#raev does fic

[raevenlywrote]

Gentle reminder that almost all of my fics require zero familiarity with the source material, Ties that Bind and Forbidden Skies especially. Familiarity leads to easter eggs, but that's about it. I love to write around canon, between canon, and somewhere vaguely parallel to canon, or something kinda canon shaped, in the way that dolphins are porpoise shaped. If you love my original stuff but haven't touched my fanfic bc I write exclusively for books that are older than some of my siblings, don't worry about it. Canon knowledge is not required, and in fact, might be preferable XD

[raevenlywrites]

Raev's Fic Masterlist

Since tumblr can be a little allergic to links, I thought I'd take a second to ramble about all the various little (and not so little) fics I have up on Ao3

Den of Shadows

Jaguar's Midnight: Currently a single chapter of me exploring ideas of a Midnight that is more blatantly BDSM and less human trafficking. Maybe more to come? Who knows

Unpublished Turquoise thing about her time with Daryl (pester me about if it you're interested)

Hawksong/Kiesha'ra

Ties that Bind (haitus, 30 chps) A queer, polyamorous, Romeo and Juliet with shapeshifters set on a backdrop of the first tentative peace in a thousand year war. Canon's hotter cousin. Not currently explicit but plans to potentially get there

Frayed Knots (ongoing, 20 chps) The place where all the scenes I thought would go in TTB but didn't wind up. Some one offs, some deleted scenes. A mixed bag of spicy adult stuff and just fun character exploration. Iirc spicy chapters are marked as such

Dasi High (abandoned, 4 chps) Highschool AU of Maeve and Kiesha and Co, if their story was on the CW

Forbidden Skies (ongoing, 4 chps) Crossover with Forbidden Game. Julian is a falcon and Jenny and co are avians and serpiente. Basically FB's chars and plot cosplaying as K'r

Forbidden Game

Forbidden Skies, see above

Holy Fire (one off) A sort of song fic where Zach thinks way too hard about Jenny and tries to become a magician

Hearts Desires (complete, 4 chps) Still playing with Zach the magician, this one is meant to be a fairly short exploration of magic/runes, Zach's obsession with Jenny, his inability to readjust after the game, and coming out to himself. And tree sex. It's a weird one.

Summer Therapy character study (one off) exploring her massively underdeveloped character a bit

Unpublished pre-canon Jenny thing where she's kind of aware of something (Julian) watching her at night (spicy, pester me about it if you're interested)

Longer descriptions under the cut

Ties that Bind: A queer, polyamorous, Romeo and Juliet with shapeshifters set on a backdrop of the first tentative peace in a thousand year war. Anticipated f/f, m/m, and many other shapes of m/f/m and/or f/m/f, potentially kinky if I ever get it there. Also potentially ace/qpr stuff if I can ever figure out my MC and what is true in this fic vs what belongs in side projects. Canon's hotter cousin with more magic, more setting development, A LOT more romance, and a distant relation to the original in the way that Vaporeon resembles Eevee. It wants to still fit in canon's clothes but really needs to admit its grown too big for that.

This is the big one. I realized revisiting my favorite childhood series that the big epic romance I always remembered was mostly in my head. So I decided to get it out of my head and onto paper. That is... not what happened XD It follows the basic Romeo/Julietness of Hawksong, but I decided to really explore the world and characters and so made a lot of executive decisions bc there actually isn't that much about the world/characters in the original. It's diverged wildly, spiraled out of control into a 30+ chapters novel (lets be honest) and isn't ending any time soon. It's the one I most want to work on so send me asks and encouragement about it so I can get working on it again :P

Basically, Zane and Danica are still deeply dedicated to peace. They think the idea of getting married to achieve it is ridiculous, but they're desperate enough to keep it on the back burner. Dani gets to know Zane (and Adelina) as friends. She explores her relationship with Rei. She struggles with bureaucracy and a well-meaning mother that doesn't always support her in the way she needs. Also there's a bit more magic, a lot more setting, and a bunch of characters I kinda made up to help flesh things out (hello Vasili's made up cousin). Current plans include finishing it with some sort of marriage, but I haven't decided if Zanica is endgame or not (the dynamic currently in the lead in my head is Dani takes Adelina as her Alistair, Zane takes Rei as his Nag, and the four of them all kinda co-rule. We'll see. Everyone is going to kiss everyone else before its done that's for sure)

Frayed Knots (ongoing, 20 chps) The place where all the scenes I thought would go in TTB but didn't wind up. Some one offs, some deleted scenes. A mixed bag of spicy adult stuff and just fun character exploration. Iirc spicy chapters are marked as such Current offerings include: abandoned TTB starts, some BDSM scenes with Z/D/R/A, Dani getting herself off and thinking too hard, an alternative Snakecharm opening from Kel's POV, some Oliza stuff, some Marus/Urban stuff, and some Dasi High stuff. Really, Frayed Knots is a great place to start if you wanna read TTB but are kind of intimidated by its scope. Most FK entries are 1-3 chapters. A sampler platter of my nonsense basically :P

Dasi High (abandoned, 4 chps) Kiesha and Co Highschool AU, basically what if the Dasi was a show on the CW. A fun idea, but not actually my cup of tea. Would probably be more fun to ramble about in discord than actually write

Forbidden Skies (ongoing, 4 chps) Crossover with Forbidden Game. Julian is a falcon and Jenny and co are avians and serpiente. Basically FB's chars and plot cosplaying as K'r. I really loved the idea, but I don't know if it grabbed me enough to make want to wrestle it into submission like I do TTB. With TTB, I don't know the story yet, so I can trick myself into working on it bc I wanna know what happens. With FS, I know what my intended plot will be, so this one would need a lot of outside hype to get me working on it again. But I think it could be really really cool if I did. If this crossover sounds like your cup of tea, pester me for more

Forbidden Game

Forbidden Skies, see above

Holy Fire (one off, post canon what if) A sort of song fic where Zach thinks way too hard about Jenny and tries to become a magician. I have these ideas about Jenny half light faerie, hence Julians obsession with her. In this fic, Zach is trying to learn magic to protect Julian so FB doesn't happen again. He winds up getting the attention of a light faerie, who tasks him with being Jenny's knight until they're ready to come bring her home. Basically, the song Holy Fire by Seeming wouldn't leave me alone one day and this fell out.

Hearts Desires (complete, 4 chps, post canon what if) Still playing with Zach the magician, this one is meant to be a fairly short exploration of magic/runes, Zach's obsession with Jenny, his inability to readjust after the game, and coming out to himself. And tree sex. It's a weird one. Basically, I woke up one morning with the ending of it circling around in my head, wrote that, and am now trying to build up the beginning so the ending has anything to jump off of for impact.

Summer Therapy Char Exploration (one off) Listen. I want summer to be a character. I want anything for her. I want her to have gone through some shit (she fucking died!!!! it doesn't matter if the plot undid it, SHE DIED. That should matter!!!!). Kind of a run up to the idea that she might ever be the one in LJ's abandoned sequel Rematch! to carve Julian's name back on the stave of life.

Unpublished pre-canon Jenny thing where she's kind of aware of something (Julian) watching her at night (spicy, pester me about it if you're interested) This one I do have plans to publish, I just need to get it (and myself) ready to show to the world. It asks the question "What if Jenny kinda like the idea of feeling watched all the time and deliberately got off for her imagined (or so she thinks) Shadowman?"

[raevenlywrote]

Forbidden Skies

The golden hawk girl danced, and Julian did not care.

While his ona and other royal kin watched, tensed and waiting for Anhamirak’s children to dance and to burn the world, Julian watched a different girl, though near enough to the sunshine queen that his elders hadn’t noticed his distraction- yet. For while all eyes were turned to the fledgling Wyvern’s Court, poised on the knife’s edge of greatness or destruction, Julian couldn’t bring himself to care. The coming wyvern was destined to fail, they all knew that. If her magic didn’t kill her, the Empress would.

No, Julian watched something much smaller, and much more precious.

While hawks danced with cobras, and falcons schemed, Julian watched a simple sparrow take her first steps into a doomed new world, learning avian ballads alongside serpiente rills. He watched her spread her simple brown wings under forbidden skies as the avians ventured further and further south with each passing day of peace. He watched her play simple children’s games with ravens and crows, and mambas and vipers. He watched as the simple children built a good life, heedless of the glittering sword that hung over their heads.��

He watched, and decided to keep her.

After all, a simple sparrow did not carry enough of Anhamirak’s fire to doom the world, even if she blazed with it every time she rose to meet the sun. Any other magic would overshine hers, would smother that beautiful spark of light. She was no royal hawk, to carry fully half of the chaos goddess’s gifts, dancing madly with its mate in the serpiente prince. A sparrow could be no threat to the Empress, and the White Isles that succored and trapped them both.

A sparrow was but a single mote of sunshine in a dark, cold world.

She would be nothing to ona ’Cjarsa, shining lady of the White Isles, frozen priestess of dark Ahnmik.

She would be everything to him.

So Julian watched, and waited, patient as any falcon hunting. And his little sparrow grew up. And his time grew short.

Summary:

While hawks dance with cobras, falcons watch, and wait. Julian, a bored falcon prince, also has an eye turned to Wyvern's Court, but his gaze isn't for the wyvern princess. He watches Jenny, a simple sparrow, and her group of avian and serpiente friends, living out the true ideals of the Wyvern's Court, a blending of both sides. While the Empress watches and waits for the fledgling Court to fail, Julian decides to keep a little piece of this dream for himself. After all, what threat could a lowly sparrow possibly pose to the frozen Empress of the White Isles?

Notes:

No prior knowledge of either book should be needed. Setting is Kiesha'ra, characters are Forbidden Game, plot is my usual mess of shrug.dot. I am laying down the tracks as the train is coming my friends. Enjoy! (Work currently just under 5k and counting)

Content Warnings:

So far none really needed. Original works referenced contain some pretty wild stuff though, such as, but not limited to: fantasy racism and fascism, an obsession with blood purity and not race mixing, light body horror, lots of pregnancy plots, and a pretty bad sense of when consent does and doesn't matter. Also working through your specific nightmares, so, ya know, horror. And the sort of general bad handling of queer identities pretty common to older works, so just be aware if you decide to go check either series out (I still super recommend at least the first book of Forbidden Game. If you read only one of the - oh god, 8 books I'm drawing from, let it be that one. And maybe FalconDance if wanna know more about the world building I'm playing with, but it really isn't necessary)

Part 2

[raevenlywrote]

mana'Keyi

Summary:

An alternate ending for WyvernHail, in which Hai still messes around with Salem's magic and has a talk with the Empress, and then some other stuff happens

It hurt . Diving into Salem’s body again hurt, burned with the familiar mix of fire and ice that had warred in my veins all my life. This is what my mother – my Empress—feared would become of the world. With Maeve gone, the only balance the coven could find was through mutual self-destruction.

There has to be another way .

I clung to the tattered edges of Salem’s power—of his soul —eaten away by the am’haj . Cjarsa had created it in the hopes of calming the serpiente’s violent magic down. But where Anhamirak burned until it ran out of fuel, Ahnmik’s consuming stillness was no less thorough. All that kept Salem’s heart beating was will—with his own burned away, mine held his soul stubbornly in place.

Was this what it felt like, when Araceli split Kiesha’s magic asunder? Had Alasdair’s soul burned when the heir forced her to hold half this raging storm? Had Kiesha stabbed her as a mercy, the only release from this searing pain?

I should let Salem go.

There was no hope.

Keyi, that wretched child, taunted every possible future with her cruel name. Keyika, she should have been called. Hopeless. If Wyvern’s Court was doomed to burn, what point was there in holding on to its broken pieces?

There has to be another way.

My Empress had let my mother—my birth mother—seduce a descendant of Kiesha. I had fallen to Ecl at my first trial. But Keyi, whether born of hawk wyvern or falcon wyvern, with viper parent or python, razed this world to the ground with her every footfall.

If I could be trapped in a world of ice, could I not freeze our false hope and take her with me?

I let Salem go, chasing the butterflies that flitted like dying embers. ---

As a child, I walked through the White City and spoke to spirits others couldn’t see. Some were strangers, but I know the shades of them now through their descendants: Brassal, through Oliza’s would be suitor, Danuta through Salem’s mate. But some… some had remained unchanged for a thousand years.

I watched the Empress watch her heir tear the grieving Kiesha in two. I watched her descendant, my father, spark echoes of memory as o’she and a’she collided in the violent dance of kain’kaya . I watched floods drown the earth, watched an island raised from the tumultuous sea, a single point of stillness in a world falling to chaos. And I watched the Empress fall, going still as death, still as ice, daring not to breathe, lest even that small motion send her toppling into Ecl.

You’ve one foot in it already, my Empress.

She doesn’t turn to look at me, she never does.

What do you hold onto?

A child climbed up into her lap, holding up a butterfly before unseeing eyes.

Hope is the thing with feathers , I say nonsensically, scooping the child from the Empress’s lap. Heard even in the chillest land. Do you doubt that if you fall, you, the Empress of Air and Darkness, could not follow this shining child home?

Her head almost turns, she almost hears me. If I stood before her on the White Isle, could I call her back to herself?

Would I want to?

I jiggle Keyi on my hip, impatient as she shoves a butterfly in my face. If the Priestess of the God Unchanging can reach into Ecl and change Fate, then I, mana’Ecl’la’Hai, can see where this path leads me.

---

My hands blister and blacken where I hold the squirming child, this burning Hope. I show her her uncle’s ruined magic.

I don’t know how to make this better, I say, Do you?

She puts a butterfly on his chest and gives it a little pat, looking up at me with a giggle.

I growl in frustration. In any future where I am your mother, I am naming you Keyika, you hear me? You are hopeless and this is stupid.

Hai?

Salem sits up, the fiery wings of the butterfly wrapping around his chest like a bandage. The pain of this torn world is a little less.

Yeah, sorry. I imagine you were expecting to be halfway around the world with Rosalind right about now.

How are we here? Where is here?

I laugh bitterly, remembering how disconnected Kiesha’s kin have become from their birthright.

Ecl . Or maybe somewhere else along the line of Sheni . I’m not sure. I don’t think it matters.

Who is that?

Keyi is wandering through the void, leaving burning footsteps in her wake.

Hope, I say tiredly. The Hope Oliza kept fighting so valiantly to find. Stupid, really. She doesn’t even like guys.

Huh?

I shake my head. Forget it. I need you to wake up now.

He looks around the void, taking in the vague shapes almost illuminated by Keyi’s burning footsteps.

Are those monsters?

I see the hunting figures that have swam beneath Ecl’s ice all my life.

Yeah. They like fire or whatever. Now are you going to wake up or not?

Are you?

Am I? I had taken the child from the Empress’s side with the intention of drowning with her in Ecl for eternity. I like it here. It’s familiar. But already, the promise of her fiery future is thawing this icy place, ruining any chance of finding solace in its darkness once again.

I sigh. I guess I’ll have to try. You first, though. I have an idea, and if it backfires I want to be the only casualty . Well, me and the one wretched constant in all possible futures.

Salem looks as if he’s about to ask how, but Keyi laughs and raises her arms to the sky. Salem is carried up, and for a moment, it looks like he’s flying on burning wings of fire. He looks like Kiesha did, rising on a pillar of flames--

Stop showing us that.

The Empress’s words are a command, and a desperate plea. We are before her again, and the echoes of Araceli and Kiesha hang motionless before us all.

You’re the one who’s still living here, I mutter, and add a belated , my Lady . If she’s speaking with me, I don’t want to ruin it with my annoyed insolence.

Keyi dances over to her again and pats her knee, holding her hands up in a childlike plea to be picked up. Cjarsa does not move.

I sigh and lift the child, jiggling her on my hip. It’s a strangely natural gesture, like I’ve done it a thousand times before. Gross. There is no universe I can imagine wanting a child in. Which puts some disturbing implications on her all but guaranteed existence. But she healed Salem, and that’s not nothing.

You healed a serpiente felled by am’haj?

Not me, my Lady. This little menace here.

Keyi laughs, and the sound sends cracks rippling through the too-liquid ice of the void around us. Cjarsa shudders.

She cannot be here.

And yet, she is in more and more futures by the minute. Fascinating how Hope refuses to be killed.

I kiss her cheek, and a flower blooms there. More green things sprout up where our skins touch, and the butterflies land to feed. Keyi giggles.

The Empress of the White Isle looks utterly horrified.

This is fascinating, because I’ve never seen her look like anything. But it is worrying, because, well, I’ve never seen her look like anything. My Lady?

She’s not bound.

I blink, because this means nothing to me. The Empress stares at the child, and then me.

She’s not yet real.

No, I agree. She’s a sakkri. I don’t know when she’ll come into being, but she seems more and more inevitable with every passing moment. What are you seeing that I am not, my Lady?

The Empress reaches for her, then recoils, as if being even that much nearer to her burns.

She is not set in stone. This seems redundant, and a little rhetorical, so I hold my tongue. She is not set in ice. Ah, see, there it is. More context.

She is not set in fire, she is not set in air. She is not set in tears, nor is she set in trials.

She is a child, my Lady. Her future is not set in anything, save perhaps in motion.

She is not yet anything, The Empress continues, as if I have not spoken. She is not yet Bound.

The echoes of Araceli and Kiesha flicker back to life, moving only at the edges. But the diorama they play out is well known to me anyways. It was the constant bedtime story of my childhood.

Araceli pulls Kiesha from the fire, but only part of her goes. The rest of the woman is still wreathed in flames, though somehow she does not burn. Araceli picks up a knife, and draws it across the back of a young child in the sand before her. She makes two long cuts down the child’s back, and the knife trails flames. Monsters lurk at the edges, and whether these hunting beasts were there in that moment or exist only here in the Ecl , I’ve never known. But they always follow the knife hungrily, and swarm to where the blood hits the sand.

The girl’s back bows, light and fire and blood pouring from the wounds. She is screaming, and her cries and Kiesha’s are consumed by the roar of the flames. In my arms, Keyi is crying, and she turns her face away, burying it against my chest.

Her tears burn, and I press a hand to the back of her head, cradling her to my breast. I didn’t know I had a comforting bone in my wretched body, but I do what I can to comfort the girl. My tears mingle with hers, as I weep for a past and future that cannot seemingly be undone.

Bind her.

My gaze flies to my Empress, watching with empty eyes. No tears, no pity, hardly even any spark of life.

My Lady?

Bind her. With words or with tears, with blood or with flesh. Whatever coin you prefer to spend, offer it to her now, and seize your hope for the future.

Words are her coin, the Lady of Air and Darkness. I do not wish to be bound by any accidental slip of my tongue.

Blood is the coin that the heir spent to tear the fire asunder, to dull it's cut so that the world might not burn.

The Kiesha'ra have spilled enough blood on this altar.

Flesh is the coin the serpiente would choose to spend, but what of their other halves? It would be war all over again if I bound the avians to flesh, and honestly after watching a child be born again and again to two mothers who would not choose her, I shudder from the myriad ways that could go wrong.

Tears are the only coin it feels safe to spend.

Too long, these people have been at war. Too long, they have pushed their grief aside to carry on with the business of living. Let those tears water the new life they are trying to build. Let them learn to cry tears of grief, and then tears of joy. Let them feel .

A deep and terrible sigh sounds behind me, as the Empress of Air and Darkness gives up her last and falls to the latter. The void around us starts to crumble, and the beasts draw ever nearer.

“Time to go!”

I speak into the emptiness, and hope that I have not somehow made a mistake. I am no Dasi, with years of training in summon spirits, in binding elementals. I am no Maeve, who dared to dance with powers so great it destroyed her world. I am the product of their hubris, of their pride and their terror and their grief and their mistakes. I am the heir to a world ravaged by would-be gods. I am shm’Anhmik. I am Kiesha’ra . I am mana’Ecl , and I am running like hell back to the real world, with Hope clutched desperately to my chest.

Notes:

I liked this ending line too much to keep going, but basically my idea is have Hai offer to free Salem and Sive from their ties to Anhamirak and replace them with ties to Keyi, the newly formed water elemental

[raevenlywrote]

Forbidden Skies Ch 3

Jenny didn’t know which was currently hotter, the oven or her temper. The midsummer sun made both nearly unbearable, but she could abide the one as a source of sweet treats and nourishing bread. The latter was intolerable, and had yet to lead to anything productive.

“The Namir-da is less than a week away!”

Her mother kept calming shaping Festival cakes, an avian holiday that was also less than a week away. The market square was adorned with banners for both holidays, each side of Wyvern’s Court trying to outdo the other – and possibly fill the square with so much décor that avian eyes would be shielded from serpiente displays. It was the most tense time of year, as the heat and cultural pressures put everyone on edge.

“I already told you you’re more than welcome to go watch your friends dance after the First Choir sings,” her mother said calmly. Too calmly. She usually wore her emotions more casually, saving her avian reserve for visits back home to her family still living at the Keep.

“I want to dance with them,” Jenny insisted, gritted teeth the only concession to any sense of decorum. “Even Summer is going to dance – Summer!” Though admittedly, Summer was only going to be dancing in the public ring that opened the ceremony. What Jenny wanted was a bit more risque.

But was it, though? Tom had been her alistair since they were six – a ripe old edge for an avian baby, but her parents were fairly liberal, for avians. Not liberal enough to allow their daughter to go walking alone with her intended, however. And certainly not liberal enough to allow her to dance for him.

The Namir-da was a lot, that was fair. It’s ripples and thrusts shaped clearly the act it was meant to commemorate. But Jenny loved the way she felt during practice, skin flushed and prickling from the heat of the dancers’ rsh, body loose and languid from moving in ways it never did outside the nest. When she danced, she could almost understand what her serpiente friends meant by aura, that extra sense that revealed to them the emotions of those around them. When she danced, she felt connected to the group, connected to the earth, connected to herself.

She wanted to feel connected to Tom.

His apprenticeship was coming to an end, and soon they would be wed. Jenny had long since learned from her serpiente friends what came next, but her mother had yet to say. How long would she wait before filling Jenny in on the expectations of a newly married pairbond? Would their parents really just turn them loose and hope they figured it out?

Was that how it was done at the Keep?

Jenny would be terrified to go into marriage without the frank but giggling conversations she’d shared with Dee and Audrey. Her serpiente friends had frankly been shocked that she and her alistair had only ever kissed—just as her avian friends had been scandalized to learn that they had done so much. To Jenny, Tom’s blend of polite daring was one of the many things she loved about him. It frustrated her that she wasn’t allowed to do the same.

“I want Tom to see how hard I’ve worked while he’s been at the Keep doing the same,” Jenny pleaded.

Finally, he mother looked up.

“You think your alistair would be proud to see his pairbond put herself on display for the whole world to see?”

Jenny had to swallow hard before she could speak, choking on her surprise at the chilliness in her mother’s voice.

“It’s a form of art…”

The passion had gone from Jenny’s speech, determination faltering under her mother’s stern disapproval. She’d thought her parents were better than this, understood what it meant to live in Wyvern’s Court. When the serpents danced to avian accompaniment, the stones themselves seemed to shiver and sing with them. It was the most beautiful thing Jenny had ever seen. She was proud to be a part of it. She’d thought her parents had been proud, too.

“You can appreciate serpiente art without needing to imitate it.”

Ice filled Jenny’s gut. She didn’t imitate the dancers, she was one. Granted, she wasn’t as skilled as Audrey—how could she be, when she’d only been practicing a fraction of the time? But the nest let her dance with them, and Aisha painted the wyvern’s wings around Jenny’s eyes just the same as she did anyone else in the nest. She had earned the right to do this; she had spent countless hours memorizing the complicated steps and willing her body to twist into new shapes and forms. She didn’t imitate the dancers, she danced.

And she was going to dance for her mate.

“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to come.”

Jenny held her head high, stretched her spine long and straight like she did when she moved through the dancers’ prayer before practice. Reach for the sky, reach for the earth. Fill your entire self.

“If you think your alistair wants to see his pairbond degra--”

“He does!” Jenny cut her mother off quickly, not wanting tot hear what she thought of her daughter’s dancing. “He is going to come watch me dance, and we are going to exchange our vows at Festival, and then you never have to worry your feathers about what your shameful daughter is doing because I won’t be your problem anymore! I’ll be his!”

She fled the house before her mother could answer, racing through the skies. She wanted to be well away from Wyvern’s Court to do her crying, where none of her friends could hear or sense it.

Part 1 Part 2

Part 4

[raevenlywrote]

Forbidden Skies 2

Part 1

Jenny was having the butterfly dream again.

She wandered lost through an oppressive mass of wings, so dense and thick it was a wonder they were able to keep aloft at all. She knew her cousin, Zach, was also lost somewhere in the press, but no matter how she pushed forward, there was always more. If she opened her mouth to call for him, they would only swarm her, filling her so she was all butterflies from the inside out. They burned, the press of so many wings scorching her like fire. The air was hot and tight, and it was only a matter of time before one small spark caught the whole thing ablaze.

“Ugh. Not the damned butterflies again.”

Dee muttered in her sleep, her serpiente’s sensitive aura disturbed by Jenny’s nightmares. She wrapped an arm around Jenny’s waist and snuggled back in, determined to cuddle the bad dream away. They were all napping in the sun, after a picnic lunch on the cliffs high above the Wyvern’s Court, where no hoverhawk adults could care that she was sleeping in a big pile with her friends, boys and girls alike, serpiente and avians alike. No telling which would be considered more scandalous.

Dee would happily spend the whole day lounging about doing nothing, arms and legs draped over her friends and telling stories out of the pictures they found in the clouds. Jenny didn’t mind the touch exactly, not now that she’d gotten used to it, but her avian blood already ran so hot, and the burning dream left her sticky and restless. She sat up, knowing Dee would just roll over into the group, melting into the hole made by her absence.

She wasn’t the only one already up. Audrey sat with her back to the group, posture dancer perfect, crossed legs so very near to the cliff’s edge. Jenny recognized it as a prayer posture, and sat down quietly next to her friend so as not to disturb her friend.

Both looked out over the whole of Wyvern’s Court spread out below them, though Jenny didn’t think Audrey actually saw any of it. When she went like this, Audrey’s gaze went hollow, like she was watching the echoes of ghosts no one else could see. Jenny looked too, imagining the future ghost of what Wyvern’s Court would become - sakkris, her serpent friends called it. No one spun the old magic of the Dasi anymore, but more and more, stories of them were coming out, as the serpent dancers and the avian loremasters came together to compare notes.

What Is stretches in one long line, Michael had once explained, sketching the rune that his teachers had called Ahnleh and hers called Alasdair’s Seal. And What Could Be and What Might Have Been spiral off of it in elegant arcs. What Never Could Have Been watches from the shadows, and What Is Made By Our Will pulls at the line of Fate.

Each line had its own corresponding name and god in the old Dasi pantheon, but most of the group had grown bored of Michael waxing scholarly by that point, and were easily pulled into Audrey’s distraction of shaping each line in the dancer’s gentle stretching dance to greet the dawn. But the image of it had stayed with Jenny, and she thought of the thirteen Dasi every time she looked down onto Wyvern’s Court, and tried to see the lines the city was being built on. One long, strong, proud line dividing north from south, growing blurry and less distinct around the edges as folks - like her parents - took advantage of the natural formations in the rock as they built, and cared less about which side of the line they lived on. The main street of Wyvern’s Court would bend and be blended, like the elegant lines of the Ahnleh being pulled away from the rigid course of Fate by people’s will.

“I thought I was supposed to be the one who was always lost in thought.”

Audrey’s cultured voice broke through Jenny’s musings, rich and rolling and musical. Avians were taught to blend their voices in the elegant harmonies of a chanting chorus; serpiente were taught to make their voices carry through the close dark of a sleeping nest. The feathers at the nape of Jenny’s neck raised to hear it. It wasn’t fear, not exactly, though there was an edge of that to it. It was more… an unknown promise. A serpiente’s voice held promise, whether that was the promise of violence, or sex, or something else entirely. Jenny liked it, she just didn’t have a lot of context for it. Not yet.

“I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Her own sparrow’s voice was light and airy, a trilling chirp so like the call of her second form. Zach’s voice was the harsh scrape of his dark crow, Tom’s the husky croak of his raven. Jenny didn’t know yet if Dee’s grumpy rumbles were an affectation or part of the difference between her python and Audrey’s viper, or if serpiente voices didn’t carry the element of their animal halves like avian’s did. Maybe their second forms showed in other ways, like Dee’s thick, corded muscles, and Audrey’s lithe dancer’s form.

Audrey’s thoughtful hum cut through Jenny’s distraction again. She was always a little distant after the dreams.

“Not to sound ungrateful, but the dreams you and your cousin bring our afternoon naps are more disturbing than your mere company. I’ll take waking Jenny over dream Jenny any day.”

Audrey dipped her head to rest on Jenny’s shoulder, a gesture of comfort. It was more for Aud’s benefit than Jenny’s - the casual affection of this group was relatively new to her, but not unwelcome - so Jenny leaned over too, rubbing her jaw along the top of Audrey’s head.

“I’m sorry. They always seem to be worse when Zach and I are both here, don’t they?”

Her crow cousin had been spending less and less time with the group as his training for the Wyvern Guard took up more and more of his time. Jenny also thought that maybe he didn’t want to subject everyone to the weird dreams the pair of them had shared since childhood. When they’d shared a nursery as children, Jenny would often crawl into bed with him, each taking turns soothing away the sweats and shouts of that awful dream. It was probably why they were both so comfortable sleeping in the serpiente style now, all curled up together and atop one another. She wished Zach would still allow himself the comfort of it now. But as he grew older he grew distant, shaping his softer nature into the hard, disciplined mein of the soldier he was trying to become. She wished he’d stayed an artist; it suited him better. But the Thornbrush’s had all been soldiers, and even though there was no war on, it was still an honorable profession to serve in the Wyvern’s Guard that kept peace in the city.

“Don’t worry about it, lalintoth. You know we’re always glad to have him. He so serious of late - is he alright, or just trying to look good in front of the princess?”

She wasn’t surprised the serpiente dancer had noticed the shadow of worry on Zach’s already grave demeanor. The avians of their group did their best to let their reserve - a habit of holding their auras close and shielded- drop around the auratically sensitive serpiente. It was considered just as rude in serpiente culture to hide your emotions as it was for avians to be overly demonstrative in public. Just one more drop in the sea of differences between them. Still, it wasn’t that hard to make concessions, if both sides were willing to actually talk about it. And the gains were more than worth it. Like Zach having a place he was actually allowed to wear his worries, even if he wasn’t ready to talk about them yet.

“It would mean a lot to him,” Jenny said slowly, “to be accepted.”

Her surface words meant “into the guard”. But unspoken was his desire to fit in. His foundling status was not one their avian nestmates had ever let him forget, though they’d never been coarse as to speak of it directly. No, they’d needled at him in the subtle, sideways way of the avian courtier; they always found ways to turn the talk to the long, proud, unbroken lines of their families, and how Silvermedes and Aniketos had always been guards and soldiers and of course they would be trying out for the honor guard which was of course really a step down from the Royal Flight but such was the price of peace, and so on.

It was small wonder the pair of them had sought out better friends.

The group had come together slowly, from Dee working with Zach to get his skills with the serpiente spears on par with his proficiency with the avian bowl. From Michael working with Tom to chart out the best goods to bring to the central market from their respective sides of the court to stock their little stall by the fountain. From Summer dragging Jenny down to see Audrey dance, the younger girl too shy to go watch dancers alone but loving the beautiful twirling colors of their melos. From Jenny baking each of them a special cheres cake for their birthdays, because these people were important to her, and she liked the excuse to bake. Each unique person made up a sparkling facet of the jewel that was Wyvern’s Court. She loved their little group more than anything else in the world, and was grateful they’d been born in a time where they could be friends instead of enemies.

“He’ll be fine,” Audrey said, pushing away from Jenny with a stretch. “Dee won’t let him rest until he’s in. That is, if she ever wakes up from her eternal nap.”

The way Audrey pitched her voice made it clear she knew Dee was awake, and so their ceaseless teasing fight could resume. Michael had informed Jenny that this type of flirting was common between the dancers and the guards, the friendly rivalry left over from a time when each vied for importance in the eyes of the royal cobras. Now, with both the royal hawk and the captain of her guard taking lessons from dance master Aisha, and the war between their two peoples finally over, the dancers were enjoying basking in their superiority. That didn’t keep Dee from carrying on like she was Anhamirak’s gift to the world, however. And watching both women move, Jenny had to admit choosing between them seemed an impossible task.

So she didn’t. That was the point of Wyvern’s Court, wasn’t it? To have both and have more than the sum of its part in the sharing.

“It’s my day off,” Dee groused, but she did come over to sit with the pair of them, dangling her long, dark legs right over the cliff’s edge. Jenny wasn’t bothered by heights - why would she be, when all she had to do was think it and her gentle sparrow’s wings would carry her to safety?- but Dee seemed to flaunt anything that others might consider a source of fear. Like she could cow fear itself into backing down from her. Jenny admired her indomitable spirit in the same way she admired Audrey’s grace, as pieces of beauty she wanted to take into herself. She didn’t understand Beauty as Divine in the same way the serpiente who had grown up with Anhamirak did, but she liked the idea of it, and liked the idea that enjoying things that pleased her could be an act of honoring the gods.

Tom thought her devotion to a goddess she’d never grown up with was silly, but he was more than happy to capitalize on the serpiente desire for beauty. He and Michael poured over the jewelry he brought down from Hawk’s Keep when they came to visit, like he had today. Jenny didn’t mind so much having an alastair that lived so far away, and if Tom cared that she lived in Wyvern’s Court instead of the “safety” of Hawk’s Keep, he never commented on it. She liked that he wasn’t a hoverhawk of an alastair, even if he didn’t quite understand her fascination with the serpiente she shared her city with. He did his best to understand them, and appreciated her friends because they looked out for her, and planned to be courteous when he moved to the Court in a few years when he’d finished out his apprenticeship with the Aureate jewelers.

Everything would change then. They all knew it, and none talked about it. By then, Zach would be in the Guard with Dee, Tom would be in the Market with Michael, and Jenny would be at home, raising their little ones. She would probably still see a lot of Summer, who lived next door and would have little ones of her own. But these lazy afternoons of sunny naps on the cliffs would be gone.

That was alright. That was growing up. She didn’t mind it, not exactly. It just made her savor days like this while she had them. Will might pull Fate a little, but not fast enough to change the life Jenny had laid out before her.

And what would she do different, anyways? It’s not like she had any big dreams of becoming a dance master like Audrey, or a caravan head like Tom. Her biggest dream was to watch Wyvern’s Court grow, to see it sprawl and overflow the valley it had started in. And to make her friends birthday cheres cakes every year.

Part 1

Part 3

[raevenlywrote]

A Call For Help

Original character Hellie Smoke, daughter of Caryn Smoke, was born with a vampire taint thanks to the events of Demon in my View. Hellie is off at college, learning how to handle her vampiric side without her old support group. Content warning for vampiric mind control, drinking of both alcohol and blood, and life threatening blood loss.

Hellie couldn’t decide if she was grateful Mason picked up or not.

She could have gone to the SE Haven part of campus. She could have sat up all night in the student union. Hell, she probably could have gone to El Nido, despite not being a dancer herself. But scales were the last thing she wanted to feel against her aura right now, still raw and ragged from the wounds of her dreams, and the argument they’d spawned. No, the nest belonged to Dianica, even if the serpiente princess wanted little to do with it.

No, Hellie needed to go somewhere that was just hers, and that somewhere was the gutter. The den that was Mason’s main hangout was grimy and gross, and it matched her mood perfectly. She didn’t deserve any better than this.

His car smelled like stale cigarette smoke, and not for the first time, Hellie wondered if he was just from a particularly weak line or what. Las Noches never smelled of anything stronger than glass and sweat, and the occasional note of whatever mystery liquid had been splashed against the bar floor. Hellie missed Uncle Aubrey’s club. She missed a lot of things from home right now.

She hugged her arms around herself as Mason drove, blathering on about whatever stupid shit he liked to talk about. Something disgusting about twins. Hellie ignored him, resolving to steal his car once he was distracted and go get some McDonalds. He wouldn’t give a shit if she was out all night, so long as she brought the Accord back in one piece. Ugh, she might even clean out the floorboards for him. How long had that abandoned bag of mostly eaten Cheetohs been under the passenger seat?

The house they pulled up on wasn’t any different than any of the other single-family homes turned rental properties that surrounded the campus. None of the signature inversion that New Mayhem was famous for. No, only the elite of the vampiric world announced themselves in bizarre decorating schemes. Mason’s bash circuit houses all had beige or grey or white siding, boring brown roofs, and yards of patchy grass mixed with clover. Nothing to give the game away.

Inside, it wasn’t all that different from its’ neighbors, either. The kitchen was small and seldom used, a dingy white trash can overflowing with beer cans and take out bags. A smattering of upperclassman lounged in the living room, playing video games and smoking pot. No long, flowing gowns with plunging deep Vs or leather-clad legs perched artfully on vintage furniture. Just jeans, t-shirts, and second-hand sofas in bad need of vacuuming.

No one looked up as Hellie and Mason passed through into the back. Nothing to see here, folks. Just another of Mason’s friends. Some nights, a blood junkie might peel themselves off the couch and follow the vampires back, hoping for a high. Mason wasn’t exceptionally gifted at giving pain – no one excelled at that more than aunt Fala-- but it didn’t take a maestro to turn the sting of feeding into something pleasurable. And as far as addictions went, bloodletting was fairly safe. Most vampires were smart enough not to draw attention to themselves, cultivating a dedicated bash circuit and protecting their personal buffet from showy injuries. Why feed on a neck when there were so many more interesting – and private – places to sink fangs?

Mason was no exception. He didn’t particularly care for his flock – and why would he, when they had like a six year shelf life max before graduating out?- but he kept them fed and housed and well enough to snack on. Tonight’s entrees were lounging on his bed, watching some trash TV reruns and groping each other like it was an afterthought. Or the last thing Mason had bothered to “suggest” to them.

“Ugh, god, Mason, are they really twins?”

Bits of their one-sided conversation came back to her as Mason stripped off his shirt and tossed it carelessly in the general direction of the hamper.

“Nah. But they’ve gone pretty far out of their way to cultivate the illusion. Something about an audition, I don’t remember.”

“I don’t care,” is what he meant, and Hellie heard it loud and clear. She rubbed at her arms, skin starting to crawl. No, not her skin. Something deeper, more primal.

“Listen, I gotta get out of here for a bit. Toss me your keys.”

“No way.” He didn’t even bother to look away from the legs he was climbing. “You just got here. And I promised these two some fun. You owe them for making them wait.”

The women giggled, and Hellie couldn’t tell if they honestly found Mason’s banter funny or if he’d rolled them into laughing.

“I just wanna grab some food. I missed dinner.”

Mason patted the other pair of legs. “Help yourself. Christina won’t mind.”

“Christina” laughed and pushed playfully at Mason’s shoulder. “Maaaay-suuuun, I’m Brittney.”

Mason ignored her and drew his fangs over the inside of the other one’s thigh. She moaned, head lolling back and fingers twisting in the sheets. Hellie took a step back, leaving, she was definitely leaving--

The scent of blood filled the air.

Come on in, Hells Bells, the water’s fine.

Mason’s voice slid through her mind as his unattended guest slipped from the bed. Hellie barely noticed the hands wrapping around her wrist, didn’t fight as the slender mortal pulled her towards the bed. Towards the blood. All she could hear was the dry rasping of her own veins, empty, so empty, neglected for so long…

It didn’t used to be this bad. Once a week had been enough for such a long time. Why… why was it so loud now?

Why was she fighting?

Her knees hit the bed. The rest of her kept going, spilling into the graceful crawl of a predator. Mason rolled over, grinning at her with lips painted sticky red. He looked like an evil clown. She hardly registered him, eyes drawn to the two lines of blood trickling down tender flesh…

It would be a shame to let the wounds close.

Were those her own thoughts, or Mason’s?

Did it matter?

She reached out, fingertips like magnets to the wounds. She pushed, rounded nails catching the edges, pulling. Blood flowed faster, hot, copper, bright. Like chocolate and caramel and candy apples and french fries so hot they burned the tips of your fingers, too salty and perfect to let go to waste. Behind her, more blood flowed, Mason taking his own partner. He’d open this one for her, then moved on. She didn’t have the art of growing fangs just yet. A predator, but still just a fledgling. Still learning, still malleable. He would teach her. He would show her how to roll a mind tighter than a joint. Make em forget anything that isn’t you. Make everything else turn to stale ash on their tongues. Make yourself their god.

Hellie put her lips to the woman’s thigh just to drown all the fucking talking out. She didn’t want to think anymore. She didn’t want to have anyone’s thoughts in her head, not hers not his not the lady on the bed not some ancient dead priestess-- just the quiet peace of the blood, the all consuming fire that burned away her weakness and made her something strong, something primal.

She drank, feeling power pour down her throat, race to her edges, backwash as the force tried to equalize. She held on tight, not wanting to share, not wanting to let one precious bit go back to this pathetic creature. It didn’t even have enough sense of self to remember its own name. Just an empty vessel, a beer can to be crushed against her forehead and tossed aside--

Empty? It shouldn’t be empty.

She never drank enough to drain someone all the way to empty.

Hellie sat up, world too sharp, motions too fast. Everything was on a delay, her senses taking in information faster than her brain could keep up with. They were alone –her and the girl—the TV had gone to fuzzy static. The room was cold—too cold, her skin was cold, and pale—and the house felt quiet, empty. Going out, surfaced blearily in her thoughts. Beer run. It was two in the goddamned morning, maybe even three. Hellie couldn’t see all of the alarm clock around the discarded clothing that had landed on it. Was she naked? No, but she was cold. Because her shirt was soaked. Soaked in blood. Fuck! The girl. Goddamnit, she had to pull it together. Had to focus.

She backed off the bed, pulling off her shirt and grabbing a button up from the floor. The girl moaned, something unintelligible, but Hellie didn’t need to understand her to know what she needed. She’d lost too much blood. Too much of it pooled under her and made Hellie’s new shirt stick wetly to her belly. Growling frustration, she jerked it off and wiped at her front, trying to get clean. Fuck. Should she shower? No, damn it, no. Being messy was not the problem. The girl fucking bleeding out in Mason’s bed while he was out on a goddamned beer run was the problem.

She snarled, rage making the fire in her blood sing. Calm. She needed to be calm and make a plan. She stared at her phone –when had she pulled it from her pocket?--and watched the display vibrate. No, shake. Her hands were shaking. Why the fuck were he hands shaking? She was glutted on power, she should running through the streets or dancing the night away, high on this human life-- fuck! She had to get this girl help.

She thumbed through her phone, trying to focus. Who could she call? God, why were so many of the numbers in her phone part of this fucking bash circuit? None of them would be any goddamned good. They’d just get her a beer or an orange juice at best and wait for Mason to come clean up the mess.

She should make Mason clean this one up, too.

She didn’t think “Brittany” had that much time.

SE could help, but Hellie knew Mason wouldn’t appreciate Hellie leading them to his door. And as fucking pissed as she was right now –how could he just leave her like this?!-- she wasn’t quite ready to burn this bridge. She still had three more years at this school, and she needed somewhere to feed. Mason’s circuit wasn’t totally hopeless, just the ones that hung out closest to the source of the rot. Focus!

She stared at each entry in her phone one at a time. Abbey from math, no. Adam from the SSA? No, calling a wolf would not likely improve things. Agatha-- Hellie gave a manic little laugh. Calling the dean was more likely to end in her expulsion than anything else.

Asha.

The falcon was unflappable, beyond cool under pressure. She didn’t seem to care that Hellie wasn’t a shifter. What would she think of Hellie being a –well, not a vampire, exactly, but splitting that particular hair right this second felt really, really stupid. If she called her right now, would that be the end of their friendship?

The woman moaned again, and Hellie made up her mind. This woman’s life was more important than Hellie’s social life. If this blew up in her face, well.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Hey Asha? It’s Hellie. …I need some help.”

[raevenlywrote]

Forbidden Skies 5

In which Jenny seeks out her friends, and they all cuddle and everything is fine

The nest never slept, though it had its ebbs and flows. In the middle of the night, folks still danced and told stories, but they were most certainly of the sort an avian lady shouldn’t see. They also did …other things that an avian lady shouldn’t see. But at least they did that mostly in small groups, mostly in private rooms. Still, Jenny took a side door, entering the nest not through the main floor but the kitchen, also warm and bright at all hours. Serpents loved rich foods, heavy on meat that need to roast low and slow for hours to perfect. That meant hours of someone constantly checking and adjusting, and that meant a kitchen that never slept.

That also meant that someone was up who could fix Jenny a hot drink to help her chase away the last of the chills. A lovely python woman-- Vini? Viri?--settled her by the fire and wrapped Jenny in her shawl. She didn’t need it, but she appreciated the comfort of it, thick with the familiar scents of spices and musk. It wasn’t the yeast and downy smell of home, but it was a different kind of familiar. Something that was still Jenny’s, but more grown up.

The python left to fetch Audrey, who brought a sleepy Michael in tow. Audrey looked as elegant and put together as ever, but one look at sleep-rumpled Michael and it was clear that Jenny wasn’t interrupting anything intimate. Not that sleeping next to each other didn’t feel incredibly intimate to Jenny. Not the big puppy pile of the hill, but alone in the dark with just her alistair…

Jenny shook herself, resettling the feathers at the nape of her neck. She’d taken her wings down before entering the nest, not because she felt she ought to, but because the kitchen was close and tight. No room for extra feathers. She pulled the borrowed shawl closer, mimicking the comfort of her wings.

Audrey knelt before her. “Lalintoth, what’s wrong?”

Michael grabbed some sweetbreads and a pot of honey butter and sat beside Jenny, offering her the support of his bulkier frame. He smeared her a generous dollop of honey butter and held it between Jenny and Audrey.

“What butter and spirits cannot cure there is no cure for,” he said sagely.

Audrey chuckled and took the bun from him. “She’s drinking tea, not spirits.”

“I bet I could talk Viti into giving us some,” he teased back.

“Ugh, no spirits,” Jenny said, taking the half of bun Audrey offered her. “I’m already doubting my senses as is.”

Audrey glanced around the room. The handful of people were mostly engaged with their own tasks, but dancers loved gossip. Matrons loved gossip, too, and at least three people in here were both. Jenny followed her friend’s logic.

“Michael, do you still have that book Tom lent you?” Jenny asked.

His gaze flicked to Audrey, who gave him the barest nod.

“Uh, yeah. It’s back at our stall.”

Jenny took the shawl from around her shoulders. “It’s a nice night for walking. Escort me?”

Michael gave her a grin, equal parts kind and mischievous. “On Tom’s honor - he’d destroy me in a duel, unless I can talk him into pastry eating at dawn.”

Jenny laughed, cheered by his joking. “He’s got a worse sweet tooth than you.”

“And a mate who will keep him well supplied in delicious delights. Come, let’s walk.”

Viti reclaimed the shawl, but let Michael keep the buns. With her friends close, Jenny went back into the night, settled and more secure.

-

“Jenny! There you are!”

Summer - with Zach and Dee in tow- latched onto Jenny’s arm from the shadows. The northern hills were never dark, but the other half of her friend group had been posted up in the dimness between houses, clearly worried.

Summer wrapped her in a hug, more for her own comfort than Jenny’s. “Oh, I heard the fight, it was awful! I came over to cheer you up, but you were already gone…”

In that way, Summer was an awful avian lady. She wore her every emotion on her sleeve, and was always there to comfort Jenny or Zach whenever either of them would admit to having troubles. She didn’t ignore or talk around delicate subjects like she was “supposed to”. Jenny hugged her back, glad for the support.

She looked a question over Summer’s head at Zach and Dee. Dee shrugged.

“Summer came to find me when she couldn’t find you,” Zach said.

“And I came along in case you were somewhere feathers feared to tread,” Dee added, needling Audrey with an eyebrow waggle.

“Not all feathers,” Audrey hissed back, stepping closer to Jenny and Summer. “Anyways, Jenny came to the nest looking pale as death--”

“--that’s rich coming from you, my alabaster queen,” Dee chuckled.

Audrey ignored her. “--and was going to tell us why, once we got to somewhere more private.”

Dee nodded. “Only gossips worse than merchants are dancers.”

“Because guards call it “gathering intelligence”,” Michael said with heavy sarcasm.

Dee’s grin flashed in the torch light. “Exactly. So let’s go gather our intelligences.”

She offered Jenny an arm, but Summer was so shaken that she didn’t let go, so Dee offered it to Zach instead. Zach rolled his eyes and took up one of the torches, leading the way to Michael and Tom’s market stall.

-

The space was small and cramped with all six of them in it, but it had a small fire grate, and privacy. They had used it as a gathering space ever since Tom’s father had gifted it to him for his birthday last Spring, an investment in his middle son’s future. It felt strange being here without him, but he would be in town for Festival soon enough. Still, Jenny wished dearly that he was here now to hold her, to wrap his wings around hers as she tried to shake the lingering cold of the cliffs. Zach at her back and Summer at her front was the next best thing.

Dee crouched over the fire grate, willing her magic to spark. Audrey corrected her hand shape and pronunciation, which Dee ignored, finally giving up and getting out her flint. Michael dug through the small storage closet in the back, usually kept locked, trying to find the book Jenny had mentioned. She hadn’t really needed it; it had been a ruse to get out of the nest. But once Michael was on the scent of a book, there was no stopping him. It was one less pair of expectant eyes on her, anyways. Now that she was surrounded by her friends and safe, embarrassment was starting to color over the fear.

“You said you were doubting your senses,” Audrey prompted.

Jenny sighed. “I probably just scared myself. I went out for a flight to cool my head, then sat up on the cliffs to avoid my mother.”

Zach’s arms tensed around her, an unspoken reprimand. It wasn’t safe to be out alone at night, she knew that, he didn’t have to say it. As children, they’d roamed all over those cliffs, in pairs and groups. She felt safe there, even as the matrons cautioned unmarried folks from going anywhere without an escort. If only they knew the sort of trouble one could get up to with an escort with an eye for mischief. Her eyes flicked to Dee then away, heat coloring her cheeks.

“Anyway, I was cold and stiff, so I decided to do some warm ups, and I was singing because it always feels so awkward to dance without music, and… I thought I heard someone.”

Her skin broke out in gooseflesh, and Zach rubbed at her arms to chase it away.

Audrey’s gaze narrowed on her. “What were you singing?”

“I dunno,” Jenny mumbled, suddenly wishing she wasn’t sandwiched between her friends. “Just… words that went with the dance. I just sort of made it up as I went.”

Audrey looked like she was going to press further, but Dee cut in. “She only knows the one dance, Aud.”

Audrey blinked, then curled her lips in over her teeth as understanding dawned.

“Jenny….”

Jenny buried her face in the back of Summer’s hair, cheeks flaming. The warm scent of feathers did nothing to soothe her embarrassment.

Michael came out of the back, leafing through a tome. “Which names did you use?”

Jenny peered from above Summer’s head, eyes wide and owlish.

Michael seemed oblivious to her discomfort. “You were dancing the Namir-da, right? Which version? Were you Kiesha dancing for Maeve or Maeve dancing for Leben?”

Audrey hissed. “Michael! Don’t invoke their names like that!”

Michael blinked at her. “Why not? They’re only fairy tales.”

“Don’t let the Diente hear you say that,” Dee scoffed. “The whole royal family swears up and down they’re bloodkin with the original cobra herself.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Royalty always claims divinity. Doesn’t make it true. If we believed everything the legends said, it would make the Empress of the White Isle over a thousand years old--”

“Anyways,” Audrey cut in, with the firm sharpness of a dance instructor, “we don’t know what those old names might invoke. Charms and spells for small fires and little gusts of wind are one thing, but it’s best to let sleeping gods lie. Whether you believe in them or not,” she added, sensing Michael ready to argue behind her. “There’s just so much about the Dasi we don’t know. So much that’s been lost under the tides of blood…”

Michael put his book down and wrapped his arms around Audrey. Even Dee put their usual rivalry aside and bumped her head against Audrey’s shoulder. Jenny watched the knot of serpents over the small flame in the grate between them. Even now, they were lined up, birds across from snakes, as each group sought comfort amongst their own kind. Jenny loved her serpiente friends, loved the vibrant chaos of the mixed court. But when she was frightened, it was feathers that made her feel safest. She had gone to the dancers’ nest first because she knew Audrey would have the most knowledge about magic. If she hadn’t scared herself with her dancing, she’d have probably flown down to Zach’s window and climbed into bed with him. Maybe she should have done that anyways. It seemed like all she’d done was frighten Audrey for no reason.

“Don’t worry about it, Audrey,” she said, forcing a smile. “I won’t sing any more when I dance.”

“And you won’t go anywhere alone at night,” Zach rumbled behind her.

“And Tom will be here soon,” Summer said brightly, trying to lift the mood. “Your alistair will take good care of you.”

And she would take good care of him, by not courting any more trouble, Jenny thought. Maybe this time, her promise to herself would actually stick.

[raevenlywrote]

Cat Nap

Summary:

Turquoise is trapped in a nightmare of her past while sleeping in the courtyard with Jaguar during Midnight Predator. Content warning for trauma nightmare, implication of sexual abuse, and descriptions of pain and knives/scarification

Trapped in a nightmare. One of the worst I’ve had in a long time. I’m used to the running, calculating while my pulse pounds, fleeing through the tight geometric lines of indifferent streets. No one ever comes to help me. Even my dream self has learned to stop asking. Just keep moving, even as the logic of dreams and city planning corral me back to the starting point.

I don’t even cry out when I’m caught again. The familiar, too big hands seizing by the shoulders, jerking me down from the fence I’m failing to climb with a strength I could never hope to resist. So I don’t try. I just let him take me, and save my fight for a moment when it might actually make a difference.

I don’t smell in dreams, but I taste. The sour metallic knife of his tongue always tastes of death, no matter how faint. The inhuman strength of his hands and the rotting taste of blood always reminds me that he is Hunter, and I am Prey.

I taste, and I feel. Every excruciating inch as he lifts my nightgown, a small, lacy thing that I would never wear of my own accord. I try to use that disconnect to distance myself, to remember that this is a dream, and it isn’t really happening. It doesn’t help. Because it may be only a dream now, but it did happen. Over and over and over again.

“You’re mine.” His breath against my neck is hot and fetid, turning my stomach. His fingers find that spot on my ribs, right side, two up from the bottom, hardly the size of a quarter. But-

Pain

A hot shriek lances through my entire side as he presses his thumb into that one spot, tender and never allowed to heal. Even when I’m awake, even when I’m years older, it still hurts. Whatever he did to it, whatever he’s doing to it, it changes me forever. I will never not carry that aching weakpoint.

I struggle. I can’t help it. It hurts and there’s only so much discipline available to my young-- to my sleeping brain. I am not trapped back there again. I am only dreaming. This is only a night terror. If only that would help me wake up.

His body is a long, heavy line against my back, one arm an inescapable band across both of mine. He’s too big, too strong, I can’t stop this-

“You will always be mine. You will always bear my marks.”

The pattern of it flashes before my eyes, dream logic putting us before a mirror. Better than my childhood bedroom. I look into the reflection and try to see myself as the adult I know I’ve become-- strong, hard-muscled – taller than he ever was, as strange as that is to think. The dissonance isn’t enough to break the dream, but it is enough to remind me of the shape of my actual body, and distantly, I start to become aware of that, too.

It is also being held down.

That’s not so surprising. I can’t bear to sleep uncovered – far too vulnerable – but heat always makes the nightmares worse. Doubtless I have spun myself into a stupid cocoon of sheets and sweat. Hot, so hot. Can’t get away. Grip too tight.

The first trace of the knife bites into my skin and I scream. I can feel it building up in my real throat, feel how hot and dry my mouth has become. I long for a cup of hot coffee, the bitter wet rush of morning. It will take time to brew, time I will have to be alone in my skin, locked in this stupid nightmare half-world as I wait for my panic to drain from me. But at least I am not in a Bruja house, where a fellow hunter could learn of my weakness. No one knows about my night terrors but me, and--

“Look at me!”

His voice has lost its polish, rage revealing the monster underneath the elegance. Costumes and niceties can never cover up that they’re all monsters, but they all love to drape themselves in the pageantry of them anyways. He is always “Lord” or “Master”. Always with capital letters. He can hear it in my voice if I don’t. Just as he could see in my eyes that I was somehow slipping away, slipping his grip. That won’t do. He is teaching me a lesson. I must be present.

The pattern of his mark flows over my shoulder, electric fire where it passes over my bones. Like the spot on my ribs, the mark burns, like liquid metal being poured over my skin. Branded. The marks on my wrist – incidental remnants of past lessons, not deliberate like this – mark me as his to any who know his work. But this mark, this flowing, looping line, is his signature. He is an artist, and an artist always signs their work.

I struggle again, willing my dream self to wrench free. I know my phone is nearby, if I could just wake up enough to move, to call someone--

Who would I even call? I don’t have any friends.

Cathy had friends.

I will never let myself be Cathy again.

I won’t be her, but I can’t be me. Too trapped in the past to remember how to twist, how to use my meager strength effectively--

Something I have never felt before rasps over the back of my neck. It is rough, and wet, but somehow also soft and dry. It isn’t soothing, but it is rhythmic, and it is different, so it is welcome. I focus all my thoughts on that steady, strange rasp, trying to use my figuring it out to wrench myself from the dream.

I am still held down. I am still trapped by a body so much stronger than my own.

A body.

I always sleep alone.

The rasping is joined by a strange rumble, deep and gravely. I feel tiny rocks against my skin, the grit of the outdoors. Did I fall while on a job? Do I have a concussion? Am I dying? There’s grass, the foreign green smell of growing things, and a musk that makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

A neck that is being licked.

By a jaguar.

I don’t even know if he’s actually a jaguar. Neither of my lives had any real reason to know the difference between all the various big cats. He could be a panther or a leopard or even some kind of maneless jungle lion I’ve never heard of before for all I know of the family Felidae. Class? Doesn’t matter. It’s such a Not Daryl thought it breaks me free, and I am finally starting to wake up.

Starting to. Mortal bodies are treacherous things, and they don’t like to change gears well. In a vain effort to protect me from myself, my body has flooded itself with whatever chemicals keep me still and motionless in my deepest sleep. Today – and it is wild to realize that it is today and not tonight – it has probably saved my life. If I tried to fight back against my new master, even in my sleep, it would doubtless not have gone well. No matter how kind he has so far seemed.

I don’t know why he’s in cat form, and I don’t care. I don’t think I could have stopped myself from fighting if I’d woke to him as a man. As a vampire. I can’t let myself fall into the trap of thinking of him as a man. I know far too well how good they are at wearing that gentle mask.

But his tongue on the back of my neck feels good, and there’s no denying that it saved me. The purring-- purring, that’s what that weird rumble is-- is also alien, like the tongue, and all these novel sensations allow me to fully separate from the past. The dusty, cave-like smell of vampire mixes with green and sun-warmed fur smells of Jaguar, giving my brain new context for old danger signals. I hate that on him it smells good, complimenting the muskiness of his cat self. Hopefully on his human-shaped form it will smell like vampire and only vampire.

Why am I so obsessed with smells? Because it is the one sense that never fails me. Even in the dark, I have learned to smell danger, tapping into wealth of information that human kind has long abandoned. And again, in my dreams, I never smell. So I know I am awake, like touching the glossy screen of my smartphone usually wakes me, an anachronistic sensation to my pre new millennium childhood brain.

I don’t have a phone right now. I have a big cat.

He licks and purrs, clearly trying to soothe me. Is he awake, or is this just some feline instinct, common to all kitties no matter their size? I don’t care. I need the comfort, and the novel sensations, so right now, just for an instant, I allow myself to relax back into it. Into him.

Later, there will be questions. Later, there will be discussions of how I came to him, what his plans for me really are, negotiations that are merely part of the game for their kind. I am weak, and could never hope to enforce any contract they no longer wished to keep. I am weak, but I am no longer Prey. I know how to think, know how to fight, know how to run. I know how to wait. So I let his rasping cat tongue lick away the sweat of my nightmares, wondering if they change how it taste. I will use the comfort he’s offering me to ground myself, and I will learn what I can of this new place. I am not Safe, but I am not back there, either. It’s a start.

[raevenlywrote]

Forbidden Skies 4

It was nearly high summer, but that didn’t stop the cliffs from being cold at night.

Jenny curled her knees to her chest, demi-wings folded tight around her arms like a second embrace. She was cold, miserable, and empty, her chest hollowed out like a stupid Festival bun. No amount of fluffy, sugary dreams would fill her up. She was stupid for thinking she could dance, stupid for thinking Tom would want to see-- No. She’d chased these thoughts around in circles for hours. She’d had a fight with her mother, not with her alistair. Tom would come to court for the holiday, they would talk, and if he truly didn’t wish her to dance—well, then she’d just dance for him in private. It would be fine. A part of her would be heartbroken if he told her no, but, well, he was her alistair. It was his duty to protect her. It was her duty to make that job easier by not courting trouble.

Which was why she was on the cliffsides, in the middle of the night, fair away from the warm, winking lights of the town below.

She should go home. Her mother would be asleep by now—assuming she wasn’t sitting up, waiting for her wayward daughter to come home. Ugh. Just a few more minutes, just to be sure.

Her limbs ached from the cold and from the prolonged sitting. Jenny was never still, couldn’t sit for hours in quiet meditation like Audrey, or pour over the same book like Michael or pleasantly sit and embroider like Summer. No, in this she was like Dee, always moving, always looking forward to the next thing. She stood, arching her back as she slowly found her center of balance, muscles shifting minutely til felt that perfect balance. She stretched her limbs in the long, graceful arcs of a dancer’s warm up, the rose to the balls of her feet, reaching high, pressing low. Connected in a strong, centered line.

She began to dance.

She wanted to dance for Tom, but only because she wanted to share this thing that moved her so with him. She wanted everyone she loved to feel how wonderful dancing made her feel. But just because they weren’t ready to share it with her didn’t mean it was spoiled. Jenny could dance for just herself, so she did.

She started small, with the simple, gentle steps of the dance to greet the dawn. For serpiente, the dance reminded their sluggish blood to pump, enticed the heat of the rising sun to come down and fill them. For Jenny, whose avian blood ran hotter than her scaled counterparts, the dance reminded her own heart to beat, proud and fierce, and soon any lingering tingles from her stillness were chased away. She was her own sun, and as she moved from one step to the next, she threw in a little trill of a song, just a few quick notes, to really stretch her lungs and make them work.

Her arms shaped nameless arcs, bits and pieces of things she’d worked on but never mastered. Audrey could tell her all their names, the symbols they represented, but Audrey wasn’t here. It was just Jenny and the music made by her pounding feet, her lilting voice, and the gentle rushing of the night wind. She closed her eyes and imagined that rustling to be the roar of a crowd, cheering and eager for her to perform.

And perform she did.

She only knew two dances from start to finish. The dancer’s warm up, and the Namir-da.

Her body slid easily into the low position, a slow, sinuous roll. She started on her knees, an ancient priestess pleading with an immortal power to bless her people with magic. She imagined Tom’s eyes, gaze going slightly soft as he beheld his pairbond, saw her in this new way, understood what she was ready to give to him, to share with him. The priestess danced with power, spinning charms to entice her immortal partner, to bewitch and beguile him. Jenny danced with abandon, letting herself feel and be everything she was all at once, instead of portioning herself out piecemeal, holding back parts of herself that weren’t appropriate to the task at hand. The Namir-da was about power, desire. But it was also about putting your whole self out there, using it as bait and promise alike. Here I am, this is me, come and get it.

The full dance required a partner, someone to hold her as she dipped and bent backward, exposing herself. Dee had always been more than happy to dance with Jenny, making suggestive comments and lewd jokes that always sent Jenny spilling to the cushioned floor of the dancers’ nest in fits of laughter. Now, Jenny used her wings, improvising in a way a serpent would never think to teach her, balancing and lifting herself with that second set of limbs that gave her freedom in the skies. It wasn’t perfect, but it was hers, and she loved it. Even if Tom might never have any interest in dancing with her, she could dance with herself, give herself this gift, and revel in the power of it.

“Come to me, O mighty spirit,” she sang, improvising words where a serpiente flute lilted. “Come, behold she who might be your queen, if you can tame her. I have the gift of wings, the kiss of the sky and the embrace of the wind. What more can you give me that I cannot already claim for myself?”

“I can give you your dreams.”

Jenny faltered, dropping back into the kneeling position that the dancers took when someone else had a solo. Her wings curled around herself protectively, but she lowered them so that she might look around.

“Who’s there?”

No answer but the wind.

She should go home. She should sift and fly down to the waiting lights of the houses below. She should do as all passerines did and flee, using her true gifts of smallness and swiftness. She was no mighty priestess. She was a sparrow, a single sparrow without a flock to hide in, utterly alone.

Alone.

There was no one here. There was no more answer from the whispering wind. She had gotten herself all worked up and started imagining things. Her grandfather used to craft small illusions when he sang, ghostly images, faint impressions of sensation, the leftover bits of avian magic. In the nest, dancers sometimes called bits of the power their dances shaped, discovering more and more all the time as scholars worked together to piece back bits of their shared history with the avians. Maybe… maybe Jenny had finally gotten good enough to work a bit of magic like that herself.

She needed to go back to the nest. She needed to ask for help.

She needed her friends.

Jenny threw herself backwards, shifting shape as her body found the open air. That moment of freefall was exhilarating and terrifying. Hopefully she could blame her pounding heart and racing aura on that when she sought out her serpiente friends.

Part 1

Part 3

[raevenlywrites]

too tired to write a proper Frayed Knots about this, but imagine if plays and poetry were the avians main means of expressing affection. Like, it just being *really obvious* that so and so is quoting this epic poem *to someone in particular*, but since they dont do PDA its like, just not talked about (just like everything else in avian society lol). Basically I just heard Danica explaining to Zane that "its really not all that different from dancing (one of the obviously sexy dances) in the synkal. Everyone knows who youre dancing for, its obvious."

"But... words... Your people dont talk about things like that."

"Not directly, no. But poetry... its just different."

[raevenlywrites]

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: The Forbidden Game - L. J. Smith Rating: Mature Warnings: Underage Characters: Zach Taylor (The Forbidden Game) Additional Tags: Sex Magic, Nymphs & Dryads, Runes, Tree Sex, references to past suicidal ideation, zach is obsessed with jenny (but trying very hard not to be), zach is worried about turning into his grandpa (but trying very hard not to be), no betas we die like slug and pc, babys first magic spell, Be Careful What You Wish For, Queer awakening Summary:

Jenny's cousin Zach can't leave well enough alone. Following in his grandfather's footsteps, he discovers a different use of runes - bind runes. Thinking to harness their power in a safer way, Zach uses magic to try to put his life back together after The Game tore it all apart. Now he's ready to take his magic out into the wild, and goes out into the woods to try to summon his heart's desire.

[raevenlywrites]

Ask game time!

1. How many members are in the polycule? How are they related to each other? Feel free to draw a flow chart.

9. Do any of the current members practice hierarchical polyamory5? Who are the primary partners?

I'm going to answer this for my hawksong fic, Ties That Bind, bc I need to get my gears going on that one again

The current polycule is Danica, Zane, Andreios, and Adelina. I may or may not loop Kel into it if the fic ever gets there. Danica and Zane's relationship has to come first in the politics, but in private, Dani tends to bow to Adelina's prior claim on Zane, and Rei and Zane don't quite know what to do with each other outside of their clearly defined roles in kink scenes together. Danica is also incredibly gay for Adelina, but is kind of new to thinking of women as potential partners, since her whole life was geared more towards popping out heirs and securing the line. Her relationship with Rei is redefining itself as they both more or less expected to be a monogamous ruling couple, and that is so not turning out to be the case.

Adi and Rei have very little to do with each other.

[raevenlywrites]

From my Forbidden Game fic, Hearts Desire

He peeled a little more bark back, making a space about the size of his hand. He traced his bind rune with pencil first, then the tip of his hunting knife – given to him on a birthday long before his father had given up on him – then deeper. The work was surprisingly easy, once he began, the lines of the tree’s natural formations taking the sharp, right angles of the futhark remarkably well. It was easy to imagine this alphabet taking shape for no other reason than convenience, the tool and the work surface dictating the shapes. Thinking of the runes in such simple terms, as acts of practicality rather than divine mandate, made him feel a whole lot better about all of this. If these were tools made by man, for man, then maybe what he was doing wasn’t quite so cosmically stupid.

Hi hello yes not me re-reading my own fic and falling in love with my own writing again XD

[raevenlywrites]

Not doing a proper NaNo this year, just working on some fic ideas I've had bouncing around. This one is from the Forbidden Game sequel that L.J. Smith will never write, Forbidden Game: Rematch. Basically the whole premise is "someone carved Julian's name back onto the stave of life omg and its Jenny's wedding day oh noes what will happen????"

So yeah. This is my idea about all that XD Enjoy!

“Go and catch a swan exactly to these specifications. Do not blemish it in the catching. The wings must be intact to serve as the pauldrons, just so--”

Julian cut himself off, handing the sketch to his hunter. They didn't need a rundown of how his bride would look in her cloak. And he had a more pressing matter to attend to.

He turned back to his waiting queen/bride/mother, captor, and plastered his most adoring mask of a smile on his face. He held up the glittering collar that would serve as anchor for the wedding gown and binding spell alike. He pressed it to her frozen flesh, just below her collarbones, letting his eyes trail down the glittering strands that hung between her rotten breasts. The glamour of soft, silky skin, milk white and still swollen with the last of a youth’s baby fat, did not survive past inspection. So he didn’t push. He let the magic wash over him, and let himself imagine he held the mortal girl this marriage would tie to him.

Tie to them.

“You should see her, Idelise. Hair woven from the summer sun, eyes so rich a blue to make the cornflowers weep. A body nearly fully blossomed into womanhood…”

He was grateful that his hands were occupied holding the band, so that they might not be expected to wander in adoration he could not make himself feel for this wretch of a corpse. The ice witch Idelise was as dead and unchanging as Ymir the giant himself. The fact that she had carved his name back onto the stave of life simply to chain him to her as a servant and that he could nothing about it consumed his every thought. He was powerless to disobey her, bound by the laws and magic that had bound his brethren to the Shadow Realm first and that miserably little closet second.

Laws that he was counting on.

And the ability of one particularly annoying and amazing mortal girl to circumvent them.

[raevenlywrites]

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: The Forbidden Game - L. J. Smith, Kiesha'ra Series - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Summary:

While hawks dance with cobras, falcons watch, and wait. Julian, a bored falcon prince, also has an eye turned to Wyvern's Court, but his gaze isn't for the wyvern princess. He watches Jenny, a simple sparrow, and her group of avian and serpiente friends, living out the true ideals of the Wyvern's Court, a blending of both sides. While the Empress watches and waits for the fledgling Court to fail, Julian decides to keep a little piece of this dream for himself. After all, what threat could a lowly sparrow possibly pose to the frozen Empress of the White Isles?

Come read my silly wyvern’s court Forbidden Game AU! You don’t have to know ANYTHING about EITHER to understand what’s happening XD