#draw another dragon so i put a flower there :sob:

[jombenz]

kenshi magazine !!! who next!?

also side note hes shirtless to show off his top scars because i think top surgery scars are badass

[square-blunt]

You're in my heart, in my heart, in my head.

The normal empires fic in which shit goes from 0 to -100 to 100 and back to -100 in like, 2000 words. Scott ruins shit bc he's a dumbass in love. Jimmy watches him die. Y'know, the normal fic you'd see on the empires tag. This is a Minecraft Roleplay.

TW- MCD (major character death), Gore, (blood. and like, big knife mention). Angst. there is so much angst- emotional mental physical, it's all that shit. Sacrifice, screaming, crying, and they kiss so that's fun but y'know.

WC: 2009

Ao3: :) Second Chapter: :)

Scott knows something is wrong. He feels that pit in his stomach- familiar emptiness that clouds his vision and his mind. His feet start to move forward. He knows- he knows something's happening.

He knows Jimmy is in trouble.

He hasn't been in Mythland much- but somehow he cuts through trees and knocks over stands almost like he knows exactly where he's going and nothing was gonna stop him from getting there. It's getting dark- that's weird it was just noon-

Scott looks up to see where the sun is. 'This can't get any worse,' he thinks. You're never supposed to fight a demon when there's a solar eclipse, everyone knows that-

Scott hears a scream. It sends his heart up into his throat- that's Jimmy. Scott sprints forward and bursts through the treeline and he's at Sausage's summoning circle- no- no no no-

The sight is terrible. Sausage- his body is practically decaying under the weight of corruption- of possession. Xornoth's possessed the man he once saw as a friend. And Joey's by his side, a book in hand, chanting in elvish. They've crafted an obsidian altar- and writhing in chains, desperately trying to free himself is Jimmy. Tears are streaking down his face, his terror radiating off of him in waves.

Xornoth raises something above their head as the moon fully covers the sun- its last light gleaming off the object- it's a ritual knife.

They're going to sacrifice you- I don't want to lose you. He can hear Jimmy’s voice as clear as day.

Scott screams out a time-shattering “Stop” before he can get a hold of himself.

Everything does stop. Time, space, reality- it feels like Scott’s heart has stopped, too. Sausage looks at him with eyes that aren’t his own; Joey looks at him as well, but his eyes hold no rage or fear, only smugness. His eyes are drawn away as he catches Jimmy’s face. It goes from happiness to confusion, to heartbreak, back to confusion, and then to pure fear.

“Stop,” Scott says it a little quieter this time. His voice rings out against the stilled breeze. There are no birds, no nature, everything around them is either dead or too terrified to make a sound. Xornoth tilts his head, slowly and concerningly calmly. “Step away from him.” Scott’s hand finds itself on the hilt of his sword. Not like there’s much that could do, but he has to do something.

Xornoth laughs. It sounds like Sausage.

“Scott-” Jimmy says, and immediately cries out in pain. Scott looks up- Joey was the one to twist his arm. Under any other circumstances, Scott would have lunged forward and sunk his sword into Joey’s skull, but since Xornoth is still holding a very painful-looking ritual knife, Scott stays put.

“Jimmy, don’t say anything-” Scott begins, his voice tight with panic. Xornoth speaks up before he can continue, Scott’s heart dropping in his chest. His voice sounds like Sausage, too.

“Brother, have you come to replace your lover from another life?” Xornoth’s voice is suffocatingly rich with sarcasm and fake pity.

Scott can’t answer. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. He doesn’t- he can’t look at Jimmy.

“I know you remember, great champion of Aeor, I know you do.” Xornoth grins, their face contorting.

“I do, and I have,” Scott says, finally getting over the lump in his throat. The lump comes back tenfold as Xornoth’s grin grows impossibly wider.

“Scott- no- what-” Jimmy begins to say, but Joey quiets him with another yank on his restraints. Xornoth puts a hand out, and Joey drops the ropes.

“You know what I need, brother,” Xornoth says, their voice eerily emotionless.

“Scott- don’t do this-”

“Jimmy, please,” Scott says, closing his eyes to keep the tears at bay, he can’t give Xornoth his own humanity.

“Scott-” Scott winces as Jimmy’s voice breaks. Jimmy doesn’t know, he can’t remember-

Scott takes a deep breath, and once again, speaks before he can tell himself to stop.

“I, Ellinair, take the place of this man so that he might live free of pain or suffering for the rest of his life.” Scott needs to make sure that Jimmy gets off free, with no strings attached. So Xornoth can’t hurt him after he’s gone.

“No- Scott, what have you done- why-” Jimmy sits up, some of the ropes have disappeared but he still can’t leave the altar.

Xornoth laughs- it doesn’t sound like Sausage anymore.

“A great elf with a great future who was stolen in the night and thrown into an arena for the devil’s delight. And you fell in love. How cute!” they snarl, “Unfortunately, as you died, you were whisked away from our grasp. I had to find you again, and wasn’t I lucky that I found your husband instead? And, better yet, without your protection! It was so easy, brother, to just come in and take him. To use him. Sweet, dopey, stupid Jimmy. Why would he be the one tied to that dragon? I kill him, and nothing will happen other than a shortage of slimeballs and a few tears. The only use for him was that he was close to you. He’s nothing but a pawn to get to you. And you, in your blind devotion, played right into my hand. I was never going to kill him, it would honestly be too much effort to do so. I was never going to kill him. I was only threatening to kill him so you would change places with him, so Exor could finally triumph over his brother. You are weak, Ellinair, in your love, in your loyalty- or lack thereof. You always were weak. And now I’ve won. Exor has won because you fell for a mortal. Because of a flower. It’s sickeningly amusing, I must say. But unfortunately, it seems that your time is drawing to a close. Lesser, you may release the ‘bait’.” Xornoth ends their monologue with a direction Scott takes a moment to realize is for Joey, who follows it immediately. Jimmy, now free, lurches off the altar like it was burning him alive. He rushes over to Scott, questions bubbling up and out of him. His hands move to hold Scott’s, but Scott isn’t exactly... present. But he can still hear Jimmy. How he wishes he couldn’t.

“Scott- Scott what’s going on- I thought you- what’s going on? Why did you- Scott- why did you take- what-” Jimmy asks, clutching at Scott’s hands. Scott hangs his head, Jimmy immediately stops and lets him talk.

“Jimmy... you don’t know what you mean to me,” Scott says, tears threatening to fall, he can’t make eye contact with Jimmy.

“I think I can guess, at least,” Jimmy says, voice tight, cupping Scott’s face. Scott still can’t look at him.

“They’re right-” Scott begins to say- before Jimmy tilts Scott’s head to face him and kisses him. It takes Scott a second for his heart and his head to catch up to it- but Jimmy’s kissing him. Finally, after what feels like eons apart, he’s kissing him again. Scott kisses him back like he’s the air he’s gone without breathing for so long- Scott’s been without him for so long- and just when he’s got him back... he quite literally sold his soul for this. Time stops again- this has happened way too many times for it to be normal but Scott wishes it would stop forever. Seconds turn into minutes and it’s like the gods have finally taken pity on him and given him time to give everything he can. He’s sold his soul for Jimmy, and he’s never gonna get to see him again. The tears become too much, and they fall- but Scott would rather die now than break the kiss, so Scott’s tears stain both their cheeks. The kiss tastes the same it always did, like Jimmy, and it was heart-achingly familiar.

Scott can’t live without it.

Funny.

He won’t live much longer anyway.

He is hyper-aware of Jimmy’s grip on him, on his face, in his hair, holding him close like they would melt together if they could.

Maybe Jimmy needs him as much as Scott.

And fuck, he needed Jimmy.

He needs to feel as much of Jimmy as he can before all he feels is a knife through his chest.

But right now all he cares about are the hands on his chest where the knife will go- the hands that are gonna be gone soon- Scott hasn’t been counting the seconds how long has it been- how long has Jimmy been kissing him- how long has he been kissing back- how long do they have left? Scott wraps his arms around Jimmy, trying to become inseparable- and Jimmy just holds onto him tighter. One of them sobs into the other- and all Scott can think is I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you- and he hopes Jimmy can hear him.

They both can hear a sickening crunch, instead.

As time crashes back into Scott's reality like a freight train, a number of things happen in rapid succession.

Jimmy is torn away, crying out in pain. It's familiar. Scott's tears break their dam and his vision is blurred- but he can still see Jimmy, sweet, dopey, beautiful Jimmy.

As Jimmy gets jerked backward, his and Scott's grip tightens on each other, and Jimmy's screams of agony make Scott want to throw up.

It takes everything Scott has to stay in place and keep Jimmy with him.

"'Scott something's on my back- something's hooked into me-"

"Jimmy- don't let go- please, please don't let go- I love you, please-"

"I won't- Scott- don't- I love you, too, I love you, too-"

Something cold sinks into Scott's shoulder, sending searing hot pain across his body- and making his arm go limp.

Scott and Jimmy are ripped apart from each other.

Scott screams for Jimmy and thrashes around, trying desperately to free himself, sobs ringing in his skull and fear and pain and regret raking through his body- but he refuses to stop looking at Jimmy, and Jimmy still looks at him. He catches a glimpse of what’s hooked onto Jimmy's back- it’s a massive tendril of corruption, and now it's holding Jimmy suspended in the middle of the air- it looks like it hurts him to breathe, much less call out Scott's name, but it's all in vain.

Scott knows he's going to die.

He gave his word.

But that doesn't mean he's not going to try and get away.

He needs to get away.

He needs to scream and cry and writhe and brace himself against the altar that whatever's hooked into his shoulder is trying to drag him onto.

He needs Jimmy to know how sorry he was because he’s gone and fucked it all up now. He thought he’d be able to play it off to Jimmy as ‘you don't deserve to die in my place' but when Jimmy looked at him with pure heartbreak and fear in his eyes he knew that he was doing it to save him.

Not the world.

Jimmy was his world.

Scott loses the fight and is dragged up onto the altar, where tendrils of dark crimson threaten to bury him alive, and one-handed he tries to swat them off. He can feel his power draining, he knows Joey's probably chanting again, but all he hears is Jimmy. He looks back, and Jimmy is still struggling and sobbing and Scott has to keep fighting to stay alive as long as possible just to be able to see Jimmy for as long as possible.

But the tendrils are growing in number, and Scott can’t keep all of them at bay and slowly he’s overtaken and restrained. The metal hook still sits painfully in his shoulder as his energy drains with his blood, he’s lost the power to scream.

Jimmy hasn’t.

Scott hangs onto that.

Scott hangs onto Jimmy’s screams, his sobs, his ‘Please stop’s, his ‘why him’s, Scott hangs onto the feeling of rage- at his brother and their tool hurting Jimmy like this- but the rage stays heavy on his chest. Rage and fear and pain swirl in his mind and every other emotion drains out of him.

All he knows is terror.

All he knows is Jimmy’s sobs.

He knows that he has seconds left- Xornoth’s probably already gotten the knife back up above his head.

All Scott can offer to Jimmy, all that he has left, is a weak smile of comfort before every sense he has cuts out.

Scott can’t see Jimmy.

He can’t hear Jimmy.

He’s failed everyone he’s ever known.

[anonniemousefics]

Sleepless

So, Carry On Countdown 2020 is happening on Tumblr right now, and I’m not participating, but the other day @milo-fanarts posted that absolutely heart-wrenching fanart of Snowbaz based on the “Sleepless” prompt of the day, and I was seized with the need to write a ficlet based on it. Here’s the art - go give them a follow. :) 

Fandom: Carry On/Wayward Son | Simon + Baz

Words: 1,567 

Rating: Teen and Up 

CW: Angst (and fluff! :) )

BAZ

Sleeping with Simon Snow is weird. I don’t mean sleeping with sleeping with – we’re not ready yet. (Or, let’s be honest, he’s not ready yet. If I came home one day and he was ready, I’d be naked before the front door even finished closing behind me.)(It’s fine – he doesn’t need to know.) I just mean this. Simon Snow taking up half my bed, warm and snuggly, with his tousled bronze curls all in his freckled, sleeping face. His giant red wings casting enormous black shadows in the moonlight.

My entire family doesn’t have enough fingers and toes among them to keep count how many times I used to lie awake at night at Watford, aching to be this close to him. How many nights I’d think if I could just have this, I’d never ask for anything else for the rest of my life.

Turns out, I don’t seem to do much sleeping now that I have it, either. Maybe it’s just because we don’t do it very often. The logistics of sharing a bed with your partial-dragon boyfriend are complicated at best, and Simon’s a bit of a violent sleeper these days. I’ve taken a wingtip to the eye more than once. (And once is already one too many times.)

It’s also a little distracting how handsy my brain wants me to be. (I just – Crowley, I am the greediest bastard. I want to run my hands up and down the curves of his shoulder muscles. I want to trace all the freckles around his lips. I want to watch him fall asleep while I run my fingers through his hair.) I don’t think Simon’s ready for all my handsiness, either.

So, I’m staring. I’m still fucking staring. Like it’s sixth year all over again, and I’m back to fantasizing that if I stare long enough, I’ll somehow incept his dreams and convince him to break up with Agatha and give making out with boys a try. (Huh. Maybe it worked after all?)

And that’s what I’m doing when he starts twitching in his sleep. (This isn’t new. Sometimes he talks, too.)(The last time we tried this, he full on tried to punch me in the face in his sleep.)(I was a little wary when he’d expressed an interest in staying tonight.) I start to preemptively roll away, in case he starts fluttering his wings, because I’d rather have him jab me in the back than the eye (again).

But that’s when he whimpers, a high, plaintive sound that threatens to break a few heartstrings. I look over my shoulder at him.

He’s still deep asleep, but his arms are crossed in front of his bare chest (lucky me, he sleeps shirtless) and his tawny brows are drawn together tight. I’m gutted by the way he huddles in on himself. I just want to hold him. I start to roll back to him, but stop short at the sound of his wings shuddering. (It brings to mind the method cowboys in old Westerns use to soothe wild horses – whoa, there. Easy, big fella. Like that would work.)

I’m ready to ignore them altogether, though, when Simon lets out something that sounds like a distant cry. It’s haunting. It’s horrible. It can’t go on.

“Simon,” I whisper into the dark. I try to reach out a hand to nudge him, to gently wake him out of it, and when I do, he draws in a shuddering breath. And starts to moan out something that sounds like Help.

“Hey, wake up.” I’m more insistent now – rising up on an elbow, giving his sleep-warmed shoulder a little shake. “Snow, wake up.”

He draws in a rasping gasp then, his eyes flaring open. His wings rustle and flap; I hold out a defensive hand.

“You were dreaming,” I tell him. He’s panting hard and shaking. “It was just a dream.”

He folds his wings in, then, spreading out onto his back with one hand pressed to his chest. It’s rising and falling fast with his shallow breaths – it sounds cacophonous in the dead of the night.

“You’re okay.” I keep reassuring him. I just want to hold him. Before I can move, he grabs my arm, like he’s steadying himself. His hand is clammy. “It was just a dream.”

“Fuck.” He scrubs a hand over his face, pressing the heel of his palm into one eye. And lets out a shaking breath.

“What happened?” I ask. I wonder if my clear voice is betraying how little sleeping I’ve actually been doing.

For a moment, I think that Simon isn’t going to answer. Or he’s going to say, “It’s fine” or “I don’t remember” when neither is true. He’s going to try to tack up another wall between us, because that is what we do lately. He’s just pinching the bridge of his nose, squishing his eyes shut tight, and I feel like I’m drifting further out to sea.

But, this time, he lets out a breath.

“I killed him,” he says, in a strained whisper. He means the Mage. In the moonlight, I catch a glimpse of the first tear that leaks from the corner of his eye.

I brush it away with the pad of my thumb.

“You saved us all, love,” I remind him, softly. “He was going to kill Agatha. And probably you and me and Penny, and who knows where he would have stopped.”

“He’d always been so good to me,” Simon whispers, like he hates to admit it. I would, too, if I were him.

It’s a complicated thing, this grief he carries (or mostly avoids). I don’t mourn the Mage – there’s no one else I know who does. But it’s something else entirely for Simon. The Mage had appeared in Simon’s life with hope and promises and a whole new life when Simon desperately needed one. And while he knows the Mage had gone on to deal in some extremely shady shit, that’s not something a person just easily puts aside in light of new information.

“You did the brave thing,” I remind him. “You did the right thing.”

There’s a steady stream of tears now. I wipe them with the backs of my fingers – they’re scalding hot, like he’s been boiling them in a dragon’s belly.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks. He’s still gripping my arm with one hand, the other hand pressed to his eye. I don’t know what good this is doing, and I just…

“Don’t be daft,” I say. “Will you just come here?”

And I open up one arm – an invitation. He can turn me down if he wants – I’ve survived worse. (I just want to hold him.)

And maybe it’s the magic of the moonlight or dream inception is truly a thing or Simon’s for once willing to let me in. It doesn’t matter. He rolls over into my arms, his lean body on top of mine, his head pressed to my chest.

This. This. This is all I’ve ever wanted. Just this.

(Tears aside, of course.)

I pull him tighter against me when I feel the heat of his tears begin to wet my shirt. (I don’t actually sleep shirtless – I’m too cold all the time.) I push my fingers into his curls, press my head to the top of his. He’s trying so hard to keep from openly weeping, but little good it’s doing him – I can feel how his muscles contract with each sob.

I hold him through it.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks again.

“Would you stop apologizing?” He’s so warm beneath my cold hands. “You’ve seen me cry, too.”

“Yeah, once,” Simon complains, petulantly. “And it was so beautiful, I made out with your snotty face.”

That makes me chuckle, and the fact that my laughter makes Simon’s head bob up and down on my chest makes him start to give a sniffling laugh.

“I’ll make out with your snotty face,” I offer, and he laughs again. (And I will. I have no shame.)

“That’s okay,” he says, and raises his head a moment. Looks down at the bloom of damp tears on my white t-shirt. “Sorry I got your shirt all wet.”

I just shrug.

“I like it – it’s Simon Snow art,” I tease, and double over my chin so I can inspect it. “Look – it looks like you’ve made a flower.”  

“Oh, yeah?” He rests his head back on it, snug beneath my neck. Crowley, this is perfection. “You like wearing flowers now?”

“Maybe I do. Don’t you judge me, Snow.”

His chuckle rumbles through him and through me, too. I run my fingertips up the valleys of his back muscles. Slowly. Gently. Easy now. And his body starts to relax against me. I’m warmer than I’ve ever been in the night.

“Is this okay?” he whispers to me. I’m relaxing, too, growing heavy in the mattress. Comfortable. Soothed.

“It’s perfect,” I tell him, and press a kiss to his hair. He wraps his arms around me. He’s not going anywhere.

“Sorry in advance for drooling on you in my sleep,” he says as I’m starting to doze.

“Mmm. Sexy.” I grunt.

Snow laughs, and so do I – and again when his head bobs up and down with my laugh.

It’s the last thing I remember before finally falling off to sleep.

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

Tagging: @loveyatopluto, @raging-bisexual-alert, @ireallyshouldsleeprn, @annejulianneh111, @whosanxiety, @raeisgaeandahalf, @bookish-mind, @juliazato

[nostalgic-pancakes]

Room 73- Chapter 4/8

Summary: D&D is planned, two characters get their very own breakdowns, Thomas reminisces, and Virgil has one good day

Pairings: (eventual) QPP’s Remus and Patton, Pre-Relationship prinxiety, sibling-y Virgil and Original Character, Creativitwins

Read on AO3

Word count: 3326

Warnings: Questionable parenting, period-typical homophobia, the foster system, semi-graphic (?) depictions of violent death, rage breakdown, nervous breakdown, minor arson.

Other notes: None!

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Logan quite frankly had no idea what Janus meant by ‘friendly hissing’. All hissing was a warning sign to potential prey, and wasn’t friendly in any incarnation! How could certain kinds of hissing be friendly? They all sound the same!

This was a level of insanity nearly topping Neil DeGrasse Tyson playing Merlin in the fucking Sharknado movies. But not really. That would top everything. Either way, Janus, someone who also hissed rather often (information citation being Patton) was likely the superior authority in tonal hissing. Logan’s a bit too sleep-deprived looking up resources for ghosts and surviving midterms to care too much.

Either way, the Dungeons and Dragons planning session was starting today. Everyone would be there at lunch this time and that meant that one, he would get to see his brother for the first time since homeroom (no common classes on Wednesdays was not ideal), and meeting with the rest of their newfound friends.

(Logan had never had anyone other than Virgil, and the rest seem to be alright. Janus knows, anyways, and he didn’t hate Logan for it, so it’s probably alright. He hopes it’s alright.)

“Lo-Lo!! Over here!” comes a friendly voice from his northeast. It’s Patton, who’s waving at him, glasses crooked, big smile. Logan fixes his glasses, and tries to smile back. It works, and even feels real.

Patton from up close certainly looks a bit tired, but he’s still happy enough, so Logan refrains from pointing it out.

When they reach the lunch table tentatively labeled as ‘theirs’, Virgil scoots over to let Logan slot between him and Roman, while Patton curls up next to Janus, relishing being with their siblings again, as much as friends are ‘neat’.

(Maybe he’s been getting back into Welcome to Night Vale. Maybe Amma cried and hugged him, calling it progress and Mom sat next to him and listened to her own show, the Magnus Archives and held him close. Maybe Virgil squeezed him tight and brought out the ‘What the Fuck is Happening in Night Vale’ board they’d made when they were twelve. He’d never tell)

Remus starts to hand out sheets of paper, asking everyone to draw their characters while he and Virgil work on plot, and it’s quiet in that little space of three pairs of siblings sketching out D&D characters, later talking about little things, big things and everything in between in the courtyard because the senior kids had exams and therefore none of them had last period. It was pleasant, and they’d all be paying their third ever group visit to Thomas later in the afternoon, too.

This was nice.

…

“Hey, Vi?” Hildi asked from behind him. They were sitting back-to-back, on her bed listening to a new album from All Time Low. The name didn’t matter too much yet.

“Yeah, Di?”

“Wanna do low level arson?” she asked, turning to face him and reclaiming her earbud. This was probably a terrible idea, but Hildi was the one person he wasn’t scared of acting out horrific ideas with. He smiles, and it’s reflected in Hildi’s eyes, dark green like the forest she lives in.

“Sure, why not?” he gets up, and Hildi turns around again for him to take his binder off and put on a sports bra, before putting his jumper (that Patton had given him for his birthday last week) back on, and patting his jean pockets for his phone. Once he knew everything was there, Hildi turned back to him, took his hand and led him outside. - “Okay, so how did you possibly, in any fucking timeline convince me to set fire to your old ‘Secret Diaries’ in the middle of the very flammable woods as if it was, at all, anything REMOTELY RESEMBLING a good idea?!”

“The power of friendship, Virge. Don’t fret, the damages are going to be well hidden in a week.”

“Oh my god but this is how forest fires start, were we crazy?!”

“Virgil calm down, nothing is more than slightly scorched, nothing is dead, and we caught every last ember! You’d know!”

“How would I know? Isn’t that more your department?”

“Spend enough time with a witch, and this is what happens. I regret nothing.”

“I regret so many things.”

“Sadness.” - “Hey, scaredy-bro, Love you.” Hildi whispers into the night, and Virgil remembers nights like this in middle school, when he started to realise that not everyone was as scared as him all the time, and he’d become more scared because everyone was watching, and laughing, and--

And Hildi had been there, a casual acquaintance from primary school becoming his best friend becoming his kind of sister because what other word is there (?), offering him trash earbuds that made the grunge music sound that much grungier, and holding him close on the nights Logan came home, unable to speak, covered in bruises, never letting Virgil tell their parents even though Logan was their twin and Virgil was so scared-- She caught him as he fell, and he hopes that she knows that he’ll forever be grateful for it.

“Love you too, you fucking danger noodle.”

Hildi chucks a throw pillow at him. It misses by at least three feet, falling off the shared bed. They both giggle, loud enough that Hildi’s mum ‘ssh’’s them from her own room, audible even with the closed door.

Three hours later, knowing full well that Virgil’s been on tumblr this whole time, Hildi whispers again.

“Hey, let’s look for Kelpies in the creek tomorrow”

This is an awful idea. But it has fewer environmental ramifications.

“Sure, why not. After December break?”

“Fuck yeah.”

They don’t last a lot longer after that.

…

Virgil wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find when he went to check on Roman, after it was ten minutes past final bell and he still hadn’t shown in the chemistry room after going back to pick up his papers.

Having a minor breakdown was not on that list, even though murder was. Virgil’s brain needed new priorities.

“Ro-Ro, Roman, what’s happening?”

“I-I can’t Virgil, I can't do it, please, I’m sorry” Virgil’s hands clenched tighter onto Roman’s shirt collar, knuckles white from the worry.

“You can't do what, Roman?” he asks, as gently as he can

“I-I’m so scared, Virgil. Mom’s not doing well, Dad’s doing the opposite of helping, and Remus and I don’t know what to do, Virgil. They keep f-fighting. The last time we tried to tell, it was by accident, and Mom had gotten so mad, and she’d said “If you keep talking about how Mom and Dad fight, then there won’t be a mom and dad’ and I can’t-- I can’t live without her, I can’t, Virgil!” Roman blubbers into his shirt, staining his hoodie and and pressing against his (currently unbound, but no big deal) chest, but Virgil literally could not give a shit about his hoodie right then, pulling him closer and cradling Roman’s head in the crook of his neck, one hand in his (fluffy, holy shit is this cotton?) hair, the other cradling his back. Roman smells like wood and some kind of flower.

“Have you told her any of this, Ro?” Virgil asks, and Romab lets out a bigger sob, burying himself into Virgil’s torso. Virgil knew that Roman’s parents weren’t on the best of terms right now, even though they kept trying to be good parents, but this? This was new.

“I c-can’t because-hic- She’ll get more upset, and she’s alsways so close to snapping and i can’t tell dad because he’ll get angry and I can’t tell Remus because he knows but he doesn’t, he doesn’t---fuck”

“Doesn’t?” prompts Virgil, softly into Roman’s hair, muffled by the soft chestnut curls.

“know, not same as I do, he doesn’t get sad, he gets mad, and he doesn’t want to become like dad but he stops talking and locks himself in rooms to not yell at people and I don- I don’t wanna make it worse.” he says softly, and Virgil starts stroking his hair, as a way to try and calm Roman down, trying not to cry a bit himself. He wishes, in a horrible way, that this was a panic attack. He doesn’t know what to do here.

“Could you find a way to maybe more quietly tell her to stay, perhaps?” asks Virgil again, even quieter this time. Roman more feels the words than he hears them, a soothing sort of humming.

“But it’s so selfish, isn’t it? That I think that? She deserves to be happy, and if being without us is happy, then she should, right? But I can’t do this with just my dad- he’s trying, but I can’t, help, please.”

And Virgil doesn’t know what to do, or what to say anymore. So he just holds Roman tighter in that very small corner in the 9-D classroom, and Roman clutches back until he’s cried it out entirely, and is ready to face everyone else. It’s been a few minutes, but they can clean up real quick.

Virgil takes out his spare hoodie and changes into it, Roman with his back turned in the boy’s bathroom, while Roman fixes his hair and washes the drying tear tracks off of his face, which were starting to feel like a mask on his face. He tries for a smile, and it’s small, but at least it’s real.

Virgil passes him a granola bar, and Roman hesitates for a second, before smiling again, taking it in hand and pocketing it. Roman offers his hand for Virgil to take, and he does, feeling the softness of Roman’s hands in comparison to his own, long and calloused with fidget rings on both hands. He squeezes.

Virgil looks up at Roman again, and they share a small smile, before walking out of the bathroom, hand in hand.

Wait- why are his hands glowing?

“Fuck you, Hildi.” he muttered under his breath.

“Huh, what?” Roman looked back at him, questioningly.

“Uh, nothing. Just thinking. ‘Cmon.” he smiles again, and he means it. With Roman, it feels like all his fears can be kept aside for another day.

…

“Oh my god, Remus, no you cannot make yourself a dwarven stripper this is a PG-13 D&D game oh my god--”

Remus looks up from the (probably very gory) conversation he’s having with Patton to reply to Virgil. “And why not? Minnie could be a stripper in the way back!”

“Just… no, thanks.”

“UUUUUGH, you’re no FUN, Virgey.”

“C’mon Bro, you could be… I dunno, a taxidermist?” Remus gets the manic glint back in his eye, snatching his sheet back from Virgil to add in the new information, scribbling frantically. His handwriting is already nigh impossible to read on a good day, so he’d better be able to read his own character sheet.

“Hey Thomas, what do you want to be?” asks Janus, undoing his loops to start a new string game, having finished his character profile- a Tiefling Wizard, about ten minutes ago while Logan became his work partner and roommate (Oh my god they were roommates), a human wizard. Virgil was the DM, therefore without a character other than an ominous voice with anxiety and a god complex at the same time, and Patton and Roman were both Elves, though Patton was an Artificer and Roman was a Bard.

Logan quickly jotted down Thomas’s responding morse code, chuckled, and read it aloud. “He says, and I quote: Can I be the thing that goes bump in the night? But also offer tea and biscuits to wayward travellers.”

Virgil smiles in Thomas’s vague direction, trying to make eye contact with the static. He fails, but Thomas thinks it’s quite nice of him to try.

“You’re too nice, T. I’ll write it down for you.”

You’re too nice

He was too nice to not let them get away with it, to stop them from killing him, to stop them from--

”Oi! You fruitcake, too nice to go running to your boyfriend, huh? Get a taste of this and see whether you’re nice enough to take it.”

He was. He didn’t object to the stuff in the bottle going down his throat, burning up his organs and destroying his body from the inside.

He didn’t have enough vocal chords left to scream, even as the other boy, final year, shook him as if trying to see whether he’s wake up, even as a hole formed in his throat, bleeding and burning and burning and burning--

It’s the last thing Thomas remembers.

“Thomas? Thomas? You’re making static-y noises again. You okay?” it’s Virgil, and it’s been nearly a hundred years and they’re dead and he’s dead and there’s nothing left of anyone he remembers but memories and he pushes aside his last memory, the worst one, to try and think of Valerie, his amazing sister who got to go to his school, sit in the same chemistry room once it was converted into a public school. Terrence, his family friend who came to his gravestone specially when segregation ended, and he could finally come and visit.

Everett, his boyfriend, who kept visiting, every day at four P.M on the dot until he was twenty and left town for college. It feels better to remember them as they were, in loose clothes playing in the woods, hide and seek and dolls and Valerie-the-Nurse and Everett-The-Soldier and Thomas-The-Film-Star and finding ways to get Terrence away to play with them too, as Terrence-The-Mechanic who could fix anything, even emotional problems as their Mom’s tittered and their fathers scowled but they didn’t matter because they were having fun.

He snaps out of it proper when Virgil manages to locate his hand, semi-visible ...

Patton’s pulling at his hair, not enough to fall out but enough to hurt, Sarcastrophe by Slipknot raging through his headphones and he knows that this is bad for his hearing, but at this point if it can drown out the absolute rage pounding in his mind, then going deaf is worth it.

He doesn’t even know why he’s mad. It’s just there and he’s screaming into his sleeves, tears caking on his face for moments before the anger arrives again and there’s a new layer of saltwater on top of it, endlessly endlessly going and he can’t stop it and why can’t it just stop--

There’s someone calling. It’s Remus. And Patton has to be happy and he thinks he might just implode with the… everything building up in him, but he has to do this so he picks up the phone.

“Hi Patty-Cakes!” The nickname makes him want to puke, even though he doesn like it, but he swallows the imaginary bile in his throat and replies.

“H-Hey, Remus.”

“Patton? You alright?” No, not at all he wants to scream and kick and cry but also freeze and never move again and his head hurts and there’s a pit in his stomach that won’t go away!

“YEAH! Uh, yeah. I’m good.” he sniffles, and he hopes Remus didn’t pick up on it. Judging by the silence on the other end, he probably did.

“Pat, please, tell me what’s wrong. I won’t say anything. Just let it out. It usually works for Roman and I, but just- see for yourself, okay?” Remus sounds a little concerned, a little desperate, and Patton thinks Remus can hear him trying to stifle his crying. He tries a little harder and all that comes out is one long moan with hitches for cries and the tears are drying, and Remus starts again, concerned, but Patton can’t hear, because the tears are catching up again and he’s screaming again and his fingernails have cut little red crescent moons into his cheek and it drips a little and Remus is still talking, soothingly and Patton latches onto that voice like it’s the only thing that could possibly carry him through this because it damn well feels like it.

He hears footsteps but not really, too focused on trying to regain control of his breathing, following Remus’s count.

When it's been a few minutes of following the count, and Patton’s breathing has evened out, he wipes off his face in his old faithful broom skirt, always ready for days like these, and he buries himself a little further into his hoodie, covering with it the phone on his ear.

“Patty--”

“No, not that, please.”

“Patton, Do you want to talk about it?”

Yes, actually, but he doesn’t really see the point, since nothing lasts for him. He’s a fucked up foster kid ™ style. Good things don’t happen to him. (Maybe to Janus. Janus deserves good things, good people, better than him--)

“Why wouldn’t this last? And you’re a foster kid?” fuck, he said that aloud? Well, rest in fucking pieces, brain to mouth filter.

“Yeah, f-foster kid here.”

“Janus too?”

“Yeah.” he whispers, throat too tired for anything else. He’s not ready for the universal ‘how’ question, but he’s not been prepared for any of this so far, so maybe he should just not bother.

“Okay. Do your foster parents show any signs of wanting to let you go?” no, not really. In fact, he’d seen Remy and Emile trying to quickly hide a sheaf of papers any time Patton or Janus entered a room, and Patton’s been pushing down the hope as much as possible, even as he sees Janus start to believe it eventually. Patton has to be ready for something to go wrong, he can’t afford to let down his guard, lest he can’t protect Janus anymore. He has to make sure nothing can faze him.

But he wants. He wants so, so badly that sometimes he lies in bed for hours, pushing down the want and trying his best not to cry, until it’s morning and he’s waking Janus up even though he could barely push himself out of bed. He says this to Remus, because he still wants. He wants to stay near Remus forever, recite oddly dark facts and binge-watch the Sharknado movies again while Logan and Janus screech in betrayal and huddle up close and he wants to have this. He wants this so badly.

“Pat, I didn’t know how to say it, but I want to be with you forever too. You like my weird facts, and you stay by me when I’m mad and I want to be there when you’re sad, Patton. I want this too.”

“R-really?”

“Of course, Patton. I don’t lie. Especially not to you.” Patton laughs, somewhat wetly, and Remus’s tone brightens when he hears it, and Patton can feel the smile on the other side of the line, manic-looking but inherently full of kindness, and everything feels a little more okay.

The hurt isn’t gone, but at least he isn’t forcing it down into his large intestine anymore.

“Thanks, Re. I-I’ll talk to Emile and Remy when they come home, okay? I’ll tell you what happened. See you in school tomorrow?”

“Course, Patton. Now I’m gonna go get something for Roman to eat before his stomach acids digest his entire body, eyes and all.”

Patton laughs. “Okay! Just don’t miss your therapy appointment, okay?”

“Never do. Bye.”

“Bye.”

The call finally cuts off, and the timer reads 37:19:73, and he probably spent a good chunk of that time having a breakdown, but strangely enough, Patton doesn’t feel super bad about it. The want is there, and he’s still not super sure about what to do with it, but he knows that he wants it to be real, and even if something does go wrong, he’ll still have Remus’s number.

The door swings open as Janus enters the house, and creaks closed downstairs, and Patton flops onto his bed, eyes still a little red, putting his phone on charge to take a nap. He’ll have emotionally charged conversation, but after this nap, thanks.

[theheartsmistakes]

The Last Night Part III

(Author’s Notes: Hello readers! Here is Part III of The Last Night, a Jordelia fanfiction, from Cassandra Clare’s Chain of Gold. As always thank you for reading and please do give it a like, reblog, comment, and let me know if you’re interested in more. Happy and safe quarantine to you all!)

Here is Part I

Here is Part II

Thunder crackled over the carriage as it drove down central London. The streets were empty this time of night except for those wayward travelers and the few patrons on their way home from the pubs. Rain fell in torrents in a way that Cordelia hadn’t seen it rain in a long time. With her head resting on Alastair’s shoulder, their hands bound together like when they were small children, she watched the city that she’d grown to love blur past her through the window. Alastair had taken her hand when she emerged from the Institute and hadn’t let it go since. Her skin, just a bit lighter than his own, but still similar. He smelt like their father she noticed: a warm spice mixed with smoke. It was comforting in that it reminded her of home: of white hot sand, open kitchen windows, and colorful tapestries that her grandmother said were known to capture spirits. As a child, the intricate black designs reminded her of runes by the way they swirled and bent and stood out amongst the other colors, because of that, she believed there to be magic in carpeting. 

When they’d visit Sona’s family in Persia, Cordelia felt a deep and dormant part of her come alive. She’d join the other children in the sand coated streets and run barefoot in the shadows of the clay buildings. Men would fill the hallways with laughter; women, adorned in their colorful silks and intricate beading, would throw flowers from windows as the children ran by. When it would come time for them to leave, she’d wish that she was a tree with roots so strong that nothing could uproot her.

How desperately she wanted to share that part of her with James. To run with him in the warm shadows, barefoot as their own laughter filled the alleyways. They would drink spiced tea in the garden while exchanging their favorite pieces of literature by the trickling water fountains. 

No, she couldn’t let herself think that way any longer. He wasn’t hers to fantasize about anymore. She would need to learn to fold up those thoughts and bury them away into a distant part of her. It was the only way to survive. The hardest parts aren’t the goodbyes, she thought, but the flashbacks that follow. The memories and what-could-have-beens. 

“Layla?” Alastair stirred her gently. “Where have you gone to?”

“Home.” She answered sleepily. 

He patted the back of hand gently. “We’ll be there shortly.”

“Not that home.” Cordelia sat up and turned to face her brother. “Do you remember going to grandmam’s house, in Persia? Do you remember their house on the top of the hill that looked out over all the clay city? Do you remember the way the kitchen smelt like abgoosht?”

Alastair nodded. “I can’t believe you remember it. You had been so young.”

“I remember all of it,” she said. “Do you think that we could ever go back there?”

“Of course, Layla.” Alastair reached up to cup her cheek in his gloved hand. “We can go wherever you’d like. Idris won’t be like it was before. We’ll have each other, and before long our new sibling to keep us busy. Lucie can come to visit, Anna, and—” His voice trailed off with his thoughts. Cordelia wondered if he thought about Thomas. She had wanted to ask him what happened between the two of them, but if Alastair felt anything like the way she felt upon simply hearing the name James, she didn’t want to be the catalyst for his pain.

She hadn’t told him of her plans to join the Iron Sisters. She hadn’t told anyone. It seemed terribly cruel to keep it a secret from her brother who was about to uproot his entire life in London to live with her in Idris. He tried so desperately to make it sound like a fairytale and the adventures that would follow. 

“Alastair,” she began, “I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?” 

“I’m—“ She noticed for the first time the thin webs around his eyes and the deepening crease between his eyebrows. He’d already put so much of his life on hold because of her, to protect her, she couldn’t allow him to do it any longer. “I’m not going to stay in Idris and I don’t think you should either.”

His dark eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“There’s nothing for us there.” She took a deep breath, trying to draw strength. “Because of what I’ve done, the Clave won’t likely allow me to join in missions, and by affiliation you’ll be excluded as well.”

“Where would you go?” Alastair’s tone grew more firm.

“To the Iron Sisters.”

“No.” Alastair shrank away from her as if she’d struck him. “The answer is no, Cordelia.”

“I’m not asking.”

“Well as your older brother and your guardian, I’m saying no.” Alastair moved to the other side of the carriage and rapt twice on the glass window.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m turning this carriage around that’s what I’m doing.” Alastair nearly shouted at her. “Had I known your intentions of joining that underground cult, I would have never agreed to leave London.”

“They’re Shadowhunters,” said Cordelia, “just as you and I are Shadowhunters.”

“I would never be able to see you, Cordelia.” 

The carriage merged onto the side of the road and came to a stop. 

Alastair turned back around to face her and slowly slid down into the seat. “You’d be isolated, worse than Jem, it’d be like—like you were dead.” He turned to look out the window as the rain fell in crooked streams over the glass like translucent veins. His jaw shook the way it did when he was adamant about something and could not be budged. 

“I want to be known for something other than scandal,” said Cordelia. “The Iron Sisters offer me the chance to change my fate, to take back a semblance of my honor, and do something with the life that I have been given. Alastair?” She reached for him but his expression had gone cold. “I won’t let you waste another moment of your life because of me. I made my choices and I’m ready to accept the consequences for those choices, but I will not let you shield me from this— the way you did with father.”

“You had a childhood because of what I did.”

“And you will have a beautiful life because of this.”

Alastair dropped his hand from his mouth and shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “No, I will have nothing.”

He had said once, offhand, when he thought no one was listening, you don’t actually end up with the people you love, but with the ones who stay. At the time, she thought it cruel and the thought made her sad. She felt as thin as a piece of paper. The last thing she wanted to do before leaving was upset her brother. He will heal one day, she thought. One day, he will forgive her. He’ll find someone to love and to stay.

Their driver came around to stand at the carriage window awaiting further instruction. 

“Dâdaš.” His eyes that mirrored her own flashed to her. They were red and full of rage: at her, at everything. She reached for him again when their carriage jolted forward, nearly throwing Cordelia into Alastair, except she didn’t quite make it and instead ended up sprawled out on the carriage floor.

“Bloody hell.” Alastair turned to the window where the driver had been standing, but he was no longer there. 

“What was that?” Cordelia asked, pushing herself up to her knees.

“I’m not sure.” Alastair reached for the door. “Stay here. I’ll see what’s going on.”

“I’m coming with you.” Cordelia successfully got to her feet and followed her brother out of the carriage— the rain so thick she could hardly see in front of her.

“Martin?” Alastair called for their driver. “Martin, what’s going on?”

Cordelia glared down the dark road where she thought she saw a figure standing in the middle of the street, but it very well could have been a trick of the mist. Rain dripped down her face, flattening her hair, and drenching her clothes in minutes. A horse screamed in agitation behind her, but when she turned around to investigate, she felt her foot catch on something. She looked down, expecting her boot to be caught on a stone, instead finding a blood red hand wrapped around her ankle.

“Martin!” 

“Run, Miss Carstairs, run.”

She fell backward when the carriage started moving again. A scream only comparable to nightmares ripped from her throat as the wheels rolled over Martin trapped underneath it. Afraid to open her eyes, Cordelia fumbled to her feet again. The skirt of her dress becoming increasingly heavy with water but she managed to find her footing.

“Martin.” She sobbed, turning around slowly, when a pair of arms reached out for her. She screamed, but recognition settled in, as Alastair’s face appeared before her own. He pulled her into his chest and whispered in her ear not to look. 

“What’s going on?” She demanded over another ripple of thunder. 

Alastair had a spear in his right hand, held out in front of them ready to empale whatever or whomever came near. At some point, he had abandoned his waist coat and tie. “I don’t know.” His eyes danced sharply around them. “Draw Cortana, I believe we’re under—“

Before he could finish his sentence, a great wind beat down on top of them and for a moment the rain stopped. Simultaneously, they looked up as a Diggoron demon with a wing span of twenty feet, a body the length of a whale, and the jaws of a dragon screeched above them. Its sharp tail, barbed with spikes, swung down towards them.

Alastair shoved Cordelia aside and took the brunt of the hit sending him flying through the air and into the darkness.

Cordelia landed painfully on hands and knees, but in a moment, her hands reached behind her and grabbed the hilt of Cortana. Instantly, she felt warmth radiate through her palms as if she’d grabbed the end of a burning log and not the metal end of a sword. The blade rang as she drew it from its home and held it out in front of her. 

Her breath came out in a white cloud as the air around her took on a great chill. Rain dripped into her eyes marring her vision. The air smelt heavily of sulfur and the metallic tang of freshly spilt blood. 

Her feet slipped on the pavement as she ran in the direction Alastair had been thrown. The streets were empty and unnaturally dark without the glow of the moon. All of the lamps had been snuffed leaving her alone in complete darkness. She hadn’t enough time to draw a night vision rune, besides her Stele was tucked safely in her bag on the runaway carriage. 

When she was a child, as a part of her training, she would wrap a blindfold over her eyes and let loose a Revarrt demon, a small seemingly harmless bug except it packed a terrible sting if one allowed it too close. It had a particularly high pitch buzz. With her eye sight gone, Cordelia would hold out her blunt weapon as if it were Cortana and wait for the buzzing to come close and swing. 

It felt as if she were back in the training room in Idris again, waiting for the buzzing to get close enough to her. 

“Cordelia!” She heard from her left and stopped. It came again from behind her. “Cordelia!” Her name took on different voices: Alastair, Lucie, Sona, Matthew, Elias, James.

“Cordelia.” Something hissed right behind her ear. She swung Cortana in an ark but whatever had been there had left in a wave of smoke.

“What do you want?” She yelled into the darkness. “There’s no need for games.”

She felt something brush the side of her neck. In a flash of gold, Cortana cut through the air, but once again she was met with nothing. Movement caught the corner of her eye on her left. A dark mound lay in the middle of the road.

Alastair.

She stumbled into a run, Cortana’s weight in one hand, as she raced to her brother’s side. A slow, dark current circled his head and ran down the street.

She fell down beside him, Cortana clattered to the pavement beside her, as she carefully picked up his head in her hands. There was blood everywhere, more blood than she thought she’d ever seen in her life. Head wounds bleed the worst, she told herself. It was fine. He would be fine.

“Cordelia.” More blood seeped from between his lips, staining his teeth. “You— It wants—“

“Don’t speak.” Quickly, she found a hole in the hem of her dress and ripped a piece from it. It was wet and filthy but she pressed it to his head and picked up his hand to hold it in place. “I’m going to find the Stele. We’ll put an iratze on you and it’ll be fine. Hold that in place.”

He mumbled something as she stood up again.

A gust of wind, so powerful it nearly pushed her forward, swept past her again. As she reached for Cortana, a moment too late, the spiked tail of the Diggoron demon connected with her chest. 

A spike lodged into her ribcage, but she hardly noticed, looking out at the glistening city of London from such great heights. For a moment, while her body lay suspended in the air, she thought about how quiet it was. Without even a chance to scream and all of the air knocked from her chest, it was inexplicably silent- as if time and space had stopped. 

The bliss, however, was short lived. Her stomach flew to her throat as her body fell through the air towards the earth and landed back on the street sliding across the stones like a limp doll until her back slammed against a wall.

Sound and pain rushed back to her. Unable to draw breath into her lungs, her heart rate elevated in her ears, it felt like she were drowning on dry land. Rain ran into her eyes and spilt down her cheeks as she looked up at the blackened sky swirling with rain and mist. 

A figure came to stand over her. For a brief moment, she thought the face familiar. The tangle of dark hair lay limp now and the eyes, went from warm yellow to black. His fingers grazed her cheek as he spoke her name.  James. A great pair of wings spread out from his back and the darkness seemed to swallow her whole. 

[nikibogwater]

A Shot in the Dark: Chapter 3 (Author’s Commentary)

(Read the fic here)

General Notes:

The final chapter! I don’t have too many general notes for this one (though the passage-specific notes below the cut stretch on for miles--there was just a lot going on in this chapter lol). But I will say that this is my favorite chapter of the three. It’s what the previous two have been building up to, and it really is the “heart” of the story, so to speak. That, and I finally got to make Glitter Wings Nari canon to The Immortal Bonds! (picture below the cut) I genuinely teared up a little bit while writing a couple of these scenes. I don’t know if that means they are very good, or that I was just absolutely exhausted after cranking out the first two chapters, but maybe you can be the judge. Friendly reminder to go listen to the song “Protector” by City Wolf if you are so inclined. It was a huge part of what inspired this story, and now that all three parts are published, I feel like it perfectly captures the theme and feel of A Shot in the Dark as a whole.

Passage-Specific Notes:

“...Please, Nari, I would not be doing my duty as Douxie’s...as your friend if I let you run thoughtlessly into this kind of danger.”

Another small line of dialogue that means a lot to me. I didn’t see Archie as making the instant connection with Nari that Douxie did. I think it took him a while to see her as anything more than “Douxie’s Ward.” He was always kind to her and took care of her, but I think it took him until now to realize that he had grown to really love her as part of the family. So the fact that he corrects himself here reflects that realization. I think under normal circumstances, the moment Archie finds out Douxie is in trouble/hurting, he would dive headfirst into hell without a second thought in order to help his boy. But because Nari is now also under his protection--and more importantly, now that she also has a special place in his heart--Archie has to force himself to slow down and come up with a plan that will keep BOTH of his kids safe. 

The phone rang once--twice--six times. Then it went to voicemail.

Nari lowered it with a look of pure dejection as Claire’s pre-recorded voice cheerfully told them to leave their message after the beep.

I felt like calling Claire for backup was the most sensible thing they could do in this situation--but I also needed Nari and Archie to take on Project Rescue Douxie by themselves, in order to reinforce the family bond these three have. The moment when they all reunite at the end wouldn’t have had the emotional impact I was angling for if there had been others present. So I had to pull a tiny plot contrivance and make Claire unavailable. I didn’t feel the need to explain why she doesn’t answer her phone (people miss calls all the time) but my personal theory was that she was taking a nice relaxing shower and couldn’t pick up the phone. (look, I need SOMEBODY in this story to be having a nice time lol). 

“By Ambrosia’s Gleam...” Archie breathed. A pair of dazzlingly beautiful wings reflected every light of the city back at him as Nari folded and unfolded them experimentally. They were unlike anything the cat had ever seen in his long life, vibrantly colored with rich shades of green and gold, glittering like morning dew, yet delicate as a newly budding flower.

Anybody remember last week, when I said the Most Self-Indulgent part was yet to come? This was it lol. I don’t remember when I started imagining Nari with sparkly butterfly wings, but back in early October, I drew this:

and I have been absolutely enamored with the idea ever since (but also it was a convenient way to get them to the warehouse without having to go through the ordeal of walking/taking a taxi/busting out the flying boat). So yeah. Nari’s Glitter Wings are canon to The Immortal Bonds series now. I have spoken.

He had no idea how long he had been enduring Rivan’s torture. It may have only been a few minutes, or it may have been a few years. Hell, he was getting to the point where it felt like this excruciating ache in his bones had been there his whole life. He tried not to sob as Rivan slowly pulled his magic back to himself, the agony abating for just a short moment of sweet relief. Douxie sucked in gulps of air, desperate to replenish the oxygen that had been ripped from his lungs by his own screaming.

First time really writing whump, so that was...something (I was exhausted after just the one paragraph lol). I tried to keep it as vague as I could because I don’t want anybody coming to my fic expressly for a graphic torture scene and nothing else (I don’t do the hurt-no-comfort thing, and I don’t want anybody to use my fics as such). But putting Douxie through a bit of hell does make the ending SO much sweeter. And if he hadn’t been experiencing pain, Archie and Nari probably would have taken longer to decide to come to his rescue. But there is still a part of me that detests every letter of that paragraph. 

The small dragon let out a roar of fury and leapt at Rivan, his form twisting and expanding into that of an enormous black panther. The two crashed together in a flurry of red sparks and tearing claws.

Archie turning into a black panther and going to town on Rivan is also a bit of self-indulgence. I just really love big cats, and black panthers especially are beautiful, mysterious, and powerful creatures that just SCREAM Magic and Otherworldliness to me. (also I really want to draw Panther!Archie now).

He slammed against the concrete with a yowl of pain that tore Douxie’s heart into a thousand pieces, and dropped to the floor, where he lay quivering and heaving.

That line right up there 👆 is the most heart-wrenchingly painful thing I have ever forced myself to write. 😥

Nari grabbed Douxie by the shoulders and pulled him upright. One of her hands reached around him and pressed against his heart, and he felt her aura slam into his. Instinctively, his soul opened, and he let her magic pour into him, filling his veins with the warmth of a hundred suns, wrapping around and tangling with his own magic so tightly that he could barely tell whose was whose. Nari’s voice filled his head, drowning out every sound in his ears, every thought in his mind. My magic is yours. Use it. He threw both of his hands out and felt power unlike anything he had ever known surge into his palms and explode out of his fingertips.

So this ties into a headcanon of mine that, while Nari’s magic isn’t well-suited to direct combat, she is able to augment Douxie’s powers. But this scene is also probably the culmination of every relationship-building moment I have ever written for these two. I established in A Moment to Breathe that to let someone interact with your aura in this way--to basically channel their magic directly into you--requires a great deal of trust. Douxie let Nari heal him in that story, but that was after she had asked permission to pour her magic into him. Here, she doesn’t have time to ask--she just has to go for it, and Douxie’s trust and familiarity with her is so intense at this point, that his response is to immediately surrender completely to her power. Not only that, he is so familiar with her magic, that he is able to use it himself--he combines it with his own power and casts a spell that Nari is likely unable to use herself. I intended this moment to be a representation of the way family relationships can shape and empower you. You carry elements of the people you love with you wherever you go; their influence, their stories, their love for you--it all helps shape you into the person you are. And these things are often so deeply intertwined with your own personality, that it becomes impossible to fully separate them. 

They had risked everything--the fate of the world, even--to save him. He should have scolded them. But instead, Douxie suddenly found himself overwhelmed with the ridiculous urge to cry.

This was the reason I wrote Douxie in Distress--and also one of the reasons I wrote A Shot in the Dark at all. I wanted him to experience being stripped of everything that made him powerful--useful-- and then witness his family risking literally everything for him. Not for his powers, not for what he can do for them, but because they love him. This poor, sweet boy gives and gives and gives, and the world has done nothing but take from him, and I have said “ENOUGH.” I wanted the serotonin of seeing him realize that he is valued and cherished for himself, and BY THUNDER I WAS GOING TO GET IT EVEN IF I HAD TO WRITE 9000+ WORDS FOR IT. 

She pulled back a moment later, roughly drying her face on her sleeve, and untied the black hoodie around her waist. She draped it around Douxie’s shoulders with her magic, and he sighed contentedly as the warm fabric settled around him. He slipped his arms into the sleeves and closed the garment around himself gratefully, giving Nari a tired, heartfelt smile.

I didn’t realize it when I initially drafted the story, but Douxie’s hoodie is actually a really nice visual representation of how he and Nari pass the role of caretaker/protector back and forth. Douxie is wearing it for the first half of the story, when he is acting as Nari’s guardian/brother. Shortly after he lends it to her though, he’s captured by Rivan, and Nari takes on the role of protector in turn. But yeah, originally it was just “Them trading the hoodie back and forth is pointlessly cute and I wanna do it.” (Poor Archie has to be the Adult 100% of the time. He doesn’t get a break).

Most of Douxie’s mornings began with the harsh, clattering sound of his phone vibrating and whistling next to his ear. But that Sunday morning began with a deliciously warm silence. Douxie’s eyes blinked open slowly, finding sunlight lazily shining through the windows. He was lying on his side, with Archie’s soft, familiar body tucked against his chest. A gentle warmth against his back told Douxie that Nari was curled up beside him, wrapped in her own little cocoon of blankets, her back against his. The ache in his bones was gone. He was nestled safely in the warmth and love of his small family, the world outside and all that occurred within it nothing more than a distant echo.

Wrapping his arms around Archie and pressing his back more firmly against Nari’s, Douxie closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

This final scene wasn’t actually in my original outline--originally, the story ended with the three of them beginning the long trek home together. But I felt that the story needed just a little extra time to savor in the happy ending. And so, it came full circle--ending just like it began, with the dawning of a new morning. I noticed that I spend a lot of time in this story comparing the mornings of different characters/days. I think that might have been a subconscious expression of my belief that every morning is the beginning of a new opportunity--to strengthen bonds, to do good in the world, to just live for another day. Douxie’s Saturday morning started off a little rougher than he wanted--he woke up early and had to rush around to get ready for a long day out on the town. And wouldn’t you know it, his Saturday ended pretty badly too (though I think he’s probably just grateful he got to go home in one piece haha). This Sunday morning plays out in the exact opposite way. It’s quiet, peaceful, unhurried, and full of hope. Douxie’s been through hell and back, but he survived long enough to see another beginning. And I think that’s the beautiful cycle that all human life follows. There’s pain in life, darkness and hopelessness, but if you can hold on, strengthened by the love of the people you hold dear, you will always find a new beginning waiting for you on the other side of the valley. 

...And that’s it. Thank you to everyone for reading my work. Seeing everyone who enjoyed it, hearing from you guys in the comments, knowing that I was able to give someone a good story--it really does mean the world to me. So again, thanks for joining me, and I hope our paths cross again soon. 🤗✨

[avaria-revallier]

Chapter 8 - She sings for her brothers

Masterpost

Chapter 7

Thorin pathed up and down in front of the large, closed door. He could hear her familiar giggling from inside. It filled him with warmth, but at the same time, cold fear made him freeze when he thought of the possibility of losing this sound.

There were two other, deeper voices coming through the door, but due to the thick wood, he wasn’t able to identify them. He guessed that it was Fili and Kili. His sister-sons had taken quite the liking to his hobbit.

“Uncle, what are you doing here?” asked a familiar voice from behind him.

“We thought you had an important meeting with the elf and the wizard?” Kili continued his older brother's questioning.

“It’s none of your business,” he grumbled, continuing his pacing.

Abruptly, he stopped in his tracks, almost causing his nephews to run into him.

“If you are out here with me, who is it then in there with her?” he stared at the two princes, panic slightly creeping up his spine.

He knew that Oin had left her quite some time ago to gather some herbs from the tree-shaggers garden. Dwalin had proceeded with organizing their camp as they didn’t feel safe staying in separate chambers. Bombur was gone to plunder the kitchens, taking Bifur and Bofur with him. Ori was somewhere in the vast gardens, drawing and gathering flowers for the burglar. Nori was being scolded by his older brother, while Gloin took a nap.

So, who in Mahal's name was in her room? Who dared to laugh and giggle so comfortably with his hobbit?!

Furiously, he stormed inside the room, without even knocking! The door crashed against the wall and all the laughter suddenly stopped. Three pairs of eyes rested on him.

His gaze was instantly drawn to her beautiful eyes, but he warned himself not to lose his composure. Instead of drowning in her eyes, he averted his look to critically inspect the other two.

Two identical elves sat on each side of her bed. Twins, he concluded. They didn’t look as if they were threatening her in any way, still, why would they even be here? What was it that they might want from his burglar?

~

It was wonderful to see Elladan and Elrohir again. She had missed the twin-sons of Lord Elrond greatly. They had always managed to cheer her up with their mischiefs and the pranks they pulled.

First, she had been surprised to find them in the infirmary, but shortly after she understood that neither of them was ill or injured. They just were here to ‘acquire’ some bandages and mild sleeping pills. Most likely for another one of their mischiefs.

During the first half of an hour, she had been nothing more than a sobbing mess. The brothers did their best to cheer her up by telling her about their best pranks. It was so good to see them again, to talk with them.

They had just finished telling her the story about how they had hidden some really old eggs all over the library, waiting for Lindir to find all of them. Because of the wonderful reaction of his, they had decided to reenact this ‘event’ every year from then on.

Her ribs only stung every now and then when she inhaled too deep and even laughing brought no other discomfort than a light stabbing pain. The healers of Imladris were really the best ones around. They had managed to mend her broken ribs, stabilized her twisted ankle, and even relocated her shoulder so it didn’t hurt all too much anymore. She felt cleaner than throughout the whole journey and the white dress they had organized for her in a hurry was very comfortable. The pain remained in her body but was not as obvious as before.

She had tried to convince the twins to let her leave the infirmary and join the others, but they had managed to keep her there, telling her stories of the past and letting her in on their pranks. She knew some of their stories, but to hear them from themselves was better than all she could have wished for at the moment.

She giggled at their tale about how they had put glue on Thranduil's crown when he visited ages ago. Gesturing to lean in a bit she wrapped her arms around both of their necks, pulling them closer and placing a big kiss on each of their cheeks. She had missed them dearly.

Thorin chose this exact moment to barge in, slamming the door against the wall, making one of the framed pictures fall onto the ground. Under his glare, she shrunk a bit, but corrected herself immediately by straightening her back. She had done nothing wrong!

Behind the fuming king appeared his nephews, Fili and Kili. They only popped their heads into the room, eying the twin elves with suspicion and curiosity. With wide eyes they watched their fuming uncle and leader. Bella feared the moment when both brother pairs realized what they had in common. Their mischiefs.

“Tho- Master Oakenshield, what are you doing here? I thought you had a meeting with Lord Elrond to decipher your map,” she tilted her head in confusion.

Did he just growl at the twins?! He did, she realized when she looked at the panicked expressions on Kilis and Filis faces.

“I believe nobody had introduced you to each other? Elladan and Elrohir meet Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of this company,” she smiled at the two elves and ruffled Elladan’s hair.

Another deeper growl came from the direction of the dwarven king. Bella's hand stopped moving and her eyes wandered towards the dwarf. Thorin was standing in the open door like a wild warg that had finally gone mad. His eyes hard and cold, his lips pressed together in a firm line. One hand resting on the sword, the other clenched in a fist.

“What do you think you are doing?” he barked at Bella, his frosty gaze still resting on the twins.

She knew the tone in his voice all too well. The last time she heard it, he had almost thrown her off the walls of Erebor, marking her a traitor and banishing her from his lands.

Bella flinched at his harsh voice and the memory connected with it. Her ribs ached and breathing suddenly became so much harder. In her mind, she could see the faraway ground under her dangling feet all too well. Felt his hand around her neck, and the cold wind in her hair.

She stared at him, her eyes wide, in pain, panicked. Separating her hands from the twins and hugging herself tightly, ignoring the explosive waves of hot pain in her shoulder and ribcage.

“Is there something you wanted from me? I believe you have somewhere to be. As you can see, I am in good company,” she told him, her voice cold and her eyes flickering.

Elrohir closed in on her. His large hands gently untangled two of her curls. He had taken a liking to the hobbit lass, as did his brother. Elladan tensed seeing the pain in her eyes. He could see the discomfort in Bella's face. Something was not right and the cause was the rude dwarf in the medical wing.

There was more to this conversation than what meets the eye. That, both brothers were sure of. In silence, they swore to get to the bottom of this. A nod sealed their pact.

“I think you should go, father is surely waiting for you already,” Elladan advised the king with a sharp subtone.

“We will gladly escort you there,” Elrohir offered, standing up from the bed and stepping between Thorin and Bella.

“Very well then, burglar. Stay with your precious tree-shaggers. You had no place amongst us from the start.”

His glare was cold as ice, but still burning as hot as dragon fire on her skin. Those words were spoken in anger, Bella knew that. She still flinched and turned away to hide the tears rolling down her face.

Thorin said nothing more as he left the room together with the twins. He didn’t need to. The damage was done and the wound deep enough. He didn’t look back either.

~

Fili looked at his brother. They had witnessed the whole thing and were not sure if now would be a good time to give her their craft. Still, now was better than never.

“Uncle Thorin did something stupid, didn’t he?” Kili asks as if to complete Fili’s thoughts.

Sighing, he nodded. Of course Thorin would. They all saw it. Bella was special to him. He valued her, her talents, and her advice as much as her company. Thorin's eyes would find her whenever he thought nobody was watching. When she laughed, his mood would lighten and when she was tired he would order them all to rest, even if it was in the middle of nowhere.

Fili had never seen his uncle acting this way towards anyone other than his family. He couldn’t help but wonder what his mother would say about this whole situation. In his mind, a plan was beginning to form. They would have to write to their mother soon anyway. Why not ask her for advice at the same time? He smiled at Kili, his brother would quite like this idea too.

Kili nodded, interpreting the smile wrongly and stepped out of the shadows in the hall and into Bella's room.

The hobbit seemed even smaller than before. The way she sat there, silently sobbing and trying her best to wipe away her tears that constantly flowed from her eyes. She looked frail and tired, and somehow very old.

He cleared his throat a bit louder than necessary. Bella jumped at the sudden sound and hastily turned around. her eyes were red and swollen and her face looked so sad that Fili flinched back. Kili reacted in exactly the same way.

“Ah, well. I am sorry,” Fili started, awkwardly scratching his neck, “Uncle was never really good with words, especially not if he cared for a person.”

Kili stared at the ground, his hands fiddling on the button of the pocket that contained their gift. His determination suddenly dwindled. Maybe she didn’t want to have anything to do with any of the dwarrows ever again. What if she didn’t accept? Or worse, she really would stay with the elves of the last homely house. She did look like she liked those twins quite a lot. More than him and Fili? Surely not.

“May we sit next to you?” he asked instead of voicing all those questions swarming his head.

~

Bella nodded at the brothers. She was happy that at least they wouldn’t turn away from her, now that Thorin seemed to react even fiercer than in her previous life. His reaction had somehow caught her off guard and hurt all the more.

Her eyes still felt swollen and her vision was still blurry from all the tears. She sat herself upright once more, her back against the wooden head of the bed. Kili climbed first onto the large bed, followed by his brother shortly after. With Fili on her left and Kili on her right side, she relaxed a bit. They gave her a sense of comfort and safety.

“Mistress Baggins,” Fili started again, “ I, we have something for you,” he stopped, shyly looking through the window.

“It is not much, but it was crafted by our own hands,” Kili hurried to help his brother.

Looking down, Bella could spot a pair of silver bells resting in the palm of the dark haired prince. A gasp escaped her and she clutched her hands over her mouth. Tears started flowing once again, this time out of joy and not because of pain or sorrow.

A warm, tingly feeling blossomed in her chest and pulsed through her whole body with each excited thump of her heart. It was a feeling long forgotten. Her hands trembled as she reached out. Her breath hitched. She couldn’t hide the shaky smile any longer and her eyes darted back and forth between the brothers.

Fili still stared out the window, his hands buried in his pockets, while Kili eyed her with a goofy grin, bringing their present a bit nearer to her fingers. Aside from her own fast breath, the princes didn’t seem to breathe at all.

Careful, as if the hairpin was made out of glass, Balla picked it up and held the bells up towards a ray of sunlight shining through the trees outside the window. The golden light made the tiny pair of bells gleam and glitter. They looked even prettier than she remembered. With her fingers the hobbit caressed the engraved runes and moved across the elegant hairpin. A dwarven craft indeed. She couldn’t even see how they had fastened the bells onto the pin. The engraved runes looked so natural on those bells, as if they had been always there, hidden.

Their gleam and soft ring made her heart painfully tighten. Suddenly the bright colours of her surroundings dimmed and her fingers felt cold. These bells had found their way back to her. Maybe, just maybe he would too.

Before, one bell had hung next to her ear while the other gleamed in the raven-black hair of a certain someone. In perfect harmony with the silver strains of hair and beads. Bellas face heated up as she remembered seeing him back in the Shire, without the bell adorning his dark mane. It had changed something deep inside her.

Her heart still fluttered whenever he was near, whenever he looked at her with those unbelievably blue eyes. Each time she had to stop herself from touching his arm or hand even if just briefly.

When she poked at his chest, in Bree, when she touched his arm, and when she felt the brief touch as she freed him from the sack the trolls had put him in. It all felt right and made her soul hum in excitement. Still, it was wrong.

Subconsciously, her fingers brushed over her lips ever so slightly. Get yourself together, Bella, she scolded herself.

Pressing the gift against her chest, she took a few moments to gather herself, dry the tears and find the right words. Her heart felt lighter and the anxiety which weighed her down suddenly disappeared.

“I love it,” she simply said.

There were no words to describe her feelings better. Joy and happiness flooded her like a good wine. Relief made her head spin and the world brightened up. Fili exhaled a deep sigh. A wide grin on his lips. Smiling, he looked so much younger and more like Kili. They both were so young.

Kili hugged her in excitement, resulting in her bumping against the older of the pair. Both started laughing. Bella relaxed, her head cleared and finally she felt at ease. They would not leave her behind here. Like always these chaotic princes, her brothers now, managed to shoo away all bad feelings and dark thoughts.

“Fili, would you do my hair for me?” Bella said, lifting her head from his shoulder.

Kili sat up in an instant. His hair even messier than before, eyes wide and his mouth slightly open, gaping at the both of them. Fili had a similar expression. Well, a bit more royal or kingly or so to say.

“It would be my pleasure, namad,” the blond-haired prince grinned triumphantly at his brother, while Kili grumbled something under his breath.

Bella patted the empty spot next to her. Once Kili had made himself comfortable, she gently started to untangle his strands. Curled up next to her, he looked even younger, vulnerable. Her heart ached, remembering how still he had laid there on the cold stone of Erebor. But here, in the soft warm bed he was safe, alive and definitely breathing as his rising chest proved.

Nimble fingers parted her hair, braided the sections back together and finally brought them all together at the back of her head. The pin held her up and the small silver bells jingled happily with every motion of hers.

With a smile, she gestured at Fili to take place on her other side. Just like his brother, he curled up by her side, his head on her lap. Her hand wandered to her own hair, carefully feeling the artwork Fili had managed to make her wild curls into, before she started caressing the blond and brown hair of her brothers.

Taking a deep breath she starts to sing:

Did you hear from the tale,

Of a land with no name?

Where the earth is still singing,

And the birds flying free?

Did you hear from the eldest,

Of a land with no name?

Where they all come together,

Once a year to celebrate.

Did you hear the winds whisper,

Of a land with no name?

Where the sky seems so near,

Every dream can be reached.

Did you see the smokes pictures,

Of a land with no name?

Where the sky touches the earth,

And the lands smiling still?

Did you hear them all calling,

From a land with no name?

Where we all come together,

Where we all are the same.

As soon as their breaths had deepened and they had completely fallen asleep, Bella carefully tucked them in with blankets and gave each of them a kiss on the head. Brushing again over the braids she had put in their hair.

“Would you believe me if I told you that I had known you all along?” once again she climbed down the bed with a heavy heart.

In the shadows of the hallway, a three-pointed hairstyle vanished just as her feet touched the ground. Unnoticed, the one who heard each of the hobbits' words disappeared to think over the newly gathered information on their mysterious burglar.

Fili and Kili needed the rest more than her. The bells jingled happily as she hopped down the bed. Kili grunted and turned towards his brother. Bella froze on the spot. He wouldn’t wake, would he?

The sun had set some time ago. Now the only things illuminating the halls were the candles on the walls. She didn’t need the lights either way. These halls were as familiar as the tunnels of her smial in Shire.

Here, there lay so many memories. Warm summers, when she explored the gardens and the forest with the twins. Long evenings she spent reading with Lindir. Visits from Gandalf and Lady Galadriel. Wine tasting with Lord Elrond whenever Thranduil visited.

Cold winters with a lot of crying and remorse, while every spring brought a new beginning. Each year in fall she would take a small trip to the surrounding forest and all the way to Shire. In the dead of night she would make her way to the oak tree she had planted all those years ago, greet him, tell him of her pain and sorrow, and share her joyous moments and happy memories with her trusted companion.

“Mistress Baggins?” a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

The song is my own, so I ask of you please do not copy or use it. Thank you!

Chapter 9 - coming soon

AO3

@stuckupstucky

If you want me to tag you as well, please just send me a message.

If you like what you have read consider reblogging my story for others to enjoy too.

I am always open for asks and requests for shorts of our favorite dwarrows!

[bowieandqueen11]

Afraid/ Barry Berkman Angst

Request: hello i love ur barry stories and I was wondering if I could request one where the reader finds out of Barry’s true job and barry tries to get her to stay by saying that he’s a good person and some angst ensues 🤭 thank u keep up the good work 

Hey lovely anon, why you got to make me cry like this??

If Barry Berkman were to tell you when he was ten years old how his life would turn out, he would have guessed he’s be riding a dragon before he guessed this.

Standing in the cold kitchen, he couldn’t fault it for its sleek, methodically planned design; every detail was intricate, every granite counter spotless and stainless with its steel appliances. A clean folded tea towel swished against his hip, nearly falling out of the back pocket of his jeans as his shoes tapped against the tiled floor, enjoying the slight heat that radiated with each movement. His mind was far away, allowing himself to relax for a moment and hum a gentle tune as his fingers went on autopilot with the knife, expertly dicing the garlic cloves, hoping you’d be hungry on this fine evening once you woke up from your nap. 

He smiles softly to himself, imagining the soft snores of you on your pillow, the way your face smooshes down like a marshmallow, the way he wanted to kiss every inch of your cheek but decided instead you needed the rest, and he really needed to make dinner. Turning his back away from the counter to stir the tomato sauce, he doesn’t hear you patter into the kitchen.

He doesn’t see what’s in your hand.

‘B-Barry...why is there a gun under our mattress?’

He nearly freezes for a second, placing his hand down without thinking onto the stove only to pull it away with a yelp when it burns his fingers. He’s almost afraid to turn around, shaking his hand out with a grimace and pretend shock on his face. But Barry had never seen you look this way before as your eyes met his and they dipped; your eyes had a deadness, a stillness. With one look the verdict was told. 

But it was more than that. There was a tenseness you weren’t even trying to mask. He backed away slowly until his hip bumped into the fridge, nothing about this making sense. Not your curling fists or the anger that radiated from your skin. This wasn’t supposed to happen, he was too careful for this, he couldn’t let his defences slip.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. And it broke his heart.

‘Y/n-I-I promise, I promise you, ever since I met you I just- I just.... Shit! I am not good at this-’

‘At what, being a normal, functioning person?!’

‘At feelings! Look, starting from now-’

‘No! No now, Barry! This is it! This. Is. Over. I have to- I have to call the police, Barry, this is FUCKING INSANE!’

You felt emotionally bankrupt. The was nothing left to feel, nothing left to say, nothing left but the void that enveloped your mind in swirling blackness as you dropped your arm, and the gun it held to your side, staring at Barry with a slack mouth and tears beginning to spring up in the corner of your eyes as you tried to figure out how the hell to get out of this situation. He was much broader, and taller, and stronger than you, but you still have the element of surprise, and agility in your hands. You make as if to reach for the carving knife on the counter, its glare harsh and bright in Barry’s eyes as he moves forward to stop you.

‘No, no, hey don’t do that, don’t do that. We can figure this out.’

Reaching over to you, he took the gun from your grasp, trying to ignore the familiar burn of anger that rumbled in the pit of his stomach like a wound as he gazed down at you. But the worst part, the worst bit was the fear. The colour drained from his face, unable to speak, wide eyed, the blood running into his ears as he raised his palms flat against your shoulders, as gently as possible squeezing his fingers into your muscles, trying to get you to look at him.

He kept his eyes steady, resting on your face like they were home, but just briefly, the sorrow already building.

‘I promise, y/n...I’m a good person. I’m a good person- you MADE me a good person, and look, I’m trying, okay, I’m trying to be better, but I need you to trust me, and I need you to forget-to forget, well, about that.’ He threw his head towards the gun he placed in his belt, but you just stayed rooted to the spot, your features buckling just slightly before you spoke.

‘You say that like it means anything. What is love to you? Lying? Who the hell are you, Barry Block?’

Barry had known that to love deeply meant to risk great pain, but the tears that dripped down his cheeks now were proof of how much worse the pain was than he ever expected; they were not quiet and controlled, they fell as fast as the fall rain and he sobbed to draw breath. His lungs heaved and he knew there was no cure for his heart. He slowly bowed his head, crumpling down onto his knees and nearly knocking you over by wrapping his arms around your waist. His grip was as tight as a viper’s, his thumb stroking into your skin as you felt his tears stain your shirt from where his head nestled into your stomach, his stubble itchy from where it rubbed into you. His shoulders fall from where you gingerly place your hands on them, your fingers slowly stroking patterns over their broad expanse as you feel them wobble and shake, his lips falling as he buries them further into you.

‘I love you, y/n, I love you I love you I love you I-I love you. I swear.’

[dragon-kiddos]

🐩

🐩 - Discovering their pet/favorite animal

“Ah, what a lovely day!”

Birds are singing, flowers are blooming, and kids like him… should really be back inside where it’s safe. 

“I might just break out in song! And twirl all the day long!”

A sweet giggle rings through the air. As of then, the young one had slipped away from his caretakers to play out in the beautiful weather. His friends hadn’t joined him; they all said their parents told them to stay inside. The thought brings his attention to his own mother, whom he had not seen in so long.

“Hmm, but,” he hums, stopping his dancing across the field, “Mama is visiting today, and I haven’t seen her in such a long time. I’d better do something special for her.”

A gloved finger taps against his bottom lip. Lost in thought, Kana hops along the edge of the river closest to his home, not minding the feeling of the mud between his toes. 

“Gather some fruit?“ he muses. “Fish for her?”

Kana jumps to a halt, a closed fist hitting down against the palm of his opposite hand. “Ha, I know! Mama should have both. So I’d better get going!”

It had been perhaps twenty minutes of wading across the banks of the river, attempting to catch a fish in the only way he knew how—using his bare hands—before pointed ears twitch at the telltale signs of someone running up to him. Looking up, Kana wipes his wet hands in the fabric of his pants before pulling his gloves, which he had tucked into his waistband, back on. 

“W-Who are you?”

Grey eyes squint and then widen. The figures that had approached seem to bend light itself, almost camouflaged with the area, but just visible enough to have their features made out. 

“Y-You look weird!” Kana sputters, not his most polite moment. “Get away from me!”

More of the invisible forces appear. In response, Kana draws back, nearly tripping over his bare feet in the process.

“Umm, what do you all want?” It seems that the fact that these entities aren’t quite human has yet to settle in his mind. “You’d better not be here to make trouble! My mama will be here soon!”

Another step. His back hits a wall. Panic begins to prick at the edges of his mind. 

“They’re not listening,” he mumbles. “But I can’t just run. They look ready to do evil things!” 

He can feel the handle of the door to his home digging into his back, make out the grooves in the wooden structure through the thick layering of his gloves, and yet, Kana doesn’t run. There is perhaps a moment of hesitation where he stares before a hand slides down to rest atop the pommel of the blade that hangs at his side. 

A deep breath in, and he charges. 

He swings. He misses. The assassin counters, sending Kana flying to the ground with a soft oof! Before another attack can land, a familiar blade finds its home in the side of the perpetrator, causing its whispy body to dissipate into nothingness. Kana can barely recognize the visage of his mother before she’s jumping in front of him for protection, a puff of air escaping her lips.

“Here in the nick of time,” Corrin sighs, casting a glance over her shoulder. “Are you all right, Kana?”

“M-Mama?”

“I’m so sorry, Kana. You’ve been safe here for so long.” Dragoness raises her blade, a dark look spreading across her visage, though her words remain comforting. “I never thought anyone would come here to hurt you. Please tell me you’re okay!” 

There’s a moment of silence. Kana can’t see his mother’s face, nor can he see the flurry of emotions she wears—rage, guilt, worry, complete and absolute love—but he knows that Corrin cares. 

“Yeah, Mama,” he finally breathes. 

Corrin lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank the gods,” she whispers. A little shake of her head, the grip on her blade tightens. “Now,” her voice raises to a commanding tone, “off with you. Your mama has everything in hand.”

Her attention is turned back to the invaders, who all the while had been slowly inching forward. Her legendary blade is flipped in her hands; Corrin rears back to roar.

“YOU!” 

Even while mindless, the enemy flinches back. 

“You dare touch my child?! I’ll soak these fields with your blood!” 

One invader dares to rush the dragoness; their attack misses, mistake proving fatal as Corrin slices the just-barely-tangible body right in half. Another manages to land a hit on her right, but she quickly retaliates with another hard hit to send them flying. Kana whimpers from behind her. 

“Mama, there are too many of them!”

“I’ll protect you, Kana,” she says through gritted teeth. “But don’t worry about me. I told you to run!” Turning to the quickly-growing crowd, her grip on her blade tightens even more. “Now, the rest of you! Prepare to join your comrades in death!”

Her words are threatening, but her actions fail to defend her; an attack is thrown at her, blade slicing into her shoulder. It’s a shallow graze, but enough to draw blood. She counters; miss. 

“They’re tough,” she mutters, “but I have to… keep them away from…” 

Her thought is interrupted. 

“No!” 

Kana’s hands tremble for but a moment before gloved hands tighten around the hilt of his sword.

“You bunch of bullies! Stop hurting Mama!”

Before Corrin can react, Kana pulls her away from the attackers and takes her place, standing before her in a protective position. 

“Kana! How many times do I need to tell you?! Run!” 

“No! I’m not going to leave, Mama! Not when I’ve waited so long to see you again! No one’s going to take you from me!” 

Corrin reaches forward, hands pressing to her little boy’s shoulders in an attempt to pull him back. He shakes her off. 

“I’m staying right—!”

He cuts himself off with a low growl escaping his lips.

“Right here by—” 

Another growl. His vision begins to swim. 

“By your—”

Everything fades to black. 

“Whuh… whuh… what… What happened, Mama? I dreamed that I turned into a dragon!”

Gloved hands rub at his eyes, where tears had just barely dried. The moment Kana regained his senses, he burst out into sobs; after a long while of being comforted by his mother, he was finally in a state of mind to speak and understand what had happened. 

“Yes, well…” a soft, sheepish laugh escapes Corrin’s lips. “You did, Kana.”

A beat of silence. 

“I did? For real?” 

Grey eyes light up in awe, but that twinkle dies down to a frown when he notices Corrin’s expression.

“You look upset, Mama,” he whines. “I didn’t mean to do it. I only wanted to protect you! But I’m small. And I felt…”

Kana trails off, arms crossing over his chest. 

“… useless.”

A little kid can’t help in battle. But a dragon? A dragon can do anything! 

“Then I felt myself get so angry. I heard a roaring in my head… It got louder and louder, until I couldn’t hear myself thinking anymore.”

A little frown. He hadn’t meant any of this; he just wanted to make a gift for his precious mama, and then everything fell apart. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to turn into a dragon. Am I in trouble now?” 

“No!” Corrin’s response is quick. “Far from it. You’ve made me the happiest mother in the world.” She waits for Kana to react, and then a grin spreads across her face. 

“I turn into a dragon, too.”

Kana’s eyes widen. “What? Mama, you—?”

“Listen, Kana. I’m sorry that I haven’t visited you enough to explain. But I keep my power in control by using very special stones. You must too. Or else the dragon within may take over. Don’t be scared,” she smiles, noticing the hint of fear on her son’s face, “you just need a stone.

“Azura has given me a stone that you can use. Carry this with you always.”

A faintly-glowing green emerald bound in a thick cord is draped over Kana’s head, falling into place just over his heart. Gingerly, he takes the dragonstone into his hands, gazing at it with wonder in his eyes. 

“Thank you. It’s such a beautiful stone. I’ll treasure it, Mama!”

Carefully, he tucks the stone into the folds of the navy scarf that hangs around his neck. Hidden, but he can feel its warmth against his chest.

“But now that I can turn into a dragon…” Kana gazes at Corrin with a hopeful expression. “… can I maybe travel with you?” 

Silence. The sweet moment is ruined; mother’s face falls into a depiction of guilt as she shakes her head at her little boy. “I’m so sorry, Kana,” she says. “But you’re too young. And my world is too dangerous.”

For once, Kana doesn’t fight back. “No, Mama?” He deflates only slightly. “I guess I can wait longer, but only if you promise to visit more often.”

“Oh,” Corrin’s frown softens, “of course. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to—” perhaps not the best choice of words “—er, I promise. That’s all. And I’ll be sure to bring you a nice gift next time I come.”

Kana bows his head, nodding solemnly. “Yeah… All right, Mama.” 

The dragoness puts on a smile and takes a moment to cup her hands to her boy’s cheeks. “That’s my boy,” she hums. “Be good, Kana, and you keep hanging on to that stone!” 

Corrin’s fingers linger against Kana’s face for a moment longer before she finally pulls away. Her back turns and she starts to walk away, leaving Kana as alone as he was before. 

“… Hmpf.”

His hands ball into fists at his sides. 

“No, Mama. WAIT!” 

Stopping in her tracks, Corrin holds back a sigh. She turns only slightly to face her son. “Kana,” she’s already using that strict, motherly tone, “I have to go. A lot of people are depending on your mama.” 

“I… I know!” Stomping his foot down into the grass, Kana can’t hold back the tears that build in his eyes. “That’s why I have to go with you! I’m depending on you too… to come back! And I never know if you’ll… if you’ll… if you’ll DIE and never come back! What if I grow old enough to leave here, but by then you’re gone?”

“Kana, I’m only trying to protect you!” 

Exasperated, Corrin takes a step back. She had definitely come off as more aggressive than she wanted. Taking a deep breath, she begins again.

“But if that’s how you feel,” her voice is softer, now, “if it’s agony for you being here? That’s the last thing I want. Maybe…“

A deep breath. The pads of her fingers dig into her temples, rubbing in slow circles, while she contemplates. This could be a life-changing decision—and could end horribly, for all she knows. 

“All right. You’re coming. With your new powers, you might be safer with me.” The thought hangs heavy in the air, though only Corrin acknowledges it: might be safer. 

“I need to explain all of this to my friends. You need to say good-bye to yours.”Stunned, Kana stares up at his mother; truth be told, he had not quite expected that to work. 

“What, I get to come with you? Really?” Already, he’s jumping up and down in excitement.

With a soft sigh and a tired-looking smile, Corrin nods. “Yes, really,” she says, though the truth is she would much rather prefer her baby stay safe in his Deeprealm. “But, Kana, it’s a different world out there. It’s not a game—it’s scary. I’ll look after you. Still, are you sure you’re grown-up enough for this?“ 

For a moment, Kana debates. He nearly puffs his chest out all mighty-like and declares his grown-up-ness, but decides against it, and instead settles to look up at the sky with a thoughtful gaze. 

“Well…” he starts, “I’m only a little kid. But I’m old enough to be a dragon. And my mama’s one too.“ 

“Like mother, like son,” Corrin nods. “I guess there’s a lot we should catch up about.”

“Yes! I can’t wait! … Mama, I have to say one more thing before we leave.”There’s a moment’s pause before Kana opens his mouth and lets out a high-pitched but surprisingly-not-too-loud “roar.“ 

”… Rrrghg rawrgghh rrrh! That’s dragon for ‘I love you!’“

It takes everything Corrin has not to coo at her son—or rub at her temples in mild frustration in response to what a… sweet child he is. Still, she smiles, taking his hand to lead him back to the rest of the army—to his new family.

The dragon plush that sits on his bed is special in an entirely new way, now. It may be a little self-centered to call yourself your favorite animal, but… it never bothered a dragon.

[kranamuffins]

ICEBROOD

Trigger Warning!! PTSD FLASHBACKS AND PANIC ATTACKS. also i guess spoilers.. even though he was mentioned during the announcement. ..

“Freeellllliahhhhhhhh” the sound of the wind whispered her name, calling out to her from the blinding snow surrounding their fire. It was the one spot of warmth in this desolate canyon. Just two days ago they had been up to their ears in icebrood, driven near the point of exhaustion, but now?

They were nowhere to be seen. Not a single blurred outline haunted them. “Its as if even jormag fears the storm,” whispered Almorra Soulkeeper.

“FFrrree...hhhhhh…”  There it was, to the right! She turned quickly clutching the hilt of her greatsword. Nothing. No shadow, no noises but the whistle of the wind, as it scoured every crack and crevice in the area. As she stared into the blank white abyss something touched her shoulder. Frelliah jumped away drawing her bow, and felt a blush spread over her face as she stared down at a worried looking Rytlock.

“You alright there commander? You have been jumpy since the icebrood stopped..”

A murmur of agreement made its way around the great fire pit as she lowered her weapon and surveyed her companions.

“I’m sorry, rytlock… it's just…” She slumped her shoulders.

He stepped slowly towards her, both paws in front of him, no weapons, safe, where she could see them. “Are you sure you’re okay? It feels like this goes beyond the regular post- battle jitters.”

Sighing, she put her bow away. “This weather, this area, I don't know why but I just can’t relax.” 

Rytlock eyed her skeptically. “Well then cub, let's get you more comfortable. You need to rest, we cant have The Great Commander Worn out before we find our renegades.” he forced a charr smile at the mention of his wayward son.

“It is strange, “ Braham stood and walked over to Almorra. “I have only seen one other place so desolate that there weren't even icebrood….” he peered at the map in the charr woman's lap, reaching over her shoulder to trace a line with his finger, muttering to himself all the while. “ Knut and I left from here… and then followed this path up to.. Hmm i guess if thats there then this here is the valley with the village..”

Braham pointed to a valley not far from their current location as the others gathered around to look at the map. “No,” whispered frelliah from across the fire.. She had known, of course, where they were all along. She just refused to believe it. She couldn't..

“So i guess it's entirely possible that we are in That Lieutenant's territory..” He stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“How?” Everyone looked up at the ragged, broken tone in the commander’s question, “How do… How do you know about that.. Braham Eirsson?” 

Braham stared across the flames, flabbergasted. “Oh, uhhhhh.. I guess knut didn't tell you.. Uhm.. you see. He was trying to…” he stopped talking. To say Frelliah was pissed was an understatement, he didn't think he had ever seen her this mad.

“Spit it out Eirsson why aren't the icebrood attacking, and what's with this storm?” Almorra looked up at him not able to see the commander who was obscured by the flames between them.

“Well lets just say that you and rytlock aren't the only ones with family in the area.. Beyond that.. I dont think I’m allowed to say..” An arrow buried itself solidly in the rock behind him.

Frelliah nocked another arrow, “Say another word and my arrow will end your family line…”

“Now see here Commander, “ Rytlock began.

The storm around them suddenly stopped, no snow, no sleet, no wind, a single word hung in the air. “Frreeellliaaahhhh!!!”

Turning , she raised her bow just in time to stop the greatsword from biting her flesh. Her companions scattered as she and her attacker were launched across the fire and into the cliff wall behind them. The wall shattered leaving behind a small crater. A loud Crack resounded throughout the canyon, followed by the sound of  ice shattering.

“Commander!”

A near black shadow tinged with icey white and blue flew from the dust cloud in a blurr. Frelliah stepped from the broken wall, clutching the bottom half of her bow. The top half and the hilt of her enemy’s sword lay at her feet. Pain lanced through all of her features as she looked first at it, then at the woman across the scattered embers between them. “Rae..”

There she stood, the tallest norn any of them had ever seen. Her ebony skin was a dark contrast to stark white snow around their camp. She wore clothes that looked as though they were made from nothing but ice, bits and pieces of ice jutted out from her body as well. Ice grew from her back in a grotesque pair of wings. From her forehead sprouted  a set of horns that would make even a charr jealous. A pair of horns made of ice that glowed with the power of the dragon whose mark was etched below the wings on her back.

Celestic Raven stood, Giggling, “Frelliah!! Come play with meeeeeeee!!!” Ice Formed around her as another greatsword materialized in her hands. Frelliah drew her greatsword in reply, as a huge cracked grin spread over Raven’s face.”I missed you Sister. Why don't you come play with me anymore..?” She launched herself at Frelliah again, and they began fighting in earnest. “Like we used to.”

Sword met ice as they traded blows, Braham lunged forward, trying to enter the fray. One icy glare stopped him in his tracks, as freezing magic crawled up his legs cementing him in place.

“Leave him alone,” interjected the commander, “ your opponent is me…”

The giggles started up again, the blows were heavier and now ice magic filled the air around them with a translucent haze.. “You think I don’t know?” The glow in her horns brightened as ice started to encase frelliah. “Don’t know that you replaced me??!?!?! With HIM?!?” Frelliah found she could no longer move, raven drove her ice-sword into the ground at frelliah’s feet. “I’m not stupid. And you will join me.”

Raven turned to Braham, “but first…” she strode towards him, forming a mace of ice in her left hand. Raising her weapon she brought it down hard, striking not flesh, but steele. “What is this..” She stepped back. Rytlock had separated her from her target, using his armored back to bear the brunt of her blow. “Silly kitty.” She raised her weapon again, but before she could lower it something rammed her from the side knocking her off balance, Almorra had entered the fray. As raven righted herself a shield of ice materialized on her right arm. “Alright then. We can play this game too.”

Frelliah stood there, frozen as the ice slowly crept up her spine, and watched rytlock free braham from his own icy prison so the three of them could fight her off. Her breathing became more erratic as she saw her friends doing battle. It was too much. To similar.

She looked down at her hands, they were so small, she was small. The sounds of violence and death filled her ears. The ice was everywhere. Her weapons, where were her weapons! She needed to help. How could she save her father without her weapons! She couldn’t breathe, the ice was up to her neck. The sounds drowned out everything, even her frantic thoughts. ‘I can’t save them,’ she thought as the ice reached her lips. ‘I..’

“Frelliah!” the word tore through her own personal nightmare as a dragon’s roar filled the freezing air around her, shattering the panic that had gripped her. Something warm ran through her veins fighting the ice dragon’s corruption. Something calming, something familiar. Crystal flowers broke her icy prison, before shimmering out of existence.

“My Champion.” Aurene nuzzled her chest while the others looked on in worry. “Please, do not succumb to any other dragon’s corruption. I would be loath to share you.”

Frelliah tried, and failed, to speak through the numbness that fizzled through her brain. She took a deep breath, and slowly, shakily, tried again. “What… where is she?”

Aurene shifted moving to the side just enough to reveal a giant crystal brand shimmering with iridescent blue and purple. Raven was trapped inside, a monsterous tail had sprouted from the small of her back at some point during the scuffle. It was still now, stuck in the middle of what appeared to be a sweeping blow. Frelliah shuffled towards the crystal prison. Stumbling over a loose bit of crystal she fell against its smooth surface. She knew the others needed her to be strong, but she couldn’t. . Looking up at her last existing blood relative, The Commander broke. Sobbing into the ground with everyone there to watch.

After a while a voice broke the silence, “she’s not dead, my champion. But.. she cannot live as you while jormag’s influence lives within her.” The small dragon nudged her champion’s limp and trembling form. “I had to save you. I didn't know what else to do..” a hand rested on aurene’s flank, and she looked back to see Braham. “C’mon aurene, she needs some time to herself.” Everyone around them had retreated to their “camp” and started to try to put it back together. “Sometimes. You just need to let a person cry.” They turned and walked away, leaving the commander to mourn her adopted sister in silence

[somerandomwriter1234]

Riley and Maya: Complicated Parenthood - Chapter 3 (Amazing Talents)

Scene 1:

-One morning in the before/after care auditorium, Maya was hanging up a framed picture on the wall. The picture contained a large detailed flower with an abstract rainbow design behind it. From nearby, Grace walked over to Maya and spoke to him.

Grace: Hey. That's the picture I drew last Monday afternoon.

Maya: Hmm? Oh yeah. Since you left it on the table that day and Mr. Farkle asked me to redecorate the place this week, I decided to hang up one of your works. You don't mind, right?

Grace: No. But I left it on the table because I didn't want to keep it. It's not one of my best works. I mean… I never thought it be good enough to frame.

Maya: You sure? Your attention to detail and color strokes here rivals the kind of stuff I studied in college. You've got some amazing talents here Grace.

Grace: Really?

-From nearby, Smackle walked over to the two while holding a camera out. Maya and Grace then turned their heads to look at Smackle.

Smackle: Oh shoot. Don't look at me. I was trying to get a candid shot. Ugg. This is why I struggled in high school photography class… and Pokémon Snap.

Maya: Smackle, what are you doing?

Smackle: Taking some new photos of a typical day here so we can put them on the bulletin board, the brochures, and other stuff. Hey. Can you two go back to acting like I'm not here so I can get a good candid shot?

Grace: Uh…

Smackle: No. I guess we can't pull that off now, can we? Okay. Act like you two are about to track down a South African Penguin that's attempting to encourage Sailor Moon into digivolving her Blue Eyes White Dragon into a Super Saiyan.

Maya: What?

Smackle: Okay, just stand next to each other and smile.

Maya: But I…

Smackle: Just smile Maya. And put your arm around Grace like you know you love her. Now do it quick. I have to get back to instructing those students over there on how to train your dragon when it's actually a Transformer that's been previously mind controlled by Cobra in their attempt to steal the secrets of Jem and the Holograms.

Maya: You know what, okay.

Grace: Sounds fine.

-Maya and Grace then stood near each other as Maya put an arm around Grace and put his hand on her shoulder. Smackle then quickly snapped a picture on a camera.

Smackle: Okay. Thanks. I'll make sure you both get a copy of it. Now if you'll excuse me… Wait up my young friends! If you remain where you're seated, I shall also divulge to you all how the four Star Franchises: Trek, Wars, Gate, and Search all exist in the same universe!

-Maya and Grace simply stood with confused looks on their faces.

Grace: Miss Maya, is Miss Smackle having a quarter life crisis?

Maya: I don't know what's happened to her Grace.

Scene 2:

-In the afternoon right outside of a school building, Grace was standing near a curb with many other children while she was holding a clip board with one of her hands, while using her other hand to sketch a detailed layout of a forest.

Grace: And just a little more shading there… Yeah. This work is gonna be one of my most special works yet.

-Suddenly Grace noticed a bus stopping near her. Once the bus doors opened, Grace stepped onto the bus and immediately sat down in a seat. However immediately after: a taller girl named Rachel walked over to Grace and looked down at her.

Rachel: Hey. I wanted to sit there. Get out of my seat.

Grace: Anybody is allowed to sit here.

Rachel: No. Just me. That seat isn't made for a nobody like you!

-Suddenly Grace had a look of shock on her face as she tried to speak.

Grace: But… but I…

-Suddenly the two's thoughts were interrupted by the male bus driver at the front of the bus calling out the two.

Bus Driver: Rachel, just sit in the seat near her. You're holding up the line!

-Rachel with a mad face, sat in the seat closest to Grace. Rachel then looked at Grace with a look of hate and continued to speak with her.

Rachel: Why do you have be so weird? You wear old clothes, have a stupid voice, and no one ever talks to you.

-Rachel continued to speak as Grace tried to sit still and maintain a calm face. However: several small tears began to come out of Grace's eyes.

Scene 3:

-Maya walked into the before/after care auditorium and immediately saw Farkle walking over to her.

Maya: Hey. Again, sorry I'm late. That early car repair shop doesn't open as early as I thought it did.

Farkle: It's okay. Listen. I need you to go over and talk to Grace right now.

Maya: Why? What's wrong?

Farkle: She's been crying off and on all morning. And it was the same all of yesterday afternoon too. All of the other staff and I have tried talking to her but she won't say anything. You're the only one of us she actually talks with. Think you can help her out?

Maya: Well… okay.

-Maya then walked over to the table where Grace was sitting alone with her face buried into her arms that laid on the table. Maya then sat in front of Grace and spoke.

Maya: Hey Grace. What's going on?

-Grace then lifted her head up to look at Maya with tears in her eyes.

Grace: Miss Maya. Where were you yesterday?

Maya: I had to go to a dentist appointment yesterday afternoon and I'm late this morning because of some car repairs I had to get done. But… what's going on with you?

Grace: I… I was… Yesterday while I was on the bus heading to after care… some girl who gets off at another stop started saying all of these mean words about me. She made fun of my clothes, said I had a stupid voice, and said that no one ever talks to me.

Maya: Grace, I…

-More tears came from Grace's eyes as she continued to speak.

Grace: And then she said I wasn't good at anything and there was nothing special about me. I tried telling her what we learned on the field trip. About how everyone is made with a purpose and that makes them special. But then that mean girl said to me… if I'm so special… then how come I don't have any parents?

-Grace buried her head into her arms again as she began to make sobbing noises. Maya then reached her two hands forward towards Grace and began to talk to her.

Maya: Grace, I… I am so sorry to hear that you had to listen to someone talk like that to you. But you know they're not right. You are special Grace.

-Grace then lifted her head up to look at Maya again.

Grace: But why don't I have any parents then?

-Maya looked down for a moment, sighed briefly, and then looked right at Grace in the eyes and spoke.

Maya: I don't have an answer to that Grace. I don't why know you or anyone has to lose important people from their lives. But I do know that you: Grace Givens are a very talented young lady with a lot of beauty both inside and out. And I do know it's hard for you to share your talents and open up with the world because you're worried about how… you might just get hurt again. But you don't need to let the pain of this world and the worries that come from living in it keep you from doing great things in it. Pain is pain. It's going to hurt you and bring you down. But you can't let it stop you forever from doing amazing things with your life. Because you need to continue to share your amazing talents in a meaningful way with the world. Because sharing your amazing talents in a meaningful way with others… that's what really cements how special you really are.

Grace: You… you really mean that Miss Maya?

Maya: Yeah… I really do.

Grace: Um… So… um… Hey, do you know where that new box of colored pencils are?

Maya: Uh, yeah. In the supply closet. I'll get them out for you if you want.

Grace: Good. So… do you know what Sydney's favorite animal is?

Maya: Well she usually always has a cat book she carries around, so I'd have to say probably cats.

Grace: Okay. So… do you think she'd like it if I drew a picture of a cat and gave it to her for her birthday next Friday?

Maya: You know what… that sounds like a great use of your beautiful talents Grace. Now… if you excuse me, I'm gonna get those colored pencils now.

Scene 4:

-Grace stood in her bedroom near her bed as she was going through several things in her backpack. From nearby, the young boy: Sammy entered the room and walked over to Grace.

Sammy: Hi Grace. Whatcha doing?

Grace: Just organizing my stuff and… Hey. Isn't it your bedtime? What are you doing in here?

Sammy: Just seeing what you're doing.

Grace: Well go back to your room now.

Sammy: Okay.

-Sammy began to walk away but then Grace suddenly called out to him.

Grace: Wait.

-Sammy turned around to look at Grace again.

Grace: Hey Sammy. You… like jungle animals, right?

Sammy: Yeah.

Grace: Well… I have a bunch of pictures of jungle animals I drew here I don't really need. Do you want them?

Sammy: Really? Sure!

-Grace then handed Sammy several drawings. Sammy looked at them and smiled. Then he looked back up at Grace.

Sammy: Thanks. I'll hang them up in my room. But are you sure you wanna give me all of these? Now you have no pictures to hang up.

Grace: Don't worry. I still have a picture of my own I'm about to hang up.

Sammy: Okay. Thanks for everything.

-Sammy then walked out of the room while Grace went back to her backpack. Then Grace pulled out her backpack a photograph that showed herself and Maya standing together smiling. Grace then got out a thumbtack and immediately tacked the picture to the wall right near her bed. Grace then put a hand on the wall right near the picture and made a small smile.

Grace: Thanks for everything.

END OF CHAPTER 3

Upcoming Chapters For the Series:

-Chapter 4: The Field Trip (Coming 4/30)

-Chapter 5: Shining Your Way (Coming 5/3)

-Chapter 6: The Bigger Picture (Coming 5/5)

*Note - To read the entire series in one convenient location, click here - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13266909/

[determined-magi]

Happy Holidays, dorks.

   Is that a sudden bag of items that appears nearby as if it was always there? Indeed it is. It’s tied with a rather easy knot to undo, yet there’s a note on it. It just says “Thank you” in glittery red gel ink.

   Inside the bag, there’s a variety of gifts for the mages.

   For Bellegur, there’s a set of four silver bangles with moonstones adorning the middle of the silver bands, along with a handmade green dragon plush that is actually fairly realistic to a drake more than a dragon even if it’s huggable and soft. It’s adorable, Belle, you know it is.

   For Braigon, there’s a dark purple blanket and a seemingly handmade shirt with his name sewn into the cuffs of the sleeves. There’s also a star locket that matches the amulet he got some time back. Who could have coordinated that, hm?

   For Thanneth, there’s a silver necklace of a raven distinctly painted white and has details of black on it. As if there were an inside joke somewhere for the mage to get… or maybe it’s not a joke meant for her. On top of that, there’s a handmade charm of a weighing scale that seems able to clip onto things with a small hook. Then of course there’s a detailed papier-mâché of a specific flower that was shown to him a while back by a certain Judge.

   For Agarwaenor, there’s a silver chain bracelet with a couple of charms on it- namely three: two swords tucked behind a shield, a silver heart, and a dragon’s head with the eyes bearing howlite; it feels notably as comfortably chilled as the dragon pendant. There’s a handmade red dragon plush that actually looks like a proper dragon save for how soft and fluffy it is with it. It’s cute and lovely, Agar, be nice.

   For Gilrin, there’s a small glass casing with a hook for her to hang up somewhere if she feels so inclined to placing it somewhere, a bundle of colorful flowers resting inside that have ice clinging to their edges- they look as if they’re being preserved comfortably in the soil and artificial grass. Her name is inscribed on the top of the casing. On top of that, there’s a small slip of paper with something of… a key? to the language of the book she had gotten some time ago, to help her translate. Of course, it’s only enough to translate the first few pages fully and then using context clues for the rest of the book, but it’s better than nothing, no?

   For Thannor, there’s a handmade reddish orange shirt with his initials sewn into the cuffs just like Braigon’s gift. However, this time there’s a new set of gloves, this time properly tailored to accommodate for his afflictions… as if the original gifter knew something was wrong with the last pair? Not to mention that there’s a coat that looks like it’d be too heavy, but once put on doesn’t feel much heavier than a spring jacket, but it keeps out the cold and balances the heat, decorated in his colors.

   For Rhowën, there’s… actually an odd set of gifts that don’t seem to correlate to the others’ gifts. There’s a rather simply silver necklace with just a citrine, cut into the shape of an eight pointed star, sitting pretty in the middle, along with a charm of a bow and arrow with the arrow painted yellow. On top of that, there’s a rather simply made blanket that has his initials on it, as well as just his name. On the other side of it, on the hem of the blanket, there’s a simple message of “I believe in you, always.”

   All of the mages get one thing in common, though. It's a small set of papers bound in leather that details how they look from the front and from the side, all of them being bust drawings. And of course, there’s small less detailed and less properly shaded doodles of various expressions they’ve all made before (some of them are adorably mocking) as well as a sketch of the inside of buildings a certain someone has visited that each of them would recognize in each of their specified books. I.e. Thannor would recognize his shop, and Gil recognizing a library a certain someone falls asleep in. In the back of each of the books is a written message saying “Don’t waste time on people in glass houses throwing stones. Stay strong. Thank you.“ 

   For what is the gifter thanking them for? Well, that’s completely up to interpretation.

The prince is needless to say a little dazed, watching  the gifts with ampt curiosity as he takes those respectrively. Bright green eyes a light sense of concern by the details and motif given, but otherwise they seem pleased. Much alike his magic, which for some reason is currently wanting to cuddle with it, on his room under fifty more plushes like it. His magic is being weird and speciffic again he guesses?

He casts a small circle spell and pushes the bangles inside, leaving the plush toy out, puffing a small whisp of smoke through his nostrils, in response to two female mages teasing him. Meanwhile the old man is chuckling as he puts on the star shaped locket without delay, while the shirt is guarderd in the same way the bangles were. He would wear it, but now it was better to stay on armor, given the little thing that happened to their little Judge. Once allwas done though, he would surely wear it, the fabric felt nice, something he knew his scarred body would appreciate once put.

Thanneth is squinting at Rhowën, asking if it was his, but he responded as quickly saying some of the craftmanship was beyond him, winking and pushing her lightly as she huffed. It was… nice, she liked it, even if it felt suspicious and concerning how much spot on it was. The golden mage was quick to laugh over it, before flinching and shriking on his seat as páin is soon to visit. Concern flashing in the young prince as he offered another moment with Gilrin to ease the damange done on his body, which he promptly declines for the moment. It felt far too spot on, the young blonde lady ask him if he knows the one who did it. He hums, saying he still haven’t confirmed his suspicions, but likely the one who heard cared enough to try and get those. He moves in carefully to grasp at it carefully, then moves on to lock it in a few threads of her hair, a small childish smile on him reminiscent of an old memory. There it was. He can almost see that girl that allways had a flower on her head… god, such goods times. Either way, Thanneth moves in to hug Rho, catching on to some of his ruses, saying she’s got a hunch he was involved in a way. The young judge just chuckles and says he just spilled some beans someone caught up to… that hardly counts. Thanneth justs thanks anyway, and ask to send in regards to the one who gave them, for once. She also insults him for being far too reckless again.

Agar meanwhile, is guarding his gifts all save the plush too, it feels kind of nice. Even if he often focus more or less on negative things, it feels kind of nice to get a plush, all others had wasted away by time, with the exception of a few, one which he often allways had in his inventory, it reminds him of family. It reminds him of pleasant fresh nights, not far from a fire to feel cold, but not close to feel warmth, just the right distance… he likes that, he misses doing that more often. perhaps he will to get all topgether to go back to that? once whatver’s coming is done. For now he’s going to comform himself with this longing sensation it brings. And have a new inanimate companion to sleep with. Head turns towards Gil, who is curiously watching upon her own gift, humming towards the letter as a hand rests comfortably against the pleasantly colder surface of the case.

He can imagine she’s going to pass a night again late, doing her own things as she loves to do. That is… nice, she doesn’t seem like she is currently as stressed as she had been for the past weeks. Shame they might go back to it on a few days, once trheir friend is back and up again.

Thannor meanwhile is curiously trying on the new gloves and coat, partly curious and partly confused at the new pair, considering the one he’s wearing right now are pretty fine? Not very worn down? Hm… they feel more pleasant too, like if someone had put that ointment Gil sometimes puts on his hands, curious, since he’s one to never show those scars in public really, not even around Fleur yet.

Rhowën’s the last to see his gift, needless to say he is touched. Cursing faintly under his breath being such a corny individual, a half chocked laugh from stiffled sobs of happiness and and another part of him stinging with the stil healing woulds. A hand moving itself in dismissal of the worries of others saying he’s just being a corny little boy as allways, and also his usual crybaby self much like some others were. Either way he finds himself soon getting pulled into a group hug, and soon enough burying himself on it, magic calm and at ease for one in quite the while.

After some hours of talking they all fall asleep, on a rather absurdly long and big couch, with the old general at the middle, with a group of three at each side leaning and resting much alike children. Much alike all those years ago on their first decade of studies, much alike some of them did with their own blood. A look of eased minds even if for a few hours, before even their dreams became troubled lands…

It then when their tittles fade away, highly held compostures seem to wash away. Leaving nothing but six young mages, with no pretenses as they each lean over each other like safelines. People that, though not bound by blood, were bonded just as strongly as familes could be.

And something that was allways open greet new people, if they were determined enough.

[scurvgirl]

A Monster Came to the Forest

Woo! Got this done before I leave for vacation!

Fairy Tale AU

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Masterpost

Updated Map

Vena, Dirthamen, Andruil, Falon’din (mention), and others belong to @feynites

Ana belongs to @lycheemilkart

Selene and Des belong to @selenelavellan

Vena’s gotten used to this whole forest living thing. It’s not as bad as he thought it would be. It’s actually pretty amazing. There are zero expectations of him outside of don’t be an asshole. And he can manage that just fine. There is no long code or pressure to be fashionable or anything. It’s just him and Ana and the woods and all the living creatures around them.

Ana shows him the forest, teaching him about the animals and plants. She brings him a long tunic and breeches that he can wear instead of the heavy, ineffectual armor he had been ceremoniously stabbed in. At night, when it’s colder, Ana draws up a small circle and casts a spell. It produces a bubble of warmth that feels very much like a blanket. It allows him to sleep though he does miss actual blankets.

After two weeks of living in the tree with Ana, he starts wondering how hard it would be to build a structure for him to live in. He brings it up to Ana who is reluctant at first because elves just “kill trees for themselves” but they eventually come to a compromise. He only uses dead trees and branches, and while that means it takes longer to finish it, it turns out well. The hut is small but it is big enough for a bed that he also builds from dead branches, and the feathers of dead birds. That had been much less fun to deal with. There are also pelts of animals, which Ana lets him hunt. He needs to eat, after all.

The hut is set up in the shadow of Ana’s willow tree. Vena finds he quite likes waking up to see his favorite tree lady hanging out on a branch. Sometimes he wakes up to find a long branch in the window he put in, with an Ana covered in flowers and vines watching him sleep.

“Vena,” she says in a low whisper. Vena blinks his eyes open slowly then rolls to his side.

“‘S too early,” he moans, tucking his face into his pillow.

“There are people,” she says. That wakes him up. Vena sits up in bed and blinks the sleep from his eyes.

“People?”

“They are dressed like you were but different too,” she sounds more excited than he thinks is a good idea. People dressed like him? Has Sylaise found him? Exactly how would she be able to do that? He hasn’t done anything to indicate to any other people like him that he’s even alive.

“Show me,” he says, rolling out of bed. He pulls on his clothes and follows Ana out of the hut. Together they head east toward the river. They do not need to travel far until Vena starts noticing key signs of travel. Ana guides him up into a tree and they look down at the camp from there.

Well, it’s not Sylaise.

It’s her sister, Andruil. He cannot tell if he is relieved or even more worried.

Both? Probably both.

He takes Ana’s hand and they head back to the hut.

“Do not seek them out, promise me you will not seek them out,” he says, his voice low and serious.

“Why?”

“They are dangerous. While I am a friendly outlier of my people, the rest are not so much - and those people in particular are not.”

She blinks her great big green eyes at him but she nods, “I will stay away from the Andruil and people.”

He exhales in a surprising amount of relief, “Good, good.”

**

Serahlin is stuck.

She cannot go home, but she feels no desire to remain in the woods with a dragon so close by. Even if that dragon is Adannar. Even if she cares - cared for Adannar.

Her heart aches in betrayal. He lied to her, made her believe she was safe in this forest all the while he is the greatest monster of all. An actual dragon. Just like the beasts who had burned down large swaths of her country and terrorized her people. He is a beast who would burn her country and people if given half the chance.

Maybe that’s why he was so...the way he was with her. It was to get her comfortable so she would reveal secrets about her people so he could be better at hurting them.

That particular thought is horrifically distressing. Serahlin falls to the floor in the cottage, just like she had all those months ago. She is a different person, she feels, but the same things keep happening. Betrayal, love that isn’t love. The tears fall down her face against her will, her shoulders shaking as the emotion slams through her.

Mamae did not love her. Not the way parents should love their children anyways, and not like she loves Elvara. Dirthamen did not love her, and she held no qualms over that except she knew he loved another. She told herself it didn’t bother her, that their impending marriage was political and that love was not expected. He was free to love others. Another. But it still hurt, against everything she told herself, it hurt. He did not even try to talk to her about it, he hid it, making it all the worse.

Somehow, with all that she has been through, this hurts the worst of all. Adannar has been there, comforting her, she told him her thoughts and feelings. She laid herself bare and he gave her lies and deception.

She is sick to death of being used. Like all she is good for is being a stepping stone to power. She’s...she’s a person but damn it all if she isn’t treated as such.

Her sobs last a long time. Exhaustion, heartbreak, and betrayal mingle into a potent cocktail that rends her useless for the rest of the day. When her body finally demands food and water, she nibbles on some of the stores Adannar helped her gather. She tries not to dwell on how she got the food and instead on defeating the pangs in her stomach.

She can’t go home, but she doesn’t want to stay here either. She could...try going somewhere else? There is the rumored Outcast Island, but it is full of miscreants and pirates and there is rumor of a monster more terrifying than any dragon on the mainland. She could try adopting a new identity, cut off all her beautiful hair, maybe dye it...blonde? She doesn’t think she would look good as a blonde though. It’s also very likely she would just be caught and then executed.

Serahlin lies awake in bed, contemplating all the various ways she could leave this cottage. Nothing seems like it will work.

She is truly stuck.

The next day, Adannar does not come. She half expects him to show up and abduct her properly, but days pass and he does not. She does not hear so much as a rumble from the forest.

She tries to not feel anything like disappointment.

She gardens, makes her food, occasionally hunts and manages to snag a hare. She stitches holes in her clothes and tries not to pay too much attention to how lonely she is. Despite him being a lying monster, she...misses Adannar.

No, she misses what she thought he was - kind, nurturing, happy, supportive, and just good. But he can’t be any of those things, not truly. He is a dragon. The same as the beasts who have terrorized her people.

He is the same, even if it is difficult for her to imagine him flying over the fields, burning them and the people in them to ash. He. Is. The. Same. He knew how she felt and he kept the truth from her.

But...there is a part of her that wonders if the reason he did not tell her the truth was because he was afraid of her reaction. He knew she feared dragons, hated them even. Is it possible that he really did grow close to her? That he felt the way she wanted him to feel, like she thought he felt, and that the only reason he lied was because he was afraid?

The thought stays with her for the next several days. By the end of the week, she begrudgingly admits that it is possible. In all the time she saw him, he was never aggressive or angry. He was happy and full of joy, he showed her beautiful things and made her feel like a better version of herself. He brought out her happiness and joy. Even if he was lying, he did all those good things. When he kissed her, she felt the world in bloom. Her body swelled with joy and love, she opened up to him and let herself feel everything.

If, and it is a very big if, if Adannar was lying to her out of fear of her reaction...then she just proved him right. His lie then becomes understandable, wrong, but...understandable.

What complicates things further is that when given the opportunity to take her prisoner, Adannar let her go. He let her go and he has demanded nothing since.

These thoughts keep her up at night. They infiltrate her mind and heart. They make her ache for him, for what they had. They make her ask -

Was she wrong to run?

Is she wrong about dragons?

She doesn't know. What she does know is that she misses Adannar. She misses him all day and all night. She misses him while she gardens and when she goes out into the forest to forage.

The heat and humidity of the summer makes her stand and take frequent breaks in her foraging. It similarly keeps her close to the small stream where she does most of her fishing. Serahlin is on the bank of the stream when she hears hoofbeats. They are not the hoofbeats of deer or even Adannar’s mechanical creatures. No, Serahlin recognizes these hoofbeats as the regular sounds of a procession of horses. Shadows move on the other side of the stream and a rush of fear surges through her.

Serahlin ducks into the brush, hiding in the shadows like she has learned from Adannar. Her curiosity gets the better of her and she tries her best to follow the procession while remaining hidden. She knows the wood better than these people, at least this area of the wood.

She sneaks around a bend and maneuvers herself next to a tree that she happens to know is possessed by a spirit of Silence. She rubs its bark and it shrouds her in shadow, allowing her to watch while hidden.

The group comes into view, bedecked in armor and various armaments. Large armaments, the kind of weapons that are designed to take down exceptionally large prey. The breath leaves Serahlin’s body as one of the riders, the main rider, comes into view. Andruil, Princess and greatest hunter of Elvhenan, second to none. She is only shadowed by the brutality of her brother, Falon’din, and even then...it is not by much. While Falon’din has specialized in dragon hunting, Andruil has prided herself on being able to hunt anything and everything - and she has succeeded, time and time again. She has brought down her fair share of dragons, and she is spectacular at it.

A nasty fear claws its way through Serahlin. Andruil is hunting Adannar. All at once Serahlin has a violent rejection of the idea that Adannar deserves to be hunted. Despite being a dragon, despite being the monster she has been told is evil her entire life, at the heart of it, Adannar has done nothing to deserve being hunted. No dragons who have terrorized her people fit his description and he has been consistently good to her.

Serahlin’s mind is made up in a matter of seconds and it sends regret and fear in equal measures through her. She has to warn him, she has to get to him before Andruil and her cronies.

She slips back through the woods and to the cottage. She hops onto Velini and urges him at a quick pace back towards Adannar’s cave. She will warn him and ask for his forgiveness. Maybe, just maybe, she isn’t so stuck.

**

Adannar feels listless. He cannot sleep, but he cannot do the things he once enjoyed. A thick melancholy fills him and his home. He cries through his heartbreak and halfway enters the dreaming, wrapping himself in memories of their time together.

In the memories, he feels her love, or at least he does not feel her ire. He dreams of her lips against his and her smile when he saw her first thing in the morning.

It is dangerous for a dragon to become so enamored with memories and the Dreaming. He knows he can fall into a slumber of which he will never wake. That knowledge is the only thing that makes him wake periodically to eat and tend to the home. His creatures whine at him, they all need maintenance. He needs to do that, needs to oil their hinges, work in more magic so that they do not become...so that they do not die.

If he can just find the energy.

Adannar manages to find some energy to tune Huirin up on the fifth day. He is oiling Huirin’s upper neck hinge when the structure of his home shakes from what he guesses is a crash against the atrium ceiling. Wards break and sound off in cacophonous alarm. Huirin whines in nervousness and Adannar snaps to attention. It has been a long time, a long time, since he has had to defend his home from invaders, but he will take up the front if he must. He doesn’t know how good he is at it anymore, and he was never very good at it to begin with - but he will fight. He may be heartbroken but he has no interest in dying.

Adannar pulls the magical energies of the home to him, shrouding and shielding himself in an armor-like barrier. He deepens his breathing, directing the heat into his belly as he climbs up and takes a long drink of water from a water flow he keeps for this precise reason.

The atrium’s ceiling is broken when he arrives and he casts a light spell to illuminate the dark space.

“Show yourself! I have done no harm and if you would -

“Adannar!” A familiar shouts just before a large, long body barrels into him.

“OOF!” He shouts, his barrier protecting him from any damage, but the size of the dragon still makes him fall over into a tangle of limbs.

“Des! What are you doing here?! You’re supposed to be far, far away!” He admonishes without any real bite behind it. Des coils his body around Adannar, all warm and snuggly. Dragons need physical reassurance, it creates bonds, maintains relationships - even if those relationships are simply platonic. Touch starvation is a severe concern for many of them now that they are so scattered, hiding in isolation trying to survive and not draw too much attention to them.

Des shoves his head up by Adannar’s and sighs as they come to a halt, “I have never been good at staying away, you know that.”

“I’m serious! You’re on the same continent as Selene!” Adannar whines all the while folding his wings around Des’s body. The barrier disappears and Des sighs.

“I know, and believe it or not I would not have come if Selene wasn’t in trouble.”

Adannar goes stock still.

“What?”

“I cannot be certain what is wrong but something is wrong. She is...there is something. I couldn’t just sit in the Obelisk and wait for wrong to turn into something even worse!” Des bemoans. He does not relax his body even as Adannar can tell the contact is helping ease something in him. No, he will not be relaxed or calm until he knows his other half is safe. But he cannot go see for himself, cannot go and help Selene himself because if he does, he will only make them a shiny target for the knights.

Adannar exhales a warm plume of humid air down Des’s back. It’s not Selene’s purple fire, but it is heat and it helps ease Des a little bit.

“I will go see her,” Adannar says softly. Des lifts his head, big gold eyes blinking in surprised relief.

“Thank you.”

“In order for me to do that, I will need you to move…”

“Oh, yes.” Des uncoils himself from around Adannar’s body, returning his normal stature. He is longer than Adannar, and his horns are taller, but Adannar is bulkier and broader. Adannar is not the largest dragon, but he is big enough that he has on occasion moved other dragons.

“What does it feel like? Is she hurt or is it something else?” They used to all be together, not together but friends. Selene helped Adannar with his calculations when he first began making his creations, before that he was simply a smith, a crafter. In turn, he was there as she became a stronger healer. It was an exciting time, and Des made everything fun - sometimes too fun, but now Adannar misses it. He misses his friends.

Des’s body shivers as he taps into the connection to Selene so much that Adannar swears he can almost feel it in the air.

“If she is hurt, it is not like she has been before,” he says and Adannar nods. It’s not much, but he can make it work. He goes back into his lair with Des on his heels, gathering some basic healing supplies. A focusing hunk of crystal, a sack of elfroot, and a pain reliever potion. Not that Selene doesn’t already have all of these things at the Glass Tower, but Adannar likes to be prepared.

“Hold the lair while I am gone and if…” he pauses, trying to figure out how to tell Des to keep the hope that Serahlin will return. The time is too short to give him the details, but he seems to sniff out the potential gossip nevertheless.

“If…?” Des says, voice full of lascivious curiosity.

Adannar sighs, “If a woman by the name of Serahlin comes by...just...she is my guest, treat her as such.”

“Oh there is a story here, I can feel it.”

“I can tell you the story or save Selene.”

“You are no fun!” Des protests without any real seriousness, “I expect the story when you get back!” He calls as Adannar turns, flying down the passage into the atrium. He flies through the hole Des created before reactivating the wards. He will have to repair the glass later - his friend needs him more.

Adannar takes to the sky and tries to let the air rushing by him clear his head. He tries to let it purify the magic in his body and soul. He will need to be unanchored to heal Selene, particularly if the hurt is unlike anything Des has ever felt. He knows physical hurt, he knows anguish and grief and heartbreak. He knows the throes of depression and languid sorrow, a longing so deep it rends her immoveable.

What kind of hurt does Des not know of his other half? What soul wounding thing must it be? Adannar fears she has weakened the bond in some fashion and that perhaps she is fading from this world and into the Dreaming, not unlike how he has been tempted.

Adannar rises high into the sky, into the clouds that cling to his scales and magic in a familiar embrace of water based magic. His wings beat hard and the clouds form around him like a fog. There were stories once of how dragons could influence the weather, bring rains or take them away at a whim. He was never a fan of those stories, even if they rang a little true. They are not gods, but they are part of nature and the magic that is latent in this world clings to them - it reacts to their being. The most Adannar has ever succeeded in changing is bringing a fog with his arrival, and as far as he is aware, Selene and Des have never changed the weather.

It takes several hours before he spies the great Glass Tower, rising from the canopy of trees. It is a glittering beacon, once beckoning in dragons and spirits alike. Now it is full of sad memories and a stubborn dragon who insists on keeping those memories. He loves Selene, he does, but he wishes she would be kinder to herself - for all of her devotion, he feels like she lacks a certain devotion to herself. When Des had to leave for their safety, Adannar had promised to watch over her as best he could. He admits, he has neglected that somewhat recently. His own melancholy has been so strong, and then there was Serahlin. Oh Serahlin.

He should not have ignored his dear friend.

Adannar lands against the side of the Tower, long talons securing himself against the familiar enchanted stones. He maneuvers himself down the side until he comes to a window. He waves his tail and the wards snap into recognition. The purple barrier turns a welcoming white and he enters the Tower, folding his wings tightly against his body. This place was never built for a dragon of his size, and normally he would shift into a smaller form, but he has lost weight, making it so that he fits - though just barely.

The Tower is alight with magic, more than usual. It is as if it is reacting to something being returned to it, which is strange. The Tower has lost much, the majority of its spirits and researchers, even magical artifacts are no longer present. But these things that have been lost are not easily restored - returning a shard of a spirit that had grown here would not restore the Tower like this. Magical artifacts similarly would not have this effect. Yet the magic is strong, not quite lively, but present in a way that he has not seen in quite some time.

This is not the home of a dragon who has succumbed to the Dreaming.

His nose flares and he tries to sniff her out. She is on a lower level, in the healing quarters. While he fit onto the level, he must shift to descend the spiral staircase - his draconic form is simply not flexible enough. It is a quick shift into his elven form before he hastens down the stairs and into the healing quarters. He thrusts the doors open to find a very much alive and awake Selene crouched over...something. A low rumbling growl emanates from her and he tilts his head in response.

“Selene? What is going on? Why are you growling at me? What are you guarding?” He asks. Her green eyes blink and her form relaxes from its guarding pose.

“Adannar! Thank goodness you’re here, you can help!” She beckons him closer. Confused but curious, Adannar acquiesces to her request, approaching what she is so vehemently guarding. She moves off her object of protection and Adannar sucks in a breath.

An elven man, he thinks, but warped - a possession gone wrong. Elongated legs with talons on the feet and on the hand, feathers encroaching upon his face, two pairs of eyes rather than the one.

“I have done everything I can think of, but he’s not getting better. Adannar, I...I don’t know what to do,” Selene says, her sorrow thick in her voice.

It is then Adannar realizes what Des was feeling - Selene’s fear of losing this man that she has bonded herself to somehow. Not somehow, not really, she is such an affectionate person who is prone to getting attached. Not that he blames her, he shares this trait with her.

He nods and sets his things down before holding his hands over the man, “What is his name?”

Selene’s wings flutter in nervousness before she speaks, “Dirthamen.”

“Dirthamen wasn’t a bad man, simply...uninterested in me,” Serahlin says, head tucked against Adannar’s chest.

“I find that difficult to believe,” he tells her, hand running through her hair.

“The heart wants what it wants, and it is cold to anything else,” she murmurs. His heart aches for her and vows to himself to make her feel wanted and loved for as long she will allow him.

The memory flashes in Adannar’s head. He gazes down at the man’s face and frowns. Well, he supposes he has found the lost prince, the cause for Serahlin having to run away. He does not know whether he should be angry with him or grateful. Perhaps both? Perhaps neither, sometimes fate is simply tricky like that.

“Dirthamen,” Adannar says, summoning the magic in the air to use him as a conduit as he begins to magically assess the damage. Selene has done everything she can for the physical, but Adannar suspects that this is something much different. As talented healer as she is, he has become quite the soul smith.

He uses the focusing crystal to hone his magic into a space that is partway between the Dreaming and the Waking that is unique to Dirthamen. Adannar calls it the soul space, where the spirit resides and where possessions go wrong. It takes exceptional effort to enter the soul space, the focus and precision spellwork is taxing and each soul space is different. It is like constructing a key by pouring molten metal into the lock then trying to unlock the door before the key is formed.

Once he manipulates his magic just so, there is a whoosh of magic and he is in the soul space. Darkness surrounds him for a moment before brilliant lights burst, doting the space around him like a night sky full of stars. He stands on a pillar and before him stretches an infinite expanse of darkness dotted with stars that pushes and pulls with a central light overhead - a moon framed by soft purple flames, a manifestation of the bond between him and Selene.

He turns slowly on his pillar, careful to not disturb anything. A disturbance could be disastrous in Dirthamen’s current state. In the distance he sees a swirling mass turning in on itself. He reaches up and imagines himself closer to the mass. All around him turns so that he is before the giant mass.

The mass that is really three souls all trying to escape and attach to each other at the same time. Adannar reaches up and lets himself get a read of all the souls present. He latches onto one in shocked recognition.

Longing? He whispers. The soul stirs in confused recognition, it buzzes and moves, dragging the other two with it. It whines in pain, the pieces from the other two, born from Longing, but different, no longer fitting correctly.

Adannar retracts his hand and himself from the soul seeing.

“Selene,” he says, keeping his voice measured. The news he has for her is...good, he thinks, ultimately good, but distressing nonetheless.

“What is it? What’s wrong? What can I do?”

“There are three souls that are being housed incorrectly inside Dirthamen. One of them is Dirthamen, but the other two are incorrectly trying to merge with Dirthamen. I suspect they were created from Dirthamen and have since tried to incorrectly merge with him once more. It is creating a magical imbalance and a parasitic bond, which is why his physical state is so...altered.” First, he thinks, he should fix the issues, then tell her. Yes, that will work.

“Oh, oh no...how...how do we get them out?”

Adannar contemplates for a long moment, going over everything he has at his disposal in his head. The spirits need bodies, but they are too new and weak to take on bodies by themselves. They cannot exist without bodies at this point, too tied to Dirthamen. They need bodies, which Adannar can make, but they don’t have that kind of time. If only he had a couple of bodies...wait.

“Do you remember the sentinels I gave you all those years ago?” He asks. She blinks then nods.

“The ravens? Yes, though they stopped working after awhile. I’m sorry, I should have brought them to you to be repaired.”

He waves her off, “It worked out well. The two spirits are too weak to take their own bodies or to be totally separate. I need to untangle them from Dirthamen, but I need to create an anchor for each of them...like moons to his planet. To do that, I need bodies - bring them to me, please?” He doesn’t even finish his sentence before Selene is flying out of the room and to where she has the sentinels stored.

While she is busy gathering what will become the bodies for the spirits, Adannar returns to the soul space to discern what spirits he is dealing with. His magic is strong but gentle and examining spirits like this is not unlike handling snake eggs. They are so infinitely fragile, prone to breaking and becoming malformed. Still, he examines them as best he can. The first spirit is easy enough to decipher - Deceit, a surprisingly bold fellow that takes a position between Adannar and the other spirit.

I am no threat. I am here to help. He tells them. Deceit is cautious, though, and Adannar can understand that. He is a great big unknown, his magic is strong and they are very vulnerable. Still, Adannar will need their cooperation for this to go smoothly.

I am going to give you and your friend bodies, you will still be anchored to Longing, but you cannot remain like this. I am a friend of Selene’s, I speak no lie to you.

If Deceit had eyes, Adannar is sure they would narrow them at him. He allows them to examine him and his soul in turn, knowing they will not dislodge from Longing, not while they cling so tightly.

See? I mean no harm.

He reaches a tendril of magic down to them and slowly begins to undo the binding it has created to attach to Longing. It quivers but grows in strength as he works. When he has the last piece surrounded by his magic, he dislodges it only to quickly revert it and create a gravitational pull between Longing and Deceit. Slowly, Adannar creates a pathway with his magic from Longing’s soul space to Adannar’s magical holding and then into the body of one of the sentinels Selene has laid beside him.

“Shard!” He asks quickly as he settles Deceit into the body. Selene provides a shard of a spirit, surprising alike to Deceit and he uses it to secure Deceit into its new home. One spirit down, one to go.

He returns to the soul space and searches for the other spirit. He finds it cowering behind Longing, so tightly wound and pulsating irregularly. Oh the poor thing, a terrified little spirit of Fear. It has lost its protector of Deceit and now clings resolutely to Longing.

Shhh, I have you, I won’t hurt you. I am here to help. He soothes as best he can as he surrounds Fear and Longing with his magic, slowly undoing the attachment. Fear cries in protest and even zaps Adannar. He would like cooperation but Fear will not give it. This...this will result in some sort of trauma, he fears, but sometimes a bone must be broken to be set properly.

Dammit.

He forcefully unhooks Fear from Longing, quickly reworking the connection before pulling in Fear. It resists the entire way, making Adannar expand more energy to keep it from accidentally shattering itself. At least this time Selene is anticipating his move and provides another shard, from the same spirit, good, to help anchor Fear into its new home. Once he is certain Fear is hooked into the sentinel, he returns to Longing. Or Dirthamen, rather.

There are remnants of having Fear and Deceit so improperly set within him, but with some gentle healing and urging, he manages to guide Dirthamen back into a healthy form. What is strange, however, is that he gets the sense that his body will not quite revert like Adannar expects.

What is wrong?

I...do not know. Or perhaps I cannot tell? Dirthamen replies.

Your form is not elven. Adannar says, only to be met with surprise.

It is not?

Interesting.

Do not worry about it, we can address it after you have rested. Adannar casts a mild sleep aid to encourage proper healing. Dirthamen goes willingly enough, allowing Adannar to retract himself.

He falls back to the cool tile of the healing room, panting and sweating, his energy sapped from him. This is not unlike birth, he imagines. The fatigue and strain that permeates every part of his body. His skin is hot and his head feels heavy with the exhaustion, but he turns his head anyways.

The sentinels, great mechanical ravens much larger than the standard raven, are moving. They are fluttering wings and moving little legs. Adannar recognizes Deceit in the first one, its eyes glowing with life, brighter than Fear’s who is still resisting movement. Deceit, however, is moving quite well. It picks itself up and turns to Fear. It makes a mechanical caw that seems to surprise itself before letting out another caw. Then another.

“Oh, look at them,” Selene breathes in awe. He hopes Des feels her relief.

“Selene?” He says, voice soft and weak.

“Yes, my friend?”

“Help me into a bed?”

“Oh yes!” She lifts him up and puts him into a large nest of pillows and blankets. He will shift in his sleep, they both know. His last thought is of Longing, poor Longing, thought to be shattered in the siege of the Glass Tower, only to turn up now - improperly possessed. It’s sad, Adannar thinks, that such a spirit, on the track to becoming a dragon in his own right, to turn up like this. At least...at least he is safe now.

**

Serahlin keeps looking over her shoulder, afraid she will see Andruil on her heels.

She urges Velini to move more quickly through the wood. It’s a bit of a struggle to remember the path Huirin took, but she remembers landmarks well and she knows the general path better than Andruil at least. Or...at least Serahlin hopes she does.

Despite knowing the way and moving as fast as she dare, it still takes several hours before she reaches the cave leading into the lair. She hops off of Velini and hitches him to a nearby tree, making sure he has plenty to graze. She turns from her horse and hurries into the lair, doing her best to ignore how rapidly her heart is beating.

Adannar is...he doesn’t deserve to be killed by Andruil. At least she hope he doesn’t, if he does, she is going to be very cross with him. She darts into the cave and heads quickly down the stairs and into the lair proper, past all the rooms and piles of treasure. Should she call for him? Let him know she’s here? Will he...will he even forgive her for running? Surely he can understand her position, all the thoughts she has grown up with about dragons...it’s not an easy thing to throw away so quickly.

Yet she is here, isn’t she? Not so long after she ran. She wants to talk to him more than anything, she thinks. She wants to know his side of things, better than what he said before because she wasn’t listening before, she hadn’t been ready to listen. Now that she is ready, she can’t lose him.

She finds the room he was sleeping in last time, dark and empty. Fine, she can...find him elsewhere. She moves deeper into the lair, it dips down with a large staircase. What use does a dragon have of a staircase? But the space is wide and tall with large landings that if she looks at an angle, form a staircase large enough for a dragon. In between the landings are steps suited for people Serahlin’s size. She steps down the stone stairs, marveling at the beautiful work that has gone into them. The railing is etched with fine detail, gilded with gold and silver. Out of all the palaces she has walked, never has she seen something so fine and beautiful. It fits with Adannar, she thinks - beautiful and lovely but so unlike all the beauty she has seen before.

“Adannar?” She calls, her voice echoing through the space. She descends the staircase and walks across the tiled floor, with naught an answer to guide her. There is a great set of doors on the opposite end from the staircase. Inexplicably drawn to it, Serahlin moves to it. She creaks open a door and slips inside.

A myriad of colors and brilliant plants great her in a riot of breathtaking beauty. Above is a domed ceiling made of stained glass that filters in gold, red, green, and blue light. The only blemish is a large hole in the glass on the far side, jagged edges catching the light in a cut pattern. The atrium is filled with plants, so many of which are unknown to her. It is a garden, she realizes, an atrium meets greenhouse.

What wondrous things Adannar makes, she thinks not for the first time. How can someone who makes such wonderful things be bad? If dragons can make these things then why would they ever attack elven cities and settlements? The knights have always deemed that the dragons lusted for what the elves could make, they thirsted for power and sought to steal it from the elves. But standing in the atrium, surrounded by wondrous beauty and power, Serahlin wonders how many lies the knights have spread about dragons. She already knows they are given to lies when it comes to politics, perhaps...perhaps it was all a lie.

“Adannar?” She calls again. This time a shadow rises from the end of the atrium and it circles around the space until it seems to surround her and fill the space. Large gold glowing eyes open in the shadows and an array of teeth are suddenly sneering at her.

This...this is not Adannar.

“What is your name?” The shadow demands in a low menacing voice. Serahlin closes her eyes and resists every impulse in her body to run in fear. No, she has a duty here. She came here for a reason and she will not be denied.

“I am Serahlin - who are you? Where is Adannar?” If her voice shakes a little, it is her prerogative, she has only recently gotten over her lover being a dragon after all.

All at once, the shadows recede and reveal another dragon, with long spiraling horns and a similarly long body. His wings are feathered and move, shuffling away the shadows as he takes on what she hopes is a more friendly stance. His lips pull into what she thinks is the dragon equivalent of a smile, or perhaps a smirk.

“Ah Serahlin, Adannar told me to keep an eye out for you. To answer your question, I am Des. And Adannar is currently away assisting me with an issue. Now tell me, what exactly is your relationship with my dear friend, hmm? You are a lovely little thing, aren’t you.” He folds his wings against his body and leans towards her, surprisingly without any menace but curiosity. Serahlin leans back and tries not to scowl. She gets the distinct feeling like if he were an elf, she would be resisting the urge to slap him. Perhaps at the palace one of her guards would.

“That is a private matter,” she says before remembering why she is here, “and there is something more pressing to discuss. There is a hunting part in the woods headed by Andruil herself. You need to get somewhere safe, is there a, a, bunker here? Or perhaps impenetrable wards? She is a relentless and renowned hunter, she has killed dragons before. If you are a friend to Adannar then I doubt you deserve such a fate, and wherever he is, he needs to be somewhere safe. Do you understand?” She stands tall, chin raised with a firm determination to make this...this giant lizard listen to her. Yes, he is just a giant lizard, that’s all he is.

The giant lizard raises a scaly brow at her, “That was quite the mouthful,” he says with entirely too much behind it.

“You came here to warn Adannar about imminent danger? My, what are you two?”

“Must I repeat myself? It is a private matter but if you do not want to heed the warning then that is your decision.” She crosses her arms and adopts an expression she learned while she was still a princess - no nonsense and stubborn. The big lizard sighs dramatically.

“Fine, it’s private. And Andruil, you say? This place is more secure than you think, you just stay here while I activate the wards and defenses.” He leans up and flies out of the atrium. Serahlin does not let her face change until she is sure he is gone. Once assured she will not be seen, she slumps against the wall, resting her hand atop her chest.

She hopes she does not regret this.

While the lizard goes and activates the wards, Serahlin can find armor, arms. She is not the most proficient with them, but she knows some things. Enough to wave a sword around and look menacing. The trick now is finding arms and armor. There has to be something around here in the piles upon piles of stuff.

She heads out of the atrium and back into the lair proper. A rumbling noise begins to echo through the cave and slowly a whirr fills the halls along with a static magic. Holes open in the walls and small mechanical creatures resembling falcons and other small birds of prey fly out of them, alight with what must be defensive magic.

The swarm grows and grows until she is pushed into a room filled with crates and satchels. Serahlin begins to go through them, looking for anything that will help. She opens a crate to find the most beautiful iridescent fabrics in blues, greens, yellows - so many colors. She pulls out one length to find that it is a robe and that this crate does not contain multiple robes but an entire outfit meant to be layered to create a stunning effect. She is coming back for this.

She goes through a few more crates and finds some embossed leather armor that she dons as well as she can without assistance. Bracers, shin guards, even a cuirass that she manages to pull on over her head and secure around her chest.

She is finishing securing the cuirass when a loud crash echoes through the lair. It is the sound of magic and glass shattering and it sends her running down the hall and down the staircase. Des roars and there is shouting, the clash of weapons, the charge of battle magic as she nears the atrium. She steps over the threshold and into darkness.

Serahlin blinks and slowly her eyes adjust miraculously to the lowlight. Des is on the far side of the atrium, opposite to where most of the hunters are. His wings flutter and it is too late for her to run before she realizes he is igniting the shadows. Their eyes meet and his widen in horror.

“NO!”

The shadows ignite in brilliant fashion. Serahlin brings her arms in reflex but the fire surrounds her and her skin burns as she is thrown back from the explosion. Light flashes, blinding her. The explosion deafens her as her body crashes into the floor. She gasps as the air is forced out of her lungs and she is rolled to her back, staring up at the now blasted glass ceiling. Everything appears to move in slow blurry fashion, she thinks she hears her name but she cannot move, cannot respond.

Her ears ring and she is only vaguely aware of the battle occuring around her. She thinks someone shouts her name. Something crashes, sending vibrations through the floor. She needs to move, needs to...get out of here. To safety, to Adannar. Try as she might, all her body can manage is to turn her head towards the atrium.

She cannot see Des anywhere, all she sees are the hunters - ones that are dead and alive. At least ten bodies are strewn about, burned and blown apart. Serahlin tries to take stock of herself, fear that she too is blown apart - but she feels her feet, her hands, each finger and each toe. She feels her stomach, feels the weight of the cuirass that is still secured to her chest.

One of the alive hunters turns to her, eyes dark and face drawn. The lady Andruil is telling them something and they nod before striding over to Serahlin. She feels the menace roll off them and fear wells up in her. Their hand barely touches her cuirass before a powerful, bright magic rises from her and sends them flying away from her.

What...what was that? She has never manifested magic before, how...what? Has her stay in the forest changed her so much that she is now magical? As if there is not enough happening!

Andruil raises an eyebrow at Serahlin before stalking forward herself. She does not make the same mistake as the previous hunter and instead kneels next to Serahlin.

“What do we have here?” She says, looking over Serahlin, “My brother’s former betrothed, the princess Serahlin. My other brother has been looking for you, and you turn up here - ruining my hunt.” Serahlin swallows, trying to keep her composure while the huntress looks her over.

“Such a pretty thing, and powerful too.” She trails a finger down Serahlin’s cheek making Serahlin wish she could blast the huntress away too. But the field seems to be activated only by aggression. Andruil tilts her head to the side and a sickening smile spreads across her face.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Falon’din I found you. No, I think I’ll keep you all to myself. You! Pick her up! Gag her and put her in the wagon. Set for Tavathan!” Andruil rises and walks from Serahlin just in time for her to be picked up by a large hunter who smells horrible. She tries to struggle but her limbs remain uncooperative.

Let me go! She wants to scream. She wants to kick and scream and run far from this place. She only meant to warn Adannar, she never thought...she never thought she would become a target.

She is carried out of the lair and to a large wagon that looks like it was originally meant to hold other hunting trophies. Large hunting trophies, dragon sized trophies. She is tied to a railing, gagged, and she tries very hard not to cry. It is the only battle she wins that day.

**

Venavismi knows many things when it comes to elves. Ana trusts him when he says that the people are dangerous and she should stay away. But she is also terribly curious when after they leave, they return. Their return is relayed to her by the whispers in the wind and the rustle of leaves, the skittering of small animals in the brush. Tales of death and destruction come with them, making Ana frown.

When night falls and Vena is safely sleeping in his little man-hut, she journeys to see what the people are doing. Particularly this Andruil. Vena had such an interesting reaction to her, a mixture of fear and resignation.

Ana is silent as she makes her way through her section of the forest. She climbs several trees and perches herself in the high canopy of an old tree that has always been kind to her. It allows her to sit upon its branches shrouded in shadow as she watches the camp of elves below. The wind carries the people’s whispers to her ears and from them she learns that the Princess Andruil has returned from her hunt. But the Lady was unsuccessful...something happened?

What had the princess been hunting? If she is so good to inspire such fear in Vena and to have the pelts of bears, wolves, wyverns, great bears, and even more - what kind of creature must have eluded her?

Someone whispers dragon and Ana swallows, sick to her stomach. Both Adannar and Selene are her friends, they are creatures of the forest just as much as her. Well, perhaps not Selene, but she has been here long enough that Ana considers her part of the forest. Andruil failed, which is good! That means her friends escaped her!

“She brought back something else, though. It’s in the wagon, she’s told everyone to stay away from it except for the hunters.”

“Damn hunters get to know everything.”

The wind carries more whispers to Ana, making her frown. Something else? What else could she have recovered that could compare to a dragon? Carefully, Ana makes her way around the camp, careful of the wards they have placed. She sticks to the trees until she is high above the wagon in question.

Oh no. No, no, no.

A forest creature like Ana sits in the wagon, her glow clear and radiant, full of life. She is tied to the wagon, slumped and hurting. It is wrong!

Ana hastily climbs back down and runs to her tree and Vena. She needs his help to break the creature free!

She flings the door to the structure open, “Vena! Wake up!”

“What?! Are we under attack?!” He sits up straight immediately, grabbing the sword he keeps next to the bed, eyes wild.

“Andruil has taken a forest creature! We must rescue her!” She declares. Vena does not immediately answer her, instead setting the sword down.

“Andruil? I told you to stay away from her! That forest creature could be you!” He says as if to dissuade her from their task.

“Exactly! That is why we must go free her,” she says.

“Ana -

“Please, help me,” she asks and she is met with a heavy sigh.

“We will scout it out, then decide from there - alright?” It’s enough for now, she nods readily. She lets him don his armor - shitty armor is still better than no armor.

She shows him the way, moving through the brush as quickly as they dare. They stick to the forest floor rather than a tree - Vena still needs to improve his tree climbing abilities. She gets them as close to the wards as possible and points to the wagon.

“In there,” she whispers.

Vena directs his attention to the wagon and goes still, “That is not a forest creature,” he whispers.

“Yes she is! She glows like one of us!” Ana argues but Vena shakes his head slowly.

“That is Princess Serahlin of Eletharan.”

“That...that is impossible!”

“I know her! I met her at a dinner Sylaise hosted once, that is Serahlin. And Andruil will not give her up easily. We cannot do this alone, Ana,” he says. Ana frowns and looks back at the creature, this...Serahlin. She glows like a forest creature, and perhaps something happened to her. Ana has heard of stories of elves and others becoming one with the forest - perhaps this is what they speak of. Whatever she is, Ana is certain that this Serahlin does not deserve to be captured by Andruil.

“We can’t do nothing.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Vena says, “do you have forest friends? Little critters who can help us?” Vena asks and Ana thinks. She could ask...it would be a lot to ask, particularly since they’re still in hiding, but they would understand the circumstances.

“I do, but they’re not little,” she replies, “how good are you at riddles?”

[happywitch416]

Chapter 33

The air warmed the closer they drew to Solitude and Elena took a deep breath, feeling her shoulders relax and weariness of the past months travel beginning to ease. Home was just around the bend, the lighthouse just behind. She turned with a grin to Serana. "Do you think-"

A deafening roar filled the skies, followed by the panicked screams of the city. Elena lurched to a stop, her heart slamming against her ribs. "No." Her eyes fixed on the city above willed the dragon to appear over the marsh. Another roar and flames erupted in the palace district. "No." Serana wasn’t sure when Elena had gone from still to moving but she was almost out of sight before she had her own feet going. "Here!" Elena veered from the road to the rock face. "Short cut."

For a panicked moment, Serana thought she meant climbing the cliff face and let out a half sigh of relief when Elena slammed her hand into a hidden button launching open the door and led them into the earth. 

They came out under the windmill, fires raging as guards volleyed arrow after arrow skyward. Townsfolk ran screaming for cover, the blacksmith ordering those who weren’t to douse the fires. Several mages appeared settling ice over blazes as quickly as they could, but more fire rained down from the sky faster than they could put it out. "Serana." Elena's fingers were tight on her arm, her face pale and eyes wild. "Get the girls. There’s a wall in the basement, Runa knows." 

Serana nodded and Elena went to dash back into the tower and its stairs that continued to wind upward. She grabbed her arm and pulled Elena to her for a searing kiss. "You come back to us." Elena blinked several times wonder filling her face for the briefest of moments before she nodded and disappeared up the stairs. 

 Runa hit the button, once twice three times and the wall didn’t move in. Joris looked to Ilia and Serana over the girls’ heads. "I’ll stand outside." She said roughly. Ilia shook her head, whatever plea dying unspoken as Serana interrupted. 

"We can get to the windmill, it’s not far, and then down." 

Runa clapped her hands drawing startled looks from the adults. "I know a safe way past the house of the dead, it goes right at the wall." 

Runa hadn’t been joking, the little space had been tight for the adults, but it popped them out within feet of the wall. Serana led the way, Jordis and Ilia bringing up the rear but none of them could grab Sofia when she dashed from the wall. "It’s mama!" 

Serana's heart fell, she hadn't realized the city had grown silent watching with bated breath as the lone woman perched on the battlements stared down the dragon. Sofia went running towards Dour and Serana caught her, hands firm on her shoulders. "Your mother would never forgive me." 

"Where's the guard?" Tears began to fall as another burst of sunlight splintered above them. "Serana, why aren't they helping her?" 

"Kaan drem ov." The dragon speech echoed down and Serana didn't answer, didn't know how. Elena's voice cracked through the sky again. "KAAN DREM OV!" 

The dragon's roar sounded like mocking laughter and Elena let loose another arrow, striking true. It faltered, its wings falling and dropping it briefly before roaring again. 

"Krii Lun Aus." Wind whipped through the city biting with cold, an eerie smoke forming around the dragon before a war cry rent the air followed by flashes of light that left their vision speckled and ears ringing. The dragon crashed to earth, tail narrowly missing the houses as they flattened themselves against the wall. The smoke was replaced with a golden light swirling around the dragon as the body burst into flames. The gold swirled upward, enveloping Elena who was still standing on the battlements before forming into golden dragon wings that stretched from her shoulders. The silence held for a breath then two before the city erupted into cheers as the wings faded. 

  Once the shock had worn off the city erupted back into motion, putting out fires and tending the wounded. Elena had thrown herself into making potions with Angeline, tried her best to ignore everyone who came to stare, tried to ignore the questions even more. Angeline shooed them gently away and quietly suggested Elena take the back still room. Serana found her much later. She was folded into the furthest corner of the ramparts, head against her knees and hair falling around her. Serana scuffed her boot, not wanting to startle her. Green eyes peeked from behind the red curls before disappearing again. "Are you alright?" 

"No." Her voice was hoarse, throat aching from using words not meant for human tongues. 

Serana settled before her and let the quiet rest for a time. The sun was sunk almost below the horizon when she spoke again. "What happened?" 

Elena’s continued silence was finally broken with a long sigh. "I..." She took a deep breath. "I am not just Kyne’s Champion. I am Dragonborn." 

Serana reached out gently, fingers soft against her arm. "And that means?" 

"It’s an old story and a prophecy." She mumbled into her legs. "But one every Nord knows by heart before they reach their tenth year." She looked up finally and only her training at the Bards College got her voice past the tightness in her throat. "When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world. When the Brass Tower walks, and Time is reshaped. When the thrice-blessed fail and the Red Tower trembles. When the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls. When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding. The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn." 

"The World Eater?" 

She settled her face against her knees again, arms wrapped tight around them. "Alduin, Firstborn of Akatosh. The World Eater is a dragon." 

Serana stared at her. "It’s another scroll prophecy isn’t it?" 

"Of a sort. Alduin was defeated by Nords who had learned the Thu’um." Her rueful laugh was short-lived. "The song does a better job telling the supposed prophecy." 

"That’s the one you pay them not to play." A noise of affirmation rumbled from Elena. "How does it go?" 

Elena sighed, straightening. Dark half-moons had settled under her eyes, between them and the growing the dark, her eyes took on an eerie glow that reminded Serana of the golden power from the dragon. Her voice was barely a whisper. "And the Scrolls have foretold, of black wings in the cold, that when brothers wage war come unfurled. Alduin, Bane of Kings, ancient shadow unbound, with a hunger to swallow the world." 

"That’s not the whole song." Came a voice from the stairs. Maga leaned a little heavily on the stone, exhaustion settling deep in her old bones. "Good to see you again, Serana." She gave a serene nod before fixing back on Elena. "And you have finally grown big enough balls to accept who you are." 

"Mother-." 

"Don’t. I won’t hear it. Nor will Kynareth." She leaned down and poked Elena’s shoulder hard enough Serana winced. "And what kind of example are you setting for your girls?" 

A strangled sob left Elena as she threw herself to her feet. "You think I’m not thinking of them??" 

"Elena-." She folded her hands calmly into the long sleeves of her robe when Elena cut her off as she started to pace. 

"The last time I was here you yelled at me for never being home and now you want me to go fight the Eater of the World? That's not a day trip!" She looked around desperately for something, anything to fill her hands with but there was nothing but stone. Her fingers found the pulse in her wrist and squeezed. "I didn’t even get to see them! I still haven’t!" Her eyes fell closed and she slumped into herself. "What if I hadn’t been here. What if I was too late." 

"You have the power to make sure it never happens again." Maga said simply. 

"And what if I can’t?" Her eyes snapped back open with a snarl. “What if I am not this supposed hero, just an unlucky bastard cursed with this voice?”

"That’s for the Greybeards to decide. Going to speak to them would do you some good. You haven’t been to the Throat of World since you left for the Legion." She shook invisible wrinkles from her robe. "Kyne will have the answers you seek." 

"I don’t want answers." She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. "I don’t want this." 

Maga stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her. "I know, my darling girl. Maybe Magurn and I shouldn’t have called you our dragon child. But you have been called." She squeezed gently and stepped away. "And if you don’t answer, how many more times will you have this fear? How many parents will you have face this same fear, when they are powerless to stop it?" 

She spoke so softly her words were almost lost to the wind that started to blow. "I’ll go."

Chapter 34

"But you just got home!"

"That’s not fair!" 

"But mama!" 

Elena settled heavily against the table, arms crossed as the girls let her know their opinion on her leaving. Again. "I know, loves. But I." She took a deep breath. "It’s not that I want to. I would rather stay here." 

"Could someone else stop the dragons?" Sofie asked softly her face falling when Elena shook her head with a shrug. "Promise you’ll be back soon?" 

She held out her arms and the girls piled into them and she brushed kisses to the tops of their heads. "As soon as I can." She took a deep breath, hoping this feeling would last up the 7000 steps.

That they still loved her when she came back down.

Chapter 35

“You didn’t have to come along you know.” Elena fought to hide her grin as Serana pulled her hood up again. She had given up keeping hers up in the wild mountain wind several thousand steps down. 

“And miss seeing this place?” She gave her a halfhearted glare. “After hearing your terrible descriptions of places?” Serana pitched her voice. “It had rocks. And some flowers, the little yellow ones. And water.” Elena let out a snort of laughter, taking the criticism with grace. “There’s a reason why you have so many books.”

“Yes, yes or I’d bore the girls to death. So I have heard.” They came to another waymarker and Elena fell silent, running her fingers over the etched words for a long moment before moving on. “It’s not the same anymore.”

“More exciting the first time?”

She shook her head. “Emptier. Like.” She grew quieter again, studying the ground before their feet. “Like it’s just wind here, there’s nothing. Just wind.” Serana watched her quietly, as Elena’s brows furrowed. “This is supposed to be the most sacred of places in Skyrim to Kyne. And yet it's empty.”

“Maybe she’s not a fan of the cold.” Serana let out a huff of relief at the smile that cracked Elena’s face. A question came to the forefront of her mind, one that she had been ignoring ever since the defeat of the dragon and had spent the better part of their journey shoving into a far corner. The carefree touches and closeness she had come to associate with Elena were gone. She caught herself reaching out only to fall back, and Elena avoided her, the moments she knew that would have been filled with an arm around her or a brush of her forehead against hers were replaced with a tenseness and wariness that reminded her of a trapped animal.

 The snow picked up and with a groan, Elena led them into a hollow in the cliffside to wait it out. She settled cross-legged on the ground, trying to find her center, reaching out around them. And felt nothing. She let it go and studied Serana for a time. Serana stared out at the snow with a slight frown and a stillness that mirrored the stone around them. “You’re brooding.” 

“Hardly.” Elena's only response was a disbelieving quirk of her eyebrows. With a heavy sigh, Serana joined her, mirroring Elena’s position. The blinding white of the snow cast her into a dark shadow except for the glow of her eyes. “About before, with the dragon in Solitude.”

Elena’s thumb made its way to her wrist, settling firmly against the bone there as her gaze emptied. “When you kissed me.”

“I apologize if-.”

A short, harsh laugh interrupted her. “By the winds, you think I’m upset?” Amusement settled into the quirk of her lips, her gaze warming but panic flickered across her face too. Serana managed a mute nod. “Serana. I.” She fell quiet and shook her head. “I did not mind in the slightest. It was. Nice.”

“Oh.”

Elena grumbled, brows furrowing as the line of her mouth hardened a moment. “I’m not. Ugh.” She met Serana’s gaze, searching for a moment before the words rushed out of her. “I have wanted to forever and I’ve wanted to kiss you back, but I was worried you regretted it or needed space to think. I know I am not anything special and you-.” Serana cut her off with a soft kiss, staying close when they parted. “Oh.”

Serana laughed softly. “I wouldn’t have if I didn’t want you to.”

“Oh.” Elena’s lip caught between her teeth a moment, cheeks flushed crimson, joy and wonder in her eyes. She reached up, faltering a moment, her thumb gentle along Serana’s chin and jaw. “Can I?” The barest of nods and Serana’s laugh was cut short by the heated press of Elena’s lips on hers.

A Warrior’s Heart

[eastraen]

The Boy and the Silence

Fujiwara House, 14 years ago

The sound of constant broom sweeping can be heard over the courtyard, laughter of children can also be heard on the other section of the house while sounds of clashing bokken echo loudly over the family's dojo. Everywhere else in the house is lively with sounds of people, except the silence in the courtyard. A small girl is sitting on the wooden deck of the house which separates it with the white pebbles spread over the garden. A servant can be seen walking towards the courtyard but paused for a moment before quietly turn around and took another road, mumbling something.

The little girl is probably 5 our 6 years old, she looks at the person sweeping and puff her cheek. Making her face looks cute and adorable even as she pouts. Her purple kimono is sewn with beautiful silk and have patterns of butterflies. "Nii-sama (brother) when are you going to play with me?" her legs dangles over the deck, watching the young teen who is sweeping the courtyard in silence. Hideyuki, in his fourteen, inherits his father sturdy figure and he is already one of the tallest in the family. His alabaster white scale climbs from his side and ends at his chest, like an entwining dragon. A pair of strong arms that befits a warrior. His smile is calming and his gesture is free and friendly.

Yet out of all these, he possesses one flaw. Ever since his birth, rumors abound that disaster may befall Fujiwara family one day. For those that Byakko touched is considered an omen of destruction. It was said out of three manifestations of Byakko, his human form takes shape in few children of the Raen. Whenever it manifest, disaster follows.

"I will play with you soon, Mitsuko. Let me finish this first hmm?" he wipes his sweat. His coarse white Yukata is tied loosely. Next thing he does is moving the plant pots around. Pausing for a moment, his eyes look longingly into the Fujiwara dojo where his brothers are currently studying Kenjutsu and sparring.

"You're no fun nii chama" the girl sighs, she jumps down and scoots over some flower bed. studying the flower.

She would look up at his brother and ask "Why you're doing uncle Takeshi's work, nii chama? whenever i want to help him father would tell me not to"

Hideyuki cleans his hand and approaches his sister, he ruffles her golden hair "Silly kid, if father lets you then you'd make a mess out of the garden. Chasing around your cat Asami across the garden" he replies gently. In reality, the only one of Hideyoshi children who he lets doing the chore work is Hideyuki. His reasoning is to help with his physical development. In truth, the motive is to make sure he stays inside the house and don't scare people. Hideyoshi loves his children, but there is a certain degree of family reputation he has to withhold. Especially as the main family branch viewing Hideyuki in mixed light.

He also don't let his son train in the dojo, because the instructors they hired keep quitting after few weeks. Citing many reasons, but the truth is Hideyuki appearance disturbs them.

The only person in the family that views and treat him normally is his mother. From his birth until his early teen years, Tomoe gives him love and affection as a mother should. She would fiercely defend Hideyuki and treat him better before all her children.

Hideyuki once wonders why none of the children his age would play with him until one day one of the town bullies mock him and call him names. He was agitated but tried to remain calm until the bully mocks his father. He got mad and attack the larger kid, beating him so severely. He returns home with a bruised swollen eyes but a grin on his face, his father would be proud of him...he has defended himself and his family honor. Yet when he returns all he received was his father's wrath and lashes on his back.

Hideyoshi's wrath was fierce, he didn't stop until Tomoe basically put her body between Hideyuki's and the whip. Not once that Hideyuki cried during the treatment, but when it ends he fainted. He didn't woke up for two days, and when he regained consciousness he can hear his mother sobbing and talking to his father with an angry tone

"Chikyuu no Kami Hideyoshi” 

Tomoe calls her husband full title in a trembling voice. Her voice is dripping with mockery.

“Esteemed Raen noble, why don't you just kill him? why would you torture him so? is your heart so hard as a stone that you even beat your son like a criminal ?" "He is just a child for Azim's sake, he got mad because the son of the blacksmith mocked his father" 

Tomoe, the small Raen woman, pulls Hideyoshi's hand so hard and drags him into the room where Hideyuki is resting. She throws the screen open and draws the small dagger that she always carries "Did you see what you did ?" she points at her son with quivering finger, the dagger flashes dangerously 

"Tomoe, calm down my wife" "The blacksmith is also our people, he provides the armor and weapon for our warriors. I have to uphold justice for him, otherwise, I would be deemed to treat others unjustly" 

Says Hideyoshi in a calm placating voice. He looks worriedly at the dagger. Although his wife is a daughter of a noble family, she had been an adventurer before their marriage.

Tomoe lifts the dagger and turn it over to her husband

 "Here, kill him and then kill me. Maybe that will satisfy that justice of yours" 

she says in an ice cold voice 

"I would have never thought the man I loved, admire, and respect so much would be...would be this cruel to his own son"

Hideyoshi looks at the dagger and sighs, he takes the dagger slowly and keeps it as he walks out wordlessly. Hideyuki is after all his own son too, but did he denies that small dark voice in his mind when he beat up his son? was it just his fantasy? it must be it. Many thoughts run through his mind, drowning voices of reasoning.

Tomoe watches her husband walk out, she then turns slowly to her son and slowly sit down. Holding Hideyuki's hand and starts to sob. Hideyuki who pretends to be asleep earlier clear his throat and with a hoarse voice says 

"M-mother...can i have a glass of water?" 

Tomoe wipes her eyes quickly, swollen from the tears. Her beautiful face smiles faintly as she squeeze her son's hand 

"You're finally awake my son, yes yes...let me get you some water." 

she stands up and immediately went to retrieve the glass of water her son requested.

Hideyuki stares at the wooden ceiling, it pains him to witness his parents fighting. He was a bit disappointed with his father, yet even at that tender age, he has learned the meaning of forgiveness and loving own’s family. Most of all, he feels pained to be the cause of his parent's tension and swore that it will never happen again.

The young Raen never question when his father tells him he must not play outside anymore. He quietly restrain himself and often retreat to the secluded corners of the house. When the instructor refuses to teach him, his father would take his study in Kenjutsu himself. Feeling guilty about the predicament Hideyuki is in, yet he is the one that understands the most. He quietly lay down the bokken as his brothers watch him with mixed emotion. Often at night time, he would sit down in the courtyard after everyone is asleep. Enjoying the silence, sometimes chirping of crickets. 

For only in silence he feels accepted. Only silence has no prejudice...

Years flow by in silence for him. Until the birth of Mitsuki, who from tender age always follows her brother around. Chasing his tail sometimes in a playful way.

"Come, let's play Mitsuki. Would you like some dango? i saved some for you when aunt Chiyo made some yesterday" 

He says to his sister as he lifts her and put her on his shoulder.

"Yaaaay Dango" she laughs mirthlessly...

===== Ul'dah gladiator barrack, present day

"Hideyuki? is there a Hideyuki here? Kupo!" 

a moogle postman past by, calling a post recipient name 

"There's mail for Hideyuki!"

A tall and broad shouldered Raen emerges from one of the public showers a towel is wrapped around his mid-lower section as he walks out.

Entwining scales like a glorious dragon goes up from his left side towards his chest. Scars crisscrossed his body, on his chest and his back. His face bears some peculiar marks, like a tiger's stripes. For all his menacing look, the golden eyes that stare toward the Moogle bear no malicious intention. It is clear and sharp, the eyes of a warrior.

"Yes, how may i help you?"

The moogle flies towards the Raen and fish a letter from his large mailbag 

"One mail for Hideyuki, kupo"

[screamingatanemptyroom]

Writing challenge

Wrote this for the caffeine challenge. I used the prompt “You’re not having allergies, Deb, those are tears and what you’re feeling is emotions, not your lungs closing up.” for this. Thanks to @caffeinewitchcraft for the challenge game. This was fun. 

Warning: this is a sad story.

The sun is rising.

The pale yellow glows lights up the field around me. Birds sing, the voices loud in the otherwise silent morning air. A light mist hangs low upon the ground, but is slowly burning away as the sunlight gains strength.

It is all so very wrong.

There should be no sun, no birds no light. The night should have never lifted, the darkness remained, but it leaves me. Life has moved on, the world has turned. Another day has started and it destroys me.

My first day without him.

I stare at the ground in front of me. The fresh dirt where only hours before I had dug to make room for his body stands out from the otherwise green field. There is nothing else to mark this spot, no stone, no cross, no flowers. Nothing to show that my heart has been taken and lies beneath my feet.

My strength begins to fade. My legs buckle underneath me and I crumple to the ground. I had been so strong, silent and unfeeling for the last twelve hours but I could not maintain it any longer. I feel tears slide down my face, dripping onto the ground beneath me.

Time passes, and I remember.

“It’s allergies!” I wipe my eyes and glare at Robert. We had been traveling for days on a quest to seek out the lost temple of Elvhert, and had stopped in a small seaside village for the evening. In the town square we had come across a small play, the actors playing out a story of betrayal and death. Despite myself I found my eyes tearing up, only to see Robert smiling at me. “I get terrible allergies this time of year. It makes my lungs close up and my eyes water.”

He chuckled in response.

 “You’re not having allergies, Deb, those are tears and what you’re feeling is emotions, not your lungs closing up.”

“Shut up!” I moved away from the outdoor stage, making my way back to the inn we stayed at.

He follows me, having almost to run to keep up with my long stride. “You know, even adventurers like us are allowed to have emotions. It’s part of being human! We have to be able to feel and express those feelings.” He laid a hand against my shoulder. “Don’t bottle it up so much.”

I sighed, patting his hand lightly before brushing it away. “I’m a warrior, Robert. I need to stay strong.”

He has stopped smiling, now looking very serious. “Sometimes strength isn’t about holding things back. Sometimes its about showing vulnerability.” After a slight tense moment he grinned at me again, dispelling my unease.

“Well enough of that! Want to go get drunk?”

I return the smile. “Now THAT, I think we can agree on!”

 The next morning we set out, shaking off the lingering effects of the ale from the night before. We make our way slowly to the spot listed on the map he had “found” 3 weeks ago. We had heard tales of a hidden temple, where a long extinct cult had worshipped. They had a reputation for collecting gold and magical artifacts, things very worthwhile to adventurers like ourselves. We had finished a long journey just a few short weeks earlier, tracking down the mythical beast of kvathar and saving a village from its terrible attacks. We had begun to grow restless, and had already spent a good portion of our earnings on drink and gambling, when Robert happened upon a map to this mythical temple. I didn’t ask where he had gotten it, but at the pace we left the city, it must have belonged to someone fairly important.

We reached the marked area on the map, and I readied my weapons while he strolled around searching around for a secret entrance. Having traveled together for years, we very quickly settled into jobs that suited our talents. He was a rogue and a thief, depending on shadows to protect him and quick daggers when stealth failed. I was a warrior, and much more likely to take a direct approach.

“Over here.” He pointed at a slight depression in the earth, brushing away overlying dirt to reveal a trap door. “This must be the entrance!” He reached into his pockets, searching for something. “If I can just find my lockpicks…”

“ARGH!”

With a shout of effort, I brought down my sword through the trap door, splintering it and revealing the path leading down below.

“Or you could do that.”

We traveled for hours through a series of tunnels, Robert running ahead and disabling traps before I could blunder into them. He was mildly out of breath, and muttered a few annoyed comments at my inability to walk at a more reasonable pace, but continued his work with a slight shrug of his shoulders. We were used to each other’s little quirks and annoying habits such as my tendency to rely on brute force to solve problems, his inability to shut up about his feelings. They were part of what made our partnership interesting, and our relationship even more so.

We arrived to a main chamber, finding it full of gold, expensive objects and magical glowing artifacts.

“WOW!” I stared around at the wealth before us. “I think we hit the jackpot.”

With unrestrained glee we started working through the loot, trying to find the most expensive things that were small enough to carry. As we worked, I asked: “So what kind of temple was this?”

“Well it belonged to the cult of Elvhert, and not a lot is known about them besides their reported wealth.”

I glanced around, spotting a slight movement under a pile of gold.

“Umm… any idea if they kept any monsters here?”

Robert hadn’t noticed the shifting pile yet. “Well there was some rumors about them worshiping a dragon but I’m sure that was exaggeration.”

 He ended on a yelp as I grabbed his shirt, pulling him back just in time to escape the jaws of an enormous beast. Its sword-length teeth snapped close just inches from where Robert had stood. With a roar it pulled itself out from under the gold, rearing up to its full height. It stared down at us, golden eyes gleaming, and snapped its tail, letting out another horrendous roar that shook the very cavern around us.

“Does that look like an exaggeration to you?!” I cried out, pushing him behind me and drawing my great sword. I raised it just in time to partially deflect another bite from the creature, and rolled to avoid a breath of flame. As I distracted it, Robert snuck around to the back in an attempt to surprise it.

“Hey ugly! Come here and meet your death!” I slashed at the creature, trying desperately to keep its attention. He entire time my heart was in my throat, not in fear for my safety but for Robert risking his.

The creature reared back, focusing on me. Golden blood dripped from its snout from where several of my attacks had landed.

Its neck darted forward to attack, only to hit the ground with a scream of pain as Robert jumped onto its back, plunging both of his long daggers into the crease between his neck and wings. It fell heavily to the ground, rolling and pinning his body beneath a giant, leathery wing.

“ROBERT!!” I ran past its head, ignoring a searing pain in my side as one of its teeth caught me in its thrashing. I reached the neck and with a cry of anger and rage I brought my sword down on the base of its neck. The armored skin of the dragon is tough, but with several strikes I made it through, cleaving the beast’s head from his body.

The neck stops moving and the head hits the ground with a dull thud, its golden eyes glazing over. All of this means nothing to me as I struggle to lift the wing off of Robert still form.

“MOVE, DAMN YOU! MOVE!” To my immense relief he stirs, looking up at me with a dazed expression.

“Did we win?”

I laugh, despite myself. “Yes, idiot we won. Now get out from under there. I can’t hold this for long.”

He slowly and painfully moved away, wincing as he tries to move his left ankle. It was swollen and bent, most likely broken. I pass him a golden cane from the pile of treasure and he puts his weight on it gratefully.

“I bet this makes me look rather handsome!” He tried to look at his reflection in a polished shield, arranging his hair with a free hand. He smiled back at me. “Fall in love with me yet?”

“Shut up and grab treasure.” As I moved forward to grab some loot, I wiped a stray tear from my eye and muttered “I already was in love with you, dummy.”

“I heard that!”

We grabbed what we could and made our way out of the cave. My thoughts already moving towards getting home and taking a good long bath.

“Well, what do you want to do with all this gold when we get…”

He trailed off.

I looked back at him. Something was wrong. He was standing there, an uncertain look on his face, the bag of gold dropping from his free hand.

There was a sword sticking through his chest.

He fell to the ground and behind him I saw twenty or so goblins, dressed in black robes. They cheered at their kill and turn their gaze towards me.

Everything turns black.

I don’t remember killing them. I don’t remember grabbing Robert’s fallen form and dragging it behind me, slashing my way out of the cave. I don’t remember taking several stabs and slashes, the blood streaming from multiple wounds. I came to in the field outside the temple entrance, clutching the broken body of the man I love. I touched his face with shaking fingers, as if trying to memorize them.

His eyes, once full of life and humor, do not open. He doesn’t laugh, smile, or tease me about saving his life once again.

I hadn’t saved his life this time.

I sit on his grave, staring at the sun rising. 

Wiping away the tears I mutter “It’s just allergies” to myself, a light chuckle escaping me that turns into a tearing sob. I rest my forehead on the dirt of his grave and I cry. I cry for the moment we shared and will never have again. I cry for the rage I feel at having lost him in such a terrible way. I cry for myself, for being alone now in a world that had always been the two of us.

I slowly stand, picking up my sword and fastening it to my belt.

“See Robert, I can cry if I need to.”

There is no answer.

“I love you Robert.”

I slowly turn and walk away, the light of the rising sun warm against my back.