It still takes a month to properly coordinate the meeting, though in part that is because he and Natsuo have to wait for the next full or new moon to be able to channel enough energy from the stones so they can open a single path from each territory to the Eternal Court, showing the others how easily they could use this power to leave them stranded or to lure them into a trap. Dabi still feels beyond trepidation when he prepares to leave the Night Court with his lover. In the month that it took for the faeries to get their shit together, Tomura had special armor and robes of silk woven for him and Natsuo that they have enchanted so thoroughly with smaller channelings that Dabi isn't sure that anyone could push a blade past the weave to try and end them. But that doesn't take the anxiety from him, even as Tomura has him wear his collar, even when they walk into the castle that seems like it was cut from the starless night and find themselves face-to-face with each of the High Lords and Ladies of the other Courts.

He had suspected, but it is still a shock to see Shoto, only sixteen, standing as the High Lord of the Summer Court. Though it might not be more surprising than Tomura addressing Nana Shimura as,

"Grandmother." When they take their place with Natsuo at the table.

///

Negotiations last two weeks. The truth is that the war has been good business for Summer, Day, and Winter, while Spring and Autumn have no strong feelings and the Eternal Court has been very staunch in trying to uphold both tradition and its stance as a neutral party. To that end, the Eternal is willing to end the war if he and Natsuo were made the proper High Lords and were put in charge of both territories. That, they had staunchly refused. No. The mothfolk would have their nation and sovereignty recognized in full, or they would continue to maintain the separation between Courts. When Summer, when Shoto had quickly agreed with them having that sovereignty, setting Spring, Autumn, and Summer outnumbering Winter who realized that they would no longer have the trade of weaponry from their forges and would need to make their money creating farm equipment for the other Courts, they crumpled. The mothfolk will rule the Celestial Court, they would have runekeepers and maintain the connection as the faeries have since time began. If they failed to do so, then they would forfeit their lands. Thankfully, Natsuo has a mate who he has already talked to about having children with and is willing to take on that burden of carrying on the family line while Dabi and Tomura need to have some serious discussions about that, and Fuyumi will too given she's also taken a partner of the same sex.

Then things come to the Summer Court. Shoto refuses to abdicate the throne until he is of age, unless it goes to one of his immediate siblings, which no one else wants to give Tomura's people any more power. It's only then that they hear in full, about the coup that he brought about when his father returned to connect with the stones on the solstice. His father's cruelty, the way he so quickly abandoned his Court to take the larger territory of Day, how he used the Summer soldiers as fodder to try and clear the way for his larger army, it had all soured the perception of him in the eyes of the army, with all of the lower-born faeries who had been mistreated by the Court at large for centuries, wanting change as well. It had been a simple matter from there to whip that malcontent into a rebellion too, and their father had been torn apart by the people, his wings ripped from his body before he was killed. He's gone. Shoto set the funeral pyre himself to make sure of it. He will keep the Court that he has a rightful claim on, and he will be changing the way that their Court is run, as is his right. And with one house ruling three of the Courts, with Tomura potentially having a claim on the Eternal Court if he can prove his heritage, the fear that comes for the other seasonal Courts as they realize that they will lose if they try to go to war with them again, has the mothfolk declared a free people, Tomura's nation and the Celestial Alliance marked as its own sovereign entity, and the war ended on all fronts active immediately.

Dabi sits at a table, his body torn, his wings gone, mate to someone he was raised to consider an enemy since birth, and he can't help seeing how the people he was born into find this to be a great injustice. Only because they have always seen themselves as higher, as righteous in their victory and cruelty over the other races. They see this as an injustice because they have never had to treat anyone else fairly. But Tomura is going to ensure that they learn.

It still takes another month to finalize every detail of the treaty, but when they go back to the Nation of Dusk, a Court no longer, the festival that starts to take shape lasts all the way until the winter solstice.

///

The joy that spreads through the kingdom when he and Dabi are able to return and say that they are free, that the war is over takes a shadow that has lived within these walls for all of his life and it casts it to die in the brightest light. The amount of marriages that take place on the solstice after the announcement eclipses anything that they have ever seen before, as does the voracious hunger of those taking part in the matings. It feels as though the very walls of the castle are soaking in the elation of everyone inside and it all becomes... hope. A future yawning out before them, a world that they can make for themselves that is not set into the inevitability of more fighting and death. They can become now, whatever his people have ever wanted to be that was more than slaves, more than soldiers. They can be anything.

Tomura chooses, once Dabi has finished channeling the stones for the night, to be his mate. To pull him close and kiss away the fear that he still sees clinging to him as he just can't fully believe that this war is really over. Even when his youngest brother paused them before parting and offered to give Dabi his title in the Summer Court back, and let him choose where their father's ashes should be dumped, he still hasn't let himself relax. So he takes him from the stones and lifts him in his arms, holding him close, kissing him until he's breathless and the smell of his stress is slipping away with the soft heat of his desire.

He's purring when he murmurs, "So many are getting wed tonight, little one." He nuzzles their noses together as his antennae brush over his hair. "We could be among them."

"You're the king, surely you can't just get married without an announcement or something." Dabi deflects, his cheeks pinking so sweetly.

"I'm the first king of the Nation of Dusk. I can choose whatever ceremony I want to turn my mate into my spouse. It's just a matter if you want that too." He won't push, he is happy to have Dabi in any capacity. But he wants to give him a future, even if he never fully heals from the scars of the past. They can still have a life together.

Dabi lets out a shaky breath and then reaches for him, tangling his hands in his hair and pulling him until their foreheads touch. "Marry me and then take me to bed. Make all of my waking and sleeping hours sweet?"

"For the rest of our lives, my love." He agrees without hesitation as he pulls him back into another kiss as his wings spread wide and he takes to the air. He'll fly them straight to the front of the line if it means that he will have his love made his forever as soon as possible.

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