#he probably misses being around children since it seems that fae do have children all that often so there was some partial truth there

[untaemedqueen]

SandB Series

Alpha Werewolf!Taehyung x Mate!Reader

Chapter 12.

Genre: Werewolf!AU, Smut, Angst

Warnings: Feelings of Inadequacy, Use of Oc's Powers, Dirty Talk, Begging, Praise, Lactation Kink, Sexual Acts Involving Jeongguk, Jimin, Yoongi, Use of The Term: Bitch, Pregnancy Kink, Milk Drinking,  Cunnilingus, Knotting, (Minor) Jungkook Handjob, Cream Pie

Being in Summit is eye opening on levels you never thought you would begin to grasp.

It's not just discovering you have powers, it's seeing how these two species you once considered mythological act around each other.

Even how they act within their own groups.

You've come to understand recently, or feel more accurately, that the Fae do not actually like the werewolves. In fact, there's a film of hatred that pours from their territory into the wolves.

It's shocking in all honesty, how do they keep up the charade? How do they keep the wolves from not knowing their fervent hatred?

It astounds you almost everyday.

What you've also come to realize is how different packs are than the one you're in.

Yes, even though you're a human, you've been told very rigorously by the servants that you are indeed still a part of the pack.

With your mate being pack Alpha, it seems that you're also held to a higher standard than all the other wolves in this group.

You can feel constant judgement from other female werewolves when you pass them in the streets or when they just pass by you on a whim.

Sylai, a female Omega you've been spending time with almost as much as Namjoon has been, seems to know all the hot gossip at the drop of a hat. However, she is timid and skittish at times whenever your best friend Alpha is around.

The pretty Omega is always quick to tell you why you're an outcast here and although you shouldn't be upset about it -- you almost always are.

You've come to terms with the fact that werewolves don't normally find their mates in humans, you've heard it from Taehyung's lips on more than one occasion, but you didn't think it would disgust others as much as it does.

When you've had the chance to view other packs, they seem to operate on levels of hierarchy you've never seen before.

The Alphas are always on top, the Betas a close second and the Omegas, most times, are treated like play things. Which is why you can understand that Sylai makes herself so small around Joon.

When you've been able to see other Alphas mates, they're very accommodating and docile. They're almost always pregnant which you understand and they bow to their Alphas every wish.

Sometimes you recall your past fights with Taehyung and lump forms in your throat. You can remember how he wished that you would just listen sometimes or not make comments and it truly makes you wonder… what if you aren't right for him?

You feel strong, thick muscled arms curling around your waist as you stare at the other packs down below your bedroom balcony.

"Hi, beautiful," your mate whispers, spreading his hand over your small belly.

"Hi," you breathe, letting your eyes flutter shut.

He's been away a lot recently, most because of the High Council asking his opinions of what to do with the rabid werewolves still at large -- including his parents.

"I missed you, baby girl." he coos, drifting his lips slowly over your mate mark.

You hum in agreement, running the tips of your fingers over his arms.

He peeks over your shoulder to look down at the random pack near the forest's edge.

He watches the Alpha snarl and snap his teeth at a Beta when he gets to close to his mate. Your fiance chuckles, burying his face in your hair.

"What's funny?" you inquire softly.

"Betas don't know how to behave sometimes," he replies, lifting the hem of your shirt to caress your growing belly.

Sometimes you feel completely out of your element and this feeling has been growing ever since you found out you're one of the Fae.

Maybe it's because you feel like you don't even know yourself anymore. You don't know who you are or who you should be.

The soothing scent of pine and musk breeches your senses once more and you allow yourself to be calmed by your mate at this very moment.

"Sylai has been spending a lot of time with Joon." you comment to him.

He hums in agreement, wanting to ignore his Alpha duties for just one minute of the day. If he accepts this fact, then his wolf will have to welcome someone new into the pack and he would just rather have these moments alone with you.

"I've seen it." he murmurs, pulling you closer to his body.

"Are you going to let her join your pack?" you ask, turning around to him.

You really like Sylai and you would really appreciate more female company around.

"Probably, Joon deserves to be happy." he answers, not wanting to dive head first into the matter.

"I mean, she's really sweet. I think she would be good for your pack."

The words 'your pack' don't sit right with your mate for a second. And he voices it openly as he pulls you over to the bed. "Why do you keep saying that? You keep saying 'your pack'? It's our pack. You're my mate, you're in this pack too." he inquires with a raised eyebrow, sitting down on the bed.

He pats his lap, leaning back on his elbows and like always you straddle him immediately.

"Well, I'm not a wolf. I'm a Fae or… just human so…"

He can smell your timidness, he can hear your heart hammering with worry and his wolf suddenly feels protective.

"What's wrong, baby?" he whispers, dragging his thumb over your lower lip.

You shake your head slightly, running your fingers over his tight black t-shirt that seems to hug each and every sinewed muscle on his chest and stomach.

"Hey now," he breathes, flipping you over so you're laying down beneath him.

You don't make eye contact with him, you don't so much as look above his stomach as he lays down beside you.

"Y/N?" he murmurs, kissing your temple.

It's stuffy in the room, you've come to realize or it just feels that way with his prodding questions.

"Y/N?" his voice is more forceful and you're just embarrassed to speak.

Werewolves aren't known for their patience. They need to know what's wrong, why this is happening and how to immediately fix it or there's very little in the world that will calm them down until the problem is solved.

The growl Taehyung emits throughout the room is a warning to you. It's a warning for you to speak up.

But you've seen Alphas immediately give in to their mates when they bare their necks. So you do so as well.

Taehyung's heart clenches in the recesses of his chest and he can almost scoff at your meekness. "Don't do that," he breathes, nuzzling your neck with his nose.

"Where's my spit fire mate today? What's wrong, baby?" he gasps, burying his face into neck.

"I'm sorry," you bleat.

"Sorry? Sorry for what? You're perfect, baby."

Your fiance can quite literally feel his heart panging with worry. He can hear some of your thoughts like you're screaming in the quiet room.

Inadequate

Unaccepted

Different

Human

Disgrace

"No, baby, no." he hisses, turning your face to look at him.

When your eyes don't meet his, he can only swallow thickly.

"I love you, baby girl." he promises, drifting his lips over your jawbone.

"I love you too." you mumble, looking down at your engagement ring.

"If-If you wanted to get another mate… maybe a wolf… I would understand."

The sharp breath Tae takes between his teeth, makes you shudder beside him. "Don't you dare, ever, suggest something like that. You're my soulmate, do you understand? You're my woman. My mate. I don't want anyone else, I could never be with anyone else."

"I'm not a wolf," you explain, turning to face him.

"So?! What does that have to do with anything?" he scoffs, narrowing his eyes at you.

"Well, most other wolves are disappointed that I'm a human. I'm not-"

"Who fucking cares about those newborn pups?! Who cares what the fuck they think?! They aren't in my pack and they aren't my mate!" he curses, sitting up and carding his fingers through his silver mullet.

You can see his chest vibrating with growls and snarls. You know you're pushing him to the edge but you just can't help it -- your insecurities are trumping everything right now.

"Are you embarrassed of me? Embarrassed of our children? Our pups?" Taehyung inquires, looking at you with hardened blue eyes.

"No," you reply, turning your body away from him.

"Then what is going on in that head of yours? You feel inadequate? Because wolves look at you differently?"

You stay silent, squeezing your eyes closed.

"Answer me, Y/N." he urges, running his hands over your back.

"They...They just look at me like I'm a disease or something. Like I'm not worthy of being with you. And… I don't want to be a burden to you or your pack."

He scoffs loudly, hooking his arm around your body and pressing his chest flat to your back.

"I don't care about others. You're not a disease. You're not a burden. You're mine. You're my beautiful, precious, headstrong mate who is just as much a part of my pack as Guk or Jin." he breathes.

When your silence bleeds throughout the room, he doesn't think he can stomach it for another second.

His canines drop out of instinct and he clamps his teeth softly down on your mate mark. If you were a wolf, you would be arching back into him needily already but it grounds him to know that things aren't so easy.

Yeah, you're stubborn and reflexive but you're his. And he loves that so much that if the Earth was crumbling he wouldn't care as long as you're in his arms.

Taehyung lifts the hem of your shirt, cupping your small belly. "I don't need anyone else but you, Y/N. You're a fierce woman and I count myself lucky to know you and to have you as mine."

"I'm sorry… I was just embarrassed… I don't want to burden anyone." you hiccup, looking down at his hand.

"Never, baby. You're never a burden." he promises, pulling the straps of your tank top down.

From your belly to your clothed core, his hand digs beneath the band of your leggings.

"Why would I want a meek little wolf when I can have a fierce fairy in my bed." Tae quips, turning you flat on your back.

Your breath hitches and you gasp gently when his fingers part your lower lips.

"T-Tae," you whimper, allowing him to position you as he sees fit.

As he climbs above you, his eyes roam over your body as if you're prey and you can't help the excitement that begins to bleed from your pores.

"Do a little magic for me, babe," he quips, kissing down your neck.

Snapping your fingers, you relish in the deep growl he gives when you both are stark naked.

"Pretty girl," he drolls, palming both of your breasts in hand.

When your nipples begin to bead milk, he can almost surely feel his knot twitching to expand already.

"I love you." his voice is a purr that echoes throughout your limbs.

"I love you too."

The kiss he captures you in is passionate and heated. You can feel the sharp points of his teeth raking over your bottom lip until your aching with need at your center.

"Flip over for me, my wolf wants to show you how loved you are." he coos, suckling at your nipple.

Flipping over onto your front, you perch your ass in the air for him and the complete sense of dominating ripples through your mate.

His eyes harden over, pupil dilating as he stares at the puckered mate mark that scars your skin.

"My bitch is so pretty full of my pups," the Alpha growls, knocking his forehead against your temple.

His movements are fluid and firm, spreading your legs to situate himself between them.

The head of his cock glides through your now sodden folds and you quiver with anticipation.

"Alpha, please," you beg, lowering your forehead to the pillow.

His sharpened nails dance over your spinal column, purring at how submissive you sound beneath him.

"What is it my pretty mate? You're aching? You need Alpha's big cock in you? Want me to split you open so well you don't even remember your own name?" he prods, rutting his cock to your core.

"Yes! I need it!" you preen.

His hands grip onto your hips, massaging the flesh within his large, warm grip.

"Well, if that's what you need," he hums, entering you in one intrusive motion.

Your mouth drops open into a silent scream, your hands fumbling to grip the sheets until your knuckles turn white.

This sex is primal and mind shattering -- and everything you need.

Taehyung can hear your thoughts screaming once more and he's pleased with what he hears this time.

More.

Complete.

Mine.

Ours.

Nuzzling your neck, he lets your cunt accept the intrusion of his large cock. He takes to caressing your three month pregnant bump to distract you.

"That's it, baby. You look so gorgeous stuffed with my cock inside your pregnant pussy." he mumbles against your ear.

You can feel his muscles contorting and hardening against your back.

"I would never love someone like I love you. I would never wish to be buried in someone like this, baby girl. Let them talk all the shit they want, because you're the one that gets this hard cock at night." he growls, rolling his hips for you to feel every inch of his cock within you.

Your mouth waters and a sharp moan emits from you at the feeling.

"No one takes my knot but you. And no one would ever take it so well."

Taehyung lets his prideful thoughts bleed past his lips because he knows you need to hear them. He knows you need the assurance. And he may be Alpha, but he's a slave to your love first and foremost.

When he pulls his length almost all the way out, your body sings with hot pleasure -- it's every thick vein and ribbed muscle along his cock that gets your mind numb.

"Only my beautiful mate," he thrusts back in to prove his point, "gets fucked stupid by my cock."

Your back arches, his name falls from your lips like a prayer and you don't even have the strength to lift your head up and look back at him.

He creates a dazing, relentless pace, fucking you just hard enough to keep you babbling but not hard enough to get your orgasm to approach.

He's proving a point. He's making you his again and again with every thrust.

His canines sharpen longer and they clench down on your mate mark just hard enough for you to feel a sting sing through you.

"Hey, Tae-" the door is thrust open and you can barely focus on who's just intruded but your mate just chuckles against you.

"Come in and sit." he orders, pushing your hair away from your mate mark.

His fingers glide over your distending skin, kissing down your back with soft, open mouth pecks.

"My mate thinks she's not enough for our pack." he announces and fuzzily you can hear murmurs of shock.

"She thinks she's not worthy of my knot and my pups," he growls, fucking into you harder.

"Tae!" you whine, pushing your hips back to meet every thrust.

"But she's a pretty bitch that still bends to my will," he coos, focusing on how much of your arousal has coated his long, thick length, "Yoongi, come."

He pulls you up by your shoulders, pressing you up against his chest with a snarl.

Yoongi sits before you, not knowing where to look but licking his lips hungrily.

"You want him to suckle? You want our pack to need you, bitch? Is that it? You want your scent all over all of them? To show these filthy mutts who live in this city that you're a queen amongst mongrels?" he inquires, kissing the shell of your ear.

You don't know what's driving you, you don't know if it's the insanely arousing thought of being above everyone else or it's the thought of being on top of this pack. But the sharp 'yes' you moan out has Yoongi growling with anticipation.

"Feed," he orders the Beta.

You gasp loudly at the foreign feeling of Yoongi's lips against your puffy nipple. You adore how his eyes screw shut at the taste of you. His hands grip onto your sides and you're lost for words when he ruts his clothed hard cock against your thigh.

"See, my beautiful mate, you're above all here." Taehyung coos, pressing his hand to the apex of your thighs and rubbing smooth circles to your swollen clit.

"Jimin." Taehyung calls and you hear the earnest whimper of your best friend.

"No, I don't think I should… I'm-" Jimin breathes nervously.

"Well fuck, if you won't I will," Jungkook groans, pushing Jimin out of the way.

Your head lolls back to your mate's shoulder and your vision becomes blurry with the attention your body is being given.

Taehyung knows that his wolf is sharing you for the sake of proving a point but he can't help the way his cock twitches within you as he watches Yoongi hump your leg like a dog in heat.

Jeongguk's lips on you are familiar and suddenly you can smell the forest from that fateful day when your fiance shared you with the youngest pack member.

"You gonna cum? Hmm, beautiful? I can feel your pregnant cunt trying to milk my cock," your mate growls in your ear.

The small whimpers of the wolves suckling from your breasts, sends you over the edge and Yoongi is quick to press his hands against your rib cage to keep you from falling.

"That's a good little bitch," Taehyung gasps, fucking you with a fierceness to cum inside you.

"You want it, baby? You want my cum?" he goads, kissing over your mate mark.

"Yes, please," you cry out, carding your fingers through both Yoongi and Jungkook's hair.

Jimin lets out a sharp whine, feeling conflicted on what to do. But, this probably will never happen again in his lifetime and even though you're his best friend… he's not missing this. "Fuck it," he curses, jumping onto the bed.

He eyes you wearily for a second, avoiding your stomach which he knows is solely the Alpha's property and heads straight for your swollen, over-stimulated clit.

Your mate on instinct cups your growing stomach, growling as his best friend makes his dissent.

Your body shivers like a leaf when Jimin's plush lips kiss at your bundle of nerves.

"Oh God!" you cry out, gripping onto the boy's hair harder.

Yoongi curses against your breast, pulling off your nipple to catch his breath as his shorts become sticky and slack against his golden skin.

"Fuck, baby girl. I'm cumming," Taehyung murmurs breathlessly.

The swiftness of Jimin's tongue knocks the wind out of you and you spiral into another orgasm with ears filled with white noise and eyes seeing stars.

"Shit! Y/N!" your mate growls, pulling you back roughly to his cock until you’re squirting your arousal onto his thighs.

Jungkook whimpers needily, guiding your hand to his swollen cock.

"Pup," Taehyung warns him, stilling your hips as his thrusts become erratic.

He takes a sharp breath between his teeth, cursing loudly when he begins to cum inside you.

His lips tremble against your mate mark when his knot begins to inflate and you can only whimper at the stretch.

"Good girl taking my cock so well," your fiance coos, pressing his index finger beneath your chin and turning your head to kiss him.

"Noona, please. God!" Jungkook whines, nuzzling his face to your breast.

Taehyung can only give a breathy laugh against your lips. "See how needed you are? Guk is going to explode if you don't help him."

Jimin pulls away from your core with innocent eyes and he kisses your forehead gently.

"I'm gonna go check on Baek and Chan." he murmurs, hopping off the bed.

Your mate's eyes follow him as he leaves the room and he doesn't appreciate the bloom of pheromones that bleed from the Omega. Almost as if he's caught feelings for you.

You haven't noticed with your attention on the youngest.

He suckles eagerly from your breast, whimpering and whining as he fucks up into your hand.

"Gonna cum, noona. Oh shit," he whines, burying his face into the valley of your breasts.

You hum sweetly, combing your fingers through his long black locks.

The warmth that explodes onto your hand is a knowing sign of the youngest's release and he cries out softly against your skin.

"Clean her up," Tae warns him and he's quick to do the Alpha's command.

You can feel your tiredness beginning to exhaust you and your mate knows it right away. "She's sleepy, let me lay her down," he whispers, laying on his side with you.

The tug of his knot has you wincing slightly but he makes up for it with his sweet kisses to the back of your neck.

"One time thing," he tells them.

Yoongi pulls at his cum covered shorts with a grimace. "Good enough for me."

Taehyung's large hand caresses over your head and he can't help but think of the scent that was drifting off Jimin in waves.

"I love you," you mumble, closing your eyes.

"I love you too baby girl. You and our pups," he replies, drifting his hand over your belly.

He knows your asleep when his breathing gets shallow and his knot finally deflates after a while.

Taehyung turns onto his back, perching his hands beneath his head as he closes his eyes. His ears perk up and he takes a sharp breath through his nose when he hears Jimin mumble across the mansion.

"I-I don't know. I just felt so-"

"Don't let Taehyung catch you talking like this! She isn't ours," Yoongi hisses to the younger Omega.

"I almost had her before Taehyung y'know, is it so wrong of me to still want her?! You all wanted her at that moment!" Jimin scoffs.

"Jimin, what we did was to help a member of our pack feel safe. You are becoming obsessed with her." Jungkook accuses.

Taehyung's eyes spring open, a deep low growl emitting through his chest. He can feel his canines and nails sharpening themselves. Gripping his shorts, he jumps out of bed with one thing on his mind -- vicious anger.

He can hear the maids and servants whispering nervously as he stalks through the wolframite hallways.

Your mate isn't in the headspace to calm anyone down at the moment, he can't possibly think of others when his wolf is yearning to tear out his best friend's jugular.

Slamming the doors to the dining room open, his eyes scan his pack before finding him.

"Oh shit," Jin mumbles, cupping his mouth.

"GET OUTSIDE!" Taehyung barks to the Omega.

The whole pack avoids eye contact even Jimin.

Taehyung is fast -- so fast that Seokjin's hair blows in the breeze he creates.

The pack Alpha grips the Omega by the neck, hurdling him over the wooden bench he's currently sitting on and dragging him towards the large glass doors that lead out to the backyard.

"Taehyung!" Jimin whines but he's quick to shut up at the feral snap of Taehyung's teeth.

"Someone go wake up Y/N! This is so bad!" Jin yelps, rushing after both of the wolves.

SandB Taglist-  @jvcqneliue, @gooplibrary, @imaforeigner, @wickizer, @mychemical-friendship, @justmewondering-recs, @stories1907, @stressedinmedschool247, @taeslittletiger, @claireelise19, @neobanguniverse​, @kb-bangtanenthusiast​, @almosthappysublime, @thedarkwinterrose​

[interactive-watchers]

"Thanks for helping me move this, you can put it over there."

"No problem. Didn't have anything else I needed to be doing. Hey, is this you?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, that's me when I was...11? My mom just came from a performance and still had her outfit on. My dad and I had been repairing the ME system, so we were covered in certus quartz dust. That was a nice day, after we got cleaned up, we went to the park and watched the early schoolers do their fall plays. I really liked the pirate one, the kids couldn't keep their balance so their swordfight turned into a balancing competition. My sibling won and they made them the Pirate Monarch."

"Which one are they?"

"Em is the one with the wings, hence the advantage with balancing. They were eight at the time. The other adult is our ren, Ivaili. Ae married into the family when I was three, they had just had Em and their partner, a merling, died in a fishing accident."

"I can tell your father's an Enderian hybrid, what are the other two, they seem human but looks can be deceiving."

"My father is a Draconian-Beta hybrid, so he had telepathy and telekinesis. My mom was a witch hybrid and potions affected her differently. My ren, and this surprises many people, was a Shulk-Elytrian hybrid, but only inherited the environmental immunities. I got the telepathy, effect resistance, and cold immunity. Em got the wings, plant and water magic, and animal speech."

"Oh, are they the patch under Ianite's? The winged sea goat?"

"Yep, the gear is my dad, the palette is my mom, and the thyme and rosemary is my ren. They were the first ones to appear after I received it."

"I've never seen them around, well, I think I might've met Em, but I haven't seen your parents. Did they not take the immortality when you became a god?"

"My mom's religion teaches death to be a sacred cycle and trying to break it is looked down upon, so fae refused it. My other parents refused it since they didn't want to live without her. Em took it since they were afraid of me being without family. I think they might've also taken it so they could safely "experiment with pyrotechnics" as they would put it. Honestly, the number of walls I've had to repair is slightly impressive."

"Is that really something to be impressed by?"

"Is it normal to teach your four year old children how to hack and fight?"

"...Listen, X33N and Kara started it."

"...Sure. Anyway, Em is usually not around since they split their time with Ianite and Dianite since they are dedicated to him and not to her technically, but I don't think he really minds Ianite semi claiming them."

"Ah, I can see that. Seems like you have a nice family."

Twelve years later

I took that photo down a week after Tubbo went missing. Kara had managed to get Jordan out from the tree in the hopes he would go talk to someone. Ianite was visiting me, so he came over to my place and when he saw the photo he just...shut down. I talked to X33N later that day and Jordan had taken down all his family photos. Tubbo's room was locked and he refused to go near it. I can't imagine what Jordan must be feeling, it probably reminds him of his past too much.

Where could Tubbo have gone? Where could all of them gone? Not only can we not detect them but the gods that volunteered to go looking, Eret, Callahan, Foolish, we can't find them either. Who could overpower gods?

...I just hope they're all safe.

Second ending

Twelve years later

I took that photo down a week after Tubbo went missing. Kara had managed to get Jordan out from the tree in the hopes he would go talk to someone. Ianite was visiting me, so he came over to my place and when he saw the photo, he exploded. Enderians are known for being protective of their family, but dragon hybrids are especially protective. Even with his sunglasses, you could see the magic in his eyes and there was a constant stream of dragon's breath coming from his mouth. I talked to X33N later that day and Jordan had taken down all his family photos. He had been destroying things all around the house and they kept repairing his items only for him to destroy them again. I can't imagine what Jordan must be feeling, it probably reminds him of his past too much.

Whoever thought to take the families of gods must think pretty highly of themself. It's not easy to piss a god off, but taking their family will certainly lead to them coming after you, probably for your life. We've already sent some gods to look for the missing people, but we haven't received a response yet nor have we heard from the missing.

...I just hope they're all safe.

[emilia3546]

Shadowsinger Part 7 -Gwynriel

ACOSF Spoilers! Do Not read this unless you have finished ACOSF and the Azriel bonus chapter

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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

*****

Azriel fought the urge to fidget, waiting, hidden in the shadows at the back of the room, not all the camp lords were even here yet, but they were still complaining. A clock in the corner struck nine and, almost as one, heads turned to the doorway, to Rhys' form appearing there, right on time. Azriel dispelled the shadows, and almost grinned at the clear surprise of some camp lords, and the outright fear of others, those who'd been toeing the line of outright treason. The moment Rhys stepped into the room, the camp lords stood, some smiled at him, others remained neutral, but there were a few who were glaring at him as if he were the greatest evil they'd ever seen. Rhys waved it all off, taking his seat at the head of the table,

"Sit down, and let's get on with it." Silence still reigned over the table as Azriel stalked across the room to stand behind Rhys, a hand casually resting on Truthteller's hilt at his side. "I believe there are some issues that you wish to discuss," Rhys started, but silenced an overeager lord with a look, "And I will listen, but my decision on matters will be final, is that understood?" He was met by begrudging nods and allowed the first lord to speak, 

"Thank you, High Lord." Good, at least this one hadn't forgotten his manners. Azriel fought the instinct to glare at Ironcrest's camp lord, the arrogant shit that he was, "I do have some concerns about some of your new rules,"

"Laws." Azriel corrected him, "You don't get to belittle laws you don't like."

"My apologies, about your new laws. My daughter, she now has to train with the boys, and wear leathers, I can see them looking at her, and it disgusts me. I have to protect her, but I cannot if you insist that she is trained with the boys." Rhys nodded slowly,

"I understand your concern, but, that is exactly why she should be trained, so that you don't need to protect her all the time. Can she hold her own in a fight?"

"Yes, but-"

"Then you don't need to worry, but I will consider allowing all-female training sessions for those who prefer, and," he added seeing the uproar that was about to kick off, "I will ensure a plan is made to avoid limiting training time for males and the females who are happy to train with them." The camp lord narrowed his eyes for a moment, considering, but sat down, Azriel knew better than to believe he was actually happy, but there was no other way for him to push back. It seemed that, for now at least, he would be content. The moment he sat down another stood to take his place,

"You might be content to see your girls fighting, but I am not. I do not care that your mate fights, High Lord, it is not in females' nature to fight, they will get hurt, and will be unable to do the jobs that they are supposed to do."

"What? Get married and breed?" Rhys raised an eyebrow as he spoke, "I'd consider your answer very carefully,"

"No, but someone has to maintain the camps, do the cooking, make clothes, look after children. Males train and fight full-time, there is no time for that, females fighting is ridiculous, when that isn't what they are designed to do."

"Again, I do understand that you worry about the integrity of your camp, but, I assure you, with both males and females helping with household chores, there is ample time to train and maintain a home."

"I don't think you understand the time it takes, High Lord, it can't be done."

"It can be done, with both males and females helping. Cassian probably works and trains more than all of you, and his mate matches him minute for minute, but they still find time to cook, clean the House, and spend time with their family." The camp lord struggled for words for a moment, "I will have plans written up to help with this if needed, but give yourselves some time to adjust, and teach your sons how to help their sisters and mothers." The camp lord nodded, not quite satisfied, but contented again. Azriel almost winced, if only he knew exactly what they wanted, what exactly Rhys could do to prevent them from rebelling, neither of the two lords who had spoken were really happy, they were just going to wait until Rhys made a wrong move, and strike.

Azriel watched silently, glaring at anyone who liked like he might start violence, and stepped closer to Rhys, ready to step in front of him if needed, but the room stilled when Ironcrest's camp lord stepped up,

"High Lord," he slightly inclined his head to Rhys, in a mockery of a bow, "Hello, Shadowsinger," he chuckled, "Our ability to protect our people comes from our ability to maintain order," each word was carefully chosen but Azriel knew what he really meant, he wanted to be able to control his people, "For protecting our females, that means keeping them in the camp, where they are safe, now they will be tempted to fly somewhere they cannot be protected, where no male knows where they are. We must keep them in the camp for their own safety, and not tempt them with flight elsewhere, into danger." Azriel almost snarled,

"Safety? Is that what you call it?" Rhys chuckled, "I call it control, and it makes you no better than those fae who kept humans as slaves, but you at least convince your enslaved people into thinking that you want to protect them. You don't fool me, but, since the threat of a female not being to defend herself outside of the camps is genuine, you have brought up the exact reason for my insistence that they also train." The lord's face fell for a moment,

"If they fight, they might start to think that they can lead,"

"They can lead, unless you're worried that you might become dispensable." The lord chuckled, 

"Of course not, but I will not have my females thinking that they are more than what they are."

"And what is that?" Rhys' voice was a low warning,

"Wives and mothers, homekeepers, not warriors, that is and has always been, a male role, I will not allow you to destroy our culture." With that he stood and left, leaving silence in his wake,

"Anyone who tries to ignore any laws will be punished as such, if help is needed to adjust it can be provided, or if there are genuine concerns outside of 'females' place' do send me a letter, and I will address them as best I can." Rhys then stood, and rested a hand on Azriel's shoulder, winnowing them both back to Velaris.

Azriel almost stumbled on hitting the ground outside the River House,

"I'm sorry," he muttered, and Rhys blinked,

"What?"

"That was awful, you should have known exactly what they wanted and how to truly avoid a war, that just delayed it."

"I know enough to know that truly avoiding a war is near impossible,"

"But not impossible, not with the right intel."

"Az, you did everything right, anything more drastic would have been noticed," he placed a hand on Azriel's shoulder, "You didn't think you'd find much, don't worry," Azriel turned away,

"I didn't expect much, but I expected something, you shouldn't have had to go in there blind." 

"Az, really, it's fine, your spies not being able to find anything tells us something else, we know at least that they're all being very careful with what they say, that they don't trust their own, and can't be unified." That was true, and Azriel nodded, "C'mon, we've got to make a plan, Feyre's waiting, and Cass will be here soon."

"No Nesta?"

"No, she'd already planned to go with Gwyn to visit Emerie." What? Rhys didn't miss the flash of worry in his eyes, "It's okay, Emerie says there's no hint of rebellion there, Mor dropped them off right at her house, and saw them go inside, no-one will attack them inside." Ariel nodded again and pushed the door open,

"Hold him," Feyre immediately brushed past him, dumping Nyx into his arms as she ran for the nearest bathroom. Azriel wrinkled his nose at the unmistakable scent of vomit, he held Nyx at arms length as the baby gurgled and hiccuped, still smelling, and Rhys chuckled behind him,

"He's not going to explode you know,"

"I know, he smells,"

"He's a baby, they smell." Azriel still held Nyx slightly away from his chest, but smiled when he narrowed his eyes, going still and then trying to leap for a shadow on Azriel's shoulder. With Nyx's tiny wings flapping, Azriel only just managed to catch him before he fell. 

"Well he definitely takes after you, Mr Reckless." Rhys grinned again, and Azriel followed him through to the nursery, putting Nyx down and sending shadows racing around him, Nyx's shouts of joy as he chased them almost taking his mind off Illyria, almost, but not quite,

"Thanks, Az." Feyre grinned when she reappeared, armed with Velaris' best cleaning supplies as she made a beeline for her son, tickling him as she tried to clean him up, making faces at him to make him laugh and let her finish cleaning him. "Good boy," she muttered before releasing him to crawl after the shadows again. She flopped onto a couch next to Rhys, and he automatically threw an arm around her shoulders, "Meeting go well?"

"As well as we could have expected, they're all content for now, still grumbling, but they haven't got a decent excuse yet," Rhys explained, "We just need to brainstorm a few ideas about next steps now, so we can be prepared."

*****

Gwyn stifled a laugh as Nesta almost snorted out her mouthful of hot cocoa at Emerie's comment about one of their most recent books,

"He's not evil," she protested, "He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's all."

"Wrong place at the wrong time?" Emerie snorted, "He's literally a war criminal!"

"Well, I think he's got potential, he just needs to see an alternative." Nesta insisted, and looked over to Gwyn, "C'mon, back me up,"

"I think," Gwyn narrowed her eyes, "That we don't really know him well enough to make a proper judgement, he could literally be evil, or he could be hiding his motives, perhaps it'll be clearer in the next book." Nesta cheered, and finished her mug of cocoa, staring triumphantly at Emerie,

"She didn't agree with you, either, Nes!" She shouted after her as she ran off to the kitchen to refill her mug, and grinned when she returned,

"Anyway," Gwyn started, "Enough about fictional males, how's mated life treating you? We haven't had a proper discussion yet." Nesta snorted,

"I've only been back for a few days,"

"Still," Gwyn raised an eyebrow, and Nesta laughed,

"It's like, well you know what we were like before, it's like that, but somehow more, with the bond there, really there, everything is so much more intense, y'know."

"Not really," Emerie smiled, "Care to enlighten us?"

"You know when you love someone so much that when they're not there, you constantly want to check that they're okay?" Both Emerie and Gwyn nodded, Catrin, Gwyn had loved her that much, differently to how Nesta loved Cassian, but she had loved her so much. "It's more than that, it's like looking in a mirror, like seeing my soul reflected in his eyes."

"And the sex is good, yes?" Emerie chuckled, and Nesta blushed, trying to dodge the question,

"You have no idea," she finally muttered, earning a howl of laughter from Emerie, "Right after you mate, there's like a pull, and well,"

"Don't tell me you spent your whole honeymoon having sex?" Emerie giggled gleefully, enjoying this conversation far too much,

"Not all of it!" Nesta insisted, "We went to a little house in the mountains, Cass built it himself a while ago, right after Rhysand became high lord, it was the first time he'd ever been able to buy anything himself, so he bought the materials for that house." Gwyn smiled, "It's right by a lake, and when the sky's clear, and there's no wind, it looks like a mirror, like the stars and moon are shining up rather than down."

"It sounds beautiful," Gwyn mused, 

"It is, and, I don't think he noticed, but when we went down to the lake one evening, some of the stars, they crested just over his wings, and almost looked like a set of armor, but then it disappeared, right as he pointed out some of the constellations, Enalius, he's the one I remember best, but there was a lion one, and a pegasus, and," Nesta paused, and pursed her lips, trying to remember, "And, oh a wolf. And then, he picked me up, and flew above the trees, and the stars were shining over the mountains in the distance. We picked a star. It's our star, whenever I look at it, I have to think of him, and when he looks at it he has to think of me. I know it's a bit lovey-dovey, but I like having that, even when he's not right here."

"I think it's cute," Gwyn squeezed Nesta's hand, "I'm gonna get some more marshmallows," she gestured to the dismally boring mugs of cocoa, and slipped off to the kitchen, and swore when she saw that they'd run out, "Em!" She shouted up the stairs, "You got any more marshmallows?"

"Yeah, there's some in the parlor at the side of the house, I think," Emerie shouted back, before howling with laughter, presumably at Nesta's expense, and Gwyn chuckled to herself as she stepped outside, the cold air nipping at her face as she quickly skirted round the house, keeping an eye out before rummaging through to find the marshmallows.

A hand clamped over her mouth, and muffled Gwyn's scream as she was dragged backwards, no, no, no, she couldn't, not again, tears pricked her eyes as she fought desperately to regain her balance, her panic clouding her mind. She forced herself to stop, to take a deep breath in. It was dark, no-one else was around, Nesta and Emerie were too far away to help her. She glanced around as much as she could, there, Emerie had a wood-chopping block set up, and the axe was still there. She relaxed, and stopped struggling, waiting for her attacker to grow complacent. He didn't, just tugged her tighter against him,

"You're one of the bitches who thought that females can fight," a voice hissed in her ear, "We'll see what our 'oh so powerful' High Lord thinks when he finds out we have you." Gwyn shivered in fear, slowly trying to loosen his grip on her, but the moment he slightly let go, he spun her around and threw her to the floor, she was several hundred meters from the house now, even if she screamed nobody would hear her. Right as she tried to get up, he kicked her hands out from underneath her, pinning her wrists to the floor. She couldn't breathe. This was it. She was going to die, right here, right now, she was going to die. "Pathetic," the male hissed, "Girls like you should know better than to go outside in the dark on your own, even if the camp is loyal, some of us don't agree with the new laws." Gwyn ignored him, focusing on keeping her breathing slow, but each time he adjusted his grip on her, it sped back up. She had to distract herself, something happy. Nesta smiling, Emerie laughing, male in the dark. It wasn't working, miniature pegasus, male in the dark. Baby Nyx, male in the dark. Azriel. Azriel smiling, Azriel laughing, Azriel singing, Azriel holding her, flying over Velaris, Azriel teaching her silent fighting, Azriel, Azriel, Azriel.

Gwyn surged upwards, flipping the male off, and sprinted for the axe, wrenching it out of the wood, and hurled it at her assailant, only turning back in her mad sprint for the safety of the house at his grunt of pain. He stumbled, blood seeping out through his leathers as he inspected the gash in his thigh,

"Bitch," he hissed, and Gwyn flew for the door, latching it behind her,

"Nesta! Emerie!" Gwyn screamed, backing away from the door, Nesta was the first down the stairs, "We have a problem, call Cassian now, get someone here to fetch us early, he'll break down the door soon." True to her words, a banging started on the doors, and stopped, but then intensified, oh shit, he had the axe, she'd practically given it to him, and he was going to kill them. "You have any weapons, Em?" Emerie silently shook her head, 

"Only kitchen knives,"

"That'll do," Nesta muttered, "C'mon, we should be ready for when he gets in." Gwyn followed Nesta into the kitchen, quite happy to let her plan, and position them all. The banging stopped, he was in, but then there was a thump, and the door squeaked open, so it was still on its hinges,

"Nesta? Gwyn? Emerie?" Mor. Gwyn stood out of her hiding place, and Emerie ran for Mor, her wings almost knocking them both off their feet as she crashed into Mor's arms,

"Thank the gods," she muttered, "We thought we were going to have to fight him off with cutlery." Mor snorted,

"Not on my watch, let's get out of here." Emerie wrapped her arms around Mor's waist, and Nesta and Gwyn each held an arm, only letting go once they reached the House of Wind, "There's not a spare room here, there's already one in the townhouse though, I'll stay with you if you prefer, Em." Emerie smiled and nodded,

"Yeah, okay, thanks." And held on to Mor as she winnowed them away again. Gwyn had barely registered arriving before Cassian hurtled through the door, and cupped Nesta's face in his hands,

"Are you hurt? Who tried to hurt you? I'll kill him, I'll kill him." Nesta reached up to cup his face,

"I'm fine, I'm fine Cass, no-one touched me, Mor was there quickly enough." Cassian gathered her into his chest,

"I'm never leaving your side again," he muttered, kissing the top of her head, and Gwyn almost wanted to leave, but that felt more awkward,

"That's a bit dramatic," Nesta giggled,

"I mean it, sweetheart, I'm going nowhere, from now on, I get to tag along on girls night." Nesta snorted again,

"Only if you let us braid your hair."

"Deal." Gwyn's attention was drawn away by a little noise behind her, and she turned to find Azriel waiting,

"How long have you been there?" She asked, and he shrugged,

"I didn't want to startle you," Gwyn just wrapped her arms around his neck, raising herself on her tiptoes just to reach, "Are you okay?" He muttered, noting the mud all over her clothes,

"Yeah, just a bit shaken, he didn't get a chance to actually hurt me, just scared me a bit." Azriel nodded, and squeezed around her waist a little, "I panicked,” she admitted, "All the training we've been doing, and the first time I got ambushed, I panicked."

"That's okay, it's normal, you still got away, that's still great." Gwyn sighed,

"I suppose, but what if it happens again, I mean it was a male in the dark, and I just froze," tears formed in her eyes when Azriel gently tipped her chin up to look at him, 

"That is normal, Gwyn. You did so, so well by realizing that you were panicking and working through it to escape, you did, I am so proud of you for that." Gwyn smiled, just a little, but it made Azriel grin at her, "Do that again."

"What?"

"Smile." She did,

"Thank you, Az." She mumbled, letting him lead her back to her rooms and draw up a bath. He stayed sat on the bed while she washed, talking gently, almost nonsense, but his voice, just his voice chased away the remaining fear, and Gwyn found that she was exhausted, and was almost asleep when she flopped into bed, barely registering when Azriel brushed her hair out of her face and kissed her brow gently before leaving her to sleep. Gwyn tried to call out his name, to ask him to stay, but he was gone, and sleep claimed her quickly.

Tired as she was, dreams plagued her sleep, dreams of faceless males, in the dark, dreams that she hadn't had in years, dreams of Catrin's face, smiling and laughing, then crying silently in fear, dreams of the younglings she had to protect before they shared her sister's fate. Her eyes flew open right as that Hybern commander's face appeared in her dreams. She stumbled to the bathroom, staring straight into the mirror.

I'm safe.

It's over.

I'm in Velaris.

I'm safe.

It's over.

I'm in Velaris.

It wasn't working, her usual calming ritual wasn't working, she couldn't calm herself down, she splashed her face with water, deep breaths, deep breaths. The bed was drenched in sweat when she returned, sweat that felt like blood, Catrin's blood, just like the nightgown clinging to her skin now. Gwyn stepped back into the bathroom, and cleaned herself up before changing into a new nightgown. When she returned to the bed, it was clean, new sheets in place,

"Thank you," she whispered, just about managing to fall asleep until a voice filled her dreams

That one's mine.

Gwyn hurled herself out of bed, she had to get out, she had to just get away, she threw the door open, a sob rising in her chest as he eyes fell on the door across from hers, as the scent from that room reached her. Male, but safe, male, but safe, male, but she didn't fear it, no, she didn't fear it, she loved it. She threw the door open, the sobs finally forcing their way out of her as she ran fro Azriel. She sobbed as she crawled onto the bed, into his arms, and buried her face in his chest,

"Az," she sobbed, and he mumbled gently to her, she couldn't quite make out the words, but his voice was calm, soothing, and she snuggled into him, "I had a nightmare," she muttered by way of an explanation, and Azriel gently stroked her hair, "About Sangravah, I was scared."

"You're safe here," he mumbled, "I'm right here, no-one can touch you, not while I'm here." She nodded and sniffed again, fear dissipating with every word he spoke, and giggling when a shadow wrapped around her, 

"They're protecting me," she giggled, and gradually drifted back to sleep, nightmares held at bay as she slept this time. She was safe here, with him. Gwyn slept the whole night snuggled against Azriel's chest, safe in his arms.

[gopeachllama]

Why I think Feysand were OOC in ACOSF

I hope that no one misunderstands from the title but let me say this is a 100% PROfeysand post. so if you hated feysand even before acosf, then this post isn't for you.

So i've seen a lot of interesting theories about feysand's and in particular rhys' behaviour and choices throughout acosf. and while alot of them seemed possible and may have been the case canonically speaking, even as a feysand stan i just couldn't seem to wrap my head around some of the things they said and did in the book. they just both seem OOC, its the only pausible explanation for me.

To understand why feysand were OOC in the book we have to look at this through a narrative perspective. as in we have to ask why would the author write the character/s in this way?

a quick overview of what a character arc is

so there can be a lot of variations of a character arc in a story but the basics is as follows (how does the character go from point 'a' to point 'b'):

the 'big lie' - the views/beliefs/actions the character has at the start which will be challenged throughout the story (this is point 'a')

the 'incident' - a plot point in which starts development of the character. something that spurs the character into action, this most ofter happens when they are placed in an unfamiliar situation. this usuallyy is the intial challenge to their 'big lie'. at this point the story will move forward and theres no going back.

the midpoint - the character changes conciously or subconciously, they start to recognise their own flaws in the 'big lie'.

world collaspes - this is usually on the heels of a victory, the character reaches the lowest point in their journey. they finally confront 'the big lie' and forces to stop this deception they inflict on themselves. they can destroy it or it will destroy them.

the climax - the reason for the story. the reason why the character had to take this journey in order to get to this moment. the moment that the character will decide once and for all whether they will go forward to point 'b' or regress back to point 'a'

the resolution - the character reaches point 'b'. their view/beliefs/actions have changed, they no longer believe in the 'big lie'.

So obvisouly the main character in acosf is Nesta. What sjm does in her books is that every plot point and development of secondary characters is in service to the arc of the main character. None of the character's outside of Nesta have their own development. Not even Cassian, any sort of changes or developments he undergoes is in service to Nesta (a complete missed opportunity for Cassian but that a whole other point). And before anyone tries to say otherwise, you can have development for characters even if they are secondary ones (and for a book that is 800+ pages long it is definitely possible). An example is with his can also be seen with Gwyn. Her leaving the library for the first time was a huge moment for the character, but she did so, in order to comfort Nesta after her big fight with Cassian. It was also so that Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie could all be together in Illyria so they could be kidnapped and forced to enter the blood rite (where the final showdown occurs with Nesta and the villan).

so what has this got to do with feysand and why are they OOC?

In fact the entire plot with feyre's pregnancy was made to give chracter developments for Nesta. There was nothing written in the book that suggested any developments for feyre and rhys. it did nothing for them. Nesta needed to become central to the story and the only way sjm thought to keep feyre side lined was to make her pregrnant. It was also just lazy writing and world building bc there is no way that rhys would have though of this when he and feyre were trying for a baby.

SIN #1 The Shields

Rhys practicing shields (shield thats doesn't even allow anyone to even touch her) on feyre, which she just allows. the book explains because of the fact that there is more danger to her now that she's pregnant. Narratively, this would make sense if there is a payoff. Like later in the story if feyre was in physical danger and the shield saves her or if the shield became a detriment to her in some way. But no nothing like this happens. Rhys 'practices' the shield on her and thats it. Rhys, who was the same person that trusted feyre enough defend herself against the weaver. It was totally out of character that he would shield her to the point that Cassian can't even kiss her on the cheek (sounds familiar huh). and the same goes for feyre, who has no problem with this (*cough* tamlin locking her up *cough*). Thats is some OOC behaviour.

So what were the point of the shields? well since sjm made it canon that fae can smell when a female is pregnant, the biggest way they came into play was in the scene when rhys lifted it long enough so that everyone could sense that that feyre was pregnant. And It could have been just that, feyre and rhys were expecting a baby, and Nesta can go along with her development, they did not need to intersect. But it did, and we'll come back to that later. This scene is a lighthearted moment in the book, one of the rare few where all the characters are happy and celebrating a good thing. acofas we knew that rhys and feyre decided to try for a baby, and seeing it pay off here was enjoyable for the readers.

But what else does this scene do? through Nesta's perspective, we can read her thoughts on it, and though she doesn't reveal much its an important character moment for her. the readers can see that she can feel happiness for someone else beyond the self-loathing she guards herself with, it shows that she is a character worth rooting for.

SIN #2 Rhys concealing the dangers of the pregnancy from feyre

oof this one is a doosey. this was the most baffling thing to come out of acosf for me. there is literally no reason or explanation that would make sense for rhys to lie to feyre like that. It offers no development for the two character it affects the most: rhys and feyre. there no fallout on rhys' end for lying to her, and there is no turmoil for feyre such as falling into depair like we told she would (the whole reason that rhys was hiding it in the first place).

When Nesta finds out that the pregnancy was most likely going to kill feyre and the baby. instead of Nesta disagreeing and urging Rhys to tell feyre, she doesn't say anything and forms a temporary truce with him, a character she has always had conflict with. It also serves as the incident that allows Nesta to have her 'world collapse' moment in her character arc. How else was Nesta going to realise what a shitty person is was being if she didn't do something so absolutely shitty? in a fit of rage, Nesta reveals to feyre that the pregnancy was going to kill both her and the baby. she get taken away on a hike in illyria (because???) and she reaches rock bottom after she comes to term with what she did. the story is taken away from velaris and the inner circle, and any conflict and resolution that happens between feyre and rhys, if it even happened at all, happens off page. again furthering my point about the pregnancy having no impact on the two characters is affects the most. After Nesta's fleeting moment of enlightenment, and her swordplay sex marathon with Cassian (urgh) she returns to velaris and nothing has changed between rhys and feyre. there isn't really much of a development with Nesta's relationship with feyre, their 'reconciliation' occurs all of less than one page and doesn't even happen out loud, just mind to mind. Now that Nesta has had her important character moment, nothing else matters (again lazy writing).

SIN #3 Everyone dies

ok so yes everyone has said their two cents about this and i agree with it. Feyre and nyx had to die so that Nesta could have her climax moment. It is the climax of the story since it is the big story development right before the resolution. and about the bargain - feysand decided in acofas that they were going to try for a baby. meaning that it was after this decision that they struck the bargain that they would die together. so at some point they would have thought of the fact they would have a child/children when the both die. im sorry but do they seem like the kind of ppl that would make a suicide pact even if it meant leaving their children behind? TOTALLY OOC for me. and i dont know i guess also the stakes weren't high enough with just the threat of feyre and nyx dying.

So feyre and nyx are dead and rhys will soon follow and Nesta intervenes to save them. Its also a self-sacrificing moment bc she has to give up her powers in order to do this... Showing that she does truely love her family and the depths of her powers. (seriously idc how you stan or hate how does anyone this good book?). don't doubt that in the future books sjm will find a way for Nesta to get her powers back (whatever they are (pure death WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???))

So Nesta saves the day, everyone is fine and nothing has changed except Nesta is nice now probably. the end.

welp this got way longer that i expected but anyways long story short there was nothing about the pregnancy that gave development to feysand characters and it was all for the development of the main character.

i don't claim acosf!feysand and sjm better fucking leave them alone in the rest of the books.

[ur-favorite-queer-queen]

School Dance

For Maribat March day 25 theme school dance

Master List

“Now remember class,” Mrs. Davis spoke, “The Father Daughter dance is tomorrow afternoon at 5 till 7, make sure you get your tickets at the booth near the cafeteria.” 

“Yes Mrs. Davis.” All the students answered in unison. 

Little Charlotte Martha Brown-Wayne walked out of her 4th grade class with her best friend, Faith Couffaine, in tow. 

“So Char, are you going to be going to the dance?” Faith asked, her blue eyes locked onto Charlotte.

“I don’t think so Fae.” Charlotte turned so that her brown eyes faced the ground.

“Why not? Me and my dad are going to be there!” Faith exclaimed, fixing her headband that somehow got tangled in her thick black hair.

“Yeah because you have a dad, I don’t think moms are allowed.” Charlotte replied, tucking some stray pieces of her dark brown hair behind her ears.

“Oh please, just bring one of your moms, it’ll be fine!”

“But Fae-” She turned her head to face her best friend.

“No don’t Fae me. I already got my ticket and I know your parents are just waiting for you to ‘remember’,” She used air quotes, “to get yours. You’ll be fine Char, plus isn’t your mom really looking forward to this?” She didn’t wait for her to answer, “Exactly, so I expect to see you there.”

“Fae-” 

“Bye Charlotte, you better not leave me hanging!” Was the last thing said before she raced to hug her mom and leave in her limo. 

“Ugh, really Faith.” Charlotte then walked to the place where Alfred was always parked in order to pick her up. 

“Hello Miss Charlotte, did you have a good day at school?” Alfred questioned as he got out of the car to open the door for her. 

“It was fine.” 

“Now you’re not forgetting anything are you?” Charlotte froze like a deer in headlights, acting was not her strong suit. 

“No?” Neither was lying, just like her maman. 

Alfred opened the door for her and she quickly ducked inside, Alfred returned to his seat but didn’t move. He also didn’t lock the doors. 

“Miss Charlotte, why do you not want to go to the dance?” A simple question with a complicated answer, at least in her mind. 

“Everyone is gonna be there with their dad. I won’t because I don’t have a dad. I would be there with mom, I’d be the outcast.” 

“I don’t believe the gender of the parent you bring should matter as long as you have fun.” 

“It's called the Father Daughter dance for a reason Alfred.” 

“A simple label that should not matter Miss Charlotte.” He thought for a minute, “Tell me Miss Charlotte, will any of your friends care that you bring your mom?” 

She thought back to what Faith had been saying the entire week. “No.” 

“Will your classmates?” 

She thought again, she didn’t interact with her classmates a ton, but none of them seemed to mind the fact that she had 2 moms. “Probably not.” 

“Then what is the problem?” 

“It's just-I’ll look weird because I’m the only one with my mom. Everyone else will be there with their fathers and I’ll be there with my mother.”

“Like I stated before Miss Charlotte, it matters not the gender of the parent as long as you have fun with them. I have no doubt that some of your classmates will be their fathers but will be miserable.” 

Charlotte snapped her head up to look at him, like the mere thought of one of her classmates being miserable with their father at the Father Daughter dance was impossible. But it seemed reasonable, she knew quite a few of her classmates who talked fondly about their mothers but not their fathers. And when the subject of the Father Daughter dance came up, they never participated in the conversations unless asked, and their answers were never enthusiastic. Plus Alfred was always right, that’s what her mom, maman, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandfather taught her.

She nodded her head in determination, opening the car door and saying over her shoulder, “Be right back Alfred!” 

She pulled a 5 dollar bill out of her backpack pocket, one that had been haunting her for the past week. She made her way to the cafeteria then to the booth right next to it. 

“Hello Charlotte. Here to buy a ticket?” The lady, she’s pretty sure is a fifth grade teacher, asked.

“Yes ma’am.” She handed her the 5 dollar bill and received a small slip of paper in return.

“Remember to show that to the lady who will be at the entrance tomorrow. That’s the only way she’ll let you in. Promise not to lose it?” 

“I promise.” She smiled at the woman before racing back to where Alfred was waiting. 

-

“Mom! Maman!” Charlotte called as she entered the manor. Not hearing their voices she assumed they were in the kitchen so she went to her room to drop her backpack off and change into some more comfy clothes. 

After changing out of her uniform and into some leggings and a t-shirt she made her way to the kitchen where she found her moms. 

Her maman was baking something, probably cookies, while her mom watched her, occasionally handing her ingredients. It wasn’t an uncommon sight for Charlotte, in fact they had family baking days every Sunday. The only hard part was getting their attention, since whenever they baked they were always in their own little world together. 

Her eyes caught the frosting that she was guessing her maman had just finished making. Perfect. 

She made her way over to the bowl, grabbed the spoon, and took a big bite of the sweet treat. And as predicted,

“Charlotte!”

She turned and there her maman stood staring at her, hands on her hips as she tried to fight the smile off her face. Her mom was trying to hold back her giggling in the background. 

“Hi maman. Hi mom.” 

“Why are you eating frosting? When you know you’re not allowed.” Her maman gave her a pointed look. 

“It was the only way to get your attention.” 

“She’s not wrong Nette.” Steph interjected, coming up to stand next to Charlotte. She crouched down so she was at Charlotte’s level, “Did you get the ticket.”

“Yes, it's in my backpack.” 

“Ok make sure you don’t lose it. We all know you have your maman’s memory.” 

“Hey! My memory is not that bad!” Marinette protested. 

“Anymore. We all know what your memory was like when you were younger.” Steph reminded. 

“...Fine. I’ll give you that.” 

“Can I help frost the cookies?” Charlotte asked.

“Of course my little ladybug. Pinkie promise not to eat any frosting?” Steph held out her pinkie to Charlotte. 

“Yes mom!” Charlotte held out her pinkie, returning the promise. 

-

“Charlotte! Are you almost ready!” Steph shouted from outside her room. 

“Almost ready mom!” Charlotte replied as she adjusted the golden colored clip in her hair. 

“Charlotte you look great.” Marinette came to stand next to her in the mirror. 

Charlotte ran her hands down her black and gold dress for the umpteeth time. Whatever she did, something just didn’t look right. But she didn’t know what.

“Something doesn’t look right.” 

“I think I have an idea of what might help,” Marinette took a gold necklace off her neck, “Here you go.” 

“Wait Maman, isn’t this your favorite necklace.” 

“It is, but I think for tonight it’ll look best with you.” Marinette put the necklace around Charlotte’s neck and clipped it in the back. “There, what do you think?” 

“I love it,” She turned around and hugged Marinette, “Thank you Maman!” 

“Of course my beautiful baby bat. Now don’t keep your mom waiting.” 

Charlotte opened the door and met her mom’s face on the other side. 

“Well look at you little ladybug, ready to go?” Steph held her arm out to Charlotte. 

“Yes mom.” Charlotte took her arm as they headed outside where Alfred was waiting. 

They seated themselves in the back of the car when Steph noticed the necklace. 

"Charlotte, where did you get that necklace?" 

"Maman gave it to me. Do you like it?" 

"Yes, very much. It even goes with your dress." 

"It kinda goes with your dress too."

"I see, did Maman ever tell you how she got that necklace?"

"No, why?"

"We have arrived Miss Stephanie and Miss Charlotte." Alfred spoke.

"I'll tell you later." Steph promised. 

“You better.” Charlotte grumbled as they got out of the car, unsure if her mom actually heard her. 

-

“They’re pretty cute huh?” A man asked Stephanie. Both parents were watching their respective daughters dance together, the two girls forgetting about their parents that sat only a few feet away. 

“Adorable. I’m Stephanie, by the way, Charlotte’s mom.” She held her hand out to the man. 

“Ethan, Jasmine’s dad.” He returned the handshake. 

“I don’t suppose we could arrange some playdates in the future?”

“Of course we can. If I don’t tell Jazzy that she can see her friend again then she’ll have a riot.”

“Well would you look at that! Both of our children have at least one thing in common!” 

“Here you can put my number in here.” He slid her his phone. 

“And you can put yours in mine.” She handed her phone over.

After putting their information in the other’s phone, they both took their respective phones back and glanced at the names.

“Well Mrs. Brown-Wayne, it seems we will be seeing each other quite a lot in the future.” 

“It seems we will Mr. Cook.”

-

Marinette got a video sent to her later that night. From her lovely wife. She opened up the video to see her daughter dancing with another girl. It seemed she had inherited another one of her traits, the inability to hide her blush. 

Marinette giggled to herself as she watched her daughter continue to dance with the unknown girl. It seemed like the other girl was having fun too, if the smile she was wearing and the glow in her eyes told her anything. 

The video was followed by a text, ‘I think there will be many more playdates in the future.’ 

Marinette smiled to herself as she tucked her phone away. Fully planning on getting answers the next day on this mysterious girl who had captured her daughter’s heart. Young love was always so cute to watch.

-

“Maman?” Charlotte asked as she was being tucked into bed, the night’s events had taken a toll on her. In the comfort of her bed she was struggling to keep her eyes open. 

“Yes my baby bat?” Marinette asked as she sat on her bed. 

“Mom never told me how you got that necklace,” She lazily pointed to the necklace that had returned to its original place on Marinette’s neck, “Can you?”

“That’s quite the story, maybe when you're older.”

“Aw, but mom said she would.”

“Did she say she’d tell you later?” 

“Uh...yes.” 

“When mom says later, she really means not for a long time.”

“Oh…”

“How about about this, in around five years-” 

“Five years!” 

“Yes, when you're 15, the age I met your mom, I’ll tell you the story.”

“You promise?” 

“I promise.” 

“Pinky promise?” Charlotte held her pinkie out.

“Pinky promise.” Marinette linked her pinky with her daughter’s. 

“Okay goodnight Mom.” Charlotte snuggled into the blankets and closed her eyes. 

“Goodnight sweetie.” Marinette gave her a light kiss on the forehead. 

She made her way out of the room, silently closing the door, before making her way to her and her wife’s bedroom. She entered and heard her wife getting ready in the bathroom so she sat down on the bed and waited. 

She didn’t have to wait long as only a few minutes later her wife came out of the bathroom and sat down with her on the bed. 

“Hey what’s on your mind?” Steph asked as Marinette laid her head on her shoulder. Her hand subconsciously fiddling with the gold necklace that sat on her neck. 

“Did you tell Charlotte that you would tell her the story of how you got me the necklace?” Marinette got straight to the point, she had learned that sometimes it was much better than beating around the bush. 

“Maybe.” 

“Stephanie.” 

“What! She asked and-” 

“You should know better! The necklace has to do with how we met!” 

“Yeah but-” 

“No buts! You know we didn’t meet the most child friendly way!”

“I know, I just thought that she would forget about it after the dance.”

“I told her I would tell her when she turns 15, now she’s going to be counting down the days till then.” 

“I’m sorry Nette.”

“It’s okay Steph, I just wish we had a little time before she knew.” 

“She was going to find out eventually, at least now we have a date to prepare ourselves.” 

Marinette’s mind went back to a time where her only worries were what to wear for her next date with Stephanie. Where she didn’t have to worry about her best friend dying, or the grief that followed. 

“Come on let’s not worry about it tonight.” Steph brought her out of her stupor. 

“Yeah, goodnight Steph.”

“Goodnight Nette.”

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

You have literally no idea how long this took me to write. There will be part 2, I kinda left you guys hanging, but that won’t be for a long time. Anyways I do hope that you enjoyed, like I said in day 24 of Maribat March, Story, I will be posting 2 of these each time I come back from the dead. Now I am going to go finish school work so I don’t fail! Who knows when you’ll see me next?

@maribatmarch-2k21 

[yandere-wishes]

La Belle Au Bois Dormant // Yandere! Malleus Draconia X Reader//

A continuation form A Rose By Any Other Name Would Still Be As Sweet

===========================================================

From this slumber, you shall wake, when true love's kiss, the spell shall break.

"I don't want to go" Malleus mumbled as he reached his pale hand to gently caress your smooth face. His intoxicating green eyes held a form of hesitance as they bore into your (e/c) ones. Your fingers gently entwined in his raven locks, pulling them back to see just how long they were. Occasionally your long nails would brush against the base of his horns, earning you a delightful little chirp from the dark fae. 

You tried to push your lips into a heartfelt smile in hopes that it would grant him some peace of mind. "I'll be alright my love, go about your day you have classes to attend." Jealousy pumped through your veins as the final phrase left your mouth. Classes, they seemed like such a distant thing. You could barely remember the wooden desks in which you sat at or the thin pencils that you once held in your grasp. Everything was so blurry, so far away, your life before you met with the Malleus always seemed so distant, so abstract. Now your life was planned out in such a way that there was nothing to remember but your raven-haired lover. Every moment you were awake was spent by his side, in his embrace. It was always him, him, him...

Malleus groaned as he pushed himself up, the early morning sunlight reflected off his face causing him to resemble a mystical porcelain doll. He leaned over pressing his lips to your forehead in a lengthy kiss. "I love you" he muttered. "Love you too" you replied almost too automatically. That just how thing where you said what he wanted to hear, did want he wanted you to do. The concept of "free will" was something you had lost over the last few months. 

"It's time" Malleus stood in front of you black wand in hand. It was time to sleep, it was time to fall into a listless slumber for god knows how many endless hours until he got back. Slumber had become the prison Malleus bound you in. He needed no chains or shackles, no fancy locks to bar the doors. No all he had to do was wave that a cursed wand...

The emerald jewel embedded in the hilt began to glow, a green mist began to ooze out from the gemstone, gradually floating over to you. This had -like may other things- become a sort of day to day routine. You would sit as still as can be as the green mist infiltrated your senses. The second you smelt its lavender like aroma, your eye lips began to get heavy, your limbs started feeling numb resting. Your body would slowly recline into the soft mattress...and that was it, time would fly by as remained trapped in a dreamless sleep. That's how things had been for so long and that's how you feared things would remain forever. 

But unlike the lovable fairy tales we are told as children, real life has a way to demolish the notion of "forever".

It had been a total of four months since (y/n) had gone missing. 120 days since his closest friend had vanished without a trace. The headmaster and professors had stopped looking for her on the four days of her disappearance By the second week the student body as a whole had forgotten her. By the first month, all traces of her had been wiped clean. And four long months later Phil Auroria still hadn't stopped searching for his best friend. 

 The week leading up to (y/n)'s disappearance would forever be burnt into his mind. She'd walked into class every day that week looking dazed and confused, she constantly got lost in the stone hall, fall asleep during lessons. At some point, she'd stopped eating and started to spontaneously burst into laughter. Phil had tried to talk to her, reason with her even. But she'd always brush him off, that was until she stopped talking to him in general. It had been by Wednesday or maybe Thursdays that the young girl had lost her tongue. Every word that Phil had spoken to her had been meeting with an icy cold glare from eyes that where that had lost the ability to focus on one thing for too long. By the time Saturday had rolled around Phil had decided enough was enough. He'd marched over to the Ramshackle dorm barged in ready to drag her to the nurse's office, practically demanding she gets treatment for her peculiar behavior...when he found her room abandoned, vases knocked over, postures ripped from the walls and the window wide open.

Kidnapped! The word rang in Phil's head as he's rushed around campus trying to convince any teacher he found that his best friend had been Kidnapped! But no teacher paid him any mind they all brushed it off as if he was going crazy. Until finally the headmaster had agreed to do a "thorough investigation". Said investigation had lasted hardly a day. Crowley had to look around her room, allegedly "talked" some of her other friends and done, that had been that. Never again did the mask-wearing director talk about the lost girl again, never did the teachers call her name during the morning attendance, never was her name heard on campus again.

Phil too had begun to lose all hope. His mind had written her off as dead, corpses probably buried on some hill my a serial murderer. (Y/n) was gone, never to be heard of again...

that was until just the other day. One miserable day before the anniversary of (y/n)'s four-month disappearance. Walking down the grim, eerie halls one his way to alchemy class, Phil had heard the misremembered, lonesome name being whispered. At, first he thought it was his grieving mind play tricks on him, telling him he had heard her name, telling him she would be right around the corner awaiting him...she hadn't been both to Phil's dismay and expectation. Instead, he'd seen his deputy dorm director Lilia Vanrough talking to Diasminia's royal guard Silver. They had been whispering about something, their voices so low that Phil had only made out the occasional word...but that had been more than enough. From their vague hushed conversation, Phil had learned all he needed to learn. (Y/n) was very much alive and well, she was being held against her will in the dorm leader of Diasminia's room. The poor girl, who knew what horrible deeds that monster had done to her! He just had to save her! There wasn't a moment to spare!

And that was how Phil found himself staring at the hulking noir door. Adrenaline pumping through his veins as his fingers nimbly tried picking the lock. She had to be there! She just had to! He'd searched every other nook and cranny of the school, he'd searched from the hot sands of  Scarabia down to the depths of Octavinelle. There was nowhere else you could possibly be! The lock gave way with a loud "click". Phil held his breath as he pressed on the wooden door. For a second he stopped, heart, pounding violently against his rib cage. He closed his eyes, easing his mind into a state of comfort before fully opening the door and stepping through the thresh hold. 

....

....

....

....

A warm feeling flooded his body, blood ran up to his face, his heart sped up. His eyes had grown to the size of the gem pinned to his coat. They say if you dream a more then once it's sure to come true...

There she was in all the glory, arms crossed over her rising and falling stomach. She looked so peaceful, so tranquil

A true sleeping beauty. 

Phil walked closer to his slumbering friend, eyes never leaving her serene face. When he reached the side of the bed he kneeled down, his fingers swept a few stray locks of hair behind your ear. "(y/n)" he whispered. "(y/n) it's me" when she didn't reply, Phil, wrapped his fingers around one of her hands, giving it a gentle squeeze, still nothing. That when he saw it. The faint green glow that circulated your body. A sleeping curse Phil realized. The dark Fae had you trapped in a sleeping curse how....oddly typical of him. Still despite how common they were one of the strongest spells known to man, Fae and all other creatures that roamed the earth. There were only two known ways to break a sleeping curse and those methods varied from curse to curse. 

The quickest method was for the caster to break it or in a sense "take back". The second method was the ever-popular "True love's kiss" but well...those weren't the most reliable sources. Yet at that moment Phil couldn't stop looking at her lips. There was something about them, something about that just made him want to kiss her...

Before his brain could fully process what was happening, he was pushing his lips onto hers. His head felt dizzy, cold sweat broke over his body. When he pulled away his lungs heaved for air, an emptiness loomed over him as he waited for any remote reaction from the dormant girl. 

...

...

...

...

"Five more minutes Malleus" the voice was laced in sleep and sloth, the young girl's eyes cracked open glaring at whoever had just awoken her...No this wasn't Malleus, this was someone else, someone she knew! Someone she thought she would never see again! "Phil!" (y/n) instantly pushed her self into a sitting position, swinging her legs off the edge of the bed and pushing herself into her longtime friend's arms. Tears of happiness flew out of her eyes staining her cheeks as well as his uniform.  "(y/n)?" oh, his voice, his gorgeous stunning not monotone or seemingly dead inside voice! It was blissful music to her ears! The sound of something that wasn't Malleus' formal tone! Phil shifted holding on to one of her hands in his larger one. "H-How! H-how are you awake, I-I just kissed you and..and suddenly you..." Realization shown face, his eyes flashed with a vivid outwardly happiness. "I..I love you" the both of them spoke wt the same time large smiles plastered on both their faces. This was the perfect fairy tale moment, the moment the prince saves the princess and falls in love! This  was that one true formidable moment!"

....Except such moments can never exist in Night Raven College...

"Oh, you poor simple fools" an anonymous voice chided. the "heroes" looked around frantically trying to locate the imposture. Deep down they knew who it was, they knew that their moment was gone, lost never to be found again. The room filled with a thick emerald fog, shocking the air out of both Phil and (y/n)'s lungs. In the haze, a tall black figure appeared, stomping angrily towards the pair. Gloved hands grasped (y/n)'s shoulder pushing her harshly against Malleus' chest. The dark fae was inraged. Betrayal dancing in his sad, heartbroken eyes. "I trusted you" he mouthed before turning his rage towards Phil, Malleus' chest heaved, his hands balled into fists. 

"Silver!" His voice echoed off the walls, reverberating inside the skulls of the two humans in the room. In mere moments, there was the noise of shuffling boots, followed by the creaking of the old door. "Yes, Malleus-sama!" Silver marched inside, lavender eyes fixed on Phil from the moment he entered the room. 

"Dispose of this wretched human at once! Throw him in occidendum domum I'm pretty sure It's savanclaw's day...so they'll enjoy the little treat." 

What scared (y/n) the most about that phrase was just how cold and uncaring Malleus' voice was. He didn't care about the life of another living creatuer...no he never cared about anything other than himself and his obsession. In the endless span of time, you had spent with him you had forgotten just how insensitive the dark fae was. He'd tricked you into giving up your name, he'd stole you away from the life you had loved and now he was going to kill the man that was meant to be your one true love... Yet still, a part of you wanted to snuggle closer in his embrace, to have him hug you tightly and whisper that everything will be okay. You really were going insane.

You trashed around in Malleus' grip, trying to reach out for Phil's hand. Hoping that by some miracle you could prevent a determined Silver from taking away Phil. As the two men departed the room you turned your attention to Malleus with tear-filled eyes. "Malleus please" you begged, voice cracking as you sobbed uncontrollably "He was able to wake me from your sleeping curse! He's supposed to be my one true love!" 

Malleus' poison lives eyes darkened. Forcefully he pushed your face closer to his chest. His thin fingers twisted around your hair. Casually he placed a kiss on top your forehead as he finally spoke directly to you. 

"Darling I am your one true love as you are mine! It matters not what foolish mortal awakes you from your slumber, it only matters that I am the one who cast the curse over you! That makes you mine! That makes you my sleeping beauty!"

[laequiem]

She kills my self control - Chapter 6

Even when I loved Nicasia, I never considered anything past a strategic marriage. I am not sure I am even capable of … loving that way. Unconditionally. There was never much of that in my family, either.

cw: unhealthy coping mechanisms (alcohol, sex); physical abuse; nsfw

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Chapter 6. A lot of wonder going through my head

"My door," I drawl as I approach Hollow Hall.

"My Prince," my door replies.

"Is my brother home?"

The last few days have been quiet for me, thankfully. Balekin is away more than usual, trying to get in our father's good grace. It was never officially announced who would be crowned, but we all know it will be Dain. That does not mean Balekin and Elowyn will not try harder than usual to appease the High King. It does mean, unfortunately for me, that my eldest brother tends to be in a bad mood when he is home. Consequently, I have made a habit of asking the door before entering, must I find some other place to be.

"No, my prince."

When I get in, a human boy takes my coat to hang. He looks no older than 14, is he new? I cannot tell. We cycle through so many servants that I have long stopped trying to tell them apart. We tend to keep twenty servants around at any given time. The turnover is quite high, as Balekin has a tendency for neglect and a penchant for torture. Some of them also mysteriously find their way back to the Mortal Realm with pockets full of gold.

Seeing the dazed boy does give me an idea. Since my brother is away, I can check on the servants and see if he already replaced the girl I sent back last week. So, I count. I walk the hallways, counting servants as I go. 

Eighteen.

I know for a fact that there were twenty last week before I freed the girl. Another one is missing. I survey the house again to see if I miscounted. Still eighteen. 

As I stand in front of a set of closed doors, I realize there is a room I have not checked.

I stare at the doors leading to the basement. I have only been down there a handful of times, when Balekin wanted to see if I had ‘toughened up’. The horrors that he did, that  I  did, still haunted my dreams. I put a hand on the door and breathe in deeply, gathering the courage to open it. The phantom smell of mildew and bodily fluids awaiting me in the crypt floods my senses.

If the missing servant is down there, I would rather not know.

A coward through and through.

None of the servants pay me any mind as I walk to my room and close the door behind me. On a mannequin in the corner, I see the outfit I had commissioned for myself for the coronation. 

The image of the dress I pictured for Jude flashes in my mind again. How well it would match with my own. I sigh at the unwelcome thought. I can hear Balekin's voice in my head, Romantic fool. You're a disgrace.  

Still, I rummage through my drawers. I find the sketchbook the tailor has left for me to decide which outfit I preferred. In it, I find some unfinished sketches for dresses probably meant for my sisters. I grab paper and ink, then trace the general shape of one of them on the new sheet.

I am no artist, but with the help of the sketchbook, I manage to draw a half-decent sketch of what I have in mind. An ombré dress, dark blue to white, with the silhouette of a forest stitches around the skirt, climbing up a form-fitting bodice with a plunging neckline. 

I order a servant to call for the tailor, not trusting anyone to deliver the message and not leak the information. If the information was to get to either of my brothers, I would never hear the end of it. 

I sit at my desk, twirling my quill around my fingers as I wait. As Fae royalty, I grew up being told that human females are for breeding. Vessels to carry Fae children, since we are so unlikely to conceive. However, I was never one to think about children: why produce heirs if I will never ascend to the throne? I would rather be free of the responsibility of raising them (not that my parents did much of that). Even when I loved Nicasia, I never considered anything past a strategic marriage. I am not sure I am even capable of … loving that way. Unconditionally. There was never much of that in my family, either. Still, could this explain why I seem to lose all control where Jude is concerned? A biological need to find a human to keep the bloodline going. Is this why her sinful curves have been keeping me up every night since the everapple incident? Why I am unable to take other females to bed without thinking of her?

A knock at my door makes me jump and brings me back to reality. I look down at my desk and realize I have been writing as I daydreamed. 

Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. 

I quickly crumple the sheet of paper, aware that the fresh ink is going to stain my fingers, and call for the visitor to come in. The tailor enters and bows deeply.

“You asked to see me, Your Highness.”

This is stupid.

Why did I do this?

She will not even wear it.

Breathe in. Breathe out. 

You are too far down this path to back down.

I take my drawing and hand it to the dressmaker, trying my best to look overconfident.

“I would like to have this made for the coronation.”

She looks at the drawing and her brows rise slightly, but she catches herself quickly. “Yes, of course,” she puts the paper in her bag, “Shall I have it sent here?”

No. Absolutely not. “Send it to Madoc’s stronghold,” I pause for a moment, thinking of how dead I would be if Madoc (or Jude, for that matter) knew it came from me, “For Jude. Do not write who it came from.”

“Y-Your Highness, the general’s family already ordered their outfits,” she says, panicking, “I do not have the time to make two outfits.”

“Figure it out," I say as I wave her away. I cannot give myself time to second guess this.

[minghaocouture]

Lost Woods

Pairing: Fairy!Chanhee/New X Reader Warning: Mentions of blood, small mention of severed limbs Genre: Fairy AU, Slightly Dark Fantasy, light suspense, Fluff? WC: 1.6+

Growing up, you were always told to stay away from the forest. You parents say that if you ever entered, then you would be gobbled up by the Fae. Usually for children, that was a rule easily followed, but you weren’t a regular child. 

For as long as you can remember, the forest called to you. Constantly tempting you to enter it’s depths even if there was a chance you would never return. Until one day you gave into the temptation.

Small bare feet walked the dirt trail through the woods, everything seemed to still as you trekked down the path. The only sound was that of your own feet against the dirt, It was terrifying, but you couldn’t stop your feet from taking you deeper into the dense forest. 

“You shouldn’t be here.” 

The sudden voice had you jump out of surprise, turning on your heel to face a boy that looked roughly around your age. His hair was a soft shade of pink and reminded you of roses, deep brown eyes piercing into your soul as he watched you, yet despite his almost ethereal appearance your eyes were drawn to the soft pink gossamer wings that seemed to sprout from his back. Your heart practically stopped, realizing that you had been caught by the same creature you had been warned of for so many years. 

Unsatisfied with your lack of response, the boy began to advance towards you. The beautiful pink wings pushing softly against the air as he gracefully flew closer to you. You simply stood frozen in fear, thoughts racing through your head about how you should have listened to the warnings of your elders. It was too late now though.

“Are you going to eat me?” You choked out, voice filled with fear as you trembled. Eyes locked onto the floating boy who seemed to be examining you with great fervor. You felt goose flesh prick up on your skin wherever his eyes landed.

You question caused the boy to pause and land right in front of you, a small almost ghost of a grin on his lips. 

“Why would I eat you? Humans would taste disgusting.” Wait what?

The shock must have been evident on your face, because the boy let out a small laugh at your expense before continuing. 

“But...Mama and Papa said that Fae will gobble me up if I come in the forest,” You blubbered, clutching the edge of your night shirt as you watched the strange Fae boy. If he was telling the truth...then why did your parents lie to you? You were too you to truly understand the assumptions people would make because of their prejudice.

“I don’t know,” the boy responded with a shrug, “my Mama says this is our land and that if humans come here they will destroy it, but you haven’t destroyed anything yet.” That’s true, you hadn’t done anything to hurt the forest. You had simply been curious about what had lay hidden within the depths, though you hadn’t really thought about what you would find once you entered.

“I’m Chanhee.” He extended his hand out to you, as you had seen the adults do. Staring at him with innocence in your eyes, as a smile slowly made its way to your face. Before you could take his hand in your own, a loud frantic call of your name echoed through the woods. Glancing back in the direction you had come from, at the familiar sound of your father’s voice. When you turned back to where Chanhee had been, he was nowhere to be seen. Almost as if he hadn’t been there in the first place.

You stood there in shock at the disappearing act, the sounds of your frantic family calling out to you simply passed by on the wind as your attention was taken by the need to find anything that proved that Chanhee had been there with you. 

Your search was quickly halted as your father caught up with you, pulling you up into his arms. Blessing the Gods for protecting you that night. You didn’t struggle as you were forced to return home.

That night sparked something in you.

The call to the forest only seemed to be stronger after meeting him. Every chance you got, you would sneak off into the forest. Hoping for a chance to catch the same Fae boy from before, only to be met with disappointment. Anytime you entered the forest, it almost seemed like all life left the area. The silence was always deafening, heightening your anxiety until you would force yourself to leave once again.

It had been almost 12 years since your first meeting, but he had yet to show his face since then. So you tried to convince yourself that he had been a dream, just a figment in the imagination of a young child. It was time to move on with your life.

At least, that was until children began disappearing.

“It’s the Fae! They are kidnapping our children and eating them!” The locals would say. It seemed likely, as the rumors and warning hadn’t ended since you were a child. It was common knowledge to not enter the forest, as you had apparently been the only one to make it out without any harm befalling you. An enigma in the village. 

The men of the village began making crusades into the forest, in an attempt to kill all the Fae inside. Guided by the false hope that it would save their children, but they couldn’t have been more wrong. 

That night, flames raged from the forest. Smoke blanketing the area in darkness. 

The men returned the next morning, many of them missing limbs and covered in open wounds. Claiming that the Fae had fought back with an overwhelming force and they had just barely been able to escape, unfortunately returning without the children. Many of the men died from their wounds, and a wave of mourning spread through the village. It was horrifying.

Whispers spread through the village, harsh words directed towards you. Saying things like, you were the reason the Fae had gotten so agitated since they hadn’t been able to finish you off. Threats were sent to your family, the people you had known growing up had begun to avoid you. 

That’s probably why you were here once again. Bare feet against the dirt road, staring out into the darkness. It had been a good 3 years since your last attempt to find Chanhee, and since the last time you had entered the forest alone. Your knees felt weak as you took one last look at the village before stepping past the treeline.

Just as before, it seemed as if all life had left the woods. Not even owls or bugs could be heard, and the wind had come to a complete stop. It had your heart racing, and suddenly you felt just as you had all those years ago when you had first entered. Just a foolish child who didn’t know what they were getting into. 

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Freezing in place, your breath caught in your throat as you debated on turning around to face the owner of the voice. Before you could get a solid list of pros and cons decided upon, a hand harshly grabbed your shoulder and roughly turned out around. You met a familiar pair of piercing brown eyes and felt your heart skip a beat as you stared at the familiar stranger. 

Despite how harsh his tone and touch had been, there was a small smile on his beautiful face. The hand on your shoulder made its way to your cheek. 

“You just can’t stay away, can you?”

Your eyes widened as you stared at him. It didn’t seem real, after all this time you felt like you were dreaming. He took your shock as affirmation to his question, and pulled his hand away. He gracefully began to circle you, as if you were his unwitting prey.

“Your people attacked our forests and were sent back injured, but you still chanced your own safety to venture out here,” His soft voice carried on the breeze that suddenly rose. It was strange, as there had been no wind in this forest ever since you entered. “Do you know what would have happened if anyone but I had found you?” He stopped his circling, wrapping his arms loosely around your shoulders. The words tickling your ear as he leaned in close.

“They would have eaten me?”

The forest was quickly filled with the sounds of his amused laughter. His head gently rested on your shoulder as his amusement died out. You felt the weight of his head lift from your shoulder as he spoke again.

“If that’s what you want to call it.” 

Turning in his arms so that you were once again facing him. Staring into his dark brown eyes, it was almost like he could see into your very soul as he watched you. Ever so slowly, his face moved closer to yours, only stopping once your foreheads connected. 

It felt all too close to be real.

“If you come with me, I can protect you. From my people...and your own,” His voice barely above a whisper, his eyes searching you for any sign of hesitation. “I know what they want to do to you. How they talk about you. I could take you away from all that. I just need you to say that you will stay with me.” 

You couldn’t think, your entire being seemed to already know your answer. Without hesitation you agreed to the deal.

“I thought you would say that.”

Not but a second after he spoke, his lips were on yours and everything went black.

[imagine-loki]

Soulbonds and Fairy Dust

TITLE: Soulbonds and Fairy Dust (rewrite) CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 18/?

AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine one of the fae has been helping the Avengers, jumping in to help them on missions and vanishing before Shield can bring her in.  Loki joins the team and convinces her to come talk to the team and consider joining before Shield takes more drastic measures. RATING: M NOTES/WARNINGS:  This is a rewrite of the original work of the same name.  Also on AO3 here

The entire court had to stand when Odin and Frigga entered the hall.  Thor had to rush to stand by his seat next to Odin’s, since he wasn’t in the right spot.  Oaf.  The king and queen made their way to the head table and Frigga kissed Loki’s cheek as she moved to take her own seat next to him.

Odin remained standing for a moment and it was he who made things worse on Sig’s nerves. “It is my honor to announce that Lady Sigyn Freyadotir, duchess of Asgard, Goddess of Fidelity has been found and returned to us after so many centuries. Not only that but she and my son Loki have become soulbound,” he announced, sounding proud of both of these occurrences.  Loki was surprised that Odin sounded proud about him, though he kept his expression carefully neutral.  He didn’t want the court to see that he was wary of Odin’s response.  He kept his expression calm, especially since Sigyn was digging her nails into Loki’s hand and had been since Odin spoke her full name with her titles. Loki covered her hand with his, trying to ease her nerves and fear.  He sensed her emotions and didn’t like them.

Names had power.  Sigyn knew that better than most.  And Odin had just announced hers for the entire court. Announced who and what she was like it was nothing.

And it scared the absolute shit out of her.

Odin finally sat and dinner was served. “Sorry,” Sig murmured to Loki when she saw nail marks in his hand while they were being served.  She used a drop of power to heal the marks she’d left.

Loki gave her a reassuring smile, gentle and loving and not at all like the dark prince that the court thought him to be. “Don’t worry about it, darling,”

“I wish he hadn’t done that,” she said softly, still on edge from having her name announced like that.  She was in the habit of hiding her truename.  “Also where in the nine realms did ‘Goddess of Fidelity’ come from?” she asked in shock, finally getting to that part of the problem.  She’d never had that title before she was taken.

“It was what you were supposed to be the goddess of before you were taken by the fae,” Loki explained.

“I don’t think I ever knew that…” she replied softly.  She couldn’t remember knowing that before and that didn’t seem like something she’d forget or make herself forget.

“I didn’t officially receive my godhead until I was around 500, but mother knew what I would be since I was a child.  I imagine it was the same for you.” Loki told her.

Sig considered that and nodded. “But you’re a prince. Of course, you’d receive a godhead at some point. I’m not royalty,” she reminded him quite logically in her opinion.

He chuckled.  “Darling, you are my best friend and have been since we were children.  You’re close to my mother and a noble of Asgard. All nobles receive a godhead,” he reminded her.  Clearly she’d forgotten.

Sig closed her eyes and seemed to have remembered something when she opened them again. “Mama was goddess of beauty,” she said softly as she remembered that tidbit.  Loki gave her a small sad smile and wrapped an arm around her reassuringly.  She gave him a small smile in return.  “I think the court is about to blow a gasket over the dark prince touching a lady,” she teased him to lighten the mood again.

He chuckled warmly and it was nice to hear the old familiar sound of his laughter again. “Like I care. They can think of me however they wish. It doesn’t faze me,”

“Sure it doesn’t, peacock,” she teased him warmly.

Frigga turned to her son during dinner.  “Have you been enjoying showing her lady around the palace?” she asked him kindly. 

“I actually haven’t had a chance to yet,” he admitted a bit sheepishly. “Though, on that note, there is something we wish to speak to you about after dinner. Without Father,” he added quickly, too vehemently.

Too quickly.

Frigga raised an eyebrow, but didn’t seem concerned about the request.  “Of course, darling,” she replied just as warmly and kindly as she always was. She gave him a conspiratorial smile.  “After dinner or after you have a dance with your lady?”

He chuckled. “You read my mind, Mother,” he said warmly

She laughed.  “I know you well, my darling,” she replied, then glanced at the morons’ table, where the morons were looking particularly hungover and subdued.  “Do you know what happened to Thor’s friends? They’re remarkably quiet tonight…”

Sig and Loki shared an amused look. “That is a long story, Mother,” Loki replied, since he didn’t really want to go into it right now. Especially if it could possibly get them in trouble.  Sig looked a bit sheepish since Thor wasn’t pleased with her for that trick on his friends. 

Frigga gave them both a knowing smile.  “And some things never change…” she said, clearly amused by their antics, especially since they hadn’t really hurt anything.

Loki chuckled.  “You know you love how mischievous I am,” he told her, giving her a boyish grin.  He was never so open with anyone else in the court other than his mother and Sigyn.

“It does tend to cause excitement around here. The palace is dreadfully dull without you. And mischief that leads to those three being quiet is definitely appreciated,”

Loki kissed her cheek. “It is dreadfully dull on Midgard without you as well, Mother. It is always good to come home just to spend time with you. And I’m happy to bring a little excitement back with me,” he added with a mischievous smirk.

“You shall have to enlighten me on how you subdued them though. It seems like a useful skill,” Frigga mused.  The morons were usually quite loud and obnoxious.  Their only redeeming quality was that they were skilled warriors.

“Let’s just say my soulbond has many tricks up her sleeves,”

“I expect no less of one who is worthy of your affections, my darling,” Frigga told him warmly before turning to Sig to try to goad she into speaking.  They’d both noticed that Sigyn had gotten shy with all the attention.

/What has you so tight-lipped, darling?/ Loki asked when he noticed how shy Sigyn had gotten.

/I… I’m just not used to positive attention anymore… especially from those in power…/ she tried to explain, though she doubted her explanation would be coherent to anyone besides herself.

/I’m sorry to hear that/ Sigyn heard understanding in his tone.  /But remember, you belong here. You have nothing to fear from my family. Besides the Allfather, the rest of us have nothing to hide from you/

/I know. It’s just hard. And they’re still expecting the little girl they knew. Also not calling her ‘mama Frigga’ anymore is hard~/ she whined the last, but she opened up more to Frigga when the subject changed from her past to safer subjects like general magic studies.  And Loki.

/My Mother would probably love to hear you call her Mama Frigga. I know she misses being called that. And I’m sure she realizes that you are not the same girl you once were. My mother is not naive/

/Probably is not enough when propriety and the royal family are involved/ she reminded him, noting that Frigga seemed happy that she was willing to talk about something, even if it wasn’t herself.  And Frigga was having a touch too much fun telling stories of younger Loki and Thor to make Sig laugh. 

Loki was getting more and more embarrassed by all of the stories and turning more and more purple in embarrassment.  “Mother, please~” he whined at a particularly embarrassing old story.  Frigga laughed and Loki’s whining and switched to a story of one of his accomplishments instead.

/She refuses to answer questions about herself more than what magic she’s studied. I had to get her talking about something/ Frigga explained to Loki telepathically.  Her cadence in the story she was telling didn’t change, so no one had any idea she and Loki were speaking.  It was a skill they’d perfected years ago.

/She’s still adjusting to being shown any form of affection. Life in underhill was not easy for her/

/I wish we knew what happened there. We might be able to figure out how to best help her/ Frigga replied.  She then, politely, to Loki at least, changed the topic of conversation to the differences between fae and Asgardian magic which is something Sig could lecture them on at length.

/I do as well. I’m sure she will tell me eventually but I do not plan to force it out of her./

/Wise decision, darling/

Dinner finally ended after a delicious dessert and Odin left the second it was over, claiming work to do. As soon as he was gone, Loki stood and held out his hand to Sigyn.  “Sigyn would you honor me with the first dance?” he asked her formally.

She looked up at him and gave him a warm, bright, smile as she placed her hand lightly in his, getting carefully to her feet.  “The honor would be mine, my prince,” she saw how much he lit up every time she called him that. 

He smiled brightly and led her straight out to the middle of the dance floor.  The pair drew the attention of the entire court because of who they were.  Her exotic looks and the soulbond marks didn’t help matters any, nor did Loki being one of the princes.  The music started and Sig took her position automatically, clearly knowing what she was doing.  She’d danced in the fae courts for centuries.  Loki took his position with her and the dance began.  They were both wonderfully graceful and a sight to behold, gliding effortlessly across the dance floor. They both appeared to be floating across the dance floor and their eyes were lit up in joy.  Sigyn didn’t notice when she started to literally shine with joy as she danced. 

They danced together for a long while before the spell of the music and memories broke around them and at nearly the same time they both remembered that they had to talk with Frigga about the fae doorways. 

Neither wanted the night to end, but duty called.

[ladynestaarcheron]

Like Pristine Glass - Chapter Nineteen

ao3 - ff.net - masterpost

(tagging these cuties: @humanexile @skychild29 @rhysandsdarlingfeyre @candid-confetti  @rhysandsrightknee @missing-merlin @azriels-forgotten-shadow @books-and-cocos @sezkins79 @city-of-fae @someonemagical @dusty-lightbulb @messyhairday-me @rinad307 @superspiritfestival)

back after my exam hiatus!! so without further ado, here we go!

---

February 12 - 4 years after

The sun is barely shining before Nesta has rushed out to—who else?—Zeyn's house.

She can hear him taking his time as he makes his way to the door and she bounces on the balls of her feet. It's not an emergency...yet. But she doesn't like the minutes ticking by, with Cassian home alone with the three of them.

His warm brown eyes are bleary only for a second before he realizes it is her standing before him, and then they fly open.

"Nesta? What are you—is everyone all right?"

"We need to take Ollie to see his healer," she says.

"All right, I'll get my shoes. But—you didn't bring him?"

Nesta winces. Poor wording on her part, indeed. "No," she says. "I meant...Cassian and I are taking him. I...need you to come be with Avery and Nicky."

Zeyn, to his credit, does not flinch. His concern slips into something else, something she cannot name, for only a fraction of a second before it is back. "Of course. Just a minute, yeah?"

And he reappears less than a minute later, boots laced, shutting the door behind him. They set off together.

He doesn't even ignore her. "Are you worried?"

"I'm always worried," she says. "It's not the worst it's ever been, but...it's been a while." It had been six months since Nicky had coughed badly enough to need to see a healer. She remembers holding him in the first minutes after his birth—she hadn't been given him right away, like his siblings, because even then there had been something wrong with his lungs.

Zeyn must sense where her mind has run off to, because he reaches out and squeezes her hand. "If you think it's not that bad, you're probably right. You're going to see a healer. Everything will be fine."

She shoots him a shaky, grateful smile.

"Are Ava and Nicky awake?"

"I don't think so. Not when I left."

"All right...just get them ready and take them to nursery?"

"Yes, I already packed their things...if Avery won't put on a jacket, don't argue with her, but bring it along and give it to her teacher."

"Is that still going on?"

"Don't get me started," she grumbles. They round the corner and walk up the path to the house. Nesta holds out her hand to stop him. "Zeyn," she starts. Pauses. "Thank you."

It's not enough...there's more to say, she knows. But it does it, for now. And she has more pressing matters at hand, anyway.

---

April 12 - Year of

With the dawn of spring came dramatic change in the shop. Whatever winter wear had not been sold was tucked away in storage, and the switching out of the clothier's merchandise had inspired Nesta to do the same in Cassian's home.

Cassian did not have much to begin with, of course. But she felt she could rearrange the furniture in her bedroom.

Not that she had done much to make the place "hers"—in fact, she was not quite sure how. The little apartment she had rented in Velaris was the closest thing she had ever had to her own home, and she hadn't done much in the way of decor there. Briefly, she wondered if it was still in her name, or if Feyre had stopped paying the rent.

She decided she didn't care much. She was never going to go back to Velaris. Even if Cassian did still take his trips there.

While it was true that she had never purchased any bedding or curtains or a vanity, the subscription Cassian had gotten her for Solstice—NightWrite—had provided her with little knick-knacks. She had thrown out anything with Night Court insignia, but kept most of it. So pushing her bed to one side of the room and moving her bookshelf to the other was also accompanied by shuffling around of these objects.

It was during this...rather useless endeavor, she could admit to herself, of switching the order of the tiny figurines on her shelf, that she found it—the old flyer she had taken from the bar in the town center. The one advertising ships to that land across the sea. Gilameyva.

Nesta sat down on the bed. This is the paper that had inspired her, all those months ago, to get a job. To save up and go.

Since she never bought much of anything, she definitely had enough to book comfortable passage. She could go. Just set sail and...never come back.

Or maybe she could go...somewhere else. On a vacation. And then she would...come back. Didn't people plan for summer holidays months in advance? She could bring it up to Cassian now. Couldn't she?

But no, that would be insane. She had to save up. Because she was not going to live in his house forever. And where would she live? Would she build herself a house here, in the Illyrian mountains?

The flyer in her hand seemed to mock her. An idyllic land far away where no one knew the name Nesta Archeron. A fresh start.

For what she could not admit to herself, but what she had just started to understand was: she did not want a fresh start somewhere else. She wanted to stay with Cassian.

When had the switch happened in her mind? When did this pull between them not become so irritating? When had she decided to make her bedroom more comfortable, make her mark more permanent?

She didn't know. The only thing she was certain of was that this current state of limbo, of living in her room in his house while waiting for him to come back from meetings with her sister...this would not do.

Romance was fun in books, but in the real world, practically always won out for Nesta, and so it was abundantly clear to her that two options lay before her: either she would leave or she would stay. And those were her terms.

So all she had to do was work up the nerve to act on her decision.

After she figured out what it was, of course.

February 12 - 4 years after

When they get to the clinic, they are not immediately rushed into a room, which calms Nesta down. Cassian, on the other hand, only gets more anxious.

"Why aren't they letting us see the healer?" he demands in a whisper, low enough so Ollie, his head on Nesta's shoulder, cannot hear him.

"Trust me, if they think we can wait in line, we're all right."

"But he's coughing!"

"The others might have some graver issue. If they pull you ahead, your situation is dire." Indeed, there had been times when Nesta had brought Ollie in; the healer had taken one look at him and announced that she would need all her appointments cancelled.

"Sit down," she tells him, lowering herself and Ollie into a chair. She presses her lips to the top of his head as she strokes his lower back.

Cassian does, but it must be wildly uncomfortable; these tiny things with no wing-accommodation. She frowns. What will that be like for her children? To live here, where even in a community of different types of faeries, they are clearly other.

"You're really not worried?" he asks her.

"I'm concerned," she says. "But I'm not nervous. I know more or less what she's going to say. His lungs haven't gotten drastically weaker. You see him play and run around. It comes and goes for him. As long as we keep up with what the healer prescribes—which we do—we should be fine."

Cassian is quiet, clearly struggling for words.

"What is it?"

"Sometimes...things don't happen according to plan," he says finally.

She actually laughs a little. "Well, I know that."

His lips quirk at her slight laugh. "How did...how did you find out? That you were...pregnant?"

She leans back in her chair, giving Ollie more room to recline on her. Lying on his stomach sometimes helps with his cough. "I fainted, actually. And they—Miri, Zeyn—they brought me to the clinic and Amorette told me."

"She was your healer the whole time?"

"Yes. That's how we met."

"And you..." he hesitated. "She delivered them?"

"She did," she says.

Nesta often recalls that day with wonder. Her whole life she had felt—everything. Just so much, all the time. And how insignificantly nothing it all appeared, compared to that cacophony of emotion in those few hours.

"He was sick, then, too," Cassian says softly.

They have never truly discussed this before, but..."Yes. He was born...he was too small. And his lungs were...weak. Not quite underdeveloped, but weak. He wasn't...ready to breathe...yet."

Recollecting that time—collapsing in exhaustion and relief against the bed, and realizing only a few seconds later that something was horribly, horribly wrong—why weren't they giving her the baby? Why could she only hear two cries?—it always tightens Nesta's throat and blurs her vision. She can barely feel Cassian put his arm around her.

"We didn't know what was going to happen, at first," she whispers, half because of where they are, half because of what she's saying. "But he's...he's strong now. This is just...we're at the healer's. He'll be fi—" Nesta's voice catches on the last word and she can't finish it. She forces her mind to go blank. She can't imagine—can't let herself think—

"Hey," Cassian's voice cuts in. He squeezes her shoulder. "Stay with me."

You stay with me, she wants to say.

But she stays silent, choosing to focus on the feel of his arm. She doesn't trust her voice now, for anything.

---

April 15 - 1 year after

Midway through her second trimester, Nesta was more than ready to give birth. The extra weight she was carrying was officially past flattering, she couldn't see her feet unless she was lying down, and everywhere she went, people stopped her and asked her if she was excited.

The latter was the absolute worst, because she still had not decided whether or not she was going to keep the children.

But she had never been good at being put on the spot—her preferred method of dealing with unwanted advances had always been silently staring them down, and since she was trying to get along as an average Sugar Valley resident, when Zeyn asked her if she had gotten around to painting the nursery yet, and if she would like some help...

What else could she say?

So he was there that afternoon, holding two buckets of light blue paint.

"Are you sure there's any difference between these two?" he asked, squinting.

"Sky and powder? Yes." To be fair, she probably wouldn't have registered the difference so clearly had she not grown up with Feyre, ever-obsessed with chronicling the different colors around them.

"Are we doing...stripes?"

"No." Stripes? For babies? "Just those two will be powder," and she punctuates her words by pointing to the wall front and back walls, "and those two will be sky."

"Oh. Why?"

"It's supposed to be lightly stimulating." She had read that in a book Amorette had given her. She was skeptical, but the store she had gone to had given her a good deal on the paints.

"Right. Well. Let's start, then."

Zeyn could be irritating, but his endless, mindless chatter could be comforting, as well. That was how she felt today. And she did appreciate how he kept going to fetch her things—berry juice and an extra cushion to put on her chair. Nesta felt she had not done her part at all, but Zeyn didn't seem to mind.

"Any progress on names?"

"Nothing concrete."

"Ah, well," he said. "My mother says you have to meet a baby before you know for sure if the name is right."

Nesta didn't think she'd be able to "meet a baby"—surely they would just be...the same as the rest of the small children she saw at the clinic or around town. Babies, she felt, all looked the same, and even if they were older and had developed their own features, they weren't very diverse personality-wise.

Not that she didn't like children. She remembered a vague feeling of excitement being told that she was going to have a new baby sister—Feyre, she couldn't remember Elain's birth—and she had liked to play with her, when she was a young girl. But there had not been very many babies for her to interact with during her teenage and adult years.

This was ridiculous. She didn't need to dwell on this so much. She probably wasn't going to keep them, right? That was why it didn't matter that Cassian still had not written back. It wasn't...he didn't need to know, if neither of them wanted anything to do with this. Because he did not want children either, obviously. He was...busy.

"Maybe it'll look different when it dries," Zeyn said, interrupting her thoughts.

"What? Oh, yes...sky's a bit darker."

"Hmm," he said, frowning. "You know...I really don't see it."

Nesta shrugged.

Zeyn clapped his hands together. "Well, as fun as staring at paint dry is..." he grinned at her. "Want to go for dinner? Jamal's?"

And she was certain that Sugar Valley etiquette demanded humoring the person who spent the afternoon doing handiwork at your house, so she said, "Sure."

---

February 12 - 4 years after

It is just past noon when Nesta sees Zeyn again, at the shop, coffee and pastry in hand.

"Hey!" he says. "You're all right? Ollie's...?"

"Fine," she says, unable to stop her grin. "The healer gave us a tonic for him to take over the next few weeks. She said that he might need it now and again, but as long as he takes it when he does, she sees no reason to expect significant deterioration. He'll probably be on par with his siblings by the time he turns twelve." Nesta's heart sings as she repeats the healer's words.

Zeyn pulls her in a hug. "Let's tell Miri and Adil. They're in the back."

"Oh, I'm actually not staying long. I just came to let you know we're all right...and give you this," she adds, holding out the food. "Thank you so much. How were Avery and Nicky?"

"Fine," he says. "We had fun."

Nesta rolls her eyes. "Don't tell me."

"I wasn't going to," he teases. "It's a secret."

"You four and your secrets," she says, rolling her eyes again.

He shakes his head, eyes still laughing at her. "Are you taking him back to nursery?"

"No, we're going to let him rest. We think it also might be nice to spend some time with just him, the both of us. We're thinking—" Nesta stops herself. Zeyn does not need to know how she and Cassian plan to spend time with each child individually, he does not need to hear this. "He's just so tired," she finishes.

But the damage is done and the warmth slips out of Zeyn's face. He looks down at the order from Samir's. "Nesta," he says, soft, slow. "Are you really doing this with him?"

She freezes. "Zeyn. He's their father. He has a right to be included in this."

"I'm not talking about that...and I don't agree with you on that matter, either."

Nesta raises an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"He wasn't there, Nesta," Zeyn says, more desperate than anything else. "He just—you had to do it all without him."

"I can't believe you're starting this right now," she says, more to herself than to him. Louder, she says, "I will not discuss this. He's here now. He's a part of their lives now. He was with me today."

"He's here when it fits his schedule."

"There's nothing wrong with having a job," she defends—defends! As if she doesn't hate that he commands the Night Court armies!

"Yours and his are not comparable," he says. "Do you remember...what it was like? What it felt like?" Zeyn stops, takes a shaky breath, before continuing. "Because I remember seeing you. In pain. Burdened. All alone."

"That's enough," Nesta snaps, crossing her arms. "It's been months, Zeyn. He's a permanent fixture of their lives. You ought to get used to it."

"Oh, I'm used to that," he says, about as close to testy as Zeyn can get. "It's his being a permanent fixture of your life I can't get behind."

Nesta tenses. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nesta. Please."

She shifts her weight backwards. If he were anyone else...but he's not. He's Zeyn. Zeyn, who has always been there for her, to the very best of his ability, who left his house at dawn this morning to feed and dress her children.

So she takes a deep breath. "I need to be getting back, Zeyn," she says.

He slumps slightly, but she knows this isn't over. "Give my love to Ollie," he says.

"I will."

"Thanks for the food."

"Don't be silly...thank you. Really."

"Don't thank me."

"Well, I will if I see fit. Thank you."

It works—he gives a short laugh. But it doesn't meet his eyes.

She doesn't have space, though, in her head or heart for that right now. Not Zeyn; not that she doesn't have any room for him. But right now...right now she needs to go to Ollie.

---

thank you all for your patience with this chapter, and @thestarwhowishes for betaing<3 would love to hear what y’all think<3

---

Chapter Twenty

[narniaandplowmen]

It is not that I love you less / Than when before your feet I lay (But to prevent the sad increase / Of hopeless love, I keep away)

Fandom: The Witcher Pairing: Geralt/Jaskier Also on AO3 2154 words.

General Audiences / No Archive Warnings Apply Complete

Part 2 of Half a Century of Poetry

Jaskier, back in Lettenhove for the winter, considers how Geralt's words on the Mountain were unfair, but that nothing on this world can stop him from loving the Witcher anyways.

They had talked, after the Mountain. Or, well, Jaskier had talked. Geralt had been about to leave when Jaskier finally made his way down, exhausted and devastated and wounded from the lonely, perilous journey downhill. It was clear that Geralt had wanted to avoid him, but Roach, always a sucker for the sweet sugar cubes and shining apples the bard usually carried with him, had approached Jaskier on her own free will. And he had to say something, he couldn’t just stay silent. So he had given a promise. I will not come to you, but if you ever change your mind I should not be hard to find. 

And so he had. There was much that could be said about the bard, about his extravagance and tendency to ignore the rules. But if Jaskier made a promise, he made sure to keep it. Which is why he almost never made promises, regardless of what other people might think he did. Answering ‘sure’ to ‘will you promise to stay behind whilst I fulfil this contract’ meant that he is open to making that promise, but not that he is actually making it. Being part-Fae, fully noble and just generally a little shit made Jaskier proficient in finding loopholes in his so-called promises. But this? This was a real promise. And he had kept to it.

It was winter, and Jaskier had returned to Lettenhove to reunite with his sister and his nieces and nephews. The little kids were elated to see their favourite (and only) uncle, and although his brother-in-law - who had married quite above his station and continually feared Jaskier would reclaim his rightful place as heir - was less happy to see him return, his sister had welcomed him with open arms. The lands of Lettenhove looked gorgeous in the shimmering snow, white like- Jaskier bit his lip, an awful habit he had picked up since-

 Avoiding the thought was hopeless. He had tried everything to distract himself, but nothing could take away his endless, hopeless, futile lover for Geralt of Rivia, friend of humanity. His sister had noticed, of course. Damn observant, that woman. She had always been, but Jaskier was sure it had gotten even worse now that she was a mother. The Fae blood probably didn’t help either. 

‘Why don’t you write it out? That always helped you when you were younger,’ she had said one day, breaking through Jaskier’s musings of how the colour of her dress reminded him of Geralt’s eyes.

‘You don’t have to share it with me, or anyone, if you don’t want to. But it might help.’ 

So here he was, sitting in the manor’s humble library overseeing the snow-covered vineyard, with a quill in hand and paper in front of him like he was twelve, whilst longingly staring at his baby brother, who now lied next to his parents in graves covered in snow,  and younger sister, who were allowed to play outside whilst he was forced to make his homework. Now he looked down at a new generation of children. One day he had wished he could have some of his own, and he could not deny that, after Geralt had accidentally ended up with a child surprise, he had dreamed of the three of them forming a family. Nothing now could be further from the truth. Instead of living in a cottage near the sea, Geralt retiring from his Witcher business to open a smithy, Jaskier opening a school and them raising the adorable Ciri together, Geralt had refused to claim his promised child, shunned Jaskier from his life and gone off to who-knew-where to, as far as Jaskier knew, continue killing monsters for little pay. He had not come to apologise, not come to ask Jaskier to rejoin him, not come to find him at all. And so, Jaskier had kept his promise. And Jaskier had kept away. If only his heart would get the message, too. 

It is not that I love you less

Than when before your feet I lay,

But to prevent the sad increase

Of hopeless love, I keep away.

Carefully placing his quill back in the inkpot, Jaskier resumed his watch over the playful children in the snow. They had found some sticks now, and were playfighting. From his third-floor window he could hear fragments of their conversation.

‘You -- monster!’

‘I wanna be the Witch--’

‘--ys get to be the Witcher!’

‘Because the Witchers are -- cle Jaskier says so!’

‘I don’t want to be a kimimomo! I don’t want to be the bad --’

Jaskier smiled at little John’s mispronunciation of the monster’s name. The kids, inspired by Jaskier’s songs, had taken to playing ‘Wicher and Monster’, with dramatic fake-out deaths and some accidental real injuries. It seemed that, even in the quiet, boring lands of Lettenhove, Jaskier could not avoid being reminded of the man he loved so dearly. The snow as white as his hair, his sister’s yellow dresses, the wolf statues at the entrance of the property, the children’s play, the notes with unfinished lyrics describing Geralt’s heroic actions Jaskier had left behind during previous stays… Every day there was something, no matter how small, that reminded him of the man he had lost. The soup that tasted exactly like that served in the inn where he had first been allowed to wash the Witcher’s hair. The snide remarks from his brother-in-law that seemed to come straight from Geralt’s vocabulary.  Filavandrel’s lute, greeting him whenever he entered his room. Everything around him was another tiny dagger piercing through his skin, making its way to his heart and cutting yet another piece of it in half. 

In vain (alas!) for everything

Which I have known belong to you,

Your form does to my fancy bring,

And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

It had been late spring when they had parted. It felt like they had barely reunited after winter, during which Geralt had visited his strange Witcher castle Jaskier was never invited to and Jaskier had spent his days teaching Ciri and nights playing his music at the Cintran court. And although he loved the court, Calanthe’s murderous glares when he accidentally mentioned Geralt had made him nervous enough to be happy when spring arrived and he could leave again, back on the road, following the person holding his rapidly-beating heart without even being aware of it. The dragon hunt had only been their fourth contract of the year, and after- After, when summer still stretched in front of him for another six long months, everything had felt off. 

Sure, he had travelled, sang his songs at inns and bars and the occasional manor. Sure, he had met up with other bards, competed in a couple of sing-offs, written a handful of new songs which gained instant popularity. Sure, he had lived the life any normal, travelling bard did. But he wasn’t normal now, was he. He was Jaskier, Bard Extraordinaire, the best songwriter and lute-player on the Continent. His audience’s words, not his. He knew there was always something to be improved upon: a lyric that could be better, a beat he missed, a chord he botched. His audience might not notice, but he most certainly did. He would make quite an awful bard if he didn’t, after all. So, even though he did everything any other travelling bard would do, those six months had been strange. He had automatically found himself drawn to notice boards, turning around to inform Geralt of a contract only to be, once again, reminded the man was not there. No rhythmic sound of hooves touching the dirt during the day, no scraping noise of someone sharpening their sword near the campfire during the evening, and just his own breath breaking the silence of the night. It had been as if the world was ill, asleep in bed trying to fend off a fever that caused strange, surreal visions that gave everything normal a slightly sickly hue. Maybe his sister was right, maybe writing would help heal his broken heart.

Who in the spring from the new sun

Already has a fever got,

Too late begins those shafts to shun,

Which Phœbus through his veins has shot.

The playful screams of the children in the snow briefly silenced as the cheery voice of Molly the Cook called out that dinner was almost done. Jaskier knew that one of the kids would knock on his door soon, giving Uncle Jaskier the same message. Three stanzas in just as many hours, a poor yield for a poet of his stature. A sudden rage overtook him as he looked down at the half-empty paper. The words Geralt had thrown at him on the Mountain had felt fair at first, but after moping about them for while, Jaskier had realised that Geralt had been incredibly unfair. Him, shovelling Geralt’s shit? Yes, shovelling it out of his stable and onto the compost pile where it belonged. It was Geralt who created the shit around him, making stupid wishes that endangered the people around him, invoking the law of surprise less than fifteen minutes after learning Parvetta was a child surprise herself. Surely the Witcher knew that child surprises tended to give birth to child surprises, surely he smelled that Parvetta was pregnant to begin with. Even Jaskier had noticed that Parvetta had worn an unusual, slightly-out-of-style dress clearly intended to hide her abdomen. If Geralt had not been so incredibly self-centred, so incredibly self-absorbed and emotionally stunted he would have realised that his words were absolute bullshit. It had been Jaskier who had calmed Calanthe enough to not send hundreds of assassins after Geralt. It had been Jaskier who had tried to take the djinn away so the clearly exhausted Witcher would not do anything stupid. His wishes might have sounded idiotic, but they were clearly and precisely phrased, his mother had taught him enough about Fae magic for him to know djinns were just as tricky, if not worse, to deal with. Yes, Jaskier had shovelled the shit, but it was not his fault Geralt liked to dive into every single heap of manure he met. So no, what Geralt had said had not been fair. But by the time Jaskier had gathered enough of his wits to realise that, the Witcher had long been gone, and Jaskier’s promise had already been made. 

Too late he would the pain assuage,

And to thick shadows does retire;

About with him he bears the rage,

And in his tainted blood the fire.

The sound of a wildly thrown-open door and a young boy’s voice shouting his name calmed the bard’s sudden anger. 

‘UNCLE JASKIER DINNER’S READY MOLLY SAYS YOU NEED TO WASH YOUR HANDS!’ Little John, still carrying his stick, now ran into view. 

‘Did Molly also say you were allowed to take your sword inside?’

‘A Witcher always carries his swords with him, you told me so! And I am a Witcher, not a stupid kimino- kimomo-’

‘Kikimore,’ Jaskier helpfully supplied.

‘Yes that. Will you tell Eddy? Will you tell him I’m a Witcher? I don’t want to be a monster, the snow is cold and wet when I fall down to die.’ 

Jaskier smiled at his youngest nephew’s petulant face. ‘Only if you put your sword back outside. True gentlemen don’t carry their swords to the dinner table, not even Witchers. Come, we’ll place it in the stables to keep it safe, and then we go wash our hands together, okay?’

‘Okay, uncle Jaskier. Can I sit next to you during dinner?’

‘Of course you can.’

Jaskier smiled at the young boy stretching out his arms to be picked up. If only life could stay that easy, with simple concerns like cold snow and fake swords. Jaskier knew, after all,  it was impossible for him to stay angry. How could he hate the one he loved? The one who had, unknowingly, carried his heart for the past two decades, and would carry it for eternity and beyond? He would keep his promise to the Witcher, he would stay in his self-imposed exile, no matter the cost. A promise is a promise, after all. And just as he would keep the promise he had made to Geralt whilst feeding Roach that final, slightly crushed sugar cube, he would keep the promise he had made to himself whilst walking down the first mountain he and the Witcher had climbed to fight a supposed devil. I will love you till my dying days. 

And, as he placed his nephew on his back, joking that ‘this horse will lead the noble Witcher to the stables,’ Jaskier mentally composed the final stanza he had struggled with for so many hours. 

But vow’d I have, and never must

Your banish’d servant trouble you;

For if I break, you may distrust

The vow I made to love you, too.

[dontasktheradiodemon]

Chat log - Oct 8

Somehow we got from "Valera confronts Alastor about his obvious crush on her fiancé" to "Alastor makes a bargain with the fae in exchange for time travel" and that's why RP is beautiful.

Valera

Valera walked through the front door of the hotel, a folder of newly acquired sheet music swapped between one hand and the other as she shrugged her way out of a coat that dissolved into so much sparkly vapor as it hit the floor. Ah, the smell of paper and ink, the thrill of a New Thing To Play With. Why, her tail would be wagging if she wasn't consciously trying to avoid accidentally stabbing Alastor! Speaking of, she turns back, waiting for the aforementioned deer to join her.

Alastor

Alastor, on the other hand, will be keeping his coat on. He checks to make sure Valera's entire tail is safely inside before letting the door swing shut. "And there—safely back in the hotel! Mission accomplished, and with no shots fired!" He says this as if that's a common danger when going to the music store. Everything's relative.

Valera

How generous of him! "You say that so casually, Hell must be quite a bit more exciting when you've made a name for yourself! But thank you, my dear. The escort was appreciated." She offers a shallow curtsy, fanning herself with the folder for added effect before popping back up. "Actually! Would you like to come try the new music with me?"

Alastor

"You're quite welcome, any time. It's both more exciting and less exciting! But I've been a sensation in Hell since the day I arrived, I can't truly tell you what the alternative is like."

Oh, the magic words. His grin stretches wider. "I'd be delighted to!"

Valera

Hook, line, and sinker. She grins, luring him away to his doom the piano, where she makes a dramatic show of plopping down on one end of the bench with plenty of room left for him, and setting the sheet music up. "Here, get comfortable! Fair warning, I'm better on a harpsichord than a piano, so I'm sure you'll do much better than I will."

Alastor

Oblivious to his pending doom, he takes the offered seat and glances over the sheet music. What have we got today? "I don't think I've ever played a harpsichord! But I can imagine the adjustment—I've taken a spin once or twice on an organ, and oh, what a world of difference! Isn't it amazing how many instruments have identical keyboards and yet you have to play them completely differently!"

Valera

"Oh yes! Harpsichords don't have any subtlety to them. No matter how hard or gently you hit the keys, the note is always top volume!" A wink. "Like a certain snake, come to think of it!" She'd thought of him in the music store, lucky him, and went out of her way to find a piece or two from his own time along with a few well known showtunes from Broadway. And in the back, a few pieces from Disney. Scandalous. "Figured we'd start with something simple. Are you familiar with Carroll Gibbons?"

Alastor

"Hah." And he'd been doing so WELL trying not to think about Sir Pentious; he'd lasted almost five minutes—which was pretty long when he was talking to Sir Pentious's fiancée. "All the better to ensure as many people as possible hear his grandiose proclamations, I'm sure!"

He skimmed over the sheet music. "Vaguely familiar, can't say from where." Muffled disembodied piano notes played the melody sped up as Alastor glanced over the first page—ought to be simple enough to play. "Sounds like my time."

Valera

Poor, poor Alastor. Wipe off that chalkboard, he wont be making much progress on that timer today. "I asked for something from around that era, so I certainly hope so! You were right though, it's a very fine store indeed. We're lucky you couldn't go in with me or I might have gotten more than I could carry, and we all know I'm struggling enough with that problem already." Wink!

She cracks her knuckles, trying to keep a straight face as she puts her fingers to the keys. Oh, the funny little inside jokes of friends who are obviously both in on the bit.

Alastor

He wonders whether that was a sexual euphemism or just a reference to Sir Pentious's new length. "THAT weight, I could have helped you carry!" He's gonna quietly pretend he doesn't detest the implication that Sir Pentious is too much. Probably just a reference to him being fifteen feet long, don't read into it.

It's music time now!

Valera

The answer seemed in line, no reason for Valera to hesitate, so instead she gives Alastor a smile and launches into a rendition of The Gay Imposter's medley. A simple enough piece for her to start with, and while she starts with a heavy enough hand on the keys that even she flinches at the sound, she eases off quickly into something he wouldn't have to shout to duet with.

Alastor

She adjusts fast, he'll give her that; and makes a mental note that apparently one has to play harder on a harpsichord. He doesn't know if he'll ever use this knowledge, but one never knows.

And so a duet it is—or more, once he realizes that this little medley could benefit from some strings, couldn't it, and calls up a shadow with a violin to improvise an accompaniment.

Valera

She hums and pulls her hands away from the keys, reaching for the folder for another piece to try. "Here, the next one is yours." Actually, now that she's said that.. That brings something to mind. "Do you want to go hunting on Earth, when this.." A gesture towards herself. "..Ordeal? Is over? So, sometime next month? I've seen you talk about missing venison."

Alastor

Hunting on Earth—there's a thought! Something he never imagined he'd do again!

Something he isn't sure he should. That's... something he's going to have to consider. But he doesn't need to give an immediate answer, does he?

"'Ordeal'? I hope you're not referring to your own company! I wouldn't call a stroll to the music store and a spin on the piano an 'ordeal'!"

Valera

... She blinks, brows slowly furrowing as she turns that over in her head. Did he not know? Was he playing it off? Fuck, maybe Pentious hadn't said anything yet, if he'd even planned to. Uh oh. Alright. Carefully, carefully, she turns back to the folder, browsing through sheet music to keep her hands busy.

"Apologies, dear Alastor. I thought Pentious had informed you shortly after he told Match." A polite clearing of her throat, her fins dipping down apologetically. "I'm chock full of eggs, dearie."

Alastor

Alastor blinks in amazement, gaze flicking from Valera's face down to her abdomen and then back up to her face.

For a couple of seconds of loudly buzzing static, a hurricane of thoughts storms through his mind:

Why hadn't he been told? Did Sir Pentious not want him to know? No, that's ridiculous, Sir Pentious trusts him—even though he shouldn't, it's obvious he does—so it wasn't a decision made out of secrecy but out of—what, apathy? Apathy toward what? Certainly not the eggs, certainly they weren't too uninteresting to share, not when Sir Pentious wants children so badly he collects dolls of them, he has to be brimming over with joy—then the apathy was toward Alastor himself, he didn't qualify being told the news. Why should he? They barely knew each other—sure, their friendship had moved fast—sure, the second time they'd met they'd fallen asleep together drunk and curled around each other and— But what's rushed intimacy like that worth when they hardly know each other?

All that in just a couple of seconds as his heart plummets. Then a broad smile breaks out across his face. "Are you really! Well, a thousand congratulations to you both! I'm sure you must both be completely overjoyed. And they're due sometime next month?! I suppose you'll be scheduling that wedding a little sooner, ha! My, but we rarely get news like this in Hell!"

Valera

A moment of calm as she watches him take the information in, and then he starts in with the cheer and she has to watch. The moment he's done, she practically vibrates, hands frantically waving between them as she resists the urge to grab the poor man by the shoulders and shake him. No shouting, she has to hiss whisper before the whole hotel hears their conversation. "Wh-- No, whoa whoa no!!! No you put those thoughts back in the pit they crawled out of, I could FEEL your brain breaking!!! Alastor they're completely nonfertilized. There's not going to be eels tearing through the hotel anytime this year! You're okay!"

Alastor

"I—Oh!" Give him a split second to restructure all his thoughts. "Oh, are they!" He laughs. "Goodness me, and here I was about to run off and buy baby bonnets as a gift, hah—Pity, though." And it is a pity. Does that mean Sir Pentious and Valera aren't fertile together after all? Or did they expect this?

As delicately as he can, he says, "I'm afraid I don't know enough about your people to tell if I should be offering you my deepest condolences, or if you just lay a batch every once in a while like a chicken."

Valera

Oh, now he's trying to be kind? How sweet of him. She chuckles, a bit breathless, and puts a hand to her chest. That could have gotten ugly. The questions are a bit TMI, but such things can't be avoided, sometimes. She'll try to keep it vague, for Alastor's sake.

"I'm on contraceptives! He just confused my body into thinking it was fertilized. Overachieving first timer performance, you know? Which I suppose I understand. Thirty six years of nothing, nada, and then constantly being in contact with someone who keeps sending all the right signals." It's funny, now that she thinks about it. But very nonhuman. No wonder everyone keeps being confused.

Alastor

He'd like to think he's been trying to be kind the whole time.

He blinks for a moment as he tries to wrap his mind around that medical explanation. "Well... I... can't say that I've ever met a creature that can get false pregnancies just from an enthusiastic lover. It certainly doesn't happen among humans!"

Or does it? Maybe that's what some miscarriages are? He has absolutely no idea, it's never been relevant to his life. Certainly, if it does happen to humans, that hadn't been part of the medical knowledge in his time. "Poor man must have been completely baffled by the whole thing."

(He's doing a pretty good job of not thinking about the "right signals.")

Valera

"It doesn't happen often, it threw BOTH of us for a loop. But he took it remarkably well, all things considered! Just the proof he needed that we really are compatible. He's just being a bit more possessive and touchy feely since he heard, and that's hardly a negative." Her cheeks flush. Oh yeah, not a negative at all. But best not to think about that around Alastor. He's already trying so hard not to die over her relationship.

She coughs. "Actually, that brings something else to mind, if you'll humor me."

Alastor

"A test run, then! In that case, my congratulations again—for the evidence of your compatibility." It'll make things easier later on, won't it? And that's something Alastor has worried about—whether Valera's species really would let Sir Pentious get around the natural infertility of demons. Well, there it is.

"Oh, does it?" He gives her a sly look. "Well, I didn't think we'd be having this conversation so soon, but since you brought it up: yes, if you insist, you can name the first boy after me, as long as you promise to spell my name right! You'd be amazed how many people don't spell it with an O." Laugh track, laugh track. "But really—what's on your mind?"

Valera

A wheeze, her body nearly doubling over, a fist over her mouth to muffle stifled giggles as Alastor yanks the rug out from under her feet with his bit. Dear gods, the very idea. The scandal! It's more tempting than it should be, but Pentious would murder her... Probably. Maybe not.

"Well, I mean...... No no, I could never. Veci can have multiple sires for a single pup, people would think you really were one of the fathers. But tell you what, you think of a good snake pun and I'll put it on the list." Humor aside, time to get serious. A pause while she composes herself, smooths down the front of her dress.. And she is suddenly very nervous all over again. Lovely.

"There's no graceful way to put this, I'm afraid. And let me preface this by saying. I'm not angry or judging you, I wont tell anyone without your explicit permission, and I'm willing to shake on that if it brings you peace of mind." A beat. "But I am fully aware of your feelings for Pentious, dear Alastor."

Alastor

His mind is bouncing between the medical miracle of a child with multiple fathers and the list of snake puns that as it so happens he already has, trying to decide which he wants to comment on first—and then it's his turn to have the rug pulled out from under him.

He only spends a split second silent, mouth half open from almost starting a sentence on a prior topic he's already forgotten; and then his teeth click shut like a dial turning off, and now he's all polite smiles and genial tone. "Are you?"

Valera

She nods, just once, and offers Alastor what she hopes is a comforting smile, though it may be a grimace with how her stomach is turning. "I am. And again, I have absolutely no intentions of breathing a word to even suggest it to anyone but yourself. I wont run off and tell Pentious, or writing it out on dash for anyone to see. I'm speaking to you about it because I want to make sure you know that I don't mind. You've been a good friend to him, and myself as well. You've been incredibly respectful, and I want to acknowledge that. This isn't an accusation."

Alastor

"Ah." His glowing red gaze lingers for a moment on the piano keys—no hope of getting to play for a while now, is there—and then his traveling gaze falls on the shadow he summoned up earlier. "What—Are you still here? Aren't you nosy!" He hops out of his seat, making a comical little pantomime of shooing the shadow until it hustles across the room and vanishes, taking its violin with it.

"Eavesdroppers." Alastor tisks, critically watching the spot where the shadow disappeared.

His gaze is still across the room when he says amiably, "You're wrong, though." The corner of his mouth twitches up: haha, gotcha, had you fooled. "It's not him. Just someone who looks and sounds and acts the same."

Valera

Valera turns back to the piano, playing a few barely audible notes to buy herself some time while Alastor busied himself with shooing off his shadowy minion. It was easy to go in heavy handed, get the most from your efforts. But a delicate touch made sweeter sounds, in and out of the world of music. Perhaps she needed a more delicate approach..

Wow, that was as stupid as it was fake poetic! Ugh, back to what she SHOULD be focusing on. "The Pentious of your own Hell, then. My apologies. So you're projecting your feelings for your own Pentious onto the one we both know, then?"

Alastor

"Oh, completely!" He laughs ruefully. "I've known him a mere thirty-three days! Everything I know about him amounts to thing I can assume about the one based on the other, and a list of points that differ. I don't really know him at all. How could I?"

Valera

Well now, that seems unfair to both Alastor and Pentious! She knows for a fact that the two of them have had GREAT fun together, with and without her around to witness it! "I understand what you're saying."

She stops, squints. Shakes her head. "No. I shouldn't say that. I don't understand what you're saying, I just think I can empathize with your predicament. I've spent years knowing various iterations of all sorts of people, but I've never met an alternate of a person I pined over. It sounds like torture."

Alastor

The word torture is met with studio audience laughter. "Then you should consider yourself lucky!" The chipper tone doesn't falter for a second. "I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, hah! Well, maybe my worst enemy—PROBABLY my worst enemy, truth be told, I am not and never have been gracious to my foes—but that aside, oh, no, the experience has nothing to recommend it." Prattle, prattle.

Valera

She licks her lips, raspy tongue flicking out far further than necessary as she weighs her options. She could try to end the conversation here, reel him back in with a musical number. Or dive into his emotional anguish and run the risk of either bonding with him OR making him so wildly uncomfortable he'd avoid her for weeks.

Eh, fifty fifty shot, she likes those odds. She hops off the bench, walking over to Alastor to.. Well. She wont touch him, but she'll just make her presence.. present. "Alastor. I'm going to ask a lot of you here, but tell me. In your ideal outcome, the best case scenario, what would you want out of this whole... Thing?"

Alastor

"Oh! Jumping straight to the thousand dollar question and skipping over the tens and hundreds?" He puts a hand over his heart as though the audacity has sent him into near cardiac arrest. "No no—the last time we played this little question-and-answer game, you remember, we left off on my turn. I get to ask the next one."

He turns more fully toward her—still the polite smile—to ask, "What gave me away? I am a performer, you know; I do pride myself on my ability to keep in character!"

Valera

If Alastor wanted to make a game out of it, so be it. Maybe that was simply what he felt comfortable with. Hope he can appreciate an honest answer. She makes dead eye contact and grins.

"You're touch averse to everyone but Pentious. You latch onto him given the slightest chance, jump on every excuse to be around him. Always craving any kind of touch. A bite, laying on his coils, anything you can get. You stare, you sigh, you practically swoon every time he smiles at you. I act the same way, don't get me wrong, but I'm engaged to him."

Alastor

Thank god for being dead, no blood flow means one's cheeks never burn. Alastor would point out that Valera has never seen him around anyone but Sir Pentious, how would she know whose touch he is and isn't averse to—but no, he confessed that one himself, didn't he? Slouched all over Sir Pentious at the theater while laughing about how much he hates being touched.

An uneasy pit forms in his stomach. (A second, new, additional uneasy pit, next to the gaping sinkhole that's already been forming.) That was right before Sir Pentious shoved him off and didn't address him for the rest of the show. If Valera had been able to put two and two together then...

He draws himself upright in mock offense. "I do not sigh! I won't object to the accurate accusations, but I'm quite certain I'm not a sigher!" He pauses. "And I'd protest the swooning too, except I don't know what a swoon looks like. I don't think anyone actually does that outside of novels."

Valera

She snickers, bouncing on her heels while her fins waggle. Good, something she can crack a joke about, the atmosphere in here was getting downright suffocating. "Well! I'd show you my best swoon, but I'm very heavy and I think I would break either your bones or the couch if I tried it." His skinny little arms would shatter like toothpicks trying to catch her, probably. And that was IF he caught her. No no, there will be no trust falls today.

"Now answer my question, dear fellow. What would be your ideal outcome in this terribly tricky predicament? It doesn't have to be realistic, it just has to be what would make you happiest."

Alastor

He arches an eyebrow. "No working your way up with the easy ones?" He's stalling.

Valera

She arches her own right back! "No. If I wanted to pussyfoot around difficult subjects, I'd find a cat to dance with, not a deer."

Alastor

"Why, don't you know how skittish deer are? Liable to bound off into the woods at a moment's notice!"

He's still stalling.

Valera

She leans in closer, all three eyes narrowing as she stares down at the smaller man. "Alastor, if you keep stalling I am going to start shaking you until the answers fall out, touch aversion or no."

Alastor

His polite smile turns cold. "Try it and you'll never get another word out of me again." It's gonna be all instrumentals all the time, baby. Just orchestras and sound effects.

"If you'd rather wait in silence than enjoy my delightful banter, then fine. Just—give me a moment. To think. I don't have all my dialogue prewritten, you know."

He doesn't yet have the words for something he's never, ever considered putting voice to.

Valera

She withdraws, glossing over his cold threat with a pleasantly bland smile and nod. "Fair enough. My apologies, you were starting to sound like you were about to make a break for it to avoid the discussion entirely. Take your time, Alastor."

Guess she might as well get comfortable then, the couch is looking rather inviting, and as fun as towering over people is, it does tend to make them more nervous than necessary. He's going to talk, she's going to magic up some tea.

Alastor

He plays an idle boring tune over a metronome to fill the silence as he sighs, shuts his eyes, and tilts his head back, thinking.

The problem isn't that he doesn't know what he wants. The problem is he wants so much in so many different ways. The problem is choosing one facet of it that's small enough to say out loud. The problem is putting it into a sentence that won't terrify his nosy guest. The problem is finding words that he can squeeze out before a lump forms in his throat.

Finally, opening his eyes, still staring at the ceiling, he says, "The most ideal, most unrealistic outcome would be to go back in time—fifty-four years, four months, and two days—and change one thing. In a way that doesn't cause the timeline to form a new branch, but that—erases this path completely. So it never existed." He gives Valera a tired look. "But that's beyond even you, isn't it."

Valera

Her mouth opens, but she hesitates. Then shrugs, and gestures for him to take a seat with a far more genuine smile.

"If I answered that in any kind of simple manner, we'd be here all week. Why don't you sit down and have a drink with me, and we can approach this more gently. I'd like to help you, Alastor, even if my methods are.. Overly direct at times." That's putting it mildly. After a day of politics, her capacity for subtlety was shot at the BEST of times. Poor Alastor was getting her at her finest, here.

Alastor

He studies her a moment, a spark of energy lighting his eyes with interest. "Well, if that's your way of saying 'maybe'—I've waited fifty-four years, what's another week?" He waves a nearby chair into sliding over and takes a seat. "Go on."

Valera

She slides a cup of tea across the table, mutely gesturing to the customary cream and sugar she'd not bothered to partake in herself. As an afterthought, she drags a plate of venison jerky through from her own realm. Not a customary tea snack, but it's not like she could truly enjoy anything sweet right now. Plus, gnawing on a piece of jerky was a wonderful stalling tool for both of them now.

Mm, jerky. Now.. Goodness. How can she be delicate about this? "In theory, my dear, I could attempt to put your current mind back in that exact moment you described. It would, of course, destroy this current reality and everyone in it if it worked, and force you to relive the trauma from a spectator's perspective if it didn't."

Alastor

He glances at the cup, but doesn't move to take it. "I like those odds."

Valera

"Really? Most people would hear that opener and cut the conversation there. Though I suppose you aren't most people." No, this was the Radio Demon himself, willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to get what he wanted! Allegedly!

A dry smile. "Might I remind you that I'm thirty six years old and entertaining the notion of attempting to rewrite reality itself for a man I've only started growing comfortable with calling a friend, all so you can fix whatever you broke on that fateful day, dear Alastor?"

Alastor

He blinks. "You're thirty-six?"

Valera

That's what he fixated on? Dear gods, the cackle that came out of her.

"Yes, yes I am. Thirty six years old, and already so accomplished that I've seen both Heaven and Hell. Aren't I lucky?"

Alastor

When she'd mentioned "thirty-six years" earlier—in the middle of a conversation about her sex life—he'd thought she was giving the length of her dry spell, not her life. "My, oh my! Amazing! What's that in Earth years?" He leans forward, all chipper again. "And look how lucky you are NOW. A chance to attempt rewriting a reality you have no personal attachment to, on behalf of a man you only barely consider a friend—no great loss to you! All the risk falls on me! You get to document the results and learn something new about these fantastic abilities you're wielding—even as impressive as they are, I'm sure you must have more to learn! Why, I don't see a downside for you!"

Valera

Her nose scrunches in disgust. "Ugh, you're going to ask me to do math? Some friend you are. But more seriously."

Give her a moment while she adjusts herself, shoving a pillow under her back as she lifts her legs to take up the couch in a comfortable lounge. Oh yes, that's the good stuff. "You really don't see any downside for me? How about the risk of re-traumatizing my friend if it fails? Or destroying an entire reality for one person's desires? That would mean destroying the residents of this hotel, plus the Pentious that exists right now."

Alastor

"I'm in Hell, I deserve the trauma." Absolutely no hesitation. "Destroying one reality to create another. Another with the exact same people who were erased. Another where he wins. Where he comes out on top." He scoots forward in his seat, insistent, animated. "This isn't about me, darling—the fact that I benefit is just a bonus. This is about him. He was poised to conquer. Change one detail, one decision, and he could be ruling half of Hell by now. Maybe more! My god, he was already unstoppable, what if he'd picked up the pace?!"

He reaches for one of Valera's hands to squeeze. "I'm trying to give him Heaven and Hell—I want to give him everything he's ever wanted. Wouldn't you?"

Valera

The sudden touch was jarring, but her hand curls around his reflexively, the warmth seeping through his gloves a marked contrast with the coolness of her scales. It was almost enough to make her relax into his touch, and that was dangerous. She hesitates.

"Would I do anything in my power to help Pentious? Of course I would. But.." She would. She'd make a deal with just about anyone if it meant helping her beau. And Alastor was trying to do that now, for his own object of affection. It was between helping Alastor, and.. Well. An entire reality possibly being voided.

"Are you certain it's worth it? Could you live with yourself if you tried, and failed, and came back to this current present with all those memories fresh? What did you do, Alastor, that was so unmendable that you'd turn to a coinflip to fix it?"

Alastor

"I'm damned. I don't need to live with myself." His smile thinned grimly. "I'm asking you to try to help me cheat the system. If we succeed, then he gets what he wants. If we fail, then that just means the system works, and—and I get what I deserve. Hell is a punishment. I accept that."

He holds up a finger at her last question. "We're supposed to be taking turns asking the questions. I don't see any reason why you need to know if you aren't going to help me fix it. So: are you?"

Valera

Valera looks down at the table, staring into her teacup as if it could answer the questions racing through her mind. Was it worth it? Could she willingly sacrifice the people she'd met at this hotel, in this Hell, just for a chance to help a friend fix a problem it sounded more and more like he'd caused? Was this really a deal she could make? What would she want?

She takes a breath. Lifts her gaze to meet his. "If you're certain you're willing to try this, I'll help you. I'd beg, borrow, and steal from anyone capable if I was the one in your situation, even if the odds were a hundred to one. I'll give you one chance, Alastor, to fix your wrongdoing. But I can't promise it'll go how you want it to. You know that."

Alastor

He lets out a laugh that almost sounds like a sob. "One slim chance is more than I ever dreamed I'd get! Five seconds, one word, that's all it'll take, and the universe changes!" He seizes both her hands as he jumps to his feet, beaming broadly. Behind him three different songs are trying to play simultaneously. "A water spirit from a place without a Hell—I should have known, the moment I met you!"

Valera

Oh, dear gods, what has she signed up for? What is she doing? She couldn't even regret the decision, the sheer ecstasy on Alastor's face was near heartbreaking in its sincerity. The absurdity of it all forces a chuckle out of her, hands squeezing his as she indulgently clambers off the couch.

Great! Two idiots holding hands in the middle of the room while the invisible orchestra goes buckwild! This is great! It's fine! Her chuckle is more of a wheeze, but she smiles indulgently. "Known what, my dear?"

Alastor

"That—never mind, Earth things—that you can help! That's all!" Get ready, it's dancing time, Alastor is pulling Valera into a waltz. An extremely enthusiastic waltz. "So how's it done—what's it going to take?!"

Valera

Let it be said that Valera always enjoys a good waltz, and especially when it distracts her from the gut feeling that she's just agreed to do something awfully selfish that nobody would approve of. Now THERE'S something she hasn't felt in a while! But no, she's falling into step with Alastor for their merry The King and I moment, a genuine smile breaking out across her face at his gleeful energy.

"Not as much as you may think, dear fellow! I'll need to gather materials to build the anchor and casting line, and you'll need as much hell energy as you can muster to manifest yourself strongly in the time as possible. Do you have something significant you associate with that day? A possession we could use as an antenna, more or less? It would let us focus in so I could try and take you there as precisely as possible."

Alastor

His dancing slows as he thinks. What does he associate with that day? A quilt. A robe. A pipe organ. Tea. Cold. A scent he'll never smell again. "Does it need to be a literal possession from that day? Or would a symbolical representative be close enough? I didn't keep souvenirs." He has nothing from that day but the clothes on his back; a coat he'd been wearing since 1933 would make for a poor antenna.

Valera

She purrs, pursing her lips as she considers the question. She shouldn't be excited, but the idea of such a dramatic project was sounding better and better. What was this, if not a test of ability? "Anything you can use to attune yourself should work. A smell, maybe? Human memory is tied to scent pretty strongly. The important part is the emotional tie, something to take you back to that moment, essentially. As long as I know where and when we need to be, I can compensate for one or the other. Ideally not both, that'd be a strain."

Alastor

He stops dancing completely; he's gotta focus. After a moment of thought, he says slowly, "There is a scent. But, there's... no good way to acquire it again. Besides, that moment is... still a couple of seconds before taking action, but after the decision's been made. It might be too late." Not that, then. "Would weather work? Cold?"

Valera

Great! They can just stand there, frozen mid waltz. She'll just sway them back and forth, a nervous tic of her own. "Yes, if that would take you to the moment again, cold would be one of the sensations that would suffice. Would a combination work? Cold, and a sound we could mimic? Something like that?"

Alastor

A sound, what sound? The exact moment he needs to reach—the organ wasn't playing right then, Alastor was by himself. Pacing the hallways.

"Maybe the... the airship. While it's flying." He hasn't been aboard one since then; but he remembers how the sound of the engine underscored everything. "I don't want him—yours—to... to have to hear about this."

Valera

"If you don't want him to, he wont. I promised confidentiality on your terms." She looks around as she gives Alastor's hand a comforting squeeze, glancing from the piano to Alastor and back.

Sound, sound.. "So it was on the airship. I'm familiar with the sound of the mechanics going, the engines humming away. A constant undercurrent. Relaxing, once you get used to it." Thinking about it made her feel at ease, but Alastor seemed to have a very different emotional association with the sound. "Maybe you could reproduce it on your microphone cane?"

Alastor

A nod—yes, yes, yes that's the sound. "One of the airships," Alastor corrects. "Back then, he—" hrmph. He's not getting that sentence out. "My mic doesn't make the sound effects, I do. And it would just be... remembering out loud. I don't know if that would be close enough." A jerky shrug. "I'd say get a recording out of his ship, but... different airship model. The engine might sound different. I'll know when it's flying again."

Valera

She keeps rocking them back and forth, tail slowly curling one way, then the other. "I see! So, what would you like to do, then? I hope you aren't going to ask me to slip my way onto your Pentious' airship circa the time period and try to grab a recording. I don't much fancy the idea of trying to pass myself off as an egg."

Alastor

"No, absolutely not. It's unthinkable." The only, only reason Alastor would even consider going back there would be this one time, to fix what he'd broken. Not for any other reason. Even sending someone as his proxy was too much. "We can wait until yours has finished his repairs. If it sounds the same, wonderful. If not... we'll figure out a plan B then."

Valera

"Sounds like a plan! You focus on getting hell energy, and I'll get the materials. We'll see how Penny's ship shapes up." Another squeeze to his hand, and she leans in to bump against him, trying to get him to look her in the eyes. "I promise, Alastor, as friend and fae. I'll do everything we decide I should to make this work in your favor. You're my friend, and I do genuinely want you to be happy." Okay Val just say that I guess.

Alastor

Oh. He grimaces and endures the bump. Well he was making eye contact, maybe he will again once he gets his personal space back.

"Then consider my happiness optional. I had my chance and I blew it. I don't need another chance." Not in Hell. Not even with fae help. "But he had his chance taken from him. That's what I plan to fix."

Valera

The message got across, no need to stay in his personal bubble. Being close to people who were viscerally uncomfortable always made her scales crawl, it was downright nauseating after long enough.

"Good gods, you're head over heels for him, aren't you my dear fellow? But very well. If those are the terms you want met, I will put his own happiness as my priority for this venture." Ooh, that's a little ominous. Maybe she should reword that? A glance at Alastor.. No, she'll leave it. "Well, our game plan is set. Now, I believe you owe me a story, dear fellow."

Alastor

He endures the vicious accusation without a flinch. He has no argument against it, anyway, except for his perpetual simmering indignation over the fact that it's true.

"Not a story; just an explanation." Might as well step back. They're not dancing anymore and he can use the added space. "At a point, I had to choose whether to stay forever or go forever. I chose to go." He's whittled away at what's a massive tree of a tale until it's a toothpick, small enough to squeeze out of his throat. "Of course, he's—stubborn. You know him. If I'd simply left, he would have pursued. I had to convince him I wasn't worth following." He huffs. "So I told him he bored me and blew up his fleet."

He spreads his hands as a little fanfare sound effect plays. Tadaaa.

https://youtu.be/bjxf-eQWKoo

YouTube

baniger3711

SOUND EFFECT TADA

Valera

Alastor may have gone out of his way to make the explanation as unimpressive as possible, but the look Valera gives him is one of pure horror. She backs away, gracelessly flopping back onto the couch and very deliberately taking up her tea to give herself something to do.

Her mind runs through the idea of wounding her own fiancé like that, betraying him so completely at the peak of his game. The damage that would cause would be... Dear gods. Would he even recover from that? No, no. She can't assume Alastor and his own Pentious had a bond like that. But they'd been close. Allies. And he'd clearly been in love, who knew how his Pentious had felt about someone so important. It's hard not to feel a tinge of malice for her friend, but. No, he was many things. Unrepentant wasn't one of them. He knew what he did was wrong. She said she'd help him fix things. By gods, was she going to fix things if it killed him. He might even like that.

"So you lied, and you ran, because.. You were afraid? Of what, your own feelings? The idea of being with him forever?" She snaps a hand up, a barrier between them, and shakes her head. "No, you don't have to answer that. You told me what you did, you answered my question. I've got no business pressing." Her cup is shaking in her grasp. When did that happen?

"I'm going to help you fix this. But I see now why you place his happiness at a higher priority than your own."

Alastor

She's horrified. He's vaguely glad of that. She should be. He knows what he's done, knows it's so monstrous that he can't even feel the monstrosity of it anymore. It's been over half a century. She's reacting the way he ought to every day when he sees himself in a mirror; but it hurts and he's gone numb.

He hopes he's dropped in her estimation.

He nods when she gives him permission not to answer—good, he doesn't want to answer. He doesn't think the answer's relevant. No possible motive short of I'd discovered he'd killed my mother would justify what Alastor had done; and if the motive doen't justify it, then the motive is irrelevant. "Good." His wan smile widens. "So we're on the same page now. Got all our priorities in order."

Valera

She takes a moment before she forces herself to look at him again, eyes sharp and lips set into a thin line. He wanted to fix his mistake. He was desperate to. He was willing to jump through any hoop it took, and she had to remember that. Chant it over and over in her head as she made herself nod. "We are." A slow breath in, a hold, and a slower exhale.

"What you did was.. I don't need to tell you. But I think you've beat yourself bloody over it without my help, there's no need for me to salt the wound. You want to make it right. That's the important part." Another breath. She isn't going to lash out. She's better than that, and it wouldn't help anyone. "You are my friend. I want to help you fix this horrible, awful mistake. Because it was a mistake. You chose wrong, and you've had to live with that ever since. When Pentious' airship is flying, we will review this. Shake my hand."

There are no pyrotechnics. No magical flair of lights or ominous humming, nothing to mark the moment binding as she extends a hand towards Alastor. Only the look in her eyes, and the unnatural stillness of her frame.

Alastor

He has fallen. Good. He should. And it means if things start to go wrong, she'll have a higher chance of trying to make sure things fall apart in a way that benefits who it's supposed to rather than in a way that benefits her "friend."

He'll be the one to mark it as binding, then. The lights around his hand are subdued compared to his usual glow; just a few little green threads coiling around and between his fingers.

He shakes without hesitation. He doesn't know what's put on the line in a bargain with a Veci—but this is the one, the only thing he'd sell his soul for.

Valera

The smile she forces is sickly sweet. The grip on his hand curling in until her claws are digging marks into his glove. But she releases before any damage is caused. Even now, she wouldn't hurt him unnecessarily. Anger isn't enough.

"Good. Until we review our terms, the only thing I ask is that you remain a good friend to my love. He thinks highly of you, and the bond you share is good for both of you. Rest assured, after I leave this room, I will treat you as I always have. He will hear nothing about this from me."

Alastor

Oh, he's plummeted. He takes a long, slow breath in. Okay. He understands. This isn't a friendship he deserves.

At her request, his breath catches. His eyes widen. Even after, she'd still trust him with...? "I..." His voice is thick with distortion; he tries to clear his throat with a staticky noise. "I—would do nothing less." He examines the marks on the back of his glove; then clasps his trembling hands behind his back and stands straighter. "I'd do anything I can, for him." Borderline unintelligible beneath the static. Shameful. His station would have been inundated with angry letters if they'd ever broadcast such a poor signal.

Valera

There it is. What she'd been waiting for. The disbelief, the raw emotion. A genuine show of weakness, intentional or no, at the barest trace of kindness he knew from the bottom of his miserable heart that he didn't deserve. Just what she needed. Somewhere, a balance tips.

Her smile turns, as soft and warm as ever, and she raises those same claws to cover her mouth as she chuckles. "I know, Alastor. I've made mistakes too. Nothing exactly like yours, but.." A shrug. "Mistakes that cost me dearly. Don't worry. I'm angry, and I'll need time to really absorb what you've told me here, but you're always welcome in my home. We'll fix this."

Alastor

The switch is too fast. He can't trust it. Suddenly it's only "mistakes." Suddenly it's merely "angry." Suddenly it's "welcome." Either it's a performance worthy of the Academy, or it's true—and of the two possibilities, the latter is infinitely worse. He's afraid that one's true.

He opens his mouth to speak, but he thinks if he tries it will just come out as static. He turns away sharply, and nods without showing Valera his face.

Valera

Oh, this poor man has no idea what to do with himself! She should at least put on a better face about it, but.. No. He'll have to realize at some point, that her emotions are purely her own to process, act on, or shove down into a tiny box and stomp on as she sees fit. Oh, if Pentious could see her he'd be shaking her by the shoulders by now.

She sighs, moving back to the piano to reorganize her sheet music. A polite disengagement, a chance to collect himself while she's busy. "I believe it's your turn now, Alastor. Though I can't imagine you coming up with a question in your current state."

Alastor

In your current state. That's galling enough that now he has to take his turn. "Wh—What—" pardon the interference, "—will it be like—on my end? Do I teleport back? Do I—ride my younger self?"

Valera

She cannot believe that worked. But it's a fine question, and the answer may distract him.

"If I were creating a branching reality, which would be the easy route, I'd take you back on a physical level and you'd simply march up to your younger self and tell him what for. Or kill him and attempt to take his place, I suppose, but that tends to work out very poorly."

A scoff. Oh, to be a being who had more than one version of themselves to worry about. "With what we're attempting, I'd essentially be melding your mind into that of your younger self. Like overlaying old film. Your time appropriate memories would be the most vivid, but you'd keep your current knowledge as reference, including our deal to send you back in the first place. A bit recursive, perhaps, but I'm not a temporal being."

Alastor

A pause. "Melding" sounds a little permanent. "And—at the end—how do we... get old me out of young me's head?"

Valera

"Well my dear, I'm surprised you'd even want to, when it would be so easy to crush you into one being, but the answer is simple!" She glances over her shoulder, grinning with all of her teeth. "I pull him out like a worm from the mud!"

Alastor

"Of course I want to. I don't get to stay there." Still turned away, he roughly wipes his face with the back of his sleeve. "Not after what I've done. But, the me as I was then—his conscience is clean. Let him reap the benefits alone."

Like a worm from the mud. How fitting.

Valera

She twitches, then reaches into her pocket for a handkerchief. Was this one of the ones she stole from Pentious? Yes. But she'll float it over to him anyway, like a tiny ghost. She'll even use it as a prop, dancing it around as she speaks. "And what am I to do with your current self, my dear Alastor? Keep you around like a leashed trophy, a wisp tied to no reality for my own amusement? That seems heartless, and I'll have you know that I've got four hearts."

Alastor

That's definitely one of Sir Pentious's. He snatches it out of the air. Valera's never getting it back.

"Toss me in the trash when I'm done." He laughs bitterly. "By all logic, I ought to disappear with my reality, oughtn't I? As far as things are concerned from your point of view, I'll just suddenly be upgraded to a better version of myself—less baggage, fewer regrets, and consort to the new king of Hell, hah."

He finally turns back around. Still smiling. Pay no mind to the slight redness around his eyes. Have you seen his eyelids?—that redness was probably always there maybe.

Valera

That's fine, she can steal more. Besides, better than using his sleeves. "Were it that easy, dear fellow! But I am not part of this reality, I'm a guest. I'll remember all of our dealings, like I've remembered every dealing I've had. I could toss you out, but why would I? The you that I know is the you that is a friend to my beau. The new you would be unpredictable. Is there any insurance, any reason for me to believe you would still be so kind?"

Alastor

Alastor considers that a moment. "Tell me you're a water spirit, the same way you did the first time we met, and tell me you sent the messenger who kept me from making a stupid mistake. There's your insurance."

It won't guarantee he'll be kind. But unless he changes beyond recognition, it will at least guarantee he'll be respectful enough not to be an enemy.

Valera

Valera mulls it over, turning it round and round in her mind as she approaches Alastor once more. This was too serious for playful distractions. And finally, she nods.

"Very well, Alastor. If you're so willing to sign your existence over to me for destruction, I'll try to play my part." Or something close enough, anyway. "For now, I suggest you do your best to get used to my company. We'll be seeing quite a bit of each other in the coming weeks."

Alastor

That's what he's doing, isn't it? Destruction. Hah. At least he's taking down a whole universe with him, that's something.

No, not destruction; replacement. With a better version of himself. The worst decades of his life scrubbed off like they'd never happened—like he'd never caused them. Cheating the game on a cosmic order. He is going to survive this, and he's going to get everything he wants.

"You say that like it's going to be a chore." He scoffs. "I have no reason to resent your company. I suggest you do your best to get used to mine."

Valera

Now it's HER turn to scoff. "Alastor, my good man, every day I wake up and you didn't sneak into my bed to try and cozy up to Pentious is a day I wake up surprised. We are from very different cultures with very different standards."

Alastor

"Well." Rueful laugh. "If he'd ever invited me to, you'd never get rid of me."

Just saying that out loud sends a shock of alarm through his system; even though there's hardly anything left to hide now, even though he's not saying anything that she doesn't already know.

Valera

Who knew all it took to get direct responses from Alastor was offering him his deepest desires and making him cry? It was so simple all along, how hadn't anyone else thought of it?

"Well! I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Now, I think we've had more than enough excitement for one day, don't you? Unless you've got any other questions you feel are pressing at this current time."

Alastor

Admittedly, the crying was optional.

And make no mistake—the only reason he's offering a direct response now is because he remembers full well that her encouragement is why Sir Pentious offered friendship in the first place. If there's the slightest chance that Sir Pentious would like a second guest in his bed and he conveys that info to Valera, she'll remember this conversation.

He racks his brain. "Poor interviewer that I am, I think I've run out of questions for my interviewee! Although I admit you've been less an interviewee and more an interrogator." Modest studio audience laugh; Alastor's getting back in character. "No queries, but one humble request: the next time you plan to rub my nose in my dirty laundry, let me take the first turn on the piano, would you?"

Valera

She snickers, but makes a show out of curtsying deeply in a grand show of apology. Yes, this is more comfortable. An emotional barrier by virtue of theatrics, something they both knew well. This was good. "I'll do my best, dear Alastor, but is it required after every piano recital, or can I enjoy your talents without the dramatics and emotional anguish?"

Popping back up, she tips her fins forward, then back, quirking one side of her mouth up until the dimple showed. "Oh, I should probably give you some form of resistance to my toxins, hm? I doubt we'll be touching each other often of our own free will, but being in close quarters to Penny means being close to me."

Alastor

Dramatics? The nerve. "The more recitals that conclude without my sins being flung back in my face, the better! I'm a comic actor—I'm just not suited to star in tragedies!"

Exactly how close are the quarters she's expecting to be in? He shrugs. "I'll never say no to a spare antidote. Or whatever it is you're offering...?"

Valera

"I could offer an injectable antitoxin in emergencies, but in your case, I think an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." And now Alastor gets the pleasure of watching Valera go back to her own cup of tea, slam back the liquid like a shot, and then crush the cup in her fist. Then she turns back and he has a tiny bottle of pills shoved at him, Valera's emblem emblazoned on the lid.

"You get seven. Take one of these each time you anticipate being at risk of my toxins. They're take ten minutes to set in, they're effective for twelve hours, and they wont save you from ALL the symptoms, but they'll stop the worst of it. Don't expose them to high heat, it'll melt the casing off and then the magic will explode out violently."

Alastor

She's basically guaranteed that he's going to drop one of these in a cooking pot on a campfire and then watch from a hill with binoculars.

He examines the bottle curiously. "You simply must teach me how you make these."

Valera

He should. She did, and it was incredible.

The pills inside are the size of a pinkie nail, white and round with a pearlescent.. Actually, they just look like pearls. Did she give him a bottle of pearls? She might have. "You want to learn how to make an antitoxin? Or the magic behind it?" She'd be willing either way, she's VERY proud of her accomplishment.

Alastor

"Both, obviously! A form of magic I haven't played with yet and the ability to brew up my own antitoxin so I don't have to pester you for more after every few visits? Why would I pass up on either?"

Valera

"Hah! Fair enough. Alright. Next time we visit, your place or mine, I'll teach you. I'd love to see if you could master it, I had to create the technique myself and it is quite the hodgepodge." Alastor's going to have to learn to extract toxins from a fish, oh boy.

Alastor

"Everything I know is a hodgepodge! I look forward to the challenge." And he's going to love doing it.

Valera

Well, that's all she can think of-- Oh wait. "Alastor, while we're on the subject, did you want a sampling of Veci flesh to try? Not mine, unfortunately, but the fellow that Pentious disposed of. I saved a sample for you, but never thought to offer it up."

Alastor

"I'd be delighted to! I hope the sample comes with a recommended recipe or two?"

Valera

A dainty gasp, mock offense painted on her face. "As if I'd ever neglect you so terribly! I transcribed a few of my favorites over into English, just for you." She claps her hands, and presents Alastor with a torso sized chunk of tail, chopped straight from the bastard himself and neatly wrapped in cheesecloth and cooking twine. Craving seafood, Alastor?

Alastor

Always.

He accepts the bundle with a gracious half-bow. "As always, a pleasure to deal with you." And one of Sir Pentious's kills, no less. My, my. He looks forward to finally hearing that story.

Valera

A pleasure to deal with her? Of course it was. "Of course! Now. Recipes are on the table, help yourself to the venison. I'd best be off, Penny's sure to get lost in his own mind if I don't check in and harass him to rest. I'll be seeing you, my dear."

Alastor

He glances at the table, almost says something, then just nods. "Until next time."

Valera

And she's off, gone in the blink of an eye back to.. Wherever she was going.

Alastor

And Alastor goes to pick up the recipes and venison from the table... then instead sets down the chunk of tail meat, sinks onto the couch, and stares at nothing.

[kit-herondale-carstairs]

You and Me, The Moon and the Tides

Kit drummed the fingers of his free hand against the counter he was sitting on while he held a cookie in the other. It was his third of the morning but the only ones who had to know were him and his stomach. Besides, no one made cookies as well as Julian and Kit was determined to eat as many as possible before Ty came back from whatever he was doing in his old room.

It was still strange sometimes, even after several years, to be back in the Los Angeles Institute. Like he was fifteen again, trying not to mourn his father’s death and getting swept up in the maelstrom that was Ty Blackthorn. Kit finished off his cookie and grabbed another, forcing old memories away with a large bite. He was twenty-two years old, not a teenager anymore, and he definitely didn’t want to spend one of the few days off he had with Ty reminiscing on their awkward, necromantic teen days.

“Julian’s going to be upset you ate all his cookies.” A voice, soft and familiar, spoke out and Kit looked up from where he had been staring at a small crack in a tile to see Ty standing in the doorway, his lynx Irene obediently sitting by his right foot. Kit didn’t know why - probably because his mind was still partially stuck in his old memories - but he couldn’t help but be struck quite suddenly with how beautiful the other man was. He was still slighter than most Nephilim - although he had lost some of the delicacy he had at fifteen - but Kit knew, rather intimately, the strength held in his lithe body. He still had a delicate face framed with the Blackthorn dark hair, but his jaw and cheekbones had become more pronounced as he’d lost the softness of children and his gray eyes were as sharp as ever.

When Kit had first seen him after coming back to America when they were eighteen, he had thought Ty had looked the way avenging Angels should look - austere but beautiful, alluring but dangerous. Beautiful in the way a well-wrought blade was as it glinted in starlight.

Of course, Ty’s appearance had been sharpened with righteous indignation and his clothing had been covered with the still-smoking ichor of the demon he’d dispatched just before he’d caught sight of Kit, and it had mellowed out in the months and years since, as he and Kit worked together to overcome their less-than-stellar past and had begun dating. Now, the Ty standing before Kit was softer. Still devastatingly beautiful, of course, but soft in the way he held his body, all confidence and comfort, in the rumpled nature of the worn gray sweater that Kit was eighty percent sure he’d stolen from the bottom of his own dresser in their bedroom back home. Soft in the tussled mess of his hair that, in a rare fit of spontaneity he hadn’t bothered to comb that morning because “you and the wind are just going to mess it anyway, soft in the way his eyes, brimming as always with sharp intelligence, seemed to always soften when Kit was in sight.

“They were for the twins, you know.” Ty continued, apparently oblivious to Kit’s distracted thoughts, as he strode into the room, Irene slinking behind him lithely. The twins were Helen and Aline’s boys, two fair-head, baby-faced five-year-olds. They were sweet but mischievous little fae boys and Kit knew he was in for finding some unpleasant things on his person throughout his stay now.

But no matter. The cookies were worth it. “I didn’t eat all of them. They don’t need much.” He responded, sliding off the counter and turning to brush the evidence of his misdeeds from its surface and to place the lid back on the glass container. “You ready, then?” He added, turning back to look at Ty. The other man had yet to explain why he had insisted they take a portal from their flat in London back to spend the day in Los Angeles. Especially on a day when apparently everyone was busy with something or another - no one had bothered to explain what they were doing or why the Institute stood empty, a very rare event indeed for the bustling Blackthorn family.

“Yes.” Ty responded, apparently refusing to offer Kit anymore information, before bending down and catching hold of Irene’s harness and clipping her leash onto her. Ty hated leashing her but LA had rules and Kit for one didn’t want to have another run in with a mundane police officer about animal safety laws.

Kit refused to be bothered by Ty’s lack of forthcoming. He was like that, sometimes, when he was coming up with new ideas and they weren’t formed enough to share them yet. There were times when Ty would spend days like that, hyper-focused on thoughts only he was privy to, until they finally came together and Kit would be the first to hear all about his discovery about how a mundane serial killer was actually a very clever demon they needed to kill before their dinner reservation about his plan on how he was going to convince their mundane neighbor, a kindly but nosy older woman, to stop snooping around their trash without traumatizing her.

Kit knew that, given a bit of time, Ty would share all his thoughts and plans with him, and he hardly ever worried anymore that if he was not involved every step of the way, Ty was going to go off and do something dangerous on his own. They were partners and Ty would always wind up sharing his plans before jumping in on the risky parts. They weren’t fun to do alone, anyway, as Ty had often impatiently told him when they had first begun working together again and Kit had often let his old insecurities make him mistrustful of Ty’s quiet periods.

Kit didn’t think their sudden visit to Los Angeles or the three days’ of quiet hyper-fixation from Ty had anything to do with an unsolved mystery or pesky acquaintances, but he knew better than to worry too much about it. He was certain Ty was preparing to share it with him, although why they had to visit the beach or stop by the Institute to pick something up first, Kit had no idea. Ty had never made a habit of making a spectacle out of his discoveries before.

They fell into a companionable silence as Ty lightly tugged on Irene’s leash, deemed it acceptable, and made his way to the back door of the entrance, Kit following half a step behind.

The walk to the beach was as short as Kit remembered, although they hadn’t been back to it since Julian and Emma’s wedding two years before. Establishing themselves at the London Institute - which included repeatedly side-stepping old Bridget’s continued attempts to have a Herondale back as the Head, much to Jem and Tessa’s inconsiderate amusement - working with Kieran, Cristina, and Mark to rebuild Faerieland after the Final War, and working with Alec and the rest of the surviving Nephilim and Downworlders to reconfigure the old laws into something distinctly modern had kept them from making frequent visits to their old haunts.

Time apart, of course, did not make the feel of warm breezes on his face or the salty smell of the sea waves all around him any less familiar and Kit couldn’t help but breathe in deeply, basking in the sun-kissed warmth of his old hometown. He and Ty both missed it, even though it had been years since either had actually lived in the city. It was good to be back, even if Kit still had no idea why they were there.

Ty was no more forthcoming by the shore than he was back at the Institute, and their silence continued even as he led them down the beach, Irene making little disapproving mewls as she trotted across the sand. She hated the feel of sand on her paws, Kit knew, and he wasn’t quite sure why Ty hadn’t left her at home or in the Institute.

Questions about Irene’s quickly fled his mind, however, when several tall rocks came into view and it became quite clear where Ty had led them. It was where they - Kit, Ty, and Livvy - had gone to look at the tide pools, the very first time they’d gone to the beach together. It was also where, after the war was over, they had said their final goodbyes to Livvy. She had decided to move on, once Ty - in her words - no longer needed her, and before the emptiness she had seen in Dimmat Tam had any chance to claim her. She had floated above these very rocks, smiling faintly down at them before turning to go across the sea, disappearing in the waves. Kit had stood wordlessly as Ty watched the waves for an hour afterwards and he had held him tight in the shadow of the rocks, when the silence crested and Ty had begun crying.

They, for very obvious reasons, had not been back.

“Ty…” Kit trailed off questioningly, casting an alarmed look at his boyfriend. But if Ty was being overcome with an onslaught of bittersweet memories, he was hiding it well. The only indicator that Ty was thinking about it at all was the way his jaw seemed to clench briefly.

“Come up with me.” Ty told him, after a moment, stooping briefly to command Irene to stay before dropping her leash into the sand. Then he took to the rock, climbing onto the top with all the ease and grace of someone born to battle. Kit, inwardly wondering what the hell was going on, quickly followed. “The pools are still here,” Ty said as Kit crested the top. There was a pleased tone to his voice. “I was worried they wouldn’t be, since it’s been so hot.”

“We came to Los Angeles because you wanted to visit the tide pools?” Kit asked, careful to make sure his voice didn’t betray all the confusion he felt. Ty didn’t seem to be reminiscing on Livvy too much and he hadn’t broken down again since the day of her departure, although Kit knew all too well that he still felt the dull-ache of her loss.

“It’s the first place we went to on the beach.” Ty said matter-of-factly, carefully turning from the pools to look at Kit. Kit’s breath caught despite himself. Ty was smiling at him softly, his whole body illuminate by the sun so that he seemed to nearly glow in the morning light. “And it’s the last place we saw Livvy. It’s an important place for us, don’t you think?” He continued, still smiling that soft, breathtaking smile. Even though he was still confused, Kit could feel his heartbeat pick up, as though it had figured something out before his mind did. It wasn’t necessarily an unpleasant feeling.

“Yeah. It really is.” Kit answered after a moment. Ty’s smile grew as his eyes - nearly silver in the light - caught Kit’s gaze and held onto it and Kit felt his whole body grow warm in a way that had nothing to do with the sun. Ty didn’t often make eye contact, even after all these years, and Kit’s heart hadn’t ceased to pick up whenever he did. Privately, Kit hoped it never did.

“It’s a bittersweet place,” Ty continued, voice still matter-of-fact. “But it’s where I feel closest to Livvy, and I wanted her to be here for this, even if it’s just in my mind.” Kit was still unsure what “this” was but he was starting to get an idea. They had spoken about it, of course, at great length because Ty didn’t want to do anything without a clear plan, but he hadn’t thought it would be anytime soon. He hadn’t thought Ty would beat him to it.

“Ty…” he said again, his voice suddenly breathless, eyes wide. Ty just shook his head.

“Let me speak, please. You’ve always been the one good at putting your thoughts into words, I’d like to be the one to do that for a change.” Kit nearly laughed - trust Ty to be so official in a moment like this. But then Ty swooped down, his knee hitting the ground with a soft thud, and Kit quite suddenly couldn’t find the breath to even gasp. In complete, shocked silence, Kit let Ty take his hand into his own, staring down rapturously at his boyfriend’s face.

“You once told me, in a ring of fire, that you loved me.” Ty began, his pale fingers softly tracing the mark on Kit’s wrist that he’d made years ago. Kit really didn’t think he needed a reminder of that particular memory at this moment but Ty continued on before he could say anything, no doubt sensing Kit’s inherent sarcasm defense rearing up. “I didn’t know, then, what those words meant. I knew, logically, what others meant when they said them to me, but I really didn’t get it. Actions always made more sense to me - Julian giving me toys to fidget with so Diana didn’t get mad at me in lessons, Livvy learning how to use a computer with me so we could solve mysteries together, Dru inviting me to one of her movies even though she knew I was just going to talk about all the inaccuracies. 

Actions were how I knew my family loved me. So when you said them, I didn’t understand. And then you left, and I really didn’t understand. We weren’t talking anymore, and that was one of the worst moments of my life. I had Livvy back, but I lost you. Then you sent me your mother’s necklace. We weren’t talking, weren’t friends, but you’d heard that Livvy and I were struggling and you sent me that necklace. And I understood then, I think, what you’d meant. But I thought it was too late - you were gone and you didn’t answer the letter I sent. 

And then, before I knew it, years had gone by without you. And it was strange, how long it took for me to get used to you not being by me, even though we hadn’t known each other long. And then you came back, and it was like - like the sun coming out after a cloudy day. I had been living fine in shadows but suddenly it was warm and bright again. I thought it would take us awhile to get back to what we had, I was angry - you were wary. But being around you was like reciting the alphabet, it came easy and natural. And when you kissed me that first time in Faerie, when we thought we were going to die, I finally, really understood. And when I told you I loved you on the last battlefield, I meant it. I’ll always mean it. 

The world may not always work in ways that make sense to me. Sometimes it’s too loud. Sometimes words have no meaning and sometimes people say things I’m somehow supposed to get but it’s just’s nonsense. But you, you’ve always made sense to me. I don’t believe in soulmates and destiny, and all those weird true love things that show up in those cheesy movies you like, but I believe in you and I believe in us. Because we make sense. It’s like -” here Ty stopped, just for a moment. He seemed to be struggling for the right analogy, which was frankly shocking because he had been doing admirably well so far, for someone who claimed not be good with words. 

“It’s like you’re the moon and I’m the tides. Without you, I feel strangely weightless sometimes, like I’m moving without purpose. But you draw me towards you, you bring rhythm to my life that keeps me grounded. You draw me back when I’m going too far - when I’m running three days without sleep, you get me into bed even if you have to lay on me like a weighted blanket until I fall asleep.” Kit had only had to do that once, and it had been after a record-breaking two weeks of no sleep except exhausted cat naps right after the war had ended, but Kit wasn’t about to correct him right then. He was finding it hard enough to even hear Ty over the sound of his thudding heart and it was getting hard to look at the other man through a sudden clouding of his eyes that he would later fully admit was the beginnings of tears.

 “And you draw me forward when I need to go - you make it easy to bear when the world gets too loud and even though I can be difficult, you never leave me behind. You are endlessly patient, you are kind and generous, and you are just so good that sometimes it’s overwhelming. But I don’t ever want to draw away from you, I want to be by your side through everything that comes our way. I love you, Kit Herondale. I love you, I love you, I love you and I want to keep loving you.” Through blurry eyes, Kit watched as Ty, with one hand still holding tight to Kit’s, put his other hand to his mouth and whistle lowly over the stone. Within moments, Irene had leaped lightly onto the stone and Kit noticed, rather stupidly, for the first time that there was something gleaming dangling around the clasp of Irene’s leash. It was a ring, of course. Kit’s tears continued to flow more freely as Ty reached over and carefully unclasped her leash, catching the ring one-handed because Kit was now holding his other hand far too tightly to pull away. 

Ty turned back to Kit then and held out the ring. “If you’d let me.” His voice was a whisper, then but Kit heard it easily enough even above the roar of the waves behind them. He was attuned to Ty so completely that he would have heard the whisper anywhere, over anything. 

“Are you fucking kidding?” Kit practically yelled and Ty nearly flinched in surprise. “You’re bad with words? I’m actually crying right now, you - you jerk! What the fuck!” Kit’s rather harsh words - and really, could anyone blame him? he hadn’t expected this when Ty had woken him up that morning- were completely undermined by him dropping down to his knees and swooping Ty into a tight embrace. He couldn’t think of how to put his swirling thoughts into words so he settled for what Ty understood best - he pressed his lips firmly against his and kissed him soundly. 

He still couldn’t think of how to say what Ty made him feel - loved and cherished and happy, always so very happy, were some of them but they weren’t enough to explain how he felt, weren’t powerful enough to encompass even half of his emotions. But he could say one word and, at that particular moment, it was the perfect word to say. 

“Yes,” he murmured against his fiancee’s lips. “Yes, yes, yes.” 

This is also posted on AO3 under GinnyRose. 

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.37

Shiro arrived mid-afternoon, as Keith drank his forth cup of coffee to settle his nerves. His brother wasn’t great at keeping time, yet Keith wished he could have managed it for a nice change. Lance had been nervy all morning. He’d cleaned through the house, Keith still in bed when Lance came to attack the spare bedroom. His boyfriend casually lifting the bed, balancing it on his shoulder, vacuuming under it and placing the bed down again in a manner of minutes like it was perfectly normally, and he hadn’t been in the bed trying to sleep after tossing and turning all damn night as he wished he had the courage to go crawl into bed with Lance.

Matt and Lance were off to a rough start. Both males had looked each other up and down. Lance calling Matt a “mutt” and Matt calling Lance a “corpse”. Vampires and werewolves occasionally coexisted, but these two seemed natural born enemies. Lance had explained the house rules, Matt had looked bored, even scoffing when Lance asked that he and his girlfriend not have sex all over his house, and if they could wait until everyone was asleep before they did. Keith wasn’t sure this work. He could tell Lance was seething, the wine glass in his hand barely holding together in his kind of boyfriend’s tight grip. Sitting around the kitchen table, Shiro was trying his hardest to defuse the situation before it became one.

Smiling tightly, Shiro hand his hands wrapped around his coffee cup. His brother looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept the whole time he was away. It’d been months since Shiro had looked this bad. Keith wanted to send him to bed, but Shiro was kind of the lynchpin that brought everyone in the group together. If Shiro spoke, then both Lance and Matt would listen. Under the table Keith’s leg was against Lance’s trying to offer silent support as they couldn’t hold hands. Lance would freak if Keith even thought of trying

“Now. I know this is hard for all of us, but I think we should try by reintroducing ourselves. Lance?”

Keith felt it unfair Lance had to go first. Shiro hadn’t even talked to him alone about what had happened while he’d been away. Keith didn’t have anything he could use to make Lance feel better about the current situation. Whatever Shiro said, they’d be finding out together.

“I’m Lance. This is my house. I’ve been dead for the last 36 years. I have a cat called Blue. Pidge and Hunk are my two best human friends”

Lance sounded as if he was standing in front of some anonymous meeting. Detached and nervous. More nervous than detached

“Thanks for that, Lance. Keith?”

Shiro really was insistent they go through the whole charade

“Keith. Shiro’s brother. Apparently recently transferred to Platt. I like coffee”

Shiro raised an eyebrow at him. His brother was lucky to get that much from him as it was. Yeah. He hasn’t forgotten being transferred with no say. Curtis didn’t need prompting as he explained

“Curtis. I’ve been cursed for about 4 months now. Ex-hunter who now works for VOLTRON out of Platt. Lance’s personal assistant, and medical advisor”

Again, Shiro raised his eyebrow in silent judgment. If his brother liked to be too busy, he was going to miss everything happening

“We’ll talk about that later. Matt?”

Matt sighed, his expressions were so much like Pidge’s that it was easy to tell the two of them were siblings. Other than the height difference and the long scar on Matt’s cheek, Pidge could have easily passed as him

“Matt. Werewolf”

Shiro closed his eyes, Keith nearly able to hear his brother counting to ten before he opened his eyes again

“Look. Neither of you might be happy initially, but we all need to be on the same team here”

Matt huffed, even his attitude was like Pidge’s

“Fine. Matt. Werewolf. I was accidentally by my girlfriend Rieva. Pidge’s older brother. I’ve got all the attributes including the sense of smell. Lance smells like a virgin in heat”

“It’s better than stinking off wet dog that rolled in something dead”

“Hey...”

Shiro pushed his seat back, rising to his feet as he slammed his hands on the table. Whelp. They’d gone and done it now

“Enough. You’re acting like children. This is Lance’s house, so as long as you’re living here, you’ll show him some respect. Lance, Matt and Rieva are you’re guests. I know you’ve been ill, but you need to keep your ego in check. You both need to keep your egos under control. Keith and I will be moving back to Platt Monday week. The both of your are under our care until you’re proven to be a direct threat to human lives. Especially you, Matt. Lance has a long track record of not harming humans. You, on the other hand, injured two of the Blade’s werewolves. I can’t keep you safe if you slip again”

Matt sighed again. Keith wanted to punch him in the face. Sure, there were a huge array of sounds that the word “sigh” covered, but Matt kept using the same one

“I’m sorry. You’re right. We’re both having issues with our egos”

Keith looked to Lance who gave a tiny nod, Lance didn’t want to be standoffish, especially not to the brother of his best friend

“I’m sorry to. My senses have been pretty whack lately. That’s why Curtis is here, he was sent by Coran to make sure I don’t up and die... again”

“Alright. Good. Now, I was thinking maybe we’d all get along better if we all knew how each other turned”

Lance immediately paled, Keith had seen how hard it was for the vampire to explain the incident

“Lance got attacked by two vampires when he was 8”

Matt let out a whistle

“Damn, man. They got you young. Rieva tried to hide she was a werewolf. We met on the same tour in Greece, then again a few days later in Paris. I took it as a sign, she kept trying to push me away, that was 10 months ago. She accidentally bit me 9 months ago... got this scar at the same time”

Rieva nodded. The woman was pretty in her own way. Tanned enough to for her skin to be a deeper shade of brown than Lance’s with long black hair and green eyes

“I never meant to hurt him. I turned at the full moon and escaped for the night. Matt came after me...”

“And I’m glad I did”

Ugh. So they were one of those disgustingly loved up couples.

Across the table Curtis cleared his throat

“I was cursed. I’ve got half a horn, and half a tail. I was supposed to infiltrate a werewolf pack in Prague, but they seemed to already know I was hunter. They were trying to summon the spirit of a berserker using magic, only I’m not a werewolf and the spell went wrong. I wasn’t permitted to stay in Rome, they didn’t take too kindly to me being cursed. Coran offered to take me, so I’ve been working in Platt looking into the curses effects in his laboratory. So far it seems to affect the things I say. Coran feels they summoned part of a lesser demon instead of a beast spirit, and part of its soul has bonded with my quintessence. Lance has been through a lot, and Coran thought we may be able to help each other. His fae magic had no effect on the curse. Of course, without the original spell working backwards has been hard. And it hasn’t been that great, but I’m happy to be alive. Especially now Shiro’s returned”

It was Keith’s turn to raise an eyebrow at his brother. Curtis had no filter and that sounded suspiciously like his brother had been keeping secrets about his love life. Either that, or Curtis simply meant he was happy to see his friend and hadn’t meant it the way he sounded. Just because he’d snagged himself a boyfriend, didn’t mean everyone was suddenly in love and dating. Shiro was still mourning Adam. They’d intended to marry and everything that came with it. It wasn’t fair... what had happened. Since meeting Lance, Keith had kind of felt like maybe he was better place himself, forced to work through feelings because there wasn’t a whole lot things to do in Garrison. Not that he was going to tell Shiro this. His brother had abandoned him and he figured he could milk that for a little longer.

“That’s rough. Most werewolves I’ve met have been all about the muscles and not the sharpest tools in the shed. They really shouldn’t be messing with that stuff. Not that vampires are any better. Who the fuck takes a human as a pet?”

Curtis nodded at Lance’s words, Matt didn’t look terribly pleased but by now he’d probably had his fair of share of scrapes with werewolves. Shiro simply smiled like he’d solved everything with one conversation. He definitely hadn’t.

“How’s Pidge doing?”

The glass in Lance’s hand finally broke. Lance shoving Keith when Keith automatically went to start picking up the pieces

“Idiot. You can’t touch the blood. I am not having you think I’ve turned you again”

Reprimanded by his boyfriend, Keith crossed his arms. Lance was super protective of Pidge, he’d have had months of Pidge upset because Matt wasn’t messaging her back

“I wasn’t thinking”

“That’s obvious. Don’t touch it while I get a cloth”

Matt watched as Lance cleaned up the mess, placing the glass in the sink to rinse the blood off of it

“I asked you how my sister is”

Keith almost felt sorry for Matt. A cranky Lance was a scary thing

“How do you think she is? I know you were staying away to do the right thing by your family, but you really fucking hurt her by not replying. She pretty much worships you, and you weren’t replying. She’s fine physically. Still hunting ghosts and making videos. Still wanting to do dumb things like she’s isn’t a human. Her and Hunk are still as tight as always. Hunk’s got a girlfriend now, Shay. She’s just like him, they’re so sweet together. They’ve got no idea about this world. I’ve never told her and I’ve done my best to make sure she never finds out”

Matt looked upset, hopefully with his actions

“You wouldn’t understand... I wasn’t going to come back...”

Keith groaned mentally, why would Matt go there? Lance understood too well what a bite did to a family

“I wouldn’t understand? Please tell me how I don’t know how being turned can ruin your family? How you’re scared of what you are and you don’t understand? I have no idea at all. We both know if Pidge knew, she’d want the bite. She’d want to be part of this world. Heck, I think she’s so interested in the paranormal because she wants to feel close to you again. Rieva, please don’t think I’m having a go at you. I know accidental turns happen, and how scared you must have been to turn Matt. I’ve put you and Matt in the room Keith and Shiro were using, the guest bathroom is near your room. It’s the downstairs spare room. Shiro, I’ll bunk you Curtis and Keith. I’ll have to find a spare bed, or one of you can sleep in the living room. Normally I don’t have a full house to worry about. My office is off limits. I work as a lawyer so I’d rather keep my clients information confidential. If I have to talk to a client, I’ll try warn you ahead of time. If you want to train, do it out on the back lawn, and don’t kill my garden. Also, Curtis and Keith aren’t allowed near the toaster without supervision... And maybe don’t touch Keith’s coffee, he’d likely to stab you for trying. He revivals Pidge with his need for caffeine. I’m going to double check the bedroom upstairs”

Lance had barely left the kitchen before Keith was pushing his chair back. Shiro cocking his head as he watched

“Where are you going?”

“To check on Lance. He’s obviously upset”

“When did become so perceptive?”

“When you went disappeared for weeks. Pidge is like a sister to Lance. Everything dangerous she wants to do he always checks it out first to make sure doesn’t get hurt. He’s been looking out for her, even when it puts him in danger. He collapsed a mine shaft so Pidge wouldn’t be hurt... Don’t listen to our conversation”

Yeah, Keith wasn’t be fair. He’d basically tattooed “I’m not okay with this situation across his forehead”. Shiro would make him apologise later, but for now he wanted to check on Lance. He’d gone from having Hunk and Pidge staying over to 6 people kind of living with him. Keith was already at his people limit before everyone came back. He’d missed Shiro, but he wasn’t sure he was keen on Matt. He wasn’t about to shoot him, but family was a complicated thing that Lance had had such a hard time with. Heading upstairs he headed straight for Lance’s bedroom, knowing he’d find him there.

*

Knocking gently on Lance’s door, he found Lance sitting on the side of his bed like he liked to do when he was thinking

“I didn’t handle that very well”

Keith sighed as he walked over to the bed, before sitting down next to Lance and taking his hand

“I think I handled that even worse”

“I heard. It’s just... my body is being weird again. I’m not used to the scent of werewolves and it’s making everything all yuck. I’ll get over it, but I shouldn’t have been so short with Matt”

“You were worried about Pidge. You’re allowed to worry about your friends”

Lance dropped his head to rest of Keith’s shoulder

“Still. I made a horrible first impression”

“If Matt is anything like Pidge, you’ll be fine once it settles down a bit”

“I feel like I’m lying to her by not letting her know he’s here and that he’s okay”

“Nah. Think of it like a surprise. Besides, you’re not intentionally hurting her by not telling her right away”

“Still feels like I am. How are you? You must be happy Shiro’s back”

“I’m relieved. I’m still mad at him though. I get why he had to keep quiet until things were organised”

“You two will work things out. You should be downstairs with everyone else...”

“I’m fine here. I wanted to make sure you’re okay. How’s the hand?”

“Healed up. I must have looked so lame breaking the glass”

“You didn’t meant to”

“It still happened. I know Pidge is human and close ties are dangerous but I don’t want to see her hurt”

“I know you don’t. It’s one of the things I like about you”

“It’s not my great arse and award winning personality?”

Lance tried to joke but it sounded flat. Keith didn’t like it. Lance was being too hard on himself for caring

“Those too. So, what are we going to do about bedding? I don’t mind sleeping on the couch”

“If anyone should be sleeping on the couch, it should be me. I knew I didn’t have enough beds, but I don’t know what to do about that”

“I can sleep on the couch. I’ve slept on way worse”

“Mami would have a fit if I made a guest sleep on the couch”

“Then how about we share a bed?”

Keith didn’t mean it to sound as forward as it did. But Lance’s bed would easily fit both of them, and there was only one bed left. Not that he actually minded the couch. There would be plenty of space for him

“I don’t know... wouldn’t that make things awkward with Shiro?”

“Like you said, I need to talk to him anyway”

“I get nightmares...”

“So do I”

“But you’re not a vampire. I could seriously hurt you”

“Or, it could be fine. Why don’t we just try it for the night and think about things tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Maybe. I turned the forth room into my office... maybe I could sleep there?”

“Lance, it’s your house. You shouldn’t be kicked out your own bed for doing a nice thing and giving Rieva and Matt a place to call home”

“I can’t imagine what the two of them went through. I really hope they don’t hate me”

“Like you said, it’s an ego thing. You can’t control that, but if anyone can bring their ego under control, it’s you”

Lance let out a small snort. Keith taking the win

“See, you know I’m right. You’re overthinking things”

“Only because I’m rubbish at hosting people”

“Nah, I’m still here, aren’t I?

“Only because you’re stubborn”

“I’m as stubborn as you are. Seriously though, you’re fine. Things’ll settle down”

“I’m worried about going into heat. I have I idea how to explain that”

“You don’t have to, unless you want to”

“I’m not going to have much choice if I turn into a bat”

“We can talk to Shiro together. Or I can tell him. I don’t want you feeling uncomfortable”

“You’re the one I’m worried about. I don’t want you and Shiro to end up fighting because of me”

That was so Lance

“Even if we fight, we’re brothers at the end of the day”

“That must be nice. Mami is the glue that keeps my family together. I miss her”

For someone older than him, Lance was sweet for still caring for his mum the way he did. If it wasn’t for the fact they had three new arrivals, Keith would suggest a trip up to Platt

“Why don’t you call her?”

“She’d known something’s up. She’s got enough to worry about”

“She loves you. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. But I get if you don’t want to call her. Can I do anything?”

“You already are. You should go talk to Shiro. I might take a nap and calm down”

Lance took too much on his shoulders. Keith didn’t want to leave him alone when he was feeling down

“I can stay...”

“Nah. I’ll Be okay. You go make up with Shiro. It’ll make me feel better”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Thanks for coming to check on me”

“I’ve got your back”

“I know... if I’m not away in hour or so, come poke me with a stick”

Keith found himself kissing the top of Lance’s head, before replying

“Will do. I’ll find the biggest stick I can”

“Why do I feel like you’re actually going to find a stick now?”

“Because I am. Now let’s get you tucked in. Can’t have you sleeping on top of the covers”

“I’m not a little kid”

“You could be”

“Fight me”

Keith laughed. He deserved that one

“After the old man gets his sleep. I’ll sort things out with Shiro, so stop worrying about it so much”

“I can’t help it. I care about you”

Keith kissed the top of Lance’s head again. Shiro was going to be confused as fuck when he finally explained what was going on between him and Lance. Hopefully his brother would be more distracted by what was happening with his heart that his newly discovered love life

“I care about you too. It’s going to be okay”

[faejilly]

our souls inhabit

so this was originally supposed to be a small Snow White ficlet, (from the POV of the Prince), and it sort of... grew? It is now more of a general Malec Fairy Tale AU, with a sprinkling of my favorite dream tropes.  Many thanks to @rutherinahobbit​ for making sure it’s vaguely coherent for the rest of you <3 The title’s from e.e. cummings’ if being mortised with a dream... as were the last five attempts at a title, because the whole poem’s kind of perfect, but I suppose now that I’m publishing we’re all stuck with this one.

His mother tries to kill him when she realizes what he is.

He runs.

Deep into the woods, where no one ever goes. Deeper still, lost and alone.

Until he finds a house, and in the house is a man, a man with green skin and horns, a man who doesn't flinch at the sight of Magnus' eyes. The man's name is Ragnor and he invites Magnus in, feeds him and tucks him into a bed in the attic, and for the first time in a long time Magnus sleeps without nightmares.

He dreams though. Meets a boy while he's sleeping, an absurdly pretty boy with pale skin and messy black hair, a boy who seems about the same age as him, whose eyes are like the shadows in the woods, brown and green and glinting with warmth like sunlight. He's sitting stiffly on a stump that looks exactly like the one Magnus was on when Ragnor found him.

Are you lost? Magnus asks, and the boy frowns.

I think that might be better than what I am.

Magnus can understand that. He's apparently half-monster, horrifying enough even his mother can't bear the sight of him.

I'm sorry, the boy offers, his eyes damp as if he's trying not to cry. My mother had to run away without me, to save my sister and the baby on the way, but at least I know she didn't want to leave me behind.

The boy's mouth doesn't move, and Magnus realizes neither of them are talking out loud, but they seem to know what they each mean despite that.

I'm sorry, too. Magnus sits on the stump next to the boy, and the boy leans in, just a little, 'til their shoulders press together. They neither of them 'say' anything else, just sit there as the sun shifts and the winds blow through the dream-forest around them.

Magnus wakes, and feels better than he has since he saw his eyes flicker into sight in the bucket of water he'd pulled up from the well the morning his world fell apart.

He grows there, in the house hiding in the woods, taught by Ragnor about what he is, and what he can do. He tries to stay alert, to watch out for that inevitable moment when the man grows tired of him, grows impatient, when the man finally says he's had enough.

It never happens. Ragnor makes him breakfast every morning, helps him brush the mud out of his clothes when he gets caught out in the rain, lingers with him in the garden after lunch, smiles at him over the edges of his books, and always answers every single question Magnus can come up with in the same steady tone of voice.

Ragnor seems to like him, and the night Magnus hugs him before he goes to bed, Ragnor just hugs him back, and pats him on the shoulder when he lets go.

"Sweet dreams," Ragnor says, and Magnus doesn't even try to hide the smile as he wraps himself up in his blankets that night.

Sometimes his dreams are still dark, memories and worries spiralling around each other. Sometimes they're sweet, newly discovered flowers or treats, impossible spells and improbable views, warm and comforting. Sometimes they're of the boy from the very first night, the prettiest boy Magnus has ever seen, much prettier than Magnus feels he could have imagined on his own. Not all the time, not any sort of consistent or expected schedule, but sometimes Magnus goes to sleep, and there he is.

Those are the best nights.

They don't talk much, not even the silent sort of words that form in dreams, but they find comfort in each other as they explore the dream-forest, finding a rabbit warren or a new fairy ring, a cold-sweet spring or a wide-open clearing, a mirror of the world Magnus is getting to know when he's awake. They always end the night at that same familiar stump where they first met, sharing shy smiles or small waves before the dream fades away.

It's nice to have a friend, even one that probably doesn't really exist.

He learns to hide his eyes, settles into the glamour Ragnor taught him, and his dream friend frowns, and asks why he changed them.

I like your eyes, they're pretty.

Magnus tries not to blush, manages a shrug. Most people think they're scary.

People are stupid.

Magnus laughs. Except for you?

The boy blushes, and shakes his head. Except for you.

They boy's barely a boy anymore, taller and ganglier, long arms and legs, hands hanging from his wrists like he's not sure what to do with them. Sometimes he looks at Magnus through half-closed eyes, his lashes thick and dark, and Magnus forgets how to breathe.

Magnus thinks he's the prettiest boy he's ever seen.

Then again, he hasn't spent much time around anyone besides Ragnor and his dream-friend in something like ten years. Ragnor gets visitors sometimes, old Warlocks or Fae stopping by for tea, but they don't usually have much to say to Magnus. They go to some of the towns near-by occasionally, shopping for supplies or seeing a show, but it's still usually just them, lingering in the cool green shadows of the woods.

Magnus wonders what he's missing, somewhere out there.

Tries not to wonder if maybe he could find the pretty boy, somewhere in the real world.

He talks to Ragnor about leaving, a little, about what he should do with his life, with his time.

He's got too much of it just to stay here, lingering and waiting for something to happen.

Magnus mentions that he's thinking of going on a trip to his dream-friend, finally, and the boy's eyes grow wide, and he shuffles his feet, and his mouth tightens just a little.

Magnus waits.

My name's Alexander.

Magnus blinks. That wasn't any of what he thought his friend was worried about. I'm Magnus, he answers, and the boy, Alexander, smiles at him, wide and delighted.

Maybe you'll find me out there somewhere, Magnus.

Magnus swallows, and shrugs, and lets himself hope. Maybe.

He doesn't.

He meets Werewolves and Vampires and Fae. He learns of the world beyond the woods, human kingdoms and cities, people and monsters and heroes. He goes looking for more people like him, like Alexander, like Ragnor, children lost and alone who don't have anyone else waiting for them, who don't yet know how to hide what they are, how to find people with whom they don't have to hide.

Sometimes he helps them settle where they are, with a friend or a partner, makes sure they know how to call him if ever they need his help.

Sometimes he brings them back to Ragnor, to warm tea and cool green shadows, lets them learn, just as he did, how to set their worries down, how to breathe. The house shifts, and every time he's there his room is the same, but there's another guest-room in the attic now, sometimes two, a place for someone else to rest and recover and learn.

Every time he's there he dreams, at least once, of his boy who isn't remotely just a boy anymore. Alexander's a young man now, tall and broad-shouldered, taller than Magnus, with a strong jaw and heavy eyebrows, but still there's that same soft light in his eyes every time he welcomes Magnus back home.

Magnus leaves again, and again.

Magnus meets Camille, who is beautiful and sharp and brilliant and forever. He loves her, and she loves him, and they dance and fight and fuck, they fall together and break apart over and over again.

He returns to the house in the woods regularly, even when he's not carting someone who needs sanctuary in tow. He spends a year or five discussing books and plants and Ragnor's terrible taste in tea. He dreams of Alexander, with his sweet smile and the shadows in his beautiful eyes. He cannot help but be glad that, for as long as the two of them wander their woods, the tension he glimpses in Alexander's posture eases, and his eyes look a little lighter by the end of their visits than they do at the beginning. They smile at each other, here, no matter how tired they might be when they're awake.

Magnus talks about collecting ingredients for potions, about the house's garden and the way it's grown over the years. Alexander talks about archery, and the sound of rain against library windows, and training his new horse.

Magnus talks about traveling, about new sights with every dawn, new people over every drink at night. Alexander's smile seems sad, but he asks more questions, always more, and Magnus wonders where he's trapped, wonders at how carefully he never mentions the names of the people he knows, as if he's afraid, even here, that someone might overhear.

Magnus tries not to think too much about how many years have passed, how many times he's looked for Alexander out there in the world, how he's never found the slightest hint of him.

He meets Imasu, who is sweet but fleeting. George who dies too young. He meets more souls who might love him, but leave him for something more steady, more human. He goes back to the woods to nurse his heavy heart when it gets too much to bear, and Ragnor makes him tea, and his Alexander meets Magnus in the shadows of his dreams and smiles.

Magnus smiles back.

But the dreams aren't every night, and sometimes Magnus wonders what they mean to Alexander, how they fit into the life he lives in his own waking world.

I miss you, Magnus says, and Alexander only shrugs, half-agreement and half something else that Magnus doesn't understand. It's not regret, or hope, but it's not not either of those things either.

They wander their woods, which look much the same as they ever do, eternal and barely changing, just like them.

You always come back, Alexander says instead of good-bye, when the dream starts to fade around them.

I'll always be waiting, Magnus thinks he hears as he blinks awake, but he's not sure if it's real, or only wishful thinking.

Magnus' heart heals, and news from the world trickles even into these woods, and eventually Magnus leaves again. But he always comes back, to Ragnor's warm silences and Alexander's warmer eyes.

Sometimes Magnus asks Alexander if he'd like Magnus to stay, here in the woods where their dreams intersect, but Alexander always says no, shakes his head with a smile. You're never gone that long, and I like to hear about the world you see.

So different than the one he lives in, clearly.

How long since the last time you saw me? Magnus asks. Because he wandered almost twenty years this time, and he may be immortal but that's not nothing, even for him.

Maybe a week? Alexander answers. Why? How long was it for you?

Magnus shakes his head a little. A thousand times as long, perhaps.

Alexander goes still, so still it seems that even the trees could move faster than him, if they so decided, and he sighs out one long heavy breath. Oh. That explains a lot.

It does?

But Alexander doesn't explain. He just smiles again, something sad and sweet both at once, and leans in close enough to brush a kiss against Magnus' cheek.

Magnus blinks in surprise, but before he can even lift his hand to his cheek to feel the phantom warmth from Alexander's lips against his skin, he wakes up.

He gets a message from Catarina only a few days later, asking for his help with a squabble between some Vampires and Werewolves that could too easily escalate into a full-blown conflict, and he leaves the woods without getting to see Alexander again. Not that he's ever been able to control the dreams, or ever known when they're to be separated, but it aches more than usual this time, not getting to say good-bye.

He meets Camille again. She's still beautiful and brilliant but something in her eyes has gone brittle. He tries to be soft enough to soothe, but she just gets sharper, and when they drift apart again this time it's almost with relief.

Back and forth for years, for decades, the house, the world, Ragnor and Catarina and then Dot and Elias, Tessa and Zoe and on and on... Alexander in his dreams, now and then, though it's less often than it used to be, even when he lingers in the woods for years.

One night he finds Alexander at a make-shift archery range, pulling his bow back so far his arms tremble, blood on his hands from where he's let the string snap, let the fletching catch as his arrows fly free.

Alexander. Magnus lingers, a few steps back, magic sparking between his fingers, desperate to reach out and offer comfort.

Alexander chokes, the sound rough and sudden enough to make Magnus' throat ache in sympathy, to make his eye burn with the echoes of grief.

Magnus steps closer.

Alexander, he thinks.

Alexander drops his bow, turns, and Magnus wraps him in his arms.

Alexander's trembling, his breath hot and shivering against Magnus' neck, his fingers digging into Magnus' shoulder as he grips him tight.

My father's dead.

Oh, darling. Magnus hugs him tighter. Alexander has occasionally talked about his mother before, his sister, the baby he never got to meet. He wonders about them, hopes they're all right, somewhere out there. Alexander barely mentions his father, his jaw always tight and his eyes too bright, as if he doesn't know what to feel, what to say, and it's clear his father's death hasn't made that conflict any easier.

Magnus holds him, lets his magic free to heal the physical damage, at least, and Alexander doesn't cry.

Magnus feels hungover when he wakes up, but there's nothing he can do for either of them.

When he dreams again, Alexander acts like none of it ever happened, but there's a shadow in his eyes that no longer fades, even when he smiles his usual soft greeting at Magnus. He's hiding, Magnus knows, but he doesn't know how to help lift Alexander's burden. (Alexander clearly knows that Magnus knows, offering an embarrassed smile and a small shrug. Alexander doesn't know what to do, either.) Magnus does his best to provide a sanctuary, at least, and hopes it's enough, even when they're apart.

Magnus finds his father, entirely by accident. And then he flees him, this terrible Prince of Hell, this darkness that twists and turns and laughs, even as blood spills, even as magic burns innocent lives to ash.

His father follows.

Magnus banishes him. He's not sure if it worked, or if Asmodeus is humoring him, biding his time until he can try again. He considers isolating himself, exiling himself somewhere far away from anyone he needs to protect from the shadows of his father's gaze. But he can't quite make himself do it.

He can't bear to be so alone.

Magnus runs back to hide in his woods, to shelter in Ragnor's care and Alexander's comfort until he no longer wakes up screaming at the memories of hell in eyes that looked just like his own.

Alexander asks him about his magic, asks how old he is, asks how often he comes back to the woods.

Magnus tells him, and thinks they both feel better for it.

Alexander asks him about curses, and hexes, asks about the Fae and Vampires and Demons.

Finally figured me out, did you?

Magnus tries to make a joke of it, but Alexander won't let him flinch.

No, of course not.

Alexander pulls him close, his gaze steady and sincere in a way Magnus has never seen anyone else manage.

I've met evil, and you're the furthest thing from it.

Magnus swallows. He remembers when they met, how Alexander's family had to run away from something, how he couldn't go too. He remembers the grief and guilt in Alexander's eyes ever since his father's death. He thinks of the weight Alexander always seems to carry, even here, in the realm they share that doesn't quite exist.

You're in danger, aren't you? Magnus asks.

Alexander's eyes are sad as he shrugs. Isn't everyone?

Not like that, Magnus wants to lean in even closer, wants to let his fingertips touch Alexander's lips, wants to rest his palm against his cheek. No one should be in danger like that.

But shoulds don't change the world they live in, either of them, so Magnus tells him about blood-magic and hexes, curses and counter-curses, how to spot a Vampire, contain a Werewolf, how to tell when a Fae is dodging the truth even harder than usual, how to hide from a demon.

When he wakes he thinks about Alexander's questions, about curses and wards and the intent behind most magic spells, and he goes digging through Ragnor's library, adds to his list of things to look for the next time he goes out into the world.

Most wards are specific, this counter to that magic, and Alexander isn't a Warlock, he can't tell Magnus enough about whatever it is that he's afraid of for Magnus to know what sort of spell might be cast, which sort of shield might work.

He needs something else, something different. Something that can react to that intent rather than the spell itself?

Something that can dodge it, or move it to the side, or... reflect it?

Seelies are fond of mirror magic. Maybe he'll visit them and see what he can learn.

He wanders, and studies, and life goes on, as it always does.

He has a family now, one he chose rather than the one he'd been born of, and the world keeps growing, and changing, and shifting. Except for the house and Ragnor, who stay the same, cool and green and quiet. Except for Alexander, who welcomes Magnus back to his dreams every time he returns.

It takes a few decades, but he manages to figure out a spell, a protective ward linked to a necklace, a flat piece of silver, slightly curved, polished 'til it gleams like a mirror. He looks at it when he's done, and sighs. It's not as if he can take it into his dreams with him.

He finds the old stump, petrified almost as hard as stone now, the one where he'd met Ragnor, the mirror of the one where he met Alexander. He puts the necklace there, in the hollow between the roots, and hopes intent matters enough that it will help, wherever Alexander really is now.

(It doesn't seem to. He takes Alexander back to the stump in their next shared dream, and there's nothing there. He sighs, but then Alexander smiles at him, and he cannot help but smile back as they wander their way to a different clearing, close enough their hands almost touch with each step as they talk.)

He leaves again, feeling more aimless than usual without his research project, and loses track of time for a while. But only for a little while. He'll always come back home again, after all.

Until he tries to go back home, and Ragnor meets him at the edge of the woods, and says No.

Something about a prophecy, and Camille, and some poor young mortal and it's important that Magnus not interfere, and Magnus leaves and gets very drunk and refuses to cry into his beer.

For about a decade.

Maybe two?

He misses Ragnor, and his home, and most of all he misses his dreams, and Alexander, and now that it's too late it's painfully apparent that somewhere along the way he fell in love with a person who probably doesn't exist, and he doesn't know what to do about any of it.

Even in the state he's in, he hears about Camille, about how she made herself Queen of a human kingdom, about a Mirror she stole from the Seelie Queen, about vassals and servants, Vampires, Ghouls, Subjugates, and poor besieged Humans, all under her power.

About the rumors of a lost heir, still alive somewhere in the woods, and Magnus knows that's the one that Ragnor's protecting, and he still doesn't understand why he's here and not there, why Ragnor wouldn't let him help.

Until he feels a tug on his magic, and goes outside the Inn he's currently wallowing in to see Camille herself, looking half-dead rather than undead, her arm hanging like it's broken, her hair streaked with grey, her lips dark with old blood, her clothes torn and ragged and dirt-stained. She's trembling, her skin paper-thin and sallow, her knuckles too big for her fingers as they twist and grip in front of her. The taste of blood-magic and curses linger in the air around her, twisted into something sharp and bright and painful, and the distinctive shape of a scrying mirror is strapped to her back.

Help me, she begs, eyes dark and vicious, and he nods, and opens a portal, and sends her to the Seelie Queen.

He'll remember that last scream of rage and terror in his dreams for the rest of his life, as the Seelies claim her with their vines, powerful enough to bind even Camille at her strongest, never mind what she's become now. But she had murdered innocents, and there had been fear in her eyes but not regret, and he knows sometimes you can't escape the consequences of your actions.

He goes back inside and doesn't even pretend to sleep.

He considers going back to the woods, what used to be his woods, but there's a shiver in his chest where his heart used to be, and he knows if Ragnor sends him away again he won't survive, so he doesn't.

If no one tells him no again, he can still hold onto the hope that he'll see Alexander again some day. He has time, after all.

He just hopes Alexander does too.

He waits, hoping to hear what the rumors say, to see if this time he hears a whisper of what Ragnor was trying to protect, of the prophecy or the heir or the huntsman.

There's nothing.

Instead Catarina walks into his room entirely unannounced early one foggy morning, takes one look at him as he sits up in bed, clutching his blankets to his chest, and starts swearing, sharp and vicious under her breath.

Magnus blinks at her in surprise. She lifts one finger, wait, and turns around and leaves again.

Magnus considers the possibility he's started hallucinating from spending too much time by himself.

He gets himself up and shaved and dressed and goes down to the common room for breakfast.

Might as well be presentable if the hallucinations decide to talk to him next time.

Ragnor shows up while he's still lingering over his tea. His shoulders are hunched and his hair is a mess, and his glamour is thick enough Magnus can't see his horns, but his skin looks slightly green-tinged anyways.

There's an ache in Magnus' chest at the suggestion that Catarina ripped Ragnor a new one on Magnus' behalf, but he tries not to linger on it too much as he gets up and goes back to his room, listening for Ragnor's familiar steps following him up the stairs.

Of course he doesn't know what to say, even once they're back in his room with the door shut and a privacy ward raised, so he lets his hand rest on the back of his favorite armchair by the hearth, tries not to make the desperate grip he needs to keep himself steady too obvious, and waits.

Ragnor's mouth twists, and his hands spread wide, and Magnus realizes he's never once in all his centuries see the man look so hopeless. "Why didn't you, why did you disappear for so long?"

There's a spark of something that might be anger, somewhere beneath all the heart-break and loss and fear. "You told me to leave," Magnus makes himself say.

"Not like—" Ragnor starts, and he lifts his gaze from the toes of his boots and meets Magnus' eyes and his voice breaks off in his throat. "Oh."

Magnus waits again, but it's different now, a trembling sort of anticipation as he watches the expression on Ragnor's face shift, frustration to understanding to guilt.

"I didn't mean it like that." He swallows so hard that Magnus can see the shift down his throat, so hard his glamour flickers, green flashing across his skin, the shadow his horns cast visible against the wall. "I'm sorry."

Magnus closes his eyes, and feels himself sway, relief so heavy he can't hold himself upright. He barely hears the heavy tread of Ragnor's step forward before he feels Ragnor's arms around him, gripping him tight. "I'm sorry, please come home."

Magnus clings, and ignores the burning in his eyes, and nods.

When he finally lets go of Ragnor's shoulders, Ragnor won't meet his eyes, shifts sideways just a little, guilt heavy in the clenching of his jaw, in the thin tone of his voice when he starts talking. "I have to tell you something else."

Magnus snorts out something that might be a laugh, ignoring how damp it sounds from the tears still caught in his throat. "Cat came looking because you need my help with something, don't you?"

Ragnor's whole body sags with relief, and he nods.

Magnus gestures at the chairs, and collapses with a sigh into his favorite. "Start from the beginning, mon ami."

Ragnor snorts, and sighs, and leans forward, his elbows resting heavily on his thighs.

"You remember Idris?"

Magnus tilts his head, wondering how that's the beginning, but nods. "That's the country Camille took over. Are they recovering all right?"

Ragnor lifts his head, eyes wide and startled. "How did you know she was gone?"

Magnus feels his mouth twist, even as he flicks his fingers to the side to attempt to send the bitterness away. "She thought I'd help her get away."

"You didn—"

"Of course not." Magnus swallows, makes himself meet Ragnor's eyes. "I returned her and her stolen property to the Seelie Queen."

Ragnor shudders, but it looks more like relief than horror. "Hopefully we don't need to find her then."

Magnus swallows, something like dread crawling up his spine. "Why would anyone need to find Camille?"

Ragnor huffs out a breath, and Magnus realizes he still looks hopeless, helpless, lost in a way Magnus has never seen before. "Because I don't know how to break the curse she cast."

Magnus thinks of that taste in the air around Camille, blood and desperation, the weight of the mirror on her back, the rumors of the Seelie Queen's increasingly desperate attempts to get it back. "She used a Seelie artifact to cast a blood-curse?"

Ragnor shrugs. "We think so, but it's all tangled up in an old prophecy, and Raphael can't—"

Magnus holds up a hand. "Wait, stop. We're in the middle again."

Ragnor snorts. "And whose fault is that?"

"You're the one who's supposed to be explaining yourself."

Ragnor glares over his glasses, and Magnus feels his face ease into a smile more honest than any he's attempted in years.

It's good to have his best friend back.

Ragnor's attempted frown softens, as if he feels the same way, and he leans back in his chair and clears his throat. "Camille managed to weasel her way into Idris as some sort of royal advisor, used the mirror to fool some King into thinking she was Fae instead of Vampire, and set herself up as the power in the shadows for a generation or three."

Magnus grunts. That's longer than she usually sticks—longer than she used to stick to one game. "What was she trying to accomplish?"

"There's an old prophecy attached to Idris, the original's been lost for centuries, but it was something about a King under unnatural influence, and a gift of magic the likes of which the world had never seen before, would never see again, and..."

"She thought she could be the unnatural influence and snag the gift for herself?"

Ragnor shrugs.

"And even if nothing fancy happened, she'd become the sort of person who'd enjoy playing with mortals for a few hundred years." Magnus closes his eyes, remembers the first time he saw Camille, remembers dancing the night away, the bright sound of her laugh, the touch of her fingers against his skin. He makes himself open them again before he thinks too much about that final scream before he'd closed the portal between him and the Seelie Realm. "I wonder sometimes if the woman I fell in love with ever really existed, or if it was all one of her games..."

"Immortality wears on everyone, in different ways."

"I suppose," Magnus frowns, and tries not to swear. "Is that the prophecy that convinced you to banish me?"

"I didn't—" Ragnor stopped as Magnus lifted his eyebrows. "I just meant for you to contact me from a safer distance. There's a line in it that's generally thought to be about a Prince of Hell being forsworn, and the curse coming full circle, and..."

Magnus' mouth opens, then closes again. He is the only Warlock he knows whose father tried to claim him as an heir to hell itself. "You didn't want my magic close enough to screw up an already weird prophecy."

Ragnor grunts. "I apparently should have phrased it better."

Magnus rolls his eyes. "Clearly."

"You could have asked!" Ragnor snarls back.

Magnus grunts this time. "But that's not really part of your story, either?"

Ragnor looks like he's considering some sort of hex before he sighs and shrugs and starts talking again. "Robert Lightwood, King of Idris, had an affair. When he got caught out, he managed, presumably thanks to Camille's influence for the idea and some judicious encantos for the execution, to convince the Kingdom of Idris it was his wife's fault, and she fled the country ahead of treason charges."

Magnus stills, and remembers Alexander's mother.

Ragnor keeps talking, and it takes more effort than Magnus will ever admit to follow what he's saying.

"The Queen was pregnant with their third child, took their daughter with her when she ran, but Robert had already formally recognized their eldest as his heir, and she knew if she tried to take him too they'd never be able to get away..."

Magnus can't breathe, barely notices when Ragnor's voice cracks with what sounds like genuine grief, as if he knows them personally, as if it's not just a story, as if this is the important part, not just the background to whatever happens next.

"When." Magnus' voice sounds like he's dying, more of a croak of pain than words, and he makes himself swallow, makes himself try again. "When did she run."

"Twenty years ago." Ragnor stops, but Magnus is too deep in his own head to notice, not really, certainly can't tell what Ragnor is thinking, what he's feeling, what his voice or his face might be doing. There's a lengthy pause, and Magnus tries to think, because it can't be Alexander, that first dream was hundreds of years ago, not twenty, but their time never matched, and he'd tried not to think about it too much before, tried not to wonder if his dreams were with a mortal and someday he'd see Alexander aging, or if it was all some prolonged figment of his imagination and someday the illusion would grow too shallow, he'd be forced to realize they weren't true, but their times never matched, and if a week was twenty years than why couldn't twenty years be...

"Now that I know Camille's gone, though, I can send for them, she gave me her mother's necklace before she left so I could track them, no matter where they w—"

"Name." Magnus snaps, not even sure what Ragnor had been saying anymore. "I need a name."

"Whose?" Ragnor sounds honestly bewildered now, which in other circumstances might be interesting, Magnus isn't sure he's ever managed to bewilder Ragnor before, but at the moment he just needs to know his damn name. "Robert and Maryse? Isabelle? I don't know what she named her youngest, they were gone before the birth."

"The heir." Magnus is standing, he doesn't remember standing up, but he's glaring down at Ragnor, fists clenched at his sides. "He's the one you were protecting when you sent me away, wasn't he, what's his name?"

"Alec?"

Oh hells, damnation and gods and demons and... "Short for Alexander?"

"Well, yes, but." Ragnor starts to stand, hands outreached as if to touch, clearly able to tell that something is happening even if he doesn't know what. He's moving too slowly though, and Magnus grabs the lapels of his coat, pulls 'til Ragnor's on his feet, 'til they're face to face.

"Take me to him, now."

"But I haven't even told you the—"

"Now."

Ragnor nods.

He waits a beat, then gently lifts his hands, wraps them around Magnus' wrists. "I need room if I'm to make the portal, Magnus."

Magnus lets go, steps back, exhales something that feels like his soul itself might be trying to flee. He shakes his arms out, clenches and releases his hands. "Please," he whispers.

Ragnor makes the portal, and reaches back, and Magnus grabs his hand much too hard.

He stumbles into a familiar attic, ignores Catarina's startled hello, because there's Alexander, tucked into the same bed Magnus always used when he stayed here, eyelashes resting heavy against his cheeks, chest lifting ever so slowly beneath a quilt Magnus doesn't recognize.

I suppose Ragnor finally got new blankets in the last twenty years, he thinks rather helplessly, even as he steps forward and falls to his knees beside the bed. His hand reaches out, hovering over Alec's cheek, then his chest, but he's afraid this is real, afraid it isn't, and he doesn't know what he's seeing or why, or what to do.

"Alexander." Magnus shakes his head, ignores the ache in his chest and his throat and his head. His hand is trembling, he can't quite seem to keep it steady, and it bumps against the collar of Alec's shirt, opens it enough he sees the glint of a silver chain.

His breath hitches, and he can feel the tears overflowing his eyes and falling down his cheeks. He makes his hand move, just enough to open the collar a little further, to see the familiar curve of silver glinting where it's settled in the hollow of Alexander's throat. "You're real and you found it."

He starts to reach for the necklace itself, to touch the magic, to touch Alexander, when a familiar voice interrupts him. "What the fuck, Magnus."

Magnus turns, and can't help the grin he can feel beneath his tears. "He's real, Cat!"

"Most people are?"

"He found it!" Magnus turns back, and Catarina slaps his shoulder hard enough he almost falls over onto the bed.

"Stop that!" She tugs on the back of his shirt, trying to pull him away from the bed. "We haven't figured out how he's not dead, if you must know the truth, and I don't want you screwing up whatever..."

"It's the necklace." Magnus points. "I made it for him."

"You what?" Ragnor speaks up this time. "I never told you anything about him, and I certainly had no clue that Camille knew how to make a kairothanasia."

Magnus chokes on his next breath. "She did a what?"

Cat makes an almost identical choking sound. "You gave him something that stopped a curse without knowing what curse to stop?"

"I didn't even know it was Camille he was afraid of!"

"What." Ragnor's voice drops almost an octave, and he lifts both hands, palms out, in a very clear stop gesture. "Alec is stable, even if we're not entirely sure why, so I suggest we sit and try to start this conversation over again. From something resembling a beginning."

"Because that worked so well last time?" Magnus huffs out a breath as Ragnor and Catarina both glare at him. "It's not my fault, I didn't know he was real!"

"But you made him a real necklace that does impossible magic!" Catarina's voice rises higher than Magnus thinks he's ever heard it go before, and eyes and hands are both spread wider than looks comfortable. "What did you do?"

Ragnor grunts, and claps his hands, and the bench at the foot of the bed scrapes across the floor as it moves to settle beside the chair angled between the window for light and the chimney for warmth. "Sit."

They sit.

Ragnor summons the small table from his study, and Catarina summons some tea, and they both stare at Magnus.

"Every time I'm here," Magnus gestures broadly around them, both at the house and the woods outside, "I have these dreams where I'm wandering these woods, with..." Magnus trails off, and turns his head to look at the bed. "With him."

"He's not even thirty years old."

Magnus laughs, a hollow sort of helplessness as he shrugs. "Our times never did seem to match. I'd be gone for twenty years, and he'd say his last dream was less than a week before."

"That's impossible."

"The first one was the very first night I was here." Catarina's face turns into a pained sort of grimace; they all know what first nights are like, when a young Warlock realizes what they might be, and Magnus barely stops himself from shrugging again. "You remember that stump you found me sitting on, Ragnor?"

"Only because you'd go back to visit it." Ragnor frowns. "Now that you mention it, it's where I met Maryse and her children when she was fleeing Idris, too, and it's where Raphael brought Alec when Camille ordered him killed after his father died, before he could be coronated properly himself."

Catarina puts her tea down with a quiet clink of porcelain. "Poor Raphael, he looked so disgusted watching me bespell that pig's heart to smell like human blood for him to take back to Camille as proof."

Magnus shudders in sympathy. That spell was messy, and would have required some of Alexander's blood put into the pig's heart to convince the rest of it to change to match. "It must have worked for awhile, Robert—" Magnus stops, swallows, remembers Alexander trembling as he clung to Magnus in a clearing in the middle of the woods. Remembers the news, much more recently, of the death of the King of Idris, of the Regent taking over, of Camille becoming Queen. "His father died a few years ago, didn't he?"

"He and his second wife, the poor woman. Carriage 'accident', or so the stories went." Ragnor clicks his tongue, echoing the porcelain as he puts his cup down next to Catarina's. "She had no idea what she was getting into, falling for a Lightwood."

Neither did I, apparently. Magnus swallows, and tries to figure out what to say next. "That stump was where I met Alexander, in that first dream. It's where I put the necklace, after I made it. I'm not sure why I did it, couldn't have told you while it was happening, I knew I couldn't take it into a dream, but I just... I wanted to help."

"What, exactly, was this help then?" Catarina leans forward.

"It's just a basic ward twisted into a bit of silver." Magnus had repeated and twisted it nine times to make it as powerful as the silver could bear, but that wasn't difficult, it just required patience and brute force. Rather a lot of it, perhaps, but he'd had the time and power to spare. Would have spared anything, he realizes, for Alexander. "I based the shape of the spell on a Seelie mirror though, so it would reflect any magic that carried an intent to harm, rather than trying to set up counters for specific spells."

Just, Catarina mouths at him, and shakes her head.

Ragnor whistles softly. "It wouldn't work on raw magic or accidental damage like a personal ward, but it's perfect for someone being targeted who can't work magic directly."

"Thank you." Magnus twists in his chair to look at Alexander again. "Was it though?"

"He's still alive," Catarina answers, her voice almost unbearably soft. "That's a miracle, considering."

"Are you sure about that?" Magnus can't stop himself, he stands, starts to move closer to the bed, to Alexander. "How did she even manage to make a kairothanasia?"

"Enough blood and intent, focused through that mirror?" Magnus hears Catarina stand up behind him. "Camille has more than enough of both."

"Had," Magnus corrects, and he walks the rest of the way toward the bed. He vaguely hears Ragnor telling Catarina about Camille as he kneels again, but he isn't really paying attention. If his necklace had worked, it should have reflected the curse back on Camille. But she hadn't been cursed to have never existed, hadn't had her blood erased all the way back before she'd been born, like she'd tried to do to Alexander. Magnus remembers every time they'd met, every rumour he'd heard of what she'd done when they were apart. She hadn't even been killed by it, not quite, no matter how damaged she'd been when she'd tried to ask Magnus for help.

But if her curse had worked, if the necklace had failed, Alexander would have never existed, and here he is, alive and breathing and one of the few constants of Magnus' life.

So it's something in-between. The kairothanasia's the strongest curse Magnus knows, and if Camille had powered it with enough blood, enough intent, if that mirror was as dangerous as it seemed, it would have been too much even for the necklace's protection to reflect in its entirety. But some of it...

Some of it had rebounded back on Camille, some of it was keeping Alexander asleep, but that couldn't be all of it, not a curse like that, not one that killed someone's past as well as their future.

Magnus reaches a hand out again, holds it above the necklace, and stretches, oh so gently, magic twisting from his fingers to brush against the wards he'd set. He hisses in pain as they spark back at him, and pulls his hand away, cradles it against his chest.

Well.

Fuck.

The curse is still there, tangled up in the necklace, resting so close to Alexander's heart that Magnus has to bite his lip and focus on the sting to make himself think rather than reach down and try and yank the necklace off Alexander's body. The wards are clearly strong enough to block the intent, but the spell still wants to complete itself. He narrows his eyes, thinks about the feel of those sparks, warm and lively, and wonders. It's powerful, potentially deadly, but it doesn't feel like blood-magic anymore, tastes like regular magic rather than a curse, as if the wards managed to twist it inside out, just like Magnus had wanted, but it was too big.

By the time it had finished twisting the curse, the blood magic and wards were knotted too tightly together to push it back out again?

"Time," Magnus whispers. The kairothanasia erases someone from time, and all the results from the deflection have only happened now. He has to let the spell do something to the rest of Alexander's lifetime or it'll just sit there, twisted around backwards and eating Alexander's future instead of his past.

Alexander's past.

Alexander's impossible past, full of dreams with Magnus from before he was born.

Maybe he needs to let the spell do something that has already happened, maybe he has to let it make Alec alive before he was born, even if only in dreams.

For that to work, he has to let this inside-out curse tie his and Alexander's lives together.

He's... not at all sure what that will do. Two souls, one life, half immortal, half mortal?

"Oh." Ragnor's voice is right there, and Magnus lifts his head to see Ragnor and Catarina standing just beyond his reach, holding hands and eyes bright with magic; they'd clearly been following along with his diagnostic. "If the kairothanasia makes it so someone was never alive, the counter means they're extra alive, doesn't it?"

"I think that to dispel it properly the spell will have to be set on both of them. Your life will be his, and his death will be yours." Catarina's voice is soft as she smiles at Magnus, her eyes sad as every year of her life lingers in them. "Your wards are powerful, but not enough to dispel that curse, not entirely."

"A gift of magic that has never been seen before, nor will again." Ragnor whispers. "Your wards combined with Camille's curse, Vampire blood and Warlock magic, both shaped by Seelie mirrors. It's the prophecy, Magnus."

"If it does what we think... He'll lose his family again." Magnus wants this, wants to save Alexander, wants to see a future that's not just in their dreams, but he doesn't know if Alexander does, and he can't ask.

Immortality wears on everyone, in different ways.

They may not become completely immortal, but they won't quite be mortal anymore, either.

"I've never seen him take that necklace off," Catarina counters. "I think you're his family, too."

Magnus can't speak, can't think, doesn't move.

"He'd want to live." Ragnor's voice is rough, and his free hand reaches out to grip Magnus' shoulder. "Even with your wards, the hit from that curse would have hurt, would have told him to give up, to let go, and he's still here, still breathing. At some level he had to have fought for that."

Magnus closes his eyes, swallows. Thinks of Alexander's smile, the steady weight of his gaze. Alexander never gives up, Magnus can't either. He reaches, twists his hands in the air before him, pulling his magic from the necklace, back into himself, making the inside-out curse come with.

He screams as the spell explodes, sunlight in his veins, burning beneath his skin, and he can feel the weight of it, the twenty-eight years of Alec's life over and throughout the centuries of his own, stretched thin and fragile but undeniably there, tangled together too tightly to ever be pulled apart again.

He blinks himself back to awareness. The room's dimmer than it was, his bones ache and his magic's almost entirely depleted; he feels raw and scraped out, and it's only when he tries to shift to ease the soreness in his muscles that he realizes he's lying down, that same new quilt he'd noticed earlier draped over him.

He turns his head, and forgets every bit of pain because there's Alexander, close enough to touch at last, lying on his side, his arm tucked under his head, his eyes just barely open, a glint of light catching beneath the dark shadow of his lashes.

"Magnus." Alexander's mouth curves into the barest hint of a smile, his voice low and mumbling, barely more force behind the words than an exhale of a breath. "Hoping I'd dream of you."

Magnus sighs, feels the tremble of his breath, hope bright and shivering in his chest, and turns himself slowly onto his side to mirror Alexander.

There's a hint of a frown between Alexander's brows as he watches, but he holds it in until Magnus settles to a stop.

"You look tired."

Magnus almost laughs, but he's afraid it'll hurt. "That's because we're both awake, darling."

Alexander's eyes widen, and his breath stutters, as if he's only now managed to pay enough attention to realize where they are. "You're rea—" His voice cracks as he tries to lift himself onto his elbow, and he slides back down onto the bed with a groan, making it clear he's at least as sore as Magnus is. "You're here. Now."

"Same place, same time." Magnus finally lets himself reach out, though his fingertips rest against the silver charm that he only notices now is solid black with tarnish, thick and set enough it doesn't even smudge at his touch, rather than touching Alexander himself. "You found it."

"When I was eight." Alexander's shoulders shift, and there's worry in his eyes. "The day I first dreamt of you."

Magnus' eyes slide close, open again as he shakes his head, fabric wrinkling beneath his temple with the movement.

"I think I made it almost forty years ago now, when I'd already known you for centuries." Magnus hums, thinks about the feel of the spell as it had tied them together. He can still feel it, a tug between his ribs that he knows will never go away again, that he knows is Alexander. "Our times match now."

Alexander's frown deepens, but he clearly isn't surprised, had already figured out how far off their histories were. "How?"

"Camille." Magnus swallows, tries again. "She tried to curse you so that, rather than just dying, you'd never existed at all."

"Magnus," Alexander breathes out, eyes wide with horror. "I'm so sorry."

Magnus has to turn his head into his pillow, not sure if he's blocking a laugh or tears. Alexander is clearly more concerned about what that would have meant to Magnus than what it meant about his own life. "It's too powerful a curse to be easily dispelled or reflected..."

"Magnus," Alexander repeats, but this time his voice is steady. He's waiting for Magnus to look at him, to finish saying it. "Please."

Magnus makes himself return that steady gaze. "The spell still had to affect time, not just the present, so it..." He chokes, gestures between them.

Magnus wonders when Alexander first suspected the nature of their impossible connection, wonders what it must have been like for Alexander to hear Magnus mention Camille, the Lightwood's personal devil, back when she'd just been a person, a lover, someone who danced through life, who knew how to laugh, who wasn't always cruel.

I'm sorry, he thinks, but he knows it wasn't his fault, that now isn't the time to try and unpick the tangled weave of their timelines.

"That's how the dreams." Alexander blinks, hums softly. "Never thought I'd be glad for something Camille started."

Magnus huffs out a startled laugh, then presses his hand to his chest with a groan. It hurts as much as he'd been afraid it would. "Our lives are tangled together for the future, too."

"But you're immortal."

"I was."

Alexander makes a soft pained noise, as if he'd been wounded.

"Just like you were mortal."

Alexander's eyes close, slowly this time, and stay that way as he exhales, long and shaky. Magnus waits, for what he's not entirely sure, fear or anger or regret. "Thank the gods," Alexander whispers.

"What?" Magnus' voice cracks up, louder than he'd intended.

Alexander smiles, and his eyes are damp when he opens them, but they're alight, joy and relief and something that Magnus suspects might be love. Magnus forgets how to think. "I thought you meant you were going to die because of me, not that I'd get to live with you."

"Oh." That's all Magnus can manage. They stare at each other, until Magnus realizes it's still getting darker, and it's difficult to see anything beyond the shape of Alexander's cheekbone, the faint glint of his eyes in what little light is left. He realizes he is sure of Alexander, of how he feels, of what he wants. Of everything Alexander never said, but showed him nonetheless, night after night of conversations and silences, shoulders pressed together as they perched on that same damnable, wonderful stump. "I love you, too."

Alexander smiles, wider and brighter than Magnus has ever seen before, and he has no idea what to do now that this is real. He reaches, and Alexander's lips are warm against the very tips of his fingers, and he feels that amazing smile soften beneath his touch.

"You're real," Magnus whispers, "and you're here, with me."

"You're real," Alexander agrees, "and you saved me."

"You first," Magnus says, and he's smiling like a loon, he's sure, as Alexander's hand wraps around his, fingers long and the skin just rough enough to catch, as he tugs Magnus' hand down out of the way and leans in even closer. Magnus closes his eyes, and Alexander's lips meet his at last, as gentle as a spring wind, soft and warm and sweet.

Magnus sighs as their mouths part, as every last bit of worry and stress seems to leave him, and no matter how much he wants to savor every moment of this, he's not sure he can stay awake for much longer.

"Sweet dreams," Alexander breathes against Magnus' mouth, and Magnus laughs again, blinks his eyes half open long enough to see Alexander, to answer with what they both know is true.

"How can they not be, with you in them?"

Alexander scoffs out a breath, amused and fond. "Our times match now, there may not be any more dreams."

"You've always been my favorite dream, Alexander."

Alexander kisses Magnus' forehead, the warm press of his lips lingering as he exhales. Magnus lets his eyes close, and his body settle.

I love you, he hears, and it doesn't matter if Alexander says it out loud, if he's imagining it, or dreaming it. He knows it's true.

[in-tua-deep]

I want to hear the au!!! Fae stuff is my JAM

OKAY OKAY OKAY so it goes like this

The Handler is fae, she’s fae fae. One of the most fae members of the fae you will ever meet. No one knows her True Name, and she’s just ‘the Handler’ and she likes to collect oddities. And so when she learns that children all over the world are being born without that pesky nine month pregnancy?

Oh, she has to have one

and let’s say that fae don’t have children the same way that humans do, so really it’s nothing at all to obtain a squishy round faced infant of her very own for a single purpose. A fae made child, because there are rules about taking from humans, and one of the rules is to leave something equal to what you take. A child for a child. 

A changeling.

So she wraps up her new bundle of joy dismissively, because fae children aren’t special. Not to her at least. She could get a fae child for her collection any day of the week! No, she wants one of the neat little miracle babies. So she gives the little baby to a minion and tells them to swap the baby with one of the mothers giving birth all around the world at that very moment 

(but surely between learning about it and forming her plan and obtaining the fae child to switch, she would have missed her window of opportunity, right? You would think, but time between the fae and mortal realms is such a tricky thing)

so the minion goes and finds a mother who is alone and screaming. She’s panting and covered in sweat and in a bad way, and there’s a tiny little baby wailing, cord cut and wrapped in the mother’s jacket. And the mother has her head thrown back and is panting through the afterbirth and it’s the perfect opportunity to switch them - 

and then something happens. Something happens that makes the minion leave very quickly, without a human baby in their arms. Without a fae baby in their arms. There are other creatures in the world besides the fae, after all. Forgotten creatures who were perhaps, in their time, hailed as fertility deities, or protectors of childbirth. Patrons. People often don’t believe in them anymore, but they do their jobs where they are able

(There’s a reason changelings are usually only swapped after all that mess and nonsense is done with, switched in their cradles. But the Handler was impatient, and wanted to be sure no one else got there before her)

The mother is half delirious with pain, and let’s be real information about things like pregnancy are atrocious. She assumes that the afterbirth was a Whole Second Baby when she finally manages to get herself together and just sort of assumes she cut the second cord in a daze and picks up this second naked baby who is also crying and strips off her shirt to wrap him as well and places both babies next to one another as she breathes and tries to figure out her next step

and honestly most babies look the same when they first come out. Squishy and red and like tiny little aliens. She doesn’t think anything of it. They both had wisps of dark hair plastered to their little heads (in Luther’s case, this would change into a bright blond but the hair children are born with often don’t stay anyway)

So the woman calls 911 and gets an ambulance and stutters out an explanation about how she’s just had two babies in an alley and she wasn’t even pregnant and she doesn’t know what to do and -

and then she’s in a hospital with her two little baby boys wrapped up and given a clean bill of health and she’s still reeling when a billionaire comes waltzing into her room and offers to buy the babies from her

and look. she knows she isn’t in a good place at the moment. She wouldn’t be able to take care of one unexpected child, let alone two. And this man is wealthy, and if she gets the money then she can go back to school, and clearly he has the resources to take care of these kids

so she signs on the dotted line and the man in the monocle departs with both children and that is that

and maybe the Handler would have just killed her minion and tried again, swapped Luther out in his cradle within the manor. But Reginald is smart and suspicious and knows far more than he probably should

(maybe he has fae blood as well. maybe he’s the human counterpart of a changeling, who managed to escape the fae realm. maybe he’s got fae in his bloodline, somewhere way far back. maybe he knew someone faeblooded. but any way you slice it, reginald knows just this side of two much)

the manor is warded. none can enter without invitation.

(there’s a reason why none of the umbrella academy went missing. why there were no break in attempts. nothing. even humans cannot penetrate the fortress of wards without an invitation.)

the children are safe. for now. 

and maybe the Handler growls (because there’s a deal uncompleted, a child given with nothing taken in return, and it rankles) but hey there are a lot of other children lurking out there that Reginald didn’t get his hands on. And if they’re discarded, or abandoned, or if she waits and bides her time to step out and greet a toddler who unthinkingly offers her their true name well, she only needs one for her collection of oddities. 

(or maybe she doesn’t. maybe she needs the whole set. maybe she’s the reason Reginald Hargreeves only gets his hands on 7 children, because the others vanished without a trace. there’s more than one way to skin a cat, there’s more than one way to steal a child without a changeling. but changelings are traditional and the Handler couldn’t resist using at least one)

and maybe the Handler does try - the invitation clause is a tricky one to get around but with the right minion who owes her a favor and send them in as a prospective nanny - 

Reginald catches the nanny about to lead all the children off to have a ‘picnic in the park’ and fires her on the spot. He’s already dealing with number Seven killing some, so it’s the best choice for him to remove any outsiders from the equation entirely

enter: Grace

and number Five is just a child. But even as a toddler, he knows he’s different. 

None of the others have to tell the truth. Lies don’t burn like embers in their throats, they can just hurl falsehoods around like it’s easy. Five knows he stares the first time number Four lies to a nanny about something broken.

None of the others are bound to their word. The first time one of them breaks a promise, tells on him when they said they wouldn’t, forgets something they said they would do, Five is boggled. How can they forget? How can they break their bond? 

Even though Five hasn’t been in the fae realm since the day he was born, he knows the rules. Printed on his bones, etched into the marrow.

Don’t tell anyone your True Name.

Don’t lie.

Don’t break your word.

Repay your debts.

Iron burns. 

and a handful of others, scorched into his soul. None of the others know these unspoken rules, and they don’t seem like the sort of things he should be bothering Reginald with. So he doesn’t.

The others start getting their powers, and Five thinks: what are my powers?

Parting the fabric of the world was an accident. Reginald writes it down as ‘spatial jumping’ and he knows a lot so Five doesn’t correct him.

He’s not teleporting, not really. He simply slips between the fabric of this world and the next and then pops back out into the moral realm in a different place. Easy. 

(He still doesn’t walk into the fae realm, not yet.)

and this would be fine, except this is not normal for even the fae. Fae aren’t supposed to walk between the worlds. They’re supposed to walk on one, or the other, never between. 

(Five was always good at adapting.)

They’re still children when they’re offered names. They’re children when Five refuses, because he has a Name. No one knows his Name except him, of course, but he doesn’t want a fake name in its place. He is Five, and Five is him.

(in another world, if the Handler had kept him and pretended to love him, if she’d she’d made him love her, he might have offered his name to her freely given. but she thought him a pawn, a bargaining chip, and so this will never be that world)

They’re a little older when they debut, when they leave the safety of the manor. When Five has to kill for the first time. 

(It’s to protect his siblings, and so he does it gladly. It seems like people never notice the monsters that seem to be so interested in the Umbrella Academy. The men and women who are unnaturally beautiful, with dead eyes and deader smiles. Five protects his siblings.)

There is safety in numbers (and Reginald was so smart, stopping at seven. it’s a powerful number, and protects them more than they know) and they have each others backs

and then Five is thirteen and foolish and angry. He leaves the dining table, and even knowing that it’s not safe, he runs out the door. He’s only planning on being out for maybe an hour before going to face the music of his latest outburst.

(he’s gone for a lot longer than an hour)

He’s taken, and something isn’t right, and then he’s being deposited with surprising gentleness in front of a woman with blond hair and red lipstick who makes him want to go still and freeze. every instinct in him screams that this is a dangerous predator.

“Who are you?” Five asks, fear making his voice shake.

“Why what a silly question,” The woman says with a too sharp smile with too sharp teeth, “I’m your mother.”

She introduces herself as the Handler, and she’s old and powerful and she wants to know how he travels. She wants him to teach her, and she smiles so sweetly and offers him food and sweets.

Some instinct has Five tilting his head and asking her if the food is freely given.

The Handler throws her head back and laughs and calls him a clever boy. But she doesn’t answer his question.

Five has been a master of misdirection his entire life, he knows how to skirt around the boundary of a lie without crossing it. Knows how to walk the knife edge of truth like every other fae.

He does not take the food. He refuses to teach her. 

So he’s trapped in her castle. There are no doors and no windows to the outside world, and the castle is hers in its entirety. She moves the halls and rooms around at a whim, so that he can never get his bearings. He can’t use his powers in her home without her permission. Another fae rule. 

(She skirts around lies like a master, she makes him dizzy and disorientated. Still, he refuses to put himself in her debt. He knows he would never leave this place if he did.)

And so he stays there, and he has no good way to measure the days (not that it would help. he’s in the fae realm, time is different here) and he plans. 

The Handler comes to him every day. She brushes her hands through his hair and pinches his cheeks and plays the saccharine sweet role of doting mother. 

(“You are mine,” She tells him, eyes like fire, “I made you. I own you. All you have to do is teach me your tricks, my darling, and I will give you the world.”

The terrifying thing is, she can’t lie. She believes it.)

She gives him a room with a too soft bed and as many toys as a child could ask for. He wants to ask her if she knows how old he is, but refrains. It’s probably another tactic to humiliate him.

(Even so, there’s no one else in the castle. He sees flickers in the corners of his eyes, but the Handler’s minions report only to her. He is lonely, so very lonely. If he gets attached to a teddy bear with a pink bow that he halting dubs ‘Dolores’, then the Handler need never know, right?)

The Handler often talks about the human world in abstract terms. She also talks a lot about an event she calls ‘The End’. He asks her about it only once, and she croons at him and tells him all about the apocalypse. “Your siblings try to stop it,” She tells him gleefully just to see if she can make him cry, “They die, all of them. Isn’t that wonderful? No more humans! They were a blight on the world anyway. It will be so much more efficient without them, won’t it?”

And Five can’t let that happen. He pokes and he prods and he gets every scrap of information he can. He knows three things: 1) his siblings try to stop it and they die, 2) the apocalypse is scheduled to happen April 1st, 2019, and 3) a man with a false eye is involved. And while he gets that information, he tries to figure out a way to go home.

Every day when the Handler comes to see him, Five asks her a question. “Can I go outside?”

He justifies it a million different ways. Vitamin D and being a child and missing the sun and so on and so forth.

Every day she smiles and says, “If I let you out, Five, will you try to escape?”

And every day he stays silent, because there’s no way to answer that question honestly in a way that will get him what he needs.

Until finally, he thinks his way into a solution.

(The Fae can’t lie, but they can omit facts, can mislead and trick with the best of them.)

“If I let you out, Five, will you try to escape?” The Handler asks him

Five lets his head hang low. He squeezes Dolores to his side in a way he knows makes him look like a defeated child. “No,” He says dully, and listens to the Handler laugh in delight at the thought that she’s finally broken him.

I won’t try to escape. Five thinks to himself, the thought hot in the back of his throat, I’ll succeed.

So the Handler lets him out, plans to take him and show him some of the realm, and Five smiles brilliantly and he’s not in her castle. He’s not in her home. He can do what he wishes. So he falls forward, sees the Handler’s face twist as she shouts, and he laughs as he falls through the between and, for the first time, punches through the other side.

He falls into the courtyard of the manor, and looks up, and there’s a whole bunch of adults in front of him. But if he squints, he can see the faces of the children they were. They’re his siblings.

“Five?” One of them - Vanya? - steps forward, and Five can’t help but take a step back, quick and frightened as his mind races a mile a minute. Dolores is in his hands still and a comfort as he squeezes her against his ribs and scans the various faces. One two three four five faces. There’s one missing. Ben, where is Ben?

“How long was I gone?” Five asks, only a little bit hysterically thanks. He surely couldn’t be gone long enough for his siblings to be adults what the fuck. Okay yeah, Five himself hadn’t been able to track the days or anything but - he wasn’t an adult. He looked the same. He’d thought it had maybe been a few months or - or maybe years at most and he know time is screwy in the fae realm but this is ridiculous -

“Seventeen years.” Vanya tells him, face soft and open and vulnerable and Five can’t help it.

He breaks. 

And maybe it’s the shock of your presumed dead brother who is thirteen showing up in the courtyard with clothes just that side of too nice and a teddy bear who was always the strongest who is now crying but everything is pretty much derailed. They all bundle Five inside and sit him down and ask him essentially what the fuck.

And what Five tells them shocks them. Because he didn’t run away, he’d never run away.

He’d been taken. 

He leaves out the parts about the Handler being his mother (because quite frankly he still wasn’t prepared to handle that thanks) but he tells them in halting words about the fae. He’s lucky that Reginald knew something, because Pogo ends up backing him up and getting everyone to believe what’s coming out of his mouth. 

He tells them about the castle with no doors, about the food he could not eat, about the sharp eyed woman who laughed as she told him how his siblings would die. 

“Don’t you think she could have just - lied?” Luther asks, and Five gives him a look like he’s an idiot.

“Of course not,” Five tells him, “We can’t lie.”

“We?” Diego cuts in, knife catching the light and Five realizes that he forgot to include the most important detail of all. 

So he explains in halting words. Hadn’t they wondered why Five never ever lied?

(“I thought it was because you were an arrogant bastard who thought you could take whatever punishment good old dad could dish out.” Klaus admits freely, and gets a few sheepish nods from the others in agreement.)

Hadn’t they wondered about Five’s inability to touch iron?

(“Wait so that’s not an allergy?” Allison interjects and well, it sort of is like an allergy so Five can’t exactly say it’s not?)

“What happened to the original Five then?” Diego asks abrasively, because he’s always been the one to pick a fight. Five’s eyes slide over to Luther, because the Handler liked to talk a lot, and everyone notices.

“What?” Luther demands, a little bit defensively.

“There’s not - There isn’t an original Five.” Five confesses, looking at his shoes, “I was supposed to be swapped for a human baby so the Handler could, uh, have one for her collection or something. But something went wrong, and I was left behind, and they thought we were twins or something. So when Reginald followed the trail of the babies he found… both of us.”

The family considers the fact that Five had looked at Luther.

“Holy shit they wanted to take Luther?” Klaus demands, flabbergasted. Luther looks a tiny bit offended at the incredulity actually.

“They can have him.” Diego mutters, only to get swatted by Allison for the comment. 

and that’s how it goes. Instead of the Commission, you have the Handler and her army of obedient creatures, all ones that she’s managed to steal the Names of and force to do her bidding. 

(There’s only way way to escape something like that. Manage to change enough that you can shed your old name, your old life, like a skin. Become someone new, with a new name. It’s incredibly hard to do.)

(There’s a woman at the counter of a donut shop who has worked there for years. She loves birdwatching and she is breathtakingly kind. She thinks of herself as unextraordinary, but she manages to inspire a man who goes by Hazel to change. To change to a point where, when the Handler comes and threatens what he loves, he sheds his skin and becomes someone new for her. She saved him in every way, she freed him, and against all the odds she loves him. That’s something worth changing for.)

You have a traumatized Five who has been trapped in a castle alone except for his insane captor for what is probably closer to fifty years than twenty since time is such a fun and twisty concept. The Handler is frightfully good at twisting you up inside and Five has to actively try and untwist his own thoughts as well as try and save the world

I feel like the Hargreeves take Five’s non-humanness surprisingly in stride because honestly this shit might as well happen their lives are already so goddamn weird. Allison bends reality. Ben had tentacle monsters in his stomach. Klaus can see dead people. Yeah, this really isn’t the weirdest thing they’ve seen.

Not sure how it goes in the end because in this universe the Handler is definitely the Big Bad and something way more concrete to rally behind than the nebulous idea of a possible apocalypse so not sure if Vanya ends up treading the same path??

look this was just a weird brain wiggle that has a lot of weird things and i am not an expert in folklore and mythology thank you very much

(though admittedly, neither is Five. Now he knows some of what the Handler can do, he knows a little more about his own abilities - it’s not just jumps anymore. His arsenal is about to get a bit expanded)

Five thought he was human his entire life. He went by weird rules, he knew he was different, but the idea that he wasn’t even human probably didn’t really cross his mind.

Everything is different now. 

Everything.