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[whispereons]

Oracle!Reader Part 8

Masterlist - Part 1, Part 7, Part 9

Gonna be honest, Y/N is not nice in this chapter. Not like abusive but just wanted to warn ya'll. My au is supposed to be dark and cruel in a way. This is yandere imposter sagau after all.

A storm brewed above the ship as the two hydra heads roared toward the sky. Shielding your face with your arms you tried to gaze up at the towering dark blue bodies. The teal markings on its armor-like heads let you know who exactly was attacking you.

Beisht, Avenger of the Vortex. AKA Osial's wife who not only has a grudge against Liyue but Beidou specifically due to her warning Ningguang about Beisht's attack.

The Crux has probably gone hundreds of times to Inazuma peacefully but the one time you go is when they get attacked by a sea monster.

Just

Your

Fucking

Luck

Beidou's laugh rings out as the ship sways from the currents and the crewmembers start running to their weapons and positions. Not missing a beat Xinyan ends her song as she uses her vision to blast fire at Beisht.

Holy fuck, this wasn't an accident. This was planned. Beidou planned this shit and went through with it even though you, a guest, are on this crazy ship.

Anger swells up in you like a tornado and you ignore the blasts of water that try to hit the jumping form of Beidou. You look around in blind anger for one of the ballistae on the ship.

The thought of shooting either Beidou or Beisht with it was making your blood pump faster. And even if you did hit Beidou, you could always lie that you were aiming at Beisht.

You spot the closest one and start running towards it. Firm hands wrap around your waist and lift you off the ground.

"I apologize for the urgency, but this isn't a safe spot for you."

Kazuha's calm voice in your ear has a soothing effect on your temperament. Forcibly relaxing your body, you let Kazuha carry you down the stairs and he sets you down quickly in a room.

"Stay here while we take care of the sea monster. I don't want you getting hurt, it will not have mercy on you."

You clench your hands as your body trembles in anger. It's Kazuha's worried and sad eyes that make you unclench your fists.

"I know it's scary so please heed my words."

Burying your head into your knees a muffled sound of confirmation slips out. If he wants to think you're scared, let him. Some time alone might even be good for you.

Kazuha leaves and it's then that you can hear the sound of the fighting as the boat rocks. Xiangling and Xinyan's pyro make the air sticky as Kazuha swirling the water makes it humid too.

The crackling of thunder no doubt from Beidou makes you grind your teeth. You were right to be afraid of going with the Crux, she may be popular but she's far too dangerous.

That was definitely Beisht, you think back to her boss fight and remember her attacks. Shooting water, slamming her head and neck, water missiles, and wait wasn't there a third head?-

A loud bang echoes as the ship starts tilting dangerously. Yelping you shield your head from the items that start falling onto you. Another deafening thud and you're being thrown onto the opposite wall.

As more heavier items crash onto you, the wall makes a cracking sound. You couldn't be sure that it was the boat breaking but you couldn't risk it.

If you stayed here, you'll either be crushed to death or drown if that wall breaks. The Alcor keeps rocking left to right as you struggle to stand and leave the room. Closing the door shut, you know you have a few more bruises than you came in with.

The hallway is even worse than the room. Harpoons and other weapons are dangerously close to falling and you rush up the stairs to avoid that disaster.

The main deck is a chaotic mess of crewmembers running back and forth. Xiangling is continually setting wooden spears and stakes aflame before different crewmembers shoot it.

Xinyan, Kazuha, and Beidou all work together to attack Beisht's heads whenever she gets close to attack. Keeping a death grip on the railing you watch the incredible yet infuriating display of power.

Finally remembering that you'll need to defend yourself too, you go back down the stairs. Swiftly you dodge the dropping objects and get to your room. Shoving your hand into your bag and selecting the sickle, you pull it out.

The fear of dying is remedied by the weight of the weapon. Sprinting with more confidence you get back to the main deck. Both sides of the deck have one of her heads low and close ready to shoot the powerful jet of water.

Something about the way she looks is... off. Your mind wanders back to the game cutscenes and automatically compares it to what you see now.

What were once toothless jaws were now filled with layers of sharp teeth. The underbelly of her bodies looked less watery and sleeker. The fins on her back looked firmer and seemed to be in a more organized row.

Beisht shoots the water from her mouths, and you can feel how hot the water is. Xinyan is quick to dodge by climbing the stairs while Kazuha leaps using the wind. Beidou uses her skill to defend herself and rack up energy.

As the scalding water gets closer you hold the sickle to your chest and try to back away. You may be crazy but not stupid enough to try what Beidou is doing.

Surprisingly she stops only inches away from you, lifting her heads she shoots the brunt of the attack toward the sky. Hot droplets rain down on the ship as the attack dies down.

Her heads regroup and her third one appears behind the first two. All her heads roar and they slam onto the deck. Instead of slamming onto you as you expected, she boxes you in the middle of the deck instead.

As two heads serve as the walls, her third head opens its mouth. The sight of the teal muscles with holes in them makes you shudder. Would dying to a sea monster be better or worse than dying accused as an imposter?

Probably better, at least this way you would be remembered fondly and missed. Even if it's only for a short while.

"Glorious creator, it is my greatest honor to have lived long enough to meet you."

What the fuck.

The sounds of everyone else attacking Beisht's other heads are drowned out as you look up at her in shock.

"Although my husband could not meet you, he was a devoted believer. These puny mortals are having you travel in such conditions with such little glory. Do these pirates not know your greatness?!"

Her tone gets louder as she speaks about the Crux. How could she recognize you as the creator? Were you right in guessing that the creatures of Teyvat could recognize you? But she's more on the god side so how could she realize but not Ei?

"Beisht, how have you heard of me?" If sea monsters gods could smile then that's exactly what Beisht was doing.

"Your blood, your grace. They bleached your gold blood. They hurt you with violent intentions. Just as the scriptures said, the offenders will pay for hurting you. Teyvat is calling upon your true worshippers to deliver justice."

This doesn't make complete sense. Beishts own arrogance and hatred for Liyue is having an impact on her words. What does seem to be true is that Teyvat was alerted when you got hurt and is drawing strong creatures that it can connect with to you.

"Then this is something we should be talking with less distractions." Choosing your words carefully, you note how everyone has been listening to your conversation with Beisht.

It's a good thing they can't understand her. Whether she's intentionally not letting them understand her or not isn't important.

You motion Beisht to back away with a flick of your wrist. Beisht is expecting you to act like the creator, you need to play your part. This whole situation is a golden opportunity.

Beisht obeys your silent command and moves her heads off the boat. Beidou is the first to run up to you with how close she is. The battle comes to a silent pause as everyone watches your seemingly unharmed form with relief.

"Are you okay?!" The urge to scoff and give a snarky response is strong but you push it down. With a solemn expression, you speak clearly.

"I've been granted a rare opportunity to talk with Beisht according to the creator's will. I have messages to relay to her but I cannot do so with everyone here."

A rare confused expression crosses Beidou's face at your words as you step away from her and move closer to Beisht. With a tight grip on your sickle, you speak calmly to Beisht.

"Come closer so we can speak somewhere with more privacy. The matter of the divine isn't one to always be so open about."

Beisht seems to pick up on the identity you have in the eyes of the Crux and lowers her main head onto the boat. With confident strides, you walk to her head and climb on.

Fear and worry rise within you as you grip the middle feeler on her head and look at the Crux with a smile.

"I'll be back soon, so don't stop sailing. I'll catch up before you know it."

Your grip on the feeler becomes tight as Beisht's head suddenly drops into the water. A scream instinctively leaves your throat from the sudden gesture.

The last thing you saw before the ocean engulfed you was the various expressions of horror and fear on everyones faces. A small part of you smirks at the guilt that paints Beidou's face.

You shut your mouth and eyes expecting the salty water to drown you. Yet not even a drop of water touches you and the sight of the vast ocean surrounds you.

In awe you watch the air bubble around you supplying you with oxygen and shielding you from the water. Fish swim past as Beisht continues to descend into the depths.

Soon enough the only light around is the teal markings on her body. It reminds you of just how frightening the ocean can be. That at any moment Beisht could think that you're an imposter too and let you drown here...

Tightening your grip on her, you push those thoughts away. They will only hinder you, being nervous will make everything worse. You've made it this far, haven't you?

As a distraction, you think about how exactly this air bubble is being made. Was it Beisht, Teyvat, or did you unconsciously do it? Considering that you can only control elements that you accessed from the Statue of the Sevens then it can't be you.

Beisht was connected to the vortex and water. This air bubble wasn't just reusing your oxygen, it was supplying fresh oxygen. She can't control oxygen so that only leaves Teyvat. Then how could Teyvat protect you from drowning but let the electro from Ei hurt you?

Beisht finally stops and you can vaguely see the outline of her main body due to the glowing teal marks. It keeps reminding you of a certain god masquerading as a bard.

"Your grace, I see the false identity you hold in front of them. Yet I do not hold the same wisdom you hold, please enlighten me on why you hide yourself."

Her vocabulary is naturally arrogant but the tone she says it all in, sounds like she's imploring. It's good, you can utilize this and her natural dislike for humans.

"Coming back from that other world has left me very weak. I have little memories of when I was the creator and this body is weak. They see my unmasked face and assume I'm an imposter. Ei was the main culprit. Just a mask would solve that but my mere presence shows my divinity. Quite a few of my acolytes barely believe my words as an oracle, I would be a fool to publically reveal myself as the creator."

Your words are spoken with a sense of coldness as if you're completely detached from the situation. The water around you seems to raise a few degrees. Taking a risk you speak lowly with a mix of sadness and condescension.

"Humans and Archons are not that different. They cannot accept the truth if it's different than what they expect or desire. Greed and pride have always been the downfall of humans."

"Your grace, they do not deserve your attention or words. The Electro Archon will pay for harming you. They will all pay for hurting you. Thank you for teaching me, I will do your bidding. I will make sure that you'll never need to worry about me acting as foolish as those Archons."

Perfect, it's exactly what you wanted.

"We will take over and subdue Teyvat for harming you. We'll lay the Archons, humans, and anything else that dares defy you at your feet. We will make them atone for their sins. That pirate crew will be the first to pay! Not only have I lost my husband and child to them, they even harmed you!"

What child? They had a kid??? Wait that can come later, Beisht going out of control would harm the reputation you've built up, this has to stop!

"Silence." Your command is swift and your gaze is cold as you stare down Beisht. The quiet that comes makes you smile inwardly. Playing hot and cold towards someone who idolizes you tends to make them more attached. More desperate to keep your wavering love and affection.

"Now, now don't get too worked up. Going off and doing whatever you wish in my name is contradictory to what you said earlier."

"I beg for your forgiveness, your grace." Beisht lowers her heads in shame. A kind smile crosses your face and you reach through the bubble to pet her heads.

"I forgive you Beisht, mistakes are part of the learning process. You've already done so well in recognizing me. Why don't you start by answering my questions first? What happened to your child?"

Beisht closes her eyes and bubbles float up as her heads sigh in content over your touch.

"My child, born from Osial and I, fought for days against that pirate ship. In the end, they killed my child and his murderer gained a vision from it. Celestia truly mocks the defeated from the Archon War."

Sea monster, 'that' pirate ship, and a vision from his death.

Haishan is her child.

No wonder she hates Beidou so much. She basically killed her whole family!

"Haishan has lived in my name and with his death, he returned to me too. I can tell your anger is as great as your sorrow. Take comfort in my words and let your anger fuel your devotion to me."

Loneliness is a manipulator's best friend. Beisht is terribly lonely and will cling to you and your words as her only lifeline. And in your situation, a dog like this will be needed.

"I will your grace, someday I too will return to your loving embrace through death."

Gently she nuzzles your hands with her heads. Tracing the glowing marks that adorn her head you ask in a soothing voice.

"Tell me how you came to find me."

"After the battle with Liyue and the human-adepti I retreated to the depths of the ocean to heal myself. I was dormant when Teyvat called us. It spoke about harm coming to you, at how your gold blood had been bleached."

"Who is 'us'? You also referred to yourself as 'we' earlier too."

"I was not the only one stirred by Teyvat. The water has become more lively with strong elemental currents. I do not doubt that there are even more beings awakening on land. We are all being called to defend you and pay back your liquid gold blood. After so long without you, we are regaining our reason for living."

So if many other elemental monsters are being 'stirred' then that means you could get more allies. Guoba didn't even know he used to be a god until he was told so was it in character or not that he knew you were the creator? You'll need to find more evidence on land but this was leading to a favorable situation.

But Beisht's fixation on your blood being gold was not good. You'll have to address that now. If you wait too long and it reveals outside of your control she'll believe that you were lying to her. God knows what she would do to you then.

"On the topic of my blood, there is something I must clear up. My blood is not gold, it is red."

An eery stillness takes over the atmosphere and you seemingly look down at the 3-headed hydra. The feeling of her scales seems to heat up a little, gritting your teeth you continue.

"I sincerely hope that you are not doubting me. The scriptures never said that my blood itself was gold. The true meaning of that text is that my blood is as precious as gold."

Your blank expression and sharp eyes don't leave her. In one hand you hold your sickle above and electro-coats it with a dangerous crackle.

The looming threat of death washes over you as the sickle crackles with more ferocity. Teyvat heeds your silent wishes and hydro starts rapidly spinning around you. Swiftly you thrust it into the water and it hits Beisht as she thrashes from the pain.

"Forgive me! Forgive me! Forgive this arrogant and foolish follower!"

She roars and begs, your heart is as tight as your grip on her but the sickle still crackles in the water. She's a sea monster and that's the only reason she hasn't died yet.

It's only the sight of toasted pieces of sleek flesh on her that you pull the sickle out of the water and back into the air bubble. The electro fizzles out and Beisht's sad wails echo around you.

She's whimpering and begging with near-silent pleas for forgiveness. Your hand is gentle and warm on the head that she is carrying you on.

"Hush now Beisht, this punishment was something you brought onto yourself. Never doubt my words, my teaching is law. Do you see how futile suspecting and denying me of my divinity is? Crimson or gold, my blood is not what matters most, it is I that exist above you."

Beisht's body seems to curl around the air bubble you stand in as you continue petting and soothing her. Your pleasant humming is a sharp contrast to your rapid heartbeat.

You were either going to die to Beisht or die to your electro. But this turned out better than you originally thought. Even though it hurt you to cause the one powerful ally you have pain, it was necessary. You can never let her entertain the idea of betraying you.

If you must play the role of oracle in front of the others then you must play the role of creator in front of the rest. Y/N was the oracle, the creator, and most importantly a liar.

"The fact that you could sense my presence on that boat intrigues me. How could you sense me while Ei could not? The same goes for the other Archons, surely they would have felt Teyvat's call too."

"The Archons accepted Celestia's power which drew them away from you. They worship you the mortal or human method more often than the way elemental beings do. Changing their style of worship may have connected them to other mortals better but it also muddled their sense of hearing Teyvat"

Her voice is hoarse and low, humbled after her punishment. Your smile was kind and your touch tender, but the sly part of your heart reveled in it.

"Tell me the difference between the two."

"Elemental beings worship by sacrificing parts of themselves to you. Some offer up energy, blood, lifeforce, and others give limbs. Only their own, offering up anyone else's would be sacrilegious. As elemental beings, we will always heal and reform. Celestia has possibly blinded them to the consequences of forsaking our worship to keep them away from you."

Now that was one of the most useful pieces of information you've gained thus far. What would happen if you convinced one of the Archons, not counting Ei, to try this style of worship? Would it enhance your position as the oracle, make you more suspicious, or give them the idea that you might be the creator?

Your thoughtfulness seems to make Beisht anxious, that's understandable seeing as you've proven to be volatile in her eyes. With a nearly patronizing pat on her head, you speak with a happy tone.

"As the creator, I require both elemental and human worship. I have many plans and it includes you Beisht. With each nation I visit and interactions with the Statues of the Seven, I gain more power. I will need you to spread the truth of my arrival to those who Teyvat awoke. Can I trust you with that?"

"It is a privilege to serve you, beloved creator. I will travel through the ocean and fulfill your command." She's clearly enthusiastic and grateful. You have her right where you want her.

"Stay quiet and careful, avoid fighting in general. I have much of the world to explore on my own and see to tell who deserves my forgiveness when everything is revealed. No rushing, I have a long life to live. The other elemental creatures will have the information I need too."

"I understand your grace. At this point and time, your main attention is to investigate the mortal's faith. I will stay unnoticed after this point so that I do not hinder your plan."

You had no plan on revealing your status as the creator. These words were only said to keep Beisht calm and peaceful. Beisht has such a terrible reputation as a villain that if she told the truth, it would only make them all think worse of you.

The little pieces of evidence you have acquired, proving your title might be enough if you were in regular Genshin Impact. But in this world with obsession, death, and violence, you could not claim that so easily. Beisht better be prepared to wait a long time, if not your whole life span which might not be long considering your luck.

"Can I really trust your words Beisht? You think lowly of the mortals for harming me but you have hurt me as well. And it's not when you doubted me, I'm talking about how you hurt me physically."

Your words are like a bucket of cold water. The suspicious gaze she receives from you makes her stutter.

"W-What do you mean your grace? The moment I spotted you, I drew away."

'Pathetic' that's what your expression told her. That's exactly what you thought of her. Her lie specifically.

"Never try to lie to me. This is your only warning. When you rose from the water, you spotted me first but you let yourself be distracted by the sight of Beidou. So caught up in the fight, it wasn't until I got banged up by everything that you finally spotted me and remembered your original task."

The words seem to hit the nail on the head as Beisht lowers herself to you. With an ominous air, you swing the sickle back and forth.

"I will not deny my sins. I lied to you and tried to hide it. Whatever punishment you choose is one I will accept wholeheartedly." Her voice wavers and cracks. She's scared and your smile makes her tremble beneath you.

But it seems to wash away as you rest your upper body on her head closest to you. Ignoring the lingering water droplets you pet her softly.

"It's okay Beisht, I know you were emotional after seeing Beidou. The pain and wrath were hard to fight wasn't it?" The forgiving voice you used was almost like a mask as you traced her scales using the sickle at the same time.

Unnerved, confused, grateful, and scared Beisht sounds like she's near tears.

"Thank y-you, your grace. The mercy you have on your creations is not something we deserve yet you give it anyway."

"I've been hurt so many times Beisht. So you'll prove yourself worthy of my trust right?" The sickle gets stuck at the brightest teal scale on her main head's forehead.

"Take this scale off and give it to me. This will be proof of your devotion to me." You whisper the command disguised as a request.

Without hesitation, Beisht's second head comes closer and you move away just in time to see her tug the scale off with her mouth. It's placed at your feet and it glimmers as you pick it up.

"It's beautiful Beisht. I will accept this as proof of your faith in me. It's time for me to be returned to the ship, do not forget what I have told you."

"Yes, your holiness." The attitude she has is much more subdued than the one she held when you first went down with her. You can now safely trust that in a worst-case scenario, you'll go to the ocean and have her bring you somewhere safe.

Fish and other sea creatures swim past you as Beisht brings you back to the boat. It's a lot further than when you left but that's no problem for the leviathan.

The Alcor is above you and Beisht only raises her head that has you on her above water. The air bubble dissolves and the sun shines down on you. The heat of it is welcomed after staying in the freezing deep for so long.

Yet it's the bright flash of electro that you are greeted with as Beidou jumps toward Beisht.

Thoughts bombard your mind on what to do, what to say. Electro, hydro, claymore, Beidou, Beisht, sickle, and defend!

With adrenaline and fear coursing through your veins, you bring your sickle up as a defense. Electro meets electro as the force of the blow keeps you both locked in place.

Planting your feet steady on Beisht's head, you grit your teeth and push harder against Beidou. In mere seconds your electro overpowers hers and Beidou is struck back to the boat with a pained yell.

The crew, Xinyan, and Xiangling rush to where Beidou was thrown. A sense of deja vu fills you as Kazuha jumps to you and quickly carries you away from Beisht.

After smoothly landing and setting you behind him, Kazuha brandishes his sword in Beisht's direction. The multiple cuts and bruises on his body show just how injured he got in the earlier battle.

A small part of you can't help but feel touched by his protection. Even though it's entirely unnecessary. Why didn't he immediately go check on Beidou? They are very close after all...

Letting that thought fade away, you place your hand on Kazuha's shoulder and smile reassuringly at him. Beidou grunts as she's helped out of the mess of broken wood.

A brief sense of vindication enters you at the sight of the multiple wounds on her, mostly likely from the previous battle. Splinters and new scrapes cover her exposed skin and a particularly big one went through her left palm.

The blood mixes with the wood chips as it drips off her palm. She's grabbing her weapon again and tries to head toward Beisht. Quickly you move to stand in front of her.

"It's alright Beidou, Beisht isn't going to attack anymore." Beidou's eyes widen as she takes in the sight of you. Not a single scrap or drop of blood is on you.

Turning back to Beisht, you motion her to leave with a hand gesture. Obediantly Beisht dives back into the water and disappears.

The waves start to calm and the clouds slowly disperse. You think of the electro you used against Beisht and Beidou. The control you have over it has been growing, despite how dangerous it is, you'll need more power.

Eyes widening in surprise you're spun around by Beidou as she checks your body throughly.

"I was so sure you died, I never meant to hit you with my claymore. I'm beyond grateful that the creator protected you." Your earlier spiteful joy at her injuries melts into guilt at the caring way she was handling you.

Smiling sheepishly you pat her uninjured shoulder.

"If the creator wanted me to die by Beisht then I would accept that wholeheartedly. I'm sorry for worrying you and everyone else."

That small petty part of you wanted to bring up how this all could have been avoided by just not provoking Beisht since they didn't know she was looking for you. But maybe you'll do that when everyone isn't injured.

"I'm not sure whether to applaud you or scold you for doing something so reckless but I think that would be counterproductive at this point."

Beidou shakes her head as she speaks before sighing. Turning back to her crew and friends her voice rises above the murmur of everyone else's conversation.

"Listen up everyone! Beisht has fled this area, but we can always be attacked at a later date. Get inside, rest up, and prepare to arrive at Liyue tomorrow morning!"

Multiple "Yes, Captain!" can be heard directly after her words before they scatter to various activities. You still need to talk to Beidou but she beats you to it.

"Y/N, I need to speak to you about the situation with Beisht. I'll get cleaned up in the medical bay and meet you at the head of the ship."

You nod and head to where she was pointing. Kazuha, Xiangling, and Xinyan follow Beidou to the medical bay. Would they be a part of whatever conversation Beidou wants to have with you?

Swinging your legs as you sit on the edge of the boat, the calm waves draw your gaze. What will Beidou tell you? What lies will you spin to protect yourself?

It's the thumps of footsteps behind you that alert you to Beidou's arrival. With a friendly smile directed at her, you suppress the urge to laugh at the feeling of eyes on you.

Xiangling is most likely in the kitchen as Guoba is nowhere to be seen. Kazuha and Xinyan on the other hand may have been instructed to watch or listen while hiding.

You already knew your stunt may have bad consequences if you aren't careful but you didn't think Beidou would make your job so easy. After all, the more people that hear this conversation, the farther your reputation will spread.

"Hope you didn't wait too long Y/N," Beidou speaks amiably as she strolls over to sit next to you. Her mood is hard to read with the way she smiles but you can still guess accurately.

"I'm all good, I would even say that the break was appreciated with how tired I was."

"Then let's not waste any more time. I'm not here to interrogate you as much as I'm here to explain myself. I put the Crux and you into a life-threatening situation and although everyone else knows exactly what can happen, you did not. I'm sorry about that."

Your feet hit the boat at a slow pace as you think about her words. Now that the anger and chaos of that situation has calmed down, you aren't nearly as annoyed. Not up to talking just yet, you simply nod.

Taking it in stride Beidou starts explaining.

"For the past few days, monsters and leylines have been unusual. The leylines are spawning in new areas with stronger enemies than usual. The behavior of the monsters is strange too. They wander around as if looking for something and the boss monsters have become less violent. It's worrying and on our way to Inazuma, I saw the ocean change. That's why I had Xinyan perform to draw attention."

Seems Beisht was right to guess that other monsters were becoming aware. Hilichurls may respawn but you aren't sure if another monster species that canonically don't regenerate will still be alive. You need to speak with the enemies most likely to recognize you.

"Seeing Beisht listen to you was shocking. I mean she has always been hostile towards people. I don't wanna push you to speak but I would like to know what happened."

"When I was forced onto the main deck to avoid being crushed by the boxes I saw a part of the battle. That's when I realized that I could understand Beisht and the creator ordered me to speak with her privately. Who am I to disobey? The conversation was enlightening, to say the least, and what you just told me has confirmed it."

Your dramatic and cryptic words confuse your listeners. Standing up and balancing on the edge of the boat you continue speaking.

"I have been granted a prophecy! Well more like a revelation of the current and future events. The creatures of Teyvat are exhibiting new behaviors due to the creator's will. Of course that doesn't mean we'll stop defeating them, just don't take it as some grand evil rising."

The nearly childlike joy you speak with only confuses Beidou further. She stands up and tries to hold your shoulder but you twirl away from the edge.

"When was the last time we saw sudden differences in behavior?" Your words are spoken with a carefree smile as you continue dancing away.

"That would be when the traveler arrived on Teyvat and leading to the awakening of acolytes of course!"

You playfully tug the white ahoge that sticks out from Kazuha's hiding spot. He doesn't even seem glum at being found so quickly.

"And why did that all start happening?"

The feeling of eyes watching you faded as Beidou moves closer to the spot you stood with spread arms. Xinyan wasn't here but that's fine, the story you've spun will be spread either way.

"Because the creator's return was starting to approach! It may be worrisome because the creatures may harm people more than they did before but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate that the creator is a step closer to coming back."

In reality, you just wanted more allies. Paraphrasing everything to fit the narrative that you desire was easy in this situation. Very few people could tell if you were lying or not after all. In fact, some would even-

"Agreed. At the same time this all has been happening, the wind had gotten stronger. It's crisp and clear, it has become more active in communication too."

Between your celebratory smile and Kazuha's serene expression, Beidou had nothing to refute with. Instead, a wide grin crosses her face and you stumble as she drags you and Kazuha down to the main deck.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Everyone's eyes are drawn to Beidou as she yells. "The creator is a step closer to coming back to Teyvat and we all witnessed it! So let's celebrate like we mean it!"

It's impressive how nearly all of them already grabbed a glass of beer and raised it at her words. Cheers were heard all around as they raised the glasses and drank cheerfully.

Beidou had already released you and Kazuha to grab her drinks. Your eyes linger on the bloodied bandage wrapped around her palm. It was still bleeding heavily.

A familiar tug on your clothes brings your attention down to Guoba.

"Lala? Lalala!"

You don't fight the caramel-colored panda as he drags you toward the kitchen. It also doesn't let you notice how Kazuha was reaching out to you before being dragged into a conversation.

Xiangling runs around the kitchen with a tired but bright smile as you are pulled in.

"Thank you Guoba for bringing Y/N here! You can have this spicy cornbread as a treat."

She's quick to place a plate of food on the table and return to cooking. The sight of Guoba's food reminds you of your last conversation with Xiangling.

Yeah, you aren't forgetting that for a long time.

"Sorry for calling you here after so much went on, I just had another favor to ask you. I was curious if you can bless food the same way the creator can."

Wasn't she the one who fought a leviathan, is still somewhat injured, and went straight to cooking??

"I've never tried to bless food before but I would be happy to try! What food exactly do you want me to bless?"

Blessing food the same way the creator does sounds a lot like how you would feed the characters in the game. The most likely method would be cooking the food yourself and seeing if it had any effects.

The only other way you could think of blessing food would be by putting some part of your body into it. Which would be disgusting and a pain to do so, so hopefully you just need to cook it.

"I want it for Beidou to heal her hand. It's bleeding pretty heavily and she needs it to use her weapon. I was thinking something easy like sticky honey roast."

"Then just leave it to me Xiangling, do you have the recipe?"

"Yep! Right here." She hands you a slightly charred paper before scurrying over to a pot that's almost boiling over. Would you need to cook this manually or just use a pot like in the game?

The recipe consisted of 3 meat, 2 carrots, and 2 sugar. Nothing else was written on it... How were you supposed to cook with only this?!

Sighing you take the ingrains as the young chef runs around the kitchen. With a lingering sense of unease, you drop the ingredients into the pot and light the fire.

You turn around to grab something to stir it and look back to see it cooked.

Standing there stunned, you look at the perfect sticky honey roast sitting innocently in the pot. Deciding to count your blessings, you serve it on a plate and confidently call it blessed food as you hand it to Beidou.

It works surprisingly well, the bandage is unwrapped to see the skin sewn back together and most likely repaired. Beidou whistles as she examines her hand.

"Gotta hand it to you kid, this is pretty impressive. I usually have to wait for the creater to come and heal me up or wait ages for it to get healed properly."

"This was all Xianglings idea, she deserves the praise. I'll be sure to tell her the good news." You leave as Beidou begins drinking faster with her healed hand.

So you basically never need to cook again, what luck! Would giving someone a fried egg, bring someone back to life? Or would it wake someone up from a concussion or coma? That would all depend on whether characters are dead or just passed out when their HP reaches 0.

Walking into the kitchen, Xiangling is busy putting the final touches on the feast she prepared.

"Got good news for you Xiangling. The blessed food worked and Beidou's hand doesn't even have a scar."

"That's great to hear! I was pretty worried she would have permanent damage or something. She always brushes her wounds off if they aren't life-threatening."

Xiangling pouts at the memory of Beidou's recklessness as you take the initiative to help her. The silence is nice but your thoughts keep wandering back to the human remains.

"Hey Xiangling, I've got a question for you but this might be the wrong time to ask." The look she sends you is one full of curiosity.

"What happened to the families of those you killed and made into food? Did they not get a burial, casket, or at least an urn?"

The expression she wears is a mixture of guilt and disgust.

"Blasphemous people like them do not deserve a funeral. They die and everyone will scorn them for betraying the creator. Most families disown that person or act like they were never part of their family."

She stays kneeling by the cart of food and Guoba trods over to her with his usual carefree attitude. She holds him close and speaks sadly.

"They do deserve punishment for what they did but I want to believe the creator would want them to perish with some good blooming from it. At least by cooking them, that person can help another life grow, and my cooking skill improve."

Each time you ask something like this whether it's Inazuma or Liyue, the situations are always so much worse than you thought. To think what you thought Xiangling did from some sick sense of worship, which isn't entirely false, was mostly born from her signature kindness.

Do you condemn her, comfort her, or encourage her?

"We may never know exactly what the creator thinks, all we can do is keep moving forward. For what it's worth, I don't think you're in the wrong. Your intentions are pure and it's not like your actions can make the situation any worse than it already is."

You bend down and place your hands on her shoulders. She looks up at you and smiles happier at your caring expression.

"Enough about that. Let's go bring these dishes out so we and everyone else can enjoy them. We should be celebrating after all!"

The prep she usually has comes back and she's pushing the cart as you follow behind her. Everyone cheers as Xiangling hands out food and people sit down.

Picking a plate of F/F, you sit on a crate next to Xinyan and Kazuha. Beidou seemed to disappear somewhere with Xiangling again.

The taste and texture are like nothing you've tasted before. Whatever she did to make your favorite food taste even better needed to be shared with you.

"Real happy with that dish aren't ya?" Xinyan comments as you basically inhaled everything but the plate.

"If this dish was meant to be savored then she shouldn't have made it taste this good."

Xinyan laughs at your words before continuing to eat the spicy food she has on her plate. By the overload of spices you can smell, it must be one of Xiangling's creations that Xinyan is so happy to try.

"Now that things have calmed down, I wanted to tell you that I loved your music! It was a bit worrisome with all the fire but I understand that you needed it for the battle."

"Aw, that's real nice to hear! Most of my performances tend to burn down the stage but rock 'n' roll is all about that kind of fire."

"Must have taken you a long time to learn how to use your instrument and vision without burning down everything."

Your comment is casual as you start eating one of the desserts Xiangling brought out. Alcohol is starting to be passed around, you aren't sure if you should drink or not.

"I practiced loads with people as the 'audience'. They all died during the test runs but it's fine since they were already known for being sacrilegious. Burning them to death as a sacrifice was the best thing they could hope for."

The dessert gets stuck in your throat at her words. Coughing a little, you keep your head down to avoid showing your face. Kazuha rubs your back trying to help you.

Was it a trend for pyro-vision women to tell you horrible things with complete ease?! First Xiangling with the cannabilism to Xinyan sacrificing people...

"That was legal, right? Do you still sacrifice people like that?" You struggle not to stutter and Kazuha is still watching you with that same worried expression.

"It is legal in Liyue with the right certifications. Not long ago you had that private concert with the burning of a few treasure hoarders if I remember correctly."

Xinyan nods in agreement at Kazuha's words.

Maybe you should stop being surprised and just expect everyone to have committed crimes like this. What's next? Brainwashing?

Kazuha and Xinyan continue to chat about whatever burning they may or may not have participated in as Xiangling comes over with some alcohol.

"Sorry to interrupt but I was wondering if any of you guys wanted some beer, rum, or grog. Grog is the lightest since it's just water and alcohol. I might just drink that since I just became old enough to drink."

"I'll just have a glass of beer, I have another concert tomorrow and the last thing I want is a hangover." Xinyan is quick to take a swing of the beer.

"I'll pass on the alcohol today, I drank enough yesterday." Kazuha glances at you as he speaks with a slightly nervous tone, no doubt remembering his behavior when he first met you.

"Could I have some rum? I wanna celebrate a lot after completing the first major mission from the creator." Discarding your previous thought of avoiding alcohol, you decided to drink to congratulate yourself for surviving this long.

Definitely not because you wanted a distraction from what you just heard from Xinyan. Nor of the idea that Liyue may be even harder to live in due to their dependency on Rex Lapis. That may or may not have also pushed them to be even more fanatic for the 'creator'.

The rum was sweet but it burned as it traveled down your throat. The strong liquor made your head spin for a split second. You're quickly coming to regret it.

"Hey, Kazuha? Can you watch over me as I drink? This rum is stronger than the drinks I'm used to."

You ask Kazuha with a flushed face as you rest on his shoulder. The lights shine down on you as everyone else is up enjoying themselves. As sweet as always, Kazuha smiles down at you and nods.

"I promise to watch over you. No harm will come to you especially as I don't plan on drinking a single drop."

Feeling reassured you thank him and continue drinking. The party is getting louder and messier with each drink given around.

Xinyan is singing and strumming her guitar as a good chunk of the crew sings along with her. Xiangling was passed out on a crate as her tolerance for it was still low. Beidou was the only one you couldn't see from your spot on Kazuha's shoulder.

"You're the work hard, play hard type huh?"

You sway a little as you jump in surprise at the voice so close to your ear. Kazuha peers around you at Beidou who was standing firmly despite the amount of liquor she already drank.

A feeling nags you that Beidou is still as sharp as ever. Someone who drinks as much as she does must have a high tolerance. The smell of alcohol is strong as she speaks.

"You didn't strike me like the type to drink rum, I would have thought you would go for a beer or just a single glass."

You follow her gaze to the multiple glasses next to you. It seems you drank a lot more than you initially planned.

"Don't look so disappointed Y/N! It's normal to want to relax with a good drink after such a long day. This is a celebration too. Let all your worries melt away."

She speaks with a cheer and your hazy mind makes you smile up at her. Your worries, anxiety, and general distrust of everything are the farthest thing in your mind.

The sharp smile Beidou sends Kazuha as he tightens his grip around your waist goes unnoticed. The weird tension that occurs is gone just as fast as it came and the liquor seems to hit you full force.

"I think I need to sleep, it's really hitting me now." Your head keeps falling onto his shoulder as you struggle to keep your eyes open.

"I'll escort you to your room Y/N-" "And I'll join you two with Xiangling, poor girl couldn't even handle the grog."

Kazuha's face is frozen in a smile as you drunkenly nod at Beidou. Xinyan who is still pretty sober waves at you all and you wave enthusiastically back.

Giggling as the room spins you let your body rest on Kazuha as he helps you down the stairs. Xiangling is thrown over Beidous shoulder as she follows you both down the stairs.

"If I ever let myself drink after this, I wanna drink with you next time Kazuha. Wouldn't it be fun?"

"That does sound nice, I'm sure the wind will have us meet again after this trip." Kazuha's voice can be barely heard through the fog in your mind. A crooked smile is on your face as you nod sleepily.

Fears of the future seem far away at this moment. The fear of coming across a statue of the seven and Zhongli appearing is like a distant memory. The mental image of saying the wrong thing, getting caught with the wrong group, and getting a torturous death is comparable to a dream.

As the urge to close your eyes gets stronger and harder to resist, you instinctively adjust your mask.

Your fragile and most important defense against a repeat of the Ei situation. Terror squeezes your heart as you realize just how dangerous this situation is.

All it takes is for Kazuha to remove the mask during your drunkenness. Whether it be out of curiosity of your face or kindness thinking it would be uncomfortable to sleep with it on.

Nothing you think, worry, fear, or do will matter after that. Despite the dismay, your eyes close as the urge to sleep overtakes you. With your consciousness drifting away and your body in the ronin's mercy.

I was really excited to post this chapter. Everyone's reaction to Xiangling's cooking was super funny. (Fixed it up on mobile so forgive the mistakes.) On the topic of Beisht, I have to say that my original plan was to have it be a oc. Haishan's ancestor from the Archon War. But after everyone was guessing Beisht, I started thinking if it could work. And surprisingly it did! All the main points I had with the oc worked with Beisht. Plus Haishan was still able to stay as a kid cause a visionless Beidou defeating a whole sea monster god just doesn't make a lot of sense unless he wasn't full-grown. And I honestly don't want to create an oc if I don't have to. I don't trust myself that much. Xiangling's cannibalism was supposed to be just a one-time thing. But a certain person mentioned Hu Tao and I realized I forgot to incorporate the rest of the world into it. So that's what inspired me to think deeper on it. I'm quite happy with how it turned out! It confirms Xianglings kindness, and the cruelty of the cult, and can help excuse any future plot holes I may accidentally create. So thank you certain person that I will not name in case that's uncomfy. I also wanted to ask ya'll a question. Do you guys expect certain sagau tropes from this series? Like I incorporated popular stuff like healing foods, mentions of gold blood, etc. But the only thing that I've really made set in stone in my sagau is the cult au and imposter au (without a true imposter masquerading as Y/N). I'm asking since I don't want people expecting something like a character to recognize us (like Fatui or acolytes from Khanriah -kaeya for example). Then get disappointed when I don't ever do that. Not saying I won't have interactions with those characters! I just don't want to lead anyone on. If you read this far then thank you <3. I really appreciate ya'll support. Just seeing a notification that I got a heart, comment, reblog or message makes my day. Taglist: @vvyeislazzy, @nikqi, @the-dumber-scaramouche, @etherisy, @yourlocalstranger123, @ra404, @iruiji, @goldenglow149, @haru-tofuu, @lsleepysimpl, @bebobeboben, @yuyuzi-ling, @amidst-the-tempest, @resident-cryptid, @mxd1zzy, @mochicurls21, @nervouseaglelover, @thedevioussmirk, @yumuramma, @kwqsla, @undecidingfate, @ehjane, @game-savvy, @akiramirae, @sielt, @fluffy-koalala, @formacoon, @sxftiebee, @khxii-i, @ursinaw, @chuuya-brainrot, @sweetbills, @kazuchaos, @snowfoxnix, @bluebelony, @conspicuous-mayonnaise, @pencil-of-ashes, @ghostlyintervention, @taiformaifoe, @sielt, @goaudduck, @carminerin, @maddysflowers, @zenith-of-all-zeniths, @crazydreamcat, @leafanonsforest, @grimreapersscythe, @leylanx, @undecidingfate, @sapphireknown, @help-whatdoimakemyusername, @zhonglisfruityass, @fluffy-koalala, @mer0n37, @victoria1676

[emyn-arnens]

A Sea-change

Tar-Míriel & Uinen | G | ~900 words | AO3

Mercy. Salvation. Míriel’s footsteps pound to the beat of her heart. Mercy. Salvation.

She is the rightful queen of Númenor. She is Faithful. She will not die like the accursed who gathered at the Temple of Melkor like flies to a carcass.

She must reach the flaming peak of Meneltarma, that the Valar might see her, know her to be Faithful, and save her.

She cannot look behind her. If she does, her heart will surely quail and her footsteps falter.

She looks despite herself. The wave rises in a green wall above Elenna. The blackened dome of the Temple of Melkor splinters beneath the weight of the water, cracks with a roar like an explosion of glass, and the sea purges the temple of its filth. The temple falls into the heart of the sea, marked only by the steam rising from where it stood.

She turns. The path climbs steeply ahead of her. She has so far to go.

The wind buffets her. Míriel falls, strikes her face hard against the earth as her ankle twists in a ring of searing fire. She tastes blood, spits it out. Rain streams in her eyes, and she scrubs a hand across her face, rubbing grit into her eyes. She screams—in fear, in helpless anger—but her voice is lost to the wind.

She scrambles upright, staggers, and limps forward. The peak is too far, her ankle alight with fire.

Still she runs, tearing blindly at her skirts until scraps of fabric hang in tatters about her waist. Her feet, slick with rain and blood, slap wetly against the path. Mercy. Salvation.

Her breath is fire in her lungs, and a cramp stabs her side. Water swirls about her ankles and tugs at the hem of her shift, pulling her back. This, too, she tears off, and it floats away from her, ghostly in the dark water.

The mountain shudders beneath her feet, throwing her stumbling into its side, and she scrabbles at the side of the cliff for purchase, lunges forward. Mercy. Salvation.

The ground rolls again, and Míriel falls to her knees, crying out in fear and supplication. Know me, I am Tar-Míriel, faithful and rightful queen of this land! But her cries are lost in the roar of the vengeful sea, her voice stolen by the wind and scattered over acres of rolling waves that hungrily swallow her words.

The water sweeps beneath her, lifts her up and carries her to where the peak of Meneltarma burns with divine fire, a beacon blazing furiously in the midst of the thrashing waves. Before her eyes close against the stinging waves, she catches sight of the sky, night-dark and lashed with lightning, and knows that no mercy has been reserved for her.

Water fills her mouth, her lungs in a burning rush. She cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot thrash against the unyielding grip of the water. Her limbs loosen and her body sags in the water, giving in to the furor of the waves. The embrace of the sea is a fierce shove and a tender caress, sterner and gentler than anything Míriel has known in life. 

With the clarity of the dying, she remembers suddenly every prayer she whispered to Uinen, huddled at the edge of the sea, murmuring penitent prayers for the misdeeds of her husband and her people as the waves lapped at her feet. The words well in her again, unspoken.

Darkness seeps beneath her eyelids like ink, and she welcomes it, falls into it. The waves brush her brow in the tenderest touch she has ever felt, and she knows no more.

Míriel sinks, a glimmering jewel falling into darkness.

She is dead, and she is not. Her body is no more. Where once she had arms, fingers, legs, and feet, she is now no more than seafoam, a stirring of the current, a tide propelling the waves. She is formless, voiceless but sees clearly and keenly through the green water that swirls about her.

A flash of gold catches her gaze. Ships of sable and gold sink slowly, their sails billowing to slow their fall. Men fall from their decks, their arms spread wide. Their armor glints dimly in the darkening water. In the center of the wreckage sinks the mightiest ship of them all, a floating castle, huge and many-masted, with many banners of sable and gold rippling from its masts.

Míriel draws closer. The king who boarded the ship in foolish, vain pride is gone, trapped beneath the hills in ceaseless torment. But his men remain aboard—his men who followed every order he uttered, who knelt in worship to Melkor, who gathered the Faithful and slew them on the altar of the temple, who stained Elenna with every drop of blood they spilled.

The sea churns, and the falling ships shudder. With voiceless laughter, Míriel seizes fore and aft of the Alcarondas and folds the ship in half until its timbers burst and its masts tangle and break and its banners flutter like torn rags. 

And she draws the Castle of the Sea into the deeps.

[playername-player-of-games]

Cleo strides across the deck to the gangway where Lizzie is waiting for her, gripping the straps of her bag. The sun is rising, the sky and the sea the same color as Lizzie's hair and cheeks, her expression set and determined.

"Hello, trinket," Cleo greets, towering over her.

Lizzie straightens her back, chest puffing out a little more. She frowns up at Cleo, "You're the one looking after me today?"

"I am."

"Good."

Lizzie seizes her wrist and starts down the gangway. Cleo stumbles after her, startled into laughing and nearly losing her hat. She manages to catch herself before she can fall into the water, and falls into step beside Lizzie.

"Alright," she says, amused, fixing her hat, "where are we going?"

Lizzie drops her hand, her face a light, dusty red, "you'll see."

They step onto port and Cleo checks behind them to make sure someone's still there to babysit- she spots Grian and Scar chatting on the rigging, good- and follows Lizzie to wherever it is they're going.

Past all the busy ship hands and reloading cargo, out of the port and into the town proper, down cobblestone paths and past old brick buildings. It's a shopping district of sorts, and Lizzie looks just as determined as she did on the ship, though has the air of someone who is desperately lost.

"What are you looking for?" Cleo asks.

Lizzie does not answer, instead perking up at one shop sign and taking Cleo's hand again.

It's a white building with a deepslate tile roof. A bell dings as they step inside. Lizzie releases Cleo's hand, approaching the counter, while Cleo stays by the door.

"Just a minute!" comes a shout from another room.

It's a cozy interior, packed with shelves upon shelves of magical trinkets- she spots dragon statues and crystal balls, belts, armor pieces, loose bits of cloth. There's black curtains around the windows, letting in the natural light as the sun continues to rise, and fading fairy lights strung about the ceiling. Lizzie is looking down at a glass counter full of jewelry, tracing her fingers lightly over the top.

There's a crash and a yelp, a hurried "I'm fine! No problems here!" before a man comes bustling into the room, his face round and freckled, his hair orange, and his eyes a bright, friendly blue.

"Hi!" he beams. There's something strapped to his back- black wood and red cloth, clattering together as he hurries to put a box down behind the counter.

He straightens, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt and stepping over to be across from Lizzie, "you've caught us just before we close for the night! What can I do for the two of you?"

"I'm hoping to get something for me and my captain," Lizzie answers, "I think jewelry, maybe?"

"Of course!" the man presents the counter with one hand, "take your pick."

Cleo raises an eyebrow, caught on something the man said, "you close at dawn?"

The man winces, "yeah, well, they'd only let me have the space at night so we're making due with what we have."

Cleo frowns. Lizzie points to something in the case and asks him about it.

He directs his smile back to Lizzie, easily rambling about practically everything in the case. A pair of bracelets that let you read each other's thoughts. Rings with the power of fire and ice, one keeps you warm and the other cools you down, no matter the weather.

"This here's a disguising bandana!" the man demonstrates by tying it around his own head- his skin turns more green and his ears grow longer and pointier, "perfect for traveling pirates!"

"Not what I'm looking for," Lizzie says. She scans the counter again, pointing out something else in the case, "what about these?"

"Teleportation rings!" he provides, whisking off the bandana and smiling again as he explains the enchantments- this time Cleo notices how sharp his teeth are- this man has fangs. Cleo folds her arms, keeping one hand close to her sword, and leans back on the doorframe.

"No I'm-" Lizzie sighs, offering a sheepish smile, "I'm sorry about all the questions, I just want this to be perfect."

"No worries!" he returns, "I'll close up after we're done, it's no trouble."

"How about these?"

"Earrings that let you hear each other's heartbeats."

Lizzie's eyes widen.

"Bad choice, trinket," Cleo pipes up, "I don't have a heartbeat."

Lizzie waves her off and hurries to open her bag, "how much?"

The man offers a price- surprisingly reasonable- and Lizzie hands over the gold in exchange for two simple, golden hoop earrings.

"Thank you," Lizzie says, and returns to Cleo's side.

"Did you miss the part where I don't have a heartbeat?"

"Don't worry," Lizzie waves one of them in Cleo's face, "if your heart ever starts beating again I'll come back and kill you myself."

Cleo laughs, pushing off the wall, "thank you, dearest trinket, I'll be sure to remember that."

She smiles. There's a clattering and a rushed, "ah- don't go! I have to help you guys attune to those."

Cleo follows Lizzie back to the counter. The man beams at them again, all fangs and freckles, "put the earrings on and hold hands."

Putting the earring on is easy- Cleo swaps out one of her old ones easily. Lizzie laces their fingers together and gives a squeeze. Cleo squeezes back, a little harder.

"Okay, now," he wraps his hands around theirs and begins murmuring to himself, a spell of some sort, his eyes glowing a slight red. The magic is warm, comforting, spreads up Cleo's arm, shoulder, into her neck and splitting off to her chest and her ear, and-

A slight, phantom hearbeat begins to thump lightly in her ear. It's a little too fast. She smiles.

He pulls away, the warmth evaporating as his eyes fade back to blue.

"And there you go!" he offers one last dazzling smile, "thanks for coming in, you two."

Lizzie reaches up to feel her new earring, her heart still a little too fast, "I-I'll hear something if my captain ever gets her heartbeat back, won't I?"

"Yep!" he says, "so long as it's attuned to your captain it'll let you hear their heartbeat."

Lizzie sighs, looking relieved, "thank you."

"No problem!" he waves as they go to leave, "come back anytime!"

[hythlodaes]

this fire is bound to burn

emile x estinien / 9.4k words spoilers up to the very beginning of endwalker

There’s something to be said for these old habits and the way they find each other again, the shadows of their bodies recognizable in the dark.  Here they come alive, here they unravel the years between them.

It begins in a snow covered clearing. 

Under the moonlight, Emile searches the remains of a campsite with only a story in the back of his mind. Despite the wind screeching through the air, he turns at the sound of someone approaching. Estinien stands, guarded by his armor, his face hidden by his helm, and his words are as harsh and as angry as the cold. 

Emile thinks nothing of him until the Eye awakens, something suddenly alive and tangible between them. 

It takes but a single moment for fate to bind them together.  

—

It begins in Tailfeather, in the Churning Mists, beyond the Gates of Judgment. 

What draws them closer is what pulls them apart: vengeance is a word that would dig their graves. It is a path they both know but one they cannot walk together. In anger, there is understanding. In Estinien’s freedom from Nidhogg, there is still the death of Emile’s father on the Garlean’s hands.  

There is no way forward as they are. 

—

It takes time, it takes distance.

—

In truth, it begins on a ship bound for Sharlayan. 

It begins at the end of it all. 

—

Emile blinks through the muted dark at the bunk above him, eyes roaming along flat color as the ship sways in place. He almost forgot about this—the strange adjustment to the constant motion of residing at sea. It stirs within him as restlessly as the lack of a task to focus on, and he finds that the night passes with little motivation to sleep. 

In the bunk above him, he can tell by the steady in and out of Alphinaud’s breathing that he does not have the same trouble. Nor does G’raha, who sleeps just as soundly on the top bunk across the room. Below him, however, Estinien’s bunk is empty. 

Emile watches the neatly made bed for too long, the feeling in his chest a remnant of their days long before this. It was always the two of them slipping away from camp, the deep blue shadows of Estinien’s face as they talked under the stars turning in the sky. 

He swallows back the memories as he gets up, pulling on a sweater and his cloak. Though dulled by their years apart, it’s still instinct to seek him out, like some part of him knows they’re meant to pass the night together. 

The ship is quiet. Emile moves through the dark in silence until he reaches the upper deck, where the cool sea air rushes towards him and the sound of the ocean rolls beneath the ship in heavy, slow repetitions. He takes in a deep breath, damp and salt lined, and looks for Estinien. 

He finds him at the far edge of the deck, the wind pulling at his shirt and suggesting the strong shape of his shoulders down to the taper of his waist. Moonlight curves over his hair, still loose and blowing in the wind, and his arms rest before him, half leaning over the railing until he turns at the sound of Emile approaching. 

For a moment they simply watch each other. It’s been some time since they’ve stood alone like this. 

Estinien seems to realize it as well, judging by the smile that steals at just the edges of his lips. It doesn’t feel real sometimes that he’s here again, that they’re doing this again. Emile thought it was over after they’d said goodbye in Ishgard all those years ago. Their chance encounter in the east felt like the remnant of a memory, a feeling found and quickly forgotten again. Their reunion in Ishgard felt even more fleeting. 

In Azys Lla, Emile pulled him aside, certain that he’d only have a brief window to speak with him. He’d stumbled over a quiet thank you for saving his life against Elidibus, something he regret not getting to say before. 

But now—

“Couldn’t sleep?” Emile asks as he comes over to stand beside him.

“Nay,” he murmurs. His voice sounds different at this time of night; softer. “I suspect much for the same reason as you.”

Emile smiles. “When’s the last time you were this still?” 

Estinien’s answering smile is just a flicker and then it’s gone. “More recently than you, if Alphinaud’s stories are anything to go by.” 

Emile turns his head towards the horizon. The moonlight casts a film over the water, highlighting each rippled wave that rises from the vast dark. He remembers the same sight on a different ship, one headed east. He remembers those long days of battle after battle, death after death, with years clawing at the space in between. That it ended in a short lived victory, with Zenos’ body rising once again as the Scions fell, until Emile joined them on the First. 

Remember us. 

He takes a breath. 

“They are.”

He can feel Estinien’s gaze slide along his profile, and he waits for the familiar question to follow. It’s never quite a question, never quite a command, but it’s always the same:

“Tell me,” he says. 

Emile meets his gaze. “If Alphinaud has already spoken of it, then I’m sure there is little for me to add.” 

“Still, I would like to hear it from you.”

Something in Emile hesitates—the clearest memories are the sharpest. Sometimes he still feels the sharp pain of light cracking through his body. There are nights where he still speaks to Ardbert in his dreams. As hard as he tries, he cannot forget the words Zenos spoke over him—you and I are one and the same.  

There is more to it than what simply happened, would Estinien want to hear this too?

Yes, he thinks. He remembers spilling story after story before him, each one carrying more weight until he revealed the heart of him. This is something safe. 

“All right,” Emile murmurs, and he picks up the thread shortly after the end of the Dragonsong War. He tells him about Baelsar’s Wall, Ala Mhigo, Kugane. He describes Hien, the Steppe—though they met there later—and Sadu. There were other women: Lyse, M’naago, and Fordola, who saw through him. The memories crawl up his throat, and once they start, they don’t stop.

Estinien listens with his hands loose and open on the railing, his eyes fixed on Emile until he too turns his attention to the horizon, fingers curling into fists. Emile doesn’t like to think of the last few years as unhappy, but it was hard, and he can hear the strain in his voice as he traces his way back to the present. 

The night grows colder, and Estinien shivers once, twice—quickly, as though it’s against his will—before Emile pulls the cloak from his own shoulders and drapes it over his. Estinien glares at him but surprisingly does not protest, and as Emile continues, he watches him clutch it a little firmer around his chest, as Emile often does. 

Emile doesn’t know how long they stay like that, only that his words grow slower as time drags on and the sky pales a little. He’s barely started on their time on the First, but soon the ship will wake in earnest and they’ll lose their chance to sleep entirely. 

“It’s getting late,” he murmurs, and he wonders if Estinien can hear in his voice how little he wants this moment to end. 

Estinien blinks at the horizon as though he’s just now realizing this, but then he nods. “So it is.” 

They descend into the lower decks wordlessly, and Emile watches the line of his shoulders in front of him as they navigate the narrow halls back to their room. At the door, Estinien stops and turns to him. Familiar and unfamiliar. Memory and the present. Emile feels like he should say something, but how do you tell someone you missed them without revealing your heart? 

Estinien’s mouth curves down at one corner. 

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asks, his deep voice barely above a whisper.

Emile knows immediately what he’s referring to—it was the last conversation they had after the Dragonsong War, when Estinien asked if Emile would still seek his vengeance. I have to, he’d said then, and only now does he know how foolish it was. 

“I did,” Emile murmurs. “There was no satisfaction in it.” 

He admits it without shame, because he knows Estinien understands. Where I once craved vengeance, I now crave rest. 

Sure enough, Estinien nods. He removes the cloak from his shoulders and holds it out for Emile to take back, their eyes on each other the entire time. For a moment, neither of them move. There is a question lingering between them, something unspoken but present all the same. Emile feels its weight but cannot translate its meaning. 

They pass a quiet goodnight back and forth before they slip into the room, where the only sound is the steady breathing of G’raha and Alphinaud asleep. Emile settles back into bed, turning his back to the rest of the room. 

He closes his eyes, but as tired as he is, he stays awake for a long time. 

—

Estinien is different. 

Emile has known this since they first met again, since they freed Tiamat and he led them in Paglth’an. It’s something that only grows more certain as the days carry on. Estinien’s small smiles come more easily, his teasing remarks more frequent. The hollows around his eyes still exist but the constant anger in them is gone. Emile watches him interact with the others, and he fits in with the Scions as much as he doesn’t. 

Emile is almost greedy for the easiness of these days. The cold sun tinges Estinien’s cheeks in pink, makes the white of his hair shine. He is just as restless as Emile but he does not complain, he merely busies himself about the ship. More than once Emile spots him chatting with the crew, his gaze focused as they point to the sails above them, to the horizon beyond them, or once with a map between them, plotting out their course. 

The twins are near constant companions to him at first. Alisaie is just as interested in him as her brother, even if she feigns otherwise, and though Estinien feigns his own irritation with them, Emile knows how much he enjoys having them around. 

Most days, however, Estinien disappears for hours at a time. Emile never asks where he goes. 

It is the night that belongs to them. It becomes Emile’s favorite thing, watching the empty space of Estinien’s bunk before retreating to the upper deck to find him. There’s something to be said for these old habits and the way they find each other again, the shadows of their bodies recognizable in the dark. 

Here they come alive, here they unravel the years between them.

Emile finishes telling him about the First, often tripping over his words, retracing his way back and explaining the same things differently. Estinien is patient with him, letting him figure it out as he goes, prompting him with questions where he can. It helps Emile make sense of it in his own mind, the wounds of that time still fresh, still hard to understand. 

And then it turns to Estinien, who tells him about what he’s done during their time apart. Like before, his stories are short but to the point, and he tells him about where his travels have taken him, the world he’s rediscovered in this new life free from the weight of vengeance beating through his blood, the new path he found until it eventually led them back together.

They talk about Orn Khai, Alberic, Aymeric. There are things they share, and things they do not. The conversations change over the passing nights, from things that are deep to things that are lighthearted, and they laugh like a couple of kids instead of two men in their thirties. 

More often than not, Estinien winds up wearing Emile’s cloak. He brought little by means of a change of clothes, and nothing warm enough to comfortably withstand the windchill at night. He never complains but Emile hates to watch him endure the cold, and so each night he pulls off his cloak and drapes it around his shoulders. Estinien, to his credit, rolls his eyes less and less each time it happens.

“Is this the same one from before?” he asks one night, fingering the worn edge of the seam. 

“Aye,” Emile says, his eyes on Estinien’s hands. He wore it night after night in Dravania, using it as a blanket as they slept around the fire or throwing it on as they slipped away from camp together. “My mother wove it for me when I first left Gridania.”

Estinien’s gaze is sharp and immediately on him, and Emile looks up with a raised brow as he moves to take it off. 

“I shouldn’t—” he starts. 

Emile reaches out to stop him with a hand on his shoulder before he can think better of it. He watches Estinien for a moment, a question on his tongue that he will not ask. He clears his throat. “I am happy to share it with you, and I think she’d be rather cross with me if I didn’t.”

A small frown pulls at Estinien’s lips, but he does not shake off the cloak. After a moment, Emile realizes his hand is still on him and pulls away. 

“‘Tis very fine,” Estinien murmurs. 

“Mother is an excellent weaver,” he says, only a little embarrassed at the pride in his voice. “She’s tried to teach me many times, but in my youth I did not have the patience to dress a loom. In truth, I’m not certain that I’d have it now, either.” 

Estinien laughs a short sound. “Do your sisters weave?” 

“Very little,” he answers. “Renee has the skill for it but rarely the time, and Max has even less patience than me. I fear the three of us are quite the disappointment for her.” 

“I’m certain she does not view it so,” he says, voice soft.

“Nay,” Emile relents, but he lets himself remember the wide windows of her studio, the dappled light that spilled through in shades of gold in the afternoon. As a teenager, he spent more time staring out at the trees than actually weaving, but he thinks the repetitive motion of it might be nice, now. “Mayhap I’ll pick it up someday.”

Estinien raises a brow. “Retirement plan?”

He laughs. “Aye, I’ll make sure to weave something for you.”

The conversation rolls on until the night winds down. He doesn’t mind when it’s over, when they retreat down below deck again. He finds himself looking forward to the way they murmur goodnight, the look they share at the door of their room, something that comes closer and closer to understanding what they’re really saying. 

—

The interest in Estinien cannot be helped. It is a long trip, and he’s the newest addition to their team. The Scions give him space for the most part, but as the days stretch on, questions begin to arise. 

The topic of Azure Dragoon comes up one night at dinner. It is one of the rare occasions that all of them sit down at the same time. When they’re together like this, the conversations carry on quickly between topics, overlapping in a way that only makes sense when you’ve known the same people for years. 

Emile frequently loses track, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“Emile was Azure Dragoon as well, though,” he hears Alphinaud say, and his attention snaps over to the other end of the table, where Alisaie’s brows turn down as she looks back at him.

“‘Tis easy to forget, with how little you speak of it,” she says.

Estinien sits across from them, and his gaze shifts to him as well. Emile lifts a shoulder. “‘Twas Estinien’s role, truly.”

“Haldrath himself possessed you, and still you give me the credit.” 

Emile smiles. “No one will know that part of it. ‘Twill always be the story of the Warrior of Light and the Azure Dragoon.” 

But the conversation moves on to Haldrath, to the Eyes, to Lahabrea, to the Ascians. There’s a question in Estinien’s gaze but he doesn’t say anything, disappearing into the background of the conversation as he often does. 

It’s later that night, when they’re alone, that he brings it up again. 

“The Warrior of Light and the Azure Dragoon,” Estinien repeats. It is bitterly cold, and the two of them sit under the cover of one of the masts to block out the wind. Emile’s cloak drapes like a blanket over their legs as they sit shoulder to shoulder, and Emile feels like a child again, hidden away from the world with him. 

“Do not think that I have forgotten myself,” Emile murmurs. “But I do not presume to believe that I will be remembered as anything other than the Warrior of Light.” 

“Does that not bother you?”

Emile shakes his head, letting his gaze travel up the sails, their scale even greater from this angle. He continues further up, casting his eyes among the stars above them. His shoulders drop as he considers the question. “Part of me thought of it as a burden for some time. I’d felt that there was too much expectation on my shoulders, and all that hope felt useless in the face of those I could not save.” 

The weight of Estinien’s gaze no longer feels heavy, but Emile knows when it’s there all the same. 

“Now I often find myself grateful for it,” he continues, eyes still full of stars. “If I am to carry one title, ‘tis an honor for it to be one that lends strength to others.”

“And what about you?” Estinien asks. 

Emile finally looks at him, light ghosts over him, and there’s something melancholic in his gaze. “What do you mean?”

“What lends you strength?”

Emile blinks at him for a long moment. It’s one thing to know that Estinien understands that Emile is just as mortal as everyone else, it’s another to be reminded of it again. Just as they’re talking about the magnitude of his role, Estinien looks right through it and sees him alone on the other side. 

“The Scions, of course,” Emile answers immediately. “My family. The memory of those I’ve lost. You.”

The last one comes quietly. Hesitant. Estinien hears it all the same. 

“Me?”

Emile is grateful for the dark covering over them as he feels his face warm all the way to the tips of his ears. “Aye, well... we’ve had similar paths, have we not? When I think of your strength in overcoming Nidhogg, it gives me hope for my own future. I’ve hardly had a moment to reflect on my freedom from the burden of vengeance, but being here with you reminds me of it every day.” 

Perhaps it’s too much of an admission, but Emile cannot keep it to himself. There are things he’s had to bear alone, things that he would not burden with others, but to tell someone how they’ve helped feels important. Telling this to Estinien feels important. 

Estinien looks away, and Emile watches him openly. It’s the tilt of his mouth, the slight slope of his nose, the way his bangs lower over his eyes as he considers what he said. There isn’t anyone like him, is there? 

“I do not often wish things were different,” Estinien says finally. “I used to, in my youth and in my anger, but there is no point to it. Yet still I find myself wanting more for you than what the world has offered, than what I myself have asked of you, just like all the others.” 

An admission for an admission. Emile can scarcely breathe. 

“‘Twas important, Estinien,” he says. “All of it. Unfair at times, yes, but I do not resent what has been asked of me—especially not from you.” 

Estinien looks down at his hands. “Then full glad am I that I can offer what strength I have in return. ‘Tis no one more fitting to be the Warrior of Light.”

“I should say you made a fine replacement while I was on the First.” 

“Only out of fear of your receptionist,” he says, and he glances at Emile again, who laughs into the emptiness of the night. Estinien’s eyes crinkle at the corners, just the slightest hint of amusement in his expression, and Emile feels that unspoken thing again, that indefinable feeling, but finds that he’s no closer to explaining it. 

He knows, in his heart, what he wants it to be. 

—

It’s always present in the back of his mind. 

Emile has long stopped denying his attraction to Estinien—something he’d felt the moment Estinien first took off his helm in front of him. There’s a certain beauty in the sharp lines of his face, in the angle of his eyes, the soft sheen of his hair. It’s the shape of his body, the breadth of his shoulders, the thick line of his thighs. Emile has to stay his wanting hands at the cut of his waist and the curve of his jaw, fingertips itching to brush back his bangs when they fall into his eyes. 

Estinien sees him for who he truly is, he understands him in a way Emile hasn’t felt with anyone before. They can relate about such painful memories and share such stupid laughs, they can talk for hours at a time or sit comfortably in silence. Some foolish part of him feels like they were meant to find each other, but he knows that he’s greedy to want more than he’s been given. 

It only grows in difficulty. 

Their room is below deck. Despite the cool air above, down here it grows humid and stifling. Emile wakes with the sun even when he can’t see it. He wakes to the sight of Estinien asleep in the bunk across from him, the naked line of his scarred shoulders visible above the blanket, his long hair spread loose across the pillow, mouth parted in sleep. In the lifting shadows of the room, he is mesmerizing.

Sometimes Emile thinks about crossing the short distance between them. Early morning slips by slowly, and he lets himself imagine pulling back the covers and crawling in beside him. He wants to know what his body feels like against his, the touch of his skin, the taste of his lips. He wants to know the comfort of Estinien’s affection, know the heat of his desire, he wants to believe that Estinien could feel the same way he does. 

At a certain point, Emile stops looking over at him entirely. 

In his haste to get up one morning, however, he forgets to duck his head under the bunk above him. He collides with it with a solid smack in the silence of the room, and he immediately recoils with a hand to his forehead, wincing against the ache that comes in the aftermath of his shock. 

“Are you all right?” he hears Estinien whisper. Emile’s attention snaps over to him. He’s on his side facing him, barely holding back a grin. 

“Yes—don’t laugh,” Emile whispers back, but he can't help it either. It isn’t the first time he’s forgotten his height in a small space, and the same embarrassment creeps up his neck as he laughs, trying to keep quiet. G’raha isn't in the room—always the first awake—but he can hear Alphinaud stir in the bunk above him. 

Emile is careful in his second attempt to get up, and he can feel Estinien watching him as he stands. They’ve seen each other in just about every state of undress before, but Emile still feels self conscious about his bare chest as he turns to throw on a shirt. 

It shouldn’t be any different, he reminds himself as he pulls a sweater over his head next, but when he glances at Estinien, he has rolled over and his back is to him. 

—

Alisaie is fast, and she hits hard. 

Her and Emile take to sparring on the deck most afternoons, when the sun has reached its zenith and the chill in the air is welcome. They use wooden poles instead of lances, and Emile walks her through posture and position, step after step, strategy—things he learned at her age. 

She is a quick learner, and even happier to be taught by Emile. 

He doesn’t let her win —he knows that she would only be angry with him if he did. Still, he does not use his full strength against her despite the way she pushes him to. She is relentless, always looking for an opening, and tries to create one with force when Emile doesn’t let her in.

More often than not they find themselves with an audience. Scions and strangers alike stop by to watch them spar. Y’shtola merely lingers with an amused expression, Alphinaud is the only one that roots for Emile, and Thancred is the most vocal. He spurs Alisaie on, calling out where Emile’s weak spots are to give her the advantage, laughing when Emile grumbles about how unfair it is. 

Estinien stops by one afternoon. They’re mid-spar, so Emile can only catch glimpses of him in their back and forth. He stands with his arms crossed, expression neutral but intent on them as he watches. Alisaie fights harder in his presence, whether out of something to prove to him or to show off—Emile isn’t sure. 

Either way, his observation weighs differently. The fight continues in silence for some time before he speaks. 

“You should lower your stance,” he says to her, straightforward but not quite a command. 

“Emile taught me just fine, thank you,” she returns, but she does as he says. Emile adjusts, refocusing on her hands, watching her feet as she circles around him, but then—

“Emile stands too tall for a dragoon,” he comments, like it’s nothing. And it is. It’s merely an observation, but it still makes Emile hesitate long enough for Alisaie to land a hit to his shoulder, the blunt end of the wooden pole enough to leave a bruise.

“I do not care to be a proper dragoon, I care about whipping his arse,” she returns with a pointed look at Estinien. 

“A fine job you’re doing at that,” Emile grumbles, rubbing his shoulder before taking ready position again. 

Estinien says little else as they finish their sparring session. There’s no winner, no loser, but Emile is out of breath by the time they wind down. Alisaie looks pleased with herself, a smile pulling at her lips as she hands him the pole. Emile shakes his head and grins back at her, but his gaze turns to Estinien once she leaves. 

“My stance?”

Estinien lifts a shoulder. “You hold yourself differently now.” 

He carries a different weapon, it can’t be helped. Still, a sharp feeling twists his stomach—some part of him knows that what he does isn’t right. Some part of him misses wielding a lance with an ache in his chest that only makes him think of his father. Would he be disappointed in Emile? Is Estinien? 

It’s something he’s wanted to ask ever since they first took to the battlefield again and Estinien wordlessly eyed the scythe on his back. The others do not like it, and as much as he understands why, it is a power he cannot yet yield. 

“I could still keep up with you,” Emile challenges, though maybe it’s too bold of a claim. They haven’t fought each other since that day in Coerthas years ago, with Alberic at Emile’s back, with Nidhogg stirring in the air. Suffice it to say that it didn’t end well for either of them. 

But Estinien watches him a moment, considering, before he holds out his hand for the pole Alisaie wielded. 

“Show me,” he says. 

Emile hesitates as their eyes stay on each other, posing both the question and the answer. Are you sure? He hands it over and the two of them slowly get into position. Both of their bodies know this dance well—Emile strikes first but Estinien meets him there. They test the waters, then they sink in. 

It is a good match. 

It’s the length of their reach, the same strength they use, the effortless glide of their footsteps around each other. They move so similarly that their push and pull comes naturally, and it goes on like this for some time, simply feeling each other in the fight, before Estinien pushes harder. He picks up the pace, bears down with more force, and Emile has to focus to keep up. 

Their lances come to a standstill between them and for a moment, neither of them move. In the late afternoon sun, Emile watches the way Estinien’s chest heaves with exertion, mouth parted and sweat curving down his face, eyes like fire on Emile. Desire flares to life in the span of a pounding heartbeat, and Emile swallows hard.

Focus, you fool.

They continue on, their pace relentless. In time it wears on Emile, and new habits are habits nonetheless. It doesn’t register until a moment too late: he expects the bladed arch of the scythe at the end of his lance, and in its absence he creates an opening that Estinien doesn’t miss. He hits Emile hard enough to unbalance him and send him to the deck, where the hard wood digs into his elbow and knees as he tries to catch himself. 

Estinien is beside him a moment later, eyes roving over him before he asks, “All right?”

“I’m fine,” Emile mumbles. He turns onto his back, sprawling his limbs out as he squints up at Estinien through the waning light. “Ali hit harder, you know.” 

Estinien smirks. “And yet who knocked you on your arse?” 

Estinien lowers his hand and Emile takes it, groaning as he helps him stand upright. 

“Next time,” Emile says, still out of breath.

“We’ll see, Warrior of Light.” 

—

Perhaps Emile’s favorite part of the night is the moment right before it begins, when he traces his way up to the deck and finds Estinien already there, staring out at the water with moonlight painting the edges of him. Something always warms in Emile’s chest at the thought of Estinien waiting for him, this anticipation being something they share. 

Usually Emile has a moment to observe him, to catch a glimpse of him simply as he is, but tonight Estinien scans the deck, already looking for him. 

“Come,” he says when he notices Emile. “I want to show you something.” 

He takes off before Emile can question it, and Emile follows him across the deck, the two of them moving as silent as shadows in the dark. Estinien pauses at one of the main masts, glancing over his shoulder as Emile tilts his head back, looking up at the crows nest that looms far above them. 

Emile laughs. “You cannot be serious.” 

“Come on,” Estinien says, and begins the climb. 

“Will we both fit?” Emile calls after him, but Estinien doesn’t answer. Emile watches the silhouette of him rise into the night, Emile’s cloak fluttering around him, outlined by the stars, and he has no choice but to follow. His hands are uncertain but he picks his way up, eyes straining through the dark. 

There’s something meditative about the climb, the way the cold wind pulls at him, the moonlight surrounding him, and the singular focus before him. Estinien is in the crows nest when Emile reaches it, and he scrambles in beside him, the small space causing them to knock hips then shoulders, shuffling their feet until they can stand comfortably side by side. 

“Why—” Emile begins, but then he glances at the sight beyond Estinien, and he has to turn his head at the scope of the sky fully surrounding them. The sea of stars stretches out from north to south, east to west, countless and shining as one. From this height he can see the dull reflection in the water below them, and sky and ocean merge together, stars above and stars below. Emile lets out a shaky breath, lips pulling into a smile as he looks over at Estinien. 

Estinien glances down at his mouth for one heartstopping moment before meeting his gaze, the slightest amusement apparent in his expression. “What do you think?” 

The night holds him so gently. Starlight reflects in the shine of his eyes, white light soft along the sharp lines of his face, and Emile thinks that he’s starting to memorize him, that even in this half light he’s one of the most familiar things he knows. 

“It’s beautiful,” Emile murmurs, but his eyes stay on Estinien, and in this hushed world far above the sound of the water rolling beneath them, it sounds like a confession. 

It’s the same feeling, isn’t it? It’s always the same, unspoken thing. 

The answer is, Emile thinks, somewhere within his reach. 

—

“Where do you and Estinien go at night?”

Emile stills, cup of tea in hand and halfway to his mouth. It’s Alphinaud who asks, and Emile looks over at him with wide eyes, though the question is posed innocently enough. Beside him, Alisae nearly spits out her own tea, coughing into the back of her hand as she sets her cup down with a small sound. 

The three of them sit huddled around a table strewn with empty plates leftover from breakfast. Alphinaud frowns at his sister’s reaction, but he looks back to Emile, who lifts a shoulder in response. 

“To the upper deck,” he answers. “Have we woken you?” 

Alphinaud shakes his head. “Naught to concern yourself with, I have only noticed your empty bunks on a few occasions and presumed you were together.” 

“Aye,” Emile says. “We both have a habit of staying up too late, we end up talking half the night away.” 

Alphinaud seems to accept this, but Alisae stares at Emile for a long moment, her brows pushed together. Emile is about to question it when she rolls her eyes and says, “Gods above, you’re just as bad as him!”

He blinks at her. “What?” 

“Estinien,” she grumbles. His name sounds almost painful in her mouth. “You’re completely infatuated with each other and then act like it isn’t obvious to everyone around you.” 

If possible, Emile’s eyes widen even further. “What?”

“I’ve had to listen to my brother blather on about him for years without you so much as mentioning him,” she continues, “and then all of a sudden you’re thick as thieves.”

“We’ve always been friends,” he tries. 

“All I’m saying is, the man has two expressions and one is only slightly less murderous than the other. Then he looks at you and I daresay he smiles.” 

“It isn’t like that,” Emile returns, distinctly reminding himself of when his sisters used to tease him about his crush on one of Renee’s friends. Mimi’s in love, they would singsong, until his ears were bright red and he’d snap at them to leave him alone. 

It was childish then, at sixteen. It’s worse now, at thirty three. 

Alisaie turns her attention to her brother. “Please tell Emile he’s being ridiculous.”

Alphinaud glances between them with a furrowed brow before he picks up his cup of tea and takes a sip. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.” 

Emile breathes a small laugh while Alisaie tilts her head back and drops her shoulders, huffing out a frustrated breath. “Hopeless.”

—

They grow closer to Sharlayan. 

They consult the maps, they make their plans, it is inevitable that they will reach their destination soon. It has been a long trip, and morale stretches thin between passengers and crew alike, a certain weariness in the air coupled with the boredom of almost two months at sea. 

On one of their last days, a group of musicians gather together on the upper deck and play song after song while the afternoon winds down into the evening. Many gather around, drawing up a seat or standing along the edges of the crowd, others dancing in the space in front of them. 

Emile arrives later, as the sun begins to set. He was eating dinner with Urianger when they first heard the music, and now they follow the sound up to the deck, where they find the rest of the Scions gathered to one side, standing near the railing as the lights flicker among them, the sky behind them fading pink into the night. 

Estinien stands in the back with his arms crossed, but there’s something relaxed about his posture, his expression calm as he watches the crowd. His attention snaps over to Emile as he comes closer, and a knowing smile crosses his lips—always just the hint of it but there, nonetheless. Emile smiles back, drawn like a magnet to him, and then they’re side by side again, watching the musicians as they begin another song, this one rowdier than the last. 

“Do you not dance?” Emile asks, leaning in close so he can hear him. 

Estinien levels him with a glare that is answer enough. 

“Come on, Estinien. Never?” 

His mouth presses together for a moment in that way it does when he’s debating whether or not to say something, and Emile tilts his head a little, widening his eyes. Estinien takes one look at him and sighs. “I haven’t the talent for it.” 

“I’m sure you do, you’re coordinated,” he offers.

He lets it drop though, turning his attention back to those that dance. The lights catch them, making them look like shifting paintings coming to life from the relief of the night. There are couples and groups of friends alike, laughter ebbing over the music. Emile finds himself smiling, tapping his foot along to the beat. 

And then—

“My mother taught me to dance,” Estinien admits, just barely loud enough to be heard over all the noise. 

Emile looks over sharply, but Estinien keeps his gaze on the crowd.

“Ferndale held a festival at the change of each season,” he continues. “My brother and I would fight over who would dance with her.”

Emile clears his throat. “Who won?” 

Estinien smiles, more nostalgic than happy. “She made us take turns. We’d spend entire afternoons in the kitchen learning the steps with her. We did not have an orchestrion...she would sing until her voice grew tired.” 

He still stares fixedly ahead of him. For a moment Emile lets himself imagine Estinien as a child, heart aching in his chest as he thinks about two little boys in a farmhouse kitchen, dancing to the sound of their mother’s voice. He leans over to press their shoulders together. “‘Tis a sweet memory.” 

Estinien looks over at him, staring at Emile for what feels like a long moment. “Aye.” 

“Will you show me the dance?” 

“Nay,” he says quickly, but his mouth loosens into a more genuine smile. “By all means, you should go ahead though.” 

Emile shakes his head. “Only when I’m in my cups.” 

It’s an obvious lie, but at least it gets Estinien to laugh. “I’d like to see that.” 

They lapse back into the music and the crowd. Estinien gets his wish before long, because G’raha comes over and pulls Emile away with him onto the makeshift dance floor, half his size but persistent—not that Emile puts up much of a fight. He isn’t the best dancer but he loves feeling the music within him and letting his body follow its rhythm. Raha pulls him into his arms in a loose version of a waltz, and Emile laughs until his sides ache in his attempt to get Emile to turn under his arm. 

Alisaie joins them before long, her laugh loud over the music as Emile takes her by the hands and twirls her around, lifting her in the air and setting her back down again. 

Song after song passes like that, and Emile is breathless but it’s the most fun he’s had in some time. Every so often his eyes find Estinien, still watching them with his arms crossed as he leans back against the rail of the ship. He smirks at Emile, shaking his head a little, but the amusement is clear in his eyes. Emile smiles back each time, and then he’s lost to the music again. 

—

It’s later that night, when the upper deck is empty, that they dance in silence. 

I hardly remember the steps. 

It matters not.

Emile doesn’t know why Estinien changes his mind, just that he does. They spend a long time fumbling through it, Estinien’s instructions closer to that of the Knights Dragoon as he guides him through the steps. It begins with them facing each other, hands clasped together as they cross side to side, then they turn under the bridge of their arms. They loop around, their arms drawing them closer, then further apart. It is a dance that breathes, meant to be lively, but they take it slow. 

Estinien counts aloud, the rhythm certain though his feet are not, and Emile is amused by the concentration on his face, the determined line of his brow, the way his voice tightens around the constant one, two, three, when they misstep. He takes it too seriously but Emile cannot blame him, cannot tease him or poke fun, for he knows what this means. 

They bring the past back to life, two ghosts from Ferndale on a ship bound for Sharlayan. He’s all but certain that this is the first time Estinien has danced like this since he was in a kitchen with his mother and brother, and he feels honored in a way that lingers like a weight in his chest. Estinien himself said there’s no point in wishing the past could be undone, but for a moment here, like this, Emile’s only wish is that he could change things for him and give him back the family he so brutally lost. 

Estinien’s hands tighten around his as they seem to finally get it right, and they fall into it, each repetition more confident than the one before. Estinien stops counting aloud, and the only sounds in the night are the rolling waves and their footsteps across the deck. 

Emile ducks under their arms again as they turn, but this time Estinien brings one of their joined hands to Emile’s waist, the other held above their heads, faces close as they stand chest to chest. Emile breathes him in above the sea air, and they sway in place, eyes on each other. Emile cannot be sure how long they stay like that, so entirely lost in the moment that time passes like a dream.

Eventually they slow to a stop, and Estinien wavers in the dark, shades of gray, but he’s so close that Emile would only have to tilt his head the slightest to lean in and kiss him. It would be so easy, it would—

It would ruin the threads of their friendship they picked back up these past months. You’re only seeing what you want to see, he tells himself. Still, with the closeness of Estinien in the dark, their fingers still tangled together, it’s hard to avoid the draw. 

Emile makes himself let go, clearing his throat. 

“I think your mother would be proud of you,” he murmurs. 

Estinien swallows thickly, then nods. “Thank you.”

They linger just a moment longer, and then they walk back to their room. Emile watches the line of Estinien’s shoulders in front of him, his thoughts a mess as he tries to make sense of everything that’s happened between them lately. He knows things are different, but he thinks it’s only a matter of them being different. They are not who they were when they first met. 

They stop at the door just as they always do, and Estinien gives Emile his cloak back just as he always does, but then they break routine. Estinien stays where he is, looking down at his hands, and the moment stretches on. Emile stares at the line of his jaw, his hair that falls loose around his shoulders, and feels a warmth stir in his chest. It’s hard to look away. 

“Emile,” he says, his voice like gravel, and it’s then that he tilts his head up to meet his gaze. He doesn’t say anything else, and all they can do is watch each other as the silence continues to fill the space between them and wears at Emile’s heart. I’m trying to understand, he wants to say, always this same feeling again and again, and tonight it sits heavily within him. He clings to it, searching Estinien’s gray eyes dulled by the night, but the answer is still just out of reach. 

Estinien’s shoulders deflate, and the moment passes. Still, a small smile pulls at the corners of his lips. “Goodnight.” 

Please. 

Emile nods. “Goodnight.” 

—

Emile keeps to himself the next day. 

He doesn’t say anything to the others, he merely slips away in the morning and finds a place to sit on the deck alone. The cold morning sun falls over him and he tilts his head back to let the weak light coat his face, the bare warmth of it a distraction for just a moment.

But then he leans over the railing of the deck, resting his chin on his crossed arms, and he lays his cheek along the collar of his cloak. It smells like Estinien now, and it fills him with a longing that seeps into his bones, that drives down to the most minuscule part of him with a single truth—

He wants to be his. 

He breathes in, he breathes out. He stares at the clear line of the horizon but there are no answers. They face so much ahead of them in Sharlayan, they have been through too much to get to this point. There’s no room for feelings like this—not with the Final Days looming over them, not with everything hanging in the balance. Now is the time to focus, and that means letting these thoughts about Estinien go. 

Easier said than done, though. He finally decides he’s had enough of his sulking and picks his way back across the ship, where he spots Estinien with Alphinaud and Urianger, the three of them standing together on the far edge of the deck. Emile can see the easy conversation from here, the loose lines of their bodies, the way Alphinaud tips his head back with laughter as he often does whenever he’s around Estinien. 

“Emile,” a voice calls from behind him, and he turns to see Thancred watching him, something careful about his gaze. “All right?”

“Fine,” he says, but his voice sounds thin. Thancred glances beyond him for a moment, returning to Emile with understanding crossing his expression.

“For a self proclaimed loner, he seems to be rather fond of company,” he murmurs. 

It’s that he doesn’t mention Estinien by name, knowing full well what has been occupying Emile’s thoughts, that bodes ill for this conversation. Emile can hear the caution in his own voice, “Only some of the time.” 

“Or, rather fond of your company, I should say.” 

Emile sighs, half tempted to pinch his brow. “You know we’ve been friends for years.” 

Thancred was there in those days when Nidhogg still claimed Estinien, and he saw the effect it had on Emile then. He is observant, and Emile is certain that he’s well aware of Emile’s reluctance to talk about him over the years, even more aware of the way they’re drawn together now that they share a goal again. 

One breath in, another breath out. 

“Far be it for me to meddle in the affairs of others,” Thancred says, “but I think ‘friends’ is a generous term for it.” 

Emile’s stomach drops, but he doesn’t have it in him to deny it. “‘Tis close enough.” 

Thancred raises a brow.

“‘Tis not that simple,” Emile tries again.

“Is it not?” 

Emile wishes it was. He wishes he could take the chance with this, but there’s too much at risk. It’s too much of a complication, and the last thing he’d want to do is to ruin this easy dynamic between them.

He sighs. “Even if I were guaranteed that he felt the same, ‘tis hardly the time for such a thing.” 

Thancred looks back to Estinien, Alphinaud, and Urianger across the deck, and a slow smile steals across his lips. “I daresay we have little choice in when these things happen. Or with whom.” 

Emile follows his gaze to Urianger, who gestures with his hands as he speaks. Emile knows it hasn’t been easy for the two of them, but there’s been something different about both of them since they took that step. Something happier, relaxed, free.

For a moment, the thought makes him pause, and he asks himself a single, What if. When he looks back to Thancred, he shakes his head at him, clapping him on the shoulder. 

“I trust you’ll figure it out.” 

—

They’re due to arrive in the morning. 

His head spins with mixed feelings at the thought. Most of all, he’s ready to keep going. This restlessness has been a challenge, being rendered useless when he knows the magnitude of what’s before them, and he’s eager to help in the way he knows best. He’s excited to see the place that his friends have talked about so often—that old adventurer’s spirit is still alive in him, always somewhere underneath the surface.

He can’t let himself dwell on the nerves that pull at the edges of him, the questions that rise without an answer. He is not alone, and though there’s a certain dread in the back of his mind at what they could be facing, they will figure this out together. 

But as much as he looks forward to leaving this ship, it means an end to this—

Emile hands over his cloak as soon as they step out into the night air, and Estinien takes it without a word. They stand shoulder against shoulder to keep warm from the wind. Or at least, that’s what Emile tells himself when he leans his weight against him, it’s what he tells himself when Estinien leans back just as much, sides pressed together against the chill of the night.

It cannot be this easy. 

He looks over at him, at the way he positioned the collar around his neck so he can tuck his face into it, the way the moonlight tugs at his lashes as he blinks out at the horizon, and Emile wishes he could pause time just so he could watch him a little longer, stay with him here, stay with him safe.

They’re quiet. There’s much they could still discuss but they both seem content to enjoy these last moments together in the silence. Emile debates for too long what he could say—Alisaie and Thancred’s voices in the back of his mind—but in the end, he simply gives in to the night.

Before he can overthink it, he tilts his head to rest on Estinien’s shoulder. They sat like this once before, years ago, the night after they killed Nidhogg. There was an understanding between them underneath all that raw emotion, and the comfort of being close helped him more than he would ever admit at the time. Like then, the sharp line of Estinien’s jaw comes down to rest against the top of his head in return.

If this is all we get, then let me stay here.

The night stretches on and Emile commits it to memory: the familiar sound of the wind catching at the sails, the salt air, cold mist from the water, and the thousands and thousands of stars surrounding them. There’s the rise and fall of Estinien’s body beneath him, the even sound of his breathing, the scent of him, the way he stays and stays and stays. 

The night stretches on and it stretches out—it cannot last forever. 

Emile’s eyes blink slowly, and then slower. He knows they need their rest but he’s reluctant to let go. When he finally pulls away he doesn’t go far, just enough so he can meet Estinien’s gaze. He’s equally as intent on him, and Emile’s heart thunders in his chest, stealing at the peace from just a moment earlier. 

Emile smiles at him, grateful for the way Estinien’s lips curve up in response, always only the hint of it but always true. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Emile admits, and he forces himself not to look away. “There were many times I thought of you these past years. Many moments where I wished we could simply talk like we used to. I know our separate paths were right for us both, but I’m glad that it led us here.” 

One shaky breath follows another. 

Estinien’s smile broadens a little before he looks to the horizon. “You still yet surprise me, Warrior of Light.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“After everything, you continue to wear your heart on your sleeve.” 

Emile wills himself not to blush. “It cannot be helped.” 

“Still,” he continues, and his smile fades until it’s completely gone. “I’m not going anywhere just yet.” 

His reassurance is so simple, so solid. Emile feels himself nod, tucking this feeling away in his chest. “We should get some rest; tomorrow promises to be a long day.” 

“Aye,” Estinien says, and they separate fully this time. The cold of the night tugs at Emile as he heads back, and he doesn’t realize that Estinien hasn’t moved until he calls his name again. 

“Emile.”

Emile turns around, and it’s just like last night, isn’t it? They stand across from each other, Estinien’s bangs hang low over his eyes, and for a moment Emile doesn’t think he’ll say anything else, but then—

“I thought of you too.”

The admission is quiet but determined, and Emile swallows hard, letting it wash over him as he stares at Estinien. There’s a resolve in his eyes, something immovable, and Emile takes one step closer to him, then another. Estinien doesn’t waver, not until he has to tilt his head back the smallest amount to look up at him, though his expression betrays nothing. 

Emile winds his arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a hug. It’s uncertain at first—they’ve never done this before—but then Estinien wraps his arms around Emile’s middle, his grip tight as his hands bunch the fabric of his sweater and pull him closer. He turns his face into Emile’s shoulder, and Emile can feel his breath at his neck, can swear he feels his heart match his own—beat for heavy beat. 

Emile tightens his own grip around him, squeezing his eyes shut as he savors the warmth of his body, the sense of security that settles in his chest, and he relaxes into the unexpected comfort of it. Nothing else matters as they hold each other close, not the fear of the future or the pain of what’s behind them. Here, they have each other, and they’re safe. 

When they part, there’s something shy about the way Estinien looks at him through the shadow of his bangs, and all Emile can think is, Okay. 

He finally understands.

—

It begins in a snow covered clearing, in Tailfeather, the Churning Mists, and a ship bound for Sharlayan. 

It begins on the Steps of Faith. 

Kill me, Estinien had asked him once. It is the only way.

Emile never even considered it. 

I will not lose you, ran through his mind again and again as he and Alphinaud pried Nidhogg’s Eyes from Estinien’s body, a determination beating through his blood that he’s only felt a few times in his life, giving him a strength he shouldn’t have had left.

He thinks he knew he loved him then, too. 

—

They return to their room as they do every night, but something has changed between them. 

As they stand at the door, Estinien hands Emile his cloak, and they murmur goodnight back and forth in hushed voices. Tonight their glances are fleeting, tonight they do not linger. 

They slip into the muted dark together one last time. 

—

In the morning, she is waiting for him. 

[asherbakugou]

Khalysi Velaryon, daughter of Rhaenyra Targaryen and Laenor Velaryon, younger daughter of Jacaerys and Lucerys Velaryon, 'The Realms Delight', 'Driftmarks Pearl', and cruelly, 'The Dragonless,' was chained to the masts of the pirates ship, thin nightclothes doing nothing to protect her from the icy breeze. Tears stained her face, as she wept, begging the clouded sky to let her family find her.

A part of her wanted to fight, to be like Visenya, but at 10 namedays she had no chance against the older pirates that made up the crew. A strange sound had Khalysi looking up and looking around.

When she looked behind her she found a dragon, bigger than Syrax but smaller than Meleys, perched on the deck, staring at her.

Grey Ghost.

He had cloudy grey scales with a beautiful pearly undertone. His back had armor plates instead of spikes that were a blue-green like the sea when you you looking down. Grey eyes set in a narrow face watched her closely as his long neck swayed slightly. Branching silver horns, arced gracefully catching the little bit of moonlight that shone through the clouds.

Khalysi felt something in her chest urging her closer, so she crawled, legs too weak from the days at sea with little food and water, slowly making her way closer to the beautiful dragon. Once she was close enough, he lowered his head, breathing out a cloud of hot air that warmed her skin.

Every so slowly, she raised a hand and pressed it to the warm scales of his nose. He jerked away but let her hand touch him, and he settled, eyes closing as the bond she'd heard so much about clicked into place.

Grey Ghost climbed further onto the deck, wrapping himself around her and protecting from the icy winds. As he did she remembered the reports.

Ships had been found with no one aboard and no evidence of them being attacked. Sometimes there was blood but very little else. Rhaenyra had suggested it was Grey Ghost but Corlys and Daemon had refuted that, saying the eludice dragon was to shy.

But Khalysi felt it, felt Grey Ghosts bloodlust, his anger towards pirates specifically.

"Grey Ghost. Return. And kill them all."

The dragon snorted in agreement and gently pulled away. In a soundless beat of his wings, he rose disappearing quickly.

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

A thick fog, that made the pirate crew nervous, had set in around noon when the sun was high in the sky. But the fog made it seem closer to night, as if the sun had decided to disappear early. Khalysi pressed herself against the mast, waiting. It did not take long.

In less than two hours Grey Ghost had killed them all, and freed Khalysi. She prepared to have him return her hom but something made her pause.

What did she truly have back home? Her brothers would have their kingdoms and keeps, and she would be married off to the highest bidder to have babies.

No, she'd be a Queen of her own making.

A Pirate Queen.

She stole gold, and thick clothes before climbing onto Grey Ghosts back. She remembered an old fairytale that spoke of an island near Old Valyria that had narrowly escaped the Doom. Hopefully it existed.

When she told Grey Ghost he seemed to know what she spoke of and quickly set them on their way.

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

The journey was long and tiring, but peaceful.

Once on the large island, Khalysi rested in a cave of Grey Ghosts choice, hidden from the other creatures of the island. Until she heard the call.

The same call that had urged her to go to Grey Ghost called to her now. And so she followed it.

Deep into the mountain that took up a large chunck of the island rested a dragon. Larger than Vhagar was. But more . . . youthful.

She did not have the flap on her neck, nor the exhaustion that Khalysi had seen on Aemonds newly claimed dragon. Her scales were not dull, in fact, they the opposite.

The scales of her body were all shades of blue, woth the frills along her spine being a paler blue while her belly was dark blue, the same blue that the ocean was at night. Her wings were a beautiful pearly grey with pale green and blue streaks. The spikes along her chest, jaw, and her horns were a beautiful bronze with orange-red streaks, while her tail fins were a solid bronze.

Khalysi was reminded of Daerons hatchling, that she'd never learned the name of, and decided that this dragon was far more beautiful.

Slowly the she-dragon lifter her head, allowing golden eyes to meet murky purple. Khalysi gasped when the dragon gently nudged her and another bond clicked into place. At her back, she could feel the warm presence of Grey Ghost who made not a sound as he watched the older dragon.

"Tessarion," Khalysi decided, smiling at the huff and feeling of amusement from her.

And so her legacy began.

Khalysi Velaryon, Firstborn Daughter of Rhaenyra Targaryen and Laenor Velaryon, younger sister of Jacaerys and Lucerys Velaryon.

'The Realms Delight.'

'Driftmarks Pearl.'

'Pirate Queen.'

'Queen of the Sea.'

'Daughter of the Drowned God.'

'Daughter of the Stranger.'

'The Drowned Goddesses Rider.'

'Rider of the Grey Ghost.'

[adeptalec]

Shantien my beloved... sorry for making ya sick :(

Easily one of, if not my favorite monster~

Short writing thing below

The Heavenly Flying Dragon, Shantien; the embodiment of storms, a true force to be reckoned with, floated through a sea of clouds. His flight path faltered as the upset roiling of his stomach made itself known, further souring his mood. He was an Elder Dragon of impeccable power, he would not be downed by some measly stomachache.

Even so, a feeling of doubt lingered in the back of his mind, before it was pushed away when he noticed a shape in the distance. Shantien narrowed his eyes, making out a large airship, suspended by wide balloons, and bearing a massive wooden deck. Mounted along its edges were multiple ballistae and harpoons.

Those wretched hunters...

Now opting to ignore the pangs in his abdomen, Shantien neared the ship, twirling around in the sky, flaunting his glistening jade horns and other protrusions. His elegant mane fluttered, shimmering in the sunlight, while each strand emit its own faint glow. Four figures stood upon the deck of the exploration ship, each bearing their own set of bulky armor and a weapon to match. It seemed the dragon would need to teach these pests a lesson. The sky was his, and his alone. A storm brewed, surrounding him and soon closing in, but... Not quite. The dark clouds quickly dissipated, as if retreating back into the deep blue, afraid of completely blotting out the sun. Shantien growled to himself in frustration, but still chose not to acknowledge his growing weakness.

In one fell movement, he swooped down, landing hard against the wooden deck, the wind pressure pushing the hunters back multiple feet. It was only then he noticed how hard he was breathing, and how tired he felt. The dragon's vision grew blurry, he tried blinking it away, raising his head, pushing his front talons against the ground to appear intimidating. It was that slight movement that triggered something deep within. His stomach shifted, and the sickening gurgles could be felt along his whole body. He clamped his jaws shut, feeling bile crawl up his throat, followed by what he could only assume were the contents of his stomach. Shantien's muscles tensed, clenching as a strangled "hrk" sounded from him. He distantly heard the shifting of armor and clattering of steel as the hunters appeared to ready themselves. Little did they know that their foe was in no shape to fight.

There was an uncomfortable moment of pained stillness before the great dragon lurched forward. His mouth flew open, releasing a torrent of stomach contents and bile that splattered against the wood he stood on. Consisting primarily of half-digested meats, the smell was rancid. The pile of hot mush sizzled in the cold atmosphere, and was swiftly added to as another revolting mass of slop shot up and out of Shantien's maw with a painful groan.

The dragon retched for a few moments, alternating between heaving and puking, and leaving the eager hunters dumbfounded and disgusted. But soon, Shantien got a chance to recover enough to move. With immense effort, he dragged himself to the side, easily tearing down the light fencing on the ship's rim until he could slide off the edge. They were high high in the sky, and the fall helped force more air into the dragon's windsacs until he had enough strength to float on his own. Steadily crawling back to a more comfortable altitude, Shantien caught sight of the exploration ship again through his weary gaze. He didn't have the strength to ward them off. He just didn't. Nor did he want to continue making a fool of himself.

With a final, achy grumble, he lazily flew off, disappearing into the clouds once more, occasionally needing to stop and tense as he threw up more of his lunch.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Sing to Me, Leviathan

Ocean waves gleamed in bright red sunlight, a sea of shattered crystals in perpetual ebb and flow. The first sun had already set. This planet’s second sun followed its descent behind the horizon.

A monumental event, inviting two people on a rusty old vessel to watch and wait for dusk’s arrival.

Old woman, young woman, they stood, together alone, upon the windswept deck. Clad in armor both scuffed and polished, worn from excessive use, and ready for yet another dive.

Waves crashed and lapped at the sturdy hull of their huge nautical vehicle. Against the crimson seas and skies around them, these two people looked tiny by comparison. Yet they stood tall and proud and confident against the vast watery infinity around them, impervious to the crushing emptiness above the surface, and the teeming wildlife that lurked in the darkness beneath the waves.

They awaited the sunset, sharp harpoons in hand, attached to chains and powerful winches. The blue paint of their vessel had mixed its vibrant color with the orange of rust. The chains between harpoons and winches, on the other hand were new. Even more polished than their battered sets of armor. Sterling chains, taken fresh from the Swimming City, hundreds of narels away from their current location.

Darkness scarcely draped itself over the endless aquatic realm of this world.

And whenever it did, the Leviathan rose from its depths.

For now, only the crimson orb in the sky reflected off the opaque surfaces of their helmet goggles.

These sunsets were as breathtaking as the dark clouds roiling across the skies in their wake.

A storm was coming. A storm they expected.

A warning. Of rain on the water, and the coming season. Of the living monolith that would rise from the depths.

The young woman burned to finally see the Leviathan with her own eyes, and earn herself a name by carving a scale from the beast’s shell.

The old woman had long earned her name, but cared little about it. She stared into the horizon, feeling that it reflected the dusk of her own life. She bore an exhaustion that no slumber could ever lessen. The lessons of a long life, the lessons of a sea hunter, the lessons of loss; of all those who had been dragged into the undertow, and devoured by the creatures of the dark. She hoped to bring back bounty, but part of her expected this to be the last time she saw the sunset.

She had been lucky every time. That luck, she believed, was about to run dry.

The clouds, inky-black, devoured all light from the crimson sky, and the ocean waves fell dark.

The young woman sensed that strange calm from the older one. The young woman’s vigor and enthusiasm mixed with a growing sense of insecurity.

The longer the older woman stayed quiet, the more it eroded the younger one’s confidence.

“Are you afraid?” asked the younger.

The older woman chewed on that question like it was a tasty morsel. She swallowed it with any pride and pursed her chapped lips before responding.

“Of course. One should always be afraid. Fear is like fire. A terrible master, but a guide in the dark. Like the lighthouses of the Swimming City. You understand?”

The younger woman let those words sink in. She swallowed then, eating away at her confidence and permitting some fear to join it on the surface.

Her armored shoulders sagged and her grip around the harpoon tightened.

“I understand,” she finally replied.

The older woman stood stalwart. She no longer feared death.

The dark clouds rumbled with a deep, growling thunder, and flashed with bright bolts of lightning. Strong winds howled across the vessel’s deck, and first rain began to pelt them. The rain would soon turn to a downpour.

Both women clicked their helmet’s lower sections shut, and slapped the red button on their armor, activating the oxygen supply.

Another flash of lightning illuminated a monolithic shadow beneath the sea—moving, slicing through the water, rising to the surface.

That giant. Leviathan.

As much as the sea made the women’s vessel look small, and they looked smaller yet upon its mighty deck, the Leviathan’s shadow made their ship look like a speck of dust on the ocean.

According to their tales, star travelers could even see its mighty shadow from the blazing skies.

“Remember,” warned the old woman. “It is not your voice you hear in your own mind.”

“I remember,” protested the young woman. “You and others told me so many, many times before.”

“Resist. Resist temptation to join it. The Leviathan summons all, and those who follow its call are lost.”

The young woman nodded. She swallowed again, and twisted the dial on her armor. The song of their ancestors began to play into her helmet, directly into her ears. The best way they knew to fight the voice of the Leviathan in their heads.

No more time for talk.

The older woman mirrored her motion, twisting the dial, and sighing upon hearing their ancestral song.

Lightning flashed again to reveal the shadow, no longer shadow, risen to the surface of the sea. Stormy waves parted, and the ridged titan body of the Leviathan broke through the surface.

They gripped their harpoon-cannons and waited. Braced themselves.

A tidal wave spawned by the Leviathan rolled towards their vessel. A growing wall of water, a dark and rolling thunder of its own, soon towering over them as it neared.

Tiny red lights flashed on deck, encased in metal grids, blinking in visual warning to signal what they could no longer hear over the songs of their ancestors. The klaxons of alarm, of the tidal waves, ready to crash upon them. The colossal wall of water engulfed everything in sight.

The younger hunter gripped her harpoon with all her life and awaited impact.

The vessel’s computer compensated, and the ship sliced through the tidal wave as the song reached its first crescendo. The front guard on the deck shielded them from the brunt of impact. Torrents of incredible force washed over them. Teeming with displaced aquatic life.

The chains attached to their armor and deck held. Tentacled things and fish remained stuck upon the surface of their vessel after the first tidal wave, flopping helplessly as they recovered.

The shadow now towered over them like the tidal wave. Another lightning bolt revealed it to be the living monolith itself. A wall of sharp scales, gleaming in every flash of light, slippering with the slick wet of water.

Close enough now.

Both older and younger woman readied their harpoons and fired. The tools belched jets of steam from their muzzles and the sleek bladed spears shot forth to that shadowy body. Lights flared on, bright green upon their harpoon cannon, signaling contact, and barbs having extended from the harpoons.

In unison, they engaged the cannons to the harnesses on their armor, clicked the release, and slapped each of the big yellow buttons on their belts.

The wheels on their belts whined with rage. The two hunters flew along the chain between winch and harpoon, hurtling towards the Leviathan. Like the vessel had sliced through the tidal wave, they cut through the waves and the gushing foam.

Hitting the side of the beast was like crashing into a wall, dampened by their body armor. It knocked the wind from their lungs.

The old woman’s impact also left her seeing stars, as her luck had run out. She had hit the side of the Leviathan in an unfortunate. She saw sparks flying inside the claustrophobic space of her helmet, and the song of their ancestors fizzled out.

The younger hunter saw how the older one’s helmet had been deformed from the crash.

Through the mayhem of waves and rolling thunder, the younger hunter yelled out to the older one, though the helmet and cacophony of the stormy ocean, all conspiring to swallow her every word. The older woman heard nothing, for her helmet transmitted no more sound.

Out came the elder’s blades, for such opportunities were rare. Out of all the hunting vessels that left the Swimming City to meet the Leviathan on that stormy night, they were the ones. And they needed its scales. To cleave from the Leviathan’s carapace, new shell for the Swimming City.

To the older woman, it was not about names, or honor, or even pride. If not her, then who else?

The Leviathan dove again. The titan sank beneath the waves, and the waves engulfed them as the Leviathan took the two women underwater. The harpoons in its shell rattled, and the chain-link between them and the ship quaked. They had to act fast, before it dragged them too far, and the pull from the vessel broke the harpoons from the shell.

Voices descended upon them. Even through all the noise, and the storm, and the confusion, and then the dive underwater. Whispers first, then a song. A song more enticing than the song of their ancestors.

The younger woman heard it only faintly, muted by the singing in her ears.

The older woman heard the singing, the lure of the depths, but drove her hook-blade into the carapace, commencing their cutting without fail, hacking away with routine and precision.

Yelling would no longer reach her. The younger woman still pleaded with the older one to hit her release button and return to the vessel. But the older woman either no longer heard or, or ignored her altogether.

Even so, she mimicked her mentor and hacked into the shell, cutting at the boat-sized scale.

Torrents of powerful water washed past them, turning every swing of their blade into a monumental struggle. The spiraling torrents of water around the Leviathan’s body swept up schools of fish in their all-devouring stream. Fish flurried all around them in scintillating colors.

Underwater, the Leviathan’s song only intensified, swelling slowly to match the volume of the song in the younger woman’s helmet.

Still, they held on. Armored, clawed gauntlets gripped to support what the harpoons did to hold them in place.

And they swung, defying the power of water, and the Leviathan’s speed. They hacked, and the cut. And cut. And cut.

They almost carved off the scale they were working.

And the shadow dove deeper, past toothy maws of the shark-like hunters in the sea, swept up in the Leviathan’s maelstrom, and swept away by its gigantic body, and the vortex of torrents that it delivered.

The Leviathan’s song eclipsed the song of the ancestors. A beautiful tale, of a city beneath the seas, harbor to secret lights, and a secret people. A song of those who joined the Leviathan in the darkness below, from whence all life once came.

The song, the song, so enticing.

The younger woman struggled to focus, so little it would take to remove the scale completely—just one more cut, and to pull with all her might—but she struggled to make that last stab. Hesitating. She yelled, no longer at the older woman, but at herself, to not listen to the song, and to only listen to the song of their ancestors. Just one more stab, then—

The older one cleaved the penultimate part free, and the force of the torrent pushed the scale off the Leviathan’s body. The heavy blast collided into the younger woman, denting her helmet, and sparks sprayed inside her field of vision now.

The song, louder than before, eclipsed all.

The depths, the depths, swim together to the depths. The shadow, the sweet embrace of shadow, the release all yearned for, right within grasp.

The older woman clawed at her helmet, then the oxygen tube on her armor. The bladed gauntlet sliced and severed its target.

A gushing stream of bubbles shot past the younger woman, who still struggled to make the final stab and cut, that last tangle of sinewy substance upon which the boat-sized Leviathan scale still hung.

Just one more cut, then to hit the buttons, and cause those winches to rewind, and pull them all back in, and—

The older woman sliced it free. She tore her belt apart. Severed from her lifeline to the vessel.

The younger woman screamed at her, and darkness quickly swallowed them both.

But the older woman, she only heard the song, and held onto the Leviathan’s exposed flesh. Her gauntlet’s blades sank into the flesh where she gripped, and held with all her might. To ride the Leviathan all the way down, to see the depths, and to reach that hidden city in the dark.

The younger woman, unable to stop her, screamed more until she had no more voice to scream with.

She resigned herself to their respective fates. Some part of her wanted to join the older woman, to oblivion with her name. The song of their ancestors sounded weak, and feeble, drowning in the song of the Leviathan and its secret city.

But her pride, her will to live, it all won out. She pressed the button on her belt in a torrent of crushing despair. Her neck almost snapped from the sudden yanking motion as the harpoons and the scale and she were all dragged back to the vessel, shooting past the schools of scintillating fish, and tentacles, and brushing past—

She shot onto deck, tumbling with the scale, skidding towards the winches, where alarm lights kept flashing on and off bright red.

The speakers in her helmet fizzled, and warbles warped the song of their ancestors.

As the living shadow gained distance, so did its song grow quieter in the younger woman’s mind.

Despite the storm, and the crashing waves, she ripped off the lower part of her helmet to gasp for fresh air.

She fought to catch her breath in the downpour and waves of saltwater upon deck

All the while, the klaxons blared while the storm remained, and the Leviathan sank deeper.

They had succeeded. Another scale for the Swimming City.

All the while, she wondered.

Was that city in the depths real?

Would she ever see the older woman again?

Sing to me, Leviathan, sang the ancestors. Sing to me that I may yearn but never see.

[raging-violets]

[ TERROR ] - sender hugs receiver out of sheer fear. + issi!

Narnia: A Nightmare to Remember // Prompt // Prince Caspian and Issi Winters (OC)

A/N: Set during The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Issi stepped across the carpeted floor, further into Caspian’s cabin. She was used to the cramped space in the room she shared with Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace. Used to sharing her bedroom when a lone child refugee came across the Winters’ doorstep. Used to snuggling close to her mother to feel some comfort on the longer nights when her father had been held captive overseas. She had even grown used to the small room she had been held prisoner in Lord Miraz’s castle.  

Open, seemingly endless spaces were, now, what made her wary. Had her on edge. There were too many hiding places. Too many opportunities for someone to sneak up behind her. Still, there was some comfort in seeing Caspian’s form settled behind his large oak desk in the otherwise vast room. He briefly looked at her, the glow of the lamp dancing over his face, alighting his dark eyes, as the room tilted and swayed around them.

“Can’t sleep.” He said it more as an observation than a question. Even if he had asked, she didn’t think she could answer. The coldness of her fear still clutched at her throat with its sharp fingers, making her as uncomfortable as the rain water that pulled her bed clothing down around her shoulders. Stepping over to the, Issi gave a slight nod of her head. “Must have been some dream.”

“Nightmare, really,” she managed to reply, barely moving her lips. People on ships see weird things all the time. Things they can’t explain. Things that aren’t there.  

“Seems to be going ‘round the crew,” Caspian commented. He looked over his shoulder and out the window to the roiling seas, flashes of lightning, and cracks of thunder. “Edmund and Lucy are up, too.” Issi took a step towards him, throwing out a hand to stop herself from careening into the bookshelf at the sudden pitch to the left.  

“And my mum says it’s a gentle rocking that will soothe even the fussiest of babes,” she commented as she steadied herself.

“I was warned about the sea.” Caspian’s gaze was still on the water crashing against the windows. “What all this time would do to us. How it can mess with the mind. When you’re this far out, and it’s dark, when the seas are calm, it can be tough to tell when the sky ends, and the horizon begins.”

“Tis a mighty thing of beauty,” Issi said. It was still eerie to feel the wind rush past her on the deck on the clearest of days, and yet it made no noise to announce its presence. There were no trees to rush through. No wind chimes. Just that feeling that something had brushed past your skin, and just as gently leaves you. All without a sound. Dreams and nightmares could only be so vividly odd.

Twisting halls leading to nowhere, Issi still raced through Miraz’s castle, through doors, trying to find a way out. Upstairs. Downstairs. Freedom outside the windows she seemed to never be able to reach. Never be able to touch. And chasing her, knowing every move she made, always behind her, the sound of creaking armor. Of commands of her return. Of Jadis, her voice encircling her head, bouncing from ear to ear, enticing to her left, waspish to her right. To the bodies of the fallen Narnians lining the corridors, staining the already red carpets an even deeper shade of mahogany. She rushed through another door and was rooted to the spot upon coming to a lion who struck her with a fierce gaze, enveloping her with a loud roar.

Only when she felt his arms wrapped around her and looked up to find Caspian pulling her to him in a hug, did she realize she was shaking. When he had crossed the room, she couldn’t recall, but accepted his hug, for she could feel the unspoken fear in him, too.

-

Tag List: @witchofinterest @arrthurpendragon @itsjustgracy @darknightfrombeyond @ocappreciationtag​

[cantripwilltrip]

what have you been playing lately?

My gaming list has been stacked so far! A ton of great stuff has come out this year alone but I've also been going back to some classics I never gave as much time as I should. Actively I'm going through XCOM enemy within, working towards the NG+ ending of blasphemous 1 and just last week I made it through my NG++ run of armored core, god that game fucks. I've of course also been playing baldurs gate, but i'm taking a break while they patch things, I have a few games going with different groups of friends! I think I'm about 3/4ths through pikmin 4 as well but I keep getting distracted by other things. And I finally got Miss Knight to play through the borderlands games with me! Speaking of borderlandsy stuff currently my go to "pick up and play with friends" game is gunfire reborn, it's kind of like borderlands but the whole experience is packed into a bite sized hour and a half, great fun! I also do a bit of piracy on the sea of thieves from time to time. On deck I plan to get through ys 8 and I return to trails in the sky, maybe front mission 1 if I feel like I can squeeze it in somewhere

[vinyl-deck-whistler]

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To learn more, please visit:

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[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

AFFC: The Iron Captain (Victarion I) [Chapter 18]

My little dunce cap! 😍

Victarion joined Nute the Barber at her prow. Ahead loomed the sacred shore of Old Wyk and the grassy hill above it, where the ribs of Nagga rose from the earth like the trunks of great white trees, as wide around as a dromond's mast and twice as tall.

The bones of the Grey King's Hall. Victarion could feel the magic of this place. 

My mind is full of weirwood.

+.+.+

"Balon's sons are dead," Red Ralf Stonehouse had argued, "and Asha is a woman. You were your brother's strong right arm, you must pick up the sword that he let fall." When Victarion reminded them that Balon had commanded him to hold the Moat against the northmen, Ralf Kenning said, "The wolves are broken, lord. What good to win this swamp and lose the isles?" And Ralf the Limper added, "The Crow's Eye has been too long away. He knows us not."

What.

+.+.+

Euron Greyjoy, King of the Isles and the North. The thought woke an old rage in his heart, but still . . .

"Words are wind," Victarion told them, "and the only good wind is that which fills our sails. Would you have me fight the Crow's Eye? Brother against brother, ironborn against ironborn?" Euron was still his elder, no matter how much bad blood might be between them. No man is as accursed as the kinslayer.

Let's count how many times Victarion thinks about kinslaying.

One.

+.+.+

And then he saw her: a single-masted galley, lean and low, with a dark red hull. Her sails, now furled, were black as a starless sky. Even at anchor Silence looked both cruel and fast. On her prow was a black iron maiden with one arm outstretched. Her waist was slender, her breasts high and proud, her legs long and shapely. A windblown mane of black iron hair streamed from her head, and her eyes were mother-of-pearl, but she had no mouth.

x

But not from Silence. On her decks a motley crew of mutes and mongrels spoke no word as the Iron Victory drew nigh. 

ha HA, get it?? heavy metal.

+.+.+

Victarion's hands closed into fists. He had beaten four men to death with those hands, and one wife as well. Though his hair was flecked with hoarfrost, he was as strong as he had ever been, with a bull's broad chest and a boy's flat belly. The kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men, Balon had reminded him on the day he sent the Crow's Eye off to sea.

Two.

+.+.+

"Drop sail. We proceed on oars alone. Command Grief and Iron Vengeance to stand between Silence and the sea. The rest of the fleet to seal the bay. None is to leave save at my command, neither man nor crow."

That feels like it's going to be a problem for someone.

+.+.+

But not from Silence. On her decks a motley crew of mutes and mongrels spoke no word as the Iron Victory drew nigh. Men black as tar stared out at him, and others squat and hairy as the apes of Sothoros. Monsters, Victarion thought.

Sorry, guys. Please excuse the racism. He means well.

+.+.+

Beneath he wore heavy grey chainmail over boiled black leather. In Moat Cailin he had taken to wearing mail day and night. Sore shoulders and an aching back were easier to bear than bloody bowels. The poisoned arrows of the bog devils need only scratch a man, and a few hours later he would be squirting and screaming as his life ran down his legs in gouts of red and brown.

Victarion wearing heavy armour while at sea will come up a few times. It's definitely something we should keep an eye on.

A gust of wind tugged at his old green cloak. A jerkin of boiled leather and a pothelm at his feet were his only armor. At sea, heavy steel was as like to cost a man his life as to save it, he believed. - Davos III, ACOK

+.+.+

Victarion would not speak of kinslaying, here in this godly place beneath the bones of Nagga and the Grey King's Hall, but many a night he dreamed of driving a mailed fist into Euron's smiling face, until the flesh split and his bad blood ran red and free. I must not. I pledged my word to Balon. 

Three.

+.+.+

Many promised him their voices: Fralegg the Strong, clever Alvyn Sharp, humpbacked Hotho Harlaw. Hotho offered him a daughter for his queen.

[...]

"A king must have an heir," Hotho insisted. "The Crow's Eye brings three sons to show before the kingsmoot."

x

He had not touched another woman since he gave her to the crabs. I will need to take a wife when I am king. A true wife, to be my queen and bear me sons. A king must have an heir.

A king must have an heir!

I had no wish to marry after Lyanna was taken from me, but Jon said the realm needed an heir. - Eddard VII, AGOT

A king must have an heir!

"Jeyne," she called after, "there's one more thing Robb needs from you, though he may not know it yet himself. A king must have an heir." - Catelyn III, ASOS

A king must have an heir!

"Young, and a king," he said. "A king must have an heir. If I should die in my next battle, the kingdom must not die with me. - Catelyn V, ASOS

A KING MUST HAVE AN HEIR!

Victarion was turning to go when the Crow's Eye said, "A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. - The Reaver, AFFC

~a king must have an heir!~

Robert -> no heir!

Stannis -> no heir! (soon. rip.)

Renly -> no heir!

Joffrey -> no heir!

Tommen -> no heir!

Robb -> no heir!

Daenerys -> no heir!

👏 a 👏 king 👏 must 👏 have 👏 an 👏 heir 👏

+.+.+

"Bastards and mongrels. How old is this daughter?"

"Twelve," said Hotho. "Fair and fertile, newly flowered, with hair the color of honey. Her breasts are small as yet, but she has good hips. She takes after her mother, more than me."

Great, more fair and fertile, newly flowered, honey-haired 12-year-old girls wedding and bedding.

Remember when this was horrifying?

+.+.+

"I will gladly look at the girl once I am crowned," he said. That was as much as Hotho dared hope for, and he shambled off, content.

Sorry, guys. Please excuse the pedophilia. He means well.

+.+.+

"Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is maddest of them all," Lord Baelor said. "What of you, Lord Captain? If I shout your name, will you make an end of this mad war?"

Victarion frowned. "Would you have me bend the knee?"

"If need be. We cannot stand alone against all Westeros. King Robert proved that, to our grief. Balon would pay the iron price for freedom, he said, but our women bought Balon's crowns with empty beds. My mother was one such. The Old Way is dead."

"What is dead can never die, but rises harder and stronger. In a hundred years men will sing of Balon the Bold."

"Balon the Widowmaker, call him. I will gladly trade his freedom for a father. Have you one to give me?" When Victarion did not answer, Blacktyde snorted and moved off.

Who is this Baelor Blacktyde!? I like him! Hopefully he sticks around for a long time.

+.+.+

A woman was amongst those laughing. Victarion rose and saw her by the tent flap, whispering something in the ear of Qarl the Maid that made him laugh as well. He had hoped she would not be fool enough to come here, yet the sight of her made him smile all the same. "Asha," he called in a commanding voice. "Niece."

Is that an uncle/aunt being warm towards his/her niece/nephew? What book am I reading?

+.+.+

"Queensmoot?" Victarion laughed. "Are you drunk, niece? Sit. I did not spy your Black Wind on the strand."

"I beached her beneath Norne Goodbrother's castle and rode across the island."

Clever girl.

+.+.+

"Would you lesson me in warfare? I was fighting battles when you were sucking mother's milk."

"And losing battles too." Asha took a drink of wine.

Victarion did not like to be reminded of Fair Isle. "Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old. You have not come to make a claim, I hope."

Is this foreshadowing?

+.+.+

"There are men who remember when you were a little girl, swimming naked in the sea and playing with your doll."

At the Pyke Water Gardens.

+.+.+

But then a sudden silence fell. The singing died, Little Lenwood Tawney lowered his fiddle, men turned their heads. Even the clatter of plates and knives was hushed.

I adore this introduction.

+.+.+

A dozen newcomers had entered the feast tent. Victarion saw Pinchface Jon Myre, Torwold Browntooth, Left-Hand Lucas Codd. Germund Botley crossed his arms against the gilded breastplate he had taken off a Lannister captain during Balon's first rebellion. Orkwood of Orkmont stood beside him. Behind them were Stonehand, Quellon Humble, and the Red Oarsman with his fiery hair in braids. Ralf the Shepherd too, and Ralf of Lordsport, and Qarl the Thrall.

What.

+.+.+

And the Crow's Eye, Euron Greyjoy.

He looks unchanged, Victarion thought. He looks the same as he did the day he laughed at me and left. Euron was the most comely of Lord Quellon's sons, and three years of exile had not changed that. His hair was still black as a midnight sea, with never a whitecap to be seen, and his face was still smooth and pale beneath his neat dark beard. A black leather patch covered Euron's left eye, but his right was blue as a summer sky.

A dreamboat!

She's so fucked.

+.+.+

"We shall have no king but from the kingsmoot." The Damphair stood. "No godless man—"

"—may sit the Seastone Chair, aye." Euron glanced about the tent. "As it happens I have oft sat upon the Seastone Chair of late. It raises no objections." His smiling eye was glittering. "Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedar wood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods of empty air . . . I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy . . . protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence." He laughed. "Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray."

This is what Darkstar and so many others wish they could be.

+.+.+

The priest raised a bony finger. "They pray to trees and golden idols and goat-headed abominations. False gods . . ."

"Just so," said Euron, "and for that sin I kill them all. I spill their blood upon the sea and sow their screaming women with my seed. 

Euron Greyjoy plants trees!

+.+.+

When he was gone, the Crow's Eye turned his smiling eye upon Victarion. "Lord Captain, have you no greeting for a brother long away? Nor you, Asha? How fares your lady mother?"

"Poorly," Asha said. "Some man made her a widow."

Euron shrugged. "I had heard the Storm God swept Balon to his death. Who is this man who slew him? Tell me his name, niece, so I might revenge myself on him."

Lol. What an asshole. ❤️

+.+.+

"Do I command the winds?" the Crow's Eye asked his pets.

"No, Your Grace," said Orkwood of Orkmont.

"No man commands the winds," said Germund Botley.

I was going to make a Bran joke, but I think making fun of Melisandre is more appropriate in this moment.

Melisandre had given Alester Florent to her god on Dragonstone, to conjure up the wind that bore them north. - Davos I, ADWD

+.+.+

"No man commands the winds," said Germund Botley.

"Would that you did," the Red Oarsman said. "You would sail wherever you liked and never be becalmed."

"There you have it, from the mouths of three brave men," Euron said. 

Wait, can he actually command the winds?

+.+.+

"Give her to me, Euron," suggested the Red Oarsman. "I'll spank her till her arse is as red as my hair."

"Come try," said Asha, "and hereafter we can call you the Red Eunuch." A throwing axe was in her hand. She tossed it in the air and caught it deftly. "Here is my husband, Nuncle. Any man who wants me should take it up with him."

More people marrying inanimate objects or classical elements.

+.+.+

"On that we can agree." Euron lifted two fingers to the patch that covered his left eye, and took his leave. 

What is this?

+.+.+

"Nuncle." Asha put a hand upon his shoulder. "Walk with me, if you would."

[...]

"I saw the Reader's longship."

"It took all my charm to winkle him out of his Book Tower."

She has the Harlaws, then. 

Last time we saw the Reader he was refusing to attend the kingsmoot.

I guess stopping Euron is that important. Smart man.

+.+.+

"I am of a mind to shout my nuncle's name."

"Which uncle?" he demanded. "You have three."

"Four. Nuncle, hear me. I will place the driftwood crown upon your brow myself . . . if you will agree to share the rule."

"Share the rule? How could that be?" The woman was not making sense. Does she want to be my queen? Victarion found himself looking at Asha in a way he had never looked at her before. He could feel his manhood beginning to stiffen. She is Balon's daughter, he reminded himself. 

Sorry, guys. Please excuse the incest. He means well.

+.+.+

"Then let my nuncle sit," Asha said. "I will stand behind you, to guard your back and whisper in your ear. No king can rule alone. Even when the dragons sat the Iron Throne, they had men to help them. The King's Hands. Let me be your Hand, Nuncle."

No King of the Isles had ever needed a Hand, much less one who was a woman. The captains and the kings would mock me in their cups. 

Take the deal, you idiot!

Great sign for Asha that she's willing to relinquish power for the greater good.

+.+.+

"To end this war before this war ends us. We have won all that we are like to win . . . and stand to lose all just as quick, unless we make a peace. I have shown Lady Glover every courtesy, and she swears her lord will treat with me. If we hand back Deepwood Motte, Torrhen's Square, and Moat Cailin, she says, the northmen will cede us Sea Dragon Point and all the Stony Shore. Those lands are thinly peopled, yet ten times larger than all the isles put together. An exchange of hostages will seal the pact, and each side will agree to make common cause with the other should the Iron Throne—"

Asha, what the hell are you going to plant on a stony shore? Use your brain! Think!

+.+.+

Victarion chuckled. "This Lady Glover plays you for a fool, niece. Sea Dragon Point and the Stony Shore are ours. Why hand back anything? Winterfell is burnt and broken, and the Young Wolf rots headless in the earth. We will have all the north, as your lord father dreamed."

[Narrator's voice] In actual fact, they did not have Sea Dragon Point, the Stony Shore, or all the north.

+.+.+

"The Crow's Eye hatched the scheme." Asha put her hand upon his arm. "And killed your wife as well . . . did he not?"

Balon had commanded them not to speak of it, but Balon was dead. "He put a baby in her belly and made me do the killing. I would have killed him too, but Balon would have no kinslaying in his hall. He sent Euron into exile, never to return . . ."

Sorry, guys. Please excuse the domestic homicide. He means well.

Four.

+.+.+

Victarion looked at his fists. "She gave me horns. I had no choice." Had it been known, men would have laughed at me, as the Crow's Eye laughed when I confronted him. "She came to me wet and willing," he had boasted. "It seems Victarion is big everywhere but where it matters." But he could not tell her that.

I love their dynamic. It's clear that Victarion could rip Euron to pieces with his bare hands if he wanted, but he feels so emasculated by him.

+.+.+

"I am sorry for you," said Asha, "and sorrier for her . . . but you leave me small choice but to claim the Seastone Chair myself."

You cannot. "Your breath is yours to waste, woman."

"It is," she said, and left him.

This is fine. We're fine. The obvious outcome will somehow not happen. Everything is fine.

Final thoughts:

I don't think it's a given that it's Daenerys who kills Euron.

-> return to menu <-

[yinjiyang]

The Tempest on the Horizon -- Part Two

       The twins stood on the bow of the ship, their eyes locked upon the explosions in the distance, the debris falling from the sky, beams of light--still so far away yet so terrifying.  The force of Garuda's gales ripped large chunks from the great floating cities, sending the structures plummeting to the ground, crashing into the sea.  People...people were in those buildings.  People who did not survive the Fall.  The boys had long dreamed of a day they would meet those they called the Children of the Sky...but never imagined this.  Not like this.        "...Yin..." his brother dared to speak, voice trembling with a fear the elder twin had never heard from Yang before.  "I'm scared," he confessed as a lightning bolt struck their mothercrystal in the distance, severing a large shard which crashed into the waves.  Even Ramuh?  Yin said nothing, but instead reached for his brother's hand, the younger twin's fingers immediately grasping his with a tenacious clamp.  If Ramuh was fighting, too, then...        They continued to stand in silence for a bit longer, the sound of drums loud and echoing from several ships in the fleet, fast approaching the carnage.  "Yin?" his brother spoke again.  The elder twin gave Yang's hand a reassuring squeeze.  "Stay with me.  Whatever happens.  Stay with me."  He turned suddenly, using his free hand to grab the chest plate of Yin's armor, forcing the elder twin to look him in the eye.  "You are not allowed to die!" he shouted suddenly, giving his brother a shake, determination in his stare.  "Not without me!  GOT IT?!"  The tears Yang held back created a sheen in his eyes.  The harshness of his tone was broken by the whimpering he tried to suppress.  "We entered this world together and we will leave it together!  Promise!"        A beat of silence.  Yin leaned forward, closing his eyes as he pressed their brows together, grasping his brother's arm with his free hand.  Both boys inhaled slowly and exhaled in unison.  "Together," Yin whispered in confirmation.        Calmer, Yang echoed.  "Together."

       The ships slowed.  The sound of footsteps brought the twins from their moment back to the reality of their situation, turning their attention to their parents and grandfather, also dressed for battle.  Yue rested a hand on each twin's shoulder, love and worry in her ocean eyes, maintaining a calm exterior but both sons could tell she was putting on a front for the sake of their people.        "You have your orders?" she asked, looking between the two.        "Save whoever we can--" Yang started.        "--as many as we can." Yin finished.        "Good," she said with a nod, giving them both a slow push away and then back like the ebb and flow of the tide.  "And?"        "Survive," they replied in unison.        "My pearls," she murmured, pulling them closer into her arms, burying her face between their heads.  "Oh, my pearls," she whispered, "you are my world.  Live.  Live so you may see this world to a peaceful future."        "Yes, Mother."        "Yes, Mother."         "Good...good..." Yue echoed, stifling a sniffle before pressing a kiss to each boy's crown, lingering with each much longer than she had ever before...as though she knew, she knew this would be the last time.  "You are loved," she whispered.        "You are loved," they replied together, arms tightening around her.        She stood upright again, regaining her composure with a series of sniffs and blinks to suppress her own tears, managing a weak smile to the both of them, a hand cupping their faces as she gave them another longing look, feeling the tears welling up again.  "You are loved," she repeated delicately, nearly inaudible as she stroked her thumbs across their cheeks.  She stepped away, into the arms of her father as the chieftain caught his daughter into a tight, warm embrace with such force her feet left the deck of the ship for a moment.        "Survive," he sputtered into her ear.        "Survive," she whispered weakly with a shaky nod.        Once released, he quickly wiped the tears from her face with his palms before her children could see.  Her husband was next, waiting patiently to be the last to take her into his arms, to press a tender and loving kiss to her lips, long and lingering, gently cradling her head within his hands before their lips parted, their brows met, and they stood for a moment, her hands resting on his arms as they stared into each other's eyes, speaking volumes without uttering a single word.  Finally, she drew a quivering breath and pressed one last, soft kiss to his lips before they parted, her hands lingering on his as she backed away, fingers still hovering in the air as she turned and stepped over the rail, the splash of her impact lost amid the drums of war.       The sheer enormity of Leviathan's head rising from the waters caused their ships brief turbulence and the drums silenced.  Draconic eyes of gold settled upon the twins as she lowered just a bit to touch the bow of the ship with the tip of her beak, the low and wet bestial rumble resonating in the sea air.  Both boys reached forward with a hand, resting their palms to the dripping scales, the warmth of their touch absorbing the cold of hers and vice versa.          Staring into the eyes of the mighty Eikon, they both confessed in unison.        "You are loved."        Again, the gentle drone resonated from within her throat as she acknowledged with a blink, echoing their sentiment and lingering for another few beats, holding them within her stare for just a bit longer.  Slowly, the great serpent of the sea turned pulled away from their hands and rose her head toward the battle ahead.  Everyone in the fleet was silent...until Bai bellowed over the waves.        "THROUGH THE STORM!"        "THROUGH THE STORM!" the Children of the Tides roared in response.        "THROUGH THE STORM!" he shouted again.        "THROUGH THE STORM!" they echoed, the twins feeling their confidence building as the cacophony of their voices reminded them they were in this fight together.        "THROUGH.  THE.  STORM!"        "THROUGH.  THE.  STORM!"        Leviathan's roar was accompanied by the ruckus of their cheers as the drums started again...and they sailed into war.

[spookyvalentine]

If you're taking the Shep asks, how about 8, 15, 28, and 49 for Mercy and Stellan?

Omg!! Yes!! to me stellan is my soft clean ragdoll cat and mercy is the feral raccoon snarling from inside the dumpster

8. What is their reaction to the Alchera mission? And after?

Man I wrote these questions without expecting I’d have to be writing answers. These are hard!!

stellan I think has it a little easier than mercy. karin chakwas was one of their aunts living away from the family commune, working for the alliance when mindoir was attacked. she took them in and together they grieve the loss of their vibrant (enormous) family. once stellan enlisted, the two of em didn’t serve aboard the same ship til the normandy. stellan was definitely boggled, wounded and a bit offended by the alliance sending them the mission, and ooooh karin was pissed at the audacity. they go down to alchera together, but explore and process the site separately. and stellan is with someone who was there, experienced the same floor cracking beneath their feet, lost the same people—they share and process grief together, again. and with joker :,)

as for mercy… well. mercy reads the message and goes what. what?? wow, fuck you! doesn’t tell anyone about the mission or where they’re going. purposely has edi guide the ship while joker is down with chakwas for pt and checkups (and the rare occasion when both are asleep during the same shift) and takes a shuttle down by themself. orders edi to lock the garage. no one’s following. stays out there until they’ve managed to claw every last dog tag out of the ice. 28 hours. mercy forces themself to lay down next to the twisted rails of what used to be the command deck and stare up at the sky and the stars past it, clutching at the dog tags and counting the seconds stretching between heartbeats (and has a total breakdown)

(and of course by this point joker n chakwas are super awake, and very aware they are orbiting goddamn fucking alchera locked inside the normandy, which is pointedly missing its commander. garrus and tali are also Not Happy. outrageously miserable start to the day. mercy what the fuck. why are you doing this by yourself. answer the phone. the rest of the gang is like what is going on. and like yeah mercy gave edi permission to share minimum biostats but that’s hardly any better, shepard)

also if you want to read extraordinary fic, the frozen sea by @zet-sway. Devastating, gorgeous, i think about it all the time, and 1701% inspired this question

15. What colors does Shepard prefer for their armor?

stellan obviously has an affinity for blues. alliance navy looks amazing on them. they settle on something that looks like moonstone for regular use, and a deep navy for stealth missions

in me1 mercy wears literally whatever color as long as the armor is good. me2 they wear this crazy stealth armor that’s not like kasumi’s cloaking but color shifts and slides to echo the environment. me3 is the GOLD ARMOR ERA that was cooked up between liara and hackett as some good promo. mercy’s like wtf is this shiny ass clown suit i will be blasted to pieces immediately. impractical. tacky.

and liara n hackett are like it’s for morale

28. What about hyperfixations? What’s the topic that will get Shepard rolling no matter the person or place

stellan can recall entire kepesh-yakshi games of legend, move by move, in the same gushing, wondering tone of a sports commentator, even hollering at times when recounting something especially remarkable. and their pet turtle along with the whole excruciatingly in depth journey of the aquascaping/aquaculture that went into building his enclosure

mercy loves music. can never get enough kind of love. to mercy, music is magic. the soul made tangible. they’ll excitedly discuss all sorts of up and coming artists across the galaxy with an awareness in trends that at first glance seems out of character. very passionate about music theory and instruments, fucking adores live performances. mercy is the type to spontaneously sweep someone into a dance

49. What is Shepard’s happy ending? What’s the dream that keeps em going

broooo why did i ask this question. hoisted by my own petard, the one petard i never thought would hoist me 🤡🙈

well by me3, stellan is thoroughly in love with shiala, who they’ve been in regular contact since that chance reunion on ilium in 2. they dream of joining her on zhu’s hope, of reconnecting and nurturing the earth beneath their feet. of watching shiala tend to her flowers while they make jam and bake bread before being swept up into an impromptu dance across the kitchen. of being warm and safe curled up in shiala’s big beefy biceps

mercy,,, im really not sure. all i can think of is that line (i am absolutely butchering) frodo knew he would not survive the journey

fifty questions for commander shepard

[subdued-moderation]

⚡️ :)

Ask Meme - Personal Stories ⚡️ - Lightning

"Of course you would pick one about my weakness..."

Temperance lets out a heavy sigh, crossing his arms and leaning against an object. Preparing himself, he begins to set the scene.

"17th century. The golden age of piracy. You were there for it, I believe.

"What a time to be alive. Ships, swashbuckling, adventures on the high seas..." Temp gets a wistful smirk.

"Needless to say, I was...Highly effective in those days.

"...Anyway, there was one particular mission I had set out on...The hunt for the head of a particular Vice at the time. 2nd tier. I can hardly recall the name now..."

Temp takes a water bottle from a pocket, full of clear, pure water. Only the tiniest bit of manipulation makes the plastic burst, as he sets about moving it about into understandable shapes and forms as visual aid.

"They were particularly troublesome for our forces. Troublesome enough that they had to be slain. And, given my expertise on the sea, I was the clear choice.

"So I took my own ship, the Andromeda, and set out to find them.

"I'll skip over the in-between...Was a lot of sailing, capturing anyone who might have information, and extracting the necessary information.

"But apparently word of my search reached them before I did. In fact, they sent a message to me, telling me directly where they would be in a few days time.

"Prideful, self-assured. I would be a fool not to expect they had a plan in mind for me. Even you would smell the trap for miles away!

"But...I went anyway. I had little choice now that they knew I was on the hunt. There are many places to hide on the sea and, powerful as I am on the water, I have only a single pair of eyes...

"...We met on the open sea. A small fleet of their ships against my one. If it were a simple nautical battle, I would've won handily...

"But they sailed their ship to the front, calling me out to my deck. When they got what they wished, they played their hand.

"...They were a Vice affiliated with lightning. If you didn't guess. Particularly, in the calling of storms. Followed up by firing sharp spikes from their cannons, acting as lightning rods. They even had a rifle that did the same.

"I know because they sniped and fired it into my armor...An impressive shot, given the distance.

"A stormcall later, lightning flashing in the sky, before a bolt struck the spike embedded in my steel. Such an attack would likely make me black out on the spot, if not kill me."

Temp lets out a short laugh.

"If...I were in the armor.

"...I had one of my crew stuff my armor with material and push it out on the deck. A decoy dummy.

"They already thought me an idiot, luring me into an obvious trap, of course they would immediately execute their plan without confirming if that was really me.

"Plus. I wasn't as feared by then as I am now, still young for a Virtue...

"Anyway, meantime, I dove into the water from where they couldn't see.

"I swim quickly. While they were likely celebrating taking down a Heavenly Virtue, I swam under their ships and...Made a few holes.

"One by one, they sank. One after another, all around them. When they realized I hadn't perished, it was already too late.

"And when they entered the water...Well, took a good shot at me, spikes go through liquid easily, all I needed to do was manipulate the water around them. Make a current.

"Pushing them down. Deeper and deeper. Ramming them into rock and stone. Their stormcalling was of no use under the ocean. And before long...

"Crushed. Like mere paper."

He directs the water he was using into the closest drain or other convenient place to dispose of it.

"...I sliced their head off with my blade for good measure.

"The end."

[books-of-the-great-leviathan]

Chapter 17- Luca

***

Sunset arrived like an armada in full splendor, a clash of scarlet and flame made brilliant by the volcano's smoky haze. The tide rose, washing clean the wrecks of An Gholam's bay, booming in their hollow hulls. Luca watched the sun sink below the horizon, spilling shadow as it went.

Across the darkening sea came ships.

Dozens, hundreds, until the bay of An Gholam became a sea of running lights and signal lanterns, shouts carried on the wind like birds, the water groaning under the weight of countless hulls. Luca had never seen such variety since Valeris's bay at the swollen height of summer, traders coming from all across the Inner Sea. Square sails, and triangular, and pleated like a fan. Twin-hulled ships slung low over the water's surface, skimming the waves like a landing seabird. Crews dressed in lightlock armor, made to float, or wearing strange leather masks, or painted jet-black and silently slinging ropes as they guided in their vessel. Massive ships, four-decked and carved with menageries of legendary beasts. Sea-orks in duskwood snarled from bows, sails of midnight blue and rust-red reflecting the sunset so they seemed to glow in the gathering darkness. Small vessels, sleek-sided and quick, pointed sails and rigging fluttering with countless pennants.

"See those?" Matteo said, pointing the vessel out as it sailed by. "Each one taken from a ship after her captain's slaughtered the whole crew."

Luca was only half-listening. A dinghy had been lowered over the side. In it crouched a cloaked figure, shimmering with shadow. Luca had asked Nadya on the matter, and the third officer had told him Sirin was taking a few supplies, a pistol or two, and booking passage on a supply ship leaving An Gholam that night. She'd be gone by the dawn, vanished into the Inner Sea. Where she was going only wind and ghosts could say.

He'd been too much of a coward to go to her, to catch the dinghy's rope before it was too late, to say a proper goodbye. She deserved more than their last argument. She deserved more than that by far.

Maybe this was what she'd always wanted. She had her freedom. No chains, no debts. She certainly didn't owe him anything. She'd saved his life, after all. She'd thrown her shadows and caught him before he could sink beyond reaching. She'd twined her darkness into him, had brought him back into the light.

Her hands, gripping his.

Her eyes, bright with the Leviathan's light.

Luca shook his head and turned away. When he looked again, the dinghy was gone, and Sirin was gone with it.

Puppy gave a soft whine. Luca looked down at it, and it gazed up at him, eyes round.

He scratched its chin. "I know," he murmured.

The ships gathered around the Fishcutter, their numbers becoming denser, ropes thrown from vessel to vessel and pulling taut, so that by the time the moons rose the bay was an island of ship decks and sails, masts thick as a forest, flags snapping at moorings and filling the sky with the billow and creak of canvas. Seabirds descended in flocks, carnivorous and clamoring, nesting on riggings by the hundreds. The smell of cookfires rolled in on the wind, roasting meat and fruit sap and the tang of rum. Songs, and howls, and music, too, the twangs and melodies of strange instruments battling for supremacy.

He heard gunshots, too, but neither Captain Irene nor Atana seemed concerned.

"There are always scuffles when the pirates of An Gholam gather," Atana said, standing by Luca at the Fishcutter's bow. "They're resolved amongst themselves."

"How many are there?" Luca could barely see the ruins of An Gholam through the thicket of masts.

"Too many ships to count," Atana told him. She turned, her eyes settling on an approaching ship. "Oh! Look!"

Avenues had been left between the vessels, broad pathways of water wide enough to allow two ships to sail abreast. This one took the entire avenue, a floating fortress, its triple masts jutting almost twice the height of the Fishcutter's. Its hull was black and crimson, glossy as lacquer, crusted in ornate patterns rendered in gilt. Its sails were red, too, each one webbed like a fin. Three levels of cannons glistened along its flanks, mouths shaped like snarling jaws, and its crew wore crimson sashes and waistcoats bright as its sails. Instead of a figurehead, a massive sea-ork's head rendered in gold jutted from the ship's prow, maw open wide as if to swallow down whatever crossed its path.

The magnificent ship cruised closer, swinging alongside the Fishcutter. Luca made out the massive man standing at its bow, one hand on the hilt of his blunderbuss.

"Lord Sabat!" Atana called. "It's good to see you again."

"Atana." Lord Sabat's voice boomed like a cannon. His red greatcoat was as gilded as his ship's hull, and on him, it was magnificent. His skin was so dark it shone blue, his oiled muttonchops curling in abundance from the sides of his square, brutal face. Silver rings glittered on his hands, and each fingernail was silver, too, not paint but steel, the metal pushed through some bizarre alchemy into his living flesh.

The gangplank was lowered between ships, and Sabat crossed, trailed by two of his crew, watching the crew of the Fishcutter like a pair of pit-hounds.

Lord Sabat approached Atana and bowed, sweeping off his enormous tricorn before sinking to one knee. "You've grown tall."

"You inspired me, Sabat. It's good to see you well."

"And you." He took her small hand. "I am sorry to hear about your father."

Atana nodded, looking down. Sabat rose, slowly, and faced Luca. "Is this the man who saw the Leviathan die?"

"Luca Valere," Atana said. "Prince of Lapide."

Sabat approached, his step quiet for such a big man. He prowled around Luca. "Never much liked Lapidaeans," he said.

"Never much liked pirates," Luca said, with a shrug.

Lord Sabat stared down at him, then barked a laugh. "You've a funny one, Atana."

"Not as funny as you think you are, Sabat," said a cold, hoarse voice.

Luca looked; so did Atana and Sabat. A second crew waited on the starboard deck. Luca hadn't heard footsteps, hadn't heard the approach of a second ship. It drifted alongside the Fishcutter: a battered schooner, its sails faded gray canvas, its hull much-mended.

Sabat drew back. So did Irene and Matteo, glancing at one another, Matteo's fingertips dancing over his pistol grip. The trio of newcomers was led by a white-haired old woman leaning on a cane, small and hunched and dressed in ragged shawls. Her crew wore light armor made of fish-skins, glimmering in the smoky haze.

"May I present," Matteo whispered to Luca, "The Eel Queen."

"Welcome," Atana said. She and the Eel Queen exchanged nods, and spoke quietly for a moment before the Queen turned her eyes on Luca. They were pale green, like the glow of some deep-sea fish, and they rested on Luca and Puppy for a long time before she spoke.

"I can see why we've gathered," the Eel Queen said. "This is...rare."

"Rare," scoffed Sabat. "Heretical, more like. Look at the creature." He advanced on Luca, reaching for a heavy hatchet at his belt. "I say we strike off its head and spill whaleblood into the sea. Free the Leviathan from the shackles of-"

"Touch Puppy and it's the last thing you'll ever do," Luca said.

"No one's striking off anyone's head," Atana commanded, her voice ringing over Sabat's. "Not yet."

Luca swallowed, his mouth at once dry. Niive approached from behind him, standing at his left side. Wind swelled at her approach, and Luca felt a charged crackle pass over his skin. Cereza stepped forward to his right, slipping his hand into hers.

"Stand down, Lord Sabat," Atana went on. "We're not yet gathered."

"Then hurry." Sabat eyed Niive, then turned on one heel. "I didn't come here for polite conversation."

He strode away, back over the gangplank. The Eel Queen retreated too, crossing back to her battered little ship without another word.

"They're afraid," Cereza said. "All of them."

"They're right to be. I don't think there's a soul alive who's stood in our circumstances. Sirin," Luca said. "Do you suppose-"

He cut off. Cereza's hand tightened around his. No one answered. Because Sirin wasn't there. Sirin was gone.

Luca let out his breath. Wherever she was going, he only hoped she'd be at peace. That was all he could give her now.

The pirate lords assembled one by one, ships circling the Fishcutter like sharks around a dying sea-ork. Sabat's, and the Eel Queen's, and two more besides. The next to come was a triangular-sailed caravel, elegant and maneuverable, its hull daubed deep cobalt. A pair of flat painted eyes stared from either side of its bow, and its crew were blue-skinned Isozi, each warrior woman competing with Lord Sabat in height. Its captain wore a headscarf round her long white braids, her bare arms rippling with muscle and pale blue scars.

"Noor," Atana greeted, and they held hands, Noor bending down to press her forehead to Atana's.

The last to arrive was a black Buyani icerunner, its hull reinforced with a spellforged steel plow for cleaving through sea-ice. Its sails billowed, each one vivid orange-gold; its flag carried the device of a roaring blue and red flame. Its captain, when she vaulted easily onto the Fishcutter's deck, was a young woman, a sheet of red hair swinging down her back. She wore an enormous hat with a red feather, her pointed face set in a grin. She approached without invitation, looking Luca over with a flick of her eyes.

"Well," she said, her Buyani accent thick and rolling. "At least he's handsome."

"You look a little young to be a pirate lord," Luca said.

"Looks can be deceiving. Who knows. I could be hundreds of years old and simply be wearing a youthful skin. Some witchborn have such gifts, after all."

"You're witchborn?" Niive said, doubt dripping from her voice.

The Buyani woman raised her hand and clenched her fist. Flame erupted from her skin: a crackling sphere of pulsing fire, blue at its core, flickering red where it licked at the night air. She opened her hand and the fire extinguished itself. Luca still felt its heat radiating from her.

"Careful," she said, with another flick of her eyes. "Don't get too close."

"Captain Anoshka Safi," muttered Matteo, as Anoshka sauntered away. "Really. Don't get too close. I've seen her cut a man's fingers off and feed them to her hounds."

"Sounds like just your type, Luca," Cereza said sweetly. Luca elbowed her in the side.

"My Lords," Atana called. "Let's get this started."

The pirates gathered on the deck. A table had been dragged from Irene's stateroom, scarred and battered. The lords assembled around it, sinking into carved wood chairs set with shell, armrests wrought in the shapes of reclining sarkyvors.

Sabat and Anoshka exchanged whispers; the Eel Queen sat on her own, pale, veined hands pressed to the wood. Noor leaned back in her chair, her chin lifted, her blue eyes set on Luca. Irene picked at her nails with a flensing knife.

Luca held Puppy. The little creature sat silent on his knees, paws on the table, eyes shining in the lamplight. The lords surveyed them like they were antiquities on display in the Royal Library of Valeris Palace.

"May we see the creature?" the Eel Queen asked at last.

Luca stood, lifting Puppy onto the table. It gave a small whine; he stroked its back as the pirates leaned forward to get a better look.

"Sweet little thing," the Eel Queen crooned. "Look how its fur shines."

"You can't say you believe this is some part of the Great Leviathan," Sabat growled. He waved a hand through the air. "Some exotic beast, perhaps. Some creature culled from an unknown island, brought here like a taxidermy chimaera to fool us pagan believers. Not the Leviathan."

"What's your story, Valere?" Anoshka asked, leaning back in her chair. "Surely a man as pretty as you with a nose as broken as yours must have a good one."

"How's this for a good story?" Luca said. "I was there when the Leviathan died. I watched it burn, heard its death-song. I was thrown overboard, and when I was, I spoke with it."

Murmurs broke from the assembled, from the crews watching at the surrounding ships.

"And what words did you pass with our god?" asked Noor, her eyes bright.

"I told it I was sorry. That I would carry it. Make this right." Luca's jaw clenched. "I might not have been the one to fire on it, but I'd brought its killers to its seas. I enabled the Witchhunters to find it, just like I enabled them to find An Gholam and burn it down."

"We have a tale where I come from," Sabat said. "A tale of the Korag Magra. The Ork Mother." He gestured to his own figurehead, the snarling golden sea-ork. "She is a goddess so dark no insect dares to gnaw her bones, no maggot brave enough to tunnel her flesh. The seas themselves conspire to hide her, the sun to steal the light from her presence and conceal her from sight. Only at the world's end, when all grows too dire for other options, does she return, coming to us in our hour of greatest need."

He set his eyes on Luca, gaze heavy as a blow. "I know prophets, Valere, and you are nothing close. How do we know you're not lying, too?"

"My sister, Princess Cereza, and our witch companion can attest to that," Luca said. Cereza nodded, and after a pause, so did Niive.

"He's not lying," she said.

"No," Atana said. "He's not. We found them in the middle of the Great Blue, clinging to a wreck, with this creature in their company. Would you care to suggest I'm lying, too, Lord Sabat?"

Sabat looked away. Irene stuck the knife deep into the tabletop.

"Seems the damage," she said, "has been right well done, don't you fine folks think? The Great Leviathan as we know it is gone, and we've all seen what damage that did. Our friends and comrades missing, the seas thick with dying fish. This plague of crystal."

"When the Leviathan is gone, all things suffer," the Eel Queen said. She curled her knotted old hands over her walking-stick, her long black nails biting deep into the bone handle. "The Leviathan is the world. The world is the Leviathan. The deep currents of the universe are as the godsblood that veins through its flesh. Its absence skews the turn of the firmament, the rise and fall of the tides, the pulse of life and death within us all."

Luca's hands tightened in Puppy's fur. "I'm sorry," he said, but his voice was crushed small.

"We don't want your apologies," Irene said. "We want a solution. I worshipped the whale just like you all did. I jammed its crystal into my own eye socket."

She tapped her whaleglass eye with one fingernail. "I felt it go, just as we all felt it. Heard its song in my dreams, just as we all did. Felt it die."

"It's not dead," Luca said.

"What?"

"It's not dead." He stood, lifting his voice. "Irene's right on every point, save one. The Great Leviathan isn't dead. Its body might be gone, but it's more than that, more than a sea monster or an overgrown whale. We all know that much. It's why we're here, isn't it? If it agreed to my bargain, if a part of it is still alive here in this form, then it must know there's a way out."

"Did it share this...way out?" Noor asked, her voice cool as rain.

"No," Luca said. "There wasn't time. I wish..." He trailed off, tracing a gash in the tabletop, then sighed.

"No," he repeated. He straightened his spine. Under his palm he felt the gentle pulse of Puppy's heart, the little creature's warmth leaching into him in turn, giving him strength. "I may have found the beginnings of a solution."

"Have you now?" Anoshka said, her eyes glittering with interest.

"Beneath the rubble of the temple are ruins. Ancient ruins." Luca reached in his waistcoat pocket and brought forth the broken chunk of whaleglass. The silver that bound it was spotted with tarnish, but no amount of centuries could dull the starlit glow of the crystal. "Witch ruins."

"Witches?" the Eel Queen echoed.

Luca nodded, and together he and Cereza explained as best he could what they had seen on the Leviathan's island, in the caverns beneath the temple, mummies and magic, whaleglass forged and broken, ancient wars and ancient bloodshed.

"They weren't what we think, not at the beginning," he went on. "They had power. Magic used in ways I can't comprehend. That knowledge was lost when they fell. I don't know how. I don't know why they lost their power. But I intend to find out, and I intend to use it. And to use your help, if you can give it. Your knowledge, your reach. Please." He ground his knuckles into the tabletop. "I have to make this right."

"We all have to make this right," Cereza said.

"You want our help," Lord Sabat said.

"Yes."

"And what are you prepared to give us in return?"

Luca glanced at Atana, then put on his best smile. "Lapide has vast fortunes-"

"I don't want your Lapidaean gold or your Lapidaean promises," Sabat snarled. He stood, knocking the table back. "None of us do. You see our city, Luca Valere? You hear the ghosts calling to you from the ashes?"

He swept a massive hand toward the ruins of An Gholam, the smoke drifting over the faces of the full moons. "We want justice. We want vengeance. We want blood. And we know you have the blood we're hungry to spill, onboard this very ship."

Luca blinked. "Wait. No-"

"Bring him out," Atana called, her voice icy.

Luca whirled toward her, but before he could speak, the hatch leading belowdecks was thrown wide, and Nadya shoved Azare onto the deck.

Shouts, jeers, howls and curses filled the air, a storm of sound: pirates beating on decks, gunshots, the clang of sword to sword. Sabat snarled, hand clenching his pistol. The Eel Queen drew her lips back from sharp canine teeth, while Anoshka's eyes flashed to flame. Only Noor didn't move, but the hatred in her gaze was enough to wither Luca's resolve.

"Atana," he called, but his voice was lost in the clamor.

He pushed away from the table, toward Atana, but Matteo swung in front of him, stiletto drawn. Luca fell back against Cereza.

Niive advanced, flickers of blue-white lightning crackling through her hair. "Shall I shatter these fragile little ships and send them all to feed the sharks?"

"No," Luca urged.

Niive shot him a look, but the sparks died down.

Nadya shoved Azare, and he stumbled forward, chains rattling from his collar and fetters. Blood streaked his face from a bruising gash over one cheek. Nadya's face was stony as she cracked her knuckles.

Atana rose and approached Azare.

"This is Captain Severin Azare," she announced. "Royal Witchhunter of Estara. The man who murdered my father, Remi Bateleur, and who commanded the spellfire that destroyed An Gholam. Tonight I sentence him to die."

Another wave of shouts and jeers lifted from the other ships. Azare stood straight-backed and rigid, his face betraying nothing.

"Nadya," Atana said. "Draw your pistol."

Anoshka stood. "No," she said, and the sparks glimmering from her fingers brightened to flames. "He burns."

"Luca, he can't," Cereza begged.

"Wait," Luca called. "Triune, Atana-"

"Enough, Luca," she said. "He burns."

Azare closed his eyes. Anoshka advanced. The flames flickered up her arms and neck until her torso was engulfed in a shifting, living wreath of fire. Swords beat swords, and feet pounded a hammer pulse from deck after deck, so hard Luca felt it in the backs of his teeth.

Desperation lit his nerves. He started forward again, but Matteo pressed his stiletto point into Luca's chest.

"One more move, pirate," Niive snarled.

"One more move, witch," Matteo drawled in return.

"Anoshka," Atana cried. "Burn-"

"Stop!"

The clamor fell silent. Waves whispered. Atana whirled, staring at Cereza as she burst from the crowd.

"Do you have something to say?" Atana said. Her eyes were bright with tears.

"Yes," Cereza said. "I do."

She lifted her eyes to the congregation. "I demand a trial by duel."

Atana's mouth dropped open.

"No!" Sabat roared. He shoved the table aside, so hard it skidded; Noor sprang to her feet and stepped smoothly out of its way. "No, no, no-" "How can you know about trial by duel?" Anoshka asked, her fire fading to a shimmering glow over her skin.

Cereza lifted her chin. "I've read all about your laws, despite what all of you might think. Azare, do you accept?"

"Princess, you can't do this," Azare murmured.

"Yes, I can." She pressed her hands to his chest, gripping his shirt. "Listen to me, Azare, you have to accept. If not for me, then for Alois."

A long moment passed between them. At last, Azare nodded. "Then I accept your trial."

Sabat ripped his enormous blunderbuss from his belt one-handed and leveled it at Azare's chest, cocking it with a sharp snap. "One more word, Witchhunter-"

Atana pressed her hand over the gun's muzzle. "Lord Sabat. She's invoked trial by duel. To kill him now would violate our most concrete laws, the laws my pa died to defend. Stand. Down."

"The girl is no pirate-"

"She doesn't need to be a pirate to invoke trial by duel," the Eel Queen rasped. "You know that as well as I do."

"Damn you all," Sabat snarled, but lowered his blunderbuss.

"Who by the Three are you going to have fighting your duel?" Luca said, shoving past Matteo and catching Cereza by the arm. "Either of you?"

Azare didn't look at him. "I am."

In his periphery, the crowd of crewmen and pirates on the Fishcutter's deck parted, as if pushed out of the way. People stumbled, shouting, cursing. Darkness snapped and coiled: a column of shadow, standing just out of the reach of the lanternlight.

Luca couldn't breathe. Cereza grabbed his hand again, her palm slick against his.

The shadow fell like a cresting wave, sweeping away to fade in smoky coils against the Fishcutter's railing. Sirin stood in its place. Her eyes were hard as black glass, their depths flickering with the remnants of her shadows.

The crowd stared, silent, shifting, hands going to weapons. Sirin paid them no mind. She stepped into the moonslight, and the shadows came with her.

She lifted her hands.

No, she said. I am.