#like she’s digging around in his body with her talons and snout and she’s just drenched in blood and eating her boyfriend

[fleshdyke]

Like it's so funny. She got a fork and knife and turned her bf into a 3 course meal lmaoooo. I imagine that raw sandwing wouldn't taste good; did she ask like her royal cooks to make a rotisserie echino????

HELP OH MY GOD??? THIS IS LIKE REALLY GOOD 💀💀💀

[godlikecunning]

Doriath’s treaties on shapeshifting

My @officialtolkiensecretsanta gift for @batshape who asked for something with Lúthien and Thuringwethil.

Word count: 2400 words.

Lúthien discovers someone (something?) who might teach her what Melian the Maia will not.

The problem with a half-Maia child –

There are no guards, doors or locks when Lúthien decides to leave – to run, her hollow-boned thrumming to a strange melody she alone hears. Her mother teaches only tricks a girl would benefit from. Sing and dance to dazzle, tie a knot that never will fail for a life that will prevail, coax flowers from hard earth. The rest, she figures out by herself. How to send souls with iron spines to sleep and how to tear through the dark, sleeping forest. Lúthien burns and runs like a shooting star invariably plummeting.

It’s no surprise she walks through the Ered Gorgoroth with her breath held, eyes on the stars that are twice as dim here. Beneath her feet, the soil is cold and lifeless, and Lúthien thinks of flowers but knows none that would daringly bloom here.

(She comes, but not as the nightingale.)

“The Maia Queen’s daughter cometh to me,” the thing in the dark says, voice stretching strangely, vowels damp and odd. Far too gleeful and twisting and else. “Why dost thee walk alone? There would be handsome reward for thy life returned.”

Lúthien scowls, digs her feet in the rocks. “Show yourself.”

One day, this voice might send the King of the World to sleep. It hasn’t yet, it might not, but there is a world where Morgoth will spend the rest of his days wondering and furious at a simple song, a simpler dance. The thing in the dark hisses, a long, slithery sound that makes her ears ring and her skull drum, but it slides from all around her.

It has no shape but three hearts relentlessly beating, cores of molten iron and fire. There are shapes and shadows wrapped around it. Lúthien knows it – her people do not venture here, but they tell tales nonetheless from passing glimpses.

The thing that has no name beats and coils, its lack of a body wrapping up until it passes for a woman, a creature pale like the underbelly of a fish. Grown in the dark, Lúthien thinks, stumbling a step back. White and red-eyed, an albino bat and an elf at once with a snout and a sneer. It laughs, the sound brittle and sharp, a glass shard.

“What is thy name?”

“Maybe,” Lúthien says, languid and deliberate – her mother has taught her how to deal with her kin, if mother even has kin. “Maybe I could give you a name few know, one that was whispered at cradle, for a promise. And you might even give me yours.”

“Thy secrets art not worth my own,” it argues, advancing with joints that move strangely. An unshapely creature who doesn’t understand what it is mimicking.

“Are you even called something?” She challenges.

“Not in any tongue your mouth may form words in without burning.”

(Lie.

Truth: the thing in the dark has no name and didn’t bother to give itself one. It was born with Morgoth’s song deafening and molten in its half-formed core, and the only thing it could mutter was chaos like one mutters for their distant mother. It had a shape that remembered many concepts, many thoughts, but Valarin doesn’t translate well. Once, a Vanya was driven insane trying to make grammar out of feelings.)

Lúthien breaths in the stale, foul air and breaths out. If she ever spins this tale, she’ll remove the fear and focus the eyes on defiance. “I need to call you something.”

It snaps malleable joints, testing its new body. “Call me Horror if thou must.”

Her father has a talent for plucking it out meaning and titles from nothing but speeches and a certain natural creativity. He could weave a name that would echo for centuries, if only because of raw significance and no echoing power of its own. Lúthien has to make do. She will not call anything Horror, not even shapeless creatures digging gnarled roots into land that hates and twists and agonizes. Her idea is uninspired.

“Thuringwethil will have to do.”

From: the women who stalk the halls with blind eyes and soft, amorphous mouths, reaching out for the forests with fingers like poisoned spider-silk. There is already a Thuringwethil, countless of them in her beloved Doriath, a society of its own, but their namesake is going to be more famous – or infamous and terrifying, truly.

“Must I be a woman? Must I be anything at all?” Thuringwethil cocks it head.

Lúthien shrugs. “I had to begin with something.”

“Very well, gray daughter, I suppose I shall hear more.”

It sits, she sits, and they talk.

 Or rather, they don’t talk, and Lúthien tries to pry meaning from antiquated language and limbs that twitch like reality bears down too heavily to stand without scratching at the cage. But she is curious, and Thuringwethil even more. There has never been another of mother’s kin, her kin. Not a single another to teach her what Melian will not, thinking it’d be better for her daughter to be a glimmering girl with gentle touch.

Lúthien dreams of waves and seagulls and children that do not fit her arms comfortably, both dark-haired and gray-eyed and lost. She dreams of kissing a statue on the lips, mistaken for a man she loves and is now given to the land. She dreams of falling on the halls of a palace still building itself anew, a sword stuck in her gut. She dreams of light, mostly – a light that calls to her and shifts beneath her skin, alive alive alive.

Thuringwethil laughs, shrill. It has not remade the bat snout and the fluid spine as it leans into her and twists her face from one side to another. Displeasure does not shine in her expression but leaks into the air. “Thou hast been made too solid.”

Solid?

“What does that even mean?” Lúthien scowls, a whip on herself.

“Once, thou changed at will. Not anymore.”

“Teach me.”

“No,” it says, smiling too wide.

(Too many teeth.)

 “Teach me,” Lúthien insists, not for the first – nor for the second or third or fourth. Everywhere in Doriath, her father’s hunters hound her steps, but she comes still.

They wound deeper and deeper into the Ered Gorgoroth. There are no stars, but a fog that’s cold and clammy and hateful. She has learned how to fend off spiders that have poison dripping from their fangs with fire and begged her mother for a cloak of twilight to thread the path as a shade – Melian must know, because Melian knows everything, but she keeps the secret and Lúthien keeps coming. If she discovers a peculiar trick or two by herself, the Queen certainly can’t be blamed for her strangeness.

Tonight, Thuringwethil has a thick, sneering mouth and no bat snout, though its eyes shine golden and still as death. It has skin brown as damp earth and hands that blur, perhaps three or four of them if Lúthien squints. And it is not prone to kindness.

“No, for mine time is a precious gift, and thy self is hard as stone.”

She twists her hands. “Teach me,” Lúthien commands, Compels, beseeches.

Thuringwethil throws its head back, neck almost snapped, and laughs without a single sound. “Clever, clever tricks, though empty as air here. Unveil your eyes.”

Its hands, its many or few hands, snap as spiders, bones popping and remaking themselves – Lúthien watches, watches, watches until there is a buzz in her ears and tears in her eyes. Her palms sweat but do not imitate, can’t imitate. Thuringwethil has needles now, sharp as polished steel and twice as wicked. They pluck from fabric from the rotten, stale air and twist one, two, three times as they measure the length. A cloak, black as Night itself. The buzz is loud, a living creature festering inside her skull.

Lúthien watches.

“The world is Song, Maia daughter,” Thuringwethil intones. “Song is not stone, is not unchanging. The melody shifts, and there’s creation. The melody shifts, and there’s destruction. Thou art not born from earth. Remember this, and maybe I shall teach you.”

“Why must you be so difficult?” She huffs, kicks a pebble in its direction.

“Why must thee think as some pitiful fool that will wilt in a summer?”

It cuts the final thread and slips the cloak over its full, naked shoulders. A mantle like no other, a mantle like a miracle. Lúthien reins herself back in, the buzz subsiding to a hum. Not black as Night but the proper Night, darkness given a solid body where once was nothing but shapeless ideas. Her fingers twitch. Is it soft to the touch? Cold? Could she… Thuringwethil slips on the hood and stares at her golden, unblinking eyes.

Lúthien stands very, very still as its needle-wicked hand brushes her hair back from her eyes. Its touch is icy, too light. “Nightingale, thine eyes are blind.”

“Then I will make them see.”

Thuringwethil smiles, wide and pleased and sharp. “Aye, you shall.”

 One day, tales of Lúthien’s stubbornness might rewrite fate itself – fall down towers, challenge the King of the World, work a twist around the Doomsman.

Might.

As for now, she sits down where no other light shines and talks with a being pulled in so many directions her eyes sting if she looks too closely. It reeks of old smoke and cold and laughs strangely and doesn’t even try to be an elf most times.

There are indeed worse people to talk to.

And many more boring.

“Gray daughter,” it says, close enough its talons brush against Lúthien’s back, wickedly sharp. “Why dost thou come to me? Dost thou not fear thy death?”

“Fear my death? Will you kill me?”

“Ah, ‘tis but a way of speaking.”

Lúthien does not believe it’s only a way of speaking, just as she doesn’t believe she’ll be killed. Thuringwethil could’ve killed her already or simply let wander around in the Ered Gorgoroth to her untimely doom. As she yet lives, she hums out a laugh and doesn’t turn back to face it. It has its beauty, those lands forsaken by all goodness.

And well, she does favor testing out Thuringwethil’s strange temper.

“Why did you not kill me?” She challenges, imperial.

Thuringwethil hesitates for a suspended moment before her clawed hands rise to rest at the base of Lúthien throat. “I do not desire the Maia Queen’s wrath.”

“Is that all?”

“No.” And nothing else.

Orcs’ flaming shit. Lúthien turns around sharply and goes up, up, up to kiss Thuringwethil on its almost-mouth (not-mouth?). She’s kissed people for less.

It is not bad, but its mouth is spongy and too still, a pale imitation of her own.

She doubts it has ever done so and takes an odd pride at that.

“What hast thou done?” It asks, vexed, lying still as a pray animal caught in the sharp gaze of a hunter. Lúthien smiles – beams up, disproportionately satisfied.

“Kissed you.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

Thuringwethil doesn’t even blink, a statue save in the way her flesh seems to move out of her control. Lúthien refuses to her smile waver. “Teach me.”

“No,” it answers, but it is unmoored, curious, lingering.

Lúthien’s mouth tingles.

It’d not be so terrible, she thinks, unbidden, to kiss once more.

 The second time Lúthien kisses Thuringwethil, she’s fluid as water under her wandering hands. She takes a disproportionate pride in making it forget a body entirely, even if she comes back drenched and miserably cold through a forest which shades grow both sharper and darker as the things outside push and hiss and sing in odd tunes.

It becomes a game.

“Close thine eyes,” Thuringwethil says, eyes wide and still and fever bright. She deems it a victory, that twisting madness. “Oh, gray girl, close thine eyes.”

They only kiss when she can’t see it.

A precaution.

Thuringwethil turns from too thin flesh to hard, boiling scales that send Lúthien scrambling back, her hands and her mouth searing with pain and bubbling. I’m not afraid, she tells herself, as the skin peels. I’m not afraid, she swears, oath-solemn in her determination even as there are soft, fine feathers poking at her face and a wiry, sharp fur that reminds her the countless spiders weaving their webs in this dubious peace. It becomes a game to herself, a trick she alone can uncover – how many times more may she kiss it to learn how to trade this elf for something else? She’s is half Maia.

(Underneath it all: how many times more may they kiss without feeling?)

“Dost thou know fear at all?” Thuringwethil asks, curious like an owl, all bizarrely exaggerated expression and gestures. Too thick, too ached eyebrows and mechanic, histrionic confusion. Lúthien wonders from who it is learning its tricks and shows.

“None,” she lies. But does it count as fear if not a single soul can tell?

It laughs, thick and treacherous as the chilly wind blowing through her hair, freezing her skin. “Then close thine eyes, and for I have something else to show thee.”

 In Doriath, whispers run with the wind, as they are prone to do when an uneasy peace lingers – the princess has gone mad, has gone savage, has gone strange.

(Truth be told, only madness may be a recent development.)

Elu Thingol’s hunters return empty-handed, as do his spies.

As for Queen Malia, she remains tight-lipped.

Lúthien lingers where the shadows are too thick and undisturbed, quiet as the tombs. She lies down under starless sky, hard rock on her back and the screech of things unnamable in her eyes. She keeps kissing Thuringwethil – for the hell of it, because it is a surprisingly good kisser with a bit of practice, to discover how to change.

Underneath her hands, there is metal, cold and unfeeling, but the mouth remains warm as embers. Sometimes, there is barely anything, and Lúthien reaches out for air and little else. She doesn’t mind it terribly, even if the scars of the second kiss remain.

And Lúthien is clever.

Thuringwethil, equally.

“Thou knowest how to change thy shape, and yet thou linger and dost not make an escape,” it says, habitual and grotesque confusion twisting its expression into what might pass as those clay masks actors wear. “Thou art a fool, gray daughter.”

“Ah, but do I?” Lúthien grins.

Thuringwethil’s soundless laughter echoes in her chest, warm.

[shootingcookielover]

Dear Dragon witch, STOP KIDNAPPING PEOPLE

Soooo @transformationloveb this prompt gave me ideas.

Warnings: Blood, the f-word gets dropped several times, kidnapping i guess, fainting

-

“However nice this trip is… are you going to tell me the true reason why you brought me here or not?”

Roman startled at the question, unease and anxiety creeping into his heart. Janus’ tongue flicked outwards for less than a second, tasting the lie forming in Roman’s head at this very second. “Do bother to deceive me, Roman. It’s not like you’ve been clouded in a lie of omission since you’ve invited me here.”

Though the serpent wouldn’t admit it out loud, he was actually quite tense. Roman's ominous and unprompted invitation into the imagination had set him on edge; it was one of the last things he'd expected after that video. 

The creative side seemed to shrink in on himself a bit, as the lie in his mind dissolved. He fiddled with the sleeves of his shirt before squaring his shoulders. His eyes closed for a second and he took a deep breath. 

Janus felt his own distrust in the situation - and in Roman, quite honestly - spike at that.

Then the creative side locked eyes with the serpent and, with the most earnest voice he rushed out the words: "I'msorryformakingfunofyourname!" 

The deceitful side blinked a few times, as his mind caught and deciphered the meaning of the sentence. After that he remained quiet for just a bit longer, too dumbfounded to react quite yet. 

Roman had… apologized to him. 

How was he supposed to react now? To his chagrin his deceitful nature kicked in, as it usually did when he couldn't find the right words. 

"Oh, why thank you, Roman! That totally makes up for you ridiculing me while I was vulnerable!" 

Fucking. Seriously? 

Janus wanted to slap, impale and/or poison himself. Why could he never just… Keep his mouth shut? 

Considering it was his job to keep the others silent when they were supposed to be, you'd think he was better at keeping quiet. 

The hurt look in Roman's eyes and the disappointed fall of the other's shoulders told him everything he needed to know. His thoughts were correct: He was a fucking dumbass. 

"No, Roman, I-", however, it was, apparently, too late to take his words back, since a gigantic pair of talons dug into his shoulders. 

Janus bit back a scream as he was lifted off the ground. Whatever carried him - he chanced a glance upwards and it was a dragon, because of course it was - was too far up too quickly. 

The serpent scrambled to grip the talons with his own two- err, three- no, now it was four, four arms. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying his best to ignore the situation at hand. 

Why the fuck had he agreed to come to the imagination?! He knew how dangerous it could be, Remus’ side had shown him that plenty of times! 

Well, truth be told, it was the tiniest of voices in the back of his head, desperate to be accepted by Thomas, all of Thomas, which included Roman. Perhaps he'd also felt a bit guilty about calling Roman evil. 

And, quite honestly, he had expected Roman's side of the imagination to be much safer than Remus'. 

He, of all sides, should know how similar the twins were, but no. He'd still come along. 

He was, indeed, a fucking dumbass. 

-

Roman, meanwhile, had run after the dragon witch, but quickly lost her and the side she'd caught. Now he stood at the foot of a hill, sword in hand, cursing himself. 

Of course the dragon witch would come out; she'd always been rather protective of him and didn't take well to… 'dark sides'.

She was the main reason Virgil didn't visit more often. 

Now she had Janus and- and… 

And Roman didn't quite know what to do. Maybe he should just… let them go. 

Then at least Thomas would be a better person. 

"No!" 

Roman ran a hand through his hair, lowering his head. "No.", he whispered. 

He was a prince. A hero. 

He saved people from the evil clutches of the dragon witch, no matter who they were. Even if… 

Even if they happened to be reptilian rapscallions. 

Mind made up, Roman tightened his grip on the sword handle and raised two fingers to his mouth. A few seconds later, a shrill whistle echoed through the forest before him. 

He didn't have to wait long. 

The sound of hooves against dirt neared and his trusty horse, Sparkle, came to a halt in front of him. She nuzzled Roman’s neck, her warm breath puffing against his exposed skin.

The creative side gave a light giggle and petted the horse. “I missed you, too, my valiant mare! But now we have no time for this, as another side requires my assistence.”

Roman took Sparkle’s head in both hands, looking into her eyes seriously. “It is time for another adventure!”

-

Janus decided that having dragon talons digging painfully into your shoulder was much preferable to them suddenly disappearing. 

This time he couldn’t stifle the scream. 

It cut out when he slammed into the ground. Hard, rock-y ground. The air was pushed out of his lungs.

He gasped for oxygen, one arm wrapping around his torso. His eyes followed the giant form of the dragon.

It cycled to the ground, before landing with a loud boom. Janus, who had pushed himself into a semi-sitting position, fell over once more as the ground shook. His undoubtedly bruised rib cage screamed in protest. He gasped for breath again.

When he looked up again, the dragon’s snout was only centimeters from his own. Hot, dry air was blown into his face.

If he hadn’t lost his hat already, it certainly would be gone now.

As best he could, Janus scooted away. His back hit a wall. 

A glance behind him revealed that, nope, not a wall. A dragon tail.

He looked back at the giant dragon head. He could see his own reflection in the creature’s eyes. He looked horrible; his hair all messed up, his clothes rumpled. There were a bunch of tears in his capelet, right where the talons had dug in. 

Deciding that movement would not get him out of this situation, he said: “Sooo… how are you…?”

The dragon gave a light growl, blowing a light cloud of smoke into Janus’ face. The serpent coughed, bringing a hand up to his face. His glove ended up lightly stained red. 

Amazing. Just. fucking. awesome.

“Would you… mind… letting me go…?”, Janus tried again, doing his best to ignore the arm-long teeth of the dragon.

More smoke; more coughing; more blood.

Well this was going great.

Out of nowhere, the dragon’s head moved into the air, eyes on something in the distance. 

If Janus wasn’t mistaken, the creature sniffed the air.

Then there was a strange scraping sound. Janus realized it was the dragon opening it’s wings.

The dragon took off suddenly. 

It left Janus, who had been leaning against it’s tail, stumbling. The strong gusts of wind made him fall over and blew him across the ground. He skitted a few metres, body screaming in pain.

He finally came to a stop, gasping for breath. His arms shakily managed to prop him up.

He looked towards the sky. The dragon was gone.

The idea of escaping, however, soon shrunk as he looked around. He appeared to be in a giant hole in the ground.

A coughing fit shook him, bloodying his gloves even more.

His weak arms buckled under his weight and he collapsed.

Fucking. Great.

-

Roman slid off Sparkle. The dragon witch’s nest lay just ahead and he really didn’t want to risk his horse’s life.

“Now, go, my valiant mare! But stay near; I may need a quick escape.”

The horse neighed and ducked her head in almost a nod. Then it took off.

Roman watched it go before wrapping his hand around the swordhandle from the sword that hadn’t been there just seconds prior.

The loud flaps of wings made him whip around, eyes narrowed. He searched the sky and quickly found the dragon witch. She was barely recognizable, that’s how far up she was.

Determination flooded the prince’s veins as he stepped out of his hiding spot.

“HEY, dragon witch!”, he yelled, sword pointed at the distant form of the dragon witch. “Release my…”, he struggled to find the right word for a moment. “...colleague! Or face the consequences!”

A bout of fire was his answer. Roman was quick to duck away, avoiding the heated blast with a roll. 

Seconds later the dragon witch landed, and, as always during these fights, Roman was glad he’d conceptualised her with earth magic.

-

Janus breathlessly dragged himself to the wall of the hole. He groaned in pain as he sat up against it. With a sluggish hand movement he wiped away a dribble of blood from the edge of his mouth.

The wall was too smooth to climb, he found. Another groan left his lips.

He did his best to think, think of a solution for this situation, but there was so much pain-

His eyes snapped open when had he closed them?. 

He remembered Logan, of all people. 

We’re not actually real.

Hm.

Roman was capable of summoning things wherever he went. Shouldn’t Janus be, too?

The serpent slowly raised his hand. He squinted at the not-so-yellow-anymore glove. 

Come on, he thought, his fang poking his lower lip to keep him focused. Come on-!

There was a sudden weight in his hand and damn. The relief was palpable.

-

Duck, roll, block. 

The powerful sizzle of magic slammed into his shield. He held his ground.

The magic stopped and the dragon witch needed to recharge. A grin spread across Roman’s face and he sprinted towards the dragon.

Slash. Slash.

The soft belly was very susceptible to his sword. 

Instead of blood, a kind of magic mist swirled from the opening. The dragon witch growled as the wounds stitched themselves back together.

“You win this time, princey. Tell your boyfriend I will kidnap him again, if he keeps making you upset.”

Before Roman could correct the dragon witch, she took off.

The prince stumbled from the gust of wind, but he managed to keep standing.

“What the fuck.”

Roman whipped around. Janus stood next to the dragon witch’s nest - barely more than a hole in the ground - legs trembling from the effort of keeping him upright.

-

The serpent was done. Done!

This whole thing was just some… prank! And- and…

Yeah, he wasn’t all that angry, truth be told. He was mostly exhausted and done with the whole situation. 

Prank or not, he didn’t much care right now; Remus had done much worse and few of those had actually been intended as pranks.

“Janus! By Odin’s beard, are you alright?!”, the prince rushed to Janus’ side, his sword clattering to the ground. 

“Of course I am!”, Janus snapped, leaning into the prince, because damn it, standing was hard and the other side was soothingly warm. “It’s not like I’m bleeding out or anything!”

Roman wrapped his arms around the other side, carefully hoisting him up, to carry him bridal style.

Janus couldn’t have cared less. The creative side was warm.

The serpent nuzzled into Roman’s chest, giving a little content puff of air.

He still felt like he was on fire with pain, but really, this wasn’t so bad. The snake-part of his brain had mostly taken over by now, basically telling him Warmth=safe & good.

But the rest of his brain hadn’t yet shut down. It gave him the suggestion to finally clear up a certain misunderstanding.

Tired from bloodloss and heat, his voice was a little slurred.

“‘m sorry for comparing you to Remus.”, he mumbled. Roman’s shoulders tensed, irritating Janus slightly. “You’re way better.”

The serpent nuzzled closer. “Way warmer.”

He fell asleep shortly after.

-

When Roman went to ask Logan for help with bandaging Janus, the logical side only looked at both sides, incredulously. 

“...you do remember we’re imaginary, correct? None of these injuries actually have any kind of impact on us.”

Janus sat up with a “I didn’t forget!”, all his injuries healed, his clothes clean and pristine, hat finally back on his head.

An embarrassed blush spread across his human cheek.

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Falsehood.”, he simply stated before walking out.

[fangsexposed]

-Rin is standing in the kitchen naked cooking some eggs when she gets hugged from behind. His warmth gets a purr out of her, pressing herself up against him. Hands run down her body, making her shiver in delight. A gasp escapes her as she feels her partner start to rub her clit, her body trembling a bit. It was if he knew that she wanted more of what happened the night prior. Looking up to him with cheeks flushed she’d see that trademark cocky smirk of his as he pulls his hand away-

*What’s wrong princess~? You look all hot and bothered~

-Her face would go even redder, soon flicking his snout as she pouts.-

Well unless you don’t want breakfast I suggest you be a good dragon and go sit down and behave yourself.

*But what if I want you for breakfast~?

-Now she can’t look him in the eye. The thought of his tongue inside of her made her excited, pressing her thighs together as she felt a wetness running down them. Hands rested on her hips, talons lightly pressing into her skin as he pulls her closer. Gentle nips to her neck elicit soft whimpers out of her. She wanted him so badly...-

C-Can you at least wait until I’ve had breakfast?

-Edge would nod, planting a kiss on her cheek before letting go and going to his room. It’d take about 15 minutes for Rin to finish making and eating breakfast, soon making her way into his room. She suddenly felt sheepish, despite them having done this sort of thing on quite a few occasions. Maybe it was because this was the first time when she was in heat? That smirk of his was on his lips, violet eyes watching her as she made her way over to him. Wrapping her arms around his neck she’d start with soft kisses which were reciprocated, slowly getting more intense as he pulled her onto his lap. After a few minutes of kissing he’d shift her so she was laying on her back. It wouldn’t take long for the dragon to get to his “breakfast” Rin’s body jolting briefly as she felt his tongue slip inside. Her breathing became shallow with the occasional moan slipping out. Talons would dig into her thighs as he kept her legs spread apart, soft growls escaping her partner.-

-This would continue for a few minutes until the vampiress climaxed, Edge licking her clean and pulling his face away. He’d move back a bit and stare at her with a lustful gaze, licking his lips-

*Could you get on your hands and knees for me Rin? I wanna make sure you feel extra good for being such a good girl and letting me have a special breakfast~

-Her entire face would turn bright red from embarrassment. His voice was in a deep rumble when he spoke, something which always made her excited. Using that voice to give her praise made her feel euphoric. Adjusting herself to sit up she’d soon hold his face as she exchanged a few soft yet passionate kisses with him-

You treat me so good... I feel so happy being with you like this...

-His smirk softened into a smile, kissing her forehead before he helped her onto her hands and knees. Sticking his fingers in briefly she’d gasp as they’d start to move around, just testing to make sure she was wet enough to slip in with no problem. Sure enough she was, taking his fingers out and licking them clean before adjusting his member accordingly. He’d take his time pushing himself inside, wanting her to feel every inch of him. She’d whimper softly as more and more of him slid in, but it was torture for her. She wanted all of him now... But she would be patient, knowing he’d reward her for it-

-Once he was fully inside he’d stay put for a while, wanting to see if she could keep her patience. It was so difficult for her, doing her best to stifle any whimpers. Soon enough he’d give her what she wanted, starting off slow and gradually getting rougher. Pressing himself against her back he’d start to bite and lick at her neck and shoulders, earning some louder moans from his princess.  He’d change his pace every so often, giving them a bit of a break when needed. After roughly an hour and multiple orgasms from Rin Edge would finally let loose and have his own orgasm, letting out a loud roar as he did. The vampiress’ arms and knees would start to shake, her parnter holding her up with an arm as he pulled out. Gently laying her down he’d kiss her head and cover her up-]

*You get some rest. I’ll go make myself something to eat. I love you.

-Rin would softly mumble “I love you too” back to him, hiding most of her face with his covers. It wouldn’t take long for her to fall asleep, feeling rather exhausted despite the after glow-

[damienthepious]

needed some catharsis. mind them tags.

Wait For Yours To Interlock

[ao3]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Injury, Bedside Vigils, Injured!Damien, (im deep in my feelings. my friends said this was catharsis so it's fine. it's fine)

Summary: Rilla once said that she knew, someday, she would probably need to bury Damien with a talon through his heart. On rare occasion, that lurking future brushes too close for comfort.

Notes: I said i wouldn't get something out this week because. Reasons. And i wouldn't have for sure if it weren't for tumblr user @shorter-than-her-tbr-pile and tumblr user @pinkpuffballdude . Thank you thank you thank you, i love you both so much! Title from the song Don't Give Up On Me by Andy Grammer.

~

It takes a long time for Arum to convince Amaryllis to go to bed.

Of course it does.

It's impossible for her not to feel like this is her responsibility, but there is nothing more she can do at the moment. There is nothing more either of them can do, at the moment, and she has been awake for days. It takes a long time, and a lot of convincing, and an argument that would have been a screaming match if it weren't for-

(He will not wake, even if they scream. It would be far too painful to prove this fact, to shout above him and-)

But Arum manages, eventually. So now, Amaryllis is asleep, and Arum…

Arum leans against the wall, and stares at the cot in her exam room.

He stares, and for quite a long time, nothing changes.

"Foolish little honeysuckle," he hisses.

There is no answer, of course.

"Always so careless with yourself. Thoughtless. What did you think would happen? What did you think would happen, Damien, if you continued to throw yourself at-"

He straightens from the wall, and begins to pace, stalking back and forth. He cannot continue to stare at the bed, but his eyes keep drawing back to the stillness of the form there. His mind demands the reminder: he is still breathing.

He is still breathing.

"How dare you," Arum mutters, and he did not intend to say those words, but- "How dare you. How dare you do this to Amaryllis. Can you not see how she worries for you? Can you not see how much effort she expends? Patching up every injury, every cut, every broken bone? Every foolish little-" he clenches his teeth hard, hisses through them, tries again. "Has she not done enough already? Has she not wasted enough bandages on you, because you cannot keep your foolish self safe? How dare you do this to her-"

Arum feels that he should be shouting. His voice is, instead, coming in a hoarse, whispered sort of scream. It feels like it scrapes up his windpipe as it goes, but-

He cannot seem to control the words. Perhaps this is how Damien feels, under more ordinary circumstances.

Arum continues to pace. Damien continues to lie perfectly still.

He still breathes. He still breathes. Arum can still hear his heart, can still hear it beating, even if it sounds- not quite right. There is something off about the rhythm, something off about the pace, perhaps. It does not sound as it usually does when Damien sleeps.

But Damien still breathes.

("All we can do is- wait," Rilla says, her voice cracking down the middle. "All we can do is wait, now.")

"How dare you make her worry like this," he growls, and then he pauses for a long, long time, holding his breath without meaning to.

Damien. Still, and quiet. It is unnatural.

"How dare you do this," he repeats, his voice growing weaker with the repetition, and he pretends not to notice the tightness in his throat, the way he chokes as he continues, "I do not see you speaking your heart now, honeysuckle-"

He has to stop, digging the claws of his toes into the wood of the floor, his posture hunching as he hisses a breath through his teeth. His limbs tremble with the tension of how tightly he is holding himself still, his teeth clenched so hard that his jaw hurts.

After a long pause, during which Damien neither moves nor speaks nor stirs, Arum gives a strange breath of laughter.

"How… how does she do this, Damien?" he keens, helpless, and then he takes a hesitant step closer to the bed. "How does she endure, watching you careen from one danger to the next?" Another slow step, and Damien still does not wake. "How does she- I… I cannot bear it. I cannot bear this. How am I meant t-to-"

He chokes another strange laugh, takes another small step. "I did not need to fear such hurt as this when… when it was only myself and my Keep. Death would only be death, then, honeysuckle. My own would be survived by my Keep, and if I failed my Keep enough that it fell, I would fall with it. Now- now-" He searches for the words, creeps closer, flicks his tongue and scents the sterile blank smell of this room, obscuring the more familiar scent of Damien's skin, the more unwelcome scent of the blood.

"Now… there is so much more at stake. I cannot bear the thought of yourself and Amaryllis being torn from me, but- what can I do against it? Your knighthood, her work, the war- my own very nature. I cannot… I cannot protect you, I cannot do anything but endure the terror of your loss and- and I do not know how. I do not know how to bear it. It would be- it would be easier if I cared not at all for you, little human. If I could see you so waylaid and feel- nothing."

Another step. Arum looms over the bed, and he feels so large and so out of place, even here in Amaryllis' hut where he knows himself welcome. He looks down at Sir Damien, and he feels so much that he fears it will crack his ribs open to escape the too-small vessel of his body.

"I was not meant to care for any but myself and my Keep," he says, his voice very small. "It would be so much easier if I could return to that feeling. If I could go home to my Keep, if I could bury my affection in the greenhouse and forget this pain, forget this terror. It would be so much easier, Damien," he keens. "But-"

Damien breathes.

"I cannot forget. I cannot excise you from my heart. And- and I wouldn't dare, even if I could."

Damien breathes, perfectly still.

"Honeysuckle… honeysuckle… wake up. Please." He swallows roughly, and Damien's slack face mocks the waver in his voice. "I know you cannot hear me. This is- mere foolishness, I know. I know… I am not helping. I am not… blessed with Amaryllis' talents. There is nothing I can do for you, not now, and my words- my own words pale beside yours. I would cut my tongue out to hear you speak them now, honeysuckle. To hear you speak at all, I would- please. Please."

His legs shake. His hands twitch with the deep desire to touch his poet. Before his limbs can betray him entirely, Arum relents, and sinks to kneel by the bedside.

"Foolishness," he says again, gazing up into Damien's beautiful, terribly still face. He reaches out, but he does not touch Damien's skin. He wishes so badly to brush the curls from Damien's brow, but his position feels so precarious. Damien looks so fragile. Arum does not feel his own touch would be safe.

"Honeysuckle, wake up. Honeysuckle, come back. Please… please, don't-" he sucks in a breath. "Don't do this to her. She has expended so much effort, so much worry and care in patching your sorry hide together. Wake up. Just wake up."

Damien does not answer. Arum knew he wouldn't. His insides still feel curdled with the hurt of it.

"Don't do this to her," he repeats, his voice lower. "Don't do this to- don't do this to us, honeysuckle, please don't-"

("And if he wakes up-"

"If?"

"W-when, I meant when, Arum, don't-")

Arum shakes his head, pulls his hands back to press to his own chest, holding in the throbbing of his heart, his pain.

"The Universe prefers- the Universe desires a good story. An interesting story, at the least," he mutters, clenching his claws against his own scales. "I- I know- this world is better with you alive. All is brighter, more vibrant for your presence. Surely the Universe knows…"

He inhales, forcing himself steady, and he makes himself sway closer. Makes himself lift his hand out again.

"I… I don't know what I would do if we lost you," he whispers, and then he clenches his teeth. "I- I refuse to- to contemplate it. That is not how your story ends, honeysuckle. Not here. Not yet. We don't lose you like this. I refuse."

Damien does not wake. Arum did not expect him to. He scowls, fierce, and settles his palm down over the back of Damien's hand at last.

"I love you, Damien. I love you, and I will stay as long as I need to. I will be here when you wake. That is how this story goes."

~

Damien wakes bleary and confused, but the morning light calls to him as it always does, pouring honey-soft through the warm curtains, birdsong and the distant, early bells from the Gate of Tranquility pouring in with it.

All of it pouring in, through the open windows of Rilla's examination room. Why… why would he be…

Damien remembers.

The pain comes a moment after the memory: a vicious sharpness in his ribs, the muddy thudding ache in his head resolving to something he can understand, the wobbly, shaky sense of disconnection from his limbs.

… Disconnection from most of his limbs. There is a pressure on his left hand, vaguely warm, familiar, pleasant. He can feel that sensation perfectly well.

It takes a rather frustrating level of effort to tip his head to the side enough to see the source of the pressure. He blinks, bleary, against that warm morning light, and when his vision resolves he sees Arum.

The monster is half-draped on the bed, his snout buried in the sheets, two arms clinging loosely to the cot, one hanging down out of sight over the edge, and the fourth hand curled, careful and delicate, around the back of Damien's hand.

Damien can piece together the vague shape of what occurred in his unconsciousness well enough. The lizard looks exhausted even in sleep, and he looks anything but comfortable, half-supported by the cot, twisted vaguely sideways with his shoulder against the bedside table. He must not have meant to fall asleep. Damien feels his mouth curl despite the fogginess in his head, because the idea of it, this attempted vigil succumbing to the drain of sleep-

Damien loves this monster with a brightness that still shocks him. He wants to turn his hand, to press his palm to Arum's, but- well. Just at the moment, he can barely manage to twitch his thumb. He blinks a bit more of the light from his eyes, looking more closely at his lily instead.

There's a blanket draped over Arum's shoulders, as well. A familiar blanket, one that usually finds its home on Rilla's bed, and Damien can imagine as well how the cloth must have ended up settled there. He exhales, something that would be a laugh if he had just an ounce more breath to give, and he hears a scuffing noise across the room.

"Damien," Rilla says, her voice thick and exhausted and raw. "You're awake-"

Damien manages to tilt his head enough to see her as she stands, as she darts to the side of the cot opposite from Arum to touch his face, to check his pupils, and he cannot help but smile at her touch.

"Hello, my flower," he whispers, and his own voice is cracked and dry, and as she moves his head so gently and checks him over, he contemplates her words again in his somewhat muddied mind. "Was… was there concern, then, that I would not?"

Rilla does not answer, does not meet his eye, but her jaw tightens, her brow dips, and Damien's heart pulses with sympathy, with guilt.

"I'm-"

"Don't you apologize, Damien," she says in a firm murmur, angling his head so she can inspect the wound he can feel near his temple. "You're a knight," she says simply, and then she shrugs. "We both know it comes with the territory."

Damien closes his eyes and purses his lips, and he thinks briefly of the ream of now-crumpled paper from the one letter he cannot seem to write. "Hm," he manages. "I suppose that is… I suppose."

"Just- relax and let me do my job."

Damien does as she says, pretending for a moment that he is blessed with Rilla's touch for a less worrying reason as she inspects his injuries more fully.

"I expect that the blanket upon our lily was your doing, my love," he says eventually, quietly, and Rilla snorts a low laugh.

"Yeah, well. He wanted me to sleep, but he was still gonna worry himself sick all night in here with you. I just- waited until he stopped talking. I knew he was exhausted too."

"You- you slept in here as well?"

"Slept is a strong word," she hedges, shrugging.

"Rilla," Damien says, but his voice is too weak to carry the gentle chiding he wants it to.

"You sure as hell wouldn't sleep if you didn't know if I was gonna-" she cuts herself off, pressing her lips together tight, and then she gives a wobbly sort of smile. "I couldn't, okay? I just- couldn't."

"Oh," Damien whispers. "Oh, love-"

"You sound like you spent a week in a desert," Rilla mutters, rubbing one eye absently. "Hush." She reaches a hand out again, this time only to brush his hair away from his forehead. "I'm gonna go get you some water, okay? Don't- just don't. Don't move, don't talk, don't do anything stupid, yeah?"

Damien ducks his head, entirely unable to bury his gentle smile. "I wouldn't dream of it, my love."

"Hush," she says again, firmly, and then she puts her hand very carefully on his shoulder, leans down, and presses a light kiss to his hair. "I'll be right back."

Damien sighs, still smiling, and his eyelids are too heavy to hold open as he hears Rilla tiptoe from the room.

When that noise fades, he is left only with what woke him in the first place. Sunlight, soft through his eyelids, and birdsong and distant bells, and-

Much closer by, the slow sleeping breath of Lord Arum.

Damien opens his eyes again, tipping his head to see his monster again, and Damien's muscles twitch with yearning to pull Arum up, to gather him closer, to embrace him on this too-small bed. He huffs out a breath, his lip curling wryly at his own current limitations, and then he focuses on his hand instead. Surely that cannot be too difficult to manage.

It takes far more effort than it should. Damien has fought battles more difficult than the simple turning of his hand (more difficult- but very few that mattered to him more). The weakness of his body can be overcome. He has done so countless times before.

He is patient, though his arm aches with even this simple motion. He is patient, and like a key in a very old lock, his hand turns, and he exhales a sigh when he can at last press his palm up into Arum's. He curls his fingers, slow, and he squeezes with what strength remains.

Violet eyes slit open in the golden morning light, and Arum blinks, staring at their joined hands for a breathless moment.

Then the breath shakes out of him, and he looks up.

"Honeysuckle," Arum whispers, and there is more relief in his voice than the word can hold. "I knew- I knew you wouldn't-"

He reaches out, and draws his claws down Damien's cheek as gentle as falling petals.

Damien feels the smile on his face like an entire garden in bloom, and Arum's violet eyes are so bright, so wide, as safe as home.

"Good morning, my love," he whispers, and when Arum's breath hitches, Damien squeezes his hand again. "Thank you for watching over me."

[beerecordings]

The Fish

He's a fish in pollution, pushing up the sand with his snout.

“Hi, honey,” calls Jackie from the kitchen. He only uses pet names when he's upset.

“Hi,” he answers softly, closing the door behind him.

He's a fish with big, ugly golden eyes, the little black pinpricks frozen in amber, surveying the murky water around it with its stupid fish mouth hanging open like a dead thing.

“How was work?”

“Fine.”

“Good, good... you work so hard, I'm proud of you, doc...”

He's a fish and it's heavy and hard to swim. He hears Jackie playing with some papers through the water pressing down on him.

“What is it today, Jackie?”

“Hm? Oh, this – don't worry about this, sweetie, I've got it handled... I'll just... just need to... I've got it handled, yeah...”

He drifts away again, deep enough in his head that he doesn't look up when Henrik comes to stand beside him in the kitchen, staring at him. He's a fish, sure, but Jackie is just a bird who can't find somewhere to land. He's been flying for months. His wings must ache. Henrik touches his back and presses the pad of his thumb against the knuckles of Jackie's spine, hard, just for a moment. Jackie doesn't notice. His blue bird's eyes are far-sighted and he can only see parts of the documents in front of him, something about Jameson's therapy or the rent or police reports on strange glitches in the government computer system two countries over.

“Jackie,” says Henrik softly.

But Jackie doesn't hear him, cause nobody's listening to the way that fish bubble and pant when they can't find anything they need in the reeds, and the tide keeps dragging hiding places farther and farther away. The water's getting lower and damn but the sun burns a painful glow against his scales through the clear, loveless waves. But Jackie is just an albatross, and they're not swimming in the same tides anymore. His brother rocks on unsteady winds, his feathers ruffled and oil-heavy and his muscles straining, catching glimpses of Henrik in the silver water below, unable to help him til he finds somewhere to land, and Jackie can never find anywhere to land these days. Jackie can never, never, never find anywhere to put his head down and rest these days. Albatrosses don't have it much easier than the fish the sailors scoop up. Sometimes the sailors shoot them down too, and then, in fear of bad luck, the other sailors take the dead body of the bird and tie it around the killer's throat, so he gets nothing to drink but the blood of the albatross around his neck for days and days and days, but at least the bird is sleeping then. It's an old legend. Jackie is just rocking above it. He wouldn't be able to stop anybody from shooting him down. He wouldn't be able to stop anybody from scooping Henrik up. He probably wouldn't even notice, and that would only make the wind harsher, and the bird would find a way to cry even though birds don't really do that. This one does.

“Work so hard,” he repeats lovingly, still not looking up, still barely noticing that Henrik is beside him. There's a line of pale sweat along his hair. “I do love you, Schneep, I'm so proud... glad you're doing better these days, little brother, little brother...”

Henrik fills up a glass of water and puts it beside his hand before heading up the stairs. Jackie hunches over the paper in the kitchen. The lights aren't on and he can't find his glasses.

“Hey,” Henrik whispers, peering into Chase's room. “You awake?”

Chase jolts up on his bed, hair everywhere. “Hey? I'm awake, I'm awake!”

Henrik chuckles. “I can see that.”

“Aw, Schneep, it's so early! Eight A.M.? Ahhh, you woke me up...”

Henrik's chest rumbles merrily and he jumps onto Chase's mattress to make it bounce, drawing a low groan of protest out of his little brother.

“What, what?” teases Schneep, getting up to press Chase back into the bed, digging his fingers into his ribs. “Dumb-ass, were you sleeping?”

Chase laughs and pushes him off the bed, dumping Henrik onto his ass.

“So mean! Asshole, I was up til four editing!”

“You're nocturnal,” says Henrik, shoving his feet away from him as they come to hang off the bed. “Raccoon man.”

Chase grins slowly at him, his mischief mouth filling up with the joy of it, and Henrik is grateful for him. A shiver runs down his whole body as comforting fingers come down to massage at the back of his throat, warm and reassuring. Long raccoon claws stroke across Henrik's flesh without judgment or fear. Chase is a scavenger, it's true, and nothing scares or disgusts him anymore. He's been in the garbage himself enough times to shrug all the bullshit off. What's the smell of sterile hospital bandages and blood to a raccoon? Forget about it and share whatever comfort you can find with me. The smell of sweaty sleep clings to him. Chase tugs teasingly at his hair and then lets him go, sliding to the ground beside him.

“Did you wake me up for something?”

Henrik stares at him, wondering if he'd even hear if he said something.

“Schneep? Hard day at work?”

“Just a little,” he answers. “But I just wanted to see if you knew where Jamie was. He's not in his room.”

“Think he fell asleep in my closet again, yeah. Poor little buddy all frantic last night. Just needed a place to hide.”

Chase's tiny walk-in is stuffed with pillows and blankets and toys these days. Henrik gets up and opens the door gently. The wood finds tucked-in legs quickly and Henrik tries to slip into the closet without waking his little brother too abruptly, but the slightest change in environment has awoken every one of Jameson's fine senses, and his eyes flash open, glittering in the darkness. He leaps to his knees and curls back against the wall of the closet, swirling into himself, clutching his knife in one hand and his sock puppet in the other. Chase's daughter gave it to him because she said she didn't like it anymore, but Uncle Jameson might. She had said this as she sat down abruptly in his lap, and Jameson had flinched so hard Chase shouted, sure that Izzy was about to be slapped or shoved off. Jameson had just gone stiff and allowed his niece to slump back cheerfully against his chest. Chase heaved this huge sigh of relief and come over to pat Jameson's head, and Izzy had held his scarred white hands and pressed the sock puppet into them, and Jameson accepted it.

Jameson growls an exhale of air at him, one of the two warning noises he's capable of making. Henrik holds his hands out and crouches gently down to his level, murmuring his name. Jameson relaxes. He's smart and he knows a friendly face even when he's spooked. Henrik reaches out to brush his fingers through the long hair growing towards the back of his neck and Jameson sighs, closing his eyes, letting his head drift back against his hand.

“Poor tired bud,” says Henrik.

“He was playing all violent with his toys again,” reports Chase dutifully, getting up and grabbing the first shirt he sees from above Henrik's head, stripping his sleep shirt off and changing right there, heading back towards his drawers for boxers and pants. “Trying to tear that one stuffed cat up. He hates the fucking thing but he'll never let me take it from him.”

Jamie whines wearily and goes pawing for the cat in the darkness, reaching around until Henrik finds it and presses it into his hand. He's lived most of his life the way that fighting dogs do, tied up and beat til it made him violent and agonized, and even now he has to have something to bite. He doesn't mean to. He just gets upset. He bit Marvin once, dog's teeth digging into venison. The shock on his face was almost funny, but the despair in Jameson's was not.

Jameson buries his face in the cat stuffy and huffs distressed air out, pulling at his clothes. The small box of the closet is a comforting cage but he never feels safe.

“It's okay, puppy,” soothes Chase.

“Don't call him that,” snaps Henrik.

“Well, it calms him down.”

“I don't care, you're not Anti, don't call him puppy.”

“Is everything okay, Schneep?”

He's just a fish. His big mouth gapes open. He's stupid and ugly and he can't breathe air.

“Fine,” he says, and pulls Jameson in for a hug. Jamie whimpers again and puts his chin down on his shoulder. His teeth are very close to Henrik's face, but he knows that he won't bite. He's trying his best. Dogs shouldn't be treated the way he was treated, people even less so. Raccoon fingers come to stroke at the back of Jameson's head. They are a warm mismatched family in the darkness. Jameson's back gets wet with tears, but he doesn't say anything about it, and Chase, no matter how well his eyes see in the dark, does not notice.

“I lost my job,” says Henrik three days later at the kitchen table.

An abrupt silence pierces the table the same way his knife is piercing chicken cordon bleu. Fish, as it turns out, will eat just about anything. He saws at his chicken, his pinprick eyes fascinated by the thin yellow flesh sliding off it as he tears.

He sticks a piece of chicken in his mouth and chews.

“At the hospital?” asks Jackie. “You lost your job at the hospital? With Nadia, with the boss that you liked?”

“She's the hospital coordinator,” says Henrik.

“But it wasn't her decision.” Jackie's talons are grasping at straws. Henrik's surprised he's even managed to get this close to the water where he's swimming. He feels the little silver fish turn its golden eyes up to see the bird, but it's barely staying in the air and its presence is no longer comforting like it once was. He wonders if one day the albatross will just crash into the water with him, and he'll be the one trying to keep its head up while it drowns. “She wouldn't do that to you. She's the one who worked with you. Let you have two whole months to have a break, go to therapy... she wouldn't do that to you.”

“She did what she felt she had to,” says Henrik softly. “I'm a liability.”

“Hold everything, slow down, slow down,” demands Marvin beside him, and he feels his big brother's hand come to press down on his thigh, squeezing to make sure he's still there, in one piece, beside him. “Schneep, tell us what happened.”

Henrik glances over shyly. Marvin's eyes used to be blue, but these days Henrik thinks they're a deep, dopey brown, warm but shy, prey's eyes. Always trying to figure everything out, all careful, all timid, trying to find all the answers to make anything make sense to him anymore. But nothing ever does, so Marvin keeps hiding in the trees. The cat mask is a joke and Henrik knows it. Marvin is a deer.

“They can't just fire you!” spits Chase, furious on the other side of the table, his face turning red with grief. Henrik imagines grey and black fur all puffed up. “That's discrimination because of your disability! It's illegal!”

“I can't do my job anymore.” Henrik shrugs his shoulders. Shakes his head. He can't cry over it anymore. The last three days have had too many tears already. “My hands... most surgeons are done by the time they're forty, fifty, maybe. I just took an extra ten years early. Anti took an extra ten years early.”

Everyone is staring at him. Everyone is staring at the gaps in his scales. Everyone is staring at the fish-hook jammed down his throat. Everyone is staring at his shaking fins. He wants to be sick. Can fish vomit?

“You had a bad episode or something at work?” asks Marvin frailly. Yeah, that's a deer, a deer sitting next to him, using its hooves to pick at its food. The image almost makes him laugh in Marvin's elongated face. Henrik thinks he used to be something else, maybe a lion or a bird of paradise, but these days – nah, Henrik can see the spots along his legs and the antlers, getting loose the closer winter gets. His brother is a deer these days and he just wants to run away to the forest and hide for the rest of his life. He hasn't touched his chicken, just nibbled at the carrots Chase cooked to go along with them.

“Yeah,” says Henrik. “Yeah. In the middle of a surgery. Open heart. The blood all turned so much redder than it had been... and I was just a fish in the Nile when the water changed, you know, I was just... couldn't take it all of a sudden. Took my instruments right out of the body and tore my mask off and threw up in the trash can. All the nurses looking at me. Sick of dealing with my breakdowns. They called another doctor up at four in the morning and he came in and finished it. Then Nadia takes me back to her office... not even sorry, you know, put on her tough coordinator act, or maybe it wasn't an act, and she was sick of me too... They gave me a fair chance. All the accommodations they could. Let me have my nice long break. I just can't do it anymore. I can't. I'm not a doctor now.”

He is getting up from the table before he's registered his own actions, his eyes burning. Chase is talking too loud about how she can't do that, you love your job, you're so good at what you do, and Marvin is reaching out for his hand like he's offering half of his sugar cube to bring him to sit back down, while Jackie just stares at his plate, far-sighted, far-sighted and lost. Henrik tears away from Marvin's fingers and swims towards the stairs, panting water and blood, exhausted, distressed, pushed endlessly back by the waves. He hears the small chirping barks of Jameson clicking his tongue after him and he's grateful that the little one is, for once, clear-headed, but he isn't about to turn around. Too many eyes. Too many eyes and too many open bodies, and he's just a fish, a fish swimming up against the tide, and soon he'll be a dead fish, cause even though his therapist tells him shortened life outlook is a symptom of his PTSD, he's felt enough lives drain away beneath his hands to sense when sailors are opening up their nets, and there's nobody left in the water beside him. Just deer and raccoons trying to stay in the shade on the shore, and birds too exhausted to keep flying, lost above the water.

And one lone pitbull swimming out into the ocean after him.

He wakes up that night to movement in his bed.

“Drunk again?” he mumbles. “What?”

Someone blows air on his face.

Henrik startles, pushing at the body above his own, shoving its shoulders away. “Chase! Oh.”

It's not Chase. Jamie rubs at his slim shoulders in mock protest, screwing up his face all sweet and offended.

“Ow, ow,” whine his hands, and he flops dramatically back onto the bed. “Mean doctor.”

Henrik snorts despite himself and shoves him with his foot before getting up to crawl over him. “Little terror,” he signs back, grabbing his hands and pulling him sitting up. He fits Jameson's chin in his hands and tilts his face from side-to-side. Jameson, all too used to examinations, lets himself be turned about, gazing at the ceiling.

“Your color's up a little. Feeling clear tonight, then?”

“Feel quite alright. Back and forth a little. Ping pong ball.”

Henrik chuckles, putting a hand on his own forehead as he feels the exhaustion swimming back towards him. He sinks back against his headboard, drawing his blankets around him.

“You scared me jumping on me like that,” mumbles Henrik, reaching out to touch his arm. He's maybe a black and white pittie, Henrik thinks. Nice dogs, really. Just got a bad reputation. Just got used for bad things. Nice blue eyes. Clever, friendly breed, a lot smarter than fish, and a lot tougher, too. Henrik halfway expects Jameson to dart forward and lick his face. They'd have to have another conversation about boundaries. Maybe if Henrik used German Jamie would understand him better.

His little brother breathes out a happy little sigh and flops onto the bed beside him, clutching Marvin's laptop to his chest as he gets comfortable.

“Well, make yourself at home,” grumbles Henrik, trying not to be endeared. “Little terror. What are you doing, anyway? I thought you'd been sleeping in Chase's closet.”

Jameson's mouth turns down. He pauses, shrugs, holds up a hand. “Drunk.”

“Ah, fuck,” sighs Henrik, glancing at the door. “He scare you?”

“Loud,” says Jameson.

“At least he's home.”

Jameson nods. Forgiving. One of a myriad of jumbled traits Henrik's noticed on him in the five weeks since he came home to them.

He wishes there was nothing to forgive. He wishes they had made a better home for him.

“Hey, pet me,” Jameson insists, sitting up and leaning over him. Henrik pushes him gently back down.

“Hey, what we did say about this word –  'pet?'”

Jameson simpers wearily, squirming unhappily, but he doesn't whine at all today. Henrik knows how hard he's trying to get this all right. He never wanted to be anybody's dog and he wants to be alright now. Henrik sees it in him, moment to moment, in the moments when the short, barking signs turn into sudden eloquence, when he gets stuck staring out the window and his eyes go distant, when he watches, careful, the way that everybody else speaks and acts and goes about their day, trying to recreate the understanding that once existed in his head – how to be, if not normal, then at least functionally typical. Trying to remember all the rules that come naturally to everybody else.

“I'm sorry,” says Jameson clearly. “No demand. No pet. Would you hold me for a little while, Henrik?”

Henrik's heart pangs at the carefully selected little sign name – healing. H. H-healing. Henrik. Smooth and sliding. He shivers. Not much of a healer now.

But he can hold him, at least.

He lets Jameson settle down on his chest and wraps his arms around him, rubbing his back through the smooth fabric of his big blue sleep shirt. Jameson sighs, delighted, and puts Marvin's computer on Henrik's stomach, hitting play on a video.

Henrik drifts sleepily on his pillow while soft music plays from a demonstration of a man making a big boat sculpture entirely out of chocolate. He feels Jamie pat his stomach eagerly a couple times, when the man does something really clever, like molding a little crest for the head of the ship or getting out the edible spray-paint.

Shouting echoes up from downstairs and Jameson stills.

“You just don't want to admit there's something wrong with him – ”

“Don't you dare say that!”

“Neurologically wrong, Marvin, he needs to see a specialist!”

“He likes the lady he has right now, we are not moving him around anymore! You know how hard it is for him to trust anybody! His brain is fine, Jackie, he's just traumatized! Why is that so hard for you to grasp?”

Henrik rubs at his face, exhausted.

“How about I will grab you headphones, Jameson?” His voice is a fish croak. He feels sticky purple blood on his chest.

JJ shakes his head, staring at his video. The man is adding an octopus to the top of the ship. A big chocolate octopus. Do octopus eat fish? Henrik can't remember. Squid do, don't they? Probably octopuses are just the same.

“This,” says Jameson, pointing at the video. “Want to do this.”

Henrik pauses, glancing between him and the big chocolate octopus. “What – make chocolate?”

Jameson digs his chin into Henrik's chest, humming airily. “Carve. Carve things. But not... sometimes with Anti we... but I don't mean like that. I like how someone can take a dead piece of wood or a big, melty slab of chocolate, and then turn it into something so intricate and lovely. Who doesn't want an octopus sculpture? A chocolate octopus sculpture! Tearing the boat apart like that. No more sailors.”

“I don't understand why now, of all times, you want to get into this!” Jackie sounds close to tears. No where to land. It's storming out. “And now poor fucking Schneep is out of a job, and what the hell is he going to do? He loved being a surgeon better than anything and he's probably upstairs right now hurting, with nobody to comfort him, but you want to get into a fucking fight?”

“You never listen to me unless we're yelling!” He only says it because he's afraid. Henrik can hear his deer's feet retreating away from Jackie. Marvin made timid... who would have thought he'd see the day? “Besides, let's not pretend you have the first idea how to comfort Henrik anymore!”

“Well, at least I don't avoid everyone in the whole goddamn house!”

“That is not what's happening!”

“Oh, please – ”

“Never listen to me at all – ”

“You're the one who doesn't ever work with me!”

“Don't trust me with any of the problems in the house anymore!”

“I'm not the problem here – ”

“Everything is falling apart and you – ”

Something flames like a coal fire in Henrik's chest. Suddenly he is crying, covering his ears with his hands, wrapping his body tighter around Jameson's, still rubbing, gentle, at his soft back, clutching his brother to his chest, sobbing on his bed at one in the morning, because nothing is right, and nothing is going to be right, and he's tired of being alive.

Jameson picks softly at his beard, scratching his fingers through it. Someone is throwing up in the bathroom across the hall.

“Why will nothing get better, Jamie?” His golden, pinprick eyes are weeping salt into the great black ocean around him. He is limp on the waves that throw him around and around in the water, bleeding purple, ill with the motion of it, too tired to keep on, and the worst part is he knows fish are too fucking stupid to get the metaphor of any of it, and there is no less glorious death to be imagined than the dumb staring up at the sun as the corpse floats bloatedly to the surface of the ocean and the seagulls swoop down for a snack. “Why will none of this ever get any better?”

“I'm better,” say Jameson's scarred white hands. “I'm better.”

Henrik buries his face in his shoulder. He's so fucking good. What the hell did he do to deserve a friend like this? “Yeah,” he manages, frail as fish bones. “You are.”

Jameson breathes that breathy hum against his head, gone warm and still and patient in his arms. Henrik holds him closer and closer, hiding in his chest, soothed by the feel of the fabric beneath his hands. Just keep rubbing his back. Just keep rubbing his back. Just keep rubbing his back. Soft and steady across his palms. Warm heartbeat beneath his fingers. Maybe Jameson didn't come in here for his own reassurance. Good dog, better man. He thinks he might be a man again too. He thinks Jameson might be holding him in the water, his head pressed against his shoulder, kicking his legs to keep them both afloat, Henrik limp in his arms as he swims. He sees them both thrown by the waves, wrapped around each other, heads down and close and steady and soaked, brothers in misery, brothers on the ocean waves, while fur and scales fall away.

Jameson draws away from him slowly. Henrik whimpers and Jameson shushes him, clutching his hand for a moment before he darts away, returning just a moment later and pressing cool wood into Henrik's hands, Henrik's shaking, tremulous, tormented hands.

“It's a fish,” Jameson tells him. “I made it for you.”

His fingers encircle the proud round body of the wooden koi. Henrik stills, sniffling, running his hands over it before it ever reaches his eyes.

The thin texture of scales fill the soft whorls of his fingerprints. A delicate curve enters his palms, moving through him, forward through his hands. Little paddles of fins interrupt the sure circle of the body, and the face, short-whiskered, unpainted, is perfectly smooth, perfectly smooth. Jameson presses it against his wrists and holds it up inside his brother's hands, so Henrik can see the softness of the wide mouth, the wise wide eyes, the calmness of it, the still water of it, the koi fish.

“Mein Gott,” whispers Henrik. “You made this yourself? With your little blade? But how did you know?”

“Know?” asks Jameson. “What did I know?”

Henrik stares between him and the fish. “Nothing,” he murmurs. “Never mind. Hell, Jamie, it's beautiful, it's really beautiful. Your hands must be steady.”

No one ever seems to hear him through the water. Sometimes he can't tell if the things he hears are reaching anyone. He runs his fingers over the indent ears of the fish. The koi can hear him. The koi did hear him. Jameson squeezes his hands.

Jackie and Marvin have, at last, had the good sense to take their argument outside, and the house is still again, leaving only the faint reverb of their braying and crying to slink its way into their home.

“It won't last long though,” murmurs Henrik. “Always another storm on the horizon. I am no longer strong enough to stand through them.”

Jameson puts his hand on his brother's heart, just for a moment, and then draws back to speak.

A wild solid thud slams through the air and they both jolt. Henrik grabs Jameson's shoulders, sitting up, staring at the door.

Chase shrieks, a sob thrashing through it, and bursts into tears on the other side of the door.

“Chase!” cries Henrik, leaping out of bed and darting into the hall. The bathroom glows gold from the cracks beneath the door and his hands are yanking it open with enough force that he busts the shitty press-in lock of the handle in one go.

Chase is wailing at his feet, hot tears coursing down his face, curled in on himself and clutching his head. Blood seeps from beneath his fingers and smears the side of the counter beneath the mirror.

Henrik falls to his knees beside him and grabs his hands away from his skull, sending Chase into writhing, rocking himself back and forth on the floor. His face has drained of all color, except the bright red of his mouth where he bites down on it.

“What happened, what happened?”

“Schneep!” he screams, trying to clutch at his head again. “F-fell, hit my head, hit my head!”

“And hard, too,” murmurs Henrik, taking his chin in his hands and pulling him closer to gaze at the burst of blood at the top of his forehead. “Chase! Why won't you stop getting so drunk you can't walk through the bathroom? Fuck, I – I can't – hell, okay, okay, Jamie, can you get me my first aid kit?”

“Where?”

“Beneath my bed, bottom left corner,” he replies, clipped and sure, stroking his thumb down Chase's cheek.

“It just hurts!” sobs Chase, rocking himself. Back and forth, back and forth. Swaying on the branches of the trees.

“You really got it at just the wrong angle.”

“Not my head,” chokes Chase, hugging his own shoulders.

Henrik's eyes sting again. “I know. I know.”

“I can't do this anymore, Schneep, fuck, I'm sorry, I can't do this, I can't go on.”

His hands scrabble for the bottle watching them from the top of the counter. In a sudden burst of fury, Henrik leaves Chase on the floor, gets to his feet, and picks the bottle up in his hand. A heavy square of poison clutched in his palm. He turns his body like a baseball player pitching and flings the bottle at the wall above the bathtub.

The glass glows and glitters as it shatters into the body of the tub, spilling cold gold alcohol all over the floor and the porcelain. Chase draws back and wraps his arms around himself, moaning as Henrik gets back to his knees beside him, breathing hard.

“Have to stop trying to do it alone,” mumbles Henrik, reaching back to get the first aid kit from Jamie.

“Henrik,” signs Jamie softly. “Shaking.”

Spasming might be more accurate. His hands flicker and rock, tremble and sway, shaking so hard he can barely clutch fists.

He shoves at the clasp of the box until it falters open, hands scrambling for butterfly bandages.

“Have to stop trying to do it alone... have to stop trying to do it on your own...”

Clean red blood wells across the ridges of Chase's fingers. Henrik shudders. He sees knives and open wounds seeping puss and he closes his eyes, panting, trying to get his fingers to pinch the bandages.

Jameson's scarred hands come down to help him hold them.

They pull Chase's hands away from his head and unfurl the first bandage. Jameson mops blood away and then moves Henrik's fingers with his own, pressing the plastic over the small, weeping cut.

Marvin and Jackie are louder through the window of the bathroom.

“Why don't you act like my friend anymore? I don't understand what's happening to you. You feel like you're a hundred miles above me, and I'm just stuck on the ground.”

“Marvin – I – I never meant to push you away...”

“Ohh, it stings, it stings,” groans Chase, pushing the heels of his palms against his face.

“We'll get it all closed up,” whispers Henrik, rubbing at his back. “Good doctor's here.”

Jameson smiles gently at him and helps to undo another bandage. He doesn't really need his help, Henrik realizes belatedly. They press a second bandaid over the cut to keep it together. Henrik sits back on his heels.

“I know you're trying to protect us... trying so hard to protect us, to take care of us, but Jackie, I just want... I just want...”

“Fuck, Marvin...”

For long minutes, Henrik rubs Chase's back and talks to him. Jameson swathes the blood away, rubs stinging disinfectant over the wound, replaces it with butterflies, and, finally, adds a great patch bandage to cover the wound. Chase has gone quiet, holding Henrik's hand, his eyes closed, his face getting its color back. Jackie and Marvin murmur outside the house.

“Garbage kid,” says Henrik.

Chase's mouth flickers fondly. “Just a raccoon man, aren't I, Schneep?”

“Some days,” agrees Henrik. “Not all. Some days you're just my Chase. Head out of the goddamn dumpster.”

“Think I need to den up for the night,” Chase mumbles. “Or I'll end up with raccoon circles on my eyes and then we'll be back at the beginning. Will you... will you help me get up?”

Jameson and Henrik grab his arms, steadying him, and together they haul him to his feet and hold his hands, leading him back towards his bedroom.

“I'm sorry I'm so dumb,” says Chase. “And I'm never what you need me to be.”

“You are what I need you to be,” says Henrik.

And Chase stares up at him like he needs more explanation, but what do you say to that? He doesn't know how to tell him the truth of it. He believes it about Chase, but not about himself, so how does he speak it out loud, and face the hypocrisy always tearing him apart?

“You don't have to be anything other than who you are,” says Jameson. “Because I don't love you because of what you provide. I don't love you because you saved me, though you did. I don't love you because you are what I expected you to be or because you do what you promised the world you could. So when you tell me you can no longer take care of me, or you are no longer allowed to look after your children, or your hands can no longer take hearts apart and put them back together, well, I'll still love you both just fine anyway.”

And there it is, tangible in the air – the wisdom often sleeping behind long months of fear and uncertainty, the intelligence, the way that love is always waiting to speak through his little brother, his warm, clever little brother, the pitbull, the man.

“I love you because love asks only for love in return. And sometimes, even then, it can wait for the day that you'll know how to love me better.”

Chase reaches up and brushes his thumb over Jameson's cheek. His little brother tilts his head softly into his palm, closing his eyes, and he trusts him, and Chase's fingers tremble to be holding that much warmth against their skin.

“I do love you,” says Chase, very low, very true. “So much. And I will, someday, love you better.”

“Better and better with each day that passes,” answers Jameson. “Besides, Henrik will smash all your bottles next time you try to get drunk anyway.”

Chase closes his eyes, laughing, and Henrik slaps Jameson's shoulder. For a moment, even as he laughs, the pain of everything flashes over Chase's face, and then it is gone again, and, situated between his brothers, he falls asleep and does not dream, except of a quiet beach, and his white feet digging into the sand of it, watching the tide recede.

Jameson leans over to kiss Henrik's head and he chuckles, pulling his little brother to his chest, not sure why he's crying.

“Wrong?” asks Jameson. “Bad, what is?”

“I don't know,” says Henrik. “Maybe nothing. Just overwhelmed.”

“Time for bed,” Jameson insists, tugging on his sleeve.

Henrik runs his eyes over him, sighing through his nose, his eyebrows raising with a challenge. “Well... what do you think about trying your own bed tonight, huh?”

A blush floods Jameson's cheeks and he looks away, biting on the nail of his thumb.

“It's okay if you're not ready,” Henrik says. “But I'd like to see you try.”

“Can't do it alone,” says Jameson. “Afraid.”

“I'll come in there and sleep with you, if you want.”

“Really?”

Henrik nods, a smile curving on his tired mouth.

Jameson plays with his hands. “Just let me get my stuffies and the lightbox.”

“Computer,” laughs Henrik. “It's a computer.” He signs it.

“Computer,” Jamie signs back exaggeratedly, rolling his eyes, and Henrik beams to see him teasing. But there's one more storm he has to ride through tonight, cause who else is going to make it all better?

“I'll just go check on Jackie and Marv,” he says, getting up. “Meet you in your room.”

“Tell 'shhhh,'” says Jameson, ducking towards Chase's closet for his kitten and finger puppets. “Loud, angry.”

“Not at you, though,” says Henrik softly, pausing in the doorway. “Not at you.”

“Yes,” answers Jameson's hands. “I know. Not even at each other.”

“Not at each other? Who were they yelling at?”

Jameson shrugs. “Go look,” he says, disappearing behind the door.

Henrik swims down the stairs, feeling his fins trail behind him. He's a fish. He's a big ugly fish. Or maybe a nice wooden koi, warm and lovely between Jameson's hands. But he's still a fish and the albatross can't reach him and the deer is hiding in the forest, because that's the way it's been for long, long months now.

He opens the door of the house.

Before the roots of the forest dig their way into the dark, steady earth, Marvin kneels in the grass, his head held up, staring at the stars.

Jackie is laid across his lap, pressed to his chest, resting in his arms.

Antlers of deer, when they come out from the trees, make nesting place for birds.

Arms of brothers make spaces for each other.

And Jackie has found a place to land.

Marvin turns, suddenly, alerted to his presence, and today, he does not turn his head away, does not duck his face down, does not retreat to the trees.

“I love you,” he mouths in the light of the moon.

Henrik smiles despite himself, alight with tears.

“I love you too,” he signs back.

“Ready for bed?”

“Almost, H-healing.”

“What are you doing?”

“Finishing my video,” says Jameson happily, reaching out for him, so brothers can sleep on the same piece of driftwood, and one day make it back to land, even if it's a very different shore from the one they were cast off from.

“Did he finish the octopus?” asks Henrik sleepily, sinking down into the bed beside him. One of Jameson's stuffies squeaks on the mattress beneath him.

“Yes,” answers Jameson. He closes the lid and lies down beside Henrik, presenting the wooden koi again, putting it on the bed between them and moving it towards their heads like it's swimming. “And then, when he was done, he squished the arms of the octopus together.”

“Did it crush the boat?”

“It crushed the boat, and it drowned all the sailors. But you know what, I think it's okay, cause they were pirates, so they probably did bad things to people and locked men up like dogs in the little box – the brig, yeah? Well, now they're gone, and they can't hurt anybody, and the ship will go down in chunks, so there's no one to hurt the fish, and they have places to hide now, when the tide is too strong and they can't swim anymore, and I bet a whole family of them can stay safe in the remains of what once was.”

[orlha]

Title: Of Fires and Winds Fandom: Naruto Genre: Fantasy Ship: Gen Characters: Shiranui Genma, Haruno Sakura Triggers(s): -- Additional Tags: God Au, Phoenix!Genma, Dragon!Sakura Rating: T (for violence) Summary: The Shiranui were well known as assassins even before they joined Konoha — silent like a ghost, unnoticeable until they strike. The Shiranui, like their sister clan the Haruno, kept up this facade even though it was far from the truth and like all clan secrets, no one save for the members of blood knew the truth. That the fact the Shiranui and Haruno housed the soul Dragon and the Phoenix sounded fantastically impossible.For Genma Week: Shiranui Clan Notes: For #GenmaWeek2019. I accidentally misread it as 13 July and posted it up 2 days early on ao3. OOPS. 不知火 Shiranui means Ghost fire in Japanese. Which is how the phoenix idea came about. Also separately it means don't fear fire.Haruno 歯 Ha - tooth.  流 Ru - exile.  I felt the tooth could mean an animal or dragon. Dragon in exile. 

Anyway, For Shiranui Clan prompt.

Ao3

The Shiranui were well known as assassins even before they joined Konoha — silent like a ghost, unnoticeable until they strike. The Shiranui, like their sister clan the Haruno, kept up this facade even though it was far from the truth and like all clan secrets, no one save for the members of blood knew the truth. That the fact the Shiranui and Haruno housed the soul Dragon and the Phoenix sounded fantastically impossible.

Genma had never put any stock into the story that was handed down verbally. Who would believe a prophecy that predated even the foundation of Konoha?

Each Shiranui and Haruno lighting way for the Dragon and Phoenix to be reunited in a village far beyond theirs, in a time after the moon turns and stars change, woken to defeat a Good that turned evil.

He should have known when they started talking about the moon, the fucking moon princess, and then the urge to surge forward. Genma had felt the power build in his chest, the heat lighting up from his neck and down his back. A part of him was waking up, memories that he couldn’t have possibly experienced, landscapes of great valleys and rolling cities floating in the sky.

Each Shiranui member kneeling before him as he leaps past, higher and higher.

✥.✥.✥

For starting a war between the Heavens and Earth, I sentence you two to…

✥.✥.✥

Genma jumps.

He’s burning.

Flying.

Changing.

Waking.

He’s not a man, not a Konoha shinobi anymore. He’s not Shiranui Genma, not only that, at least.

His wings of fire are gliding through the mist that Kagura conjures, his sword burns through the bones she shoots out like they aren’t bones of death. He hears a roar to his right, the sound of waves shattering against the rocks and knows she’s awoken too.

Sakura catches up with him, her hair no longer the bright pink she’s recognized for. Her claws lengthening as the shimmering silver scales appear across her skin then bursting into a shower of scales, her body solidifying and lengthening, soaring into the air. Her tail whips in the air and he feels the nudge of her heart beating beside his own

They soar pass their human comrades, landing heavily before the human once called Kagura.

“Yield, Kagura,” he says, voice deeper than it was when he was human.

“The chakra rightfully belongs to me. I will yield when it has been returned to me,” she sneers.

Sakura huffs and without waiting for Kagura to finish, she lunges. Kagura catches her snout then drops her snout to deflect Genma’s sword but Sakura’s tail swings, slamming into Kagura hard. The ground cracks beneath her claws, the weight of her tail splitting deep crevices in the earth. Kagura thrown backwards.

“Yield!” Sakura repeats to Kagura who stands with wide eyes. The sound of her roar reverberating across the plains.

Behind him, the murmur of the United Shinobi Force grows.

He’ll never be one of them again, Genma realises. They’re no longer humans now. The power pulsing through them isn’t chakra, it’s something much, much older.

✥.✥.✥

A hundred thousand and one years of sleep. As humans you’ll walk the earth and learn to be one of them…

✥.✥.✥

He draws his wings. The fire in his blood ignites and in a single wingbeat, fire flares out in a rolling wave towards Kagura.

“You pesky humans should learn to die!” She screams, summoning a wall of bones to shield herself. “I am a Goddess!”

✥.✥.✥

... learn to love like they do and protect them. War is not something us Gods should make simply because we have been idle.

✥.✥.✥

The fire sears through her wall of bones, through her clothes, wreathing around her.

“You think you’re a goddess, yet you kill the same ones you should be protecting,” Sakura whispers into her ear and thrusts her talon deep into Kagura’s chest.

Sakura holds Kagura down as the fire swallows them. Kagura screams, hands digging into Sakura’s limbs but her fingers are no match for Dragon God’s scales. Burning, regenerating until there’s nothing left except ashes.

And when it’s all done, when the fight is over and the so-called Moon Goddess is truly dead, they know it’s time to return to being human.

He is Genma, and more. She is Sakura, and more.

Without words spoken, they both know they can never be just humans. They have woken from a hundred thousand and one year slumber to a world without any other gods.

What had happened to them? Where had they gone?

He raises a hand, fire dancing across his skin, never dissipating.

“My lord.” A Shiranui and a Haruno kneels before him. He recognizes the men. Shinobis that Genma had worked close with, been close friends with.

“The prophecy,” Shiranui Hokuto continues. “There is the last part of the prophecy. The final legacy of the Shiranui and Haruno Clan.”

Haruno Touya raises his head, his green eyes almost luminous in his firelight.

“Why is this land called the Hidden continents?”

✥.✥.✥

And when you wake, you will understand.

✥.✥.✥

[silverfootstepswrites]

title Nesting (2/2) summary I like my men how I like my coffee. On fire. Hot. pairing itasaku

Part 1/2 (here)

Winter seeped into every crevice and under every door. Icicles hung from the bottoms of tree branches. Twinkling lovely and sharp in the morning sun.

Itachi exhaled. Steam puffing from his nostrils. He felt Sakura shift against him. His chin resting against the soft spot on her throat. Where he cold feel the heat swell and fade with each of her deep breaths.

Deep inside the cave, winter's cruelty barely touched them. The entrance to the outside world was well-insulated. And as a gesture of goodwill, Naruto had cast a cloaking charm over it on his way out. It had been a month since the departure of the human visitors. And while they had been loud, the joy lighting up Sakura's eyes had kept him from complaining.

But now that they were gone, there were no distractions. As a dragon, Itachi was supremely good at hoarding gold. The only thing he was better at guarding jealousy was his mate's attention.

In the first spring of their courtship, he had spent the entire season razing the valleys to scare off any potential rivals.

"Which is stupid, Itachi. Who else would I look at?" she drawled. All while lounging on a sun-warmed rock, making it clear that she had absolutely no intention of stopping him.

And then he spent the summer attacking the hoards of any rivals who were still foolish enough to stick around. It was an unorthodox approach. But it was fine with Sakura, who hated the idea of him pillaging human settlements. Those poor, soft little things who couldn't defend themselves against a single of his talons, much less his molten breath. She watched him take off into the skies in the early morning, only returning late and night with his jaws filled with gold and silver. Then the nights he spent burrowing into the side of a mountain, widening the caves water had long ago carved into the stone until they had a cozy little nest.

In her human form, Sakura watched him piling up the gold to fill one of the huge chambers. Her chin in her hands as he swept the goblets and coins together.

"What's up with dragons and hoards anyway?" she wondered out loud. Her bare feet swinging back and forth.

Itachi looked over his shoulder at her. Puffs of smoke leaking out of his nostrils.

"I'm not sure. It just feels right," he answered.

Sakura tilted her head. "Maybe you just like pretty things," she suggested.

He eyed her for a little while longer. His pupils dilating. "Clearly," he huffed before turning back to his task. The skin around his throat flushed red as she laughed.

And now, about a year later, Itachi coiled around Sakura a little tighter. He felt her tail wind around his, squeezing just a little. The rumbles of his breaths came out almost as a purr. Although their cozy home stayed warm, the cool weather outside made them lethargic. In fact, they likely would have been in full hibernation if not for something new. More accurately, three new somethings.

"Mama! Papa!"

A shriek pierced the quiet. As if on cue, two other squeals filled the air.

"Papa! Mama! Hungryyy!"

"Hungry, Papa! Food!"

Itachi sighed. He flexed his wing to cover his head as the three whelps wandered into the inner chamber. They clambered up onto their joined tails. Little teeth nipping and nudging.

"Papa! Food!" they wailed.

Itachi wondered if this was worse than being sealed underground for hundreds of years in hot magma. And for a brief moment, he couldn't really decide which he preferred. The magma was quiet, at least.

A growl rolled up Sakura's throat as she sat up. Her gaze flickered around the cave. She counted to make sure that all three were there. And then she gathered them in front of her with a sweep of her clawed hand. They sat obediently, still whining and flicking their skinny little tails. She shook her head, her iridescent scales glittering in the torch light.

"I guess it's time to go hunting," she muttered. Itachi grunted in response. He had gone the last time. He wasn't going to protest.

"I wanted to stretch my legs anyway," she added. And then she began to shimmer with a soft red light. With a flash, her huge body condensed. Scales receding, turning to smooth flesh. The horns on her head shrunk, disappearing into the hair that sprouted from her scalp. She stood in front of the three whelps, who were now the same size as their mother. They sniffed cautiously at her, as if to check that this strange creature was still their mother. Sakura moved around Itachi to the other end of the chamber. Where there sat actual pieces of human furniture. A grand armoire with gilded handles. A big mirror. Even a chair and matching ottoman. It had taken them a while to gather the furniture just to Sakura's liking, But she had insisted because she liked to be comfortable when in this smaller form too.

As Sakura opened up the armoire, the whelps trailed after her. They sniffed at the different dresses and cloaks hanging inside. There was also a chest plate propped up in the corner of the armoire, along with a battered helmet.

"I guess I'll head into town too while I'm out. Do you need anything, Itachi?" Sakura called, pulling on her warmest clothes. As she buttoned up her fur-lined cloak, one of the whelps poked his head underneath, nudging her.

"Mama, you're all little now," he observed. His brothers nodded. Laughing, Sakura smoothed her hands down the sides of his neck. Tickling his little chin. He purred, wiggling his tail.

"Yes, baby. And one day you'll be able to do this too," Sakura cooed in return.

"Me too! Me too!" his siblings chorused. Sakura smiled as she indulged them. When she pulled on her boots, three pairs of eyes stared in wonder at her wiggling fingers as she patted each of them again.

"Alright, darlings. Be very good for Papa," Sakura said. She didn't move until all three of the dragon young nodded at her. She then walked up to Itachi, who absolutely towered over her in this form. She wrapped her arms around his snout. He nuzzled against her. Then, very slowly, one of his eyes cracked open. The iris brilliant and sharp like a polished ruby. She watched the way his slit-shaped pupil dilated as he stared right back at her.

"Be right back," she whispered. When she kissed his scales, his eye drifted shut again.

As Sakura climbed up the piles of gold, up toward the surface, the whelps began trailing after her. Their dull claws scrabbled against the treasure, sending goblets and trophies clattering onto the stone. Eyes still closed, Itachi reached out. He swept his arm around the young, squishing them against his chest.

"Go back to sleep. Mama will come back faster if you do," he ordered, ignoring their squirming. It didn't take long for them to give up. They wouldn't have the strength to beat him for at least a few decades. They balled up against his chest, dozing off. Their little snouts twitching as they dreamt. And Itachi wrapped his tail around them, forming a protective circle. Black scales glittering in the dim cave as he let out another steaming breath.

Sakura returned a little before sundown. She pried the wooden door open. One hand cupped around her mouth as she called down the tunnel. A deep grumble answered her. And in the darkness, two crimson eyes glowed. The ground trembled a little as Itachi crawled out to meet her. There was a pouch sitting at her feet. Sakura untied it to reveal a huge amount of gold coins. It would be a nice addition to their ever-expanding hoard. But it certainly wasn't big enough to hold enough food for their little brood. 

Itachi's eyes narrowed when he smelled something. And when he stuck his head out into the cold, he saw the carcass of an enormous moose. Blood pooling into the snow. She hefted her axe over her shoulder, the blade shining wetly.

"Found him right by that ravine!" Sakura told him, grinning proudly. "Took him down in three chops!"

Itachi closed his teeth around the fallen beast. He took careful steps backwards, dragging the moose underground. Sakura followed after him, taking care to conceal and seal the entrance to their home.

The smell of fresh blood drew the whelps. They clambered over one another, whining. Smoke huffed out of Itachi's nostrils as he snapped his jaws at them. Teeth gleaming red. The whelps fell silent.

"Your mama worked hard to bring you this meal. You don't eat until she has the first bite," he growled. And they bent their contrite little heads, eyes averted. Sakura stroked their snouts as she walked past. Further down the tunnels, there was a burst of red light. The flutter of her wings blowing warm air back toward them. And Sakura returned, black talons digging into the packed earth. She bent her neck to tear into the belly of the moose. Guts steaming as they spilled onto the tunnel floor. She ripped off a leg. And only when she took a step back did Itachi nudge their children forward. They pounced on the beast, little teeth digging into the warm flesh.

"You know," Sakura remarked as she lowered the leg to the ground. She rubbed at her mouth with a talon. "I'm not actually hungry."

Itachi leaned in. His forked tongue darted out. Licked the remaining blood from her mouth. "I know. But they have to learn their manners," he answered. Smiling, Sakura nuzzled against the underside of his throat. She could feel the soft heat of his breaths through the plate-like scales, woven together like armor. He nudged her back.

"I suppose you're right, Papa," she purred in return.

[gunhandsam]

"I know Sam survived, would’ve been surprised if he didn’t. No doubt he burrowed himself into one of those little hidey holes in town he knew about and just waited things out.  Knew if he went against Enclave, he’d die just the same as everyone else. Was probably Athalie told him to hide, honestly. His time with the Talon boys? Refined that edge she put on him. Put him on a few choice radars to boot, and he was clever enough to enough to keep hold of his last name. If he hadn’t, that would’ve made things complicated for me. Conflict of interest and all that. Still, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t protective of him. Every so often the Regulators would be tooling up for any and all targets of opportunity, and that meant my son. He was certainly capable of going toe to toe with them, but he was still wreckless. The chances of him coming out clean were fairly low, especially with the garbage he was pounding into his body fogging things up. So they’d have a little mine related accident on the road, maybe roll on a knife in their sleep. That kind of mishap. And to say nothing of the power armored asshole brigade stomping around. But he learned how to avoid them; dig in where their fancy helmets were a hindrance, lure them in where their bulk would weigh them down and peel them open like a can of pork and beans. He always was clever."

"It’s just as well Athalie died. I knew it was only a matter of time before she would piece things together, figure out why I was gone for so long and where I had been going. She would've gut me without a second thought. You ever wonder how Sam can be charming and hospitable one moment, and then there’s that pause. Not very long, blink and you’ll miss it. He’s still smiling, but he’s not looking at you anymore. He’s looking through you. Like the world drops away from you and it’s just you and him, only he’s in front of you and behind you and just off to your side all at once. That’s her taking over. That predator behind the wheel. Kinda what caught my eye about her in the first place. As stupid as it is to not be afraid of anything, fear really didn't exist in her head. That’s what drew me in, all that sheer confidence in herself. And it rubbed off on others, too. Being around her, you felt like she felt. Like she could do all the crazy shit people said she did. But the flip side to that coin was the fear she could instill in others. She didn't even need her gun or her sledgehammer, just one look. One glance, tilt of the head, slight twitch of the brow, even a little sniff from the nostrils, and it’d damn near stop your heart. Even if I had been around often enough, he still would've came out the way he did. He was her son, simple as that. Not sure if he’s got that whole leadership thing, though. But I heard enough about him, saw enough of the aftermath of when he blew through someone’s life, he had the rest of her in his blood. Never knew a woman like her before, and I knew it’d be a matter of time until she offed the right person, got the right kind of attention, until somebody wanted her for themselves. Would I have delivered? I’m not sure. If I tried… she’d probably try to kill me. Likely succeed. And if she didn't and I pulled off the transfer, and he found out? There wouldn't be a single identifiable piece of me or the buyers left. Just a thin red smudge on the floor… and the walls and ceiling. There’s murder, then there’s what those two are capable of. Well, were. Those lessons she taught him? About killing clean, to ensure there’s no suffering? Those are her way of atoning for some damn thing. I don’t know what. I asked her once and she just stared at me. Right fuckin’ through me. I've found myself looking down more than a few muzzles, and that’s what it felt like. Staring right down into the end. I’d sooner punch a deathclaw on the snout than have her look at me like that ever again. And considering she’s dead and all, that won’t be a problem.”

"He probably wants to know where I had been, what I was doing. Why I wasn't there that day, why I wasn't doing what he likely thought I should’ve been doing. Maybe if we meet, I’ll get to tell him. Maybe he’ll plug me through and through. Maybe he won’t even recognize me. That’d be the really interesting scenario. Would he’d be looking for me to settle up, or would he have found something in his life to fill the void I left, leave me long forgotten?"

"Nah, what’d be truly fucking fascinating is if his name came across my desk. Somebody wanting to have a collar fit for him and not putting two and two together and thinking, just for a moment, they’re asking me to rope my son. Real fascinating, that."

The man brushed the crumbs of his meal from his clothes and slid out of the booth seat, dropping a single silver coin on the table. "Sometimes I wonder where he is. I know he’s alive, of course. There’s been a few tales of someone fitting his description, or what he’s capable of, come flitting in my ear. There was some big mess in Illinois that saw damn near an entire town butchered in a way that’d make Caesar’s best and brightness perk right up. Seems a fire started at the gallows and spread through town in all the wrong ways. I heard some talk of a rather strange doorman that clearly wasn't a local working a Reno whore house, as well as some talk of a bounty hunter fond of shotguns around Vegas. Sounds like him. Could be him. Athalie did love her twelve gauge, just as her dad did. Strange thing about her gun? Took a bayonet, about as long as my damn arm. You’re already up close with buckshot, you really gonna stick somebody? Bloodthirsty woman if there ever was one.

But if it is him? Let Sam find me. The whole Mojave is just a time bomb with a tricky timer wired to some sweaty sticks. When the whole thing blows; not if, when, he’ll get pushed right to me. Right to the big bad Bear. Mojave is frontier territory, but here in NCR country? They don’t seem to really like the fast and loose mercenary types. There are rules, order, structure."

"He won’t survive it."

[oraclesoftime]

Futures Known But Unspoken

CHAPTER 24 Trepidation The group dashed down the hill as quickly as their feet could carry them, a pack of riderless wargs chasing after them, their eyes gleaming in the slowly darkening forest. As a handful of the others killed the few wargs that were chasing them, the rest of the group, including the women ran until they met the ledge of the cliff, shoes digging into dirt to stop themselves from falling over. “Up into the trees! All of you, come on!” Gandalf called out, motioning for everyone to start climbing. Lane ran up to the nearest tree, her boots allowing her to scale the first few feet before she managed to grab onto one of the branches. Climbing up and tucking her feet around the branch, she swung down and let her arms hang down. “C’mon Izz, just like we practised~!” “Now is not the time to tease me!” Belle barked, reaching up to grab onto her friend’s wrists. Lane couldn’t keep the teasing grin off of her face as she managed to help Belle climb the trunk and grab onto the branch beside her own. Once Belle was settled on her branch, Lane tried to swing up to sit on it properly, only for her hand to slip and swing back down. Another pack of wargs dashed towards the trees, someone tugging on the shoulder of her tunic helping her to sit properly on the branch before a warg could take a bite out of her. “Just hangin’ around, Champion?” Nori panted, a small smirk spread across his lips. “Oh haha, you’re an absolute riot,” Lane deadpanned, rolling her eyes at him but unable to keep a smirk of her own off of her features. “Lane… he’s here,” Belle called out quietly, her eyes towards their approaching foe. “Who’s the ugly thing?” Dwalin asked in a hushed tone. “Azog the Defiler,” Lane growled, glaring down at the orc and his white warg. The two dwarves gave her a shocked look before turning back to the orc in question. After a small monologue in orcish, Azog's wargs dashed forwards and began their attempt to reach those in the trees, Belle giving a frightened scream when one of them barely missed her foot before she climbed higher. The wargs continued to attack the trees until finally, their weight caused the one Bilbo and a few of the others were in to topple over, causing an unwanted domino effect. The dwarves helped Lane and Belle to jump from tree to tree until all members of the company were standing in the last one, which just so happened to be precariously perched on the cliff side. “Gandalf! For fuck sakes DO SOMETHING!!” Lane barked, pushing Belle onto a higher branch when a warg came close to snapping at their feet. The wizard quickly reached into the leaves of a nearby branch and plucked a pinecone from it, using his staff to set it aflame before hurling down at the wargs, the creatures giving barks of pain when the embers caused a fire to separate them from the company. Quickly lighting another pinecone and using it to light a third, Gandalf began passing out the small balls of fire to everyone, Lane floundering to catch one for Belle before having to toss them both before they burned her hands. “Lane Lane LANE!” Belle quickly yelped. “What what what??” Lane yelped back, quickly looking down in case a warg was once again trying to climb higher into the tree. “Your arm!!” Belle shrieked, swatting at her friend’s elbow. “Your sleeve is on fire!” Lane paused for a second before lifting her arm and turning her head back to see a small fire was indeed creeping up her sleeve. “Well I’ll be damned…” “LANE!” Belle shrieked, quickly slapping her hands up and down her friend’s sleeve to try and smother the flames. The wargs below them began to yelp and retreat away from the flame causing everyone to erupt into cheers of victory. Their celebrations were cut short however when the weight of the tree caused it to lean back, everyone grappling onto whatever they could to try not to fall down the cliff. Belle and Lane both gave a short scream when the tree came to a halt, nearly laying on a 180 degree angle with the ground they once stood on. Ori’s hands slipped off of his own branch, managing to grab onto Dori’s foot before he could meet his end, the eldest brother giving a short cry as he pleaded Ori to hold on. “Mister Gandalf!” Dori cried as his own hands began to slip. Gandalf reached out with his staff, allowing Dori to grab onto it just as he began to fall, Ori still latched onto his leg. Belle and Lane managed to get a good grip on their branches, looking up and over just as Thorin stood on the trunk and began walking towards Azog, Orcrist in his hand. “Thorin!! Are you out of your fucking mind!?!” Lane roared as he charged towards the pale duo. Azog and his warg charged Thorin, managing to knock him to the ground before charging him again and hitting the dwarf leader across his head with Azog’s club. Bilbo climbed up onto the trunk of the tree as Azog’s warg clamped down around Thorin’s torso with its jaws, Thorin giving a cry of pain as its teeth sank into him. With a roar, Thorin swung Orcrist up at the white warg’s head, slashing the blade across the beast’s snout causing it to toss him away in pain. The hobbit dashed down the tree with his blade drawn, tackling the new orc that was about to lop off Thorin’s head. Stabbing it repeatedly in the chest, Bilbo scuttled off of the orc and stood between Azog and Thorin’s now unconscious form as more wargs and their riders came to stand behind their leader. As the wargs approached him, Bilbo swung his sword in an attempt to scare them away, the fear evident on his features. “Fuck this!!” Lane roared, pulling herself up and pulling one of Fíli’s swords out of its sheath on his back before dashing down the tree. “Lane!!” Belle yelled, her voice a mix between fear and bewilderment. The other dwarves quickly followed after the taller woman as Lane ducked under the nearest orc’s blade and slashed at the back of the warg’s legs, cutting its achilles tendons and bringing it to the ground before thrusting the blade into the stunned orc’s chest. “Duck!” Lane quickly did as she was told as an ax was thrown over her head, embedding itself into a warg causing it to collapse. She straightened and gave Gloin a thankful nod before continuing her own fight against their enemy. A loud screech filled the air as a set of massive talons came down from the sky and picked up one of the warg and riders before tossing them off of the cliff. “Eagles,” Lane grinned. Her grin quickly fell however when she caught sight of Belle struggling to climb up onto the trunk of the tree. She dashed over to her friend and helped her the rest of the way before getting punched in the shoulder. “Did you just ditch me you jerk! I can’t believe you!” Belle roared, a glare etched onto her features. “What if you’d gotten hurt! What about your head! And you’re on fire again!” “Why thank you for the complimen-” “Lane your leg!” Belle barked, pointing at the flames. Lane followed her friend’s finger and leaned down before casually patting the flame out. “Look at that, i’m so hot even fire is attracted to me~” “Lane!” Lane simply chose to roll her eyes and sigh as her friend continued to yell at her about lacking a single brain cell. Lane caught sight of the eagles making their rounds and picking everyone up and a grin grew onto her face. Grabbing onto Belle’s hand, she jumped out of the tree and off of the cliff, Belle screaming as she was dragged down with her. Only falling about forty feet, the two women landed on the last eagle’s back, their hands instantly gripping the soft feathers as it flew after the others. “I! AM! GOING! TO! KILL! YOU!” Belle roared, slapping her friend on the shoulder with each word, Lane letting out a loud round of laughter despite the pain. The eagles continued to carry them across the sky, over hills and mountains until the sun began to rise in the east. “Thorin!!” Fíli’s voice cried out, finding his uncle’s limp body in the lead eagle’s talons. The eagles soon began dropping everyone off atop the carrock, Thorin’s body being placed down first, quickly followed by Gandalf who rushed to the leader’s side. When Belle and Lane’s eagle landed briefly to allow them to slide off, the two kept their distance, knowing that the others would want to be by his side. Gandalf hovered his hand over Thorin’s face before chanting a few lines, Thorin’s eyes opening and turning towards the wizard beside him. “The halfling,” he asked, his voice pained and only above a whisper. “It’s alright. Bilbo is here, he’s quite safe,” Gandalf said. Bilbo, who’d chosen to stand with Belle and Lane away from the group, gave a deep sigh of relief upon seeing Thorin was alright. As their leader rolled over and attempted to stand, needing Dwalin and Kíli’s help to do so, he quickly brushed them off and stared straight at the hobbit. “You!” Thorin growled. “What were you doing? You nearly got yourself killed! Did I not say you’d be a burden…that you would not survive in the wild! That you had no place amongst us...” Thorin continued, slowly walking towards the trio. Belle and Lane exchanged knowing looks, Lane pushing Bilbo forward slightly causing the hobbit to release a small whine from the back of his throat. “I have never been so wrong, in all my life!” Thorin sighed, quickly pulling Bilbo into a tight embrace. A few of the other dwarves let out a small round of cheers as Gandalf looked on with a proud smile, Lane and Belle exchanging smiles that they attempted to hide by biting their bottom lips. “I am sorry I doubted you,” Thorin apologized, pulling back from the embrace. “No, I would have doubted me too,” Bilbo claimed, shaking his head. “I’m not a hero, or a warrior, or even a burglar.” Gandalf silently chuckled before everyone turned to watch as the eagles made one last circle before flying away. “Ohh, come baaack,” Belle booed under her breath. “Take us the rest of the waaay…” Lane snickered and placed a comforting hand on her pouting friend’s shoulder. Thorin’s eyes shifted over Bilbo’s shoulder and past the two women, his expression becoming one of astonishment. “Is that… what I think it is?” Bilbo asked, having turned around to see what their leader was staring at. The company made their way to the top of the carrock, Thorin in the lead as they caught sight of a lone mountain off in the distance. “Erebor. The Lonely Mountain,” Gandalf claimed. “The last of the great dwarf kingdoms of middle earth.” “Our home,” Thorin added, a rare smile spreading across his lips. “A raven!” Oin called out, pointing as the bird flew by. “The birds are returning to the mountain!” “That my dear Oin, is a thrush,” Gandalf corrected. “We will take it as a sign,” Thorin hummed. “A good omen.” “You’re right,” Bilbo smiled. “I do believe the worst is behind us.” Lane and Belle turned towards each other and traded apprehensive looks, only wishing that Bilbo’s words could be true. “We should get some much needed rest before we continue,” Gandalf claimed, looking around the carrock. “No enemy will find us easily here.” The group nodded and slowly dispersed, sitting around the carrock to sleep, eat and rest their minds. Belle and Lane rested near the back of the carrock, Lane splayed out like a star with her eyes closed while Belle sat by her shoulders simply watching the clouds pass by in the sky above. “Here,” Bilbo offered, walking over to the two. “You two must be thirsty.” “Thank you Bilbo,” Belle smiled, taking the water skin from him and taking a sip. “Though I think you may have to come back again later to ask Lane…” Belle paused and shifted her eyes down to her friend, Lane’s breathing having become even with her eyes still closed. “She’s… out like a rock~” Bilbo gave the smaller of the women a look causing Belle to giggle, handing the water skin back with another small thank you before the hobbit returned to Gandalf’s side. Belle turned back to her friend and gently brushed aside some of the hairs on her forehead. Her eyes drifted down to the now dirty bandages around Lane’s head and noticed a small red spot had accumulated on them. “Lane… Lane,” Belle urged, shaking her friend’s shoulder. “Ffffffcck ooooooofffffffff...” Lane whined, her eyes not opening. “We should change your bandages; we don’t want your wound to get infected,” Belle claimed, patting the top of her friend’s head. “I’ll go get Oin.” Lane groaned as she managed to heave herself up into a sitting position as Belle stood do to and fetch their medic. “Umm… Oin?” Belle asked, walking over to the small group. “I was wondering, do you think you’d be able to change Lane’s bandages?” “Arrange a dame’s blueberries? I’m certain I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about dear,” Oin hummed, raising his earpiece to his ear. “No, change Lane’s bandages,” Belle sighed, speaking clearly so that the medic could understand her words. “The lassie’s bandages? Of course, why didn’t you simply say so,” Oin said, grunting as he stood from his spot. Belle rolled her eyes as the dwarf passed her and walked over to a groggy but awake Lane. “Alright lassie, let’s have a look see here,” Oin hummed, sitting down on Lane’s left side before reaching up to begin unwrapping her bandages. “Now, this may pull a little…” Lane flinched and clenched her jaw and eyes shut when the bandages pulled on one of the scabs by her stitches, her fingers coiling into her trousers to try and get her mind away from the pain. “Easy goes it lass, almost got it,” Oin hummed, gently continuing the process. “Oh for fuck sakes, just rip it off like a bandaid!” Lane growled, eyes still shut in pain. “Like a what??” “Lane don’t!” Belle squeaked, quickly grabbing her friend’s hands when she went to rip the remaining wrapping off of her head. “What if you tear out your stitches?” Lane released a small whimper but nodded, Oin continuing to pull the bandages off with one hand while the other followed along her stitched up wound so as not to rip it open. When the bandages were finally off, Lane released her grip on her trousers and allowed her jaw to untighten, opening her eyes with a sigh. Belle patted her friend’s shoulder as Oin began to inspect Lane’s head. “The wound’s healin’ nicely; the elves did a fair job of stitchin’ ya up,” Oin reported. “Though just for safety, I’m gonna put some of my special salve on it to help it along,” he explained digging into his pack before pulling out a metal tin. “I call it ointment, named it after meself~” Lane couldn’t help but laugh at the astounding coincidence. Oin. OINtment. Hilarious. The medic gently spread some of his special salve across her temple, careful not to put too much pressure on her stitches. “I think that these should be ready to be taken out within the week. Be a bit tender, but the wound’s all but sealed itself shut.” Lane nodded in understanding as Oin wrapped her head back up with new bandages from his pack. Lane and Belle both gave the dwarf their thanks before he nodded and walked back over to his brother and a few of the others. “You’re not going to teeter away on us again are you?” The women turned to see Kíli walking over, his brother by his side. “Our journey is nearly done, twould be a shame to have to carry you the rest of the way.” “You should be so honored as to carry me Kíli, if you’re not crushed under my weight halfway there that is,” Lane smirked, giving him a teasing look. Kíli opened his mouth to state the opposite only for Fíli to nudge him in the side and shake his head, stepping forward to kneel by Belle’s side, looking at the taller woman. “How does your wound feel, are you still getting lightheaded?” Fíli asked, concern laced in his tone. “I’m fine Fíli, I’m too stubborn to be offed like that...” Lane hummed, reaching over to pat him on the arm. “I’ll just be glad when I can take these stitches out, they itch like Mary-Jane’s hairy balls…” The two prince’s gave her an utterly confused look to which Belle groaned and hissed “Language!” before Kíli sat down beside his brother so that they formed a square of sorts. “We were talking to Bilbo, he told us about the few months that you two spent with him at the Shire,” Kíli began, resting back on his hands. “Yes, he also mentioned this… odd way your culture greets others,” Fíli added, his arm resting on his propped up knee. Belle’s eyes went wide in realization, swinging towards her friend to see a grin had stretched across Lane’s face. “Lane don’t you dare,” Belle warned, giving the taller woman a pointed look. Lane ignored her friend’s words as her eyes zeroed in on the hobbit in question. Quickly standing from her spot, she dashed over to where Bilbo was now standing alone, gazing towards the Lonely Mountain far in the distance. “Bilbo old chap!” Lane grinned, smacking him on the rump before throwing her arm across his shoulders. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet when we’re nearly there!” Bilbo simply sighed as Lane’s ear picked up the brothers bursting out into laughter from their spot behind her. “I’m not getting… cold feet as you say,” Bilbo huffed, looking up at her. “I’m… just feeling a bit tired.” “If you’re tired then you should be resting, not gazing out into the distance to a mountain that we won’t reach for nearly another month or two,” Lane scoffed, giving the hobbit a scolding look. Bilbo sighed but nodded, dodging under her arm to walk over to where Thorin and Gandalf were seated to try and get some rest as Lane walked back over to the trio. “I can’t believe you just did that in front of everyone! Poor Bilbo,” Belle chastised, glaring at her friend as she sat back down in their square. “Is that truly how you greet each other in your homeland?” Fíli asked, a wide grin spread across his lips. “If it is, I like it!” Kíli added, a grin of his own gracing his features. “Why is it that you didn’t greet us in the same manner?” “Because every time we saw any of you, you were either seated on a pony or on the ground, or getting yourselves into trouble,” Lane answered with a small laugh. “Oh, this is yours by the way Little Prince,” Lane added, reaching behind her to grab the sword she had stolen from the blond prince. The brothers rolled their eyes but couldn’t keep the smirks off of their faces as Fíli took his sword back, returning it to its scabbard. The company remained on the carrock for the day, the sun slowly beginning to set as everyone pulled out their bedrolls and got tucked in. “Fíli, take first watch,” Thorin ordered, looking over to the still chattering four. Fíli gave a small sigh but nodded, bumping his brother playfully in the shoulder before packing up his swords and moving over to the top of the carrock. Everyone nestled into their bed rolls and quickly fell asleep, the chilled night air causing many of them to unconsciously shuffle closer to one another. Lane sighed as she opened her eyes again to glare down at Belle, the smaller woman having shimmied closer to Lane’s body and wrapping her arms around the taller’s waist, a content smile now spread across her sleeping face. “You’re ridiculous,” Lane scoffed quietly. “I know you’re cold but now I’m overheating…” Lane managed to pry Belle’s arm off of her person and sat up, quickly standing and stretching her arms over her head when Belle shuffled over some more in an attempt to find her again. Rolling her eyes, Lane took her bedroll and used it as a second blanket for Belle, tucking the corners in so that she was swaddled like a newborn baby. “There, now stop hugging me,” Lane laughed quietly before standing straight again and cracking her back. The taller woman’s eyes shifted towards the top of the carrock, instantly catching sight of Fíli sitting with his legs dangling over the ledge while smoking his pipe. Lane casted a look down at Belle, before grinning and tiptoeing her way over to their guard. “You just can’t get enough of me can you?” Fíli teased, a smirk stretched across his lips as she sat down next to him. “Well it’s not my fault that Izz keeps cuddling me and your brother keeps throwing his leg over mine,” Lane huffed, swinging her feet in the air while upturning her nose away from him. “Yeah he tends to do that. Amad always used to say that Kíli was the type that had to be touching someone while he slept or else it would be a restless slumber; I’ve gotten used to it,” Fíli hummed, offering her the pipe in his hands. Lane’s face nearly split in half from the smile that stretched across her lips, greedily taking the dwarf’s pipe and taking a deep, long drag, holding her breath for a few moments before exhaling. “I only know her name, your mother, but not the kind of dwarrowdam she is,” Lane began, still holding Fíli’s pipe in her hand. “What’s Dís like?” If it’d been possibly, Fíli’s smile would have grown. “Amad’s amazing. She was very young when Smaug attacked and caused the dwarves to flee Erebor, but she stayed strong and proud. She grew up and met Adad, later having me and Kíli,” he began, nodding behind him to his sleeping brother. “Adad was killed while Kíli was still young; he doesn’t remember him much, so Amad basically raised us on her own. Thorin would come every now and again, he’d play with us and tell us stories about Erebor.” “I can’t imagine Thorin indulging you two for story time,” Lane snickered, her elbow resting on her knee as she took another deep drag from the pipe. “He was a gentler soul back in those days, before Erebor and his father began haunting his mind,” Fíli hummed, turning to grin at her. “But he’s still our uncle; we’d die for him and him us.” Lane felt her heart stop, the smile dropping from her face and pipe lowering to her lap. “Does that notion bother you?” Fíli asked, noticing her now stoney expression. “No, it’s not that…” Lane began, her fingers tracing the small but intricate designs along the bowl of the pipe. “Then what is it?” “It’s just… I’ve never thought of that… as a good thing, dying for someone,” Lane dodged. “Because if you die to protect them, you’re just leaving them with the burden of your death and the phantom memories that now only they have, stories that you can’t share…” Fíli hummed and raised his head back to look up at the night sky as a cold breeze swept across the carrock. Lane’s eyes remained trained on the pipe in her hands. Back in their world it had been mid-late 2014; the third movie, Battle of the Five Armies was still in post-production and not even the extended edition of Desolation of Smaug had been released yet. Her and Belle had read the books years ago and didn’t have very many memories from them. From what little Lane did know about what was supposed to happen; the line of Durin was supposed to end, which meant… A shiver passed over Lane’s body at the thought of the two smiley princes and the bull-headed Thorin dying before this was all over. Fíli noticed her shiver and, believing it to be the chilled night air, couldn’t suppress a snicker. Shuffling with his cloak for a moment, he reached out and wrapped an arm around Lane’s waist, managing to pull her larger form into his side before pulling his cloak up so that it covered both of their backs. “You know, you claim constantly to be the stronger of the two of you, yet you still shiver in the night air,” Fíli teased, keeping his arm around her. “Well excuse me your highness, I’m not made out of this legendary stone that you dwarves are supposed to have been crafted from. I’m all fleshy and squishy and get lonely when I wrap my friend like a burrito,” Lane scoffed. “Like a what?” Fíli asked with a small laugh. “I swear it’s like you two come from a completely different world with all of these words you spout sometimes.” Lane couldn’t help but snicker, taking another puff from the pipe before offering it back to the blond. “Trust me Little Prince, you have no idea.” Fíli gave her a confused look for a few moments before a soft smile spread across his lips, turning his head back to the night sky and taking a small puff from his pipe.

[qethnehzul]

Tongues - Chapter 8

Spring birds chirped in the upper branches of the birch trees around them, filling the air with their upbeat tunes.

Sterlas put his hands on his hips, leaning back as he surveyed the giant mountain that loomed ahead of them. Seven thousand steps stretched out before them, some of the stones only just barely peeking out from the snow.

“So,” Sterlas said after a moment, breaking the silence between the two.

Casil glanced at him, arching a brow as she folded her arms across her chest.

Sterlas tilted his head to glance down at her from the corner of his eye. “Wanna cout ‘em all?”

Casil gave him a blank stare, before slugging him in the side. Her fist ineffectively bounced off of his leather armor, making him cackle loud enough to send the birds in the treetops scattering. Shaking her head, she strode forward to the foot of the stairs. ‘Let’s go. I want to be up there before it gets dark,’ she signed once her feet had hit the first stair.

Sterlas smirked. “Hey, we can do that and still be countin’. It’ll pass the time,” he chided.

Casil rolled her eyes, immediately cringing when Sterlas’s first step onto the trail was followed by a proudly announced ‘One!’

“Eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six…”

Casil ignored him, focusing on making sure her steps weren’t going to cause her to slip and fall back down the steep mountainside.

“Two hundred and one, two hundred and two, two hundred and three…”

Casil shot him a glare, narrowing her eyes at him. Maybe she should have left him at the bottom of the mountain in Ivarstead with the horses.

“Five hundred and sixty-three, five hundred and sixty-four, five hundred and sixty-five…”

Casil glowered and made a motion for Sterlas to shut up for what felt like the five hundred and sixty-fifth time.

“One thousand! One seventh of the way there, Casil!” Sterlas’s myrrh was making Casil’s skin crawl. ‘I will feed you to a bear,’ she signed with certainty.

“Three thousand four hundred and eighty-”

Casil had enough. She dropped down and used as much of her weight as she could to push into Sterlas’s side, headbutting him below the ribs as she threw her whole body onto him. Sterlas burst into a laugh, stumbling and falling back into the snowdrift on the side of the path. Three thousand was a lot further than he’d been expecting to get.

“Ya never said I couldn’t count ‘em!” He laughed, bringing his arms up as Casil tried to

shovel two handfuls of snow down his armor.

Casil pouted at him, trying to bite back a smile of her own as she wrestled with his arms in vain. Sterlas grabbed his own handful of snow, managing to wrestle Casil to the side so he could shove the snowball down the back of her robes. Casil made a rather pitiful wail, rolling off of him to try to shake the snow out of her clothing just as a feral roar made the two of them freeze in their place.

A frost troll. Sterlas quickly pushed himself to his feet, moving in front of Casil protectively as the beast sized them up from a few feet up the path. It snorted out a stream of condensation angrily, pounding its fists on the ground in a territorial display before letting out another roar. Great. Casil didn’t hesitate to conjure fire up in her hands, looking for a way to dart around the troll. She’d managed to get herself this far, and while this would be a plenty convenient excuse to turn away…

Clearly displeased by Sterlas and Casil’s stubborness to leave, the troll lunged forward with a furious snarl, sending strands of spit in every direction.

Sterlas bolted in one direction his form warping and shifting before it hit the ground again. The troll followed him, running with help of its knuckles before lashing out to try to knock Sterlas to the side. Casil took the opportunity to throw a ball of fire at the beast. Her attack hit, sending a spray of sparks and burnt hair over its shoulder as the troll let out a howl of pain. Sterlas took the opening this time, pouncing onto the troll’s side. He managed to scramble up, trying to find a place to sink his teeth into. The troll let out a angry roar, reaching up to grab Sterlas off. The werewolf dug his claws into the troll’s flesh, leaving bloody gouges as the troll pried his form off. The gorilla-like creature gave Sterlas a furious look before hurling him into the snowbank as hard as he could, where Sterlas disappeared in a cloud of powdery snow and a tiny avalanche of previously settled snow.

Casil tried to move around its flank as it focused on Sterlas, waiting until she’d managed to get to the part of the path they still had to progress up before throwing another fireball at the monster’s back. The troll staggered forward, spinning in frustration to the other intruder. Which, to Casil’s surprise and then horror, was not her.

A dark shadow suddenly passed in front of the sun, making Casil step back and squint to try to see what it was. With talons extended like a hawk, the dragon dropped down on the troll from the sky at incredible speeds. The troll was crushed under its giant form, a ear-piercing howl of pain echoing over the mountain as the dragon’s claws dug into the troll’s body. Dust and snow exploded in a cloud around the two monsters, obscuring the troll and part of the bright green dragon that had just flown in to attack.

Casil’s eyes went wide as she watched the troll manage to unbalance the dragon enough to get it to jump off of it, giving the troll a chance to get back despite the damage.

Sterlas didn’t waste time. He had hardly managed to dig himself back out of the snow by the time the troll freed itself, but he could hope that the two beasts would occupy each other’s attention for the time being. Sterlas bolted out of the snow, running to push Casil over and onto his back.

Casil winced, toppling over and onto Sterlas’s shaggy fur, but she made no complaints. She adjusted herself onto his back, digging her fingers into his fur before he took off into a full sprint up the mountain path. The sound of the troll and the dragon fighting echoed up the side of the mountain as Sterlas ran as fast as all four of his legs could carry him up the slippery, snow-and-ice-covered stairs. Three thousand four hundred and eighty-five steps. They were halfway there. Sterlas and Casil looked up to the winding path above them. They could see it reach further and further up the steep mountainside, wrapping around it and out of sight to wherever the end was. Casil nervously looked back down the path. The dragon and troll had slipped out of sight, but their fighting still seemed to continue. For how much longer though, Casil wasn’t sure. One of them would no doubt lose, and Casil prayed it was the dragon. They could outrun a troll. A dragon on the other hand…?

Sterlas slid a few feet as he tried to maneuver around a switchback, ears twitching as the sound of the troll died off. Maybe the dragon would be busy eating it.

The branches of the trees shifted a bit as a breeze picked up, and suddenly the shadow was upon them again.

The dragon let out a deafening roar as it flew up the side of the mountain, descending upon them once it reached them in a cloud of ice and snow stirred by the mighty beating of its wings.

Sterlas snarled, managing to lurch out of the way as the dragon came crashing down where they had just been. The force and proximity of the landing was still close enough to knock Sterlas over, sending Casil flying and tumbling into a snowbank. She grimaced as the frigid snow collapsed on top of her, leaving her blind to what was going on around her.

The dragon turned its giant frilled head, blood dribbling down from its maw and staining the snow below. The troll had obviously done damage, but not enough to slow the dragon down significantly. It caught sight of Sterlas first as the werewolf pushed himself to his feet, and immediately it lashed out to bite him.

Sterlas grimaced as its fangs sunk into his tail, just narrowly avoiding the brunt of the bite. Sterlas howled in pain, lashing out to swat the dragon in the snout. It hissed, pulling Sterlas along by his tail for a few feet before finally letting go to reel back in pain. The dragon shook its head, sending blood flying in either direction.

Sterlas dove down under the dragon’s breast, swinging for any soft looking scales under its wings. The motion made the dragon rear up, trying to back up to see where Sterlas had gone.

Casil managed to free herself from the snow, shaking as much of it out of her hood and clothing as she could in a single movement before she shoved herself to her feet. The dragon had its attention to Sterlas, yellow slitted eyes darting back and forth as Sterlas tried to stay out of range of its mouth.

Finally growing tired of the game, the dragon spread its wings and took to the sky with another burst of wind and snow, making Casil shield her face. Not wasting the brief break in attacks, Sterlas bounded over to Casil again, tossing her onto his back once more before making a break for it.

The dragon took a brief second to fly out and circle back around to position itself for a better attack, riding the drafts up to quickly meet where Casil and Sterlas had scampered off to. With a deep rumble, the dragon exhaled a stream of ice as it passed over them, coating the stairs with frost. Sterlas tried his best to avoid it, and what he couldn’t outmaneuver Casil attempted to block with a ward. The ice crashed over and around them, and while the ward helped take some of the brunt it didn’t stop everything. Both Casil and Sterlas grimaced as ice crept over them, coating their clothing and fur in a thick layer of frost that crunched and cracked as they moved. Casil was as thankful as ever for her hood, though with the chill she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep ahold of Sterlas’s fur.

Quickly, Casil lit fire in her hand, hoping the heat would both help melt off the frost as well as provide a method of attacking while Sterlas ran. She tried to ready her aim as the dragon circled back around. Her first fireball missed by a long shot, thrown off as Sterlas slid and tried to make it the next turn of stairs. The second only skimmed the dragon, doing nothing to slow it down. Another stream of ice rolled towards them, and this time Sterlas made an abrupt turn. Instead of following the path, he darted towards the treeline. The dragon passed right by them, not expecting the change in pattern. Sterlas pushed himself through the thick snow, trying to pull them up the side of the mountain to the next section of the path.

Casil glanced out between the branches as the dragon flew back out again, clearly having to re-adjust. She gripped Sterlas’s fur with both hands, focusing to cast an adrenaline spell on Sterlas. For a brief moment, the werewolf’s fur shimmered green, and immediately he could feel a surge of magicka and energy. With a great push, Sterlas burst out of the treeline and back onto the path, running harder than he had in many years. Casil turned her head quickly to try to spot their attacker again.

The dragon dove down from above, talons extended again as it tried to grab them like it had the troll.

Casil sharply pulled on Sterlas’s fur in panic, making him yelp in surprise as he turned his head, but it wasn’t fast enough.

While the worst of the claws missed her, the dragon still made contact with the two. Casil felt one of the talons scrape by her side before she was knocked off of Sterlas, sending her tumbling towards the edge of the mountain and into a snowdrift for a second time. Sterlas hit the ground as well, taking a few tumbles before he managed to dig his claws into the ground and stop himself. The dragon sharply circled around and managed to land itself on the path between Casil and Sterlas, wings spread out wide as it loomed over the werewolf.

Sterlas used the last of his energy from Casil’s spell to jump onto a outcropping of rock, using it as a boost to lunge at the dragon’s face. He managed to latch on, taking a swipe for the monster’s eye.

The dragon snarled, pulling its head back in time for Sterlas to miss. It turned and sharply whipped its head up, sending Sterlas flying off. Sterlas winced as he landed in the snow, grateful that it was there to break his fall. The dragon dropped onto all fours, using its wings to help it quickly close the gap between itself and Sterlas. The dragon lashed out, trying to sink its teeth into Sterlas.

Sterlas managed to catch both halves of its mouth in his claws, struggling to keep them from snapping down on him. Surprisingly cold breath exhaled out of the dragon’s giant, sharp-toothed maw, coating Sterlas in a layer of spit. The dragon tried to force its jaws closed, but Sterlas managed to push them open. His arms shook, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could manage it.

To his relief, the dragon suddenly staggered forward, pulling its head away without biting down with a snarl of agony. A sickening smell of rot filled Sterlas’s nose, and he could soon make out where Casil had her hands on the dragon’s tail. The spell ate away at the dragon’s scales, and though it didn’t spread far it was enough to get the dragon’s attention. The dragon flashed its teeth at her in irritation, before simply flicking its tail and sending her back into the snow with another cloud of powder. Sterlas lunged, using the chance to sink his teeth into a loose bit of skin and scale on the dragon’s neck. It roared in pain again, trying to shake Sterlas off.

“Ruth!” The dragon roared in anger, rearing up as it feebly tried to use its wings to scrape Sterlas off.

Sterlas held tight, sinking his claws in until he finally couldn’t hold on. He dropped back to the ground, wincing again at the impact.

The dragon glowered at him, its eyes shifted to Casil as she managed to uncover herself from the snow again. Without any hesitation, Casil hurled a fireball at the dragon, not even fully oriented yet. The fireball surged forward and nailed the dragon in the eye, making it jerk back with a howl of pain again.

It was a lucky shot, but one Casil wasn’t going to complain about. Gripping at the wound in her side from the dragon’s claws and what would no doubt at least be deep bruising from the impact with its tail, Casil reached out to grab onto Sterlas again, and with his help she managed to situate herself on his back again.

Sterlas turned tail and ran again, pushing as hard as he could. His body ached, but there was no time to stop. He had to get as far as he could while the dragon was reeling from getting fire in its eyes.

Casil winced each time Sterlas’s feet hit the ground, trying to hold her wound and Sterlas at the same time. The fire bought Casil enough time to at least stop the worst of the bleeding, but it still hurt. Casil glanced over her shoulder again, hearing the dragon take to the air again.

The dragon’s eye remained closed, but fiery hatred burned in the other eye. The dragon chased after them, flying up rapidly after them.

Casil grimaced, gripping Sterlas’s fur as tightly as she could with one hand before taking pot shots at the dragon as it chased up behind them. Fireballs blitzed down the side of the mountain, most of them missing, but a handful skimming over the dragon’s scales or managing to make impact with its broad chest. Burns scattered the dragon’s otherwise white scales, and though the monster looked like it was growing tired, it continued its pursuit. Casil looked back up. The stairs seemed to plateau off a bit, and just over the white of the snow she could make out the edge of what appeared to be a building. Just a bit further-

Sterlas managed to get up the last few stairs, his claws meeting the edge of level earth before the dragon caught up. The beast’s claws grazed Sterlas as it soared upwards, knocking Sterlas to the earth and throwing Casil a few feet across the courtyard. She winced, feeling ice and stone bite her cheek as she rolled.

The dragon broke into a hover, slowly descending down to land above the werewolf. “Mey joorre!” the dragon roared, dropping onto its wings to stride forward. It picked up Sterlas in its jaws, tossing the werewolf to the side effortlessly before he could get up before powering towards Casil.

Casil staggered to her feet, exhaling sharply in pain. She whipped her head to look at the oncoming dragon just in time to be met with a stream of ice from its maw. She brought her arm up to block her face, unable to cast a ward in time to block at least some of it. The cold settled into her bones, making it painful to even lower her arm. Chunks of ice and frost sloughed off of her as she tried to bring her arms up to cast a fireball. This wasn’t good. The dragon’s yellow eyes narrowed at Casil, maw dangerously close to coming within biting distance of the small bosmer. And Casil had no doubt that they could eat her whole in one bite.

It opened its mouth, preparing to bite down on her. Rows of razor-sharp teeth stretched out before Casil, frost curling out with long strands of saliva. Casil felt her fingers sting at the sudden change from cold to hot, the fireball between her hands growing a bit bigger before she finally forced her arms forward to toss it down the dragon’s throat.

The dragon’s eyes widened in surprise, making a strange inhaling noise as it reeled back. It let out a painful gag, smoke streaming out of its mouth, before a explosion of fire flashed down its throat. With no other fanfare, the dragon collapsed to its side, its skin and scales slowly starting to flake and burn away from its bones.

Casil shivered, feeling blood creep down her cheek to her chin from a cut below her eye. The tingling, tugging sensation in her chest crept back up again, making her tense. The dragon’s body decayed faster into flakes of ember-lit flesh before a rush of wind and power pushed from the dragon’s corpse into Casil’s body. She staggered back, reaching up to grip her chest. Energy and life tingled through her very being, while at the same time she felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. By the time the wind had subsided, the dragon was nothing more than a skeleton. The sensation faded as Sterlas managed to limp towards her, passing over the bones of the dragon. His eyes shifted to Casil, than looked past her, ears perked up. Casil turned and followed his attention.

A handful of older men in heavy black robes waited at the top of the flight of stairs leading into the great stone monastery.

“So, you have arrived at last, dragonborn.”

The empty silence that filled the inside of High Hrothgar was exactly as unsettling and dismal as she’d expected, and perhaps more so. In Casil’s eyes, the structure was bleak, with far too many jugs and a few sad, tattered banners with words written in dovahzul that looked like they hadn’t been cleaned off or shaken out in centuries.

Casil followed behind Arngeir, the Greybeard she’d assumed was in charge of the rest, while three other monks followed behind. Sterlas stayed at her side, back to his human form. Was was looking worse for wear and exhausted, but he kept his head held high as they walked into the large, empty central room of the monastery.

Casil glanced uneasily at Sterlas. Few others seemed to be here, and from what little she could gather already… there was probably no denying that she was this dragonborn, and there may not be any others.

Sterlas glanced back at her, before making a small hand motion to her. It was difficult to read through his trembling movements, but Casil understood what he was getting at. He was just as uneasy or uncertain as she was, which made her lips pull back into a stiff frown.

“So,” Arngeir began, his weary voice wavering as he spoke, “you decided to wait until spring to come…?”

Casil simply nodded, casting her eyes uneasily to the ground. She reached up to nervously pick at the scab on her cheek, making Sterlas swat her hand away so she wouldn’t make it bleed again.

Arngeir hummed and nodded before his weathered face disappeared behind his hood again, focusing his attention on where he was walking once more.

Casil tried not fidget more at the awkward silence that fell on the party again. Instead, she shoved her hands back into the sleeves of her robe, trying to warm her frigid fingers without making them itch and swell from warming too fast.

“I suppose that many would see it unwise to travel the steps in winter,” Arngeir finally continued, leaning the group to the far side of the open room. A large diamond had been carved into the stone floor, perfectly even on all sides. Arngeir walked to the furthest point, stopping on it before turning to face Casil and Sterlas. Casil and Sterlas paused in the center as the other three monks took their places at the remaining three points, surrounding the two visitors.

Casil and Sterlas glanced at the four surrounding them. Sterlas reached his hand back to rest on the hilt of a dagger on his belt, giving the monks a warning look.

The awkward silence returned. What did the monks want? They were giving Casil an expectant look, but if she was supposed to be doing something other than feeling very deeply uncomfortable, she didn’t know what it was. Wasn��t this where she was supposed to learn what to do? Why did they expect her to just know what to do? Had she missed a memo somewhere?

“Now, it is clear you are a Dragonborn. We have seen that you can absorb the souls of slain dragons. Though, we have yet to hear your Thu’um. Come, let us taste your Voice,” Arngeir said after clearing his throat.

Casil furrowed her brow in confusion. Her… what? Her mind scrambled for anything she’d read in the Book of the Dragonborn that might have even sounded like that, but she drew a blank. A bit of the color drained out of her face in embarrassment.

Arngeir frowned a bit, wrinkles forming at the corners of his mouth. “Well, I suppose you would have been able to figure out some of this on your own, but perhaps that was a unfair assumption of us,” he said, shifting where he stood. “Your Thu’um is your Voice, the power that allows you to use Words of Power. Each shout is made up of three words of power,” he said, holding up his fingers. “I sense that you might already know one of them. Fus. Force. Your dragonblood gives you the inherent ability to use these words into a shout, like the dragons do. It should come to you naturally,” he explained.

Casil felt her heart sink and her stomach churn. She swallowed dryly, her back straightening out a bit with a ragged inhale. A shout. A voice. Words. Metaphorical right…? She fought to keep the panic out of her eyes and her mouth straight, but Sterlas could see it wasn’t going to hold for long. She shifted her gaze back and forth between the robed monks again, gripping the insides of her sleeves to try to steady herself. The building around her was starting to feel like it was spinning.

Deep breaths. Casil inhaled. Maybe… whatever this was, she could do anyways. She had to be able to, right? If she was dragonborn? She closed her eyes. Fus. She focused on the word, seeing if it drew anything to mind. There was the stirring of something inside of her, like when she had absorbed the dragon’s souls. Force. A deeper understanding to the concept, like feeling the very intention behind it. A different sort of understanding than knowing the definition, something Casil could describe as almost primal and instinctive. She tried to pull on the power. It felt like it kept slipping through her hands, like she couldn’t quite grasp it right, but she continued to try to draw on it. Taking a deep breath, Casil tried to form the word, speak the word, unleash the power-

Nothing came out. She wasn’t even able vibrate what little functionally remained of her vocal chords, and instead she just coughed from forcing the air up in such a awkward fashion.

She lowered her head to cover her mouth as she choked, and it was a excuse she was thankful for. Anything to look down and hide her face away from the people watching her. Dread settled into her heart, making her feel mildly nauseous and making the whole room around her spin faster. The monks shifted, and Casil’s keen ears could make out the subtle rustle of their clothing as they waited for  this miracle Casil was supposed to just perform for them.

“Give it another try,” Arngeir said softly. Casil could tell he was trying to be kind, and perhaps genuinely was, but she could pick up an edge of worry in his tone.

Her brow knitted together tightly in an attempt to keep her fear and panic under wraps. She had absorbed two dragons souls. Now, she was certain of that. And she could feel a power associated with fus. Surely, if she was dragonborn, no matter what all of that meant she would be able to use this Thu’um they spoke of.

Casil finally straightened herself, focusing her gaze just past Arngeir’s shoulder on one of the banners against the wall. Fus, force. The ability to bend things, to change things. She drew on it again, trying with all her might to grasp the power and bend it outwards.

She could make a f noise fine- that did not require anything but the curl of the lip, the shift of the tongue, and a stream of air. But the u, the simple u- Casil couldn’t manage anything but a cough for trying to make the noise.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, humiliation joining the dread and panic in her stomach. Her hand reached up to rub at her throat. She’d come all this way, climbed the stairs, waited, worried, for nothing.

Sterlas shifted next to her, reaching out to put a hand on her back in worry. His touch made Casil flinch away, feeling all too aware of the stares around her.

“Is something wrong, dragonborn?” Arngeir asked, glancing to his fellow monks in concern. “Where is your Voice?”

Sterlas looked up from Casil, wanting nothing more than to just hide her from all of this. He could see her shaking. Sterlas cleared his throat. “If I may speak…” he began carefully.

Arngeir frowned at Sterlas. “I believe the dragonborn can speak for herself-”

“She can’t. That’s… the thing,” Sterlas interrupted, lifting his chin a bit. “Casil is, uh… mute.”

Casil buckled. The contents of her stomach splattered over the floor as she doubled over. She managed to emit a choking sob as she dropped down to her knees, throwing up again.

Sterlas quickly reached over and helped the poor woman up, ushering her to the side to find her somewhere to sit that was out of the circle of monks.

The Greybeards slowly gathered together away from Casil’s pile of vomit, muttering softly amongst themselves.

Casil threw her hands over her eyes, hunching into a small ball where Sterlas had settled her on the stairs that lead into one of the side halls. Sterlas crouched down in front of her, making sure that he blocked the Greybeard’s line of sight to her.

How stupid could she be? When she heard the words voice, shout and words, what had she been expecting? She could have done anything but given it a miserable try and left with at least some semblance of her pride in tact, but now she just felt ashamed and deeply humiliated. And angry, more at herself than anything. She should have just stayed at home. Be that when they’d seen the dragon, or after she found out she was supposedly dragonborn. Her mind wanted to scramble to find any reason she wasn’t, but even the Greybeards had said that she was clearly it.

What good that was, apparently. Sterlas gave Casil space, resisting the urge to reach out and give her a hug. He glanced over his shoulder, watching the Greybeards carefully. Every now and then, one of them would turn to glance in the visitor’s direction, and Sterlas would narrow his eyes. After a few minutes of silence between the two parties, Sterlas finally broke the silence. “I ain’t no expert on this dragonborn nonsense, but Casil is a good mage. She can kill a dragon without whatever this shoutin’ shit is. Ya saw that with ya own eyes,” he scoffed.

Casil glanced up at Sterlas with a sniffle, trying to wipe the tears from her eyes with the edge of her shawl.

Arngeir pursed his lips, glancing at his fellow monks before stepping forward from their midsts. “That may be true, but without the Voice she lacks the power to use-”

“Use what? Screamin’?” Sterlas scoffed. “I get it, Ulfric used that to kill the High King. But the two dragons Casil’s killed so far didn’t need no screamin’ to kill.”

Arngeir stiffened. “It is the way of the dragonborn to use the Words of Power, the things that we as Greybeards devote our time to studying and meditating on. If she cannot use them, then…” He shifted his gaze to try to see the tiny bosmer hidden behind Sterlas. “I’m afraid we have little to offer her at this time. I’m afraid this is a matter we must discuss in much more depth. This… was not what we expected. We will have to meditate in length over what should be done next… what can be done next, if anything.”

The other three monks turned silently at that, disappearing off into the other wings of the monastery.

Arngeir watched his companions leave, before glancing to Sterlas and Casil one more time. “You are welcome to rest here for the night. It is a long journey back down the stairs, and you have been through enough already,” he said simply, turning to walk away.

Casil felt anger start to drown out the other emotions boiling in her chest. That… that was it? They were going to call her up there, making a big deal about this like everyone else, and then just walk away? Offer her no explanation, nothing? She started to push herself to her feet, but Sterlas reached out and grabbed her shoulders, pushing her back to the stairs.

“Hey. None of that,” Sterlas said lowly, giving her a firm look before glancing back in Arngeir’s direction. While he felt the same sentiment, he doubted starting a fight with them would achieve anything. He turned around, hoping Casil wouldn’t use that as an opportunity to bolt around him while his back was turned to her. “What the fuck do ya expect us to do then?” Sterlas called, watching Arngeir as he paused halfway up the stairs to the opposite wing of the building. “We ain’t even gonna get like. I don’t know. Anythin’ about what she’s supposed to be doin’?” Sterlas asked, putting his hands on his hips.

Arngeir sighed. “...I’m afraid I have little to offer you, as I’ve said. For now, all I can ask is that you rest. Perhaps, when the sun rises tomorrow, we will have something more to say to you.”

Sterlas’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t have anything to follow up to that. Arngeir lingered for a moment longer, and when the silence had stretched just to the edge of uncomfortable he finally left.

Sterlas sighed, taking a moment to collect himself before he turned around to face Casil again. She was staring forlornly at the ground, sniffling still. Sterlas dropped back into a crouch, before being unable to hold back from pulling her into a tight hug. She tensed, before finally letting her head rest against his shoulder in defeat.

“Hey,” Sterlas said, finally pulling away. He rested his hands on her shoulders again, trying to keep her from slumping too much. Casil looked at him miserably, half of her face hidden behind her hair. “Ya didn’t know. It ain’t ya fault, alright?” Sterlas said sternly, giving her shoulders a firm squeeze. “Not like ya chose this anyways, right?”

Casil nodded, her gaze shifting to any nondescript place that wasn’t Sterlas’s face.

He let go, straightening himself out. “Let’s find ourselves somewhere to settle down, yeah? Since they didn’t specify nothin’, I imagine anywhere is fine. And if not, they’re gonna have to deal.”

There was at least one alcove that seemed far enough away from most of the activity of the monastery that held a decent sized brazier and some carpeting that the two settled down in. The monastery was rather vacant, with less than a dozen monks residing inside of the giant stone building. Only two people passed them during their entire stay, and Sterlas was certain it was just to check on them.

“Damn dragon did a number to our stuff,” Sterlas grumbled, holding up his bag. A few huge holes had been torn through the canvas, and a lot of his things that hadn’t fallen out on the way up were trashed.

‘And us,’ Casil signed, pulling up the edge of her shirt to look at the nasty bruise on her side. Well, it was better than the hole it had been when the dragon’s claw had hit, but it still ached something fierce. She knew she could probably heal it more, but after the surprise attack by the dragon she wasn’t itching to burn more magicka if she could avoid it. She had done a number on her reserves as it was, and it would take awhile before it regenerated.  If they got attacked on the way back down, or anywhere on their way home presumably, Casil didn’t want to run into the possibility of running out of magicka.

“Is that the worst one?” Sterlas asked, sliding over to check it.

Casil nodded, huffing as she held up her shirt so he could examine her side. Sterlas had seen her naked far too often when he’d been a werewolf, and she’d given up pretending he hadn’t.

Sterlas dug through his bag, pulling out a herb ointment to slap it on the remains of the gash in her side and on a few of the ones on her hands and cheek.

“Remember what I said about the dragon thing?” He chided again, shaking his head with a soft smile on his face as he rubbed the ointment into her cheek.

She squinted at him, pouting. ‘Maybe no more, if all of this is just…’ She didn’t finish her thought, her hands just slowly falling back into her lap again with her gaze.

Sterlas’s eyes softened. He couldn’t blame her for being hurt over this, but he didn’t enjoy seeing her so upset. He rarely saw her so genuinely upset by things, and his inability to really help her in this situation bothered him. He slid back over to his spot, checking through the remains of his stuff. “Hey,” he chuckled, pulling something out from where it had been protected in a wad of clothing. “Look what made it.”

Casil tilted her head, watching as Sterlas tossed over a book. A copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid landed next to her leg, and immediately Casil picked it up and hurled it back like a dirty rag with a face of disgust.

“Hey, I got this out of ya house. Ya had this in ya room,” Sterlas said in mocking defense, catching the book before shaking his index finger at her.

Casil shook her head. ‘It was not. I know it wasn’t. That belongs on the bottom shelf of the bottom floor in the corner,’ Casil insisted in return, lifting her head up pridefully.

“Oh, sure. That ain’t explainin’ to me why ya had this at all,” Sterlas taunted, turning the book in his hands.

‘It’s a book. I collect all books,’ Casil said, puffing her chest up a bit with that.

“Sure, sure,” Sterlas said, flashing his yellowed teeth in a smile. As long as it brightened her up a bit.

‘Why do you have it?’ Casil questioned.

Sterlas shot her a glance, arching his brow. “Casil, do ya really wanna know? Do ya really not know?”

Casil paused, before making a face at him. She grabbed a cushion that had been in the alcove for meditation and used it to swat at Sterlas, making him burst into laughter.

Anything to get her mind off of it for just a little while.

[rekit-rakkit-blog]

Only for the Weak

Tallis hugged herself.

The air was crisp, chilly, and ate through her bare fur. The winter night…she had not realized how cold the outside would be without the light that they had stolen from within.

Clouds blotted the sky and rendered the path in front of her pitch black. Only the slightest light from the harvest moon was relinquished, splashing shadows with eerie tinges of red, like diluted blood. Leaves crunched underfoot. Tallis relied on numb paws to feel a safe way along the forest. She continued to hug her chest, trying to ignore the pain from the wounds she earned during her escape. Her side and abdomen ached dully and deeply, letting her know the wounds were serious.

If I don’t find help soon… Tallis was afraid to stop—she had not fled far enough into the cover of the woods. She was too fearful to see how bad the gashes along her abdomen were, and how bad they tainted her skin.

She had no more light, no more power, all stolen by things so feared the stories were never believed, and even more rarely spoken of. The runes that marked her fur, told the world what she was, no longer glowed their pure white.

She was alone, and she was dark.

Tears inched their way down her cheeks, wetting matted and grimy fur. Barren tree limbs rustled above her. The cold of the night inched into her bones, and she stumbled along a path of sharp stones and upended tree roots that cut deeply into the pads of her feet.

But…it would not be long before they would start the hunt. When the clouds parted and offered more light from their sacred moon, the others would brave the forest to bring back a new, fresh body.

Tallis choked back a sob, and covered her mouth to stifle the sound. The trees were too silent, and every knot, stump, and every animal acted as a sentinel for the house on the hill. Despite the fear that urged her to run, she had to pause because she knew that as much as the clouds offered her a way out, they also offered her a moment of reprieve to gather her strength.

What strength? Tallis sunk to her knees and took a deep breath. I’m so far from home, there is no way I will find my way back, and without the light they stole from me, my people will not know me.

Miles of forest stretched ahead of her, and the branches loomed inward ominously. She thought she could see distorted faces in the bark, and thorns rose in contortions to make up demonic bodies that writhed in the wind.

“It’s not real,” she muttered. “I’ve traveled too far…they can’t touch me…”

“For the time being,” the wind sighed in voices that would haunt her nightmares, should she survive the night. She paused, perked her ears up, and glanced the empty path. Her heart fluttered in her small chest. “But we come for you.”

The words stirred Tallis forward down the narrow and stony and sharp path. Each step was uneven and shuffling. Despite the fur that that covered her, she was cold. A desert animal by nature, the chill had numbed her enough that all she could truly feel was the unnatural burn from skin too cold.

“Running?”

The question paused her, tensed her body. She crouched, curved her claws and looked around for the soft voice. She saw a swift glance of feathers, a glint of wide eyes. Wind rustled and it landed in front of her.

“Well, you’re more stumbling than running, in my opinion—not that you’ve asked for it,” the owl said.  “Still, I commend you. Not many have escaped the house on the hill, and even fewer of your kind.”

The owl did not seem frightened by the creatures on the hill and a strange sort of glow emanated from the small, round body. By now, little surprised Tallis. She’d already watched creatures break bones and change into something else, watched them tear people apart with nothing more than shadows that hung on the candle’s wicks.

She reached a tentative, shaking hand out and the bird let her touch his head. Soft, warm, alive…real.

“A broken fox, a silly fox,” he said. He stepped closer, ruffled his feathers, and she was able to see him more clearly. “Such a slight, tiny creature. Nothing more than a morsel, I wager.” A ghost owl, she thought, perhaps. His white feathers glinted the red moonlight back at her.

“Shhh…quiet…They’ll hear you.”

“A whisper or a scream is all the same in this forest, you’ll learn. They will hear even the smallest step if they will it, so what more harm will words do?”

A special sort of fear played along her as she realized the truth of the words, making her fur stand on end. “Are you…” she licked her maw and swallowed “…are you a…kind owl?”

“Kindness has nothing to do with it, sweetling. There are all kinds of darkness in this world, and you have escaped merely one of its many, many faces. What you should ask, instead, is do I work for those atop the hill?” He turned his head nearly sideways and clacked his beak.

“Well, do you?”

“It’s doubtful they could afford me.” The sentence was short, rather-of-fact. Tallis stood and walked past the owl.

“Where are you going, sweetling?”

She didn’t bother lowering her voice, no matter how much logic told her it was wise. A whisper or a scream is all the same in this forest, the owl said… “Follow me or don’t, but I can’t stop for long.”

A breath of wind and the catch of air was the only thing that told her he had taken flight. “Ah, now there’s your backbone. I was afraid the dark ones had removed it for you.” He landed on her shoulder, claws digging into the two toned fur and dark tribal insignias. The weight caught against the deep gouges the etched their way across her ribcage, side, and abdomen, and she whimpered.

“That is going to cause you problems in the near future, I imagine.”

She grimaced, thinking about the darkness inside of her and the light they’d stolen and feasted on, but didn’t reply.

Her eyesight was so much more acute than she remembered—she could see in what little light was piercing the thick cloud cover. It was becoming easier to make out silhouettes of roots made to trip her or particularly sharp rocks and twigs. Travel was becoming easier, though the pain from her injuries persisted and slowed her.

But, it was getting colder too, and she could feel her breath rise in hot mist around her snout and eyes. She balled her fingers into fists tight enough that claws grazed her palm, but all she feel was skin stretch in numbness.

“You’ll freeze before you make far enough progress to be truly safe,” noted the owl as she shook beneath his talons.

“No matter,” she responded, “I would rather freeze than witness their banquets again.”

“Might I offer you assistance?”

“I’m not sure what assistance you can offer, magical or no…not unless you can transform into a down blanket.”

The owl ruffled his feathers and fluffed up against her shoulder. “I take offense, sweetling. I may not offer you warmth, but I know of a man that can aid you, if he so chose.”

“Another in this forest? I doubt the dark ones would allow such a thing.”

The bird laughed, an odd cooing hoot of a laugh, as he said, “There are things much older than the hill top. In their little world, they would like to think they strike fear in all, but it is only the weak that fear them.”

His words bristled against her. I am much older than those atop the hill, and they stole from me all the same. “I am not weak.”

“Do you fear them?”

Again, her wounds ached if to remind her of their strength. “Fear us, for we have feasted on what you were, and left you little more than a husk.” The wind sighed to her.

“Perhaps it’s not them I fear, but their boundless cruelty,” she said.

“A fair response.” The owl pointed east, past the path she followed. “His home is that way, far enough away so that no one along the path will see his light, but close enough to hear the stories the roads carry.”

She hesitated. Should I trust this creature? She had a feeling that she only had the illusion of choice—she could feel the sharp talons that pressed in on her shoulder. It would take very little for the bird to finish the job they had started.

“I won’t be able to see.”

The owl chuckled his strange laugh again. “You won’t? Dear, you silly fox, do you not already know? Give your body time, and if you lose your way, I will guide you.”

She swallowed her fear once more and gave a quick glance to the path behind her. The shadows moved against the wind, casting long fingers that tugged against her. Briars caught at her tail, tried to snatch her backward. The wounds ached and stung to remind her what would happen if she was found. It was strangely quiet and devoid of wind in the shelter of trees, as if she’d stepped into a tunnel. “Why is it so quiet?”

“Never mind that—just be sure to take care and not trip.”

Being off the path meant she had to make her own, and Tallis took tentative steps out, one hand held out to guide herself along the trees. She stepped over fallen limbs, crawled beneath logs when they were too tall for her to straddle. Brambles and branches caught and tugged at her tattered clothes and fur. All the while, the owl weighed her shoulder down and the moon hid its red light behind thin clouds.

Sometime after she’d left the path, the world seemed to stand still. Something hung in the air, changed the atmosphere around her. She paused her movements and listened…not sure what had changed, just that she knew something had.

“Why do you tarry?”

“Don’t you feel it?” This time her words were barely a whisper…this time a whisper and a scream was different.

The owl ruffled his feathers, turned his head to look behind her. His grip tightened on her shoulder, and his talons broke skin.

���You are changing, my silly fox,” he whispered in a breathless sigh, “You are changing and sensing what I cannot for my master.”

“They are coming?”

“Fleeing, despite the clouds that cover…” He hooted. “Fleeing their hill to keep you from reaching He of the Forest.”

“What do I do?”

“Run, leap, and let the forest guide you.” He bit her, hard, on her large ear and she cried out as blood dripped on her arm. “I will fly ahead and behind—do not look for me.”

He didn’t wait for a response and his wings beat against her head as he took off. She held a hand to stem the blood welling up from her ear.

Run, leap…she could feel that something in the forest drew nearer. Buzzing like a hornets nest, whispering in a wailing of screams. They were coming in their swirling shadows and flames.

Tallis could almost feel their breath against her heels as she sprung forward, leaping over the fallen tree. For a moment she marveled at the relative ease her movements had, as if the trees and briars beckoned and moved to her will. She ran on fours, the ground as familiar to her as the sands of ancient Egypt.

Still, they followed.

It did not take her long to reach her destination—a ramshackle and abandoned cabin that lacked any light or comfort.

“You promised me help, damn owl,” Tallis whispered. She slowed to a stop and glanced around the clearing. The porch to the cabin had collapsed long ago—there was an overgrown small garden with broken fencing.  The head of an axe rested in remnants of a stump, the rotted handle discarded. But what lights did I see? She thought.

“He promised you a creature who would perhaps aid in your plight—he made no guarantees that this creature would choose to, Eternal One.”

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Impossibly deep, impossibly strong. As if bark and stone scraped together in a mocking imitation of words.

“Who spoke?”

“My servant marked you and offered your blood to me. You must have been kind to him to make such a bold move—or you have at least impressed him at any rate.” The cabin door swung open, glittering light to the outside. She blinked, the sudden glow leaving dots in her eyes.

“Who are you?”

“Names are unimportant in this lingering place. I will not give you mine, and I do not care to know yours. All that matters are the dark ones have braved my forest despite their moon’s absence.”

What stood in front of her—a massive hulking thing—was unknown…unnatural and abominable. His eyes seemed too close together, a massive maw that glimpsed terribly long teeth. His shoulders made at least the width of two trees abreast, and he stood tall enough over her that she looked up and could barely glimpse past the snout.

She stepped backward, but she could hear the whistles in the wind, and knew they were approaching. “What are you?”

“The spirit of this forest—ignorant until nature took the corruption away. Now I am here for those who seek me.” He reached toward her with hands that shifted in and out of existence. Claws tipped each finger, and a deep gray fur blanketed the hands and arms that seemed transparent. Runes, illegible, glowed with lingering echoes along his person, similar to what her own had once done.

He regarded her with an unreadable expression, something both terribly old and terribly young. Claws grazed the dead runes in her fur and on her chest before brushing the still bleeding wound. “This festers.”

She screamed as he plunged his claws deep into the wound. She could feel him reach deeper than anything had touched her before. He pushed aside organs, grazed against bone and ribcage.

When he tore his hand away from her, she collapsed.

“You are a tainted Eternal One. You’ve allowed them to beat you, allowed them to taint and swallow the light within. Everything has changed.”

She struggled to speak, to breathe past the crushed lungs, tears dripping.

“It’s over. It’s finished. They’ve taken your light, left you powerless.”

She looked up, past the haunches of the spirit, to where green and gold eyes dismissed her. “Plea…”

“You have no power here. Not yet.”

Chattering laughter carried a gust of wind. The clearing was beginning to fill with an eerie red light as clouds parted. Tallis could feel an edge of strength—entirely new, not at all like the warm and kind light she’d had before. It was dark, primal.

The owl is right, she thought. There are all kinds of darkness in this world. Silly fox…you are changing.

She took a deep breath and blew it out as the pain faded and she died. The wind followed the movement, and the moon was completely exposed.

In the silence of her death, she heard the nameless creature whisper, “Only the weak fear the dark ones.”

There…was something so wrong with the spirit’s words. They hung in the air, half sung and only half believed. They whispered a challenge to her. I am not weak…I am eternal and I have raised civilizations in the eons that they pissed away in the underneath.

Something burned, something ached…she could feel her chest expand, could feel her lungs take in air unbidden.

Tallis opened her eyes. Her first new breath was a scream—of agony, of sorrow, of triumph. She stood and the spirit stepped backwards

A new pain, a changing pain charged along her being and she embraced this new sensation. Bones cracked, broke, lengthened and healed into something new. She could feel the forest welcome her, mold her. The runes that had once glowed began to glow again, with a new and vibrant power. Her laugh echoed the clearing.

The spirit smiled as she stood in front of him, coiled aggression and strength. “You realize you will be shunned by your kind, now that you’ve taken both the darkness and the forest. The Eternal Ones will never accept something as broken as you.”

She smiled, lips pressed against teeth. She held her hands out, allowing flames to lick across her fur and claws. Shadows wrapped around the flames, glittering like tiny knives.

The owl landed on the spirit’s shoulder and cooed at her. “There is my silly, silly fox. I told you that you were changing.”

Her voice had transformed along with her body—echoing in strength. “Why would you allow the dark ones in your forest?”

“Ancient laws, laid down by your people. Your people are foolish—they have only ever been able to heal and pacify.”

“Not my people. Not anymore.”

“The Eternal Ones know nothing of war, even in their ancient years and vast knowledge.” He pointed toward where trees bowed against the coming monsters.

Tallis crouched, prepared. Deep within, she could feel her ancestors weep for the death of one of the Eternal Healers. But, all they had done was sit in their pyramids and judged and ruled, while their subjects had warred and died and raped and pillaged. Now she was more than them, and more than that. Death, healing, nature, darkness—all hers now.

Those atop the hill screamed their fear, and fled at the sight of her, but she would show no more mercy. The spirit put his hand on her shoulder and she smiled.

“I am coming,” she whispered.